The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

by Susan Wittig Albert

  She stopped, hearing footsteps on the stairs, and her eyes widened. “Quick!” she hissed. “It might be the sheriff. Or Mr. Scroggins! I don’t want anybody to find me. Where can I hide?”

  Liz didn’t stop to ask why Verna thought the sheriff or Mr. Scroggins would be looking for her in Mr. Moseley’s law office. “In the broom closet,” she said quickly, and pointed.

  In a flash, Verna jumped out of her chair, disappeared into the closet, and pulled the door shut behind her.

  But it wasn’t the sheriff or Mr. Scroggins. Myra May Mosswell stepped through the door, carrying a basket full of groceries.

  “Well, hello again.” Lizzy was relieved to see her friend, but a little surprised. Myra May was always so busy at the diner in the mornings—she almost never took the time to drop in. And they had spoken just a little earlier. “Nice to see you, Myra May. Sit down and have a cup of coffee with me, won’t you?”

  At that moment, she saw Verna’s coffee cup and her untouched doughnut. Hoping that Myra May hadn’t noticed, she quickly gathered them off the desk.

  Myra May put her basket down beside the door and took the chair Verna had just vacated, not appearing to realize that the seat was still warm or that a cup of coffee and a doughnut had just disappeared from Lizzy’s desk. Her face was troubled and she leaned forward, her voice urgent.

  “No coffee, thanks. I really need to talk to you about Verna, Liz. I’m afraid she’s in serious trouble.”

  Lizzy wasn’t terribly surprised that Myra had some information, given what she had witnessed at the diner that morning, but she wasn’t sure how to respond. “What kind of trouble?” she asked, uncomfortably aware that Verna could hear every word.

  “Money trouble. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of trouble.”

  “Thousands?” Lizzy croaked, shocked. From what Verna had told her, she was aware that some amount seemed to be missing from the county treasury. But she had no idea how much. Thousands? That was real money. All of a sudden, Verna’s plight became more real, and much more frightening.

  Myra May was nodding. “Violet and I . . . well, we overheard several telephone conversations over the weekend.” She held up her hand. “I know, I know. We’re not supposed to listen in, and mostly we don’t. But once Violet heard how much money was involved and connected it with Verna’s office, we felt we had to. Now, I’m not sure what to do, whether I should tell Verna or—”

  “Of course you should tell me,” Verna said indignantly, pushing the closet door open and stepping out. “I need to know, Myra May. I have a right to know!”

  Myra May jerked around. “You were hiding, Verna!” she said in an accusing tone. “You were listening. You were eavesdropping!”

  “Pot calling the kettle black,” Verna muttered darkly.

  “Verna came here because she wanted to get Mr. Moseley’s advice about something that’s been bothering her,” Lizzy explained in a soothing tone. “When she heard you coming up the stairs, she thought you might be somebody she didn’t want to see.”

  “Then she went into the closet so she could eavesdrop,” Myra May said reproachfully.

  “Not exactly,” Verna replied. She pulled another chair forward and sat down. “But now that I’ve heard it, I want to know everything you know, Myra May. And I want to know now. So spill those beans.”

  Myra May became sympathetic. “I’m sure you do, Verna, and I don’t blame you one bit. If I were in your shoes, I’d want to know it, too. The trouble is, I don’t know what you can do about it.”

  “Well, we won’t know what we can or can’t do until you tell us what you know,” Lizzy pointed out, trying not to sound impatient. “Come on, Myra May. Now’s the time. Tell.”

  And for the next few minutes, Myra May told, while Verna listened in growing disbelief and Lizzy shook her head, clucking her tongue softly.

  “Fifteen thousand,” Verna said numbly. “I knew things were a mess in the treasurer’s office, but I had no idea the mess was that big.” She swallowed. “Fifteen thousand?” she repeated. “And they’re talking about restitution? That’s crazy, Myra May! I see the account books every week. The county doesn’t have that kind of money. It’s barely got enough to make the payroll.”

  “By restitution,” Lizzy said gently, “they probably meant that the thief—whoever it is—will have to give it back.”

  “And you said that Amos Tombull wanted to get the sheriff to investigate—” Verna began.

