The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Verna spread the pages out on the quilt and spent several long moments looking at them.

  “Mmm,” she said, half under her breath. “Fifteen thousand in the red. My, my.” She looked again at the figures, turned a page, and then another. “I think I’m seeing a pattern,” she said after a little while. “And it’s giving me an idea of where else I might look—if I can sit down for an hour or two with a couple of the office ledgers.” She glanced at Coretta, who was sitting stiffly in the rocking chair, her lower lip pushed out like a pouty child. “Liz told me your idea, Coretta. But are you really sure you want to get involved in this? It could be risky.”

  “I don’t mind taking a few risks,” Coretta said, almost defiantly. “I just don’t think it’s right that the blame is being pinned on you.”

  There was a jagged edge to Verna’s laugh. “I guess it’s dangerous to have money in the bank.” She looked at Lizzy. “Want to know where I got the ten thousand dollars that’s in my account at the Savings and Trust, Liz?”

  “If you want to tell,” Lizzy replied quietly, knowing that Verna always kept her private business to herself.

  “My aunt Mildred died and left a piece of property to me—an orange grove in Florida. That was six or seven years ago, after the Florida real estate bubble burst. Back then, you couldn’t unload Florida property if you paid somebody to take it off your hands. As far as I knew, it wasn’t worth a plugged nickel.” She tilted her head. “But to my surprise, a buyer came along a few months ago and offered me ten thousand dollars. I sold the orange grove and put the money in the bank.”

  “Ah,” Lizzy said, and smiled. “I’m sure you can prove that to the sheriff, when he asks. And to Mr. Scroggins. So maybe we don’t need to worry about you getting arrested. We can all go home and—”

  “Proving it might be a little difficult,” Verna broke in. Her face was dark. “The deed was lost years ago, and I had to get Aunt Mildred’s lawyer to research the title before the sale went through. I don’t have all the paperwork yet. Anyway, even if I could prove it, they would suspect me as long as they feel like it.” Her voice was determined. “I have to find out what happened to that missing money.”

  “But maybe you don’t have to do that now,” Lizzy said. “Tonight, I mean.”

  “You’re wrong, Liz.” Verna shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t take that money. But somebody needs a fall guy, and I’m convenient. Until the real thief is found, I’ll always be a suspect in some people’s minds. And in the meantime, I’m out of a job—and my bank account is likely to be frozen.” She turned to Coretta. “Coretta, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we don’t really need a spy. What we need is for you to go to Musgroves and get a copy of that new key. Then—”

  “Actually, I did that already,” Coretta said, sounding smug.

  “You did?” Verna asked, surprised. “Why?”

  Below the bandana, Coretta’s mouth turned down. “Well, to be honest, I’ve been known to lose a key every now and then. So I thought it would be a good idea to have a spare. I don’t intend to let Mr. Scroggins know I copied it. But I don’t mind telling you, Verna. In fact, I don’t mind showing you.” She groped around blindly. “Where’s my handbag, Liz?”

  Lizzy handed her the bag and Coretta felt inside. Finding a key, she held it up. “This is what you’re asking for?”

  “You bet!” Verna jumped off the bed and snatched the key. She sat back again, the bedsprings creaking. “Liz, on second thought, let’s take that blindfold off. It must be uncomfortable for Coretta.”

  “Oh, but I don’t think—” Lizzy began. She still wasn’t convinced that Coretta was on the level. But Verna gave her a meaningful look and she got the point. It was impossible to judge Coretta’s sincerity when her eyes were covered and they couldn’t see the expression on her face. She got up to do as Verna asked.

  “Oh, thank you!” Coretta exclaimed, as Lizzy untied the knot and pulled the bandana off. She looked around, blinking against the light and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing her mascara. “Whew! What a relief. That feels so much better.”

  Verna leaned forward. “I want to thank you for the key, Coretta. It’s going to come in handy.”

