Murder on the Ballot

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  Wanda’s eyes lit up at the mention of food.

  “I think I’ve got that good cheese and some crackers. Oh, there’s that antipasto from the store, too. We can have a little feast.”

  Myrtle went off to get changed as Wanda pulled out the things for the snack and poured them both tall glasses of milk. Wanda plowed through the food with great haste.

  “Maybe a bowl of grits would hit the spot,” said Myrtle, rummaging around in her pantry for some instant packets.

  Afterward, Wanda asked, “Ain’t you tired?”

  Myrtle shook her head sadly. “Not a whit. This is the bad thing about being an insomniac. It’s going to take me a while to wind down from the excitement of the evening.” She brightened. “We could play cards.”

  Wanda said in a low voice, “Don’t know how to play.”

  “What? You don’t know how to play any card games? Not even children’s games like War, Crazy Eights, Go Fish or Old Maid?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  “But you handle cards all the time, Wanda.”

  “Them’s tarot cards. Not the same.”

  “No, I suppose not. All right, then, let’s start simply. I’ll teach you how to play Crazy Eights.”

  Wanda tilted her head to one side. “Thought you said that was a kids’ game.”

  “Well, children can play it. But it’s fun for adults, too.

  Wanda looked a little doubtful.

  “It’ll be fun,” said Myrtle in her most convincing voice. She really didn’t want to turn in yet and cards were always relaxing for her. One of the nice things about having a houseguest was that there was someone to play cards with.

  “Don’t catch on well to stuff sometimes,” muttered Wanda. “Didn’t have no school.”

  “That’s the nice thing about cards. No school is required.”

  So Myrtle showed Wanda how to play the game, which she did haltingly before gaining speed and, slowly, a sense of confidence.

  When Wanda won the game, Myrtle beamed at her. “There you go! See, it’s fun.”

  Wanda gave her a gap-toothed grin. “Play again?”

  They played for a few more games. Then Myrtle tired of that game and showed Wanda how to play War. After a while of that, Myrtle glanced at the clock.

  “I think it’s time for me to try and fall asleep,” she said, yawning.

  Wanda looked crestfallen.

  Myrtle stifled a sigh. “There’s also a game that you can play by yourself. It’ll just take me a little while to explain it.”

  After Myrtle showed Wanda how to play Solitaire, she trudged off to bed as Wanda stayed at the kitchen table, carefully placing cards on top of each other.

  When Myrtle rose at four, Wanda was still at the table, mesmerized by the cards.

  “For pity’s sake! You haven’t been here all night, have you?” Myrtle gave Wanda a horrified gaze.

  Wanda squinted at the rooster wall clock and bit her lip guiltily.

  “Okay, why don’t you try to salvage a little bit of sleep while it’s still dark outside. I have a few things I want to do this morning so I might be out when you wake up.”

  Wanda asked, “Need me to go with you?”

  “I need you to take care of yourself and get some rest. Don’t worry about me. I’m going to just stroll to town hall in a bit. Sleep tight.”

  While Wanda snored gently in the guest room, Myrtle did the crossword puzzle, fed Pasha when she pawed at the kitchen window, and ate some scrambled eggs and toast. She rang up Miles.

  “Mmm?” answered a sleepy voice.

  “Miles! Were you still asleep?”

  Miles groaned on the other end of the phone. “Just resting my eyes.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve ever actually slept this late before. It’s eight-thirty.”

  Miles now sounded more alert. “Is it? It must have been all the stress from last night.”

  “Shouldn’t I have been the one who was stressed from last night? I was the one debating.”

  Miles said dryly, “Yes, but you had enough confidence for both of us.”

  “Anyway, why don’t you get ready and we’ll head over to town hall? I think it would be good to have some photos of me looking presidential on the steps of the town hall.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Don’t you mean ‘looking commissioner-like?’ I don’t think I want to manage your campaign all the way up to the top echelons of government.”

  “Whatever,” said Myrtle breezily. “Looking ‘official,’ at any rate.”

  “You weren’t very impressed with my photography skills yesterday.”