  “But Earle Scroggins didn’t,” Myra May broke in. “Which I couldn’t figure out.” She frowned. “You’d think Mr. Scroggins would want to get to the bottom of it right away, wouldn’t you? Maybe he doesn’t trust Sheriff Burns to handle the investigation.”

  “I wouldn’t blame him.” Lizzy giggled. “Mr. Moseley always says that Sheriff Burns couldn’t investigate his way out of a paper bag.” She paused, pursing her lips. “Or maybe Mr. Scroggins just doesn’t want to look bad. Maybe he thinks he can figure out what happened and take care of it himself without anybody else finding out.”

  “I think you’ve put your finger on it, Liz,” Verna said grimly. “Remember, he didn’t want Charlie Dickens getting wind of it. If people read in the newspaper that fifteen thousand dollars is missing from the treasurer’s office, they might blame Mr. Scroggins and refuse to reelect him. And the thing that man wants most in life is to win every election right up to the moment he keels over dead.” She smacked her fist against the arm of her chair. “Now I have fifteen thousand reasons to get started on my investigation—tonight!”

  Myra May gave her a quizzical glance. “Investigation?”

  Verna pulled herself up importantly. “I have a copy of the key to the office, Myra May. Tonight, after it gets dark, I’m going to have a look at those account books myself. I made notes while the auditor was doing his work. I’m sure I can figure out where that money went. And you mentioned that the state auditor is sending a report to the office. Maybe I can get a look at that. I might even be able to copy the pertinent information from it.”

  “Uh-oh,” Myra May said softly, ducking her head.

  Verna and Liz traded uneasy glances. “Uh-oh?” they asked in unison.

  “Yeah.” Myra May sighed. “There’s one thing I forgot to tell you. When Mr. Scroggins called Coretta Cole to ask her to come in and manage the office while you are taking a furlough, he said he was getting the locks changed. He would be giving her a new key.”

  “Getting the locks changed!” Verna wailed. “Oh, no! I can’t believe it! That means I can’t get into the office! I won’t be able to get a look at the books!”

  Lizzy couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief. But she only said, “Oh, that’s too bad, Verna.”

  But Verna wasn’t giving up so easily. After a moment, she said, “Both Melba Jean and Ruthie owe me. Maybe I can get one of them to loan me her key so I can copy it.”

  Myra May shook her head. “That won’t work, either, I’m afraid. Mr. Scroggins told Coretta that she’s supposed to unlock the office in the morning and lock it up in the evening. He doesn’t trust either of the women who work there. He says one of them has been carrying tales to the newspaper.” She wrinkled her nose. “Girls, he called them,” she said disgustedly. “I hate it when men call grown women girls.”

  “Carrying tales to the newspaper?” Lizzy asked. She considered. “I’ve always wondered how Charlie Dickens managed to find out so much about what was going on in the county treasurer’s office. It does seem that he’d have to have an inside source.”

  Verna bit her lip. “Well, I know I can’t get the new key from Coretta. If I even so much as hinted at it, she’d run straight to Mr. Scroggins and tell him. You can’t trust that woman any further than you can throw her.”

  “I have to agree, Verna,” Lizzy said ruefully. “Coretta definitely isn’t the most relia
ble person in the world. In my experience, she can’t keep a secret for more than about thirty seconds.” She qualified her statement. “At least, that’s the way she behaved when we were in school together. But that’s been a few years ago. Maybe she’s changed.”

  “I don’t know about keeping a secret,” Myra May replied, looking serious. “But if I were Mr. Scroggins, I wouldn’t depend on her to run my office. I don’t understand why he’s willing to put so much trust in her.” She paused, lifting her shoulders and letting them fall. “Well, I guess I’ve told you everything that Violet and I were able to learn. The question is, what’s next?”

  There was a silence. Verna looked down at her hands and twisted them in her lap. “I was banking on being able to get into the office and start my own investigation. But now that’s impossible.” She sighed heavily. “To tell the truth, I don’t . . . well, I don’t know what to do next.”

  It was unusual, Lizzy thought, for her friend to say anything like I don’t know. Verna always had the answer to everything. But what could they do?

