The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose Read online

  Lizzy frowned and sipped her lemonade. She was wishing she had been able to talk to Mr. Moseley about this and wondering if she had done all she could when she heard a woman’s husky voice, a bit tentative, calling from the side-yard gate.

  “Yoo-hoo, Liz. Liz Lacy. Do you, um, have a minute to talk?”

  Lizzy stood up from the swing. “Hi. But who—”

  Then she caught sight of her visitor, standing beside the gate. It was Coretta Cole, still wearing the same gray suit and red hat and heels that she’d had on that morning, when Lizzy had seen her having breakfast with Mr. Scroggins and Mr. Tombull.

  “Coretta!” Lizzy exclaimed in great surprise. “What are you doing here?” And then, realizing that she sounded less than gracious, she added, “Push up the latch and come on in.”

  Coretta did as she was told, walking across the grass on her toes so that her stylish three-inch heels wouldn’t sink into the earth. She was glancing around in a covetous way.

  “Gee, Liz, this is a swell little place you’ve got here. Very pretty. All yours?”

  “If you mean, do I live here alone,” Lizzy replied, guardedly, “the answer is yes.” It had been her experience that the less you told Coretta, the better.

  Coretta’s giggle was mischievous. “Well, darn. I thought maybe you and Grady Alexander were—”

  “No,” Lizzy said firmly. “We are not, and don’t you go telling people that we are. That just wouldn’t be true.” She paused as Coretta, uninvited, sank down in the swing. Then, remembering her manners, she added, “There’s cold lemonade in the refrigerator. Would you like some?”

  Coretta shook her head. She had a sharp chin and chiseled cheeks, and her dark eyebrows were tweezed thin and arched over her Joan Crawford eyes.

  “Thanks,” she said. “It’s sweet of you, Liz, but I can’t stay too long. My hubby promised to cook supper for us tonight, since it’s my first day back at work full time. He’s expecting me to come straight home.” She paused. “You know that Ted got laid off out at the Coca-Cola bottling plant, I reckon. He’s been out of work for a couple of months.”

  “Yes, I heard,” Lizzy said. “I’m sorry, Coretta.” It was a true statement. You had to feel sorry for anybody who was out of work. In times like this, once somebody got laid off, it was nearly impossible to get another job, unless they wanted to leave Darling and try their luck in Memphis or Mobile or New Orleans.

  “Thanks. I don’t mind telling you that Ted and I were looking at the bare bottom of the barrel when Mr. Scroggins called and told me I could come back to work full time. We’re so hard up, we haven’t been able to get the car fixed for months and months.” Coretta glanced at Lizzy’s bare feet, then down at her own high heels. “Do you mind?” she asked plaintively, batting her mascaraed eyelashes.

  Without waiting for an answer, she bent over and pulled her shoes off, wiggling her toes in their silk stockings. “It’s the first time I’ve worn them to stand up in all day,” she said with a sigh, “and my feet are killing me.”

  “No, of course I don’t mind.” Lizzy sat down on the other end of the swing, noticing Coretta’s silk stockings with a covetous feeling and wondering how somebody who couldn’t afford car repair could buy silk stockings and new shoes. And that great-looking gray suit, too. She had seen it on the manikin in the window at Mann’s for seven fifty, just a couple of weeks before.

  Coretta took off her red felt hat and put it on the swing between them, patting her dark hair back into its sculptured waves. “To tell you the truth, Liz, I could hardly believe it when Mr. Scroggins called. Seemed like something I was dreaming, I’d been wanting it so bad. And Ted—well, you should have seen him. He was so relieved, he cried.” The words were tumbling out fast, as if they’d been stoppered up in a bottle and she was finally letting them out. “It’s not like I’m getting paid a fortune, you know. But we’ve got two boys, and we were hoping they could go to college. College is probably out the window now, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop dreaming. Me getting a regular paycheck again—well, it maybe means the oldest can go to Poly when he graduates high school.”

