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

by Ballard, Mignon F.

  Although Miss Dimple had never discussed it, those close to her knew from the Elderberry grapevine that the older teacher had endured the loss of a loved one in an earlier war, and Annie wished with all her heart she could shake off the worry that gnawed at her until she could think of nothing else.

  Well, she decided, this wasn’t helping Frazier or anyone else. She gave herself a few minutes to get her emotions under control before turning to face them. “Okay then, getting back to this other problem, tell us what you learned from Leola’s neighbor. Has he had an offer for his land?”

  “Bertie and I went by there this afternoon,” Charlie told them, “but Bo hadn’t heard from anybody about it, and didn’t expect to. That property’s been in his family for over a century and he has no intention of letting any of it go.”

  Dimple frowned. “And how is Elberta?”

  “I guess she’s getting along about as well as she can,” Charlie told her. “She seems sort of … well … unsettled, but who could blame her after what happened to Prentice and Leola?”

  Miss Dimple confessed that she hadn’t had a chance to telephone Luther Hodges but that she would do so immediately.

  Charlie glanced at Phoebe’s porcelain clock on the mantel. “Uh-oh! It’s after five o’clock! Time for Mama to be home from the ordnance plant. I’d better hurry and help Delia with supper.” With practice, her sister had become a better cook than when she first came to live with them when her husband shipped overseas, but Charlie hadn’t quite managed to forget the Spam and rice casserole with canned peas the size of marbles Delia had presented her first month back home.

  “I’ll let you know what he says,” Miss Dimple promised.

  It wasn’t until the next day that they learned Luther had taken the neighbor’s advice seriously and brought his mother and wife (the former protesting audibly) to Covington in case the person who had attempted to buy Leola’s land found his way to Maisie Hodges’s.

  * * *

  Charlie was washing dishes after supper that night when the telephone rang in the hall. Jo Carr was enjoying a relaxing soak in the tub after a long day at the ordnance plant, and Delia, busy coaxing little Tommy to eat “just a little more” of his yummy dinner, shook her head, displaying a hand smeared in mashed potatoes. Hastily drying her hands on her apron, Charlie hurried to answer the phone.

  “Well, I guess you’ve heard,” her aunt Lou began.

  Charlie hadn’t, but she knew she was about to find out. “Heard what?”

  “They’re burying poor old Hattie McGee tomorrow, or what’s left of her,” her aunt said, and then added the obligatory, “Bless her heart.”

  “It’s to be a graveside service and I thought I’d try to go. Ed won’t be able to get away, but I thought you all might want to come. Walter Dunnagan’s going to take care of the service, I hear. Hot as it is, hope he’ll keep it short. That man can pray till the cows come home!”

  Charlie wondered who was going to cover the expenses, since Hattie hadn’t had two nickels to rub together, but she didn’t have to wonder long.

  “Ed says Knox Jarrett’s paying for the casket and all that—and him with all that worry over Clay, too, but then, who else is going to do it? I thought I’d bring some of my Portland roses from that bush by the cellar door. You know how Hattie loved roses, and this one’s bloomed for most of the summer in big old pink clusters. I’ll take some up there in a bucket and we can put them in a vase after everybody leaves the cemetery.”

  Charlie said she would join her and was pretty sure her mother would, too. A phone call to Annie assured her that most of Phoebe’s guests would be there, as well.

  * * *

  The service was scheduled for midmorning, probably so those attending could get on about the business of living as soon as it was over, Charlie thought. She was surprised to see a large crowd gathered at the cemetery when they arrived in Uncle Ed’s Studebaker with the bucket of roses sloshing around at her feet in the backseat. The day promised to be hot, although clouds hid the sun now and then, and by the time they walked to the grave site at the end of a narrow graveled drive, she was glad to see the familiar blue canopy under the welcoming shade of a sycamore tree.

