The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Well?” he prompted, after a minute.

  Violet looked at Myra May. Myra May looked at Violet, shifted and frowned. “Yesterday. I talked to him yesterday.”

  Buddy made a note. “Morning, afternoon, evening?”

  A pause. “Afternoon,” Myra May said guardedly.

  “Here?”

  “Upstairs. So we wouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “I was there, too,” Violet added helpfully.

  Buddy scribbled some more. “What did you talk about?”

  Myra May sighed heavily. “What we always talk about with that man. How important it is to expand the switchboard. How many people will benefit. How much money we’ll save.”

  Buddy raised his eyebrows. It sounded like a normal kind of business discussion to him. “And he said …” he prompted.

  “No,” Myra May said darkly. “He said no. Again.”

  “She means,” Violet explained, “that this is an ongoing discussion. We have to expand the Exchange. Myra May has picked out the equipment that will do the job and we’ve got enough money to cover our share of the cost. But Mr. Whitworth keeps saying no. He says he’s what’s called a ‘limited partner.’ Which means he only put the money into the business at the beginning. He doesn’t have to put in anything else.”

  “Which is just nuts.” Myra May scowled darkly. “We know he must have the money, but every time we ask, he just flat refuses. We’ve tried to buy him out of his damned fifty percent, but he’s asking so much we can’t afford it. So we’re stuck.”

  “Must be frustrating,” Buddy said. He could see their point of view.

  “We’re not the only ones who have this problem,” Violet added. “Reginald Dunlap at the Five and Dime—Mr. Whitworth is partners with him, too. And there may be others.”

  Frowning, Buddy scribbled faster. Reginal Dunlop. He wasn’t much of a speller, especially when it came to names. “Others? Like who?”

  “You don’t know that for a fact, Violet,” Myra May said cautiously. “That’s just Mr. Dunlap’s notion.”

  “But it’s something Buddy should know,” Violet protested. To him, she added, “Mr. Dunlap says Mr. Whitworth owns a share of Bodeen Pyle’s whiskey still.”

  Buddy wasn’t sure he believed it, but he wrote the name down anyway. Bodene Pile. “Thank you,” he said. “Anybody else? How about friends? Do you know who his friends are?”

  Violet and Myra May exchanged looks. Myra May shrugged. “Maybe the Clovers?” Violet hazarded.

  “Okay.” Buddy wrote that down. “How about places Mr. Whitworth might go? People he might want to see—if he left Darling, I mean.”

  Myra May looked at him. “Has he left Darling? Did he take his car?”

  His car. Feeling the flush climb his cheeks, Buddy folded his notebook and stood. “What do I owe you for breakfast?”

  “It’s on the house,” Myra May said. “You’re doing your duty. We want to help.”

  “Thank you,” Buddy replied humbly. Why in tarnation hadn’t he thought to ask Mrs. Whitworth whether her husband’s car was gone, too? It was because she was crying, that’s why. Roy Burns would never have made that mistake. He had to learn how to handle weeping females, or he’d never be able to do his job.

  “Humptiddy Dumptiddy,” Cupcake announced loudly and with great seriousness in the kitchen. “Jackie Jill pushed him down the hill and he broke his head.”

  At the rear of the diner, a young woman stepped out of the door of the Exchange. “Is Sheriff Norris here?” she asked.

  Buddy turned, surprised. “Present,” he said, realizing that she must be the other switchboard operator on duty this morning.

  “You’ve got a phone call,” the girl replied. “He says he’s your deputy.”

  “You can take it at the switchboard, Buddy,” Violet said. “Come on, I’ll show you.” Buddy grinned. Far as he was concerned, Violet could call him Buddy any day of the week.

  The Exchange was a narrow room with the telephone switchboard on one side and a cot for the nighttime operator on the other. Buddy had never seen a switchboard before and was surprised at its complexity. The thing was a four-by-six-foot vertical panel, with rows of lighted sockets and a horizontal board with plugs and jacks. The operator—wearing what looked like earmuffs over her head and a funnel-shaped mouthpiece around her neck—sat in front of this contraption and plugged the right jack into the right socket. It all looked very advanced and mysterious to Buddy, but he could see one thing at a glance. It really was quite easy for the operator to hear every word that anybody said—or to put it a different way, it was hard not to hear.

