Hushed Up

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  Tallulah pursed her lips. “I don’t know that I’d say she was always difficult. We did have a slight squabble between us . . . nothing important, you understand. I got Yard of the Month’ from the neighborhood association and Lillian was very upset.” Tallulah smiled faintly at the memory.

  “You must keep a very nice yard, yourself,” said Myrtle. She reflected darkly on Dusty again.

  “I have a nice collection of roses and daylilies,” said Tallulah. “I think Lillian envied them, I really do. I’m not going to say Lillian didn’t have a nice yard. But the truth is that she spent a lot of time at work and that didn’t leave a lot of extra time for her to tinker with her plants. As for me, I was left enough money from my husband when he died to keep me comfortable. And then only thing I have to distract me from my yard is golf.”

  “You’re a golfer?” asked Myrtle. Somehow, Tallulah didn’t seem to match Myrtle’s vision of a golfer. However, she figured her vision of a golfer was hopelessly outdated since it involved pudgy old men in loud clothing. Or Crazy Dan with his very own version of the classic sport.

  “Yes,” said Tallulah, puffing up with pride. “I’ve even won regional competitions. I have trophies at home.”

  Myrtle quickly continued, hoping to cut Tallulah off before she and Miles received any unwanted invitations to view the trophies. To butter Tallulah up again, she said, “I’m sure the police must have been very interested in asking you questions. After all, being right next door, you might have seen or heard something. Or were you out of the house when Lillian died?”

  Tallulah looked smug. “They did ask a lot of questions, yes, because I was at home the whole time. I noticed they asked a lot about the kind of person Lillian was. They wanted to get a better picture of her.”

  Miles asked, “And what did you say about her?”

  “That Lillian could be very challenging to be around. I could hear her yell at all kinds of people who’ve come to work at Lillian’s house: painters, landscapers, even the poor guy who came out to pressure-wash her driveway and front walk.”

  Myrtle said, “Did they ask you if you’d seen or heard anything suspicious?”

  Tallulah looked uncomfortable for a moment before saying, “They did, but I didn’t hear a thing. Whoever did this must have been very quiet.”

  Myrtle couldn’t imagine that smashing a dog feeding station over someone’s head could have been all that quiet. But she didn’t push it. “Do you have an opinion over who might have killed Lillian?”

  Here Tallulah’s face lit up again. “I sure do, and I shared it with the cops, too. They wrote down every word in their notebooks. Annie. That daughter of hers must have done it. If I’d been Annie, I’d have wanted to get rid of Lillian, too. Lillian did nothing but berate her for years and years. The girl is in her mid or late twenties now and I’ve never seen an unhappier child. She should be having the time of her life at this point and instead she’s been stuck here in Bradley getting yelled at by her mother all the time. Ridiculous.”

  Tallulah leaned in, her face the picture of ghoulish enjoyment. “Do you think the police will be arresting Annie today? Because of what I told them?”

  Myrtle gave Tallulah an annoyed look. “The police can’t simply arrest someone because someone else said she was yelled at. They have to have evidence the person perpetrated the crime.”

  Tallulah’s face fell. “I suppose so. Well, maybe they’ll find it in the house. Did you see anything that looked like evidence?” Tallulah turned her avid expression to Miles.

  Miles’s eyes narrowed. “Looking for evidence wasn’t exactly my focus. I wanted to see if Lillian was all right first. Then I wanted to call the police. And leave.”

  Tallulah looked disappointed.

  Miles glanced at his watch in a pointed way. “Myrtle, shouldn’t we finish up your shopping?”

  Myrtle said, “Yes. Yes, we should get on with things. Good speaking with you, Tallulah.”

  As soon as they moved out of earshot, Miles said, “Good speaking with her?”

  “Well, I couldn’t very well say it was good to escape from her, could I? I know Lillian wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar Tallulah wasn’t exactly the perfect neighbor, either. I have the feeling there were bad feelings between the two of them,” said Myrtle.