  Miss Dimple and Annie stood outside the canopy with Phoebe, Velma, and Lily. Others congregated in small groups, waiting for the service to begin. Dora Delaney of the Total Perfection Beauty Salon whispered to Grady Clinkscales of the Gas ’n Eats, and Hardin Haynesworth Kirkland, handbag under her arm, made her way painstakingly up the hill behind Marjorie Mote and Emma Elrod. No one, it seemed, wanted to claim the few seats underneath where the casket waited beside the open grave and where Knox and Chloe Jarrett and their daughter, Loretta, sat alone in the first row.

  With a nod from Miss Dimple, Charlie followed her and some of the others to fill the empty seats behind the Jarretts. There was no music and the Reverend Dunnagan’s words were surprisingly brief, but not brief enough for her not to be aware of the grief and worry etched on the faces of Knox and Chloe Jarrett. The tragedy of Hattie McGee’s death was overshadowed by the obvious suffering Clay’s family was enduring.

  The single spray of red roses that had been on Hattie’s casket was set aside before her remains were lowered into the grave, and as soon as the minister gave his benediction, many people dispersed, but at her aunt’s direction, Charlie followed her back to the car to retrieve the bucket of roses while the grave was being filled. Later, as her mother and aunt arranged the bright pink roses and anchored them in place over the fresh red earth, her eyes burned with tears as one by one others followed suit until the raw mound over Hattie’s grave was covered in roses of every hue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I guess you noticed how many people went to Hattie’s funeral yesterday,” Charlie mentioned to Annie as the two walked to town the next morning. Both needed to mail letters to their fiancés, and Charlie wanted another look at that yellow-striped blouse she’d noticed in the window of Brumlow’s Dry Goods. School would be starting soon and it would boost her spirits immensely if she had just one new thing to wear.

  “Do you think Hattie realized she had so many friends?” Annie said. “To be honest, I was surprised at the number there.”

  Charlie shrugged. “I hope she did. But who knows what Hattie knew? Obviously she knew too much, or she wouldn’t have been buried up there on Cemetery Hill yesterday.”

  “Do you really think that’s why she was killed—that is, if she was killed?” Annie asked.

  “If she wasn’t murdered, why would somebody throw rose petals over her body and then dress like Hattie and show up in town with her wheelbarrow? Somebody wanted us to think she died later than she actually did,” Charlie explained. “I wonder if the person who killed her was at the cemetery yesterday.”

  “Oh my gosh, Charlie! You’re giving me chills! Do you really think they were?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Who knows? I tried to look around when it was over, but several people left after the benediction, and Aunt Lou practically dragged me away to get those roses. Were you able to see who was there?”

  But Annie didn’t answer. She was staring at a war bond poster in front of the post office showing a helmeted soldier preparing to throw a grenade. It read:

  GOD HELP ME IF THIS IS A DUD

  His life is in your hands!

  Charlie threaded her arm through Annie’s and stood with her as people passed on the street; a truck with a load of chickens on the back stopped at one of the town’s two traffic lights, and two blocks away, the train whistle blew as the NC & St. L chugged through town. If she closed her eyes, she might pretend there was no war, no heartbreak, no worrying.

  “We went through this when Fain was missing, remember?” Charlie began. “I’m not telling you not to worry. That would be impossible, but you have to try to find something to occupy your interest to get you through each day as it comes. Focus on that and what’s going on around you.”

  Annie groaned. “Charlie, I’
m sorry. I know I’m not easy to be around right now. It’s just that I feel like I’m at the bottom of a deep well and I can’t get out.”

  Charlie knew how she felt, but right then she couldn’t think of a thing to say that would make either one of them feel better.

  “Why don’t we do something for Clay?” she suggested. “Can you imagine how he feels locked away from everyone he cares about in that little cell with barely enough room to do more than turn around?”

  Annie smiled, and Charlie was relieved to see a glimpse of her friend’s good humor return. “Well, sure, but I doubt if the authorities would take kindly to our giving him a file.”

  “But they probably wouldn’t mind if we took cookies. I’ll ask Clay’s mother what he likes best. How many sugar ration coupons can you spare?”

  * * *

  “He loves those chewy molasses cookies with black walnuts,” Chloe Jarrett said when Charlie phoned later, “but our walnut tree didn’t bear last year, and I don’t know where you’re going to find them this early in the season.”

