Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause (23 page)

Josephine Carr dismissed all that, however. She really didn’t think Buddy would go over to the enemy and wasn’t even sure he had taken the money. She did wonder, though, if he might’ve had something to do with putting that shotgun in Reynolds Murphy’s car. “I think Buddy ran away because he was frightened,” she said as she and Lou discussed their nocturnal surveillance plans that afternoon.

“Frightened of who? Of what?” Lou wanted to know.

“I don’t know, but Charlie, and Annie, too, said he’d been acting strangely before all this happened. They told me Buddy said something that gave them the impression he might even know who killed Cynthia Reynolds.”

Louise peeled an apple and cut off a wedge. “Huh!” she said. “They must think Reynolds did it since he’s only out on bail. I wonder if Buddy was referring to him.”

“I guess Bobby Tinsley and his bunch must have their reasons, but if they ever do find Buddy, he’ll have a lot to answer for.”

“I sure do feel sorry for Reynolds’s son,” Lou said. “How old you reckon he is now? Twelve? Thirteen?”

“Ross? Well, he was around ten when his mama ran off—well, we
thought
she’d run off, so that would be about right,” Jo said. “Reynolds sent him to that military school, remember? Said he couldn’t give him the care he needed at home. I always thought that was a mistake.”

“I never understood that, either, but I guess he did what he thought best at the time. I wonder if the boy knows about his daddy being arrested.” Lou popped a slice of apple in her mouth.

“I hope not. At any rate, he’s out of jail now, and a good thing or that fire at Jesse Dean’s might’ve been a lot worse than it was. I hope they can get all this mess cleared up soon. Don’t we have enough to worry about with this horrible war?”

Lou noticed the catch in her sister’s voice and covered Jo’s hand with hers. “What do you hear from Fain?”

“As you know, we don’t hear often, and then he can’t tell us anything, but we did get a short letter a few days ago. He sounds all right, but of course that’s what he
wants
us to think. We don’t know anything until we hear it on the news, but I guess that’s the way it has to be.”

Charlie and Delia had taken the baby out in his carriage to visit some of the neighbors, and Jo and her sister visited in the sitting room, where a small coal fire burned on the hearth.

“I think we should wait until it’s good and dark before we go tonight,” Lou said, tossing her apple core into the fire. “We don’t want anyone to see us.”

“What if Virginia and Dimple see us? They might be curious as to why on earth we’re following them,” Jo said. “Frankly, I’m not one bit sure they were the ones you saw, Louise. Any number of people have cars the same color as Virginia’s, and what if these people are up to no good? You know, black market or something?”

But Lou brushed that aside as she stood to leave. “It was them, all right, no doubt about it. And what if they’re in some kind of trouble? They might need our help, Josephine.”

From what she’d heard of Miss Dimple’s past adventures, Jo thought she could probably take care of herself, but her sister was already on her way out the door muttering something about fixing Ed something to eat for supper.

*   *   *

“Where are you going so late, Mama?” Charlie looked up from the rolltop desk in the sitting room, where she was writing letters.

Jo hesitated. Should she tell her the truth? Uh-uh! “Oh, you know your aunt Lou—she’s found these old pictures in the attic, and it’s driving her crazy to know who they are. She thought maybe I could help.”

Charlie started to rise. “Do you want me to—?”

“No, no. I’ll be all right and the walk will do me good, but I think little Tommy’s fretful tonight with teething and your sister could probably use a hand.” She paused before leaving. “Writing to Will?”

“Will, and Fain—and Hugh, too. I promised I would, and he likes to hear all the hometown news. I worry about Hugh, Mama. He’s always going to be in the middle of some kind of terrible battle.”

“That’s why he trained for the Medical Corps, Charlie. It’s what he wanted to do. Emmaline won’t let on how she feels, but I know she worries about Hugh as much as I do about Fain.”

For a while Jo thought her daughter was in love with Hugh Brumlow, and Charlie thought she was, too, but one short afternoon with Will Sinclair had changed all that. Charlie still cared for Hugh and had corresponded with him faithfully, especially after he had been assigned to a ship a couple of months before. Neither Charlie nor his mother knew exactly where he was.

