Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble: A Mystery (Miss Dimple Mysteries)

by Ballard, Mignon F.

  “Lou!” Jo shouted, shuffling back through the scratchy grass as quickly as she could. “Louise! Come here, and hurry! I think I’ve found something.”

  Her sister, red-faced and perspiring, let her spade drop where she stood and followed, fanning herself with a large straw hat as she ran. “What is it? Where?”

  The two of them stopped short at the bramble-covered burrow in the woods and Jo dropped to her knees to examine it closer. “Hattie must’ve made this, Lou. Somebody had to drag that limb in front of the entrance to hide it.” And with one hand, she shoved aside the limb.

  “What’s in there? Can you see?” Louise squatted beside her but had no desire to crawl into the mysterious tunnel of grass. No telling what was in there. Spiders? Snakes? Lou Willingham shivered. It was one thing to dig in a rose bed, but this wasn’t at all what she’d had in mind.

  “Let’s wait on the Jarretts, Jo. They should be back before too long. Let Knox find out what’s in there.”

  But Jo had come this far and she was not to be deterred. “Aren’t you even curious? I don’t want to wait that long.” And she crawled on her hands and knees until she disappeared inside.

  This time, it wasn’t difficult to find where the soil had been disturbed, although someone had attempted to disguise it with a scattering of dried grass. “There’s something buried under here,” Jo announced, shoving the earth away with her hands.

  “What? What?” Her sister crouched closer.

  “Wait a minute … it’s a…” Jo brushed off the dried red earth. “It’s nothing but an old cocoa tin!” She shook it and something rattled inside.

  “You mean real tin? Then it must be old—or at least from before the war. I think they’re made out of pasteboard now. What’s in it?” Lou urged, leaning closer.

  Jo backed carefully out of the narrow confines of the makeshift tent and wiped the dirt from her skirt as she stood. “I need something to pry off the lid,” she said, shaking the tin again. “Sounds like there might be a couple of things in here.”

  “Hattie had all kinds of junk underneath that trailer,” Lou said. “I’m sure we’ll find something there.”

  Using a small hand spade with a broken handle, Jo pried off the rusty top and emptied the contents onto the hard-baked earth behind the now-abandoned trailer.

  “This is what I was afraid of,” Jo groaned as she looked at the trinkets scattered on the ground. “All that work for nothing!”

  Lou picked up the single opal earring and a tarnished ring with a chipped red stone that obviously had come from the dime store. “These were Hattie’s treasures, so they must’ve been important to her. It’s sad, isn’t it? What’s that in the bottle?”

  Jo made a face as she removed the top. “Ugh—Blue Waltz perfume!” She set aside a lapel pin with several rhinestones missing; a small plastic whistle that looked as if it had come from a Cracker Jack box; a gold tab from a key chain; a man’s pocket watch with a broken crystal; four dollar bills folded together, and thirty-six cents in change.

  Lou put the broken key chain in the palm of her hand to examine it more closely. “This is the only thing that looks like it might be worth anything. I think it’s gold—and look, there’s something engraved here.”

  It looked as if the delicate links of the chain had been separated from something—probably a ring of keys—but the thin rectangular tag remained attached. Lou held it up to the sunlight, and although it was almost noon and the sun was high in the sky, she felt a frightening chill.

  “Can you read it? What does it say?” Jo leaned closer, wishing she’d brought her reading glasses.

  “Jo, it’s Chenault’s!” Lou narrowed her eyes to read the inscription: G. Chenault Kirkland. She closed her fingers over the metal. “Good grief, Jo—this must be why Hattie was killed. She knew too much—”

  “And talked too much,” Jo added, reaching for the gold trinket and turning it over in her hands. “Look, it’s engraved on the back, too: Love, Linda—6/12/44. That must be his girlfriend in Savannah. I guess she gave it to him on his birthday or for some special occasion.…” She dropped the key chain into her sister’s hand. “Only a few weeks before Prentice was killed.”

