The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree Read online

  A woman’s high-pitched voice said, critically, “Is this the largest you have? I’m not sure that my Sue Ellen would be happy in such a small room.” She sniffed. “And what is that odor? Some sort of exotic perfume, I suppose.” Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “You say that the young woman was killed in an automobile wreck?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Brewster said shortly. “My girls are usually quite trustworthy and follow the rules of the house without question. But this one—” She made a disdainful tsk-tsk. “I am sad to say that she was almost incorrigible.”

  The scent of Bunny’s My Sin was overpowering, and Verna felt her nose tickling.

  “Rules of the house,” the woman repeated thoughtfully. “You are strict with your boarders, then, Mrs. Brewster?”

  Verna took a deep breath and pinched her nose to stop the tickle.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Mrs. Brewster replied. “In fact, you can ask anyone in Darling. They will all tell you that I am extremely strict with my girls. Curfews, meals, visiting hours, the presence of young men in the house—I consider myself in loco parentis, and I watch over the young women with as much care and attention as their mothers. Your daughter is a treasure,” she added sanctimoniously, “and I pledge to guard her virtue with my life.”

  Verna pinched harder, feeling that she was about to explode.

  “Well, then,” the woman said, sounding mollified, “perhaps the room will do after all. My Sue Ellen is, as you say, a treasure, but she is a bit wild, and it would be a comfort to me to know that she is being watched carefully. One young man in particular is making quite a nuisance of himself. I have forbidden him to—”

  The sneeze came just as the door closed behind them.

  “Whew!” Lizzy breathed out. They listened as the clack-clack of heels receded down the hall. “That was a narrow escape.”

  “What wretched old women,” Verna said in disgust. “Remind me never to behave that way when I get old.”

  After a moment, they came out from behind the curtain. Verna went to the door and opened it a crack. They could hear the women’s voices drifting up from downstairs. “Sounds as if they’re in the parlor,” she whispered.

  “In the parlor?” Lizzy’s eyes widened. “Then we can’t go down the stairs without being seen! We’re stuck here.”

  “Maybe not,” Verna countered. “How good are you at climbing?” She stepped out into the hall and raised the window sash. It went up smoothly. “The girls use this as their secret exit, when they don’t want Mrs. Brewster to know that they’ve been out past curfew. You see that trellis? That’s how they do it.”

  Lizzy looked out the window, onto the porch roof. “I’ve always been good at climbing trees, and this isn’t much different.” She hiked up her skirt. “And it seems like the easy way out, compared to trying to sneak past those two old dragons. Let’s go!”

  A few minutes later, Verna and Lizzy were safely on the ground and out on the street, strolling nonchalantly down the block, arm in arm, and trying not to giggle.

  SEVENTEEN

  Myra May Organizes the Dahlias

  Myra May’s shift at the switchboard behind the diner began at four in the afternoon five days a week and ended at midnight. Darling was a small town. Only about half of the residences had telephones and most of these were on party lines. Given people’s habit of listening in, a single phone conversation could keep as many as half a dozen people busy at once. Which meant that the switchboard operator’s job was normally pretty light, except when there was an emergency—like the day the convicts escaped and everybody was calling everybody else, trying to find out what was going on. Most afternoons and evenings, there were only five or six calls in an hour. Myra May got a lot of reading and knitting and letter-writing done during her shift.

  This week, for instance, she was reading a book she’d gotten at the library. The library was small and Miss Rogers couldn’t buy many books, but this one had been donated. Myra May had picked it up, read the first page, and checked it out immediately—in spite of Miss Rogers, who had told her that it was written for children. It was called The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene, and featured a courageous, quick-witted sixteen-year-old girl named Nancy Drew. Myra May would’ve loved to have taken part in a few of Nancy’s adventures: finding a will hidden in an old clock, having a run-in with thieves, being overpowered by criminals and locked in an abandoned house. And all because Nancy was trying to help a poor, struggling family denied their share of a wealthy relative’s estate.

