The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover

by Susan Wittig Albert

Mrs. Whitworth nodded. “If Frank—Mr. Harwood—hadn’t been so quick, the car would have been wrecked and he might have been killed. He managed to get it stopped, but not before it sideswiped a tree and the door—it was still open—was ripped off its hinges. I hope the sheriff doesn’t look at it and decide that I had anything to do with Whitney’s accident.” She paused, biting her lip. “But if they don’t believe me, Mr. Harwood can tell them what happened. He was with me.”

  Lizzy started to reply and then stopped. If the matter came to court, Mr. Mosely would be reluctant to call Frank Harwood as a witness, since his relationship to Mrs. Whitworth would likely come out and his credibility would be questioned. But Mr. Moseley should be the one to share that with their client—after he had talked to Harwood.

  She leaned forward and picked up the Brownie. “I think I’d better have a look,” she said. “And Mr. Moseley asked me to get some pictures of the car. I hope you won’t mind,” she added.

  Mrs. Whitworth stood, clearly unenthusiastic. “If you want to take pictures, I’d better back it into the driveway where there’s more light. I’ll get the key.”

  Lizzy helped Mrs. Whitworth push the garage doors open, revealing her convertible, a sleek, beautiful pumpkin-colored Dodge, parked inside. As far as Lizzy could tell from where she was standing, the car was undamaged—except for the door on the driver’s side. It was completely missing. The door itself, which appeared to have a few scratches, was propped against the garage wall.

  “Frank—Mr. Harwood—says it won’t cost much to put the door back on,” Mrs. Whitworth said. “I was going to ask him to get that done today, but then Whitney turned up missing and …” She sighed heavily. “Well, fixing the door somehow didn’t seem important. But now that Grandmamma’s Pierce-Arrow is wrecked, I suppose I’ll have to get it replaced so I can drive this car. Wait here and I’ll back it out.”

  It was obvious from the cautious way Mrs. Whitworth handled the car that she was still a novice driver and a little nervous about backing up. She got out, giving the car a rueful glance.

  “The poor thing looks odd, without that door,” she said. “I really don’t know why they make doors like that. They’re dangerous.”

  Camera in hand, Lizzy agreed. “Mr. Moseley says that those rear-swinging doors are called ‘suicide doors.’ If the inside handle is accidentally flipped, the door can be ripped open by the wind and the passenger, or the driver—”

  “Tumbles out,” Mrs. Whitworth said.

  “Exactly,” Lizzy said. At the front of the car, she bent over to examine the bumper and grill, as Mr. Moseley had asked. But as far as she could tell, the chrome-plated trim was brand-new. It wasn’t scratched. It wasn’t even muddy. And the sheriff would have to notice that there was no mud elsewhere on the car—as there surely would have been, if it had been driven on the Jericho Road after the recent rains.

  Lizzy aimed the Brownie at the bumper and grill and took several photographs, watching the numbers in the camera’s little window and being careful to advance the film each time. Then she took a picture of each front fender and, for good measure, the missing door—eight altogether.

  “Well, that’s that,” she said, when she had finished the roll. “Thank you for letting me do this. I’m sure Mr. Moseley will be relieved to know that you weren’t terribly injured when you fell out of the car.” And that he won’t likely have to defend you in court, she thought.

  Mrs. Whitworth looked penitent. “Please thank him for me, Miss Lacy. And I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention that I thought of letting him go. It feels very good to know he’s looking out for me. And you’ve been helpful, too.” She frowned apprehensively. “You don’t really think the sheriff is going to …” Her voice trailed off.

  “I think you should be prepared for that,” Lizzy said. She made her voice sound confident. “But as far as I can see, there’s nothing here that would suggest that your car was involved in your husband’s accident.” She thought of something she had heard Mr. Moseley say on occasion and went on. “Still, it would be a good idea if you didn’t see or talk to Mr. Harwood until after the sheriff has finished his investigation. That might just complicate things.”

  Mrs. Whitworth’s face fell, and Lizzy suspected that she had been planning to see him that night—or at least talk to him on the phone.

