“Oh, Willie!” Annie swallowed a sob as she opened the bag to find two small pinecone elf ornaments to hang on the tree. “How did you know we needed ornaments? Thank you! I can’t think of anything that would please us more.” Annie smiled, knowing this simple trinket would always bring to mind this special little boy.
Willie flushed as she hugged him. “That sure was somethin’ yesterday, wasn’t it, Miss Annie? Finding that dead man and all! Looked Gawd-awful, didn’t he? I’m glad I was there so you and Miss Charlie wouldn’t be so scared.”
Annie laughed and hugged him again. “I’m glad you were there, too, Willie.” She watched him as he ran to the corner and waved back at her before crossing at the light. Lottie, she saw, stood admiring a small china angel in the window of the jewelry store.
“This reminds me of one we had when I was little,” Lottie said. “I’d forgotten all about that angel—wonder what happened to it.”
“It is beautiful. Why don’t we go in and take a look?”
Bennie took the angel out of the window and set her on the glass counter. The figure had yellow hair, blue eyes, and held a tiny stringed instrument close to her breast.
“Oh…” Lottie reached out to touch it, then changed her mind. “How much is it, Mr. Alexander?”
He quickly removed a price sticker from the bottom. “Well to tell you the truth, this angel came as part of a pair, but the other one was broken in shipping.”
“What a shame!” Annie said, watching his face. “What instrument was the other one playing?”
“Instrument?” The shopkeeper seemed puzzled.
“Yes. This one’s playing a lute—or I think it’s a lute.”
“Oh … yes, of course! I believe it was a horn of some kind.” He smiled at Lottie. “At any rate, we’ll let you have this one for less than half price, which would come to about two dollars.”
“Oh, thank you. I’ll take it!” Lottie paid for the gift and watched as he carefully laid the figure on a bed of cotton in a small box, wrapped it in silver and blue paper, and added a curl of ribbon.
“Next time you write, be sure and tell that sailor husband of yours we’re all pulling for them here at home!” he called after them as they left the store.
“What a kind man,” Lottie said, looking back. “How did he know my husband was in the navy?”
“Bennie and his wife have a son in the service, too,” Annie told her. “And you might as well know here in Elderberry, there aren’t any secrets!” Except for one, she thought.
Harris Cooper was busy in the back of the grocery store, but Jesse Dean welcomed them and smiled when Annie told him what they wanted. “Our tree is practically bare, and Lottie tells me the one she and Miss Bessie have looks kind of pitiful, too,” Annie explained, introducing Lottie Nivens. “And I’d like to find something for Miss Dimple, but frankly, I’ve run out of ideas.”
“Well, you just happen to be in luck.” Jesse Dean reached under the counter and brought out a box of candy canes. “We’ve plenty of popcorn, but this is the last of the peppermint. It should be enough for two trees if you space them far enough apart.
“As for our Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, I know the very thing—but you’ll have to promise you won’t tell anyone else.”
“What?” Annie leaned over the counter. “Now, Jesse, I am not buying any ingredients for her awful Victory Muffins!”
“Not what I had in mind. Back in a minute.” Jesse Dean held up a finger before disappearing into a stockroom. Moments later he returned with a cardboard box filled with Hershey bars. “This just came in today, and I can’t let you have them all,” he said, scooping some into a bag, “but these should last her a few weeks at least.”
Annie smiled. She had seen the candy in Miss Dimple’s desk drawer but considered the possibility it might have been confiscated from an errant snacker. Here was a secret she wouldn’t object to keeping. Miss Dimple Kilpatrick had a dent in her armor!
“And by the way, do you think you can scare up another hen for Miss Phoebe? She’s inviting a few people over for Christmas and said to tell you she hoped you’d be able to join us, too.”
The young clerk flushed with pleasure, bringing color to his usually pale face. “Oh, that would be so … well … that would be … great!” he stammered. “Please tell her I look forward to it, but only if you’ll let me contribute the candy canes and popcorn.”