  Charlie promised they would do their best. “How is he?” she asked. “And how are you?” She knew Miss Dimple had been concerned about Clay’s mother and had made a point to speak with her on a regular basis.

  Chloe didn’t reply immediately. Finally, she said, “I just have to keep reminding myself that the good Lord knows my boy is innocent and the truth is on our side.”

  Charlie assured her that many of their friends were on Clay’s side as well and that she had no doubt his name would soon be cleared.

  But she wished she could feel sure of that herself.

  “I asked Odessa where she got those black walnuts she used in that ‘poor man’s fruitcake’ she made last Christmas,” Annie reported later, “and she said there’s a woman who lives somewhere on the edge of town who sells them, but she’s not sure if she has any now.”

  But Minnie Prescott, Phoebe told them, didn’t have a telephone. They would either have to drive or walk to her place out on River Bend Road to find out if the walnuts were still available.

  Annie groaned. “Won’t pecans do as well? Sounds like an awful lot of trouble to me.”

  Charlie agreed. “And then you have to crack them with a hammer or a rock, and they’re the dickens to pick out.”

  Miss Dimple, who had been listening, was visibly perturbed. “For heaven’s sake, I walk out that way once in a while. I’ll be glad to get the walnuts if she has any.” She paused just long enough to fasten attention on Annie and Charlie. “And with three of us shelling them, it shouldn’t take long to have enough for a batch of cookies. If that boy wants walnuts in his molasses cookies, then he should have them.”

  Charlie longed to be able to slip through a crack in the floor. Dimple Kilpatrick rarely lectured and would be aghast if she thought she had unintentionally made anyone think less of herself. However, she realized, this was intentional. She and Annie were meant to feel ashamed, and they were. At least enough to agree to accompany Miss Dimple on her walk the next morning when everybody but the milkman, and possibly Count Dracula, was hours away from waking.

  Fortunately, Miss Dimple delayed starting out until a more suitable hour, but it was still cool enough to enjoy an early-morning breeze as they turned into the oak-laced shade of Katherine Street. Marjorie Mote paused to speak as she swept her front walk. She had lost her son Chester earlier in the war and the other, Jack, was now serving in England.

  The stores hadn’t opened yet in town, but Arden Brumlow waved at them from across the street while rearranging the window of the family dry goods store, where Charlie had purchased her blouse the day before; and a glimpse into the dusty confines of the Elderberry Eagle revealed the silhouette of Linotype operator, Thad Autry, busily setting words in lead.

  The fountain in the park trickled onto lily pads under which goldfish languidly swam, and the two magnolias on either side of the pathway cast Virginia’s log cabin library into deep shadow.

  “Oh dear!” Miss Dimple paused to take a second look as they passed. “I hope that’s not who I think it is. And I heard he’d been doing so well lately.”

  “Who? Where?” Charlie shaded her eyes to see where Miss Dimple was looking.

  “There, on the porch of the library. It looks like someone’s sleeping there on the bench.” Miss Dimple pursed her lips. “I suppose Virginia will just have to run him off. Well, it won’t be the first time.”

  “Run who off?” Annie asked.

  “Delby O’Donnell, of course.” Everyone knew his wife locked him out when he’d had too much to drink.

  “Wait a minute!” Charlie ventured a few steps down the path. “I don’t think that’s—it doesn’t look like Delby from here.”

  Miss Dimple followed, shoving aside a low-hanging magnolia limb with her umbrella. “You’re right. It isn’t Delby.… My goodness, I do believe that’s Jasper Totherow!”

  Hearing remnants of their conversation, the person in question raised his head from the bench where he’d been sleeping and looked about. Seeing he’d been discovered, he shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and bolted, grabbing a bundle—probably clothing—at his feet. Then, to their astonishment, Jasper cleared the camellia bush at the edge of the porch in one leap and disappeared behind the building.

  “Jasper Totherow, you come right back here!” Miss Dimple demanded, but of course he ignored her and kept right on running. When they followed, there wasn’t one sign of that man in sight.

