Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble: A Mystery (Miss Dimple Mysteries)

by Ballard, Mignon F.

  * * *

  “Tell me again why we’re looking for Jasper Totherow,” Virginia Balliew said as they bumped along the narrow, winding road to Leola Parker’s place. “I’ll have to admit, Dimple, that man makes me feel uncomfortable, especially after what happened to Leola, and now Prentice.”

  The town librarian, Virginia had reluctantly agreed to use her lunch hour to drive her friend on her quest to find the elusive Jasper. “I’m sure the police have checked out here already,” she said, “and if you don’t mind my asking, what do you intend to do if we find him?”

  Dimple had to admit to herself she didn’t know, but Jasper was the only link she had so far with the fire that took place the day Leola died.

  Near the main road, weeds were already stretching across blackened splotches of burned earth, but the charred area widened closer to the shallow creek. The grass around Leola’s house was higher than a cat’s back in spite of the long dry spell, Dimple noticed. And why, she thought, would Jasper have built a cooking fire right in front of Leola’s place, where she’d have been sure to see him?

  Virginia parked the car under a drooping dogwood and the two picked their way across yellowed grass. Leola would be vexed for sure if she could see the encroaching weeds, the unswept porch.

  Shades were drawn inside the silent house, and the only sound they heard was the humming of bees in Leola’s weed-choked zinnia bed. Beside the porch, a pink climbing rose, sweet-smelling and dainty, made Dimple think of Prentice. If the police suspected the Rose Petal Killer, they hadn’t released the information to the newspapers. Was Prentice’s murder made to look like one of the serial killer’s in order to mislead the investigation?

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a while,” Virginia said, stepping cautiously over a fallen limb, “and people will wonder where I am if I don’t get back by one o’clock.”

  If they were smart, Dimple thought, they would rest in the shade of the wide porch that stretched across the front of the quaint log cabin library. Built in the early part of the century with funds from the local Woman’s Club, the rustic building was one of Dimple’s favorite spots.

  “Let me take a quick look in the back,” she said, when from somewhere behind the house a metallic clatter like discordant wind chimes made them stop in mid-stride.

  With Virginia clinging to her arm, Dimple turned, prepared to bolt for the car, when a large gray cat leapt from the corner of the house and darted into the bushes.

  “Well, God bless America, if that cat didn’t scare me all the way into next week!” Virginia said, finally relaxing her grip.

  Dimple had experienced a moment or two of uneasiness as well but decided she should probably investigate the noise. If the stray cat had somehow managed to get through a back window, she would have to get in touch with Leola’s daughter, Mary Joy, to see what damage had been done.

  She found instead a rusting pile of empty food cans by the steps and was just in time to see the back door of Leola’s house slowly closing.

  “Who’s in there?” She said it before she had time to think.

  “Are you crazy. Dimple? This is none of our business,” Virginia reminded her. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Dimple tended to agree with her friend, but it was too late now.

  “It’s only me, ma’am.” Jasper Totherow, in filthy jeans and shoes that looked as if they’d been chewed by a lawn mower, stood in Leola’s doorway.

  “Jasper? What on earth are you doing here?” In spite of her revulsion, Dimple wanted to shake him.

  And to add to her annoyance, he grinned. “Oh, hit’s all right. You don’t have to worry none. Leola’s youngun, she asked me to keep an eye on things, see if they’s anything missin’ and all.”

  If anything was missing, Dimple thought, it was Jasper’s brain if he thought she’d buy that fable.

  “I suggest you be out of here by the time the police come, because I intend to call them as soon as I get back to town.” Dimple clenched her fist so hard, her fingernails cut into her palm.

  Pulling on the straps of his sagging overalls, Jasper stepped into the yard. “Now look ahere, lady, I’m doing a favor is all. That old woman owes me after all the work I done for her.” He kicked at Leola’s back step with a grimy foot. “I ain’t plannin’ to hang around here, you can bet on that. Nooosirrree bobtail! Not after what I seen!”

  “Exactly what is it you saw?” Ever the teacher, Dimple couldn’t resist emphasizing the verb.

