Delia stood slowly. She felt as if she had a stick jammed down her throat all the way into her chest. This couldn’t be happening!
But it was. “Mrs. Kirkland, I’m afraid something’s happened to Prentice.” Whose voice was this? It didn’t sound like hers. “I can’t find her anywhere and I know she wouldn’t just go off like this.”
The woman tossed a dollar onto the counter to pay for her purchases and brushed an invisible hair from her cheek. “Now, Delia … it is Delia, isn’t it?” She smiled like it pained her, and Delia wanted to vault over the counter and shake her. “She’s probably in the back somewhere, or maybe she went across to the filling station. I’m afraid you’ve let yourself get overwrought.”
“You don’t understand! I just came from there and I’ve looked everywhere. Prentice is gone. GONE!” Her voice was only a notch below screaming. It was becoming obvious that Prentice had left with somebody, probably against her will, since she’d left her purse behind and the cash register untended.
“Exactly what is it you want me to do?” Hardin asked in a voice as stiff as her shoulders. Delia could tell she didn’t believe her.
“I’m going over to Grady’s to call the police, but my sister, Charlie, and some of her friends are picking peaches this morning in the orchard right up the road. Would you see if you can find them and tell them to come? And hurry, please hurry!”
Whoever drove off with Prentice must have parked behind the Shed and enticed her into the car on the pretext of needing help to load the peaches, Delia thought, and since this had taken place while she was gone, the abductor had to have been watching.
* * *
“Who is this?” It was obvious that the woman who answered the phone at the local police station believed it was a prank. Delia gave her name and repeated the message. “My friend’s been taken—probably kidnapped, and this is no joke! Please get somebody out to the Peach Shed as fast as you can. We’ve got to find her!” When the woman hesitated, Delia demanded to speak with Bobby Tinsley, Elderberry’s chief of police. “Just tell him I’m Charlie Carr’s sister and she’s a friend of Miss Dimple Kilpatrick,” she added, knowing that from past experience the chief was familiar with the two of them.
Minutes later, Delia stood among the knobby roots of the old oak, waiting for the police to respond. The tree had been there for over a hundred years, people said, withstanding drought, wind, and storms. Delia ran a finger along its dark, crusty bark. If she could only draw strength from the massive trunk, calmness to ease the turmoil inside her. Looking off in the distance, she saw a vehicle approaching and hoped it was Charlie driving the old family car. Delia prayed under her breath that Mrs. Kirkland had been able to find them.
Seconds later, the familiar Studebaker skidded into the parking lot beside the Peach Shed and came to a jolting stop, scattering gravel in its wake. Running out to meet them, Delia Varnadore finally allowed the tears to come.
CHAPTER TWO
“Delia, honey, what’s wrong? Mrs. Kirkland said Prentice seems to be missing.” Charlie Carr held her younger sister until the sobbing subsided. “Are you sure she didn’t go across the street?”
Delia shook her head. “Oh, please don’t make me have to go through this again!” But she rehashed what had happened earlier, adding that Prentice’s handbag as well as the money in the cash drawer seemed to be untouched. “This isn’t like Prentice, Charlie. You know it isn’t.”
“You’re right. It isn’t.” Stepping from the car behind them, Miss Dimple Kilpatrick spoke up. “I believe we should get in touch with Bertie Stackhouse. Perhaps she can shed some light on this. After all, there may have been a reason Prentice needed to return home.”
“What kind of reason?” Frowning, Delia glanced at the woman who had taught her, as well as her sister and generations of others, in her big high-ceilinged first-grade classroom at Elderberry Grammar School, and recognized the wordless communication understood by all women. In her modest way, Miss Dimple was reminding her that Prentice might have started her period and had found it necessary to go home.
“Oh,” she said. “But how would she get there? She didn’t even take her purse. And wouldn’t she be back by now?”
“Did she seem sick?” Annie asked. “It’s been so hot this summer, she might have come down with a bad cold … or something.”
