The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover Read online

  The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover

  Copyright © 2018 by Susan Wittig Albert

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. For information, write to Persevero Press, PO Box 1616, Bertram TX 78605.

  www.PerseveroPress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or, in the case of historical persons, are used fictitiously.

  Distributed by Greenleaf Book Group

  For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Greenleaf Book Group at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

  CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

  Names: Albert, Susan Wittig, author.

  Title: The Darling Dahlias and the unlucky clover / Susan Wittig Albert.

  Series: Darling Dahlias

  Description: Bertram, TX: Persevero Press, 2018

  Identifiers: ISBN 978-0-9969040-3-2 (Hardcover)

  978-0-9969040-4-9 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH Women gardeners—Fiction. | Gardening—Societies, etc.—Fiction. | Nineteen thirties—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Alabama—Fiction. | Historical fiction. | Mystery fiction. | BISAC FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Cozy Classification: LCC PS3551.L2637 D396 2017 | DDC 813.54—dc23

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  17 18 19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  To the many friends of the Dahlias who urged me to return to the little town of Darling.

  This book is yours.

  Thank you.

  Contents

  Chapter One: The Lucky Four Clovers

  Chapter Two: The Dahlias Plan Pies

  Chapter Three: Ophelia: Girl Reporter

  Chapter Four: Charlie Dickens Gets a Tip

  Chapter Five: Liz Handles a Crisis

  Chapter Six: Myra May Is Stymied

  Chapter Seven: The Dahlias Bloom at the Beauty Bower

  Chapter Eight: Buddy Norris Investigates

  Chapter Nine: Lizzy Makes a Discovery

  Chapter Ten: Charlie Chases a Story

  Chapter Eleven: Lizzy Gets a Letter

  Chapter Twelve: The Garden Gate by Elizabeth Lacy

  Chapter Thirteen: Bessie Goes to the Five and Dime

  Chapter Fourteen: Charlie Is Buffaloed

  Chapter Fifteen: The Sheriff Gets the Wrong Idea

  Chapter Sixteen: Deputy Springer Offers a Theory

  Chapter Seventeen: Ophelia, Liz, and Charlie

  Chapter Eighteen: The Sheriff and the Bootlegger

  Chapter Nineteen: Lizzy Takes Pictures

  Chapter Twenty: Liz Has Visitors

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Sheriff Gets His Man—and Then He Doesn’t

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Dahlias and the Lucky Four Clovers

  The Dahlias’ Pie Supper Recipes

  Resources

  Books by Susan Wittig Albert

  October 1934

  The Darling Dahlias Clubhouse and Gardens

  302 Camellia Street

  Darling, Alabama

  Dear Reader,

  Well, here we are again! Are you surprised? We’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that you thought we wouldn’t be back—and we were thinking along those same lines as well. Life in our little town has been pretty uneventful lately, which is exactly the way most of our folks like it, but it’s not very interesting if you’re looking for headlines.

  But then things took a turn for the worse. One of the men in Darling’s wonderful Lucky Four Clovers barbershop quartet met with an unlucky accident not long before Darling played host to the Dixie Regional Barbershop Quartet Competition! This tragic event threw a monkey wrench into the Clovers’ hopes of winning the competition. While Sheriff Buddy Norris was able to get to the bottom of the situation, there are still some unanswered questions hanging on. We hope he gets those loose ends tied up soon.

  Mrs. Albert told us that she hadn’t planned to write another book about us, but she changed her mind when she heard about the tragic mishap and its unfortunate aftermath. We’re sorry to say, however, that not everybody in Darling is pleased to hear that she’s added another book to our collection. Far be it from us to name names, but there are those who are afraid that her books may tarnish the reputation of our wonderful town, the way Miss Agatha Christie did with St. Mary Mead, which will forever be remembered as the unluckiest village in all England. Our Darling people are good as good can be, so don’t you go thinking we aren’t. We hope that Mrs. Albert will clear up this little problem somewhere in her story.