  Lizzy listened, wishing that Coretta would get to the point. Why was she here? What did she want? She felt a bubble of hot resentment rise up inside her at the thought that this was the woman who had taken her best friend’s job. Had she come here to brag about it? To rub it in? Or was she trying to say that circumstances had forced her to do it and she was sorry?

  “Look, Coretta,” she said, when the cascade of words slowed down. “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’re in a big hurry to get home and eat supper with Ted and the boys, maybe you’d better tell me why you’re here.”

  Coretta turned her head away. She didn’t speak for a moment, then, instead of answering directly, she said, in a low voice, “I saw you this morning, in the diner. Sitting at the counter. Watching me.”

  “I wasn’t watching, exactly,” Lizzy replied evenly. It sounded like Coretta was accusing her. “But I will admit to wondering why you were having breakfast with the county treasurer and the chairman of the county board of commissioners.” She frowned. “Doesn’t that strike you as a fair question?”

  “It was just supposed to be Mr. Scroggins,” Coretta said, her voice defensive. “He was going to tell me some things I needed to know about the office. Mr. Tombull happened to come in to get his breakfast, so Mr. Scroggins didn’t have any choice but to invite him to sit down with us. It definitely wasn’t my idea. And Mr. Scroggins never did get around to telling me what I was supposed to know, so I’ve been flying blind all day. The other two women in the office—well, they don’t know beans about anything. You ask one of them a question and she just stares at you with a blank face. I mean, I know they probably don’t like me very much, given the situation, but that’s not my fault.” She stuck out her lower lip. “Between them and my shoes killing me, it’s been just awful, all day long.”

  “Wasn’t such a good day for me, either,” Lizzy remarked, thinking about Verna and Alice Ann Walker and the sheriff and Mrs. Biggs.

  Coretta rushed on, gathering steam. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to Verna, so I was planning to go over to her house after work. I didn’t want to because I knew it would be awkward, but I thought I’d better do it anyway. Then I got the word that she had gone to Nashville.” She gave Lizzy a sideways glance. “So I decided to come over here and talk to you. I said to myself, Liz Lacy is Verna Tidwell’s best friend. They’re thick as thieves. Liz will know what’s what. And why.”

  Lizzy was surprised. “Who told you about Verna going to Nashville?”

  “The sheriff came into the office this afternoon. I heard him and Mr. Scroggins talking about it. But then I—” She stopped as though she might be going to say something else and decided not to. She took a breath and began again.

  “Look here, Liz. I reckon I should start from the beginning. When Mr. Scroggins called to tell me I could start working full time again, he said it was because Verna is in some kind of trouble. Money trouble. He said he had to put new locks on the office doors to keep her from using her key to get in.” She raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Do you know about this?”

  “I know that it happened,” Lizzy said cautiously, not wanting to give too much away. “But I have no idea why.”

  “It’s got to do with the state audit. And the report.” Coretta was perspiring. She opened her leather handbag, took out a hanky, and delicately patted her forehead and cheeks. “Verna tell you about that?”

  Lizzy hesitated. “Um, she told me that a couple of auditors came into the office a while ago. She didn’t mention a report.” That was true. It was Myra May who had told her—and Verna—about the report.

  “Well, the report came in today’s mail.” She paused, her face becoming serious. “And all I’ve got to say is, it’s a good thing Verna is in Nashville.” She looked over
her shoulder as if she was afraid that somebody might be lurking on the other side of the privet hedge. “And for pity’s sake, don’t tell anybody—especially Mr. Scroggins—that I’ve been here and talked to you. I am taking a big chance, Liz. A lollapalooza of a chance. I could lose my job—or worse.”

  Lizzy narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to scare me, Coretta? What do you mean, or worse?” She was thinking that Coretta hadn’t changed much since high school after all. She had always loved to dramatize herself.