  Myra May had mentioned that the auditor was mailing a report from the state office. “It’s too bad we can’t get our hands on that auditor’s report,” she mused. “It might have something we could go on. A hint as to where the money went, for instance. Maybe we could ask Melba Jean or Ruthie to see if they could get it for us?”

  “Maybe,” Myra May agreed. “As long as they don’t tell Mr. Scroggins.”

  Verna shook her head. “They wouldn’t do it,” she said gloomily. “They’d be too afraid of getting fired. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust them to keep their lips buttoned. Both of them talk too much.”

  Lizzy picked up a pencil and began to doodle on her desk blotter. What would Mr. Moseley do if he were here right now? She drew a question mark, then drew a circle around it. If Verna were his client, how would he advise her?

  Verna straightened her shoulders. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing I am not going to do,” she said determinedly. “I am not going home and wait for somebody to knock on my door and accuse me of taking fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “You mean, you’re going to hide out?” Myra May asked, puzzled. “But where?”

  “I don’t have any idea.” Verna’s shoulders slumped again. “To tell the truth, Myra May, I am totally frazzled. I haven’t had any sleep for two nights, worrying about this. I had a plan—a really swell plan for conducting my own investigation—but now I can’t get into the office. I don’t know what’s next.”

  Lizzy had to admit that she had no idea what Mr. Moseley would advise Verna. But all of a sudden, she knew what she should do. She put the pencil down and stood up behind her desk, taking charge of the situation.

  “Myra May,” she said, “I’m afraid that you and Violet already know way too much about this situation. Too much for your own good, I mean. We don’t want anybody else getting into trouble over this. So it’s better if you don’t know where Verna is going or what she’s going to do. That way, if anybody comes around asking where she is, you can tell them you have no idea.”

  “Wait a minute,” Verna put in. “Where am I going? What am I going to do?”

  “Good-bye, Myra May,” Lizzy said with great firmness. “Thank you for coming to tell us what you know.” When Myra May just sat there, looking puzzled, she added sweetly, “It’s really time for you to go now, don’t you think? You must have a lot of work to do this morning.”

  “Oh, sure,” Verna said, suddenly understanding. “Yes, thank you, Myra May. We don’t want to keep you any longer. But you will keep us posted, won’t you? If you happen to hear anything else, I mean.”

  Myra May got the hint. Smiling, she stood and pushed her chair back. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ve got to get Euphoria’s groceries back to the diner, and then I’m headed over to the Beauty Bower to get a shampoo and a haircut.” She bent over and gave Verna a quick kiss on the cheek, then lifted her hand to Lizzy. “Hope it all turns out okay. You two be good now, you hear?”

  “We hear,” Lizzy said, and grinned. “We’ll try.”

  “No, we won’t,” Verna put in, and managed a small smile.

  A moment later, Myra May could be heard clattering down the stairs. “Well?” Verna asked, as the footsteps faded away. “You obviously have something in mind, Liz. What is it?”

  “Hang on.” Lizzy was reaching for the telephone. “I’ve got a couple of calls to make. Then we can figure out what to do.”

  A few moments later, both conversations concluded, Lizzy put down the telephone and turned back to Verna.

  “How would you like to spend a few days in the country?” she asked.

  EIGHT

  Ophelia

  When Angelina Biggs telephoned that Monday morning and asked if she could stop in for a few minutes, Ophelia Snow was glad to say yes. Angelina was a dozen years older, so they hadn’t been friends in school. But they liked each other, and since Darling was a small town and both were heavily involved in community affairs, they bumped into one another quite often, although never quite as violently as Angelina had bumped into Bessie earlier that morning.

  Over the years, Ophelia and Angelina had come to share several common interests. They were good cooks, and they both liked to sew. Ophelia’s layer cakes always took the blue ribbon at the Cypress County Fair, and Angelina made up the menus and supervised the kitchen at the Old Alabama Hotel, where her husband was the manager. Angelina had taught Ophelia her three personal secrets for 100 percent successful meringues. (“Let the egg whites warm up to room temperature after you’ve separated them from the yolks—and be sure there’s not a speck of yolk in the whites. When you’ve beat up a good, strong froth, add a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar to stabilize it, then add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, not too fast or it’ll get syrupy.”) Ophelia, an expert seamstress, had shown Angelina how to make her own dress patterns using newspapers for the pattern paper. This was a good thing, for Angelina was large, with big hips and a heavy bust, and Ophelia had noted lately that she was getting even larger. Ready-made dresses didn’t fit her, not even the stout ladies sizes in the Sears catalogs.

