“We’re to meet Bobby at the end of the alley that runs behind the store promptly at six thirty,” she told them. “That will give Reynolds time to account for the sales they took in today and put the money in the safe. His office opens onto that alley, and I’ll knock on the door and call to him so he won’t be alarmed. Bobby thinks he’ll be more likely to open the door to me, but of course he’ll be right there with us.”
Jo gasped. “What if he has a gun?”
But Miss Dimple only frowned and shook her head.
“And then what?” Lou asked.
Miss Dimple took time to tuck a soft gray strand of hair under her violet knitted hat. “Then we tell him what we suspect he did, that we know from Jordan that Millie saw him put the rifle in his own car the night of the follies and we believe she was trying to blackmail him for that reason.”
“And I’ll tell him I recognized him from the way he ran the night Millie struck her head,” Jo said, “and we know he wasn’t at the Super Service the night of Jesse Dean’s fire.”
“What do I tell him?” Lou wanted to know.
“You tell him that it’s time for him to admit his mistakes and make a clean breast of things. Tell him that no matter what he’s done, he’s still one of ours, but it’s time for him to pay the price.” Miss Dimple might have been speaking to one of her students.
Lou brightened. “I’ll try, but I’m not sure I can remember all that.”
* * *
She did, however, and said it most convincingly with only the slightest tremor in her voice.
After a brief pause, Reynolds Murphy had opened the door at Miss Dimple’s request to find the four of them standing there, and at first he didn’t seem to notice Bobby Tinsley in the background. When he did, he stepped back and let them have their say, and as Miss Dimple had predicted, he didn’t deny their accusations.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen to Millie McGregor,” he said later. She had attempted to blackmail him, he said, and he had waited that night to see who would show up to collect the money. “When she saw me, she ran, and I ran after her. I don’t know what I meant to do—frighten her, maybe—but I certainly didn’t intend to kill her,” he told them. “It looked like she ran into a tree and fell. I didn’t know until later she’d hit her head on a rock. I ran, of course, because I didn’t want anyone knowing why she expected me to pay her. It’s true she’d seen me put that rifle in my own car,” he admitted. “I did it to confuse them after what happened to Jesse Dean, but Millie threatened to tell everyone what she’d seen. I only wanted to try and reason with her. You have to believe me—I wasn’t planning to hurt her.”
“What about Jesse Dean?” Jo asked. “He could’ve died, you know. And you were the one who set fire to that trash can, too, weren’t you? What has he ever done to you, Reynolds?” Jo was fond of Jesse Dean Greeson, and it saddened her to think how he must have suffered.
Reynolds shook his head and sighed. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I only set that fire so everyone would believe Jesse Dean was the original target, and I made sure he got out before it did much damage.”
“So convenient, your being there,” Miss Dimple commented, forcing him to meet her eyes.
“Buddy Oglesby was supposed to be on that side of the stage—not Jesse Dean, and I only meant to frighten him.”
“Why?” Miss Dimple wanted to know.
“Because he’d said earlier—back when rehearsals first started—that even though he had nothing to do with my wife’s death, he insinuated that he knew who did. Cynthia had told me the two of them had been sweet on each other years ago, and I knew they’d kept in touch. I didn’t know how much he knew or thought he knew … I’ll admit I can’t bear to look at the man, but I just meant to scare him into silence, that’s all.”
“You scared him, all right,” Bobby Tinsley said. “He took off and didn’t come back until we dragged him home.”
“He wasn’t even talking about you,” Jo told him. “Buddy thought H. G. Dobbins was responsible for Cindy’s death.”
“Still, he had no business keeping after Cindy. They’d been a couple in high school—high school, mind you! Why couldn’t he leave her alone?”
Bobby Tinsley didn’t tell him that from what he’d heard, it was Cynthia who wouldn’t leave Buddy alone. “Do you want to tell us how your wife ended up buried next to the Hutchinsons’ cotton field? Was that an accident, too?”
Reynolds Murphy didn’t try to stop the tears. “It was an accident! I didn’t mean to kill her. I loved her, and I don’t think anybody who knows me would argue with that. Cindy was my world—she and Ross.” He paused and shook his head. “Was,” he repeated.
He sank into a chair. “I’d been on a buying trip to Atlanta, but I came home a day early and found my wife had been with another man. I didn’t know who, because he left as soon as he heard my car, but I’ll swear on my mother’s grave it was H. G. Dobbins, except at the time I had no idea he was the one. I’d heard her talking to somebody named Cowboy a couple of times on the phone, but she said he was just an old friend. I should’ve known better, but I wanted to believe her—oh, you just don’t know how I wanted to believe her!
