The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Buddy pulled out a lower desk drawer and swung one boot onto it. “So what’s this about Rona Jean and her baby? You here to pass along some gossip, or you got something to add to the case?” He spoke with a smile and mildly, but the question was a deliberate challenge.

  Charlie decided not to pick up the gauntlet. “I guess you’ll have to be the judge of that,” he replied, equally mild. “Fannie—my wife—just told me that Rona Jean was one of her regular customers. The young lady liked hats, it seems.”

  “That’s the truth,” Buddy said, more to himself than to Charlie. “That girl did have a passel of hats.”

  Charlie nodded and went on. “A couple of weeks ago, the two of them had a conversation. Rona Jean told Fannie she was pregnant and that she didn’t want to keep the baby. She wasn’t keen on Darling, either. What she wanted was to get out of town and make a new life for herself somewhere else. So Fannie gave her some money in return for her promise to give us the baby.” At the look on Buddy’s face, he added, “I know—it was a dumb thing to do. We’ve talked, and Fannie understands that. But she can’t have children, and she felt sorry for a baby whose mother didn’t want him. Fannie did—want him, I mean. She wanted him very much.”

  Buddy gave him a look he couldn’t read. “Just how much did Miz Dickens give Rona Jean?”

  “A lot, I’m afraid.” Charlie gave him a rueful look. “A hundred and twenty-five dollars. Rona Jean said she needed it to pay a doctor over in Monroeville and to handle the hospital. Fannie told her she could come up with more, if she needed it. We thought . . . Fannie and I thought we’d better tell you, in case you found some of that money in Rona Jean’s possession and wondered where she got it. And I thought you might want to know what she was up to.”

  Buddy whistled. “A real con artist, wasn’t she?” There was an edge to his voice. “That girl was playing all the angles. It’s beginning to sound like one of her shakedown tricks caught up with her.”

  “Con artist?” Charlie frowned. “All the angles? What angles?”

  Buddy pursed his lips, thinking. After a moment, he said, “Are we off the record?”

  “If that’s how you want it,” Charlie said. Of course, when he got something off the record, he could always try to get somebody else to confirm it. He’d played that little trick any number of times. And in Darling, nothing was truly off the record. Secrets had wings. And mouths. And legs.

  “That’s how I need it,” Buddy said. “I’m not telling you this because you’re a newsman, Charlie. I’m telling you because your wife got caught in a con. Y’see, Rona Jean didn’t promise that baby just to Miz Dickens. She promised it to Violet and Myra May.”

  “She what?” As the information sank in, Charlie felt a hot, mounting anger. “How much did they pay her?”

  “They hadn’t given her any money directly, at least not yet. But they paid the doctor—Dr. DuBois, his name is—over in Monroeville. And they told her they’d pay the hospital and give her money to get a new start somewhere else. Like your wife, they wanted her baby.” Buddy picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on the desk. “At least, Violet did. Myra May maybe just went along to keep Violet happy.” He kept his eyes on the pencil. “Violet’s the one who wants kids.”

  “Damn it!” Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think I can tell Fannie this, Buddy. She really wanted that baby, and she wanted to help Rona Jean. I don’t want her ever to know that she was the victim of a shakedown artist. That’s just going to rub salt into the wound.”

  He stopped. But if he was going to write Rona Jean’s story, the whole story, this was just another part of it, wasn’t it? This was who she was—the kind of person she had been—as Buddy said, a woman who played all the angles. Or maybe, to put it more charitably, a woman who was dealt a bad hand in life and then played whatever cards she had, hoping to improve her hand. Maybe she didn’t play those cards fairly or honestly, but if he was going to write about her, he had to see things from her point of view and tell her side of the story, too. And even though Buddy had given him the information off the record, Darling was a small town. Rona Jean’s arrangement with Violet and Myra May was bound to come out, one way or another. Fannie would have to know, and it would be best if she heard it from him, rather than from somebody at the post office or the grocery store.