Annie agreed and paid him for the Hershey bars. “What a thoughtful thing to do!” Lottie exclaimed as the two of them left the store with their tree decorations bagged separately. “Is he always so nice?”
Annie laughed. “Well, most of the time. Just don’t let him catch you with a light on during an air-raid drill!”
“Tell me about little Peggy,” Annie said on the way home. “I hear she came through her tonsillectomy fine but haven’t had a chance to talk with Kate since she came home from the hospital.”
“To hear her mother tell it, I believe she’s fallen in love,” Lottie said with a smile. “She and Max are inseparable, and the cat’s so jealous she won’t come out from under the dining room table.”
“Poor Peaches! What a rude awakening! Maybe she’ll come around in time.”
“Looks like we’ll have our work cut out for us stringing all this popcorn,” Annie added as they paused at the corner. “Guess we’d better hurry home and get started.”
But Lottie lingered, her gaze fixed on a house across Katherine Street. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a place like that?” she said.
“Like what?” Annie asked.
“The white house on the corner, the one with the big magnolia.” Lottie sighed. “It appeals to me somehow. Maybe one of these days when this war is over, Hal and I will have a home like that.”
Annie smiled. She knew just what Lottie meant. She liked to think of the home she and Frazier might have someday and children they had planned: a girl they would name for her mother and a little boy called Frazier. In bed at night she tried to imagine them, imagine how it would be when he finally came home, but sometimes Annie couldn’t remember his face.
“Maybe you will,” she told Lottie, squeezing her hand. “Well, not that house, but one like it, right here in Elderberry.”
They all had to hold on to dreams because right now that was all they had, Annie thought as she crossed the street. But Christmas was just around the corner, and it was going to be pleasant not to have anything else to do that afternoon but string popcorn for the tree.
But Dimple Kilpatrick had other ideas. “Charlie called awhile ago and something’s come up. She wants us to meet her at Virginia’s.”
Annie took a deep breath and handed over the popcorn and peppermint. “Just give me a minute. The candy canes are for the tree, and I guess we can pop and string the corn later this afternoon.” Hurrying upstairs, she put Miss Dimple’s Hershey bars on her closet shelf and on her way out hollered to let Phoebe know she was leaving.
Frowning, Odessa poked her head around the kitchen door. “She be in here shelling pecans for you all’s Christmas pie. Where you goin’ now?”
“Oh … just some last-minute errands,” Annie lied. “Is there anything you need?”
Odessa muttered something that sounded like “a little help in the kitchen,” and let the kitchen door swing shut.
“Oh, dear!” Annie sighed to Miss Dimple as they started out for Virginia’s. “I’m afraid Odessa’s upset with us for not helping more in the kitchen.”
Miss Dimple looked suitably contrite—at least for a moment. “Ah, well, first things, first, I suppose. And I did promise to make some of my Victory Muffins. I expect she’s forgotten that.”
Charlie met them at Virginia’s front door, being careful not to open it too wide. “I don’t suppose you ran into the Kilgores? Jerome was lying in wait for me before I got halfway down the street. He pretended to be looking for the mailman, but I know good and well Boyce doesn’t deliver that early in the day.”
“Oh, dear!”
Miss Dimple took off her coat and laid it carefully aside. “What did he say?”
“Wanted to know if Virginia was all right. I guess he wonders why I’m here while she’s at the library.” Charlie smiled. “I told him I was helping her with some new curtains.”
“But now he’ll expect to see them—” Annie began.
“For the bedroom!” Charlie continued, looking sly.
Miss Dimple looked at Annie and laughed. “What’s our excuse?
“Seriously, we’re going to have to be more careful. All it would take is one brief careless moment for them to realize Virginia’s not alone.
“Now,” she said, turning to Charlie. “Tell us about last night. Was the sheriff able to learn anything about the way the Pitts fellow died?”
“Well, he knows it wasn’t natural,” Charlie said. “Doc had Harvey bring in the body, and Sheriff Holland planned to go back out there this morning to get a look at the place in daylight. But wait until you hear this: Someone had moved the body! Had it propped against a tree with that liquor bottle in his lap just as pretty as you please!”
