The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Every last penny is gone,” Liz replied wretchedly. “Mama has no income, and no way to repay the loan, and Mr. Johnson is foreclosing. He told her that she has to be out by October fifteenth.”

  “October fifteenth!” Verna exclaimed. “But he has to give her more time than that!”

  “She’s had time, Verna. She got the notice in April. You know my mother-she deliberately waited to spring this on me until the very last minute, when there was nothing more that could be done.”

  Verna shook her head despairingly. In the probate office where she worked, she heard hard-luck stories like this every day, a lot of them involving the Darling Savings and Trust. Once one of the most respected men in Darling, Mr. George E. Picket Johnson, was well on the way to becoming the most hated-especially since it had been revealed, just a few months before, that he had made unsecured loans to Mrs. Johnson’s father and brother, prompting the bank examiner to put the Savings and Trust on the “troubled banks” list. The family loans had been repaid and the bank was back on solid footing, but people in town still suspected him of playing fast and loose with their money.

  “What’s your mother going to do?” Verna asked. To the south, over the trees, lightning flashed again.

  “What do you think?” Liz asked helplessly. She was crying now, twin rivulets of tears streaking her cheeks. “She intends to move in with me, naturally! But just until I marry Grady, of course.” She gulped back a sob and her voice became bitter. “After that, she has the idea that I will go live with him and she can stay in my beautiful little house forever-without paying any rent, of course, since she doesn’t have any money. And where she’s going to get the money for groceries and the doctor, I don’t know. Or even to keep on paying Sally-Lou the pittance she pays her now.”

  Verna put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. “I am so sorry, Liz,” she said sympathetically, and then became practical. “But you and I both know that you can’t live with your mother again. Not now. Not after you’ve had your own place.”

  She might well have added, “Not after you have declared your personal independence,” but she didn’t. Verna knew very well how much courage and hard-won maturity it had taken for Liz to escape from her domineering mother’s control. And she also knew that Liz hadn’t escaped very far. Not far enough, probably-just across the street. She thought fleetingly of Bessie’s fiancé. Poor Bessie was probably right. He had fled Darling to escape from his sister.

  “You’re right,” Liz said fiercely. “I can’t live with her again. But I can’t allow her to be put out onto the street, can I?” She wiped her eyes. “I’m going to talk to Mr. Johnson tomorrow. Maybe I can get him to put off the foreclosure until I can figure out what to do.”

  Verna was silent for a moment, thinking what to say and how to say it. She wasn’t excited at the thought of having a roommate, even a temporary one. But she knew what a calamity it would be for Liz if she had to live with her mother again.

  “Well, if worse comes to worst,” she said at last, “and you feel that you have no alternative but to let your mother move into your house, you can come and stay with me. I have an extra bedroom, you know. I’ll be glad to share.”

  “Thank you,” Liz replied simply. Her brown eyes were swimming with tears and her delicate chin quivered. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”

  “You’re welcome,” Verna said. She felt a splat of something warm and wet on her arm, and looked down. Liz’s tears?

  No. At that moment, the heavens opened and the rain began to pour.

  The shower was brief but heavy, and by the time Verna had dashed the two blocks to her house, she was thoroughly soaked. She lived at the corner of Larkspur Lane and Robert E. Lee Street, in the same two-bedroom white frame house that she and Walter had bought after they were married. She had paid off the mortgage with Walter’s insurance money, updated the plumbing and installed electric lights, and figured she would live there the rest of her life. She liked her privacy, but if Liz couldn’t work things out with her mother and needed a place to stay, she’d make room. Times were hard right now, and lots of people had to make unexpected-and sometimes unwelcome-compromises. Not that having Liz staying with her was unwelcome, exactly. It would take some getting used to, though.

  Verna was met at the front door by her feisty black Scottie, Clyde, who let her know in no uncertain terms that he was glad she was home and hoped that she wouldn’t be going out again anytime soon. She knelt down and ruffled his shiny black fur.

