Death at a Drop-In: Myrtle Clover #5

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Myrtle couldn't sleep that night, which she was certain had to do with Felix. Between his droning on about final expenses, the subject of murder, and Felix's clear displeasure with Myrtle, she was stuck with insomnia, but good. 

She studied the light fixture on the ceiling, thinking for the millionth time that she really needed to change it out. Then she decided if she were coming up with home improvement projects for herself, then she really needed to get out of bed. 

Most of the time, doing something very rote and boring would bore her back into the bed and to sleep. But after she'd worked for a few minutes trying to clean the mess out of her dryer (which Puddin conveniently had run out of time to do), she found she was just as awake. She knew she had one more Tomorrow's Promise to catch up on, but watching her soap opera was usually more of a stimulant than something to make her sleepy. She pulled the knitting needles and the yarn out of their bag and sat with them on her lap, looking down at them. Myrtle couldn't help it-she simply felt hopelessly clichéd with the knitting. An old woman knitting away. Bah. 

She looked at the clock. Three o'clock. Myrtle decided that Miles was probably up. Then she hesitated. The last couple of times she'd bestowed a late-night visit on Miles, he hadn't been awake. Was he changing his sleeping patterns?  

She found herself wavering about walking down to Miles's house, which made her sad. One of her favorite things was to share milk and cookies or a coffee with Miles when she couldn't sleep. But it appeared that she had worse insomnia these days than Miles had.  

Myrtle jumped, as there was a knock on her front door. A murderer wouldn't knock though, surely. Politeness wasn't one of their virtues. She walked to the front door and peeped out the front window to make sure that there wasn't a frightening figure in a ski mask acting menacing on her front step. 

She beamed. It was Miles. And for once, he wasn't meticulously dressed but appeared to have a navy-blue bathrobe on over a set of plaid pajamas. 

"Miles!" She pulled the door open wide. "I was just thinking about coming over to visit you! But then I figured you'd be asleep and I'd wake you up as I have been doing lately." 

Miles said, "On the other hand, I wasn't worried at all about coming by. Your insomnia has gotten so rampant that I knew you'd have to be awake. Naturally, if your lights were out I'd have simply turned around and gone back home." 

Myrtle thought that he might be pointing out that Myrtle never really worried if Miles's lights were on in the house or not.  

She said, "Well, come on in! Let's have a snack." Myrtle was pleased as punch that Miles was there. She'd never actually entertained Miles during a middle-of-the-night visit and now she felt almost as if she were hosting a party. Myrtle pulled out an old cheese tray that she'd had since the 1950s. It had a dark wooden back encasing a circular ceramic plate with large yellow daisies on it. She found a block of cheese in her fridge and some crackers in the pantry. For good measure, she also placed a few chocolate cookies on the cheese tray and filled up two glasses with milk. 

Miles had already sat down at the kitchen table. "No," said Myrtle, "let's go sit in the living room like grown-ups. We'll be more comfortable in there anyway."  

Miles helped her carry everything into the living room and they put the food and drinks on the coffee table, pushing aside some books to make room. Myrtle gave a satisfied sigh. "All right then. Oh! The napkins." And she was off again. 

When everything was finally set, she said, "Now, tell me why you couldn't sleep, Miles." 

He blinked at her and didn't answer until he'd carefully finished swallowing the bit of cookie he was eating. "That's what you want to know? I thought you'd want to talk about what you found out yesterday at Felix's office and bounce some ideas off me."