  Lou examined it more closely. “It looks like the link has been pulled apart here from the rest of the key chain. Hattie must have found it somewhere.”

  “And I think I know where,” Jo said. “Chenault probably dropped it behind the Peach Shed during his struggle with Prentice. Delia said a train passed through about that time, so I doubt if anybody across the road at Grady’s would have heard her.”

  Jo felt familiar tears welling at the thought, but this time they were tears of anger at the person who had brought it about. “We need to take this to the police, Lou. Maybe now they’ll believe Clay had nothing to do with this.”

  “But you know Chenault will deny everything. He could’ve lost that thing anywhere, and now Hattie’s not here to tell where she found it.” They had started back to the car, which Lou had parked in front of the Shed, when Jo, who was in the lead, stopped suddenly and held out her hand to her sister. “Did you hear something?” she whispered.

  Lou shook her head. Jo was fond of teasing. “What am I supposed to hear? Some of Hattie’s Nazis? Or Yankees, maybe?”

  Annoyed, Jo shushed her once more. “I’m not kidding. Sounds like somebody’s in the woods back there and they’re trying to keep quiet. I’ve had the strangest feeling the whole time we’ve been here—like we were being watched.”

  “All the more reason to leave,” Lou urged her. “Come on, let’s get going!” And she gave her sister a slight shove.

  Clutching the engraved tab, Lou trotted after Jo, thinking of how refreshing it would be to stop at Grady’s for an ice-cold Coke before presenting their newly found evidence to the authorities. She began to walk faster.

  She didn’t know where the limb came from, but suddenly it was right there in front of her, where it hadn’t been before, and Lou pitched headfirst over it and fell sprawling on the weed-choked path. The gold key chain sailed out of her hand and landed in a mound of twigs and pine needles. Stunned, it took Lou a few seconds to realize her tumble had been no accident, for, in the act of getting to her feet, she was shoved to the ground again as someone behind her snatched the broken key chain and took off running, the rustle of footsteps fading in the distance.

  “Jo!” Lou called, stumbling to her feet. But her sister had taken her advice and gone on ahead. “Jo! Come back!” She didn’t have time to chase after the two of them, Lou decided. Jo would eventually notice she wasn’t behind her, and if she hurried, she might be able to track down the person who had tripped her.

  The wooded area they had just left covered several acres between the Peach Shed and the Jarretts’ home, with orchards surrounding it, and the thief could be anywhere by now.

  Not one to give up easily, Lou took a deep breath and gave chase. Although she couldn’t see her face, from her quick glimpse of the fleeing figure, she could tell it was a woman, slender and slight of build, and, unfortunately for Lou, swift of feet. She was tempted to yell at her to come back, but why waste her breath? Of course she wasn’t going to come back. Louise picked up a burst of speed and ran after her, and soon heard Jo and someone else close behind her.

  Lou felt a sharp pain in her side and every breath stabbed like a knife. She would never be able to catch up with this woman, she thought, but if she slowed, she would certainly lose her. The woman dodged around a mulberry tree, the ground underneath spattered with wine-colored berries, and hesitated at a leaf-carpeted gully on the other side. Lou took advantage of the respite to get a second wind just as her sister and Grady Clinkscales caught up with her. She learned later that Grady had become concerned and had come over to investigate when he noticed her car had been parked there for so long.

  The thief turned to look back right before she jumped, and for the first time, they could see her face. Hardin Haynesworth Kirkland!

  Louis
e Willingham knew there was no way she could clear that ditch without breaking her neck, and she wasn’t sure about her sister or Grady, either. The three of them watched as Hardin, just before jumping, caught her foot on a root and tumbled headfirst into the shallow ravine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “What do you think of your mama and aunt Lou being heroines of the day? Or should I say of the year?” Phoebe asked Charlie a few weeks later when she and her family were invited over for ice cream from the last of the peaches. School had begun the week before, and even though it was still too hot to wear the colorful fall clothing advertised at Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta, Miss Dimple thought she detected a slight crispness in the air on her early-morning walks.

