The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Yes, sir,” she said. Not wanting to be put off, she persisted. “But what about that bank examiner?”

  “Is this the Cooper file?” He picked up a manila folder from her desk.

  “Yes, sir. But what about—”

  He gave her a hard, straight look, his courtroom look. “I can’t talk about it, Lizzy. There is a problem at the bank, yes. It may be a serious problem. That’s all I can say. And even if I knew the whole story—which I don’t, not yet—I couldn’t tell you. And that’s a fact.”

  She frowned. A serious problem? Of course it was a serious problem! Something was going on at the bank and nobody was supposed to know anything about it. But the bank was the heart of the town. If it failed—

  He paused, pursed his lips, and regarded her narrowly. “I don’t suppose it’s any of my business, Liz, but have you been seeing Grady Alexander long?”

  The suddenness of the question startled her. She swallowed. “A ... while.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  She tilted her head, catching the clear implication, which offended her, although she wasn’t sure why. “Pretty well,” she replied defensively.

  But it was a silly question. She’d have to know a man very well before she let him kiss her like that, wouldn’t she? She wasn’t the kind of girl who went around kissing everybody who wore pants.

  Half-defiantly, wanting to show him that she had some important news, too, she straightened her shoulders and added: “Grady found a dead girl in Pine Mill Creek yesterday, and I identified her. It was Bunny Scott. He stopped in just now to tell me that she didn’t die in the car wreck. She was shot.”

  What happened next was totally out of the blue.

  “Bunny—The dead girl—” Mr. Moseley stared at her, first disbelief, then dismay written across his face. “Bunny? She’s ... dead? Good Lord!”

  Lizzy was jolted. It sounded as if—“You knew her?”

  He half-turned away, his hand over his mouth, as if he were gagging. “Yes. I mean, I know who she is. Was. The blonde who worked at Lima’s. Right? You say she was ... shot? Somebody killed her?” His voice was gruff and shaky, and then half-pleading. “Oh, God. Jesus, Liz. You’re kidding, aren’t you? You’re making this up?”

  It took a moment to persuade him that she wasn’t kidding, a little longer to tell him the full story. About Grady coming to town for the sheriff and for Charlie Dickens. About going out there with Grady and Charlie and seeing the body and knowing who it was from the hair and the rhinestone bracelet. And then about Grady telling her that Bunny was shot and the car pushed into the creek, with the ignition key off.

  “Grady says it was a twenty-two. Dr. Roberts retrieved the bullet.” Lizzy swallowed. Her mouth had gone dry and she was trembling. “From inside Bunny’s ... skull.” Somehow it was that detail that made it so much more horrible, the finding of the bullet that had killed her, somewhere inside her head.

  “Good Lord,” Mr. Moseley said, very low. He passed his hand across his forehead, wincing as if he himself were feeling the pain of the bullet. His words were ragged, as if his throat was clogged. “She was so alive. I can’t believe—”

  “I’m sorry,” Lizzy said, feeling inadequate, trying to think of what to say. “If I’d known that you knew her, I wouldn’t have—”

  “I didn’t know her,” he cut in harshly. He put up his hand as if to stop her, physically, from going a step farther. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, now thoroughly confused. She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean ... I wasn’t—”

  “Listen to me, Lizzy.” He gave his words an abrupt staccato emphasis. “I did not know that woman. Do you understand me?”

  She blinked, speechless. Her heart was pounding. After a moment, she whispered, “Honestly, Mr. Moseley, I really didn’t think—”

  “Then don’t,” he snapped, striding toward his office. “You’re not paid to think.” He opened the door and went in, closing it behind him, not quite slamming it, but almost.

  Lizzy sat for a moment, almost in shock, feeling bruised and swollen, as if he had hit her. Mr. Moseley had never spoken to her like that before. He had always been courteous, respectful, even attentive, as if he cared what she thought, how she felt, even if she was only his secretary. He had helped her handle the purchase of her house and offered her advice on the remodeling work. He had given her time off when her mother was sick. He had never—

  She stopped.

  All of that was true. And all of it made what had just happened entirely inexplicable, another of the entirely inexplicable things that seemed to be happening in the past couple of days.