  Violet handed him a headset and inserted a plug into a blinking socket on the switchboard. “You’re connected. You can talk.”

  “Yo, Wayne,” Buddy said, into the funnel. “What’s up?”

  The man on the other end was Wayne Springer, Cypress County’s new deputy. The sheriff’s office was only a two-man shop, and when Buddy won the special election to fill Roy Burns’ empty boots, somebody had to fill his. Wayne came with five years of experience as a deputy over in Jefferson County, where his training had included target practice with a .38 Special, which was one of the reasons Buddy had hired him. (Buddy could shoot a squirrel out of his dad’s peach tree with his .22 rifle, but he still wasn’t comfortable with the notion that he might actually have to shoot somebody with the revolver he sometimes carried on his hip—which was why he didn’t carry it more often.)

  The other reason Buddy had hired Wayne was that he was from way over by Birmingham. Jobs were hard to get, and there had been a dozen would-be deputies, but Wayne was the only one with no local kinfolk. Buddy reasoned that if you and your deputy were in a tight spot, you didn’t want him wondering whether the man they had cornered up in the barn loft was his mother’s favorite cousin’s son. The deputy might hold his fire—or conversely (and just as likely), he might shoot when he didn’t need to. In Buddy’s opinion, a stranger was more likely to be objective when it came to apprehending people.

  Buddy listened to the tale Wayne was telling him on the phone. “Well, that’s a bad hill when it’s muddy,” he said. “Several accidents there in the past. Where are you now?”

  He listened some more, then said, “Spook Hill is out on the Jericho Road. You want to go past the airfield a good mile, maybe mile and a half. I’m going over to the Five and Dime and see Mr. Dunlap about this Whitworth thing. You reckon you can handle that accident without me?”

  He listened to Wayne’s reply, feeling grateful that his deputy had enough experience to be confident in dealing with just about anything. “Nothing from Mrs. Whitworth?” he asked. “No ransom calls yet?” He nodded. “Right. Okay, see you later.”

  He handed Violet the telephone gear. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry for the interruption.”

  Violet pulled the plug. “Myra May can be a little abrupt,” she said softly. “But she wants to help—she really does. I know she’ll worry about Mr. Whitworth until she hears he’s okay, so let us know as soon as you’ve located him. He is our partner, after all. She wants another chance at convincing him to help us modernize.” She paused, frowning. “No ransom calls?”

  “Nope.” Buddy had the feeling there wouldn’t be.

  “What do you suppose has happened to him?”

  “Hard to say,” Buddy replied thoughtfully. “Sometimes folks just get a little tired of the life they’re living and they chuck it and take off for parts unknown.” He grinned. “Or a guy gets a little drunk and knows his missus is waiting up for him—and doesn’t want her to see him in that condition. So he goes someplace to sleep it off.”

  Violet looked doubtful. “That doesn’t sound much like Mr. Whitworth. I don’t know him that well, but he’s never struck me as the type to get so drunk he can’t make it home.”

  “Well, don’t you worry your pretty head about it,” Buddy said expansively, resisting the urge to give Violet a quick kiss on the cheek. “We’ll get it straightened out.”
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  But Buddy wasn’t as confident as he liked to pretend. He hadn’t thought to ask about the car—a dumb mistake, the kind an amateur would make. And he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there had been something about his conversation with the tearful Mrs. Whitworth early that morning that had made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure she was telling him the truth, at least, not all the truth. But he didn’t give a lot of credence to Violet’s idea of a kidnapping. For one thing, there hadn’t been a ransom demand—at least, not yet. Wouldn’t kidnappers holding a man as well-off as Mr. Whitworth start calling first thing?

  And there was Raylene’s puzzling remark about the tin can. Since he’d been sheriff, Buddy had run into more tin cans than he would have thought possible, here in little Darling—people who were labeled one thing on the outside and were entirely something else when you managed to pry the lid off. He was often surprised at the number of secret lives that were lived in such a little town.

  “He hides himself,” Raylene had said. “On purpose.”