  Buddy was tapping his pencil on the desk, perhaps keeping time with his thoughts. “The thing is, Charlie, that pair at the diner and your missus may not be the only ones who thought they were helping her out. Once Rona Jean got the idea that she could get money from people who wanted the baby, there was nothing to stop her from making the same promise to other people. In fact . . .” He frowned, then went on in a lower voice, thinking out loud. “In fact, that’s maybe what got her killed.”

  “Got her killed?” Charlie asked uneasily.

  Buddy was going on. “So Rona Jean figured out that she had this one thing to sell, this baby, and she was selling it to different people, and all of them thought they had a claim on it. If one found out about the others and threatened to blow the whistle . . .” He shrugged. “I guess you can see where I’m going with this.”

  Charlie stared at him for a moment. As the idea sank in, he didn’t like it. “Well, you can count Fannie out as a suspect,” he said curtly. “There’s no way she’d have the strength to wrap a stocking around Rona Jean’s neck. And for what it’s worth, I can tell you that she was home in bed with me from ten o’clock until past daylight this morning.”

  “I don’t doubt you,” Buddy said, swinging both feet onto the floor. “I don’t doubt you one bit.” He opened a desk drawer and took out an envelope. “How much did your wife give Rona Jean?”

  “A hundred twenty-five, but—” He stopped as the sheriff opened the envelope and began to count twenties.

  “Here’s a hundred and twenty,” Buddy said, pushing the money across the desk. “The rest of this is twenties, and I don’t have any change. I’ll have to owe you five.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I really don’t think you need to—”

  “Money’s tight these days.” Buddy pulled the desk calendar toward him and tore off the day’s page. “You take it and keep your mouth shut.” He pushed the page toward Charlie, with the pencil. “Just you write me a receipt, signed and dated. That’ll take care of it.”

  “If you insist,” Charlie said, and wrote the receipt. “Thanks, Buddy. I appreciate it.” He took the money and folded it into his wallet. “Rona Jean also told Fannie the names of the men she’d been with, either of whom could have been the father. She named Lamar Lassen and Beau Pyle.”

  “Yeah, those are the names I have.” Buddy paused. “Did she mention Bodeen Pyle?”

  Charlie shook his head. “No, but I don’t suppose that means much. There could be somebody else. Somebody who couldn’t marry her because he was already married. Maybe she threatened to tell his wife if he didn’t cough up enough to take care of her and the kid. Maybe he was trying to protect his reputation—and his job. Maybe—”

  Buddy sighed. “All that, too,” he said. “Look, Charlie, I know you’re a newspaperman and you like to print stories, and even speculations, when they fit your story.”

  That’s true, Charlie thought. Sometimes speculations were the story. And sometimes a speculation could itself be a fact, even a valuable fact.

  “But I’m in law enforcement,” the sheriff went on, “and speculation isn’t enough for me. I need real facts—who did what, when, how, that kind of thing. If you’ve got any facts, I’ll be glad to hear them.” He paused, pushing his lips in and out. “Especially anything connecting Rona Jean with somebody out at the CCC camp.”

  Charlie raised both eyebrows. “You think maybe some fellow out there—”

  “Not namin’ names,” Buddy said. “But I’ve been told that Rona Jean was seeing some guy who rides one of those Army motorcycles. You see that
bike around town, you give me a holler. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Charlie said, then added, “I was in the diner yesterday and heard somebody talking about a motor pool out at the camp. Maybe that’s something you could check out.”

  “Oh yeah?” Buddy said. “Sure. I can do that. Thanks for the suggestion.”

  Charlie stood up, thinking that Buddy Norris, hometown boy or not, had the makings of a pretty fine sheriff, after all. He thought briefly of mentioning Mata Hari’s tip, then decided against it. Buddy might think he should be involved, and Charlie wasn’t ready to hand any part of his story to anybody else—at least, not yet. Anyway, it wasn’t connected to the Hancock murder. And that’s what Buddy had to focus on right now.

