The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Miz Whitworth,” DessaRae said gently, “you got some comp’ny. Mr. Moseley sent Miz Lacy over here to see you.”

  Regina Whitworth spoke in a muted voice. “DessaRae, I told you I didn’t want to—” She turned. “Mr. Moseley?”

  “I’m his secretary,” Lizzy said uncomfortably. “He telephoned from Montgomery and asked me to talk to you. He’d like me to let him know how he can help.”

  Deftly, DessaRae gathered up the unused dishes and silver, leaving the linen mat. “You just sit yo’sef down there, Miz ‘Liz’bet, and I bring you some coffee. Or would you like tea?”

  “Coffee will be fine,” Lizzy said, taking the empty chair as DessaRae left the room.

  The sunshine fell through the wide window and spilled across the table. Beside the window, an ornate birdcage hanging from a wrought-iron stand held a bright yellow canary, pleasantly chirping. Outside, the grass was neatly mowed and trimmed along a wide border of flowers. A brick patio outside the window was centered with a birdbath and several rosebushes, and an unruly sweet autumn clematis grew against the garage, a little distance away.

  Quickly, DessaRae was back with a cup and a pot and poured hot, fragrant coffee for Lizzy. “You want a doughnut, too, Miz ‘Liz’bet’?” she asked solicitously. “Or maybe some eggs? Got some nice brown eggs. Be glad to scramble you some.”

  “No, thank you, DessaRae,” Lizzy said. “I’ve already had breakfast.” DessaRae left, this time closing the door.

  Lizzy looked at Mrs. Whitworth across the table. She was pale and composed—with an effort, Lizzy thought. Her eyes were red and it was clear she had been crying. Her dark hair swung against her cheek, half hiding her face.

  “Mr. Moseley asked me to tell you that he can drive down from Montgomery,” Lizzy said, “if it’s necessary. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Well, no, I can’t, not really,” Mrs. Whitworth said. She set her teacup in the saucer and reached for a cigarette. “Mr. Whitworth went out last night and didn’t come home. When I got up this morning and realized he wasn’t here, I called the sheriff. He came over and asked me some questions. After he left, I called Mr. Moseley’s office.” She paused. “It was you I talked to on the phone?”

  “Yes,” Lizzy said.

  Mrs. Whitworth nodded. “And then I called Mr. Moseley in Montgomery, at the number you gave me. I told him Whitney was gone. I don’t … I don’t know why I called him. I guess I was grasping at straws.” She struck a match but her hand was trembling so that lighting her cigarette was difficult. “Or maybe I just wanted somebody on my side.”

  On her side? Lizzy thought this was odd, but then, this whole thing must be difficult, especially under the circumstances—her plan to divorce her husband, the missing money. “You said Mr. Whitworth went out. What time was that? And did you know where he was going?” She took her notebook and pencil out of her pocketbook. “I need to make notes,” she added, “so I don’t forget anything important when I talk to Mr. Moseley. You won’t mind, I hope.”

  “Not if it’s for Mr. Moseley,” Mrs. Whitworth said. She pulled nervously on her cigarette, slanting a glance at Lizzy. “I suppose you know why I hired him.”

  “I think so,” Lizzy said tentatively, not sure how much she should reveal about what she knew. In the cage, the canary spilled out a cadenza of brief liquid song. Liz skipped the issue of Mrs. Whitworth’s accusations of theft. “You’re considering … divorce.”

  Mrs. Whitworth sighed. “Yes,” she said. “And to answer your question, I have no idea where my husband went after he left. He was here for dinner, and then he … he went out, about eight, without telling me where he was going. I was in my bedroom, reading, but I heard the car.” She turned her head to one side and blew out a stream of blue smoke. “I had a … a headache. I read for a while, then went to bed. That must have been around ten o’clock.”

  Lizzy frowned. There was something in Mrs. Whitworth’s voice that made her question what the woman was saying. But she wrote it down, anyway. Headache, reading, bed at ten. What other questions should she ask? What would Mr. Moseley want to know?

  After a moment, she said, “Did he often … has he ever been gone all night?”

  Mrs. Whitworth pressed her lips together. “To tell the truth, Miss Lacy, I couldn’t tell you. I sleep better by myself. We’ve had separate bedrooms for years.”