  If Whitney Whitworth wanted to hide himself—that is, actually hide himself—where was he likely to go?

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lizzy Makes A Discovery

  Lizzy loved to walk, especially on a pretty October morning, when the air was so crisp that just breathing it made you feel fizzy and the sugar maple leaves blazed like somebody had put a match to them. Of course, Darling was small enough that you could walk anywhere you wanted to go in a half hour or less, and if you had to go any farther, a bicycle was as good as a car.

  In this case, she had to walk only six or seven blocks. She cut across the courthouse lawn and went past the Old Alabama Hotel, which served the most elegant meals in town, with Mrs. LeVaughn playing soft dinner music on the grand piano in the lobby. Past Pete’s Pool Parlor, with its outdoor barbecue barrel belching fragrant smoke and somebody breaking a rack of balls with a CRACK! loud enough to be heard on the street. Past Brady’s Barbershop (Haircuts 2 Bits), its signboard plastered with Huey P. Long’s grinning picture and the words “Every Man’s a King!” in big black letters. Somebody had drawn a crown on the senator’s head and penciled in “Vote for Huey.”

  And then, as Lizzy passed Kilgore Motors’ showroom window, she saw that the jazzy pumpkin-colored 1934 Dodge convertible coupe that had been there the week before was gone, replaced by a sedate black Dodge sedan. The coupe must have been sold, she realized with a pang. She didn’t actually need a car, and she certainly couldn’t afford one, not with her job in jeopardy. But that didn’t keep her from admiring the swell-looking convertible and wondering who had bought it—and who was getting the free driving lessons from Frank Harwood. Must be somebody who lived out of town, she decided, since she hadn’t seen anyone driving it.

  Lizzy had almost reached Mimosa Street when she saw Grady Alexander’s old blue Ford coming up Robert E. Lee toward her. If there’d been a store she could duck into, she would have, but there wasn’t. He slowed and she thought he intended to pull over to the curb and stop. To prevent him, she pointed to her wristwatch and shook her head, pantomiming apology. He gave a regretful shrug, waved, and mouthed “I’ll call you” before he drove on.

  Lizzy felt as if she had dodged a bullet somehow, although she couldn’t have said exactly what that meant. She just knew that she didn’t know what she was going to do about Grady, and the uncertainty was at once unsettling and intriguing. She took a relieved breath and went on.

  Usually, Lizzy took her time when she walked, especially this time of year. She enjoyed the golden marigolds and purple fall asters and orange chrysanthemums that bloomed in the small front yards and the fire-engine red geraniums that decorated the porches. Life had been tough in Darling and while things were looking up, people hadn’t forgotten their hard-learned lessons of self-reliance and frugality. She turned the corner onto Mimosa Street, where almost everybody had a garden—fresh collards and snap peas in the spring, sweet corn and green beans and tomatoes in the summer, sweet potatoes in the fall. Most folks also kept a dozen hens and a rooster in a backyard coop, so they could have eggs for breakfast and chicken and dumplings for Sunday dinner.

  But while the morning air was enticing and the neighborhood was pleasant, Lizzy moved along briskly. For one thing, there was nobody in the office to answer the telephone, so she ought to get back to her desk as quickly as she could. For another, she was prickling with curiosity about what was going on. She kept thinking of those notes she had typed that morning—for they were notes of Mr. Moseley’s discussion with Mrs. Whitworth.

  Scrupulously, Lizzy had directed her attention elsewhere while she typed. Still, she couldn’t miss the general drift, which would certainly raise a Darling eyebrow or two. According to the notes, Mrs. Whitworth suspected her husband of misusing the money she had inherited from her grandmother just before she got married. (The timing was important. In Alabama, any money a woman inherited before she got married belonged legally to her and not to her husband.) Mrs. Whitworth wanted Mr. Moseley to look into the situation, find out what had happened, and advise her about what she could do, if anything.

  When he had asked, “Are you thinking about divorce?” she had answered emphatically. “I don’t have to consider it. I’ve already made up my mind. I’m going to divorce Whitney.” For Darling, this was a sensationally scandalous declaration. If people knew, their party lines would be buzzing with excitement—assuming their party lines were operating, that is.

