A Body in the Trunk : Myrtle Clover Book 12

Chapter Twenty

Minutes later, Red arrived. He also handily dismissed the extremely-curious Erma. Red rushed in the front door while he talked on the phone with the state police. "Mama?" he called out.

"In the kitchen. With the perp," Myrtle called back. "He hasn't woken up yet."

Red jogged in to see his mother brandishing her new fire extinguisher over Tarleton's head, Tarleton lying in a heap on her kitchen floor, and Puddin standing sullenly off to the side as if ready to flee at any time.

"Will he wake up?" asked Red. "Have you checked for a pulse?"

"Oh, he's alive. Although I can't seem to muster much sympathy for him," said Myrtle.

"I had Erma call an ambulance," said Red. "Even though I wasn't exactly sure what type of emergency I was walking into here." He paused. "I'm taking it that Tarleton must have done something fairly egregious for you to swing a fire extinguisher at him."

"He certainly did. He was planning on killing me with his bare hands and telling you that he found me like this when he came in to change out lightbulbs," said Myrtle.

"I saw him tryin' to kill her. Nasty man," said Puddin, eyes narrowing as she glared daggers at the unconscious man.

"A nasty man who shouldn't have been sent here to do work for me," pointed out Myrtle.

Red rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Who'd have guessed that Tarleton Fleming would be a two-time murderer? I'd pretty much focused on other suspects and counted him out."

"Which suspects had you focused on? Perhaps Holt Kelly?" asked Myrtle sweetly. She liked to demonstrate that she was several steps ahead from where her son might think she was.

"Maybe," said Red, crossing his arms and frowning at his mother.

Puddin growled, "Another nasty man."

"Holt has his issues, for sure. And he definitely doesn't need to be an administrator in a high school. But he didn't kill Neil and Lyle," said Myrtle.

Red said, "I'm guessing that your sudden professional aspirations had to do with arranging conversations with Holt?"

"They might have," said Myrtle carelessly.

"Not nice when folks don't talk English," Puddin muttered.

Myrtle gave a long-suffering sigh. "I pretended I wanted to return to teaching so that I could ask Holt Kelly questions."

Red said, "At any rate, he's not employed by the high school any longer. What's more, he's looking at some jail time. Apparently, he was resuming his bad Boston habits. The state police got word that he was starting back up with drug dealing. We had to bust him late last night since we were worried he planned on having students as customers."

Myrtle raised her eyebrows. "That might explain why he was spotted at the park around the time of Lyle's murder. Perhaps he was picking up or distributing contraband."

Myrtle added, "You might also have thought that Adelaide Pound was a good candidate for the killer. Especially since Tarleton blathered all over town about her and how she was 'stalking' Neil Albert."

Red said, "Well, I have to hand it to him because it was an excellent diversionary tactic."

"And Clara was likely a major suspect," said Myrtle.

"The spouse always is. Besides, they didn't always get along. Not that that automatically leads to murder, of course," mused Red.

Tarleton started stirring on the floor and gave a little moan. Puddin yelped and backed farther away from him.