  Of course it didn’t do any good. “Seen somebody around here that oughtn’t’ve been. Seen what they did.”

  “When?” Dimple asked. “You mean the day Leola died?”

  “That’s right.” Jasper nodded, then, probably realizing he’d said too much, started to slink into the pine thicket behind the house.

  “Wait!” Dimple called after him. “Who did you see? What was he doing?”

  “Didn’t say it was a he, now, did I?” And with that, Jasper disappeared into the trees.

  * * *

  “I’m glad that’s over,” Virginia said with a heavy sigh. “No telling what he’s been doing in there. I’m afraid Mary Joy’s going to have a mess on her hands.”

  The two quickly made their way to Virginia’s car and down the narrow driveway to the road. Both were silent on the drive back to town. A herd of white-faced cattle grazed peacefully in the pasture down the road, and a little farther along, a man and woman, backs bent, made their way down the long rows of cotton, chopping the weeds away. Dimple, who, as a girl, had helped with that toilsome chore on her father’s farm, remembered the welcome shade of the oak tree and bucket of icy well water that waited at the end of the row.

  Small wooden signs placed at intervals along the route encouraged passersby in the war effort while advertising shaving cream for Burma Shave. They usually evoked a smile, as this most recent one did:

  Let’s make Hitler

  And Hirohito

  Feel as bad as

  Old Benito!

  Burma Shave

  They drove past Bertie’s small brick home, which sat back from the road in a grove of pecan trees, and Dimple was tempted to stop and see how Bertie was holding up, but she didn’t like to drop in unannounced, and, too, Virginia was in a hurry to get back to the library. Delia had said Prentice’s aunt had no idea who her niece might have been seeing, and surely the police had asked her that as well, but perhaps, after given time to think …

  Miss Dimple knew she would have to speak with Elberta about this soon, and even though she had expressed her condolences earlier, every part of her agonized about facing such grief again. How can one comfort someone who has lost a child? Is there anything I can do? How useless! No one can bring back that precious life.

  Dimple fanned herself with an outdated issue of the Elderberry Eagle. Because of heavy red dust from the unpaved road, Virginia insisted on keeping her car windows closed, and the interior felt like a hundred degrees.

  Finally, relief at last! She rolled down her window as they turned onto the paved street and drove past the high school, which seemed bleak and forlorn behind a row of drooping crepe myrtles. As they entered town, a black-and-white-spotted terrier took its time crossing the street in front of them and two women chatted in the shade of the awning in front of Harris Cooper’s grocery. Most people, it seemed, were wisely staying inside during the heat of the day.

  Virginia darted a look at the empty streets and sighed. “Don’t you miss them?” she asked.

  “Miss who?”

  “The men, Dimple, the men. Since the war, so many of them have gone.… It just isn’t natural,” Virginia insisted. “The town seems so empty without them. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all!”

  Dimple didn’t like it, either, and she knew others who felt their absence even more. Annie Gardner had been so worried about her Frazier lately, she seemed to have lost her appetite, and Charlie, as well as young Delia, were aware of how permanent their loss might be wh
enever they saw the boy on the black bicycle who delivered telegrams no one wanted to receive.

  Years before in an earlier war, young Dimple had experienced such a loss, and no words of comfort, no matter how well meant, had been able to mend her heart.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A few minutes later at Sheriff Holland’s office, Miss Dimple told him what Jasper had said.

  “We’ll send somebody out there to pick him up, Miss Dimple, but I wouldn’t put too much faith in Jasper’s tales. Why, I reckon he’d still believe in the tooth fairy if he had a tooth left to trade.”

  Miss Dimple smiled at the sheriff’s jest, remembering his pranks during his early school years. When she’d taught him in the first grade, the child had been so slight, you could’ve slipped him into an envelope and mailed him first class, but it seemed he had more than made up for that in the years that followed, and he’d proved to be a competent and dependable law-enforcement officer. Dimple had learned by experience she could put her trust in Zeb Holland in a tense situation.