  Jo gave her squirming grandson a kiss before setting him down to play in the yard. “Lou isn’t going to be satisfied until she gets us both killed,” she said, but she smiled when she said it, and her sister rolled her eyes and shrugged.

  “I thought we’d be perfectly safe with Chenault Kirkland locked away. How was I to know his mother was the one who killed poor Hattie McGee? And if I remember correctly, I was the only one who came away with battle scars. I still have bruises on both knees.”

  “If you hadn’t been in such a hurry to play detective, we would have learned Chenault was with his company on maneuvers during the time Hattie was killed,” Jo reminded her.

  “But he did kill Prentice,” Delia said, and she spoke with such vehemence, her toddler puckered up and began to cry until she picked him up and soothed him.

  “He knew I usually went across to Grady’s for cold drinks and waited until I was inside,” Delia continued, speaking softly. “He must have parked behind the Shed and asked for help loading the peaches into his car. That was probably where she broke his key chain.” Delia hugged little Pooh and kissed the top of his head. “If I know Prentice, she would’ve put up a fight.… If only I had heard her!”

  “Honey, I doubt if you could’ve heard anything with the train passing by, and she probably didn’t have a chance after that,” her mother said, and then looked as if she regretted having said it. Everyone knew Miss Dimple had heard a scream at about that time, but it was only one cry, and they had learned from the coroner’s report that Prentice had been strangled from behind.

  “I don’t think Chenault went there intending to kill her,” Dimple said. “He probably planned to use his charm to reason with Prentice, try to expain his actions, but she believed he had been responsible for killing the one person, aside from her aunt, she loved best in the world—”

  “And was having none of it,” Charlie added.

  * * *

  “Prentice must have recognized his car when he set that fire at Leola’s,” Delia told them. “I knew something was bothering her. At first, I thought it had to do with her breaking up with Clay, but I believe she was trying to decide what to do about Chenault. His car was one of those expensive Ford Tudor deluxe sedans. It was a four-door model with sealed beam headlights with chrome trim. Prentice told me he gave her a ride in it one time when she was walking home from town, and she even pointed it out to me once when she saw him in it. It had chrome strips on the sides and another down the center of the hood, and as far as I know, was the only one like that in town. She must have already made up her mind to confront him, and threatened to go to the police.”

  “Then why would she take a chance on helping him load those peaches, and behind the Shed at that?” Phoebe asked. And no one answered because no one wanted to say it aloud. Even before he enlisted in the military, Chenault had access to weapons. Like many in the area, the family kept firearms in their home, and it was possible he had taken along a pistol. Her actions hadn’t been voluntary.

  Annie slapped at a mosquito buzzing about her arm. “I’m sure Chenault came back to look for that key chain as soon as he realized he’d dropped it,” she said, “but by then Hattie had probably found it.”

  “She didn’t miss much,” Miss Dimple said. “And I’m not sure that was all she saw.”

  Phoebe was passing around a plate of sugar wafers, giving Pooh one for each chubby fist, but she almost spilled the lot at Dimple’s announcement. “Oh, Dimple! You really don’t think Hattie saw what happened, do you?”

  “She said she did, remember?” Delia reminded them. “When we were leaving the church after Prentice’s funeral, Hattie cornered me in the hallway—nearly scared me to death.”

  Charlie nodded. “That’s right! Of course she had everything all mixed up with Yankees and Nazis, and no telling what else, but she did say she saw who took Prentice, and she’d found something gold. That must’ve been the key chain. I didn’t pay much attention to her, but I remember you tried to convince her, Miss Dimple, to report anything she saw.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Well, I reckon she did report it, but it was to the wrong person. Do you think Hardin followed Hattie with the intention to kill her?”

  “She swears she didn’t,” Delia said. “Clay told me she said she just wanted to try to talk Hattie into telling her where she’d hidden that gold tab that came off the key chain, but Hattie wouldn’t do it, and Hardin was afraid Hattie would eventually tell what she’d seen.”

  “And it only took a push,” Phoebe added.

