A Body at Bunco : Myrtle Clover #8

Chapter Two

Back at home, Myrtle realized it seemed unlikely that she would simply happen to run into Luella White. As she'd told Sloan, they didn't run in the same circles and Myrtle didn't want to start running in Luella's.

She was pulling out pasta sauce, olive oil, and noodles for an early supper when there was a frantic pounding on her front door.

Myrtle cautiously peeked out front, saw her daughter-in-law Elaine holding toddler son Jack, and opened the door. "Mercy, Elaine! Whatever's the matter?"

Something was quite obviously the matter. Elaine's eyes were wild. Upon closer inspection, Myrtle saw that one contributing factor to the wildness was the fact she had half her eye makeup on and half off.

"I'm hosting Bunco tonight, Myrtle. And all our plumbing is backing up! There's water all over the floors. It's coming out of all the sinks, tubs, toilets. We had to shut off the main valve. The toilet was making a percolating noise like a coffeepot. It's a disaster."

Jack reached out to Myrtle, clearly ready to escape from his distraught mother and Myrtle absently pulled the nearly-three year old into her arms before quickly giving his chubby cheek a kiss and setting him down. He'd gotten far too heavy for her. Jack immediately launched into a babbling monologue about trucks and Myrtle nodded, listening to him carefully for a few moments, asking him about the color and type of the trucks. Finally he decided to pretend to be a truck and Myrtle had a chance to talk to her daughter-in-law again. "Elaine, what on earth is Bunco? The plumbing I understand."

"It's a game—a dice game. And there are a group of women who play the game once a month at alternating houses," said Elaine.

"Sort of like a bridge club?" Myrtle was trying to follow along, but Elaine was speaking so quickly and seemed so panicky that it was hard.

So it's my turn to host and we're having a plumbing crisis." Elaine blinked hard and Myrtle was suddenly very concerned Elaine might cry. Myrtle didn't handle tears well unless the crying person in question were a compatriot of toddler Jack.

Myrtle saw Red leave his house and head in their direction. "Okay, well, here's Red. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems, Elaine."

But apparently it was. Red's freckled face was grim as he said, "I've called the plumber. It's got to be a main sewer line clog for all the sinks and toilets and tubs to be backed up the way they are. This is going to be a major repair job."

"What could have caused it?" asked Elaine.

"Probably something like a tree's roots growing into the line. We've sure got lots of old trees. And it's been pretty dry lately. It could be that a tree was sending roots farther down looking for moisture," said Red as he absently picked up Jack. He then gave Jack a thoughtful look. "Unless Jack here put something in the toilet that backed up the main line."

Jack beamed at him.

"At any rate," said Myrtle. "It sounds as if you're not going to be having company over tonight—is that right?"