Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “It’s the messages, isn’t it?” Dimple asked after the crying finally subsided, and Phoebe nodded silently, searching in her pocket for a handkerchief.

  Dimple supplied her with a clean one with delicate purple tatting on the edges. As she suspected, her friend was being blackmailed. “Do you have any idea who’s sending them?” she asked, filling the kettle with water for tea.

  Phoebe shook her head. “It’s every week or so now. They want money, Dimple. More and more money, and I don’t have it to give.”

  “And you certainly shouldn’t have to! Have you spoken with the police?”

  She took Phoebe’s silence as a negative. “And why not?” she persisted.

  “I’ll show you why not. Wait here. I’ll get them.” When Phoebe Chadwick left the room she moved like someone twenty years older, and Dimple found it difficult not to rise to her assistance. While her friend was gone she scalded the teapot with boiling water and brewed some of her special ginger-mint tea. At this point, a cup would benefit both of them.

  * * *

  There were four of the messages, all printed in block letters on cheap dime-store notepaper, all but one mailed from the local post office. Phoebe lined them up on the table, then put her hand on top of them. “Before you read these, there’s something I must tell you,” she said, speaking quietly. “Kathleen is not my niece, but my daughter. Her father and I were engaged to be married before he went off to fight in the Spanish American War. Ellis and I were very much in love, and of course we expected to be married as soon as he came home.” Phoebe held her teacup in her hands but did not drink. “He didn’t come home, and he never knew about the baby. He was killed only a month or so into his service, and no one here ever knew I was … in the family way.”

  Dimple reached for her friend’s hand. “How dreadful for you. Phoebe, I’m so sorry. What did you do?”

  “My parents sent me to stay with an aunt in Tennessee. She was kind, and I had good care, but we all knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. When Kathleen was born, my older sister and her husband adopted her and raised her as their own. Dorothy and her husband were never able to have children, and as far as I know no one ever suspected.”

  Phoebe took a sip of tea, and it seemed to revive her. “It nearly broke my heart, of course, but I was able to see her grow up and to be a part of her life—and later of Harrison’s.”

  Dimple frowned. “Are you sure no one here knew about Kathleen?”

  “I can’t imagine who it would be. My parents told everyone I was in college there, and no one questioned it when I came home. I don’t understand why anyone would wait this long to bring it up. Kathleen was born forty-four years ago, Dimple. Why now?”

  Dimple looked at the messages. The first one consisted of three sentences:

  I know Kathleen is your daughter. If you want me to keep quiet, leave 20 dollars in the tin box behind a loose stone in the wall in front of the empty house on Legion Street. Keep quiet and come alone or everyone will know.

  Phoebe’s hand trembled as she set the cup back in its saucer. “I left the twenty dollars as instructed, but the next time it was twenty-five, then thirty, and now they want fifty! I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

  Miss Dimple poured both of them another cup of tea, pausing to give her friend’s shoulder a reassuring touch as she did so. “Did Monroe know about Kathleen?” she asked, resuming her seat.

  “Monroe? Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness, no!” Phoebe sighed. “You must know how straitlaced the Chadwicks are, Dimple. He would never understand.”

  And Dimple did understand. Monroe and his family were unbending in their everyday struggles to achieve and maintain their roles of leadership at both the city and state levels.

  “I married Monroe three years after Kathleen was born hoping we might have children of our own, but it was not to be,” Phoebe said. “Frankly, I don’t believe he wanted them, and I’ve always felt an emptiness there.”

  Dimple nodded. She had filled her own emptiness by loving other people’s children. How sad it would be if she couldn’t! “What about Kathleen? Did you or your sister ever tell her the truth?”

  “Dorothy didn’t want to, so of course I never brought it up, but after my sister died, I did think about it. Sometimes I believe Kathleen must have suspected, but she’s never said anything.”

  “But Phoebe, Monroe’s been dead for several years now. Would it be so terrible if people knew the truth?”

