The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (13 page)

But Verna wasn’t giving up so easily. After a moment, she said, “Both Melba Jean and Ruthie owe me. Maybe I can get one of them to loan me her key so I can copy it.”

Myra May shook her head. “That won’t work, either, I’m afraid. Mr. Scroggins told Coretta that she’s supposed to unlock the office in the morning and lock it up in the evening. He doesn’t trust either of the women who work there. He says one of them has been carrying tales to the newspaper.” She wrinkled her nose. “
Girls
, he called them,” she said disgustedly. “I hate it when men call grown women
girls.
”

“Carrying tales to the newspaper?” Lizzy asked. She considered. “I’ve always wondered how Charlie Dickens managed to find out so much about what was going on in the county treasurer’s office. It does seem that he’d have to have an inside source.”

Verna bit her lip. “Well, I know I can’t get the new key from Coretta. If I even so much as hinted at it, she’d run straight to Mr. Scroggins and tell him. You can’t trust that woman any further than you can throw her.”

“I have to agree, Verna,” Lizzy said ruefully. “Coretta definitely isn’t the most reliable person in the world. In my experience, she can’t keep a secret for more than about thirty seconds.” She qualified her statement. “At least, that’s the way she behaved when we were in school together. But that’s been a few years ago. Maybe she’s changed.”

“I don’t know about keeping a secret,” Myra May replied, looking serious. “But if I were Mr. Scroggins, I wouldn’t depend on her to run my office. I don’t understand why he’s willing to put so much trust in her.” She paused, lifting her shoulders and letting them fall. “Well, I guess I’ve told you everything that Violet and I were able to learn. The question is, what’s next?”

There was a silence. Verna looked down at her hands and twisted them in her lap. “I was banking on being able to get into the office and start my own investigation. But now that’s impossible.” She sighed heavily. “To tell the truth, I don’t . . . well, I don’t know what to do next.”

It was unusual, Lizzy thought, for her friend to say anything like
I don’t know
. Verna always had the answer to everything. But what
could
they do?

Myra May had mentioned that the auditor was mailing a report from the state office. “It’s too bad we can’t get our hands on that auditor’s report,” she mused. “It might have something we could go on. A hint as to where the money went, for instance. Maybe we could ask Melba Jean or Ruthie to see if they could get it for us?”

“Maybe,” Myra May agreed. “As long as they don’t tell Mr. Scroggins.”

Verna shook her head. “They wouldn’t do it,” she said gloomily. “They’d be too afraid of getting fired. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust them to keep their lips buttoned. Both of them talk too much.”

Lizzy picked up a pencil and began to doodle on her desk blotter. What would Mr. Moseley do if he were here right now? She drew a question mark, then drew a circle around it. If Verna were his client, how would he advise her?

Verna straightened her shoulders. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing I am
not
going to do,” she said determinedly. “I am
not
going home and wait for somebody to knock on my door and accuse me of taking fifteen thousand dollars.”

“You mean, you’re going to
hide out
?” Myra May asked, puzzled. “But where?”

“I don’t have any idea.” Verna’s shoulders slumped again. “To tell the truth, Myra May, I am totally frazzled. I haven’t had any sleep for two nights, worrying about this. I had a plan—a really swell plan for conducting my own investigation—but now I can’t get into the office. I don’t know what’s next.”

Lizzy had to admit that she had no idea what Mr. Moseley would advise Verna. But all of a sudden, she knew what
she
should do. She put the pencil down and stood up behind her desk, taking charge of the situation.

“Myra May,” she said, “I’m afraid that you and Violet already know way too much about this situation. Too much for your own good, I mean. We don’t want anybody else getting into trouble over this. So it’s better if you don’t know where Verna is going or what she’s going to do. That way, if anybody comes around asking where she is, you can tell them you have no idea.”

“Wait a minute,” Verna put in. “Where am I going? What am I going to do?”

“Good-bye, Myra May,” Lizzy said with great firmness. “Thank you for coming to tell us what you know.” When Myra May just sat there, looking puzzled, she added sweetly, “It’s really time for you to go now, don’t you think? You must have a
lot
of work to do this morning.”

“Oh, sure,” Verna said, suddenly understanding. “Yes, thank you, Myra May. We don’t want to keep you any longer. But you will keep us posted, won’t you? If you happen to hear anything else, I mean.”

