Chapter 6:

Confrontation and Confession

The room smelled like burnt coffee and unspecified rage.

The HOA meeting was held in the Oakbend Community Rec Center, which doubled as a yoga studio and tripled as a flood evacuation site. Rows of mismatched plastic chairs filled the linoleum-tiled room, each one squeaking indignantly as residents shifted in them like irritable pigeons.

Myrtle wore a teal cardigan, a cameo pin, and the expression of a woman two minutes from legally declaring war. Her three dogs sat in a line beneath her folding chair: Capote in the middle, eyes narrowed; Horny licking himself with the kind of unbroken concentration only the truly unashamed possess; and Something chewing on a pen Myrtle had no memory of dropping.

At the front table, Mayor Brindle stood hunched, jaw tight, sweat darkening his collar.

He hadn’t intended to speak.
He’d come to observe.
Maybe hand out keychains.
Definitely not to fall apart.

But here he was.

Because somebody had slipped a copy of Temple Blade and the Hollow Crown into everyone’s HOA folder, highlighted. With tabs. The passage about the ceremonial garment was circled in red.

“Beneath silk, secrets fester like rot in royal walls.”

Everyone was looking at him.

Someone coughed. Capote growled.

Mayor Brindle gripped the microphone with both hands, as if it might bolt. “ I-uh-I have a statement,” he said.

The mic screeched. Myrtle smiled.

“I… There’s been a lot of speculation,” he began, voice already cracking. “And I think it’s time we addressed the rumors.”

No one had said anything. But sure.

He dabbed at his forehead with a paper napkin. “Yes, I was seen… digging. In the park.”

Gasps. A whisper: “The kimono…”

Brindle flinched. “It wasn’t illegal. Not technically. There are no bylaws about personal textiles. On public grounds.”

Someone in the back shouted, “Did you or did you not bury a garment with sequins and an elastic waist?”

Chaos.

A woman dropped her purse. Someone stood and pointed. Myrtle calmly unwrapped a peppermint.

Brindle’s face was pink now. “Yes, it was a kimono. A performance piece. I wore it for personal reasons. In my home. Alone. Sometimes with music.”

A pause.

“Show tunes,” he added unnecessarily.

Horny barked once, as if in applause.

The room went silent.

And then, Myrtle stood.

She held up a single hardcover book. Temple Blade and the Hollow Crown, 1st edition, with immaculate dust jacket.

“My name,” she said calmly, “is Myrtle Grace Ellingsworth. But I also write under the name Boney LaFleur.”

Someone fainted.
Someone else screamed, “I knew it!”
Capote peed with excitement.

Mayor Brindle’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again like a dehydrated goldfish. “You’re—” he pointed. “You wrote the scene in Fire Lotus where Temple seduces a duchess with a pickle metaphor!”

“I wrote all the pickle metaphors,” she said, not unproud.

The room fell into stunned silence.

Brindle lowered the microphone. “This explains so much. You knew. You’ve been watching me. You wrote me into your book.”

“I did no such thing,” Myrtle lied, instantly.

Capote stood suddenly.

Eyes locked on Gary Palmquist, HOA treasurer and known raccoon trapper.

Gary had once insulted Capote’s hairless tail.

Capote leapt.

---

The meeting ended in chaos.

Gary left with a bandaged shin.
Horny threw up on the snack table.
Someone stole six folding chairs.
And Myrtle walked home with a peppermint, a victory, and a rough outline for her next novel—The Mayor, the Kimono, and the Curse of Cul-de-Sac Six.

The town would never be the same.
And neither would Brindle.