Miss Dimple Suspects: A Mystery

by Mignon F. Ballard

  At first she thought it was a leaf, dangling as it was on the end of a twig, but autumn was far past and this was much too bright for a leaf. Too red. Dimple pulled the ribbon from the waist-high branches of a bush, and after years of having young children cluster about her, Dimple Kilpatrick knew it was just the right height to snag a ribbon from a little girl’s hair.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I don’t want to read about Snow White anymore!” Peggy Ashcroft shoved the storybook aside. “She must’ve known that old woman with the apple was the wicked queen! Couldn’t she see? I want to look for Peaches and I bet I know just where she is. Why can’t we go and find her?”

  Violet Kirby set the book on the table and flipped Peggy’s pillow to the cool side. She was usually an easygoing child, content to play go fish, color pictures, or attempt to dress her cat, Peaches, in doll clothes, but today she was ill and feverish and nothing seemed to please her.

  “Honey, I’ve hollered all up and down this street for Peaches. That cat will come home when she’s good and ready, you can count on it.” According to her mama, once you feed a cat, you ain’t never gonna get rid of it, but she wasn’t going to tell Peggy that. “You want some more ginger ale? It’ll make your throat feel better.”

  But Peggy turned her face away. “Peaches will make me feel better, and I think you’re mean not to let me go find her!”

  Although Violet was only sixteen, she knew when she was being manipulated. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” she quoted. “Your mama and daddy should be home from that wedding before long, and if Peaches isn’t back by then, I’ll bet one of them will go and hunt for her.” She tucked Peggy’s rag doll, Lucy, under the covers beside her. Violet’s aunt Odessa had made the doll for Peggy two years before when she’d lost her mother and everything she’d owned in that awful fire. “And what if Peaches came home and found us gone?” she said. “What would she think then? I’ll bet if you close your eyes and take a little nap, that cat will be back by the time you wake up.… And I’m not supposed to tell, but I happen to know your mama’s bringing you a piece of wedding cake from the reception, and if you put it under your pillow tonight, you’re supposed to dream about the man you’re going to marry.”

  “Won’t it get smushed?”

  Violet smiled. “Well, I reckon they’ll wrap it up real good in wax paper.”

  Peggy made a face. “Shoot, I’d lots rather eat it! What if I dreamed about Willie Elrod?”

  * * *

  A half hour later, having listened to The Green Hornet on the radio, Violet quietly opened Peggy’s bedroom door and tiptoed in to check on her. She hadn’t heard one peep from Peggy since she’d tucked her into bed and assumed the little girl had dropped off to sleep.

  Not only was the bed empty, but six-year-old Peggy Ashcroft was nowhere to be found and neither were her hat, coat, or mittens. Her neatly folded pajamas had been left on the chair, and a dress she had worn the day before no longer hung on the back of the door.

  Not even stopping to put on a wrap, Violet started on a run for the Methodist church where Kate Ashcroft was to play the piano for the wedding. The ceremony should have been over by now, but guests were probably lingering over punch and cake at the reception. She had almost reached the corner when Violet saw nine-year-old Willie Elrod racing toward her on his bicycle.

  “Willie! I need you to ride over to that wedding reception at the church and tell Mr. and Mrs. Ashcroft Peggy’s done taken off to find that cat, and I think I know where she’s gone! Hurry, now! You can get there faster than I can!”

  Violet Kirby watched the child wheel about and pedal for dear life for the Methodist church a few blocks away. Only after she saw him safely across the street did she allow herself to cry.

  * * *

  Dimple Kilpatrick felt herself go weak as she reached for the flashlight in her pocket, and only then did she realize she had been holding her breath. The ribbon was red, the same color as the dress Peggy Ashcroft had been wearing when she disappeared that afternoon. She must be somewhere close by! Dimple felt a peculiar emptiness in the pit of her stomach. What if she had turned around earlier without looking further? Clutching the ribbon as if it could somehow lead her to Peggy, Miss Dimple called the child’s name. Still no answer.