Myra May got the hint. Smiling, she stood and pushed her chair back. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ve got to get Euphoria’s groceries back to the diner, and then I’m headed over to the Beauty Bower to get a shampoo and a haircut.” She bent over and gave Verna a quick kiss on the cheek, then lifted her hand to Lizzy. “Hope it all turns out okay. You two be good now, you hear?”

“We hear,” Lizzy said, and grinned. “We’ll try.”

“No, we won’t,” Verna put in, and managed a small smile.

A moment later, Myra May could be heard clattering down the stairs. “Well?” Verna asked, as the footsteps faded away. “You obviously have something in mind, Liz. What is it?”

“Hang on.” Lizzy was reaching for the telephone. “I’ve got a couple of calls to make. Then we can figure out what to do.”

A few moments later, both conversations concluded, Lizzy put down the telephone and turned back to Verna.

“How would you like to spend a few days in the country?” she asked.

EIGHT

Ophelia

When Angelina Biggs telephoned that Monday morning and asked if she could stop in for a few minutes, Ophelia Snow was glad to say yes. Angelina was a dozen years older, so they hadn’t been friends in school. But they liked each other, and since Darling was a small town and both were heavily involved in community affairs, they bumped into one another quite often, although never quite as violently as Angelina had bumped into Bessie earlier that morning.

Over the years, Ophelia and Angelina had come to share several common interests. They were good cooks, and they both liked to sew. Ophelia’s layer cakes always took the blue ribbon at the Cypress County Fair, and Angelina made up the menus and supervised the kitchen at the Old Alabama Hotel, where her husband was the manager. Angelina had taught Ophelia her three personal secrets for 100 percent successful meringues. (“Let the egg whites warm up to room temperature after you’ve separated them from the yolks—and be sure there’s not a speck of yolk in the whites. When you’ve beat up a good, strong froth, add a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar to stabilize it, then add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, not too fast or it’ll get syrupy.”) Ophelia, an expert seamstress, had shown Angelina how to make her own dress patterns using newspapers for the pattern paper. This was a good thing, for Angelina was large, with big hips and a heavy bust, and Ophelia had noted lately that she was getting even larger. Ready-made dresses didn’t fit her, not even the
stout ladies
sizes in the Sears catalogs.

There were other connections. Both Jed Snow and Artis Biggs were on the Darling town council. Jed was in his second term as mayor, and Artis had been mayor previously and would likely get elected mayor again, when Jed’s term ran out. The men were good friends, so the two families got together every so often for Sunday dinner or a picnic at the park. And just last year, Ophelia and Jed had thrown an anniversary party when Angelina and Artis celebrated their thirtieth anniversary.

After Ophelia hung up the phone, she went to the kitchen and put on another pot of coffee, then got out the last two of the freshly baked sticky buns they’d had for breakfast—Angelina had a sweet tooth—and put them on a plate. It was wash day and Florabelle, the colored help, was working in the washhouse in the backyard, so Ophelia and Angelina could have a good, quiet talk.

Carrying the coffeepot, cups, and sticky buns on a tray, Ophelia paused in the parlor door. It was a pretty room with crisscross curtains of ivory French marquisette, a piano (Ophelia’s daughter Sarah was taking lessons), and a cozy pairing of davenport and chair upholstered in a rich Jacquard velour, with taupe and rose-print cushions. Ophelia was very proud of these two pieces of furniture. She had bought them, and a stylish walnut coffee table, on the easy time-payment plan from the Fall and Winter 1929 Sears catalog, where they were pictured in full color on page 926. Actually, it was the color that had seduced her—that, and the first sentence in the catalog description.
Tastes trained to discriminate will quickly recognize the superlative quality, which gives this splendid set distinction.
Ophelia felt that
tastes trained to discriminate
exactly described her.

But even though Jed had agreed that their splendid new furniture truly did have distinction, Ophelia was painfully aware that the purchase had
not
been a good idea. For one thing, she had lied to Jed about how much it had cost and how much she’d have to pay every month. The davenport had been nearly seventy dollars, the chair thirty, and the coffee table eight, plus an additional eleven dollars in “time payment terms.” Ophelia had put twelve fifty down and promised to pay ten dollars a month for eighteen months.