  “What would you say if Liz’s orange tabby moved in with us?” she asked. It was a serious question, because Clyde was decidedly territorial. If Liz came to live with her, he might have a hard time compromising with Daffy.

  Clyde declined to comment on the possibility of a cat but felt strongly about the prospect of dinner, which according to his reckoning was already a half-hour late. So Verna hurried to her bedroom, where she stripped off and hung up her wet things, toweled her hair, and pulled on a green print housedress. Her next stop was the kitchen, where she took an open can of Ken-L Ration out of the icebox and mixed it with some leftover mashed potatoes and a little hamburger from last night’s dinner. As usual, Clyde made short work of it.

  She let the dog into the fenced backyard and glanced at the clock. It was time for her own supper, so she opened the icebox and took out a couple of eggs, a small tomato, an onion, some parsley, and a package of Velveeta cheese. She beat the eggs with a couple of spoonfuls of cream and cooked them in a skillet on her gas range. She added chopped tomato, onion, and parsley and some thin slices of Velveeta, then folded the omelet in half and slipped it onto a plate. She poured herself a glass of milk from the bottle in the icebox, took off her apron, and sat down to eat at the kitchen table, her current reading propped up on the green glass butter dish in front of her.

  Usually, this was a mystery from the library, but tonight she was reading a story in the crime fiction magazine The Black Mask, one of the pulps that she enjoyed. The story involved a Chicago gangster who was trying his best to go straight, but kept getting hooked back into a life of crime. It was the same issue of the magazine (September 1929) that had carried the first installment of an exciting novel-The Maltese Falcon-by a new writer, Dashiell Hammett. Verna had copies of the third and fourth installments (in the November and December issues of the magazine) but she was still looking for the other two issues, so she could read the whole story from start to finish. She had heard that the book would be out soon, but she doubted that Miss Rogers would get it for the Darling library. Miss Rogers was not a fan of hard-boiled detectives. She wouldn’t like Sam Spade. And anyway, there might not be any money for new library books. The town budget was getting awfully tight.

  Verna was deep in her story when she heard Clyde-always a reliable watchdog-barking at the side fence and then a sharp rapping at the front door. She turned the magazine over to mark her place and went to the door. Standing on the porch was a complete stranger, a man she had never seen before. He was heavy-bodied, with a round, jovial face, small eyes, and a fleshy-lipped smile that showed off a gold tooth. He looked like a dandy in a gray woolen double-breasted suit, vest, blue silk tie, hat, and polished black shoes. When he raised his hat, she could see that he was completely bald.

  “Good evenin’, ma’am,” he said in a flat, expressionless voice that carried a slight lisp and was colored by a definite Yankee accent. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m lookin’ for a lady friend who’s visitin’ in your fine little town.” He reached into the breast pocket of his suit and produced a small black-and-white snapshot with a white, wavy-edged border. “A real looker, she is. A blonde. I been askin’ around, tryin’ to find somebody who knows where she’s stayin’.”

  It was Miss Jamison. She was turned half away from the camera, smiling coyly over her shoulder, her chin buried in the luxurious fur stole that was thrown over the shoulder of her elegant wool coat. Her pale hair, marcelled, could be seen beneath a stylish, narrow-brimm
ed dark felt hat with a single pheasant feather. She looked confident, sure of herself, and slyly flirtatious. In the background of the photograph was a redbrick building. It bore the street number 4823.

  Verna felt a cold shiver across her shoulder blades, but something told her that it wouldn’t be smart to let on that she recognized the woman in the photograph or the street number on the building. “Pretty,” she said, pretending to study it. “Nice fur, too. What did you say her name is?”

  The man’s hard gray eyes were as flat and expressionless as his voice. “Well, sometimes it’s one name, sometimes another. Could be she’s usin’ the name LaMotte. Lorelei LaMotte.”

  With a shake of her head, Verna handed the photo back to the man. “Haven’t seen her. I’m sure I’d remember if I had. You say she’s a friend?”