The four of them exchanged looks in silence. Everyone knew what “or something” meant. Swimming pools were practically empty in spite of the heat, and people tried to avoid crowded places because of the threat of polio. Their own president, Franklin Roosevelt, who had been stricken with infantile paralysis, often came to Georgia for treatments at Warm Springs, less than two hours away. Delia shuddered at the thought of having to spend the rest of her life in an iron lung with only her head sticking out, and although no one in Elderberry had come down with the dreaded disease, most of them knew of someone who knew someone who had it. The threat was as real as it was frightening.
“She’s been upset since Leola died,” Delia told them, “but she didn’t act sick. Besides, she would’ve at least left a note if she meant to leave.”
“Oh, Miss Dimple, you don’t suppose…” Charlie turned to the older woman. “You thought you heard somebody scream.… Do you think it might’ve been Prentice?”
“When?” Delia demanded. “Do you know how long it’s been?”
Annie frowned. “I’d say about thirty minutes.” She clasped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, if only we’d—”
“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions.” Miss Dimple spoke calmly. “Quite possibly I could’ve heard children playing, as you suggested.”
“Have you heard anything?” Mrs. Kirkland, who had parked behind Charlie, hurried to join them. “I’m sure there must be a rational explanation,” she said when told the situation was unchanged.
Yet if Hardin Haynesworth Kirkland were a smoker, she would have worked through half a pack, Delia thought as they waited for the police to arrive. The woman paced from her car to the Shed and back again, pausing now and then to glance at her watch. She moved jerkily, like a mechanical toy. Thin, almost child-size, she seemed hardly large enough to bear her name.
Delia had never heard anyone refer to Mrs. Kirkland by two names. It was always Hardin Haynesworth Kirkland, Haynesworth being her maiden name. Prentice’s aunt Bertie had grown up with Hardin Haynesworth and their mothers had belonged to the same garden club. Hardin still belonged, but Bertie claimed she didn’t care a fig about spending time with a bunch of women who wouldn’t know a hoe from a spade, and besides, teaching English and literature at Elderberry High demanded most of her time.
Bertie had taken her niece to raise after the child’s parents were killed when a train derailed during a picnic excursion. The little girl, then three, had been with them, but, except for a few minor scrapes and bruises, she had escaped unharmed. Bertie had never married, and Prentice was the only family she had.
“Perhaps we should wait until the police arrive to get in touch with Elberta,” Miss Dimple suggested, and the others agreed. If Prentice had returned home because of illness or for whatever reason, they would find out soon enough, but if the young woman was indeed missing, as Delia feared, it would be best to inform her aunt in person.
* * *
Chief Tinsley, who had been on another call, arrived a few minutes later, and as soon as he saw Miss Dimple and her cohorts, he acted as though he intended to get back in his car and leave. “Well, Miss Dimple, I see you’re here with your two accomplices. What kind of trouble have you three brought me this time?” he asked, shaking his head.
But he soon found out Prentice Blair’s disappearance was no joking matter. After searching the area around the Shed, the chief sent another policeman, Fulton Padgett, to find out what he could learn from Grady Clinkscales at the Gas ’n Eats. Mrs. Kirkland gave her account to Chief Tinsley and left immediately afterward. Then, leaning on the counter inside the Shed, the chief spoke with Delia.
; “You say Miss Bessie Jenkins and Dora Delaney were here earlier?” he said, taking a notebook from his pocket. “We’ll follow up on that and find out if they saw anything, and of course I’ll speak with Mrs. Brumlow, as well. It sounds likely she stopped over there for gas at about the same time your friend disappeared … if that’s what happened,” he added. “For all we know, she could be at home by now.”
“Do you think Hattie McGee might’ve had something to do with this?” Delia asked. “She lives back there, you know, somewhere in all that jungle of underbrush and trees.”
He smiled. “Old Hattie’s harmless, but we’ll check into it if your friend doesn’t turn up soon. “That property belongs to the Jarretts, and if they don’t object to her being there, it shouldn’t matter to the rest of us.”
The chief paused to flip through his notebook, and Delia guessed he was probably marking time before expressing what was on his mind. “Do you think you might have heard her if your friend called out for help while you were across the road?” he asked.