  Miles stopped the cart as Myrtle distractedly threw in a bunch of dairy products. “Tallulah herself said there were bad feelings between them. The ‘Yard of the Month’ award that Tallulah won.”

  Myrtle said, “I bet there was a lot more than just a silly award behind their bad feelings.” She frowned at the grocery store aisles. “Now I’m thrown all off-course. Maybe I should just do a longer grocery store visit when I’ve had the chance to make out a thoughtful list. And when I have my coupons with me.”

  Miles looked in her cart. “Do you even have the right ingredients to make something for supper?”

  Myrtle scowled into her cart. “I could eat a can of soup.”

  Miles grabbed some eggs off the shelf. “Here. Now you can at least have scrambled eggs.” He dodged down a nearby aisle and came back holding a box. “And here’s granola cereal. Combined with your milk, you should be set for breakfast.”

  “Good enough since I’m not particular. Let’s check out and run this stuff by my house. Then we can head over to the flower shop and run Tippy’s errand. And pelt Bianca with questions, of course,” added Myrtle.

  Forty-five minutes later, they’d dumped off Myrtle’s groceries and were pulling up to the flower shop.

  Miles sat in the car for a moment after turning off the engine.

  Myrtle said, “Come on, Miles, for heaven’s sake.”

  “This won’t take long, will it? My lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me.” He blinked a few times.

  Myrtle’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, that’s it. I’m driving on the way back.”

  “That’s really not necessary,” said Miles quickly.

  “Yes, it is. It’s either that or I’m walking back home. I’m not putting myself in the situation of being in a vehicle with someone who’s going to fall asleep at the wheel.”

  Miles muttered, “If you walked, you’d likely make it back home at the same time as if you’d driven.”

  Myrtle glared at him. “I don’t drive that slowly!”

  Miles briefly closed his eyes. “Let’s just make this flower shop visit as fast as possible.”

  The shop was not exactly a cute shop. Myrtle said, “This shop is just like Lillian. All business. When I picture a flower shop, I’m thinking about ivy climbing up the sides and red trim and adorable arrangements in sweet little pots outside.”

  “That’s definitely not the vibe I’m getting from this place,” agreed Miles.

  They walked in and instead of a bell ringing, there was an electronic beep that reminded Myrtle of the class bells from her school teaching days. A mousy middle-aged woman of about forty jumped as she heard it as if conditioned to bad experiences when the beep blared. Her red hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her clothing was bright but didn’t match.

  She stopped her half-hearted messing with a potted plant and hurried toward them. “Can I help you?” she asked anxiously.

  Myrtle said, “I’m Myrtle Clover and this is my friend Miles Bradford. We’re members of the garden club that’s holding the silent auction.”

  Now the red-haired woman looked even more concerned. “I’m Bianca Lloyd. Oh dear. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, it’s all fine. We checked in with the family and they said the club should continue with the auction, even under the circumstances,” said Myrtle.

  Bianca paled slightly when Myrtle mentioned the circumstances and looked down at the floor. “I see. I was wondering what would happen to the auction with Lillian being gone.”

  Myrtle said, “We’re just checking in to make su
re the arrangements for the auction will remain on time. I have the feeling Lillian herself was probably planning on putting them together, considering she was a garden club member.”

  Now Bianca looked even more worried. “Yeees, she was. Oh dear. She didn’t even tell me what she’d planned for the event. Sometimes, if she was handling something herself, she didn’t fill me in.”

  Miles cleared his throat. “Perhaps she had notes you could find? Sketches? That type of thing?”

  Bianca’s eyes filled with tears. “Nothing like that, no. Lillian always took a lot of pride in the fact she was able to plan arrangements in her head. I have no idea what she wanted to do.”

  Myrtle was alarmed about the tears and said briskly, “No worries. Just come up with whatever you think is best. We won’t know the difference since we didn’t know what Lillian was planning.”