A gasp came from both Annie and Suzy, who stood in the hallway behind them.
“And that’s not all,” Charlie continued. “I phoned Harriet Curtis this morning to thank her for the trees and to let her know about finding Bill Pitts—twice. After all, we did have to tramp all over their property last night.”
“That must’ve been a shock,” Annie said, taking a quick peek through the draperies to see if they were being watched.
“Not only that,” Charlie told them. “Harriet said when Isaac Ingram came to their church to collect his aunt’s paintings, several of them appeared to be missing.”
“Did he think someone took them from the church?” Suzy asked.
“No, because Harriet’s husband got a list from Mae Martha and every one of them—all twenty-nine—was accounted for.”
“Then Isaac Ingram is obviously mistaken,” Miss Dimple said, but Charlie shook her head. “He mentioned several specific paintings—said there should be at least eight or more that weren’t there.”
“Maybe she sold them,” Annie suggested. “The way she did for us.”
“Or somebody might have taken them,” Charlie said, thinking aloud. “Maybe that’s why she asked the Curtises to keep the others at their church.”
“With her grandson killed in the war, I can’t imagine why Isaac—Esau, either—would go to that kind of trouble,” Miss Dimple said as they moved into Virginia’s small kitchen to sit around her familiar table. “I don’t think there’s much doubt they’ll inherit everything from their aunt’s estate.”
Suzy shook her head. “Not necessarily,” she said. “I believe she may have had other plans.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“What do you mean?” Miss Dimple asked as she put on a kettle for tea.
Standing on tiptoe, Suzy reached into the cabinet for cups. “She mentioned once that she was considering establishing a scholarship fund in Madison’s memory at Emory. It would go to help students working toward a medical degree.”
“I can’t think of a better way to remember him,” Annie said. “Do you know if she ever finalized the plans?”
Suzy shook her head. “I can’t be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised. When Miss Mae Martha made up her mind to do something, she usually didn’t waste any time.”
“Do you know if she mentioned this to anyone else?” Miss Dimple asked.
“I would think she’d say something to Isaac, as he usually handled her business affairs, because if I remember right, she planned to contribute most of her future earnings to that endowment.”
“And when was this?” Miss Dimple pried the lid from the tea canister and set it aside, her expression grave.
“Sometime back in the fall,” Suzy said. “Around September, I believe.”
“About the time hickory nuts begin to fall,” Dimple said.
Charlie had been playing with a saltshaker on the table, moving it about like a chess piece on the checkered tablecloth. Now she set it down with a thump. “Do you think somebody deliberately put them where they would cause her to fall?”
Annie spoke up. “Obviously, they did. She could’ve broken a leg, a hip, or worse.”
“They didn’t get there by themselves,” Miss Dimple reminded them. She poured scalding water into the teapot. “It seems to me that Mrs. Hawthorne’s life was in danger as soon as she made a decision about that bequest.”
“That’s a legal matter,” Charlie said. “Do you know who represented her?” she asked Suzy.
Suzy leaned against the sink looking troubled and vulnerable and very, very small. “That would be another question for Isaac. If she saw an attorney, it’s likely he would have taken her there, and the two of them did go into town—or I assume it was into town—on occasion.”
“Isn’t it time for the reading of the will?” Annie asked. “And shouldn’t something be in the Eagle?”
Miss Dimple nodded. “A notice to creditors. I’ll admit I don’t usually read that kind of thing. Has anyone seen it?”
No one had. “I imagine the will is going through the probate process,” she said, “but it shouldn’t be difficult to learn if Mrs. Hawthorne did, indeed, leave the proceeds from her paintings to a scholarship fund.”
“Isaac certainly didn’t waste any time getting his aunt’s paintings to a dealer after she died,” Charlie pointed out. “He seems to be making sure every one of them is accounted for.”
“And it looks like they aren’t,” Suzy said. “And now there’s this unexpected predicament with the death of Bill Pitts. Does the sheriff believe he was murdered?”
