Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause (20 page)

Charlie turned to Annie. “Why don’t we go after school today? Anybody want to join us?”

Lily Moss pursued the last bite of baked apple on her plate. “Well … I shouldn’t with all those papers to grade, but I don’t want to miss it.”

“My afternoon should be fairly free,” Miss Dimple said. “I can give you a hand if you like, Lily.”

“Good! Then that’s settled.” Velma laid down her fork. “I’ll go along, too. We can stop at the drugstore and have a Co-Cola—make it a real party.”

Geneva said she’d love to join them but knew her husband wanted to see it, and Sebastian had to rehearse the high school chorus after school.

Dimple smiled her thanks at Odessa, who pretended not to notice. Geneva lived at home and took only her noon meals with Phoebe, and the rest of the boarders would be away that afternoon for two hours or more. That should give her a clear field.

*   *   *

Phoebe sat at the kitchen table polishing silver and hardly looked up when Dimple came in and sat beside her. The house was quiet and empty as the others had left for the picture show, and earlier Odessa had made a stew of today’s leftovers and put it in the refrigerator for supper before leaving for home.

Dimple picked up a sterling fork in the familiar Forget-Me-Not pattern, dipped a rag into the polish, and began to work in earnest. She didn’t speak.

After a few minutes of silence, Phoebe Chadwick sighed and tossed a polished spoon into the center pile with a clatter. “Well, you might as well tell me what it is,” she said.

Miss Dimple eyed her fork and started on another. “What
what
is?”

“Oh, Dimple, you know very well
what
. I know you’re up to something. Just tell me what you want.”

“Very well, I’ll tell you.” Dimple pushed back her chair in order to look more closely into Phoebe’s pale face. “I want to know what is the matter with you, Phoebe, and don’t even think of saying it’s nothing because I know better. For over a month now we’ve watched you become almost a shadow of yourself. You don’t eat, and I doubt if you sleep because I’ve heard you down here walking around in the middle of the night. You jump at the slightest noise, and your eyes are constantly red from crying. You are my dear friend, and I’m worried about you. We all are.”

“So that’s why everyone conveniently decided to go to the picture show,” Phoebe mumbled; her head sank onto her chest.

Miss Dimple spoke up brightly. “Virginia and I plan to see it tomorrow. You should come, too.”

“I have circle meeting tomorrow,” Phoebe said dully.

“Oh, blast circle meeting!” Dimple Kilpatrick surprised herself. Why, she sounded just like her brother!

“Why, Dimple! I’ve never heard you talk like that.”

“And I’ve never seen you act like this. What’s going on with you, Phoebe? Are you ill? Is something wrong with your niece, with Harrison? We all care about you, you know, and Odessa’s just about beside herself with worry. What can we do to help?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do.” And Phoebe laid her head in her arms and cried.

“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.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

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 Thermos 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!”