  Bianca gave her a relieved look and hastily rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, resulting in a rather muddy smear across her face from whatever she was working with before they came in.

  “Oh, thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you. I was about to be in a total panic. I know Lillian was so particular about her events. I hate to think what she’d have said about whatever I put together.”

  Myrtle said, “It doesn’t really matter, does it? Whatever you come up with will make the venue look better than it ordinarily does and that’s the whole point.” She paused. “Was Lillian always such an impossible person to work for?”

  Bianca’s eyes grew huge. “I was so grateful to Lillian. My husband divorced me five years ago and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’d been an at-home Mama with Tim and wasn’t qualified to do anything at all. I mean, the last job I had was working as a sales clerk in the dress department of the mall. But no one was hiring for retail and my ex-husband wasn’t sending me any money at all. No child support even.”

  Myrtle gave a ferocious frown. “He’s not allowed to get away with that. The courts would make him pay.”

  Bianca’s thin shoulders gave a half-hearted shrug. “I didn’t have money to take him to court to force him to. Anyway, there I was with no real skills and no income and a child to feed. And Lillian took me in.”

  Myrtle said, “It must have been quite a terrible shock to hear the news about Lillian.”

  Bianca nodded. “Yes. I couldn’t really wrap my head around it when the police told me. Lillian seemed like too strong of a woman to ever die.” She gave a short laugh. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but that’s the way I felt. And I’d had such a quiet last day and morning leading up to it. The night before, I helped Tim with his homework until it was time to go to bed. When he was at school yesterday morning, I came over to the shop to get started early on the arrangements before customers started coming in.”

  Myrtle said, “So you didn’t run by Lillian’s house yesterday morning? I’d wondered if maybe you had to sometimes stop by for work.”

  Bianca blinked at her. “I’ve never been to Lillian’s house. She was a very private woman and wouldn’t have liked me being over there.” She gave a shudder as if envisioning exactly how irritated Lillian would have been at such an intrusion into her private life. “The only time she ever even spoke about something personal was when she’d tell me about her health problems sometimes. I wondered if maybe they put her in a bad mood. You know, when she wasn’t feeling well.”

  There was a sound in the back of the shop and Bianca jumped and whirled around. “Excuse me for a minute,” she murmured and hurried to the back room.

  Chapter Ten

  Myrtle and Miles glanced at each other as they heard Bianca say, “Are you all right? Everything okay? Do you need some more water?”

  A few minutes later, she came back with an apologetic expression on her face. “I’m so sorry about that. My son wasn’t feeling well this morning so I couldn’t take him to school. But I didn’t want to not show up at work, especially with everything going on.”

  Miles asked, “He’s sick?” He patted his pockets absently and pulled out his hand sanitizer.

  Bianca said quickly, “It’s his stomach—just a little virus or something. I brought an air mattress from home for him to sleep on. I figured with some sleep, he’d be better soon.”

  Myrtle said, “Back to Lillian’s death, Bianca. Miles and I were most upset about it, naturally, and have been talking about who could have done such a dreadful thing.”

  “Did you come to any conclusions?” asked Bianca. She blinked anxiously. “It’s terrible to think a murderer is running around Bradley. I have Tim to think about.”

  “Sadly, we didn’t come to any conclusions. But we’d like to know what you think, since you spent so much time with Lillian. Was there any trouble in her life? Anything you can think of that might somehow have led to her death?” asked Myrtle.

  Bianca looked uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t know if anything I’ve seen has anything to do with Lillian’s murder. I’d hate for somebody to get into trouble for something they didn’t do.”

  “Oh, we’re just talking,” said Myrtle airily. “It’s not as if Miles and I are with the police.”

  Miles carefully applied another layer of hand sanitizer and gave Bianca a reassuring smile.

  Bianca took a deep breath. “All right. I guess the only thing I can think of is the argument Lillian had with her son.” She quickly added, “Like I said, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. Families have fights all the time.”