  But it wasn’t inexplicable, was it? If Mr. Moseley had been secretly seeing Bunny Scott—

  She pushed her chair away from the typewriter, feeling a sharp stab of anger that she might have recognized as jealousy, if she had been a little more experienced in that emotion. Well, to hell with him. She hadn’t meant anything by what she said. The thought of Mr. Benton Moseley and Bunny Scott had never once come into her mind—not until he had put it there himself, just now, with all those denials.

  She took a deep breath. The world might be going to hell in a handbasket, but there was work to be done. And work was the sheltering wall behind which Lizzy Lacy had always taken refuge when things became difficult. She reached for the stack of mail Mr. Moseley had brought from the post office and began to open the envelopes, slitting each one with careful precision, taking out and unfolding the contents and neatly paper-clipping everything to the envelope before putting it in the appropriate stack, concentrating on this task as if it were really important, pushing everything else out of her mind.

  There were two checks from clients, and she set them aside to be entered in the office accounts ledger. There was the six-month invoice for the lease payment for the office space, to be paid to Charlie Dickens, who owned the building. There was a bill for the repair of Mr. Moseley’s automobile, which she would pay from his personal account, and another from—

  Dismayed, she stared at the envelope she had just opened. It was from Ettlinger’s Fine Jewelry, in Mobile.

  In it was an invoice for twenty-six dollars.

  For a rhinestone bracelet, engraved with the initials ELS.

  FOURTEEN

  Verna and Lizzy: On the Case

  When lunchtime came around, Verna was still trying to deal with the upsetting news she’d gotten from Myra May and Ophelia’s surprising revelation about Bunny and Mr. Lima. She closed and locked the office and went outside, pausing to admire the summer annuals—zinnias, marigolds, and petunias—that were beginning to bloom in the sunny strip along both sides of the walk. She bent down to pull a couple of volunteer weeds. The Dahlias had planted the beds six weeks before. They’d be blooming most of the summer and would strike a bright and cheerful note in the courthouse square—something the whole town would need, if the unthinkable happened and the Darling Savings and Trust failed.

  She went to the usual lunchtime spot beneath the chinaberry tree and sat down. When Lizzy crossed the street and sat down beside her, Verna looked at her friend in surprise.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, as Lizzy pulled a paper bag out of her purse and took out a sandwich and boiled egg. She had so much to tell, but the look on Lizzy’s face made her hold her tongue.

  “What’s wrong?” she repeated urgently.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Lizzy replied in a high, unnatural voice. She cleared her throat and repeated it. “Nothing’s wrong. Whatever makes you think that?” She unwrapped a ham-and-sliced-tomato sandwich, laid it on its wax paper, and began peeling the egg. The shell flecked off unevenly, pulling chunks of egg with it.

  Verna grunted. “Then why are you looking like somebody just socked you in the stomach? And the way you’re attacking that poor, defenseless egg—there won’t be anything left by the time you finish butchering it.”

  Lizzy didn’t say anything for a moment. Then sh
e put down the egg and pulled in a ragged breath. “Grady came to the office this morning to tell me that Bunny didn’t die in the car wreck, Verna. She was shot. In the head. Point-blank.”

  “Shot!” Verna exclaimed, thunderstruck. “That’s incredible!”

  She listened to Lizzy, trying to comprehend the story that spilled out incoherently, the whole unbelievable thing, from somebody shooting Bunny and pushing the car into the ravine to Mr. Moseley being terribly upset by the news—and finally Lizzy’s discovery of the invoice for the engraved rhinestone bracelet from Ettlinger’s.

  “Bunny and Benton Moseley!” By now, Verna was nearly weak from shock. “Gracious sakes, Lizzy! That girl had more men on her string than anybody can count. Do you think Mr. Moseley gave her the pearl earrings, too? Or was that somebody else? And who the devil shot her?” She leaned forward and dropped her voice, although nobody was listening. “You don’t think it was Mr. Moseley, do you?”

  “No, I do not think it was Mr. Moseley,” Lizzy parroted in a bitterly mocking tone. “You can give a girl a bracelet without being suspected of murdering her, can’t you? And Mr. Moseley simply couldn’t kill anybody. I know him, Verna. He’s not that kind of man.”