  “Do you really feel that’s necessary?” Mrs. Whitworth asked plaintively.

  “I’m afraid I do.” Reassuringly, Lizzy added, “But just as a precaution—and only until the sheriff figures out what really happened last night. I don’t think you have anything terribly serious to worry about.”

  “I hope not,” Mrs. Whitworth said fervently, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s bad enough to have to deal with my husband’s death. Being accused of causing it would be just too much!”

  Lizzy liked Mrs. Whitworth and found herself hoping so, too. When she called Mr. Moseley to report what she had seen and heard, that’s what she told him.

  “I don’t believe she’ll have a problem with the sheriff,” she said. She wondered whether she should tell him about the odd remark about her grandmother making her marry Mr. Whitworth. But maybe it wasn’t so odd, after all. The Vautiers had been an old, traditional family, and Regina’s grandmother was the matriarch. Perhaps she had realized that she was nearing the end of her life and felt she needed to find a husband for her young granddaughter.

  “Unless, of course,” Mr. Moseley put in cautiously, “there’s something she’s not telling us.” His voice darkened. “And this business with Frank Harwood bothers me, Liz. I’ll be back in town about eleven tomorrow. I’ll drop in at the Dodge dealership and have a little talk with Harwood. I want to hear his side of the story.”

  Lizzy felt relieved. She’d been half-afraid Mr. Moseley was going to send her to interview Frank Harwood, and her evening was already spoken for. Fremon and Sally-Lou were coming over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LIZ HAS VISITORS

  Daffodil—Lizzy’s orange tabby cat—was waiting on the porch swing when she walked up the four front steps to her butter-yellow house. He jumped down and followed her as she unlocked her front door (recently painted a playful green) and went inside, feeling the quiet pleasure that always settled over her as she stepped into the front hall. She took off her sweater and hung it on one of the brass-plated hooks where she kept her straw garden hat and her raincoat and umbrella.

  Daffy rubbed her ankles, purring, and she bent over to pet him, then let him lead her into the kitchen. There, as he did every day, he supervised her preparation of his supper. Daffy was especially fond of a bit of mashed cooked chicken livers served with his tuna fish. Lizzy always asked Mrs. Hancock to save her some when fresh chickens arrived at the grocery. At five cents a pound, livers were cheaper than tuna, which had recently gone from eight to ten cents for a small can.

  While Daffy was enjoying his feast, Lizzy hurried upstairs to change into comfortable slacks and her favorite green plaid blouse, then went out to the chicken coop to gather the day’s eggs. There were eight jumbo-sized brown eggs in the nests, contributed by her mixed flock of Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, and a white Leghorn. She paused to stroke Caruso, her mild-mannered Buff Orpington rooster, who joined the other neighborhood roosters in a daily dawn chorus. On Lizzy’s block, it was impossible to sleep past sunrise.

  Heading back to the house, she stopped in the kitchen garden to pick a large ripe tomato and the last green bell pepper, grown from seed Bessie Bloodworth had given her. In the kitchen, she sliced the tomato and pepper and whipped up an omelet with two of the fresh eggs, along with a bit of leftover ham and some onions. She added several soda crackers and a helping of cottage cheese to her plate, poured a glass of cold apple cider, and sat down to her supper, feeling extraordinarily lucky and rich.

  She wasn’t rich, of course. Nobody was rich these days, with the Depression howling at the door like a hungry wolf, and she was increasingly anxious about the situatio
n in Mr. Moseley’s office. But if she set aside the fear of getting her hours cut back, she had everything she needed to keep her comfortable and content. She had friends, especially the Dahlias, and her pretty house and garden and chickens, and her real work, her writing. Even if she had to find another job, she would be content—wouldn’t she? And being content was better than being rich.

  But there was Grady, and the unresolved question brought her a tiny nibble of something like … was it guilt? Yes, she was enjoying her life and was contented with what she had. But was it selfish to be focused so entirely on herself, on what she wanted to do with her time—with her days and nights, with her life?