  “I suppose we should report this,” Charlie said after they had looked in every possible hiding place, “but I doubt if they’ll ever catch him now.”

  Crossing the street, they found the door of the Elderberry Eagle unlocked, and Thad pointed out the telephone without even asking why they seemed so eager to use it, then went back to his Linotype.

  “Well, I guess that means the scalawag isn’t dead,” Chief Tinsley said when Charlie told him whom they’d seen. “I figured Jasper was too slippery to stand still long enough for somebody to catch up with him.”

  “Then why did Lee Anne and Ruthie say he was dead?” Charlie asked.

  “I reckon he could’ve been sleeping, but it seems more likely he got stunned by lightning,” the chief explained. “That was a pretty bad storm and there was a big scorch mark on a pine tree not three feet from where they said they found him.”

  Miss Dimple and Annie had chosen to wait on the sidewalk to avoid the dense fog of cigar smoke inside, and after telephoning, Charlie hurried to join them. “The chief said he’d send somebody over here to try to round Jasper up,” she told them. She was hoping the delay would encourage Miss Dimple to forget about the walnuts, but of course it didn’t.

  The courthouse clock was striking ten by the time they returned from Minnie Prescott’s with a paper bag filled with black walnuts, and the two younger teachers sat on Phoebe’s back steps and cracked them with a hammer while Miss Dimple picked out the nut meats. When the cookies were ready, the three went together to deliver them to Clay at the city jail.

  They were relieved to find him playing checkers with Dickson Perry, who delivered meals to the jail from Ray’s Café, and the tantalizing smell of fried chicken wafted from a covered container on the counter. Miss Dimple took comfort in the knowledge that at least Clay wasn’t going hungry.

  When the others arrived, Dickson made excuses to leave, and it was a good thing, Charlie thought, as there was barely room for the four of them in Clay’s tiny cell. She thought Clay looked thinner in spite of Ray’s famous fried okra, cream gravy, and biscuits, and his healthy tan seemed to have paled, even though he had been locked away for only a short time.

  “How are you, Clay?” Miss Dimple asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m all right.”

  “No, really. How are you?” she repeated.

  “Have you ever wished you would wake up and discover you’d been dreaming? I keep hoping that will happen to me. It’s all like a horrible nightmare, and the worst part is, I know I
’m not going to wake up,” Clay said. “I was working in the orchard all morning the day Prentice was taken, but unfortunately, nobody saw me there to prove it.”

  Miss Dimple sat in the chair Dickson had vacated so that Clay, who had stood when they entered, would take the other seat on his bunk. Charlie and Annie lingered close to the barred door, which had shut with an echoing clang behind their backs.

  Now Dimple leaned forward in her chair. “Clay, are you certain that you saw Hattie McGee as recently as you say?”

  “Hattie or somebody dressed like Hattie. Grady saw her, too.”

  “I wonder if anyone else did,” Miss Dimple said. “It’s obvious that whoever was posing as Hattie wanted to be noticed.”

  Charlie spoke up suddenly. “Miss Bertie saw her, too. Remember when she went with me to talk with Bo Keever the other day? When we were driving back, I said something about finding Hattie’s wheelbarrow with bottles still in it in back of her place, and Miss Bertie told me she’d seen her in town not too long ago. It was a hot day and she called to her to offer a ride, but Hattie acted like she didn’t hear her.”

  Clay spoke in a monotone. “Because it wasn’t Hattie,” he said.

  “Then who was it?” Annie asked. “And why would anybody go to all that trouble when he or she knew Hattie was already dead?”

  Clay looked from one to the other. “I think somebody was looking for something and wanted more time to search.”

  “Looking for what?” Charlie asked.

  Clay shook his head. “I wish I knew, but whoever it was didn’t take time to put things back the way they were. That trailer’s in a mess.”

  “Whoever it was certainly wasn’t thinking clearly if the intention was to get everyone to believe Hattie died later than she did simply to throw the investigators off track.” Miss Dimple rose to leave. “That might have some effect in the cold of winter, but…”

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Everyone understood what she was trying to say.