  “Well right now, you’re all I have unless I drag Sloan out there to take pictures and he’s leery about showing favoritism,” said Myrtle.

  “There’s Elaine. She still takes pictures for the newspaper’s social media accounts.”

  “Most of them prominently feature her thumb. At least with your pictures I was able to salvage some of them by cropping out your extremities.” Myrtle added impatiently, “We don’t have all day, Miles!”

  And so, fifteen minutes later, Miles dutifully showed up at Myrtle’s front door. She locked the door behind them and then stared at his car. “We don’t need to drive that short distance today, do we?”

  “Apparently we did yesterday because I drove us.”

  “Yes, but the weather was rather threatening. It’s all fine now. We should get some exercise.”

  They set off down the sidewalk. As they walked, several cars drove by and the occupants waved at them and smiled.

  “I feel like I’m in a parade. Why are we so popular this morning, Miles? Is it because of my being a candidate?”

  Miles glanced behind them. “I think it’s because Pasha is following along behind us.”

  Myrtle stopped and turned around. “What a brilliant little girl you are! You want to come along to town hall for pictures, don’t you?”

  Pasha blinked knowingly at her and gave a gentle swish of her tail.

  “You can be my mascot for the race,” said Myrtle. “What a wonderful idea!”

  “A mascot for a race that you’re eventually dropping out of,” said Miles. “Right?”

  Myrtle said, “Once I’ve gotten everyone straightened out over there and have gotten my agenda established, sure.”

  Their little parade made it to town hall a few minutes later after a few more cars had gone by with their occupants waving and smiling.

  “Oh no. It’s Red,” said Miles, spotting the policeman getting out of his cruiser.

  Myrtle snorted. “I can handle Red, believe me. We shouldn’t be surprised to see him . . . the police department is right here.”

  The expression on Red’s face indicated that it was just a little too early in the day and that he hadn’t had quite enough coffee to be dealing with his mother.

  “Hi, Mama,” he said warily.

  “Hi there, Red.”

  “You’ve got business at the town hall?” he asked.

  “Miles and I are taking some campaign photos,” said Myrtle casually.

  Miles gave Red a meek smile. Red gave him a weary look in return.

  “Sorry that Mama’s roped you into her nonsense,” said Red. “I’m sure you had a bunch of other stuff you could be attending to back at the house.”

  Miles seemed grateful at this incorrect supposition.

  “Well, I guess I’ll just be heading into work. Got a few reports to write up,” said Red.

  Myrtle’s ears pricked up. “Anything interesting?”

  “Miz Colbert had some trouble with somebody trashing her birdfeeders. Thought it might be the teenagers next door to her.”

  Myrtle frowned. “Well, that sounds unlikely. I spent a good deal of my life working with teenagers, and trashing birdfeeders isn’t their usual modus operandi.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” drawled Red. “The culprit was a raccoon. If she’d gone outside and looked at the tracks, she could have known that w
ithout calling me. At any rate, I trapped and relocated the little guy so he shouldn’t be going after the second generation of her feeders.”

  Miles murmured, “Another day of quiet justice in a small town.”

  “How poetic of you, Miles,” said Myrtle. She gestured to Pasha and said, “If Clarabelle Colbert had a cat like Pasha around her feeders, I’m sure she wouldn’t have to worry about raccoons stealing her suet.”

  Red raised an eyebrow. “If Miz Colbert had a cat like Pasha, she’d have to worry about dead birds.”

  He walked in the direction of the police station as Myrtle fished her lipstick out of her large purse to freshen up.

  Miles took a couple of pictures on the stairs with Myrtle leaning forward on her cane and staring directly into the camera.

  “You look rather threatening,” said Miles, peering at the photos.

  “That’s the idea! I’m trying to look menacing so that those on town council know I mean business.”

  Miles shrugged. “I thought you might prefer to look approachable.”

  “We can do another set with approachable photos. Let’s move over right near the staircase where the sign for town hall is. We can include Pasha in these, if she wants to cooperate.”