  Still, she felt there was some truth in Jasper’s claims and hoped they would be able to learn whom he’d seen the day Leola died before that person got wind of Jasper’s bragging. “You might want to get in touch with Leola’s daughter, Mary Joy. I believe she lives in Covington now,” she suggested before leaving. “There’s no telling what kind of disarray that Jasper’s left behind.”

  It had been over a week since Prentice’s death, and they seemed no closer to finding the person responsible. Dimple remembered Velma Anderson mentioning that the drama coach, Seth Reardon, had directed Prentice and others in the cast of their senior play, and although she doubted if Prentice would have mentioned anything as personal as a love interest to him, there was a chance he might have overheard bits of conversation among the cast. As she hurried back to Phoebe’s, Dimple reminded herself to ask Velma if she remembered who else had taught Prentice during her senior year. Perhaps one of them might have an idea who the girl had been seeing.

  * * *

  Hattie stepped cautiously into the trailer and looked about. Whoever had been here was gone now, but it was obvious they’d been looking for something. To most people, it would seem her place was in constant disarray, but she knew where everything was, and could put her hands on it if necessary. Today, things had been shoved aside, tossed about. The china mug with a bear on it she’d drunk from as a child now lay on its side on the shelf above the makeshift sink. The seashells Chloe Jarrett had brought her from a vacation in Florida were scattered all over the floor. Hattie chuckled to herself. She knew what they’d been looking for, but they would never find it in her special place.

  But what was to keep them from coming back? She wouldn’t be safe here anymore, at least not for a while, not while the Nazis knew where to find her, but where could she go?

  Hattie thought of the old fishing shack down by the river. She could make do there as long as it was warm, and she could always turn in bottles left behind by fishermen to keep her in peanut butter and bread, and maybe a candy bar now and then, until she felt it was safe to come back.

  It was almost dark when Hattie trundled her wheelbarrow, piled high with extra clothing, blankets, and the meager contents of her larder, along the edge of the pine thicket that bordered the road, then made her way across the railroad tracks to the bridge that spanned the Oconee River. Stepping carefully over ruts in the road, she turned off right before the bridge, bumping her burden along a narrow trail that followed the river. She heard the dark water rushing below, smelled the dank, muddy odor of its banks. Hattie paused as the moon went behind a cloud. The darkness made it hard to see, but she knew the shack was somewhere up ahead. Not many people used it now, probably didn’t even know it was there—so much the better. It wasn’t much, but she could make do for a while and no one would bother her here.

  Tall grass brushed her ankles and briars clutched at her skirt as Hattie plodded along. She had brought along a flashlight, but the batteries were weak, striping the night with a dim yellow beam that seemed to make shadows loom even larger. But … yes … there it was just up ahead on that little knoll in the bend of the river.

  Hattie froze at the sound of rustling grass behind her. Someone was here. Someone was following her! Well, she would never tell those Yankees her secret—never! Or maybe it was a Nazi come to carry her away like they did that pretty young girl. Her world wasn’t safe anymore. She couldn’t trust anybody now. Hattie waited, afraid to go forward, but she would never make it back to the road. What happened to the people who’d loved her, cared for her? What happened to the time when she wasn’t afraid?

  * * *

  After forcing down a piece of dry toast with her morning coffee, Bertie took one look at her silent, empty house and stepped outside. Everything around her reminded her of Prentice: the water pitcher with multicolored stripes her niece had given her last Christmas; the framed crayon drawing of a horse with an unusually large head that Prentice colored when she was six; and, on the back porch, the once brown-and-white oxfords, now caked with dried mud from a not-too-recent rain. How could she bear living here without her? She had to get out of this house!

  And where else could she go but to her familiar classroom? Bertie parked in the back of the high school so no one would see her car and let herself inside with her own key. She was one of the few allowed that privilege. The classroom was stuffy and hot, and Bertie turned on the electric fan on her desk and opened some of the windows. The back of the building, where she taught, had no shade except for a small magnolia, presented by Prentice’s class, that stood by the back door next to a plaque marking the year of its planting.