But Delia shook her head. She was inside most of the time and a train had passed while she was there, so she didn’t believe she would have heard anything. “But,” she told him, “Miss Dimple thought she heard somebody scream while she was picking peaches in the orchard just down the road.”
“How can you be so sure Prentice didn’t decide to go off with her boyfriend somewhere?” he asked. “Hasn’t she been seeing Clay Jarrett? I’ve noticed the two of them around town together, and the Jarrett place is just a ways behind us.”
Delia nodded. “Yes, but she broke off with him a few weeks ago, and I really don’t think Prentice wanted to be around Clay right now.”
“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check. I’ll have to speak with the Jarretts anyway. They’ll want to send somebody over to take care of the Shed, but first we need to pay a visit to Miss Stackhouse, find out if she’s heard anything from her niece.”
Delia drew in her breath and glanced at her sister, who stood in the doorway with Miss Dimple and Annie. This wasn’t the time to cry again!
“Chief Tinsley, I hope you won’t object if we speak with Bertie Stackhouse first,” Miss Dimple said, stepping forward. “I’m afraid she might become alarmed at seeing the police at her front door.”
He nodded. “I see your point. We’ll give you a few minutes, and if everything’s all right there, you can wave us along.”
Delia gave the cash box to Chief Tinsley to turn over to the Jarretts but kept Prentice’s handbag to return to her friend. Charlie hadn’t thought to park in the shade, and the car felt hot enough to bake a potato. Climbing into the backseat beside Annie, Delia remembered the Hershey bar she had left in her skirt pocket earlier and discovered it a brown syrupy mess. Won’t Prentice laugh when she hears about this! she thought, forgetting for a minute the alarming circumstances.
If only she didn’t have to think! If she could start the day over and begin anew. Delia looked at Miss Dimple, who sat in front, holding in her lap the straw hat with its trim of purple ribbon she had worn that morning. At least Miss Dimple was the same, always calm and reliable. She would know what to do. Delia was glad she was there.
During the drive to Prentice’s, Delia prayed there had been some kind of emergency and that her friend’s aunt Bertie had come and whisked her away, or that Prentice had experienced a sudden attack of appendicitis, flagged down a passing motorist, and was safely anesthetized and under the care of Doc Morrison.
But that wasn’t to be.
* * *
Why couldn’t he get her out of his mind? It had been over two weeks now, and he’d never thought it would come to this. And the things she’d told him! Prentice. His Prentice. He’d always thought she looked like the yellow-haired angel in that big book of Bible stories his grandmamma gave him one Christmas. Some angel she turned out to be!
Clay Jarrett skimmed down the ladder and carefully rolled his last basket of peaches into the waiting truck. The Georgia Belles bruised easily and his dad would have his hide if he brought in a damaged load. He had been picking since sunup and didn’t have a dry thread on him. Even with the long-sleeved cotton shirt, his arms stung with the hateful peach fuzz.
He fanned his wet face with a dirty visored cap that said Purina Feed on the front and drew a sleeve across his forehead. Trickles of sweat mixed with tears drizzled salty into his mouth. Damn it! This was the last time he was going to cry over Prentice Blair, but she had been on his mind all morning and there was nobody around to see him cry. Nobody but those blasted yellow jackets and the mean sun that followed him wherever he went. Clay felt like somebody had poured acid into his heart, and when he thought of the flawless face of Prentice Blair, the awful bitterness rose in his chest.
It was all that old woman’s fault. Leola. Prentice listened to whatever Leola Parker told her. “Go away to school, see something of the world,” she’d told her. And Prentice had listened, hadn’t she? Listened to Leola instead of to him. Well, she wouldn’t be listening to her anymore. Clay felt kind of bad about that, about what had happened. And Prentice—Lord, he’d never seen her so crazy upset. And then there’d been all that talk about dating other people and she’d given him back his ring. Thrown it at him in the end.
That was when she’d told him. Knowing the way he loved her the way he did, she told him that.