  This afternoon, though, Myra May was having a hard time concentrating on the adventures of Nancy Drew, exciting as they were. She kept worrying about her friend Alice Ann and wondering whether the sheriff had arrested her yet. It didn’t seem so, for Mr. Johnson at the bank had telephoned Hiram Riley the accountant, and their conversation suggested that they still didn’t have all the evidence they needed to make an embezzlement charge stick. Mr. Johnson seemed certain, though, that Alice Ann had stolen the money—if only he and the bank examiner could figure out what she had done with it.

  “Damned clever woman,” he had growled angrily. “Covered her tracks so well that we can’t follow. And she won’t tell us a blasted thing. Just cries and cries and claims to be innocent.”

  “What’s the situation at the bank?” Mr. Riley had asked nervously.

  “Same as it was.” Mr. Johnson sounded weary. “Precarious, I don’t mind telling you, but keep that to yourself. If we don’t locate that money ...” His voice became dramatic. “We’ll all be in for it, Hiram. The whole town. Bad times comin’, like a big black winter cloud rollin’ down from the north.”

  Listening, Myra May thought that Mr. Johnson sounded just a bit too dramatic, which was unlike him. He usually talked like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and here he was, sounding like a Hardshell Baptist preaching Armageddon.

  A few moments later, Mr. Johnson asked Myra May to connect him, long distance, with a man in the banking division of the state comptroller’s office in Montgomery. The conversation was too technical for Myra May to follow, but the gist of it seemed to be that Darling Savings and Trust was about to be put on the list of “troubled banks.” Myra May recognized this term because she had read it in the Mobile Register when a half-dozen Florida banks had failed the previous year. There was something about “undercapitalization” (she had no idea what that meant) and “unsecured loans” (that one she understood). But the central problem for the bank seemed to be, as Mr. Johnson put it darkly, the “malfeasance of a trusted bank employee,” who would be arrested as soon as the investigation was completed.

  They hung up and Myra May sat there at the switchboard, feeling so sorry for poor Alice Ann that she could cry. And so angry at Mr. Johnson—that proud, puffed-up little man who was rich enough to buy and sell half the town and didn’t hesitate to foreclose on any poor soul who got behind on his payments—that she could just about spit nails.

  While she was thinking this, there was a call from Florence Henderson, asking to be connected to her elderly mother so she could see if she needed any groceries from Hancock’s, since Florence was coming to town to shop. Her mother asked her to get a loaf of bread, a pound of sugar, and a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, which should come to a total of eighteen cents (five cents for the bread, five for the sugar, eight for the corn flakes), which Mrs. Hancock should put on her mother’s account. Then Mr. Snow at the Farm Supply wanted to talk to Calvin Combs so he could ask about payment on an overdue bill for seeds planted the year before. It was a big bill, too, nearly nine dollars, but all Mrs. Combs could say (Mr. Combs was out in the field) was that they would try to pay something—maybe fifty cents—the next week or the week after. Last year’s crop hadn’t done too well because of the drought.

  As she plugged in these calls, Myra May kept thinking about Alice Ann, trying to come up with something she could do to help. She knew very well that Alice Ann didn’t have it in her to steal money. What’s more, she was a Dahlia
. The Dahlias ought to stand up for one another when there was trouble.

  Finally, she rang Alice Ann’s number. When Alice Ann said hello, in a tired, unhappy voice, she said, “Alice Ann, honey, I’ve been hearin’ about your troubles. I wish there was something I could do, but I just can’t think what. Still, I want you to know that your friends don’t believe a word of it. Not a single, solitary word.”

  There was a click on the line and then another and another, and Myra May said firmly, “Miz Perkins, is that you? Mr. King? One of the Barrett sisters? This is a private call, if y’all don’t mind. Miz Walker and I would appreciate it if you could just hang up now.”

  Then she waited, counting the clicks. One, two.

  “One more,” Myra May said sternly. “Maybe you don’t know it, but listenin’ to private conversations is against the law.” The third receiver went down.

  By this time, Alice Ann was crying as if her heart would break.