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” he added. “And yes, you’ll hear from me if I turn up anything that’s connected to your case.” He chuckled ruefully. “But don’t count on it. I just report the news. I don’t make it.”

  Charlie didn’t know it, of course, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  * * *

  After Charlie left, Buddy picked up his hat and went into the workroom. To his deputy, he said, “What I was saying when Charlie Dickens came in was that Miz Hart saw somebody from the camp over behind the diner, night before last. He rode off on a green military Harley. I’m going out to the CCC camp. If there’s a motor pool out there, maybe there’s a log or some way of checking out vehicles. If I can find out who drove a motorcycle into town last night, I’ll bring him back with me.” He grinned crookedly. “I’d rather question him here than at the camp, where he might have friends.”

  “If you’re bringing a suspect in, you might need backup.” Wayne cocked an eyebrow. “Want me to come with you?”

  Personally, Buddy would have been glad of the backup, but there were other things to consider. He shook his head. “Better you stay here and keep the radio on, Wayne. Last time we had a big storm blow through, maybe seven, eight years ago, Pine Mill Creek came up and flooded half the town. The sheriff and the mayor teamed up to make sure people were okay, so we’ll be doing that again. The Exchange has a list of old folks to call and find out if they need any help. The Methodist church basement is a good place for people who don’t feel good about staying in their houses. If the mayor stops in while I’m gone, tell him we’ll do whatever we can if things get bad.”

  Wayne nodded. “Maybe you could also check with the head man out at the camp. There are a lot of young guys out there who could give us a hand if we need them. And we might, if there’s much flooding.”

  “Good idea,” Buddy said, thinking that—whether it was smart planning or just plain luck—he had hired a deputy who had his head on straight. “Actually, I’m supposed to have dinner with that guy tonight, over at Verna Tidwell’s house. Campbell, his name is. Captain Campbell.”

  Wayne smacked the side of his head with his hand. “Damn,” he said. “I knew I should have written it down. Miz Tidwell called just before you got back from talking to Miz Hart. Tonight’s dinner is off, because of the storm. She’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.”

  “Just my luck,” Buddy said ruefully, reaching for his black rubber raincoat. “I lived next door to that woman when I was growing up. Nobody in the world makes a better chicken pot pie.”

  SIXTEEN

  Charlie Dickens Meets Mata Hari and Is Enlightened

  The sun had been shining fitfully when Charlie went home for lunch. An hour later, when he walked across the street to the sheriff’s office, the clouds were piling up in the southwest. By the time he got in his car to drive out of town to meet his informant, the air was so sultry and heavy with heat and humidity that it was difficult to breathe, and the sunlight seemed to have been leached from the sky. The storm clouds now filled the southern horizon, and lightning lanced from one towering thunderhead to another. It was going to rain before long, he guessed, and rain hard.

  The abandoned schoolhouse where Charlie had agreed to meet Mata Hari was some seven miles west of town, on Loblolly Road. The narrow, rutted dirt road had once led to a sawmill down by the river, but the area had been logged over, and the sawmill, too, was abandoned. The one-room school had never enrolled more than a couple of dozen students at one time and had been closed seven or eight years before, when Cypress County created a consolidated school district.

  Now, with almost no traffic and no county maintenance, Loblolly Road was a narrow green tunnel through arching trees, the roadsides overgrown with blackberry bushes and giant ragweed. The electricity and the telephone lines had once run from the county road to the school and the sawmill, but every fourth or fifth utility pole was leaning at a steep angle and the wires were down. Charlie guessed that his informant had chosen the out-of-the-way place to give them some privacy for their conversation—but they could have gotten the same privacy at the Dispatch office, couldn’t they? When he had been sitting behind his desk back in Darling, meeting at the old school hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea. But as he drove down Loblolly Road, the isolation felt so nearly overwhelming that he wished they had settled on a meeting place closer to civilization, especially in view of the deteriorating weather.