  Verna didn’t want to say so, but Lizzy was probably still carrying a torch for Mr. Moseley, whether she knew it or not. And the truth was that somebody had shot Bunny Scott and tried to make it look like she had been killed in an accident with a stolen automobile. That required planning ability and intelligence, didn’t it? Mr. Moseley certainly had plenty of both.

  And now it was clear that he could have had a motive, too. Maybe he’d had a fancy for Bunny and she was trying to break it off. Or maybe Bunny was threatening to tell his wife. Then she remembered what Ophelia had told her about Lester Lima kissing Bunny behind the curtain. Mr. Lima could have had the very same motive. Mentally, Verna put both of them at the top of the suspect list.

  Lizzy finished her sandwich and refolded the wax paper so she could use it again. “Well, if you ask me, Verna,” she said in a definitive tone, “it was the escaped convict who killed her. He’s been on the loose for over a week now, hiding somewhere around here. He’s desperate to get away. He took Bunny hostage, stole Mr. Harper’s brother’s car, and when Bunny tried to escape, he shot her. Mr. Moseley had nothing whatever to do with anything—except that he ... he knew ...”

  She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “He knew Bunny. I don’t know how well, and I don’t care.” She blew her nose again.

  “You may be right about the convict, Lizzy.” Verna patted her hand sympathetically, mentally adding the convict to her suspect list. “And I certainly understand how you feel about Mr. Moseley. But listen, I’ve got some news, too. About Bunny—and about Alice Ann Walker.”

  She told Lizzy what Ophelia had told her—that Mildred Kilgore had seen Bunny and Lester Lima kissing behind the curtain at the drugstore—and reported that Myra May had heard Hiram Riley and the bank examiner talking about Alice Ann Walker being questioned as a suspected embezzler.

  “Alice Ann, an embezzler?” Like Verna, Lizzy was both incredulous and indignant. “Why, that’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard! The Walkers are poor as church mice. What in the world would she do with that kind of money? She couldn’t spend it around here—somebody would see it and wonder where she got it. And she wouldn’t do anything to endanger the bank, either. She knows how much Darling depends on it.”

  She paused, shaking her head sadly. “But Bunny and Mr. Lester—Somehow, that’s easier to believe. Remember what Bunny said the other day?”

  “About what?”

  “That Lester Lima isn’t the gentleman he’s supposed to be?”

  Verna was thoughtful. “And there was Nadine Tillman,” she said slowly, thinking about what Ophelia had told her. “Remember her?”

  Lizzy frowned. “She worked at the drugstore last summer, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, until she got fired. Nadine told her mother that Mr. Lima got fresh with her and her mother told Mrs. Lima. Mrs. Lima fired her. Nadine left for Chicago and hasn’t been heard from since.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Lizzy said breathlessly.

  “Yes. And now there’s Bunny.”

  Lizzy’s eyes widened. “You’re saying that Mr. Lester—” She swallowed. “Both of them?”

  “I’m not saying anything, Lizzy. We don’t have enough facts to draw any conclusions.” Nevertheless, Verna moved Lester Lima to the top of her suspect list. “But I like your idea about the convict taking Bunny hostage and forcing her to help him steal the car. It makes sense, Lizzy.” Mentally, she moved “escaped convict” to the Number Two position. Which left Mr. Moseley at Number Three.

  “Well, I’m glad you think so,” Lizzy said gloomily. “Nothing makes much sense to me. We know where the bracelet came from, but what about those pearl earrings? And the deposit book you saw in the drawer—where was she getting the money? That’s all part of the puzzle, too. I have the feeling that Bunny Scott wasn’t the person we thought she was. There are just too many mysteries floating around. We don’t know enough about her.”

  Those pearl earrings. Verna felt a wrench of guilt. They were in her purse at this moment, in that little wooden box. She had been worrying about them since yesterday, wishing she hadn’t foolishly taken them out of Bunny’s dressing table drawer. Of course, Bunny was dead now and it wasn’t likely that Mrs. Brewster or her girls were aware of them. If they had been, the pearls probably wouldn’t have stayed in the drawer. Still, what she had done was stealing, and Verna knew it. She had to put them back, if she could only figure out how.