*   *   *

Lou waited at the corner, her car parked in deepest shadow, silent and mysterious. Jo squelched a little shudder of excitement. She was
not
going to let her sister get carried away this time! Still … Jo remembered when, as children, she and Lou had worked up the courage to pick cherries from Jed Fletcher’s tree. Known for his stinginess, the old man lived about midway between their house and school, and they had eyed those cherries daily, watching them turn a lovely dark red until they could almost taste the sweet, ripe, forbidden goodness of them. It had been Lou’s idea, of course, Lou’s dare, and the two had ducked under the barbed wire fence and indulged themselves shamelessly until, with an angry shout, Jed Fletcher chased them, finally giving up when they took refuge in a wooded lot across the road. There they had collapsed behind a huge sycamore tree with red-stained hands and faces and laughed at their escape as, still muttering, their pursuer gave up the chase and turned for home. What fun that had been! Jo found herself smiling at the memory.

“What’s so funny?” Lou asked as her sister joined her in the car.

“Nothing, why?”

“You were smiling. What is it?”

“I wasn’t smiling, Louise. I was shaking. It’s freezing out here.” She was
not
going to give Lou the satisfaction of knowing she
kind of
enjoyed the risk of danger. After all, they were two middle-aged (well, all right—
a little past
middle-aged) women who had no business prying into things that didn’t concern them.

The car smelled of buttered popcorn and Ed Willingham’s pipe tobacco and, because it had no heater, was probably a lot colder than the inside of the Carrs’ Frigidaire. For comfort, Lou had brought along an ancient hand-knitted afghan and two bags of popcorn from the picture show. (Bessie Jenkins, who worked there Saturdays, would let you in to buy it if she knew you were of good conscience.)

“Have you seen them?” Jo asked, helping herself to the popcorn. If she could bottle the smell of it, Jo thought, she would make a fortune.

“Not yet. I drove around the block a couple of times. They might already be there. I can’t see a thing from the road.”

“Then how are we going to know?” Jo asked. “And if it turns out not to be Miss Dimple and Virginia, then what?”

“We don’t have to go all the way in, Josephine—just far enough to see if there’s a car back there. We’ll pretend we’re just turning around. Then we can park around the corner and see who comes out.”

Jo sighed. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. “For heaven’s sake, what good will that do?”

Apparently Lou hadn’t thought of that because it took her a while to answer. “Then I guess we’ll follow them, Josephine, or come back in the daylight and try to find out what’s going on here. Maybe they’ve left some kind of evidence behind.” And, as if taking her sister’s silence for agreement, she started the car and drove into the weed-choked driveway of the vacant lot in question.

“Oh lord, Louise, how can you see where you’re going? It’s pitch-black dark. Turn on the headlights!”

“In a minute. I don’t want them to know we’re coming,” Lou said as a sapling bent and crunched under the left front tire. “Uh-oh! What’s that?”

“You ran into a tree, that’s what!” Jo strained to see in front of them but could see nothing. “There’s no car back here, Louise. Turn on the headlights and let’s get out of this place!”

“Don’t yell! I’m trying.” Lou switched on the headlights, but the engine stalled as she attempted to shift into reverse. “Something’s caught under the car. Oh, lordy! Ed will kill me.”

But that wasn’t the least of their troubles at the moment, Jo realized, as a dark figure dashed in front of the yellow glow of the headlights and disappeared in the surrounding darkness, and there was something vaguely familiar about the way he moved.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

Damn! The Prince Albert can was empty! Looks like the old girl wasn’t as rich as she’d thought and probably needed more time. Well, Phoebe Chadwick had better come up with that fifty bucks—and soon—if she knew what was good for her.

But there should be even more money in this other one. And easy! Why, it had dropped into her lap like pennies from heaven—better than pennies! She giggled at the thought. Well … maybe not heaven. She’d been walking through the parking lot beside the auditorium the night of the follies when she saw him put the shotgun in the trunk of that car! And how lucky was that?