  “I’m not trying to scare you, honest I’m not.” Coretta sounded earnest. “I just want to be clear. This isn’t a little Sunday School party. It’s serious business.” She rolled her eyes. “To tell the truth, I wish I’d told Mr. Scroggins to go jump in the river when he told me come back to work—and if I’d’ve known then what I know now, maybe I would’ve. But I need the dough real bad. And I can’t back out now. I’ve got to do things the way Mr. Scroggins and Mr. Tombull want me to or they might think I had something to do with it.”

  That was the last straw. Lizzy stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Coretta Cole, you are talking like a character in a Hollywood movie. You can stop beating around the bush and come straight out with what you know, or you can march out of that gate and straight on home. What’s it going to be?”

  Coretta squared her shoulders defiantly and Lizzy thought for a minute that she was going to get up and leave. Then she slumped. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Okay, here’s what I know, so far, anyway. There’s fifteen thousand dollars missing from the county treasury.”

  “Fifteen thousand!” Lizzy pretended astonishment.

  Coretta held up her hand and hurried on. “The county commissioners are putting the thumbscrews on Mr. Scroggins to find out where that money went. They’re telling him he’s got to get it back fast, too—he’s the treasurer now, so it’s his responsibility. Mr. Scroggins has convinced himself that Verna took it. He talked Mr. Johnson at the bank into letting him have a peek at Verna’s savings account, which he says has ten thousand dollars in it. He told Sheriff Burns to go to Judge McHenry and get a warrant. Verna is going to be arrested as soon as the sheriff locates her. He says once he’s got her in custody, she’ll have a chance to explain herself.”

  Lizzy chewed on her lower lip. Ten thousand dollars was a fortune! Where on God’s sweet green earth had Verna gotten that much money? She had no income other than her job and no property other than her house, and she’d used her husband’s life insurance to pay off the mortgage. Her family had been dirt poor, and none of them were left. Why, if she didn’t know Verna as well as she did, she herself might suspect that—

  She shook her head. No, of course not. That was out of the question. Verna wouldn’t. She simply wouldn’t. Not under any circumstance.

  Lizzy took a breath. “I guess I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this,” she said quietly. “Or why you care, Coretta. From what I’ve heard, there’s no love lost between you and Verna. I’d think you’d be just as happy if she got into some serious trouble. So why are you—”

  “No love lost is right,” Coretta broke in, her sharp face hardening. “And I’ll be the first to say that, in the normal way of things, I’d be just as glad to see Verna Tidwell taken down a peg or two. She is one smart cookie, but she is the very worst supervisor I have ever worked for.” The words were coming out fast now, as if Coretta had been thinking about this for a while. “She acts like you already know what you’re supposed to be doing, and when she wants something done, she tells you really fast. She doesn’t give you time to ask questions, and then she gets mad when you don’t get it right the first time. She hates mistakes, and once you’ve made one, she figures you’ll make more, which of course you do.”

  Lizzy winced. Coretta’s description might be a little harsh, but it was accurate enough. Verna had high expectations of herself and everybody else, and she didn’t tolerate mistakes. She was not the world’s best teacher, especially if you were a slow learner.

  Coretta wasn’t finished. “But when it comes to money, I’ve got to say this for Verna. She is totally and completely honest. She is so honest, it would make you sick. And as for keeping track, she cannot rest until she knows where every single penny is and what it’s doing there. The county’s bank accounts were a total mess when Verna inherited them, and trying to figure out what’s what has literally given her nightmares.” She paused for emphasis. “Somebody must have taken that fifteen thousand dollars, Liz, since it’s gone. Or at least, that’s what the auditor says, and his report shows it, I guess. But I just can’t believe it was Verna who took it.”

  “I see,” Lizzy said, and waited.

  “And there’s something else.” Coretta’s eyes narrowed. “If Verna is made to look like the guilty party, the guilty party will get away with murder.”

  “Murder?” Lizzy asked, startled. She immediately thought of the inexplicable death of Mr. DeYancy, the former treasurer, who had died (or so the coroner said) of alcohol poisoning. “Murder?”