  In case this is the first time you’ve read a book about the Dahlias, we would like to tell you that our garden club is named for Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone, who generously gave us her beautiful house and gardens on Camellia Street, along with a vacant lot where we’ve planted a big vegetable garden. We know that flowers nourish the heart and soul, but a big plate of stewed okra with tomatoes, buttered corn on the cob, and potato salad go a long way to comfort a body, especially these days, when jobs don’t grow on trees and money is scarce as hen’s teeth. Every Dahlia agrees: If you’ve got a garden, you’ll have all the wealth you need—and good health to boot.

  Now, let’s see. Before you start reading, we have several messages to pass along. First, Mrs. Albert wants us to tell you that the title of her book refers to the four-leaf clover as well as to that misfortunate member of Darling’s famous barbershop quartet. But she asked us not to tell you which one, since that would spoil the story.

  Second, Miss Rogers (our Darling librarian, who wants everybody to use the correct names for plants) asks us to tell you that the Latin name of the four-leaf clover is Trifolium. But some of us are very confused, since trifolium means three leaves, and the four-leaf clover has four. (And sometimes five or six or even more!) Anyway, in case Miss Rogers asks, please say we told you. Trifolium.

  And third, Aunt Hetty Little has asked us to pass along these heartening words from that well-known gardener and plant breeder, Luther Burbank. He said, “Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.” Mr. Burbank ought to know what he’s talking about, since he invented the Shasta daisy. (Which Miss Rogers says should properly be called the Leucanthemum x superbum.) When times get hard and days get dark, a few Leucanthemum x superbum will go a long way toward making things better and happier and luckier for everybody, and especially for you.

  Well, you’re probably anxious to start reading, so we won’t hold you up any longer. But if you get tired of sitting with a book in your hand and want to get up and move around, you can go in the kitchen and bake a pie—Mrs. Albert says she has included a few recipes for you. And of course, you have an invitation to join us in our garden. We can always find you some weeds to pull or a row to hoe.

  Sincerely yours,

  The Darling Dahlias

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS CLUB ROSTER

  Autumn 1934

  CLUB OFFICERS

  Elizabeth Lacy, president. Secretary to Mr. Benton Moseley, attorney-at-law, and garden columnist for the Darling Dispatch.

  Ophelia Snow, vice president and secretary. Reporter, Linotype operator, and advertising manager at the Darling Dispatch; also works part-time at the CCC Camp. Wife of Darling’s mayor, Jed Snow.

  Verna Tidwell, treasurer. Cypress County treasurer and probate clerk
. Verna, a widow, lives with her beloved Scotty, Clyde. She is in an on-again-off-again relationship with Alvin Duffy, the president of the Darling Bank.

  Myra May Mosswell, communications secretary. Co-owner of the Darling Telephone Exchange and the Darling Diner. Lives with Violet Sims and their little girl, Cupcake (Violet’s niece), in the flat over the diner.

  CLUB MEMBERS

  Earlynne Biddle, a rose fancier. Married to Henry Biddle, the manager at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. Mr. Biddle is a supporter of Huey P. Long and the local chairman of the Share Our Wealth Club.

  Bessie Bloodworth, owner of Magnolia Manor, a boardinghouse for genteel elderly ladies next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse on Camellia Street. Local historian, grows vegetables and herbs in the Manor’s backyard.

  Fannie Champaign, noted milliner and proprietor of Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux. Recently married to Charlie Dickens, publisher and editor of the Darling Dispatch.

  Mildred Kilgore, owner and manager of Kilgore Motors with her husband Roger. They live in a big house near the ninth green of the Cypress Country Club, where Mildred grows camellias.

  Aunt Hetty Little, gladiola lover, senior member of the club, and town matriarch. A “regular Miss Marple” who knows all the Darling secrets.

  Lucy Murphy, grower of vegetables and fruit on a small market farm on the Jericho Road. Married to Ralph Murphy, who works on the railroad.