  Well, she certainly wasn’t going to turn back now. Standing there in the semidarkness, Dimple Kilpatrick devised a plan. She would take twenty steps forward and call again; then twenty more, and twenty more. After that time, if she still hadn’t found Peggy, there should be barely enough light to go back for help. Miss Dimple tied the ribbon to the bush where she had found it to mark the spot and plunged forward. Underbrush clawed her legs, and overhanging limbs raked her so that she had to hold her hat on with one hand to keep from losing it. She tucked the little flashlight back into her pocket to use later and pulled herself along by low-hanging branches, pausing now and then to shout the little girl’s name and listen for a response.

  But branches and bushes weren’t the only things that grabbed at Dimple Kilpatrick as she made her way along uncertain ground. The smothering threat of fear hovered so near she could almost smell it, and it stank of rotten peaches. It was waiting and she knew it, sensed it closing in to make her heart race, her breath come fast, her reasoning take leave of her.

  Do get a hold of yourself, Dimple. You are not eight years old and you know very well where you are! If it gets too dark to see, all you have to do is make your way down this hill a few feet at a time. Still, she couldn’t erase the memory of her frenzied mission to find help for her two-year-old brother struggling to breathe with diphtheria.

  * * *

  It was the last of August and the day was born muggy and oppressive even before sunlight slanted through the slits in the bedroom shutters. And it was as humid inside as out because her mama kept a steaming kettle next to Henry’s little bed with a tent made of bedsheets over his face. Dimple’s papa had gone to Milledgeville the day before with corn to be ground into meal and the last of the okra and green beans to sell at the market. He was staying with relatives there and didn’t plan to come home until tomorrow, so when Henry woke with fever and chills and his breathing began to make that terrible squeaking sound by late afternoon, Dimple and her mother knew they had to get help fast.

  “Minerva will know what to do,” her mother said, pacing from Henry’s cot to the window for about the tenth time. Their neighbor lived almost five miles away if you went by the road, and in the absence of a doctor, Minerva Sayre had ministered to just about everybody around at one time or another. Why, she’d even stitched up her father’s leg when he cut it open chopping wood, and you could hardly see the scar.

  “I’ll go, Mama! Let me!” Dimple covered her ears to block out the sound of her little brother’s labored breathing. She could hardly bear to hear it. Her father had taken the horses and she knew she wouldn’t be able to control either of the two mules. “Please! I can run. I’ll run as fast as I can!”

  Her mother held her close and kissed her, smoothing the soft brown hair from her face. “Go by the road and take Bear with you. Minerva will bring you back in the buggy.

  “Be careful, and God go with you!”

  Calling to her dog, Dimple ran down the path to the road, glancing back to see her mother watching from the doorway. Once she reached the road, now thick with red dust, she turned toward their neighbor’s as her mother had directed, but Dimple Kilpatrick knew a shorter way, and as soon as she was out of sight, she veered off, skirting her father’s field where cotton would soon be picked and carried to the gin on the big wagon drawn by mules. Bear, a mixed breed dog of part collie and part who-knew-what, trotted obediently along by her side, although he seemed hesitant about leaving the road.

  “It’s all right, I know a better way!” Dimple called to him, running ahead. The familiar pathway through the woods was much cooler and the shade welcome after the choking dust of the road and Dimple had played there often
, setting up housekeeping for her dolls under the trees, serving them tea in acorn cups. She knew how the big cedar, so old her father referred to it as “Granddaddy,” spread its pungent branches like a ceiling, surrounding her with its calming green. She knew how the roots of the water oak made perfect little elf houses, and although she’d never seen them, Dimple knew they were there. She knew that beyond the woods she would have to duck under the pasture fence and cross the grassy meadow where her father’s cattle grazed. It felt good to wade through the shallow creek where Bear drank noisily and sprinkled her when he shook himself, but today she couldn’t take time to splash and make “frog houses” in the mud or pick a bouquet of buttercups and daisies for the supper table. Trying not to think of what she might find when she reached home, Dimple raced across the pasture and climbed the fence to the other side, where rows of corn taller than she were already beginning to wither and turn brown. They rustled, whispering, “Hurry! Hurry!” as she ran, stumbling over the uneven ground, her breath coming in gasps. Dimple had never been on the other side of the cornfield, but she was sure it wouldn’t be far now to where their neighbor lived. Well … maybe not too sure.