  He nodded curtly and pocketed the photograph. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye out. I’ve got something to give her-a repayment on a loan. She’d sure as shootin’ hate to miss out on that, so you’ll be doing her a big favor to help me find her.”

  “Sure thing,” Verna replied in a careless tone. “If I see her, I’ll let you know. Where are you staying?”

  “Where else?” His harsh laugh turned into a harsher cough. “The only hotel in town. If I ain’t around, leave a message for Mr. Gold-that’s me. I’ll be here through tomorrow, at least. Maybe longer. Good evenin’, ma’am.”

  He tipped his hat politely and went down the path to the street. As she watched from behind the lace curtain on the door, Verna saw a bulge under his suit coat. She had never seen one, but she had read enough descriptions of such a thing to know exactly what she was looking at. A shoulder holster.

  She shivered again, watching Mr. Gold cross Larkspur Lane and walk up Robert E. Lee in the direction of the hotel. But he turned in at the first house up the block. Clearly, he was canvassing the neighborhood. Sooner or later, he was bound to run into someone who had seen the woman he was looking for. Miss LaMotte’s platinum hair was a dead giveaway, and his claim that he had money for her would encourage someone to tell him where she was staying.

  Frowning, Verna dropped the curtain, turned away from the door, and crossed the living room to the bookshelf where she kept her collection of true crime magazines. She picked up one and leafed through it, then another. In the third, she found what she was looking for. She had remembered correctly, and her breath came quicker.

  She went straight to the telephone on the wall, gave a short crank, and when the operator answered (it was Olive, sounding very froggy with her cold), gave Liz’s number. In a moment, Liz herself was on the line.

  Mindful that someone else was probably listening-like most people in town, both she and Liz had a party line-Verna measured her words.

  “You remember what I asked you this afternoon, Liz, about looking for that address in the file? Well, it turns out to be important, after all. The lady we were talking about-she definitely has a connection with that man who’s been in the news recently. The man in Cicero.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish,” Verna replied.

  There was an astonished silence as Liz processed this. “How do you know?” she asked cautiously.

  “A gentleman came to my door just now. Said his name was Gold, and that he’s looking for her and her friend. He showed me a photo of her standing in front of a building with a street number on it.” Verna couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. “Liz, it was the very same number as the hotel I mentioned to you!” According to the Dime Detective, 4823-the number on the wall of the building in the photo-was the address of the Western Hotel, on Twenty-second Street in Cicero. The place where Al Capone hung out.

  A longer silence. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Liz said at last, with a little whoosh of her breath.

  “On my honor,” Verna replied grimly. “It’s true, every word of it. I just double checked the street number in the magazine where I read about it.” She took a deep, shivery breath. “And what’s more, I have the feeling that the gentleman who came to my door is an associate of that fellow we’re talking about.”

  Liz gulped. “Gee whiz,” she said incredulously. “You mean-”

  “That’s right,” Verna said quickly. “That’s exactly who I mean. And now I really do need your help, Liz. The address of that house you mentioned-do you think you could get it to me tomorrow morning?”

  “I… I can’t promise,” Liz said slowly. “I’m not sure I ought to do it. And anyway, what makes you think that an address will be any help?”

  “I know it’s a long shot. But given the situation, don’t you think somebody ought to… investigate?”

  “Well, I’ll think about it,” Liz said at last.

  “Thank you.” Verna knew that Liz took her work-and its confidentiality-seriously. A promise to think about it was the best she was going to get.

  She said good-bye and hung up, but she didn’t go back to her book. She was remembering the bulge of the shoulder holster under Mr. Gold’s coat and the hard look in his eyes when he said Lorelei LaMotte’s name. Fictional detectives-not even those tough-talking tough guys she liked to read about-no longer seemed terribly exciting, not when she suspected that she had just been talking to one of Al Capone’s henchmen, in person!

  But while Verna was sure that she could trust her instincts on this, she knew that suspicion wasn’t enough. She needed to find out whether this man was really connected to Capone-some sort of positive identification. But what?