  Elberta pulled down a window shade to block the view. There seemed to be no escape. By the time she retired, the tree would be taller than the building, and she would pack up her belongings, move out of her sunny, multiwindowed classroom, and go home. But home to what?

  She had thought that when the time came for her to leave Elderberry High School forever, Prentice would be out of college and either married or settled in a career of her own. Bertie had hoped for both. She had wanted for Prentice more than she had for herself. Much more. Elberta Stackhouse didn’t believe in Prince Charming—hadn’t for a long time—but for her niece she’d wished the joy and security of having someone to laugh with, love with. Someone to share her days, her nights, and the years that would come later, when she qualified for the senior discount at Lewellyn’s Drug Store.

  And what did she have now? Nothing, that was what.

  A shell of a person walking around with so much sadness festering inside, Bertie felt it might begin to ooze from her pores. And her friends? God help them, they smothered her with kindness; she saw her grief mirrored in their eyes, and longed to run away and hide until she—and they—didn’t hurt so much anymore.

  Bertie opened her desk drawer and pulled out the roster of upcoming juniors she could expect when school began in a little over a month. This year, she would start with A Tale of Two Cities instead of postponing it until after the Christmas holiday—hit the ground running, she thought, with no pause to catch her breath. Or to think. And from now on, she wouldn’t require her classes to memorize “Thanatopsis”—such a long, dreary poem, all about death. Most of the students dreaded it anyway, but Bertie had always thought memory work good for the brain, and maybe it was, but this year she would have her classes concentrate on something else. Some of Shakespeare’s sonnets perhaps. Something light with a nice rhythm to it.

  And for the first time since Prentice died, Bertie almost smiled. That was before she remembered she had agreed to let Adam drop by tonight for cake and coffee. He had been the very soul of patience to listen when she wanted to talk and allowed her time to be alone. Adam Treadway comforted her with his silence as only he knew how, but she knew he was suffering because she was, so when he’d phoned earlier and asked to see her, Bertie had reluctantly agreed. Thoughtful friends and neighbors had supplied her with so much food, sh
e’d finally asked them to stop, and she would have no shortage of sweets to offer him when he came. Louise Willingham had brought over one of her sought-after almond pound cakes the day before, and Bertie had only nibbled at a slice, although she found it delicious as usual.

  For the last two of the three years they had been seeing each other, Adam had tried his best to entice her to Clifford, a small town several miles away, where he owned and operated a small bookstore. Widowed for almost a decade, Adam had raised his two sons, now grown, and didn’t bother to hide the fact that he had marriage on his mind. Recently, Adam had heard rumors, he told her, that the head of the high school English Department there would soon be retiring and the school board was already looking for a replacement.

  It had been only a few days before Prentice died and the two were sipping lemonade on her front porch. “With your experience and credentials, I know you’d have a good chance at the job,” he’d assured her. Adam raised his glass to hers. “Why not give it a try?”

  Bertie looked down at her glass and took a swallow, touching his fingers as if in apology. “Let’s just wait and see,” she said.

  “Wait until when, Elberta?”

  “I don’t know.” She couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes. Gray like April skies, campfire smoke, kitten fur. Cozy things. Happy things. Her willpower would wilt like a violet, wouldn’t stand a chance. Still handsome at forty-seven, Adam appealed to her more than any man she’d known since Knox Jarrett, although there hadn’t been many. But did she love him enough for marriage? Bertie wasn’t sure.

  And the thought of leaving Elderberry … well, frankly, it scared her a little. After all, this was Prentice’s home, too. She had to think of Prentice, didn’t she?

  * * *

  Harris Cooper’s grocery wasn’t crowded this late in the afternoon when Bertie started for home. It would be refreshing, she decided, to have ice cream on hand to go with Lou’s pound cake, so she parked out front and dashed in for a pint of vanilla. It was hard to ignore the fact that Jesse Dean Greeson, who clerked there, went quickly to the back of the store when he saw her come in, and returned weepy-eyed to wait on her. Prentice had been fond of Jesse Dean, since, knowing how much she liked them, he always put chocolate BB Bats—penny taffy on a stick—in their grocery order.