The message should’ve arrived yesterday—plenty of time to get the money and leave it in a place where nobody would ever think to look, a place out of sight from anyone passing by. And there was money to be had—lots of it. No reason she shouldn’t enjoy some of it, was there? After all, think what
he
had done!

Making her way carefully around the tangled undergrowth in the front yard to the back of the house, she switched on her flashlight and threaded through long-neglected shrubbery to the place where she’d left the small metal box beneath sagging back steps. Straggly grass and vines concealed it so only she and one other person would know to look for it there.

Yes, there it was! She could see the glint of metal through the foliage.

But what was that? Something moved in the dry weeds behind her. The rustle of leaves and the faint snap of a twig sounded more frightening than cannon fire in this remote place. Someone was watching her. Waiting.

She ran, not toward the front but to the dubious safety of the vacant wooded lot behind it, where the cover of darkness and trees would protect her. It didn’t.

*   *   *

Josephine Carr cringed beneath the afghan. Would it be safer to stay in the car or make a break for it and run? And didn’t she swear she’d never let her sister lead her into a situation like this again? “Did you see that?” she croaked.

“I saw it. Probably some teenagers out sparking.” Lou pumped the clutch and managed to bring the engine to life, but the car wouldn’t budge. “Something’s stuck under there. We’ll have to get out and move it.”

“Maybe you didn’t see what I saw. There’s a man—well, I think it’s a man—out there, Louise, and for all I know, he might not be alone.”
Where had she seen somebody run like that? She just couldn’t pinpoint it.

“Do you want to sit here all night? We’re going to have to do something soon because I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, just don’t think about it,” Jo said. “Sit on your foot or something.”

“I think he’s gone. It looked like he—she—it—whatever it was—was running away,” her sister said. “You can sit there like a bump on a log if you want to, but I’m getting out.”

What would be worse, Jo thought, getting out of the car to be murdered by an evil maniac or sitting safely inside while her sister was being attacked? Taking a deep breath, which she knew might be her last, she opened her door and felt her way around the car. The dim headlights did little to illuminate the ground in front of them, and she could hear Lou struggling with whatever was impeding their progress underneath the driver’s side of the car.

“You hold the flashlight,” Lou directed, “while I pull.” And that’s what they did, at least for a while, until Jo put down the light and joined in the tugging. Finally, something cracked, and they both fell to the ground with rosin on their hands and the strong smell of pine all around them.

“Hurry and get in and let’s try it again,” Lou said, pulling herself up with great difficulty.

Her sister needed no urging, but the stubborn car only shivered and lunged a few inches forward before digging deeper into its rut.

“It looks like we’re stuck,” Lou announced after the motor sputtered to a halt. “You’ll have to push, Jo.”

“
Me?
Why not you? You got us into this mess.” But she was cold and tired and wanted to go home, so Jo reluctantly climbed out of the car and began to push. However, after a few tries, the wheels only created a trench in the soft dirt.

Jo deliberately refrained from glancing at the darkness that surrounded her as she attempted to move the car from behind. If anything was out there, she didn’t want to know it. “I think we’re going to have to find some branches to put under the wheels to get some traction,” she said, hoping the imitation-rubber tires would hold up under the stress. Because of the war, rubber was in short supply, and what passed for rubber inner tubes required constant patching.

“Branches under the wheels? Isn’t that what caused this in the first place?” Lou said.

“Your driving into a tree is what caused it,” Jo said crossly. Her feet were cold, her hands were scratched, and
she wished Lou hadn’t mentioned needing to go to the bathroom!
She looked for somewhere to wipe her sticky hands but found nothing. “Come on, you’ve got to get out and help me find something that will do. I’m not wandering around here in the dark by myself.”

Using the headlights would drain the battery so, except for the flashlight, the two were in complete darkness. Stumbling into the undergrowth around them, Lou probed the area with the pale yellow beam, stopping now and then to break off a spray of cedar or pine, while Jo walked closely behind her, gathering what she could.

Neither of them noticed what appeared to be a fallen limb in front of them until they tripped over it and tumbled to the ground.

“Oh, lordy, what if there’s a snake in here?” Jo said as they struggled to help one another to stand. “Don’t they like to hide under logs?”