  “Oh, but I didn’t mean for you to have it,” Coretta protested, frowning. “I just meant to show it to you.” She held out her hand. “I’ll need to have it back. Mr. Scroggins made it very clear that I’m not supposed to—”

  “No to that, Coretta.” Verna waved off her gesture and put the key under the pillow. “I’m keeping it. And this way, you see, you don’t have to be involved at all. I can go to the office at night by myself and—”

  “But I want to be involved!” Coretta’s tone was earnest. “And I can help, too. You may want different ledgers. I know where they are and I can get them for you. I’ll save you time. I’ll be useful. You’ll see, Verna. I’ll be a big help.”

  Lizzy felt a shiver of apprehension and her suspicions—which had never been entirely eased—ratcheted up another notch. Coretta certainly sounded sincere, but why was she so anxious to get involved in something that didn’t concern her? What if she really was a double agent? What if she was helping the sheriff or Mr. Scroggins set a trap?

  Verna was silent for a moment, considering. Then she spoke. “Since you feel that way about it, Coretta, let’s do it tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Coretta asked uncertainly.

  “Verna,” Lizzy said, “I really don’t think—”

  “Tonight.” Verna sat forward on the edge of the bed, her eyes intent. “Let’s get it over with—the sooner the better, don’t you think?”

  “But I wasn’t expecting—That is, I didn’t plan to—” Coretta swallowed and looked away. “Actually, I promised Ted I wouldn’t be out late this evening. So if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to put it off. How about tomorrow night? That would really be better for me. Much, much better. I—” She stopped, looking from one of them to the other.

  Lizzy thought there was a cornered look in her eyes, and with good reason. If Coretta was on the up-and-up, it shouldn’t matter to her when they did it. If she was a double agent (to use Verna’s term), she would want time to set the trap—that is, to notify whoever she was working for. Since they couldn’t be sure of Coretta’s loyalty, they ought not to give her that chance.

  “I agree with Verna,” Lizzy said emphatically. “There’s no time like the present, you know. Better that we do it tonight, while everybody’s thinking that Verna has gone to Nashville.” Unless, of course, it was too late, and Coretta had already passed the word that Verna was still in Darling. She glanced at Coretta, but there wasn’t a flicker of expression on her pretty face. It betrayed nothing.

  But Verna was shaking her head. “I would prefer to do this alone. The job isn’t likely to take all night, but it’s certainly going to take several hours. You could find it hard to explain that at home.”

  “Well, if you think it really has to be tonight,” Coretta said slowly, “I’m afraid that leaves me out.” She turned to Lizzy. “I told Ted that you and I were going to a girls-only card party out in the country and that I’d be home in a couple of hours. I never dreamed that there might be—” She pulled down her mouth. “I guess I just didn’t think ahead, that’s all.”

  Lizzy thought that Coretta looked genuinely disappointed. She couldn’t decide whether it was because the other woman had truly wanted to be a part of this adventure, or because she had been told to go along with the plan and report back to . . . well, to whoever.

  Verna pushed her lips in and out, thinking. “I guess that settles it,” she said finally. She looked at Lizzy. “But it would be good to have a lookout. Liz, would you be willing to wait downstairs and let me know if anybody happens along? Of course, nobody has a reason to come to the courthouse late at night, but you never know.”

  “Sur
e,” Lizzy said. “I can do that.” She wasn’t eager to spend a couple of hours hanging around the main floor of the dark courthouse, but she felt she needed to stand by Verna. And she did wonder whether it was smart to talk about their plans in front of Coretta, just in case she—well, just in case.

  “Okay, then,” Verna said. “Tonight’s the night.” She grinned mischievously. “This way, it’ll be over and done with before I lose my nerve.” Her grin faded and she shot a surreptitious glance at Coretta. “At least, I hope it will,” she added, half under her breath.

  When they headed back to Darling a little while later, Coretta was sitting next to Lizzy in the front seat of Myra May’s touring car, and Verna was riding in the back. But because Lizzy still felt she couldn’t trust Coretta, she had blindfolded her again. There was still a problem—a big problem—and Lizzy hadn’t quite figured out how to deal with it.

  If Coretta was on their side, she would go home and go to bed and not say a word to anybody—well, except for maybe Ted. But if she was working for somebody else, the minute she got home, she’d be on the phone to whoever it was, telling them that if they hurried, they would catch Verna in the act of burgling the county treasurer’s office.