  “But why the rose petals?” Annie asked. “I heard she scattered rose petals over the body, and if she didn’t bring them with her, she would’ve had to come back and leave them. Oh, poor Hattie!”

  “I guess she was trying to mimic the Rose Petal Killer,” Charlie explained. “We didn’t learn until later the first killer only used white ones.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised Chenault confessed,” Miss Dimple admitted. “Except for the laundry marking, most of the evidence against him might be considered circumstantial. If his mother hadn’t killed Hattie to try to cover up what he did…”

  “And then trip you in an attempt to get back the evidence,” Jo added. “Well it didn’t leave much doubt, did it?”

  “And don’t forget—she was the one who planted Prentice’s class ring in Clay’s truck,” Delia added. “They finally got her to admit it.”

  She wiped cookie crumbs from her son’s face. “What a horrible person she is! I’m really not surprised. Sometimes it was all I could do to be polite when she came to the Shed.”

  “Do think she knew all along what Chenault had done?” Annie asked. “To Leola and Prentice, I mean.”

  Jo made a face and snorted. “Oh, I’m sure she knew about Leola. It was probably her idea to try to frighten her away, and I imagine Chenault must’ve told her what he did to Prentice, or she wouldn’t have tried to get that key chain from Hattie.”

  Delia set her empty ice-cream bowl aside and shuddered, as if she could dispel a pesky thought. “It’s crazy, isn’t it, that she should’ve been the first person to show up after I learned Prentice was missing?”

  Phoebe gasped. “Oh, Delia! Do you think she knew what had just happened?”

  But Delia shook her head. “No, I really don’t. After I finally made it clear that we were dealing with an emergency, she seemed to be concerned.” She sighed. “Well … either that or she’s a darn good actress!”

  “Huh!” Charlie muttered. “I’ll bet it didn’t take long for her to put two and two together. “Clay told me that Griffin Kirkland had planned for Chenault to go to law school and join his firm after the war,” she added, “but his mother had been secretly saving for years so he could become independent of his father.”

  Phoebe began to scrape the ice-cream churn, ladling the rest of it into a container. “I never did understand why Hardin Haynesworth what’s-her-name paraded around town pushing a wheelbarrow dressed like Hattie. Can somebody please explain that to me?”

  “I don’t believe she wanted anyone to realize Hattie was missing,” Miss Dimple said. “I suppose she thought the longer the body lay there, the harder it would be to determine the time of death, and everyone would think she was killed by
the Rose Petal Killer. Also, it would give her more time to look for the tab from the key chain Chenault lost.”

  At that moment, little Tommy took a tumble from the wooden kiddie car his grandmother had given him for his first birthday, and Delia had to steel herself not to run to his aid. She smiled as the child picked himself up from the grass and climbed back onto his toy. He was growing so fast! She could hardly wait for his father to see him. Wouldn’t Ned be proud?

  “Clay told me he enlisted in the navy,” she said finally. “He’s been wanting to do that for a while, and I think it will be good for him to get away. There are too many reminders here of Prentice.” She shook her head. “She was part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve lost a good friend.”

  Jo Carr gave Delia’s hand a squeeze. “I’m happy that Bertie has finally agreed to marry Adam. I understand they’ll have a quiet ceremony during the Christmas holidays, and she’s accepted a teaching position in January as head of the English Department in Clifford.”

  Miss Dimple smiled. “Good. I can’t imagine Elberta not doing the thing she does so well.” And everyone exchanged knowing smiles because they were thinking the same thing about her.

  Annie held out her bowl for more ice cream. “This is so good, Miss Phoebe. I can’t seem to get enough.”

  Charlie laughed. “Funny how your appetite has improved. I wonder—could it have anything to do with that letter that came the other day?”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed you seem to have perked up a bit,” Phoebe added, refilling Annie’s bowl.

  Annie smiled and patted the pocket where she kept the letter from Frazier, folded and unfolded, and read and reread. “‘O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful, wonderful! And yet again wonderful…’”