  “Oh, Myra May,” she sobbed, “I can’t thank you enough for callin’!” The words came tumbling out, all in a hurry. “Yours is the first friendly voice I’ve heard all day, and it sounds so sweet. I’ve been feelin’ all alone out here, just me an’ Arnold, and neither one of us knowin’ what in the world we ought to do. They won’t let me work at my window at the bank and I know I’m goin’ to be fired. Mr. Johnson took me into his office and him and the bank examiner kept askin’ me how was it I took all that money and what did I do with it, and I kept sayin’ I didn’t take any money so how could I tell them where it was?” She gulped. “But they say they’ve got evidence against me, Myra May! They say I might could get arrested!”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “They say it’s in the bank records, although they won’t tell me exactly what records. And Arnold, poor man, he wants so bad to help but he can’t do a blessed thing. Seems like everybody is against us! It’s a terrible, helpless feeling. Why, I’m so discomboobilated that I can’t even think what I’m goin’ to feed poor Arnold for his supper!”

  At last! Myra May had finally found something she could help with. She spoke firmly. “Don’t you bother your head one bit about supper, Alice Ann. I’ll call a few Dahlias and somebody’ll bring y’all some supper. But before I do, I wonder if you’ve given any thought to who might’ve taken that money. I mean, from the way I hear them tell it, it’s really gone, and it didn’t just disappear by magic, poof! If you didn’t do it, who did?”

  Myra May’s question seemed to calm Alice Ann down a bit. “Well,” she said slowly, “there’s only the two cashiers, me and Mr. Harper, but he hasn’t been here very long. There’s the bookkeeper, Mr. Swearingen. And Mr. Johnson. But of course the president of the bank wouldn’t—” She stopped. “At least, I don’t think he would,” she said slowly.

  Myra May frowned, remembering Mr. Johnson’s dramatics. What if that had been an act? What if he had been stealing money from the bank and got scared that the bank examiner was going to find out? It would be all too easy for him to manipulate the bank records so that the trail led to Alice Ann, rather than to him.

  But she had just thought of another possibility. “What about Imogene Rutledge?” she asked. Miss Rutledge was a former cashier who had worked at the bank since Mr. Johnson’s father had opened it, back in 1902. The whole town had been surprised when she left her position as head cashier the previous fall, but she had explained it by saying that her mother (who lived over in Monroeville) needed her at home to help, which was something that everybody could understand. Mr. Harper had taken her place.

  “Miss Rutledge?” Alice Ann sounded hesitant. “Well, we haven’t seen much of her lately. She moved over to Monroeville, to live with her mother.”

  “But she was with the bank for years and years, wasn’t she? She probably knew the accounts better than anybody. And the way I heard it, her mother wasn’t the only reason she left.”

  “Well, that’s true. I didn’t hear what really happened, but there were plenty of rumors flying around. Somebody said she got fired for sassin’ Mr. Johnson once too often.”

  Myra May frowned. “And don’t I remember hearing that she bought a new Dodge from Kilgore Motors right after she quit? Must’ve cost nearly three hundred dollars.”

  “Yes, I heard that, too. But—”

  “And you don’t know for sure why they’re pickin’ on you?”

  “No,” Alice Ann said. “I don’t have an idea in the world about it.” And she began to cry again.

  Myra May could understand why Alice Ann was crying, although she herself made it a personal rule never to cry. When you cried, they (usually some man or another) knew they had you in their power, and she was never going to give them that kind of satisfaction. She said gently, “Now, you just stop cryin’, Alice Ann, honey. Go lie down on your bed with a wet washrag on your eyes and you’ll feel better. The Dahlias are goin’ to take care of your supper. Somebody’ll be round with a basket in an hour or so.”

  Myra May unplugged the call and swung into action. She rang up Beulah’s Beauty Bower, the one place in town where she could expect to find the regular Tuesday afternoon Dahlias gathered together. Bettina answered the phone.

  Myra May said, “I’m organizing a basket supper for Alice Ann and Arnold. If any Dahlias there would like to help out, let me speak to them.”

  As it happened, both customers in the beauty chairs—Bessie Bloodworth and Aunt Hetty Little—were Dahlias, as of course was Beulah. She had just shampooed Bessie and was trimming her, but she interrupted her work long enough to go to the phone and offer a big bowl of stewed hen and dumplings (tonight’s dinner at the Trivettes’) for the Walkers’ supper. Bessie spoke up from her chair and offered some black-eyed peas cooked with fatback and onions and a pint jar of home-canned pickled beets. Bettina was curling Aunt Hetty Little, who offered a garden salad and some fresh tomatoes and green onions, if somebody would come and pick it up. Beulah offered Hank’s services as a driver.