  Loblolly School stood in a clearing that the unruly forest, like a tropical jungle, was threatening to swallow whole. It was a one-room frame building, constructed on wooden piers that raised it a couple of feet above the ground—pier and beam construction, common to rural buildings in the area. It stood the test of time, too, for the piers were usually cypress, a dense, durable wood that resisted rot.

  But the building itself wasn’t standing time’s test very well. Once painted white, the pine siding had weathered to a pale gray, with wild vines clambering up the walls. The surrounding schoolyard was unmowed, and the whole place wore a derelict look, some of the windows broken, half the shingles blown or rotted off the roof, the peaked belfry empty, its bell carted away long ago to serve another purpose.

  Charlie pulled up on the gravel apron in front and turned off the ignition. The parking area was empty—no other vehicle. The woman he was meeting, whoever she was, could not have walked to this remote place, and the road was too rutted for a bicycle. He congratulated himself on being the first to arrive. It gave him a measure of confidence and a sense of control.

  Until now, curiosity had been the driving force behind Charlie’s eagerness for this meeting—curiosity and a newspaperman’s instinctive desire to see his byline on a big story. Mata Hari’s claims were shocking, yes. And deeply disturbing, too, for if her allegations were true, it meant that the system that supplied the CCC camps—not just here but everywhere—was easily manipulated. There was a lot at stake here, as he’d told Lorena Hickok, his friend from the old Associated Press days. Because of these wider implications, this story could be big—much bigger, even, than Rona Jean’s murder, tragic as that was.

  But as he parked and turned off the ignition, Charlie thought again that agreeing to meet his informant in this isolated spot was not the best idea he’d come up with all week. He knew he didn’t frighten easily. He had distinguished himself for bravery under artillery fire during the Great War, and he’d behaved more or less admirably in several close calls during his reporting career. But at the moment, curiosity and instinct were trumped by apprehension, and he found himself remembering Rona Jean, dead in the front seat of Myra May’s car. He should have told Fannie where he was going. Or the sheriff, although he had deliberately not mentioned this meeting to Buddy, who (he suspected) might want a piece of the action. But keeping it to himself might have been a mistake. If something happened out here, it might be a while before anybody found him.

  Don’t be ridiculous, he reprimanded himself impatiently. What’s going to happen? Somebody’s going to show up with a gun and shoot both of us? That kind of thing only happens in Sam Spade novels. Or if you’re Clyde Barrow, with Bonnie Parker riding shotgun. He got out of the car, took off his jacket and straw boater, and put both on
the passenger seat, then loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. The back of his shirt was already wet with sweat. A breeze was beginning to lift the leaves on the huge sycamore that stood next to the schoolhouse, showing the leaves’ pale green undersides, so that the whole tree seemed to be shot through with twists of silver. To the south, he glimpsed a bright flicker of lightning and heard a rumble of thunder, and the air was laden with the fresh scent of rain. He rolled up the windows before he left the car, thinking that, if nothing else, a storm might at least break the heat.

  The wooden front door had once been locked, but the padlock had been wrenched off long ago and the door hung crookedly from a top hinge. Charlie climbed the three wooden steps, pushed the door open, and went in. A bird fluttered wildly in the rafters, and from a corner came the scratch-scratch of a rat, or maybe even a possum. The scent of mildew and chalk and children’s sweaty bodies lingered, mirage-like, on the heavy air.

  Charlie looked around. He felt as if the clock had suddenly been turned back some four decades and he had stepped into one of the schoolrooms he remembered (not very pleasantly) from his childhood. As he paused in the door to light a cigarette, he could almost hear the angry ridicule of the teacher who had caught him and another boy smoking behind the school’s privy one spring afternoon. The voice was so real that he had to remind himself: he wasn’t that little kid now—he was a grown-up, and smart and capable, and that teacher had long ago gone to her reward. He pulled on his cigarette and deliberately blew out a stream of smoke. (Take that, you old witch!) A ghostly, greenish light filtered through the fly-specked windows, illuminating the four rows of empty wooden desks, each attached to the one in front of it; the dusty wooden floor, scarred by decades of children’s feet; and the aisle down the center of the room.