“I think it’s obvious he was.” Charlie told them about the abrasions on the man’s face and hands. “And then they came back and tried to clean him up so it would look like he died from some other cause.”
Annie shuddered. “‘Alas, poor Yorick!’ Charlie, has it occurred to you that we might have interrupted whoever killed him? Somebody could’ve been hiding right there in the bushes watching us while we dragged that man out of the creek.”
Charlie made a face. She had, of course. “That’s a comforting thought, but I choose to think otherwise.”
Annie laughed. “Well, so would I, but that doesn’t make it so.”
“No, really, I’m serious.” Charlie held up a hand. “Just think about it. We didn’t manage to pull Bill Pitts very far out of the water—just far enough to know there was nothing we could do. I believe the person who killed him left him there intending to come back and move him later. I’m not sure he—or she—would notice he wasn’t in exactly the same place.”
“Perhaps not,” Miss Dimple said, pouring tea all around, “but wouldn’t they put him there to begin with? Why wait and come back to do it?”
Charlie thought for a minute. “I don’t know … they might’ve heard somebody coming—probably us. Or maybe they had to be somewhere and were running late.”
“Like a funeral?” Miss Dimple said.
“Oh my goodness!” Annie looked at them over her cup. “We looked for Bill Pitts at the funeral Sunday. Remember?”
“Well, I suppose he had a perfectly good excuse for not being there,” Charlie pointed out. “He was probably already dead.”
“Or soon to be,” Annie added. “But why would anybody want to kill him? The man made me feel uneasy, I’ll admit, but I can’t imagine why someone would want him dead.”
Suzy spoke quietly. “He knew things.”
Charlie frowned. “What do you mean?”
Suzy shrugged. “Bill seemed to be everywhere. You never knew when he would show up, and I’m sure he knew everything that was going on around there.”
“Like what?” Annie asked.
“If I knew that, I would probably know who killed Mrs. Hawthorne,” Suzy said.
Miss Dimple, noticing the young woman’s attempt to keep back the tears, reached for her hand. “We know how difficult this must
be for you,” she assured her, “this living in fear that someone will find you, accuse you, but I promise we’ll see this through together. I don’t think it will be long until whoever killed Mrs. Hawthorne, and probably Bill Pitts, as well, makes one last mistake.”
The others nodded in agreement, and Charlie quietly went to stand behind Suzy and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“But you don’t know!” Covering her face, Suzy broke down in tears. “How could you possibly know?” Silently she accepted the lace-trimmed handkerchief Miss Dimple placed in her hand. “Any mail I get from my family comes through neighbors back in California. I worry about my parents … their business was just taken from them with no promise they’ll get it back.” Suzy looked from Annie to Charlie. “You talk about your brothers and all the men you love in the armed forces and how you worry about them and miss them! Well, I miss Kentaro, too! My brother—we call him Ken—wasn’t able to enlist until this year. I guess because the government wasn’t sure they could trust him and others like him.”
“Suzy…” Annie spoke softly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
“Ken signed up in February, soon after the army began allowing Nisei volunteers … that means second-generation Americans whose parents came here from Japan,” she explained. “He’s in Italy now with the 442nd Infantry, and I don’t know of a more loyal and courageous group of men. Many have given their lives and several in Ken’s platoon have been decorated.”
“You must be very proud,” Miss Dimple said.
“Of course I’m proud! We all want to do our part as much as you do—as much as anyone does. I would gladly volunteer to serve in the Medical Corps, but there’s no way they would take me. If I tried to practice medicine now, I would probably earn less than a fourth of what other doctors receive—that is, if I were allowed. That’s one reason I agreed to come here and live with Miss Mae Martha.” She shook her head. “Poor Madison! He thought he was doing us both a favor.”
Miss Dimple spoke softly. “Mae Martha Hawthorne thought the world of you. I don’t know what she would’ve done without you, especially after Madison was killed.”
Miss Dimple Suspects: A Mystery Page 14