  Myrtle nodded. “What sort of argument was it?”

  Bianca said, “Martin had apparently been trying to reach Lillian all day at the shop. She and I were working on arrangements for a big wedding and reception for the next day and we were slammed. Her phone would ring and Lillian would stop what she was doing and glance at it. Then she’d give a huge sigh and ignore it. Finally, she wouldn’t even look at it anymore when it rang, just let it go to voice mail.”

  Myrtle said, “How did you know it was Martin? Did Lillian tell you that?”

  Bianca said, “Oh, no. No, like I said, Lillian wanted to keep her private life private. But after a while, Martin came into the shop. Usually he was so charming, but this time he was really angry. He yelled at Lillian for not picking up his phone calls.”

  Miles raised his eyebrows. “I’m guessing Lillian didn’t like being yelled at.”

  Bianca gave him a small smile. “You’re right. She snapped right back at him that she was very busy and didn’t have time for his nonsense.”

  Miles said, “Did he say anything about why he’d called?”

  Bianca looked uncomfortable. “Something to do about money. I was so embarrassed at that point that I wanted to crawl into a hole. Like I said, Lillian was very private and she wouldn’t have wanted to have a conversation like that in front of me. But there we were, working on this important order for a wedding and I figured Lillian wouldn’t be happy if I took a break or something, either.”

  Myrtle tilted her head thoughtfully. “Money. What about money?”

  Bianca made a face. “I guess Martin wanted some. For some kind of reason. Anyway, Lillian wouldn’t even continue having the conversation with him and he eventually stormed out.”

  “I’d heard they had a good relationship,” mused Myrtle.

  “Oh, I think they did. Most of the time, anyway. But even in the best families, you have arguments, right? This was totally out of the ordinary, as far as I could tell, anyway. Usually when Martin came in, Lillian lit up from inside. Actually, I was always glad when Martin came by the shop because it usually put Lillian in such a good mood,” said Bianca.

  Miles asked, “Did he come by the shop very often?”

  “Regularly. Maybe once or twice a week? He sometimes came with little presents for Lillian, too, like a bottle of wine he thought she’d like or an old family photo he’d had framed. She loved it when he did that kind of thing.” Bianca’s face held a wistful expression
as if she wished someone would do something like that for her.

  Miles said, “Did her daughter come by the store some, too?”

  Bianca gave him a wry look. “As little as she could possibly get away with. Annie didn’t seem at all interested in the shop. But every time Annie pulled away from Lillian and the shop, Lillian got more determined to get her involved in it.” She flushed. “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be talking about the family like this.”

  Myrtle said briskly, “You’re just helping us get a picture of what might have happened to Lillian.”

  Bianca’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “I don’t want to give you the impression that Martin or Annie might have killed their Mama. That’s not what I meant at all. I was just talking about how their relationships were.”

  “Who do you think might have killed Lillian, then?” asked Myrtle.

  Bianca swallowed nervously. “I don’t have any idea. I don’t want to throw blame at anybody because I don’t know—I was at home with Tim when this all happened.”

  Myrtle gave her one of her old school teacher looks. “Don’t be silly, Bianca, no one is saying you’re supplying evidence here. We’re merely talking among ourselves.”

  Bianca relaxed a little.

  “Was there anyone besides family that Lillian had any run-ins with? Any incidents?” asked Myrtle.

  Bianca said slowly, “Well, she did have some issues with Rowan Blaine.”

  Myrtle looked pensive. “Rowan Blaine. He’s the caterer, isn’t he?”

  Miles raised his eyebrows. “The caterer?”

  “It’s only a small town, Miles. He’s the only one who’s local. You have to go to another town to find anyone else,” said Myrtle.

  Bianca said, “That’s right. They spent a lot of time together because they work the same types of events: anniversaries, weddings, wakes, parties. They were around each other a lot and I guess their personalities really didn’t mesh.”