  She tossed her head and as her hair swung back, Lizzy caught a momentary glimpse of what it concealed: a large bruise on her jaw, and a patch of badly abraded skin. Lizzy felt instantly sympathetic. It looked very much as if she’d been hit—quite hard. Had Mr. Whitworth done that? And she was wearing a dress with long sleeves, on a warm October morning. Lizzy suspected that her arms were bruised, too. They must have had an argument, and Mrs. Whitworth was too ashamed to say so.

  “And sometimes I sleep late,” Mrs. Whitworth added, half-defensively. “I wouldn’t know if my husband had been out all night or not.”

  “Then how did you know this time?” Lizzy asked, her eyes on the telltale bruise.

  Nervously, Mrs. Whitworth smoothed her hair forward. “I went past his room and the door was slightly open. I glanced in.”

  Lizzy was sure now that she was right. In her notebook, she wrote bruise. And then, because that didn’t tell the whole story, added scrape. The abrasion was as ugly as the bruise. Husband hit her, she wrote, and underlined it.

  “When I looked in,” Mrs. Whitworth went on, “I saw that his bed hadn’t been slept in.” She nodded toward the window. “I went out to the garage and saw that his car was gone. So I knew that he hadn’t come home. That’s when I called the sheriff.”

  Lizzy followed her glance. Wide enough for two cars and sheltered on this side by the vigorous clematis, the garage was only a little distance from the house. The main garage door was shut, but the side door was open and she could see a car inside—a car the color of pumpkin. She realized with a start that the Whitworths must have bought the car she had admired at Kilgore Motors. But that wasn’t relevant at the moment.

  “What kind of car does your husband drive?” she asked, but then she remembered. “Oh, it’s a Pierce-Arrow, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Whitworth’s voice dropped so low that Lizzy could scarcely hear her. “That was my grandmother’s car. It’s really my car—I mean, it was part of my inheritance when I married Whitney. But I didn’t drive, then, so my husband drives it. He’s rather … fond of it.” She pressed her lips together as if to keep them from trembling, and turned away.

  “And you haven’t heard from him since last night?” Lizzy asked tentatively. “No phone calls or anything?”

  “No telephone calls,” Mrs. Whitworth said. “Nothing.” She laughed nervously. “No ransom demands, either.”

  “Ransom demands?” Lizzy asked.

  “That’s what kidnappers usually do, isn’t it?” Mrs. Whitworth said. “They ask for money. That’s what I read in the newspaper. I’ve been waiting.”

  Lizzy blinked. “So you think your husband might have been kidnapped?” She felt a little foolish. That idea hadn’t even occurred to her, but she could see the logic of it. Mr. Moseley had probably thought of it, too.

  Mrs. Whitworth shook her head. “I don’t know what to think,” she said, her voice rising in a thin, tremulous wail. “Really, Miss Lacy, I’m at a loss!”

  There was one thing, though, that weighed against kidnapping. “You said that his car is gone,” Lizzy pointed out gently, wanting to comfort her. “Doesn’t that suggest that he drove off by himself?”

  Mrs. Whitworth took a deep breath. “Not necessarily. They might have made him drive them away.” Her eyes widened and her voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. “At gunpoint.” As if in response, the canary offered a few tentative bars of song, then lapsed into silence.

  Lizzy persisted. “But you didn’t see any signs of a struggle? Anything out of the ordinary around the house—or in the garage?”

  “No,” Mrs. Whitwort
h said, “but that doesn’t mean …” Fighting back tears, she bit her lip. “I don’t know what to say, Miss Lacy. Whitney has never done anything quite like this before. It’s just so … so strange.”

  Lizzy had one more question. She waited until the other woman seemed calmer, then said, “When you talked to Mr. Moseley, you said that you thought your husband had taken money that belonged to you—that was part of your inheritance, I mean. Did you discuss this with him?”

  If she had, Lizzy thought, that might explain what had provoked the argument that resulted in the bruise—and why the man had disappeared. If he feared that his wife was going to charge him with theft, he would have reason to leave town. By this time, he could even be in New Orleans. Or Atlanta.