  There were other connections. Both Jed Snow and Artis Biggs were on the Darling town council. Jed was in his second term as mayor, and Artis had been mayor previously and would likely get elected mayor again, when Jed’s term ran out. The men were good friends, so the two families got together every so often for Sunday dinner or a picnic at the park. And just last year, Ophelia and Jed had thrown an anniversary party when Angelina and Artis celebrated their thirtieth anniversary.

  After Ophelia hung up the phone, she went to the kitchen and put on another pot of coffee, then got out the last two of the freshly baked sticky buns they’d had for breakfast—Angelina had a sweet tooth—and put them on a plate. It was wash day and Florabelle, the colored help, was working in the washhouse in the backyard, so Ophelia and Angelina could have a good, quiet talk.

  Carrying the coffeepot, cups, and sticky buns on a tray, Ophelia paused in the parlor door. It was a pretty room with crisscross curtains of ivory French marquisette, a piano (Ophelia’s daughter Sarah was taking lessons), and a cozy pairing of davenport and chair upholstered in a rich Jacquard velour, with taupe and rose-print cushions. Ophelia was very proud of these two pieces of furniture. She had bought them, and a stylish walnut coffee table, on the easy time-payment plan from the Fall and Winter 1929 Sears catalog, where they were pictured in full color on page 926. Actually, it was the color that had seduced her—that, and the first sentence in the catalog description. Tastes trained to discriminate will quickly recognize the superlative quality, which gives this splendid set distinction. Ophelia felt that tastes trained to discriminate exactly described her.

  But even though Jed had agreed that their splendid new furniture truly did have distinction, Ophelia was painfully aware that the purchase had no
t been a good idea. For one thing, she had lied to Jed about how much it had cost and how much she’d have to pay every month. The davenport had been nearly seventy dollars, the chair thirty, and the coffee table eight, plus an additional eleven dollars in “time payment terms.” Ophelia had put twelve fifty down and promised to pay ten dollars a month for eighteen months.

  Ten dollars a month! It hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but now her insides shriveled with cold fear whenever Ophelia thought of the debt she’d incurred. Jed gave her an allowance and pretty much left the running of the house to her and—like most men—had no idea of the prices of furniture and rugs and curtains. When he’d asked how much the furniture cost, she’d been afraid to tell him the whole truth, especially when she figured out that she’d be paying eighty-five dollars more than the price of the furniture for the privilege of making those eighteen monthly payments! So she had cut the price in half when she told him. He’d thought that was too much. Ophelia knew he’d be furious if he ever learned how much she was really paying.

  The furniture had arrived six months ago, and she was already two months behind in her payments. No matter how many corners she tried to cut in her household budget, there just wasn’t enough money to go around. She had gotten to the point where the only other way she could think of to make those awful monthly payments was to let Florabelle go. But that was almost unthinkable. Florabelle kept the house spotless and did the laundry and the heavy work and had raised both of Ophelia’s children from the time they were born. And anyway, Florabelle needed the money. Her husband was out of work and she was trying to keep her girls in school.

  But yesterday, in one of Ophelia’s despairing moments, another possibility had occurred to her. It said in the time-payment contract that if she didn’t send the money, Sears would come and repossess the furniture, as long as it was in good condition. (They didn’t say what would happen if it wasn’t.) Well, she thought, maybe that was the smart thing to do. Stop making the payments altogether, and eventually Sears would wise up and come and get the furniture. Since the family hardly spent any time at all in the parlor, everything looked like new, so there was no question about Sears taking it back. Or maybe they would have second thoughts about sending a truck all the way from Mobile just to pick up three measly pieces of used furniture. Maybe they would forget about the payments and decide to just let her keep everything.