Ten dollars a month! It hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but now her insides shriveled with cold fear whenever Ophelia thought of the debt she’d incurred. Jed gave her an allowance and pretty much left the running of the house to her and—like most men—had no idea of the prices of furniture and rugs and curtains. When he’d asked how much the furniture cost, she’d been afraid to tell him the whole truth, especially when she figured out that she’d be paying eighty-five dollars more than the price of the furniture for the privilege of making those eighteen monthly payments! So she had cut the price in half when she told him. He’d thought
that
was too much. Ophelia knew he’d be furious if he ever learned how much she was really paying.

The furniture had arrived six months ago, and she was already two months behind in her payments. No matter how many corners she tried to cut in her household budget, there just wasn’t enough money to go around. She had gotten to the point where the only other way she could think of to make those awful monthly payments was to let Florabelle go. But that was almost unthinkable. Florabelle kept the house spotless and did the laundry and the heavy work and had raised both of Ophelia’s children from the time they were born. And anyway, Florabelle needed the money. Her husband was out of work and she was trying to keep her girls in school.

But yesterday, in one of Ophelia’s despairing moments, another possibility had occurred to her. It said in the time-payment contract that if she didn’t send the money, Sears would come and repossess the furniture, as long as it was in good condition. (They didn’t say what would happen if it wasn’t.) Well, she thought, maybe that was the smart thing to do. Stop making the payments altogether, and eventually Sears would wise up and come and get the furniture. Since the family hardly spent any time at all in the parlor, everything looked like new, so there was no question about Sears taking it back. Or maybe they would have second thoughts about sending a truck all the way from Mobile just to pick up three measly pieces of used furniture. Maybe they would forget about the payments and decide to just let her keep everything.

Yesterday, she had pushed this idea to the back of her mind, but now here it was again, presenting itself as an option that would not only relieve her of a mountain of worry but allow her to face her husband with a clear conscience. Now, as she looked around the room, Ophelia decided that—once the Sears suite was gone—she could salvage the wicker settee that was in Mother Snow’s attic and make new cushions for it, and repaint the old rocking chair out in the shed. She hated the thought, since regardless of its cost and all the problems it posed, the living room furniture was beautiful, much nicer than that of any of her friends (except for Mrs. George E. Pickett Johnson, whose husband owned the Darling Savings and Trust Bank, and Mildred Kilgore, who was married to the owner of Kilgore Motors and lived near the ninth green of the Cypress County Club golf course). Since Jed was the mayor of Darling and owned the only feed store in town, Ophelia had felt that, by rights, she ought to have a very nice parlor where she could entertain her friends.

She sighed. But if they couldn’t afford it, well, they couldn’t, that was all. Yes, letting Sears take the furniture back was the right thing to do. And as she set the tray down on the dear little walnut coffee table and moved around the room, straightening things and flicking off a few specks of dust, she felt a sense of relief at having come up with a solution she could live with. Some of her natural buoyant optimism began to return. Now, all she had to do was keep the furniture clean until Sears came to get it. Of course, she’d have to come up with some sort of explanation for Jed—and her friends, too, who would wonder what had happened. But she’d worry about that later. She was sure she could think of something. And anyway, Jed was so distracted these days, he might not even notice the furniture was gone.

By the time Angelina Biggs knocked at the door, everything was ready. But when Ophelia opened the door to greet her guest, she was appalled. Angelina’s usually well-kept blond hair was disheveled, her face was mottled with ugly red blotches, and she was fighting back tears. She was wearing a bright green rayon dress that seemed to magnify her considerable size, and she must have doused herself in a quart of Emeraude
.
The scent enveloped her in a cloying cloud.

“Why, what’s wrong, Angelina?” Ophelia cried, and pulled her into the house. “Come in, dear, and tell me all about it!” She put an arm around the woman’s heaving shoulders and led her into the parlor. “Sit down and have a cup of coffee and a sticky bun. That’ll make you feel better.”

Angelina gulped, sat, sipped, and nibbled, and in a few moments, was sufficiently restored so that she could talk. “I’m sorry, Ophelia,” she choked out. “I really shouldn’t . . . It’s too much to expect you to—”

“Yes, you really should,” Ophelia broke in, bracing herself against a wave of Emeraude. “And, no, it isn’t too much. Please tell me what’s wrong. All of it. The whole thing.”