  Which left dessert, but since Myra May knew there was plenty of Euphoria’s pie on the shelf in the diner, there was no need to ask anybody else for that. So she told Beulah to tell Hank to stop by on his way out to the Walkers’ and pick up half a pie.

  “Tell everybody thanks,” she said. “Alice Ann can sit down to supper now without worrying her head or lifting a finger—and all on account of the Dahlias!”

  But Myra May wasn’t quite finished. Before she hung up, she asked to speak to Aunt Hetty Little, whose white hair was now wound into what looked like shiny little white caterpillars all over her head. She was more than willing to come to the phone, step up on the stool that was kept under the phone for short ladies, and spend a few minutes talking—without fear of the neighbors listening in, since Beulah had a private line.

  “You know about Alice Ann bein’ investigated for stealin’ money from the bank, I guess,” Myra May said.

  “I do,” Aunt Hetty replied tartly. “Biggest load of cow poop I have ever in all my life encountered.”

  Myra May heartily agreed. “Well, if Alice Ann didn’t do it, seems to me the question is, who did? I was goin’ down the list of possibles and wondered what you know about why Imogene Rutledge quit the bank.”

  “Imogene Rutledge,” Aunt Hetty said thoughtfully. “My, my. Well, what Dorothy Rogers told me is that Imogene got pretty free with her tongue one day and Mr. Johnson ordered her to turn in her cashier’s badge. Imogene always did have a way with words. Used ‘em the way you’d use a flaying knife. Didn’t make her a whole lot of friends. And if she happened to make a few, she didn’t always keep ’em.”

  “So she talked back to Mr. Johnson. You’re sure there was no more to it than that?”

  Aunt Hetty was silent for a moment. “Well, there’s that new Dodge she bought the week after she left the bank.”

  “A new car,” Myra May asked. “How well do you know her, Aunt Hetty?”

  “Not as well as Dorothy does,” Aunt Hetty said pointedly. “You want to know about Imo
gene Rutledge, you go over to the library and talk to her.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Hetty,” Myra May said. “I think I’ll just do that. You tell Beulah we’ll have that pie waiting for Hank when he comes to pick it up.”

  Aunt Hetty said good-bye to Myra May, hung up the receiver, and told Beulah what Myra May had said about Hank and the pie. Then she went back to sit in the beauty chair so Bettina could use the electric hair blower to finish drying her hair. It made a fearful racket, but it worked so quick that nobody minded.

  But since Beulah was using the other hair blower to dry Bessie Bloodworth’s hair, the two hair blowers together made it impossible to talk unless you shouted. And everybody wanted to talk, because everybody had been listening to Aunt Hetty’s end of the conversation.

  “What does Imogene Rutledge’s new Dodge have to do with Alice Ann?” Bessie Bloodworth shouted, getting straight to the point.

  Aunt Hetty shouted back: “Myra May is doing some investigating on her own, seems like. She’s looking for other suspects.”

  “Suspects in the embezzlement?” Beulah asked, and when Aunt Hetty put her hand to her ear, repeated the question in a shout.

  Aunt Hetty nodded vigorously.

  “Well, Imogene Rutledge would be at the top of my list, just on gen‘ral principles,” Bettina shouted, then added, “O’ course, I’m just jokin’.” Everyone knew she wasn’t really, though. When Miss Rutledge lived in Darling, she had not patronized the Beauty Bower, but had gone to Conrad’s Curling Corner, on the other side of town. In Bettina’s eyes, this was an unforgivable sin.

  “Well, there’s that new Dodge she bought before she left town,” Bessie shouted. “It must’ve cost a pretty penny. Bet Kilgore Motors was happy to see her comin’.”

  “And I heard she bought her and her mother a house over in Monroeville,” Beulah shouted. “A big house. They’re meaning to turn it into a rooming house.” She turned off the hair blower halfway through her sentence and the last part of it was very loud.