  There had to be a way of keeping her from doing that. But how? They couldn’t put a gag in her mouth and hold her captive until Verna was finished going through the accounts.

  Could they?

  FIFTEEN

  Charlie and the Dahlias

  About the time Lizzy was making her early-evening trip out to the Murphy place to talk to Verna about seeing Coretta, Charlie Dickens was eating supper at the diner. As usual, he was perched on the stool at the far end of the counter, where he was least likely to be disturbed by people who wanted to bend his editorial ear about this pet peeve or that pet project. He was digging into a plate of Euphoria’s fried liver and onions, with generous sides of boiled green beans with fatback and onions, potato salad, and sliced fresh tomatoes, on special for thirty cents.

  Charlie ate as he usually did, listening to the news on the Philco behind the counter while he read an article in the Atlanta Constitution about the likelihood of Governor Franklin Roosevelt’s nomination at the 1932 Democratic convention in Chicago. Although the convention was more than a year away, the Constitution was already optimistic. “As far as the South goes,” Senator William J. Harris of Georgia was quoted as saying jubilantly, “it’s all Roosevelt.”

  Of course, that wasn’t exactly true, for right here in Darling, as Charlie was well aware, there were plenty of folks who felt that Roosevelt was dangerously liberal, maybe even socialist in his views. They saw the governor as old money from the northeast, a patrician snob who seemed to be possessed by the rash idea that he could hand out twenty million taxpayers’ dollars to the unemployed. Why, just look what he had done with that relief system of his in New York State, not to mention the old-age pension and unemployment insurance he was pushing through his state legislature. Hand a man like Roosevelt the power of the presidency, and there was no telling what he might do. The conservative Democrats were laying odds on John Nance Garner, Speaker of the House. Garner was a Southerner, a Texan, a regular guy whom Southern folks could count on to see things their way.

  Anyway, Charlie knew that even if every Southern delegation went for FDR, they couldn’t carry the convention. Under party rules, the winning candidate had to muster a two-thirds majority, and there were other strong candidates. One of Roosevelt’s opponents was former governor of New York Al Smith, who was backed by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Smith, a Catholic and a Progressive, was hampered by his landslide loss to Herbert Hoover in 1928. But Hearst was using his publications to spread the rumor that Roosevelt—who had contracted polio some years back—couldn’t stand the strain of the presidency. Time magazine had just joined the Hearst-sponsored Stop Roosevelt chorus, repeating the rumor that while FDR might be mentally fit for the job, he was “utterly unfit physically”—this, despite the fact that a panel of noted physicians had just examined him and found that he had the “necessary health and powers of endurance” to carry out presidential duties. Mrs. Roosevelt was reported to have quipped that “if infantile paralysis didn’t kill him, the presidency won’t.”

  Charlie folded his newspaper and laid it aside. Roosevelt’s candidacy wasn’t the only thing he had on his mind tonight, not by a long shot. He was still juggling the bombshell that Ruthie Brant had dropped on him that afternoon—a big fat bombshell that any investigative reporter would love to explode like a giant firecracker all over page one. But like the other offerings Ruthie had brought him, this one was long on narrative and light on the facts. He was still trying to figure out how he could confirm it—especially the part about the auditor’s report.

  Of course, it would be best if he could see it for himself and dope out what it meant. But how was he going to get his hands on the damn thing? One thing for sure, Earle Scroggins wasn’t going to hand it over. Not if it said what Ruthie Brant claimed it said. Fifteen thousand dollars missing from the county treasury? Scroggins and the commissioners would keep that under their hats as long as they could—as long as the Dispatch let them, that is. Charlie was well aware of his responsibility as a guardian of the people’s interest in their government, even when the people themselves weren’t very interested in their interest.

  Charlie had something else on his mind as well—the information he had uncovered at the library about that “secret code” Bessie Bloodworth had given him. After looking over the scrapbook and reading parts of the book he had borrowed, he had decided to have another talk with Bessie and ask her if he could get a look at that pillow. Since there was nothing he could do tonight about that explosive inside dope Ruthie Brant had slipped him, he’d walk over to the Magnolia Manor as soon as he polished off a slice of Euphoria’s chocolate pie.