  Her mother thought so, and seized every opportunity to remind her that it was a woman’s job to create a comfortable home, please a husband, and take care of the children. Grady thought so, too. He had never made any secret of his opinion. She certainly understood his point of view and could even sympathize, especially now that he had to think about little Grady, about making a life—and finding a mother—for his motherless son. A man couldn’t raise a child by himself. Well, she supposed that it might be possible, but she had never known one who had tried.

  She got up and carried her supper dishes to the sink, frowning. Why was it so hard to imagine herself as Mrs. Grady Alexander? She had loved Grady once—not passionately, perhaps, but warmly. She was sure it would be easy to love him again. Her heart had been touched by his pain and his need and by his desire to pull her back into his life. She knew she could count on him to love enough for the both of them.

  There was something else, too, something that hadn’t occurred to her until just that moment. Mr. Moseley spent more and more time in Montgomery these days. Was he keeping her on at the office just to give her a job? Perhaps he would be glad if she announced that she was planning to quit and get married. Grady had a good, secure job that paid enough to support a family, especially if they lived in his house and found somebody to rent hers. And surely she could find a couple of hours in the day—perhaps when little Grady was napping—when she could sit down at her typewriter. When she thought of the possibility of losing her job, the idea of marrying Grady seemed more attractive, although the thought of somebody else living in her beautiful little house was an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

  She rinsed off her supper dishes, left them on the sink to dry, and went back down the hall. On her right, polished wooden stairs led up to the two small bedrooms with steeply slanted ceilings and gable windows. In the front bedroom: her bureau and dressing table and a single bed covered with a home-crafted pink-and-yellow quilt and yellow ruffled pillows, with a window overlooking the shady front yard and the oak-lined street. In the back bedroom: a worktable, a chair, a bookcase, her typewriter, and a window overlooking the back yard and garden. Under the window were shelves that held her quilting fabrics and tools and baskets of knitting yarn.

  She hesitated, thinking that she might go upstairs and put in an hour’s work on the manuscript before Sally-Lou and Fremon arrived. But she didn’t like to get started when she couldn’t devote several hours to the task, so she went into the parlor to make sure it was ready for company. Like the two rooms upstairs, it was small, with just enough space for a Mission-style leather sofa, the old armchair she had reupholstered in brown corduroy, a Tiffany-style lamp with a stained-glass lampshade, and bookshelves on both sides of the small brick fireplace.

  She turned on the lamp, plumped the cushions, and brushed a bit of Daffy’s orange fur off the armchair, where he liked to lie and keep an eye on her as she knitted or read the newspaper. A copy of the weekend’s Mobile Press Register was lying on the floor, with the headline “Woman Kidnap Victim Feared Dead!” staring up at her. This one was a wealthy young socialite from Louisville, Kentucky. Her family had already paid $50,000, and the victim had not yet been returned.

  Lizzy picked up the newspaper and was folding it when she heard the front doorbell ring, just once, briefly and authoritatively. Startled, she glanced at the banjo clock on the fireplace mantle. It was much too early for Sally-Lou and Fremon—and they were coming to the back door. It wouldn’t be Grady, either: he’d had a funny shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits knock that always set the two of them laughing—unless he’d decided that things had changed and the knock was no longer appropriate. Or it might be her mother, coming across the street, loaded with a barrage of complaints about Mr. Dunlap’s encounter with Deputy Springer. Guiltily remembering their phone conversation that afternoon—sometimes she really wasn’t a very good daughter—Lizzy stuck the newspaper under her arm and hurried to the door.

  But it wasn’t her mother. It wasn’t Grady, either.

  On the other side of the screen door stood a man in a slim-fitting gray three-piece business suit, a crisply pressed white shirt, a steel-blue tie the color of his eyes, and a gray fedora with a rakish tilt. He was tall, well over six feet, and well built, and he held himself with the easy confidence of an athlete. He wasn’t handsome; his features—a hard mouth, high cheekbones, pale eyes—were too rugged for that. Behind him, parked on the street, was a racy-looking blue roadster with the top folded down.

  “Miss Lacy?” He took off his hat. Sun-bleached hair fell across his tanned forehead. His voice was firm and clipped, a business-like Yankee voice. “Elizabeth Lacy?”