  She went back to the kitchen table and sat down to think for a few minutes. She picked up a pencil and doodled on a piece of paper, pushing her lips in and out, in and out, still thinking. Outside in the yard, Clyde was barking excitedly again-this time, to announce the arrival of their next-door neighbor, Buddy Norris. At the sound, Verna got up and went to the window that looked out on the grassy side yard between her house and the Norris place, where Buddy-a Cypress County deputy sheriff-lived with his elderly father.

  Actually, Verna didn’t need Clyde’s barking to know that Buddy had arrived. The racket of Buddy’s motorcycle took care of that. He rode a 1927 red Indian Ace, which, if truth be told, was probably the reason Roy Burns had picked him to be his deputy. Sheriff Burns had read that the New York Police Department’s crack motorcycle squad rode nothing but Indian Aces, so when Buddy applied for the position vacated by the retiring deputy, the sheriff hired him without hesitation. Buddy’s Indian Ace gave Sheriff Burns the right to brag that Cypress County had the only mounted deputy in all of southern Alabama.

  Frowning speculatively, Verna watched as Buddy-who everybody said looked so much like Charles Lindbergh that he could be his brother-cut the engine on his motorcycle. He swung a leg over, got off, and pushed it toward the back of the house. He was favoring his arm, which he had broken some months before when he rode his motorcycle through Jed Snow’s cousin’s corncrib. Buddy had always been a reckless sort.

  Verna tilted her head, watching him. She didn’t think much of Sheriff Burns, who kept his job by staying on the good side of the local heavyweights. Of course, Darling wasn’t Cicero or Chicago, and its law enforcement officers didn’t have to deal with any serious lawlessness, except for bootlegging, of course. Even so, when it came to investigations, Sheriff Burns didn’t display a lot of initiative. And when it came to fighting crime, he wasn’t inclined to step out swinging.

  But Buddy was a different matter. If push came to shove, he might-just might-be useful in dealing with Mr. Gold. For one thing, he was enterprising, and even ambitious, always looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. He was smart: he had bought a mail-order how-to book on scientific crime detection from the Institute of Applied Sciences in Chicago and taught himself how to take fingerprints, identify firearms, and take “crime scene” photographs. He had taught himself to shoot, too. Verna knew this for a fact, because he’d rigged up a shooting range in the pasture behind the Norris house and spent a couple of hours a week (and way too mu
ch expensive ammunition) practicing with his service revolver, much to the consternation of Mr. Norris’ old horse Racer, who lived in that pasture and hated loud noises. And because he had only recently celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday, Buddy was inclined to believe that he was immortal, which made him brave, as well as reckless. If there was trouble, Deputy Norris might be a good man to have around.

  But there wasn’t any trouble just yet, Verna thought. And there was no point involving Buddy until she had some idea what kind of situation she’d be asking him to get involved in. Still staring out the window, she thought for several moments, then turned and went to the telephone again.

  She rang up Coretta Cole, her part-time assistant in the probate clerk’s office, to see if she could come in the next morning, instead of her usual Tuesday. When Coretta agreed, Verna thanked her, hung up, and stood for a moment, debating whether to telephone Myra May or walk up the street to the diner and have a conversation with her in person.

  She decided on the conversation, since the favor she had to ask was a little complicated and might require that Myra May bend a few rules. She would rather ask the favor face-to-face. And she certainly didn’t want to risk anybody listening in.

  She pulled on a cardigan over her housedress and went out into the quiet Sunday evening twilight.

  NINE

  Beulah’s New Customer

  When Beulah Trivette woke up on Monday morning and began to think about the week ahead, she counted herself as the luckiest woman in Darling-and with good reason. She herself was beautiful, a fact that she recognized every time she looked into the mirror and saw her blond curls, her dimples, her generous mouth, and those cornflower blue eyes. What’s more, she had a deep-seated artistic appreciation for true beauty. And even better, she had the privilege of spending all day, every day (except Sunday, of course), making ordinary women pretty and pretty women beautiful. Which as she saw it, was one of the worthiest occupations any woman could be lucky enough to choose.