A Mew to a Kill by Leighann Dobbs Page B

don’t have enough information to come up with any ideas much less question potential suspects.” He looked at me. “Which you shouldn’t be doing, anyway. This stuff is best left to the police.”
    The others finished their coffee and stood up. Bing was right, but not about leaving stuff to the police—I needed to find out more about the crime. I needed a solid clue. If I knew more about the fire, I might be able to piece it together better. There was one person who was there that morning and might have more information–Myrna.

    ***

    Paisley still hadn’t showed up by lunchtime and I was getting annoyed. I locked up, promising Pandora some tuna if she didn’t wreck the place, and headed went down to the Mystic Café . It was bustling with customers. Myrna was behind the counter. I stepped up and ordered a tuna on rye with extra pickles and Myrna scribbled it on a pad with her number two pencil and slapped it onto a metal revolving holder which she turned to face Bud in the kitchen.
    “You got a minute?” I gave Myrna my most pleading look.  
    She sighed and shoved the order pad into the pocket of her vintage, cherry-patterned apron. “I guess I could spare a few. But not too long, I got a lot of customers.” She jerked her head toward the hallway that led to the back door of the shop and I followed her.
    I got right to the point. “Striker said you called in the fire down at Paisley’s.”  
    Myrna’s right brow ticked up. “Yeah. When I came into work yesterday, I noticed the smoke.”
    “That must have been scary. What time was that?”
    Myrna puckered her cherry red lips together and tapped the eraser end of her pencil on them. “Well, I usually get in around five. I didn’t see anything at first. There were no flames, but when I went out back to the dumpster, I noticed smoke billowing from down that way.
    I stepped outside the door and looked down toward the photography shop. From where I stood, I could see the backs of the shops that lined this side of Main Street. Each of them had a small parking lot and a dumpster. One of the shops had a fence around their lot, obscuring the view to Paisley’s lot. If the killer had been lurking in back of Paisley’s, Myrna wouldn’t have been able to see him. “Did you see anyone or notice anything unusual?”
    “Not really. I couldn’t see much, just the smoke. And I heard her alarm.”
    “There was an alarm?”  
    “Yeah. I mean, all the shops have to have them, right. Except hers sounded weird. I think it was broken because it just made a chug-chug noise. Sounded like that car in the movies that my kids liked a long time ago.”
    I felt a tingle of excitement. “You mean Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”?
    Her face lit up. “Yeah, that’s the one. But it didn’t last long. It kind of faded off after a bit.”
    “Did you see anyone hanging around or pass anyone while you were driving in to work?”
    “Striker asked me the same thing. I don’t remember passing any cars. I’m sure I would remember because that time of morning is pretty dead around here.” She blanched, then shrugged. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”
    It was true. No one drove around downtown at five in the morning. Myrna was the only one who came in early to set up for the breakfast crowd. She probably would have noticed pretty easily if anyone was around. The killer must have already set the fire and left by then … or been driving away in his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car just as she was noticing the smoke.
    Bud poked his head in the hallway and yelled, “Tuna on rye!”  
    “I guess that’s my cue. I’ll let you get back to work.”
    I was turning to go out to the front to get my sandwich and pay when Myrna stopped me. “You know, there was something odd I noticed that morning and I didn’t think of it until just now.”
    “What was that?”
    “When I was driving into town, I passed Witt Realty and noticed there was a light on inside that old chicken coop they use for