  Picking her way through waist-high weeds where blackberry briars snagged her dress and scratched her legs above the tops of her shoes, Dimple wished she had stayed on the road as her mother had told her. It would take much too long to get through the thick tangle of grass, and she didn’t even want to think about snakes. Bear, who had bounded ahead, looked back at her as if to ask why she’d gotten them into such a fix. His shaggy black-and-white coat was matted with beggar lice, and it would take forever to get them all out, but that didn’t matter now.

  Dimple turned and went back to the edge of the cornfield, following it to the cooler woods. It was easier to walk here, and she was sure to come out in the same place, wasn’t she? The sun had dipped lower in the sky and mosquitoes and gnats seemed to follow her every step. Dimple swatted at them with her skirt, wishing she’d thought to wear her sunbonnet. She swallowed a lump in her throat and felt it lodge like a rock in her chest. Stinging tears blurred her vision and she wiped them away impatiently. Dimple Kilpatrick had no idea where she was!

  What would her mother say if she didn’t come home with help? If Henry died, it would be all her fault! Mr. Sayre’s big vegetable garden should be just up ahead. Once when she went there with her papa, he had given her a sweet, juicy watermelon. Dimple’s mouth was dry but she took a deep breath and ran faster. Soon she would see it.

  But she didn’t. Instead she came out on a hillside dotted with trees. The crop had been harvested and the peaches left on the trees had fallen to the ground, where wasps buzzed about the sour, rotting fruit. Dimple held her nose as she ran, not even taking time to be careful where she stepped. This wasn’t where she was supposed to be, but somebody had to own the orchard and somebody had to pick the peaches. It wasn’t until she reached the bottom of the hill that she saw the shiny tin roof of the Sayre’s barn and the big vegetable patch beyond it.

  Dimple Kilpatrick barely remembered holding tight to Bear during the furious buggy ride home, but she did remember the July flies sawing away with their summer song as they pulled up to the house and her mother running out to meet them.

  Minerva Sayre dosed Henry with a tonic made of sage with a pinch of alum and rubbed his chest with a salve of warmed lard mixed with turpentine and loose quinine, and the two women sat with him all night. By morning her brother’s fever was down and he was able to swallow a few spoons of beef tea. Dimple never knew if it was the continuous use of steam, the primitive medicine, or both that saved her brother’s life, but only she, Bear, and God Himself knew the route she had taken to find help.

  * * *

  “… seventeen … eighteen … nineteen … twenty!” In the twilight of the woods, Miss Dimple paused to listen. This was the second time she had counted and she hesitated before calling Peggy’s name because she thought she heard a rustle in the underbrush ahead. Somewhere nearby a dry twig fell as the wind picked up. “Peggy!” Dimple shouted, louder this time. “Peggy, where are you?” And from just over the low knoll ahead came the distinctive sound of a bark.

  Again: sharper and more clamorous as she hurried closer—a dog—someone’s dog! But where had it come from? “Here, boy!” Miss Dimple answered. “It’s all right!”