  Phoebe stood and took their empty cups to the sink. “I doubt if they’d brand me with a scarlet letter, but you know how people are, Dimple. I really wouldn’t care if all the Chadwicks shunned me, but there would be talk, and Elderberry’s a small town. I don’t want to go through that, and I don’t want Kathleen to have to, either. No, I’ll just have to find out who’s behind it. This can’t go on.”

  Dimple Kilpatrick agreed that it couldn’t, and if she had her way, it wouldn’t. This poor excuse for a human being had to be stopped—and soon.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Somebody had been asking far too many questions. That old schoolteacher with the umbrella was just too nosy for her own good! Well, those flat tires oughta warn her! Oughta warn all of them! One had to keep an eye on that one or she’d ruin the whole thing, and if she didn’t watch out, she was going to be sorry!

  * * *

  Perhaps she should ask Velma, but after what had happened the day they picked muscadines, maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. It had to be somebody with a car, and of course she would pay for the gas, but then Lily would want to know where they were going, and Lily was afraid of her shadow. Chances are her constant worrying would give them away. No, she would have to ask somebody else.

  Light was just beginning to break as Miss Dimple walked past the abandoned house where Phoebe had been told to leave money behind a loose stone in the wall. Of course she didn’t hesitate there as, for all she knew, the blackmailer might be watching, and it would seem obvious if she made a habit of walking past, yet there must be some way to find out who was reaping ill-gotten gains at her friend’s expense. Dimple risked a brief backward glance when she reached the corner and made note of a tangle of overgrown shrubbery among the saplings that had taken root in the vacant lot next door. The old house had burned and was torn down years before, but what was left of a driveway was still discernable through the underbrush that covered the lot. Dimple Kilpatrick stopped to spear a bit of litter and added it to her collection. She was almost certain no one would notice a car parked there from the street. And her friend Virginia had a car.

  * * *

  “Oh, I don’t know, Dimple,” Virginia said as the two walked home from the picture show that evening. It was almost time for supper, and Virginia had invited her friend to share her meal. “Does Phoebe know you plan to do this? And how are you going to know when this person will show up? What would we do if he saw us?”

  Dimple sighed. She had expected this. As a rule, Virginia relished a bit of adventure, but the loss of that bond money had left her listless and depressed. Why, even the comedy they had just seen had failed to elicit a laugh. No, Dimple thought, what Virginia needed was to get her mind on someone besides herself, and by the time they had walked the distance to her friend’s front door, she thought she had her convinced.

  Phoebe not only knew of her plan to watch the house but had volunteered to come with her. She was finally persuaded, however, that whoever was doing this would become suspicious if they happened to see her there.

  “It has to be either very early in the morning or after dark,” Phoebe had told her. “That area of town is practically deserted, but there are a few houses down the street, and I wouldn’t think they’d take a chance on being noticed.”

  Dimple didn’t believe it would be a bad idea to ask these neighbors if they had seen anyone there who didn’t live nearby, but Phoebe didn’t want to risk anyone questioning the reason behind it.

  The next morning, supplied with a Therm
os of coffee, date-nut bread for Virginia, and a couple of Dimple’s fiber-filled Victory Muffins and ginger-mint tea for herself, they began their vigil. It had taken a few minutes of reasoning on Dimple’s part to convince Virginia that no one would notice her gray Chevrolet in its cover of underbrush and vines in the early morning mist. Fortunately, they were in a position to have an unobscured view of the portion of the wall with the loose stone.

  Unfortunately, the only living creature that approached it was a dog relieving himself on the crumbling column. That evening they had no better luck, although they maintained their watch for several hours and passed the time with word games and conversation. It would’ve been nice to have something to read, Dimple thought, but they dared not use a light for fear of being seen.

  They were seen, however, but neither was aware of it. Louise Willingham happened to be driving past that night on her way to take Ida Ellerby home after choir practice at the Methodist church when she noticed Virginia’s car backing out of the empty lot where that old house had burned. Now, some people in Elderberry might have dismissed it as a couple of teenagers who’d been up to things they had no business doing, but Lou recognized Virginia’s car, and in the headlights of a passing vehicle caught a brief glimpse of the person in the passenger seat.