  “No,” Mrs. Whitworth said, looking away. “I haven’t brought it up with him yet. Mr. Moseley was going to look into the accounts and see how much is gone. After that, we were going to discuss what should be done.”

  That sounded like the right approach. There was no point in setting off an alarm until it was clear how much damage had been done. Lizzy nodded and closed her notebook. “Is there anything you’d like Mr. Moseley to do this morning? I know he wants to be helpful.”

  “I can’t think of anything.” Mrs. Whitworth bit her lip. “I guess maybe I overreacted when I called him in Montgomery. The sheriff had just left, you see. He asked me all kinds of questions, and I just got … well, scared.”

  “Scared? Scared about what?” Lizzy asked in surprise. Buddy Norris, the sheriff, wasn’t the kind of person who would frighten a wife whose husband had disappeared.

  “Just … just scared,” Mrs. Whitworth said evasively. “I can’t really explain it. The past couple of weeks have been really difficult, you see, and—”

  The phone rang, and Mrs. Whitworth jumped. The kitchen door opened and DessaRae said, “Want I should answer that, ma’am?” From the swiftness of her response, Lizzy thought the maid must have had her ear to the door—which was just like DessaRae. She always had to know what was going on.

  But Mrs. Whitworth had already gotten up, and Lizzy knew what she was thinking. Kidnappers, maybe with a ransom demand.

  “No, never mind, DessaRae. I’ll get it,” she said. She went to the telephone, which stood on a little table in the corner of the room. Lizzy held her breath.

  “Hello?” Mrs. Whitworth said in a muted voice. She turned away and lowered her voice even more. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now. I have a visitor.”

  Lizzy let out her breath. It wasn’t kidnappers.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Whitworth said. “That’s sweet, but I’m not badly bruised. Don’t worry.” She glanced over her shoulder at Lizzy. “Yes. I’ll phone you when I can.” She put the phone down and turned with a smile—a strained smile that cost a tremendous effort, Lizzy thought.

  “A friend,” she said, coming back to the table. “Just wanting to know if I’m … all right.”

  Lizzy wondered how the friend had known about the bruising, but she couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask. She put her notebook into her purse. “Well, then. I’ll stop bothering you and let you get some rest. You have our office telephone number. Please feel free to call me if there’s anything you need.” She paused and added, with real concern. “I wonder, though—do you think it might be good to have Dr. Roberts look at that bruise on your face? It looks rather serious.”

  Hastily, Mrs. Whitworth brushed her hair forward. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I just … fell. On the back step. Clumsy me.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “Don’t worry Mr. Moseley about it, please.”

  Fell on the back step? Lizzy didn’t believe that for a moment. “Well, whatever you think. But to me, it looks serious.” She pushed back her chair and stood, and the canary burst into cheerful song. “Please let us know the minute you hear any news about your husband.”

  “I will,” Mrs. Whitworth said. “Thank Mr. Moseley for me, please. And thank you for your concern.”

  The kitchen door opened again and DessaRae came out with a small paper sack in her hand. “I’ll walk you to the do’,” she said. “These here cookies are for Sally-Lou. You can take ’em to her tonight when you go ’cross the street to your momma’s house.”

  “I can do that,” Lizzy said, but she thought that this seemed rather peculiar. Now that her mother was married to Mr. Dunlap (a blessed event that had taken place that summer) Sally-Lou was back on the job again, but not as a live-in maid. She left for the day before Lizzy got home from the office—and DessaRae certainly knew that.

  DessaRae went out with Lizzy, closed the door behind her, and handed her the sack. “‘Scuse me,” she said in a low voice. “Had something to tell you. Didn’t want to say it where Miz Whitworth could hear.”

  Sensing something important, Lizzy put the sack into her pocketbook. “What’s going on here, DessaRae?”

  “I don’ know,” DessaRae said, shaking her head. “An’ I don’ know where Mr. Whitworth has got off to. But I do know it’s got somethin’ to do with—”

  The door opened behind them. “DessaRae!” Mrs. Whitworth’s tone was sharp. “Don’t detain Miss Lacy. Get back in here right now and do your work.”

  DessaRae ducked her head. “Yes’m,” she said softly. To Lizzy, she said, “Now you give that there sack to Sally-Lou,” and went into the house.