  Raylene Riggs, Myra May Mosswell’s mother and the newest Dahlia. Cooks at the Darling Diner and lives at the Marigold Motor Court.

  Dorothy Rogers, Darling’s librarian. Knows the Latin name of every plant and insists that everyone else does, too. Resident of Magnolia Manor.

  Beulah Trivette, proprietor of Beulah’s Beauty Bower, where all the Dahlias go to get beautiful. Artistically talented, Beulah loves cabbage roses and other exuberant flowers.

  Alice Ann Walker, secretary to Mr. Duffy at the Darling Savings and Trust Bank. Alice Ann grows iris and daylilies. Her disabled husband, Arnold, tends the family vegetable garden.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE LUCKY FOUR CLOVERS

  Friday, October 12, 1934

  I’m looking over a four-leaf clover

  I overlooked before.

  One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain,

  Third is the roses that grow in the lane.

  No need explaining

  The one remaining is somebody I adore.

  I’m looking over a four-leaf clover

  That I overlooked before.

  Lyrics by Mort Dixon

  Music by Harry M. Woods, 1927

  It was raining cats and dogs on the evening of the show, but that didn’t keep Darling from turning out in a big crowd—especially since the program was free. All the seats were taken in the basement meeting hall of the First Methodist Church, and Reverend Dooley, greeting folks at the door, was heard to mutter “Shoulda sold tickets.” Donations had been encouraged, though, and almost everybody contributed a store-bought can or a quart jar of home-canned vegetables to the Darling Blessing Box, the contents of which would be distributed to folks who needed a little extra boost.

  Everybody always looked forward to the show put on each October by the Lucky Four Clovers, Darling’s acclaimed men’s barbershop group. During the much-anticipated evening, the Clovers would regale their fellow citizens and supporters with old-fashioned melodies, patriotic Confederate tunes, several spirituals, a few Broadway hits—and of course their signature song, “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover,” which they always sang at the beginning and end of the performance.

  It would be a splendid evening, one that the whole community enjoyed, for the Clovers seemed, in an odd sort of way, to belong to the community and to speak for it and represent it, all at the same time. The Clovers sang from their hearts, and from the heart of Darling, too.

  Clyde Clover had created the quartet back in 1917, the year Woodrow Wilson led the United States into the War to End All Wars and dispatched the boys of the Alabama 167th to France. They were happy to go, of course—all red-blooded young Americans thought it was their duty to make the world safe for democracy. It might not have been quite what they were expecting, but they did it anyway, and bravely.

  All throughout the war, the Lucky Four Clovers kept Darling’s patriotic spirits high. They sang “Over There” and “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag” and “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary.” The one wartime song they didn’t sing was “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” because of course they weren’t.

  And when the Great War ended and the numb and battlescarred survivors came home, the Clovers celebrated their return, and the music seemed to promise a new beginning. They still sang the old favorites, of course, but the Twenties were beginning to roar, and there was an avalanche of new music, bright and boisterous with the spirit of the age. They sang “Ain’t We Got Fun,” “Ma, He’s Makin’ Eyes at Me,” “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” “Hard Hearted Hannah, the Vamp of Savannah,” and (naturally) “Alabamy Bound.” The decade’s lively exuberance and boundless optimism was embodied in its music, and Darling (like everybody else in America) believed the party would go on forever.

  It didn’t. The fun came to an end on Black Monday, 1929, when the markets crashed. The Thirties didn’t roar. They sighed and they sobbed, sometimes in minor keys. The favorites of those days—“Mood Indigo,” “Willow Weep for Me,” “Love Letters in the Sand,” “Stormy Weather”—were melancholy, but for all their sadness, they were sweetly melodic.