  Now, what in the world were Dimple Kilpatrick and Virginia Balliew doing back there in that old overgrown lot? She decided not to mention it to Ida for everyone knew how Ida Ellerby blew everything way out of proportion, and maybe Virginia was just using the area to turn around. Still …

  “I tell you it was Dimple Kilpatrick and Virginia Balliew,” Lou said to her sister, Jo, the next morning as they rode the bus to their work at the munitions plant in Milledgeville. “I wonder what they were doing there. Something’s going on, and I’m dying to find out what they know about it.”

  “They were probably just turning around. I’ll bet there’s broken glass and who knows what else in that old lot. I can’t imagine why else they’d be there.”

  Lou sat up a little straighter and pulled off her gloves, then wished she hadn’t. Her fingers were still stained from picking out all those pecan meats for the party. “Well, I’m going to drive by there again tonight just to see what I can see. I wonder if they’re looking for the stolen War Bond money.”

  “I heard it turned out those weren’t Reynolds Murphy’s fingerprints on that gun after all. Whoever used it had wiped it clean,” Jo said, eager to change the subject. She knew how easy it was to get hijacked into one of her sister’s wild schemes.

  “I knew all along he had nothing to do with that,” Lou said as they left Elderberry behind them.

  “But there’s still some question about what happened to his wife,” Jo added. “He’s only out on bail, Louise.”

  “I just don’t see how anybody in this town could believe he had anything to do with that. Why, everybody knows Cynthia Murphy was wild as a haint. There’s no telling who she ran off with—and look what happened to her! I think it’s just awful that somebody would hide that shotgun in his car so people would think he had something to do with what happened to poor Jesse Dean!”

  Jo agreed and called her sister’s attention to the deep red color of the sumac on the side of the road, pleased that she had guided her safely past her curiosity about Dimple and Virginia.

  “It wouldn’t take long,” Lou said after a few minutes of silence.

  “What wouldn’t take long?”

  “Just to ride past there a few times—about the same time I saw them, you know. If we see them there tonight we’ll know something’s up for sure.”

  “You can forget the we part,” Jo told her. “I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  Louise sighed. “Very well, Josephine. I’ll go without you, but if I do see them there again, then will you believe me?”

  “Oh, all right!” Jo Carr smiled to herself. She knew she was safe.

  * * *

  “I don’t think anyone’s going to show up,” Virginia said that night after two more unsuccessful surveillances.

  “They will if they think Phoebe’s going to leave fifty dollars there,” Dimple said. “I expect they’re just giving her time to get the money.”

  “What makes them so sure she’s going to do it? I wouldn’t.”

  “You have nothing to hide, and of course she’s not going to do it, but they don’t know that yet. She’s frightened, Virginia. Whoever is doing this has done an appalling thing to Phoebe. I just hope we can find out who it is before it goes any further.”

  Virginia yawned. “Well, they’re not going to show up tonight, and my feet are freezing. I hope no one has seen us here. They’ll think we’re both crazy. A car drove past last night just as we were leaving, and I’m sure they could see who we were.”

  “I wonder if it might’ve been the person we’ve been waiting for,” Dimple said. “Perhaps we should stay a bit longer tomorrow night.”

  “Then you’ll have to do it on your own,” Virginia said. “Saturday’s always a busy day at the library, and tomorrow night I plan to have an early supper and relax in a warm bath.”

  And tomorrow would probably be the night someone showed up, Miss Dimple thought, but it couldn’t be helped. She couldn’t keep an eye on the place every minute unless she camped out on the lawn, and that hard, cold ground didn’t look one bit inviting.