  “In a manner of speaking, that is,” Coretta said hastily. “What somebody is getting away with is fifteen thousand dollars of the taxpayers’ money, which is a huge amount of money. If we don’t do something about it, Verna will get the blame and somebody else will get a potful of money.” She leaned forward. “I for one don’t think it’s fair. It’s just plain wrong for them to do Verna like that. And I think I know what can be done about it.”

  Lizzy frowned, not quite believing what she was hearing. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you’ve come up with a way to help Verna out of the jam she’s in?”

  “That’s right,” Coretta said, lifting her chin. “But I can’t do it by myself. I’m going to need help.”

  Lizzy sat back, thinking. She wanted to believe that Coretta was being sincere. But everything she knew about this woman told her that Coretta couldn’t be trusted. Tell her a secret and she would exaggerate and twist it to serve her own purposes, and then she’d blab it all over the place. Agree to do something with her, and she’d change her mind halfway through and quit. She sneaked a sideways glance at Coretta. True, all that had been quite a few years ago, when they were in school together. Coretta was older now and more mature. Maybe she meant what she said. Maybe she had changed.

  Or maybe not. She might be the same old Coretta. And if she ran true to form, she would finagle it so that she’d end up looking like a hero and Verna would be in even deeper trouble.

  Lizzy sat back and folded her arms. “Just what is it that you think you can do?” she asked warily. She would go along with this scheme just far enough to find out what Coretta had in mind.

  “I can go undercover in the office,” Coretta said, and batted her Joan Crawford eyes.

  “Undercover?” Incredulous, Lizzy fought the urge to giggle.

  “Exactly,” Coretta replied earnestly. “I can be a spy. But as I said, I’m going to need help. This isn’t an operation I can carry out by myself.”

  Now, Lizzy did laugh, skeptically. “That’s rich, Coretta. Really rich. Just who do you think you’re going to spy on? Those two women in the office? And how is that going to help Verna?”

  If Coretta was offended by Liz’s skepticism, she didn’t let on. “I don’t know enough to figure out what’s going on all by myself. But Verna does.” She leaned forward, her dark eyes glittering. “I have access to the account books, and I have a key to the office. I can smuggle the books out to Verna, wherever she is. Or I can smuggle Verna into the office, if she’d rather me do that. I’m thinking that if she uses the auditor’s report as a guide, she’ll be able to figure out what happened to that money. At least, she might come up with a pretty good idea.” She patted the handbag she had put between them on the swing. “In fact, I’ve brought the report with me. I think she needs to see it.”

  Lizzy was taken aback. Smuggling Verna into
the office was very close to Verna’s original scheme for conducting her own investigation, when she thought she still had a key that worked. Maybe what Coretta was suggesting was doable. On the other hand, maybe it was a put-up job, some kind of trick.

  “The report,” she said. “May I see it?”

  “Why?” Coretta asked uneasily.

  “Because I want to make sure it’s the real thing,” Lizzy said.

  “Well, I guess it’s okay,” Coretta said, and reluctantly pulled a large envelope out of her handbag.

  Lizzy opened it and scanned the three sheets of paper. As far as she could tell, the report was genuine. It had what appeared to be the seal of the state auditor’s office at the top of the first page and a signature and another seal at the bottom of the third.

  She handed it back with a frown. “I don’t understand, Coretta. Why would you even think of doing such a dangerous thing? Why would you risk it? If Mr. Scroggins found out what you were doing, he’d fire you so fast it’d make your head spin. And then both you and Verna would be out of a job. If Verna winds up in jail, you might be in there with her.”

  “Why would I do such a dangerous thing?” Coretta repeated, with the air of someone who has thought all this out. “Because I don’t like what’s happening here, Liz. This whole situation stinks to high heaven. It’s corruption, that’s what it is, and Verna is getting blamed for it. Like I said, I am not a big fan of hers, but what’s happening is just plain wrong.”