A Body at Book Club (Myrtle Clover Mysteries) by Elizabeth Spann Craig Page B

and winter-cleaning, too.”
    Myrtle was already on another topic. “Could you look up Destroying Angel on your computer? I still don’t have a great grasp on how that stuff works.”
    Miles pushed his chair back and went off to get his laptop. He signed in, pulled up a search engine, and typed in the name of the mushroom. He squinted at the screen. “No information.”
    “That doesn’t sound right.” Myrtle got up and walked over to look over Miles’s shoulder. “It’s apparently a serious poison. There should be tons of information on it.” She leaned over far enough so that she nearly lost her balance and toppled over on him. Miles helped her regain her balance and she leaned back on her cane for support. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Miles, you put in Destroying Angle , not Angel.”
    “No wonder,” muttered Miles.
    “Destroying Angle—the scourge of Geometry!” Myrtle grinned.
    “All right, all right,” said Miles, even more grouchy. He quickly corrected the search term and the screen pulled up white, leggy mushrooms in what was apparently a variety of different maturity levels for the fungus. “It’s actually a fairly attractive thing, isn’t it?”
    “Especially considering how deadly it is,” said Myrtle. She skimmed the page. “It looks like a victim doesn’t immediately get sick. It might be five or even twelve hours after ingestion.”
    “Ugh,” said Miles. “And after a while, the symptoms stop for a while and the victim might think he’s getting better and skip seeking help.”
    “Which is a mistake,” said Myrtle. She gave a low whistle. “The symptoms start getting worse again and at that point it’s too late.”
    Miles ran his finger along the text. “Kidney failure. Liver failure. Awful.”
    They stared silently at the screen. “Not a nice way to go,” said Myrtle quietly.
    “I wonder if the person from the extension service explained how the poison worked,” said Miles. “Somebody must have been really upset with Naomi to have done this.”
     
     
    When Myrtle finally headed back home, she was ecstatic to discover that the food she’d set out for Pasha was gone. She stooped down, looking under bushes in her dark yard and calling out softly to the cat. Then she spotted a neighor’s cat, Chubbster, grooming himself near the fence. “Chubbster!” she spat out furiously.
    She saw lights turn on at the neighbor’s house and then heard the woman’s voice croaking out, calling the cat. Chubbster gave Myrtle a baleful look and waddled off to the house. Erma shut the door firmly behind him and Myrtle heard the sound of the bolt sliding into place. This was…infuriating. She was feeding a cat she didn’t like who belonged to a person she didn’t like. Which reminded her—she really didn’t care for several of her neighbors. A person whose crabgrass was creeping over into her yard inch-by-inch.
    Like an avenging angel, Myrtle stormed into her house, reached under her kitchen sink, and pulled out a large container of homemade weed killer. Since she lived on the lake, she was always mindful of runoff of the poisons into the water and had determined to use safe, organic products. Not only that…well, it was a lot cheaper than buying the commercial weed-killers. This one worked like a charm and comprised a gallon of apple cider vinegar, a half-cup of table salt, and a teaspoon of dishwashing detergent. The only problem was lugging the thing around, so she’d distributed it into smaller spray bottles after mixing the stuff up.
    Myrtle hurried back outside with the spray bottle and set it down beside the fence. She was glad to be six feet tall sometimes, although it had felt like a curse when she’d been young. She couldn’t really see what she was spraying, but it didn’t matter since Erma’s yard was consumed by crabgrass. She pumped the spray bottle and covered as much area as she could reach from her position. That was as good as she could do, considering it was the