  Charlie’s trip to the Darling library and the couple of hours he had spent with the fragile old scrapbook and the history of Civil War battles had given him the information he needed to fill in the gaps in his spotty schoolboy memory of the facts of the First Manassas. As he leafed through the yellowed pages, reading contemporary accounts from the Richmond Daily Dispatch and battle reports compiled by a Confederate army captain, he had begun to formulate an exciting and (he thought) entirely plausible theory about the identity of the person who had stitched those unusual symbols and numbers on the pillow. And when he read the first few pages of My Imprisonment, he was even more convinced that he was right. Charlie now wanted to see that pillow for himself. He had an idea about it that he felt he just had to test out.

  So when he finished his pie, he left coins on the counter and stopped at the hotel to buy a seven-cent cigar. He ran into Artis Biggs and inquired after his wife, learning that Doc Roberts had confiscated Dr. Baxter’s diet pills and was treating Mrs. Biggs for nervous prostration.

  “Good news,” Charlie said, adding fervently, “I hope she has a full recovery.” He meant it. As far as he was concerned, anything that kept Angelina from throwing her arms around him again was good news.

  Leaving the hotel, he went down the block and—yielding to an impulsive temptation—stopped in Pete’s Pool Parlor, where he shot a few balls with Freddie Mann and Len Wheeler, who ran the repair shop at Kilgore Motors. Freddie, as usual, had a flask in his back pocket and didn’t mind sharing it around. He got it from his second cousin, Mickey LeDoux, who managed a big moonshine operation over by the river. Everybody in town (including the sheriff) knew that Mickey’s finest could be bought off the shelf behind the horse harness and saddles in the back room at Mann’s Mercantile. But nobody would ever spill the beans to the occasional revenuer who dared to show his face around town. Mickey LeDoux’s corn whiskey was Darling’s best-kept secret.

  * * *

  While Charlie was shooting pool and taking a nip from Freddie’s flask as it went around the table, Bessie and Mi
ss Rogers were setting things up for the Dahlias’ usual Monday-night card party. People took turns hosting the party. It was open to all the members, but it was a rare evening when everybody could make it.

  Miss Rogers didn’t usually play cards, although she allowed herself an occasional game of Rook, which was what they were playing tonight. So Miss Rogers would be there, and Bessie, of course, and Beulah Trivette and Fannie Champaign, who was joining them for the first time. Verna and Liz almost always came, but Liz had called to say that Verna had gone out of town to visit a friend and that something urgent had come up and she—Liz—wouldn’t be able to make it. Lucy Murphy had company (she didn’t say who), and Ophelia had to go to a dramatic recital at the Darling school, where her daughter was giving a dramatic recitation of “Annabelle Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe. Alice Ann Walker and Earlynne Biddle had a quilting club meeting. Myra May Mosswell was on the switchboard. Aunt Hetty Little wouldn’t come unless they played poker, Mildred Kilgore wouldn’t come when they played Rook, and Voleen Johnson never came under any circumstance.

  So there would be just the four of them. And since the Magnolia Ladies had traipsed off en masse to play bingo at the Odd Fellows Hall on Franklin Street, Bessie set up the card table in front of the big window in the parlor, saying a fervent thanks to the blessed fate that had exiled Lucky Lindy from their midst. Ophelia had taken the cat out to Lucy Murphy’s place. He would never again launch himself from the top of the curtains into some unsuspecting lady’s lap.

  While Bessie fetched the chairs from the dining room, Miss Rogers put out the evening’s refreshments on the cherry sideboard, on top of a white cloth embroidered with roses. There was a delicate china platter filled with a selection of Roseanne’s cookies and a large pressed glass pitcher of lemonade with a pretty garnish of fresh mint from the garden.

  Bessie had just set out the fourth chair when she looked out the window and saw Beulah and Fannie walking together up the path to the front porch. When she opened the front door, they were chattering excitedly about what had happened to Angelina Dupree Biggs that day.