  And since almost every Darling family now had a radio (or a friendly neighbor who had a radio and was glad to offer an empty parlor chair), people spent their evenings listening. Everybody had a favorite show: the exotic, foreign-sounding A&P Gypsies (sponsored by A&P Food Stores); the down-home Grand Ole Opry on Nashville’s WSM, with Dr. Humphrey Bates and His Possum Hunters and the Binkley Brothers’ Dixie Clodhoppers; or the more sophisticated Palmolive Hour on Friday nights on NBC, where listeners could hear everything from opera to Broadway to jazz, sponsored by (of course) Palmolive Soap (Keep that schoolgirl complexion!). People listened at night, hummed and whistled and sang the tunes during the day, and played them (if they could) on their fiddles, guitars, ukuleles, autoharps, and the old Baldwin upright in the parlor.

  Because it was such a musical era, the Lucky Four Clovers were Darling’s favorite sons. The quartet was invited to perform for school events, church socials, community dances, weddings, and even funerals, where they sang “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” ending the service with “Rock of Ages.” When the Clovers were invited to sing, the grieving family was assured of a grand turnout of mourners and could be confident that there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

  Mr. Clover was dead by this time, and the membership of the quartet had changed, along with its repertoire. But the Clovers still performed their October show and always kept their audience completely enthralled. The 1934 fall show was special, for it was also a dress rehearsal—before a live audience—for the upcoming Dixie Regional Barbershop Quartet Competition, which was scheduled to take place in the Darling Academy gym in just a couple of weeks. It was a wonderful opportunity for the home-grown Clovers, and all of Darling was wishing them luck.

  Ophelia Snow and Elizabeth Lacy, members and officers of the Darling Dahlias Garden Club, had found seats together in the very first row. They were dressed in their Sunday best for the occasion, Ophelia in a pretty pink print silk with an ivory lace ruffle at the neck and Liz in a blue silk crepe outfit with long sleeves, a stylish shawl collar, and a pleated skirt that came to well below the knee—a pleasure to wear after those short, skinny flapper dresses of a few years back, which had never been much of a hit in Darling.

  “What a swell turnout,” Ophelia said to Elizabeth. She turned in her seat to peer at the crowd, which exuded the smell of wet wool, cigarette smoke, and Blue Waltz perfume. “I do believe everybody i
n town must be here, in spite of the rain. Looks like it’s standing room only.”

  “Maybe Reverend Dooley can put some extra chairs up there by the stage,” Lizzy said. Just as she said that, several young men came up the aisle carrying wooden folding chairs. With a clatter, they began setting them up on both sides of the platform at the front of the room.

  Ophelia leaned a little closer. “I saw you and Mr. Moseley at the movie last weekend, Liz. State Fair, it was. Do you have something to tell me?”

  Lizzy turned to look curiously at her friend. “Well, I guess I can tell you I liked the movie. Will Rogers is a favorite of mine—he can be funny without half-trying. Janet Gaynor was great. I heard that some people were offended by the scene in the bedroom, but I didn’t think it crossed the line. I mean, they were just talking.”

  Ophelia looked disappointed. “And that’s it? You and Mr. Moseley aren’t—?” She waggled her eyebrows.

  “No, we are not.” Lizzy was emphatic. “Benton Moseley is my boss, and he’s a friend. If there’s a movie we both like, sometimes we go together. But that’s all it is, Opie. And all it’s ever been. Nothing more.”

  Lizzy was fibbing just a little bit, for when she first went to work in Mr. Moseley’s law office, she’d had a huge crush on him—and quite naturally so. He was intelligent, good-looking, and very kind to a young woman just starting out on her secretarial career. Which of course she hadn’t thought of as a “career,” not at the time, anyway. Her job was just a temporary stepping stone on the path that led every Darling girl to marriage. And marriage to Mr. Moseley—why, that would have been any Darling girl’s dream.

  But that was years ago, and Lizzy had made a firm effort to put that girlish silliness behind her. To her mother’s great despair, she no longer saw her job as a parking place while she went looking for a husband. She and Mr. Moseley had worked together for so long and so well that they could read each other’s minds, and when they went out together for a social evening, it was comfortable, companionable fun.