  Pasha, who’d been watching the proceedings with some interest, suddenly bounded up to Myrtle as if she’d understood. Then she started creeping toward the stairwell, fur standing up on her back and a low growl in her throat.

  Miles gave a short laugh. “I think Pasha is telling us she doesn’t feel like cooperating. In fact, it almost looks as if she’s stalking prey.”

  “Or like she’s upset about something,” said Myrtle, frowning in concern. “Pasha?”

  She followed Pasha toward the stairwell and then stopped short.

  “Miles, run get Red for me. He’s going to need to stop working on Clarabelle Colbert’s raccoon report,” she said somberly.

  Chapter Eight

  As Miles hurried off to get Red at the police station, Myrtle approached Royce Rollins’s body lying at the bottom of the stairs. She realized her first impression had been completely correct and that the man was far past needing any sort of medical attention. She peered around to see if there were any obvious clues, but couldn’t see anything that pointed to what might have happened to him.

  She backed away from Royce’s body and stood, hands folded and looking demure, just in time as Red jogged up. He stood staring at the scene and then said, “Okay, let’s all back up out of the way. Miles, can you go grab that crime scene tape that’s in my office? I’ve got to make a call to the state police and I don’t want anybody else coming up on this.”

  It was time for the employees at the town hall building to all be showing up for work, so this was definitely a legitimate concern. In fact, as Red was speaking on the phone, Myrtle spotted town councilman Bonner Lang striding up wearing, as usual, his seersucker suit and a pink button-down shirt.

  Red made a “back-up” motion as he continued speaking on the phone and Bonner obediently backed up. He gave Myrtle an inquisitive look.

  “We’re not going to be able to get into town hall today,” said Myrtle. “Royce Rollins is dead.”

  Bonner’s jaw dropped. “Here? In the building?”

  Myrtle wasn’t sure later whether she was trying to be perverse in not sharing information, or whether she simply wanted to know more than Bonner did. At any rate, she decided not to tell Bonner that Royce was dead at the bottom of the stairs and not inside the chambers. “That’s right.”

  Bonner’s face was shocked, his eyes big. “What happened? Do you know? Did he . . . well, did he have some sort of heart attack or something?”

  Myrtle raised her eyebrows. “Did he have a heart condition?”

  Bonner shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, Miss Myrtle. I mean, I knew Royce, but it wasn’t like we were best buddies or anything.”

  Myrtle frowned. She seemed to recall reading in one of the many town council articles that there had been bad blood of some kind between Bonner and Royce when Royce had addressed Bonner at town council meetings.

  “The two of you—well, there were issues, weren’t there?”

  Bonner hastily said, “Not on my side, Miss Myrtle. You know I always put the best interests of Bradley, North Carolina at heart. But Royce thought I should have picked his construction company’s bid for a town project. It made him furious when I didn’t.”

  “But surely you don’t have the power to choose something big like that solely by yourself.”

  Bonner said, “I was the deciding vote. The ‘no’ vote. Royce said he was going to run for town council so he could be elected and spite me. I promise I didn’t have any sort of ill-will toward Royce . . . all I wanted to do was do what was right for Bradley. His bid was too high and I’d heard about cost-cutting measures and safety issues at his company, too. I didn’t think the town should be involved in it.”

  “You were here last night, weren’t you?” asked Myrtle thoughtfully. “I remember seeing you in the audience at the debate. In fact, I do believe you were wearing a Vote for Myrtle sticker.”

  Bonner blushed. “Ah, yes. As a matter of fact, I was. I had a slew of them made up to show some support.”

  Myrtle narrowed her eyes. She’d taught Bonner and never thought he was a huge fan of hers after she’d failed him on an absolutely dreadful research paper he’d turned in. “You were trying to rub a little salt in Royce’s wounds, weren’t you?”

  Bonner sighed. “Maybe. Probably so. But I never meant him any real harm.” His eyes grew large. “You’re not thinking I had anything to do with this, are you? These questions you’re asking—was Royce murdered? It wasn’t some kind of medical event?”