They were sitting side by side on the davenport now, and she patted Angelina’s arm, sympathetic, but by now deeply curious. Was there some sort of health problem? A family difficulty? Problems at the hotel? Money? Likely money. It seemed that everybody had money troubles these days.

“Well, if you insist.” Angelina put down her cup and reached into her handbag for a cigarette. “It’s Artis, Ophelia. He—” Her face twisted. “He’s having an affair.”

Ophelia stared at her, taken completely aback. An affair? Artis Biggs? Of course, he was very good-looking—one of the best-looking men in Darling, with a ready smile and dark hair graying at the temples. He was trim, too, unlike Angelina, who had let herself gain far too much weight. To give her credit, though, Angelina was trying to lose. She had recently confided to Ophelia that she was taking Dr. Baxter’s diet pills, a much-touted way to trim off the pounds. She had read about the pills in one of the beauty magazines she subscribed to. She had started smoking, as well—a surefire aid for weight loss, according to the cigarette advertisements. Lucky Strike, for instance. “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”

As Ophelia got up to fetch an ashtray, she remembered hearing that Angelina and Artis had married young, when Angelina was right out of high school. She had been Darling’s Cotton Queen in her senior year and everybody thought she was the most beautiful thing on God’s green earth. While an engagement had not been formally announced, it was considered a sure thing that she would marry Charlie Dickens as soon as he finished up at Alabama Polytechnic and had the money to support a wife. But then Angelina had been smitten with Artis and married him and started having babies right away. And Charlie had finished at Poly and gone off to New York and then to the army.

And Artis must be—why, he must be fifty now, if he was a day, Ophelia thought, with some consternation. A
fifty-year-old
man, having an affair? She’d never heard of such a thing. And with whom? Who was the lady? How were they managing to carry it off? Darling was such a small town—weren’t they afraid of getting caught?

But Ophelia had more tact (and better sense) than to ask these nosy questions. Instead, she said, “Are you
sure
, Angelina? Are you very sure?”

It was a question that came straight from the heart, because she herself, just last year, had suspected Jed of having an affair with his cousin Ralph’s wife, Lucy. As it turned out, there had been nothing to the story that had gone around town, spread by that awful Mrs. Adcock, their busybody neighbor. Ophelia had been sorry ever since for failing to trust her husband, and sorry that she had thought badly of Lucy, who was really a very sweet young woman
.
Thank heavens she had held her tongue until she learned the truth. She had never had to confess her foolishness to Jed, and she and Lucy had become the best of friends. But she still cringed when she thought of the terrible pain she would have inflicted if she had made those groundless accusations.

Angelina had no such qualms, apparently. “Oh, I’m sure, all right,” she said bitterly, blowing out a puff of blue cigarette smoke. “They’ve tried to keep it secret, but they can’t fool me.” She lowered her voice and bent toward Ophelia. “I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes, Ophelia. With my very own eyes.”

“The . . . evidence?” Ophelia faltered, drawing back a little. Something about Angelina’s tone frightened her. It sounded sly, almost as if she were taking a kind of perverse pleasure in what she had learned
.

Angelina looked straight at her. “The sheets,” she whispered hoarsely.

Ophelia’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, dear,” she whispered. “Oh, gracious me!” She could feel her cheeks coloring. “I didn’t think . . . I mean, I can’t imagine—”

“I know,” Angelina said with a kind of grim satisfaction. “I couldn’t imagine it either, Ophelia. But then I found out. They’re using different rooms every time they meet. Their little love nests.” Her voice became acid. “They get together at least once a week, although I’ve never been quite quick enough to catch them at it.”

“Do you know who she is?” Ophelia asked, then turned away, adding plaintively, “No, don’t tell me, Angelina. Please. I don’t want to know. Really.”

It was true. She didn’t want to know. In fact, Ophelia (who always tried to look on the bright side of things, no matter how much effort it took) did not want to hear another word of this dirty, sordid tale. She would never be able to look Artis Biggs in the face without imagining him cheating on his wife of thirty-something years. And what would she say to Jed the next time he suggested that they invite Artis and Angelina over for Sunday dinner?
I’m sorry, dear, but I refuse to have that awful man in my house. He has been fooling around with another woman. He has committed the sin of—