  * * *

  Saturday morning turned out clear and bright with a crisp feeling of fall in the air, and Annie took advantage of it by curling up in Phoebe’s front porch swing to write a long letter to Frazier. Soon Miss Dimple and Velma Anderson followed suit and made themselves comfortable in two of the rocking chairs—Dimple with an Agatha Christie mystery, and Velma with a guest towel she was embroidering for her niece’s birthday.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask if you ever found what you were looking for in those old annuals we brought up from the basement the other night,” Velma said to Dimple.

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” Dimple closed her book, marking her place with a scrap of paper. “And I’ve been wondering if it’s of any importance. I’m reluctant to make an issue of something that might be irrelevant, yet…”

  Velma set aside her needlework and Annie her letter. “Yet what?” they asked, speaking together.

  “You might not remember this, Velma, but Reynolds Murphy’s wife, Cynthia, was a student here during her freshman year in high school, and perhaps even after that. Her maiden name was Noland.”

  Velma shook her head and frowned. “Name’s not familiar. Of course I don’t remember all of them.”

  “Is that what you were looking for?” Annie asked.

  “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure,” Miss Dimple said. “I knew Buddy Oglesby had gone to high school here but wasn’t certain of the dates until I looked through Velma’s annuals. Virginia told me how he reacted when someone in the follies cast suggested the remains that were uncovered probably belonged to a tramp passing through. Of course we didn’t know it was Cynthia at the time, but later it made me wonder if he might have known the woman earlier or if there was a connection somehow.”

  “And was there?” Annie asked.

  Miss Dimple nodded. “They went to the school dance together. It was during Buddy’s junior year when Cynthia was only a freshman.”

  Annie heard herself gasp before realizing she’d done it. From what she’d heard of Cynthia Murphy, she didn’t seem the type to be interested in Buddy. Of course at that time he might have appealed to her as an “older man.” And to object so strongly to her being described as a tramp, he obviously still felt something for her. “But he didn’t even know—” she began. The thought was so horrible, she couldn’t bring herself to finish.

  “How did he know who was buried there unless he put her there himself?” Velma pointed out. She had no such qualms.

  Miss Dimple remembered how Buddy had reacted when they discovered the sad remains beside the cotton field. How silent and pale he had become, an
d she had worried that he might not be composed enough to drive the bus.

  “That was so long ago. They were practically children,” Dimple said, “and I don’t know how long after that their relationship continued. Still, I suppose I should mention it to Bobby Tinsley.”

  Velma jabbed the needle through the linen in her embroidery hoop, where a circle of morning glories was slowly emerging. “Somebody has to be behind all this devilment going on around here. How do we know it isn’t Buddy Oglesby?”

  “Do you think he might still be around?” Annie asked. “If he took that money, I’d think he’d be as far away from Elderberry as he could get.”

  Miss Dimple laid her book aside. “I wonder…” she said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Eyes burning from the fumes, Buddy Oglesby turned the handle of the old metal food grinder as a potent mélange of onions, cabbage, peppers, and green tomatoes oozed from the blades, mounding in the large bowl beneath. Already, gleaming jars of the finished product lined the counter behind him and still more simmered on the stove in an enormous enamel pan.

  “How many more jars of this stuff do you plan to make?” he asked, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

  “As many as we can until we run out of ingredients,” she said, frowning. “I gotta do something with all this stuff from the garden, and you might as well make yourself useful. You don’t have anything else to do.” She shrugged. “Besides, chow chow sells well over at the general store, and I can use the money.”

  Well, he couldn’t argue with that. In fact, he couldn’t argue period. After all, she’d let him stay here, hadn’t she? And it sure as hell wouldn’t do to upset her! He had to stay out of sight, and where else was he to go? Sighing, Buddy fed another wedge of cabbage into the grinder and thought back to the day he’d arrived.

  * * *

  “I need a place to stay for a while,” he’d said.

  Ima Jean Acree narrowed her eyes. She had put on at least fifteen pounds since he’d seen her last, and a diapered child of about two tugged at her skirts. “Buddy? Good Lord! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since I was working up in Atlanta … What’s it been? At least five years.”