  Myrtle wasn’t entirely sure if Royce was murdered or not. She only knew that Royce had a very-clearly stated preference for staircases over elevators and that he’d ended up very dead at the bottom of one. But she knew Bonner and his big mouth. Maybe it would be to her advantage in figuring out what happened if everyone started talking about Royce and who might have wanted to get rid of him.

  So she simply nodded and watched Bonner as he paled a little. “Gosh, I suddenly think I should have my lawyer here.”

  “Your lawyer? Do you have something to hide, Bonner? Besides, you’re only speaking with me.”

  Bonner slapped his hand over his mouth as if to prevent any rash words from flying out. “And you’re on the Bradley Bugle staff.”

  Myrtle preened. “I’m a crime reporter.”

  Bonner frowned. “Don’t you have a helpful hints column?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s just something Sloan wants me to do every week. My biggest input are my crime articles.”

  Bonner said, “Then I think ‘no comment’ is the appropriate response to all of your questions from this point out.”

  Myrtle said, “Bonner, speaking with a reporter is your opportunity as a politician to set the record straight.”

  “Set it straight? I didn’t realize it was crooked.” Bonner was now perspiring in his seersucker suit.

  Myrtle gave him a regretful look. “Well, you see how it all appears, don’t you? A local politician with a long-standing grudge against a candidate—”

  “I didn’t have a grudge! Royce had the grudge!”

  “This politician is clearly supporting the other candidate. Then, suddenly, the candidate has an unexpected, untimely demise. It sure doesn’t look good, does it?” asked Myrtle sweetly.

  Bonner swabbed at the perspiration running down his temples with an immaculate handkerchief. “What is it that you want to know?”

  “Where you were right after the debate last night. What you were doing and who can vouch for it.” Myrtle pulled out a tiny notebook and pencil from her voluminous purse and perched the pencil over the paper.

  “I was at the debate and then I went home.” Bonner gave her an earnest look. “And that’s the truth.”

  “Are you certain about that, Bonner?” Myrtle ti
lted her head to one side and looked at him as if he were back in the classroom again and swearing he’d read the assigned chapter for English.

  “Absolutely certain. You can ask my wife about it. I promise I harbored no ill-will toward Royce whatsoever—that was all on his side. I thought Royce was a fine fellow and that’s the truth.”

  Myrtle’s gaze on his features was intent. She seemed to be searching to see if his nose grew in tandem with his lying. “All right,” she finally said reluctantly. “If you say so. But surely you have some idea who might have done something like this. You must have known Royce fairly well.”

  Bonner now seemed to get a bit of his sassiness back. “Well, you seemed to light into him last night, Miss Myrtle, at the debate. Are you sure you didn’t have anything to do with his death?”

  Myrtle narrowed her eyes at him. “Of course not.”

  Bonner looked abashed.

  “Besides,” added Myrtle, “Royce should have been the one wanting to kill me, not the other way around. I simply found it pathetic that he’d gone on the attack against Erma Sherman, of all people.”

  “Yeah, that was sort of a low blow,” agreed Bonner. He mused for a moment. “If I had to choose someone who might have it in for Royce Rollins, I’d say Scotty Rollins.”

  “Royce’s son?”

  “That’s right. They weren’t getting along well, as far as I could tell. I was on my way into Bo’s Diner just a week ago and Scotty and Royce were squabbling outside. Royce didn’t even notice me because he was so caught up in their argument.”

  Myrtle shrugged. “There are arguments and then there are arguments. Lots of fathers and sons don’t get along all the time.” She glanced in the direction of Red who was stringing up police tape while speaking on the phone. “Some mothers and sons don’t get along so well, either.”

  Bonner said, “This was more heated than some petty argument over borrowing the car or something like that. This had real animosity behind it. Looking in Scotty’s face, it seemed to me that he didn’t have a bit of liking for his father.”

  “Could you hear what this argument was about?”

  Bonner nodded. “Sure could. It was over money and that’s one of those topics that definitely can bring some hate along with it. Scotty was complaining about his father’s lack of support for him.”