  Which left Lizzy wondering what in the world DessaRae had been talking about.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHARLIE CHASES A STORY

  When Charlie Dickens grabbed his camera and rushed out of the Dispatch office, he headed straight for the shed behind Fannie’s hat shop, where he kept his car parked. Although his old green Pontiac had certainly seen better days, it got him where he wanted to go—usually. But when he reached the shed, he saw that the left rear tire was flat as a pancake. Irritated (flat tires only happened when you were in a hurry), he pulled off his seersucker jacket, jacked up the car, wrestled the spare tire out of its rack, and made the change. He would drop the tire at Jake Pritchard’s Standard station and pick it up on the way back.

  The October air was crisp, the morning sun was warm, and the trees were just beginning to exchange their summery greens for the gaudy colors of autumn. Charlie sometimes heard people say that you had to drive to the northern part of the state or up to the Smokies to see colorful autumn trees, but that just wasn’t true. In another week or two, the hills and river bottoms would be flamboyant with the burnished gold and copper of the Southern sugar maples, the throbbing red and plum-purple of the sweet gums, the emphatic chartreuse of the fringe trees, the rich bronze of the bald cypress. Even considering what he might find at the end of the road, it was a fine day to be chasing a story.

  After he dropped off the tire at Jake’s, Charlie swung down the Jericho Road, past the Cypress Country Club, the county fairgrounds, and Darling’s airfield. The airfield had been built in the 1920s, when barnstormers flew in three or four times a summer and people had the money to buy an airplane ride. The most recent airshow, though, had been the summer before last, and since nobody in town owned or flew an airplane, the runway was overgrown with Johnson grass. The damned stuff was named for Colonel William Johnson, who owned a plantation over on the Alabama River. He had planted it for cattle forage a couple of decades before the Civil War and now it was everywhere, as bad as kudzu and nobody could figure out how to get rid of it. Charlie knew about this because he’d written a story about it. That’s how he knew most things. He wrote about them.

  Six or seven miles past the airfield, just before you got to Ralph Murphy’s place, the road narrowed and dipped down a very steep hill. In fact, it had been Lucy Murphy, Ralph’s wife, who had made the telephone call that had jerked Charlie away from his typewriter. Ralph worked on the railroad, and early that morning, Lucy had driven him to the L&N depot in town to catch the first locomotive out. She was on her way back home when she saw the car, wheels up, off the road and down the embankment at the foot of Spook Hill. She could
n’t see who the driver was because he was pinned under the car, but she could tell he’d been dead for a while.

  She had driven home as fast as she could and telephoned the sheriff’s office. She owed Charlie a big favor, so as soon as she got off the phone with the sheriff, she had phoned the newspaper. It was her tip that had sent him off in hot pursuit.

  Spook Hill was a notoriously steep grade that seemed to go downhill forever. In the rare January or February when there was enough snow or ice, the hill made for some pretty exciting coasting for Darling kids. It was just as exciting when it was muddy, too, because Alabama’s red clay roads were slick when it rained—slick as bear grease, the old folks liked to say. What made the hill even more exhilarating was the drop-off down the embankment to the left, sixty feet or more to Spook Creek at the bottom. Snowy, muddy, or bone dry, if you were driving down that hill you’d be glad your brakes were working. And scared silly if they weren’t.

  It had rained the day before and the road’s red mud was slick and gooey. Charlie wasn’t too sure about the brakes on his old Pontiac, so he stopped at the top of the hill. Ahead, at the bottom, he could see a black Ford Model T pulled over to the uphill side of the road and two men standing beside it with their hands in their pockets, one of them smoking a large cigar. They wore dark blue uniforms, cop hats, and side arms. The Alabama state shield was painted on the car door, the words Jericho State Prison Farm under it. Somebody else had spotted the wreck.

  Surveying the situation, Charlie thought it wouldn’t be so good if somebody else came barreling down the hill while people were standing around at the bottom, trying to figure out what to do. So he climbed back into his car, started it, and parked it diagonally, blocking the road. He pulled the handbrake and got out, carrying his Rolleiflex. Staying close to the uphill side of the road, he worked his way down to the bottom. There, he recognized the heavy-set man with the grizzled hair and brushy mustache as Warden Burford, from the prison farm.