“Cindy said she didn’t love me, that she wanted to be with somebody else and they were going away together. And she told me Ross wasn’t even mine! That’s when I hit her—hit her hard. She fell, and her head struck the marble slab that was in our kitchen, the one my mother used to make yeast bread. I’ve since had it removed—had new cabinets put in and everything. I couldn’t bear to look at it.”
“And then what?” Chief Tinsley asked.
“She wasn’t breathing! I tried to revive her, but it was too late. Oh, God, she was dead! Cindy was dead. I didn’t know what to do, so I put her in the car and drove all around the county for I don’t know how long. I’d brought along a shovel, and I buried her somewhere on the Hutchinsons’ property. Hell, I didn’t even know where I was! Ross was on some kind of camping trip with the Scouts, and as soon as I could arrange it, I enrolled him in that military school. I didn’t even want to be around him.”
Dimple Kilpatrick had never taught Ross Murphy as he’d attended one of the schools in the county, but she could imagine how the young boy must have felt at being abandoned by the only parents he ever knew, and she had to use every bit of her willpower to keep from leaping across the table and shaking Reynolds Murphy until his brains rattled. It didn’t matter now if he was the boy’s natural father or not. The young man deserved better. Buddy Oglesby had professed a liking for Ross, and she thought he just might need company on the road he had chosen. Well … time would tell.
* * *
The sky was turning dark as Charlie raked crab apples into a pile in the backyard and tossed them into a bucket. The tree made a mess every fall, but it was beautiful in the spring, and if they could get enough sugar they made wonderful jelly.
Delia was upstairs putting Tommy to bed, and her mother had called from Aunt Lou’s to say she might be a little late and would tell them all about it when she got home. She and Delia had eaten a light supper of scrambled eggs on toast and some of the applesauce from last fall’s crop. Maybe raking up crab apples would keep her from thinking of Will. Had he been transferred to Craig Field or some other base before he could let her know? Or worse, maybe there’d been an accident with his plane! Things like that happened. She’d heard all about them. Charlie reached for another crab apple with her rake. She wasn’t going to think about that.
Her mother had sounded excited over the phone, and she was rarely late for supper, so something must have been going on. Between Jo Carr’s routine work at the ordnance plant and her humdrum job writing society news for the Eagle, Charlie couldn’t imagine what it could possibly be. Probably some wild scheme of Aunt Lou’s … Well, she would just have to wait to hear about it later. She tugged her hat over her ears against the cold and wished she’d thought to put on gloves. It was getting dark and Charlie could hardly see, but s
till she raked until the bucket was so full she could barely lift it.
Hearing footsteps on the driveway behind her, Charlie thought at first it was her mother returning until she heard his voice.
“Can I give you a hand with that bucket?”
Turning, she saw Will standing less than three feet away. Will Sinclair was real and he was here—right here in her own backyard! Charlie closed the gap between them in less than a second.
“I didn’t want to call because I wasn’t sure I could get a pass until the last minute,” he said between kisses, “so I thought I’d just surprise you.”
“Well, you did,” Charlie admitted. “How long will you be able to stay?” The touch of him, the smell of him, the warmth of his arms around her—if only she could keep it forever.
“Just until tomorrow,” he murmured into her hair. “What time does the jewelry store open in the morning?”
ALSO BY
Mignon F. Ballard
Miss Dimple Disappears
THE AUGUSTA GOODNIGHT MYSTERIES
Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed
The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders
Too Late for Angels
The Angel Whispered Danger
Shadow of an Angel
An Angel to Die For
Angel at Troublesome Creek
The Christmas Cottage
The War in Sallie’s Station
Minerva Cries Murder
Final Curtain
The Widow’s Woods
Deadly Promise
Cry at Dusk
Raven Rock
Aunt Matilda’s Ghost
MIGNON F. BALLARD grew up in a small town in Georgia. She is the author of Miss Dimple Disappears, along with seven mysteries featuring angelic sleuth Augusta Goodnight, and The War in Sallie’s Station, a novel about growing up in rural Georgia during World War II. She lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina, with her husband, Gene. Visit her on the Web at www.mignonballard.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
MINOTAUR BOOKS
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
MISS DIMPLE RALLIES TO THE CAUSE. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon F. Ballard. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ballard, Mignon Franklin.
Miss Dimple rallies to the cause : a mystery / Mignon F. Ballard. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
e-ISBN 9781429981453
1. Women teachers—Fiction. 2. Elementary school teachers—Fiction. 3. Georgia—History—20th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.A466M59 2011
813'.54—dc23
2011026760
First Edition: December 2011
*Miss Dimple Disappears
Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause Page 25