It was almost noon by the time Clay got his peaches to the sorting shed, and he started to peel away his clothing even before he reached the house. In the shower, needles of hot water pounded him, renewed him, but it couldn’t wash away the wound that festered inside.
In less than an hour, he would begin his shift at Mr. Cooper’s grocery. Harris Cooper didn’t pay as much as his dad did, but the grocer didn’t mind if he stopped for a sandwich if the schedule wasn’t too tight, and this week his clerk, Jesse Dean Greeson, was taking care of the store so the Coopers could spend some time with their new grandbaby in Columbus. Their son-in-law was serving there with the army at Fort Benning, where Clay would probably go if he was drafted into the army, although he preferred to enlist in the navy—and the sooner, the better, he thought. He would’ve signed up already if his mother hadn’t carried on so.
Clay tried to slick down his wet straw-colored hair, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. It would be sticking up in all the wrong places as soon as he got out the door. He glowered at himself in the mirror. What did it matter now anyway?
Easing out the front door, which the family rarely used, Clay tried to slip away unnoticed. It didn’t work.
“Clay? Clay, honey, don’t you want some dinner? There’s ham from last night and I saved some of that tomato pie you like. Won’t take a minute to heat.”
“No thanks, Mom. Gotta go—running late. I’ll grab something in town.” He gave her a blink of a kiss and hurried to climb into the old Chevrolet truck, its once-black sides now stained rust red with Georgia dust. He really wasn’t late, but he didn’t want to stay around the kitchen with her constantly hanging over him. Clay loved his mother and would fight anybody who said he didn’t, but she was just about to drive him nuts since his breakup with Prentice. Lately he couldn’t stand to be around anybody who expected him to carry on a conversation longer than two sentences.
Driving past the Peach Shed, he raised a hand to Miss Dimple, who was standing outside with a couple of others. If it had been anybody else, he wouldn’t have even acknowledged them, the way he was feeling, but there was something about his first-grade teacher that made him want to “do the right thing.” He didn’t see Prentice and didn’t want to, but he knew she was working there today.
Jesse Dean had an order ready when Clay pulled up in back of the store. A lot of Harris Cooper’s customers were older people who either couldn’t shop for themselves or didn’t want to, and they were accustomed to special treatment. Whoever was delivering that day not only took the groceries to the door but carried them inside, and, on occasion, put them away. That was fine with Clay as long a
s he didn’t have to talk.
Today his first delivery went to Miss Iona Satterlee, a retired teacher a few miles north of town on Russells’ Mill Road. To get there, Clay had to pass the “special place”—his and Prentice’s—an old logging road that meandered into nothing behind the vine-draped ruins of an old mill. When they had first parked there, they thought the spot entirely their own, but later, evidence led them to believe otherwise, and according to some unwritten code, they didn’t take advantage of their secluded spot, but chose their nights selectively, infrequently, rationing the heady rapture of their visits. Or Prentice did. Clay would’ve parked there every night if she’d allowed it.
Her kisses sent him soaring into some sweet, wild place he’d never been before and didn’t ever want to leave. And when he felt Prentice’s firm young breast against his own, everything in him surged. Once, carried away by the thrill of his scoring the winning touchdown in a game with their archrivals in the next town and the dizzying essence of the autumn air, she had let him touch her breast. It was as smooth as a peach; soft yet firm, it fit into the palm of his hand as if God had made it that way. Her nipple felt like warm rubber and she moaned when he explored it.
Clay moaned, too. His hands moved urgently to the tentlike area beneath her corduroy skirt. Her stomach was flat, hot, shuddered when he touched it. Outside the car, an owl called, and through the windshield a honey-dipped moon hung from the top of a bare oak. Clay closed his eyes. At that moment, he could speak love in foreign tongues, hear music that had never been written.
“Stop!” She covered herself with her hands, curled away from him, and cried, struggling to button her blouse. “I can’t. I’m sorry, it’s wrong.”
“Oh God, Prentice, don’t do this to me! Sweetheart, please. It’s me, honey, Clay, and I love you. You know I love you. It’s all right, really.”
Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble: A Mystery (Miss Dimple Mysteries) Page 2