  The Whitworth home was on Peachtree. It was a substantial brick house with white pillars across the front and green-painted shutters at the windows, set back from the street by a well-tended yard studded with live oaks. A graveled drive led to a two-car garage at the back. The house wasn’t as palatial as some of the plantation homes Lizzy had visited, but for Darling, it was impressive.

  Lizzy climbed the front steps to the green-painted front door and rang the doorbell. A moment later, its chime was answered by a thin-faced, angular woman of indeterminate age, with skin the color of dark chocolate and graying hair in tight curls all over her head. She wore a black maid’s uniform with a frilly white collar and a white apron.

  When she saw Lizzy, her face broke in a wide smile and her dark eyes flashed with pleasure. “Miz ‘Liz’bet’, good mawnin’!”

  “Why, hello, DessaRae. It’s good to see you. How are you this morning?” Lizzy was surprised and then she wasn’t. She remembered hearing that after old Miss Hamer died a few months before, her maid, DessaRae, had been hired by Mrs. Whitworth for day work, cooking and cleaning.

  Growing up, Lizzy had been under the benevolent charge of Sally-Lou Hawkins, a colored girl who had been more of a friend and companion than a nanny, and who (once her young charge was grown up) had stayed on as a maid to Lizzy’s mother. Sally-Lou had become a member of the Lacy family, and DessaRae—Sally-Lou’s auntie by marriage—had visited so often that she was like family once removed.

  Lizzy still had fond memories of going into the kitchen after she finished her homework and finding Sally-Lou and DessaRae laughing together over slices of red velvet cake and cups of tea. Often, she would walk with Sally-Lou over to Maysville to visit DessaRae, finding her dressed in one of her colorful Creole outfits, stirring up a pot of spicy sausage and okra gumbo big enough to share with all her neighbors. She would never forget the tiny kitchen that smelled of woodsmoke and hot lard and had a slanted floor that was perfect for marble-racing with Sally-Lou’s kid brother, Fremon, a year older than Lizzy.

  “I’s fine,” DessaRae replied to Lizzy’s question. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and leaned forward, lowering her voice. She spoke with a strong Cajun accent that sometimes made her difficult to understand. “But Miz Whitworth ain’t jes’ real good, I’s sorry to say. You might oughta come back when she’s feelin’ better.”

  Lizzy shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I need to see her, DessaRae. I work for her attorney, Mr. Moseley. He asked me to talk to her right away. It seems like there�
�s something serious going on. Do you know what it is?”

  It was very likely that she did. The colored help always knew everything about the white folks they worked for, things that nobody else (and sometimes not even family) knew. It wasn’t that they listened on purpose; most people just forgot they were there and said things they might not have said if they’d remembered. Most of the colored help wouldn’t think of telling family secrets to other white folk; that would have been disloyal. But Lizzy had often wondered how much Sally-Lou and DessaRae and their maid friends and relatives shared with one another. She knew they knew a lot, and most of it was probably pretty embarrassing, or worse.

  So she wasn’t surprised when DessaRae hesitated, frowning. “Yes’m, I reckon I do know a little something. But you better ask Miz Whitworth.” Hesitantly, she added, “You know the sheriff’s been here a’reddy?”

  “The sheriff?” Lizzy said in surprise. “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Well, come on in, then.” DessaRae opened the door and stood back. “Miz Whitworth, she be in the breakfas’ room. Straight down the hall to the back of the house.”

  Lizzy had met Regina Whitworth when she came to the office to talk to Mr. Moseley. She remembered her as shy and somewhat uncertain, in her mid-thirties, some fifteen years younger than her husband. She was slender and pretty, although she seemed not to be aware of that. Her creamy skin, large, luminous brown eyes, and graceful hands were her most attractive features. Her dark brown hair was long, and she wore it in a loose bun at the nape of her neck.

  This morning, though, her hair was down on her shoulders. She was wearing a prim-looking navy silk crepe dress with a high collar and lace cuffs on the long sleeves. She sat at a small dining table in front of a window. The table was set for two, with an unused plate, cup and saucer, and empty juice glass on a linen mat, opposite. She held a teacup in her two hands.