  “Yes,” Lizzy said hesitantly. Her first panicky thought was to slam the door and lock it, but reason quickly prevailed. A kidnapper wouldn’t be driving a roadster with the top down—and while he looked strong enough to make off with her under one arm, she doubted that kidnappers went around in a dapper-looking suit and tie. Anyway, it was still daylight, and old Mr. Perkins was sitting on his porch on the other side of the street, watching.

  But just out of caution, she waved and smiled at Mr. Perkins, letting the man know they were being watched. “I’m sorry,” she said, directing her attention back to the man. “Who did you say …?”

  He held up his wallet and displayed an identification card. “My name is Ryan Nichols. I’m with the WPA—the Works Progress Administration—in Washington, D.C.” He quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve read about us in the newspapers?”

  Lizzy leaned forward and looked at the card. There was his photograph, his name, and the rest of it. “Yes, of course I’ve read about the WPA,” she said.

  The Works Progress Administration was an ambitious companion to the popular Civilian Conservation Corps, which had constructed and was managing the CCC camp a few miles outside of town. The WPA employed workers to build public roads and highways, construct dams and airfields, and erect public buildings all over the country. Established by President Roosevelt and run by FDR’s right-hand-man, Harry Hopkins, the WPA was the government’s answer to the hated “dole.” People didn’t want relief, they wanted to work. They wanted to earn their money, rather than take a government handout. The WPA was already helping nearly two million unemployed men find work that would enable them and their families survive these lean years.

  “I know about the WPA,” she repeated. “But I don’t know what the WPA wants with me. I have a job.” At least, I have a job right now, she thought, although that could change at any moment. She added dryly, “And I’m a woman.”

  “Ouch.” There was that quirky eyebrow again, and a quick, disarming grin that eased the lines of his craggy face. Lizzy thought suddenly that he looked as if he’d be more at home in a flannel shirt, blue jeans, and work boots than in that three-piece suit.

  Nichols folded his wallet and put it back in his pocket. “You’ve got a point, Miss Lacy, unfortunately. So far, the WPA’s projects have been mostly heavy construction—buildings, roads, airfields, docks. We employ mostly men. But that’s about to change. The WPA is in the process of creating a new federal project that will support writers, editors, historians, teachers, and librarians—many of them, maybe most of them women. They’ll be compiling and writing tourist guides for every one of the forty-eight states, collecting local history and folklore, doing soci
al research, that sort of thing. They’re going to need program directors and administrators to manage their assignments—those people will likely be women, too.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Lizzy said decidedly. “There are plenty of women who need work. But I don’t understand why—”

  “The project hasn’t been funded yet,” Nichols went on. “But when it’s up and running early next year, it will be part of a group of New Deal arts programs known as Federal Project Number One. I’ll be in charge of the Southern Region, based in Montgomery.” He tilted his head, regarding her. “You’ve been recommended to me, and I’d like to tell you more about the project. May I come in?”

  “I was recommended to you?” Lizzy was astonished. “But I don’t know anybody in Washington. Who in the world—”

  “You know people in New York. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that they’re big fans of yours.”

  Lizzy shook her head. “I don’t …” She paused. “I think you must be mistaken, Mr. Nichols. The only people I know in New York are my agent and my editor, and I’ve never met them, except through the mail.”

  “But they know you.” Nichols grinned. “It happens that I was in the city last week, and both Nadine Fleming—your agent—and your editor, Max Perkins, spoke to me about you. They told me that you have a book coming out with Scribner’s in a few months. Historical fiction, Max Perkins said, about the Civil War. Both he and Miss Fleming seemed to think that you know quite a lot about this area and the people here. And that you’re the kind of person who could help us with this important project.”

  Lizzy’s apprehensions eased somewhat, even though the man was still very large and almost—but not quite—physically intimidating. But she couldn’t turn away a friend of Miss Fleming and Mr. Perkins, even if he was a Yankee.

  She opened the screen door. “Well, I suppose you should come in, then, Mr. Nichols.” She added, “I’m expecting someone in a little while, but perhaps you’d like a cup of coffee.”