  But there wasn’t any point in bringing that up. What she said was, “I agree, Liz. There are too many mysteries, and more are popping up all the time. What’s worse, we don’t know if what we don’t know about Bunny has anything to do with her being in that car.”

  Lizzy looked confused, but nodded.

  Verna got up and brushed off her dress. “We have to clear up the mysteries. So I vote that we pursue our investigation, starting with the Palace. Maybe Don Greer will remember who Bunny was with on Saturday night.”

  “I’m with you,” Lizzy said, getting to her feet. “Let’s go.”

  The movie house was a long, narrow building fronted by a fancy marquee, with the words The Palace in pink neon and dozens of lightbulbs studding the canopy. The marquee also displayed the name of the movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail, which would be showing for the next two weeks.

  The ticket taker’s glass booth was empty and closed, but the theater’s double doors were propped open. Verna led the way inside, into a thick dimness that smelled of dusty carpets, stale popcorn, and toasted peanuts. The ceiling was painted dark blue, with glittery silver stars pasted to it. The foyer walls were plastered with movie posters from recent shows: Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus; The Wind, with the beautiful Lillian Gish; and the Buster Keaton comedy, The Cameraman. Verna had seen every one of them at least once.

  Off to the right was the candy counter, where Mrs. Greer sold Mounds and Milky Ways and Milk Duds, as well as red-and-white-striped paper bags of popcorn out of the Butter-Kist electric popcorn machine and bags of hot peanuts out of the peanut toaster. Beside the counter stood a red Coca-Cola cooler, where customers could put in a nickel and get a bottle of icy-cold Coke. Mrs. Greer had been heard to say that they made as much money from candy, popcorn, peanuts, and Cokes as they did from movie tickets. It didn’t seem to matter that some people were too hard up to buy groceries. They still came out to see the picture show, share a bag of hot peanuts, and escape for a couple of hours from the harsh reality of the world.

  From somewhere inside the movie house, Verna could hear the sound of a vacuum sweeper running. She went to the leather-covered door that led into the auditorium and pushed it open. There were two narrow sections of red-plush seats, with a center aisle that led to a low wooden stage. On the wall at the back of the stage hung the silvery movie screen, now covered
with a heavy red drape. A few dim lights in candelabra brackets shone along the walls, and in their dusty glow, she saw Don Greer pushing the vacuum over the carpet, down at the front, near Mrs. LeVaughn’s black upright piano. He looked up when he saw them coming down the aisle toward him and switched off the Hoover. It shuddered into silence.

  “Hello, Mr. Greer,” Verna called.

  “Hullo, gals,” he said jocularly. The air was warm and stuffy, and he took out a handkerchief and rubbed it over his forehead and his nearly bald head. “We’re closed on Mondays. Don’cha know that by now?” He refolded the handkerchief. “Blackmail opens tomorrow night. Come back then and bring your friends.” He added, confidentially, “But don’t bring any Baptists.”

  This was a standing joke in town, because Baptists weren’t supposed to go to the picture show, where they could see people drinking and smoking and misbehaving—although of course they went anyway.

  He stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket, chuck-ling. “Y’all ain’t Baptists, I reckon.”

  “Not this week,” Verna said, matching his tone. “But we’re not here for the movie. We’re looking for some information. About a friend of ours.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, maybe I can help. What friend? What’s her name?”

  “Scott. Eva Louise Scott. The blonde who worked at Lima’s Drugstore.”

  “Oh, her.” Mr. Greer narrowed his eyes. “The girl who stole that Pontiac from that fella at the bank and drove it over the cliff into Pine Mill bottom.” There was sharp disapproval in his tone. “Dunno why Lester ever hired that one. Dead, ain’t she?”

  Verna and Lizzy exchanged glances, and Lizzy spoke up. “Yes, she’s dead, Mr. Greer. And we’re very upset about it. But nobody seems to know what really happened on Saturday night. We’re hoping to get some information that might help to answer some questions.”

  “Well ...” Mr. Greer hesitated. “Yeah, I did see her Saturday night, come to think of it. She was sittin’ close to the back, where she allus sits. That purty yella hair of hers—it shines real bright when the projector’s on.” He grunted. “Had her head on some young fella’s shoulder. Reckon he’s feelin’ kinda low about what happened.”