  But the dog wasn’t sure it was all right. It wasn’t sure at all, and it greeted her baring its teeth with a growl low in the throat. “It’s all right,” Miss Dimple said again in a soft, soothing voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Taking a step closer, she held out a hand and stood still, allowing the animal to sniff its approval. It was a short-haired dog, a German shepherd, she thought, with a brown-and-black coat and white throat, and it seemed to be attempting to block her way. It was getting so dark now Dimple could barely see more than a few feet ahead, but she was sure the dog was guarding something—or someone. Don’t show alarm, Dimple! Keep your voice calm. “Peggy?” she called. “Peggy, it’s Miss Dimple!” This time she heard a low but very human whimper. Stepping into a small clearing, Dimple could barely distinguish the tree Peggy had told her about. It looked to be an ancient white oak bent to form a benchlike seat. And nearby, there in the darkness beneath the spreading branches of a large hemlock tree, she saw a tiny huddled shape. “Peggy, are you able to walk? It’s dark now, and cold. It’s time to go home.”

  This time Dimple stepped past the dog, who still hadn’t seemed to have made up its mind. “Bite me if you must,” she said in her stern, schoolroom voice, “but I’m taking care of this child.” The dog must have recognized the authority in her voice because it backed away to let her pass but made a point to stay close by.

  The little girl lay curled, knees to chest. Her pigtails had come loose and the blue tam lay beside her. Miss Dimple stooped and touched the child’s face and found her burning with fever. Peggy began to shake with chills as Dimple crouched beside her and she quickly took off her coat to cover her. “Mama,” Peggy cried, and reached up her arms to be held. Was she calling for her birth mother or for the mother she called Kate? Miss Dimple only knew she had to get her out of the cold as quickly as possible.

  Dimple Kilpatrick, in all her years of teaching, had held many a child, and tiny Peggy Ashcroft couldn’t have weighed a lot more than the heavy leather handbag she usually carried, but the ground was uneven and night had descended upon them. How was she going to get this sick little girl down the treacherous hillside? Dimple stood, cradling Peggy to her chest as the wind whipped about them, and tried not to think about being cold. She would probably be able to get down by herself, but there was no way she was going to leave this child alone while she went for help. She would just have to take it a few steps at a time and hope she didn’t have an accident along the way.

  She had promised Virginia she would let her know when she got home and if she didn’t telephone in a certain amount of time, her friend would be sure to find out she hadn’t returned. Or perhaps others at the boardinghouse would become concerned and come looking for her when they learned she wasn’t in her room. Meanwhile, she couldn’t wait. Locking her arms around Peggy, Miss Dimple was trying to decide on the best way to begin her descent when the dog’s frenzied barking caught her attention and it became obvious the animal objected to her plans.

  Dimple clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering as the dog raced back and forth between her and a spot a few feet away. Was he trying to lead her somewhere? Miss Dimple shifted her small burden; the little girl’s cheek felt scorching next to her own and she could hear a distinctive rattle in her chest. She thought again of the long-ago neighbor who had helped to save her little brother. Minerva, where are you when I need you?

  Again, the German shepherd demanded her attention, urging her farther up the hill. Miss Dimple sighed. “Maybe you know something I don’t know,” she said, stumbling along behind him. Using her flashlight, she walked cautiously, the pale beam probing the way a few feet
at a time. She didn’t know anything about this dog except that it was protective of Peggy, but from her own early experiences with Bear, Dimple was aware that sometimes animals had keener instincts than humans, and several minutes later she realized she had made the right decision. At the top of the next hill, a welcoming yellow light beckoned to them from the window of a cottage only a few yards away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The door of the house opened and Miss Dimple squinted through dirt-streaked glasses to see the silhouette of a woman framed in the light. “What do you have there, Max? Come here, boy!”

  The dog bounded across the clearing and up the steps to the wide porch to jump with abandon about the woman’s feet. “What is it, Max? Who’s out there?”

  Dimple Kilpatrick, her arms aching from carrying Peggy, sank to her knees at the edge of the clearing. She tried to call out but she was so winded and cold from the climb she could scarcely make a sound. What if this woman had a gun? It wasn’t unusual for people who lived in the country to keep one on hand to protect themselves and their property. She bent her body over that of the child as the dog Max raced toward them, barking. At the same time another person joined the woman on the porch.