The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose Read online

  Charlie pushed his chair back. “Well, ladies, I’ve interrupted your card game quite long enough.” He tucked Miss Rogers’ papers into the pocket of his jacket. “Thank you for letting me have a look at your pillow, Miss Rogers. I’d like to come back with my camera and photograph it—perhaps tomorrow, if that would suit you. As I said, I do believe you have a national treasure.”

  “Yes, by all means, Mr. Dickens.” Miss Rogers touched the pillow with one finger. “A national treasure.” Her voice was soft, as if she were savoring the words. “A secret code, embroidered by my grandmother—my grandmother, the Confederate spy.”

  Bessie Bloodworth stood. “Mr. Dickens,” she said firmly, “we have been remiss. We’ve been eating and drinking in front of you, while you told us this marvelous story. Now it’s your turn. You are not leaving here until you’ve had some refreshment. I’ll fix you a plate.”

  Miss Rogers got up, too. “And I’ll get another pitcher of lemonade, Bessie.”

  * * *

  It was nine thirty by the time Charlie retrieved his unlit cigar from the porch railing, stuck it into his mouth, and walked out onto Camellia Street. The night was pitch-black and there was a distant growl of thunder, with lightning flaring to the west. He could smell the rain coming, the warm, restless scent of damp earth and wet trees, mixed with the sultry fragrance of magnolias and the lighter perfume of honeysuckle and sweet peas and roses that tumbled over the fences along the street.

  He picked up his pace. Maybe he should have taken the umbrella that Bessie Bloodworth had offered him. But if he hurried, he could make it home—he rented two large upstairs rooms from Mrs. Beedle, a block north of the courthouse square—before the rain arrived.

  The brick sidewalk along Camellia Street was narrow and uneven and there were no streetlights. Seven or eight years ago, in the mid-1920s, Ozzie Sherman had installed a big Delco diesel generator to power his sawmill north of town. Ozzie was a first-class entrepreneur, and before long, he had formed the Sherman Electric Company and talked the Darling town council into a contract to run electricity through the town and install streetlights around the square.

  A year or two later, when things were still booming, the council had bought Sherman Electric from Ozzie and added two new Delcos, expanding the electrical system across town. They had made a deal with the county, as well, to run electricity all the way out to the Cypress County Fairgrounds—an important deal, for electricity at the fairgrounds would make it possible to book big events that wanted to operate after dark.

  But the money hadn’t held out. After the market crashed and the economic downturn began, the town and the county had run out of cash. Everything had stalled, the county’s road and bridge projects, Darling’s plans, everything. There wouldn’t be any civic improvements in Cypress County for a long time to come, as Charlie had pointed out in his various editorials.

  But a streetlight on Camellia would have been an unwelcome intrusion, Charlie thought. The dark was soft and warm and the occasional golden glow from a parlor window spilled out onto the sidewalk, offering enough light so that strollers could avoid the worst of the uneven surface. A few people sat in their porch swings and gliders, listening to radios perched on the sills of open parlor windows, the tips of cigarettes glowing in the dark. Somebody played a guitar, singing along softly.

  Charlie strode down the street, swinging his arms, feeling good. It wasn’t every day that he could help a sweet little lady librarian get acquainted with her grandmother or get his hands on a cipher that had been squirreled away, likely, since the first year or two of the Civil War. His interest in this matter wasn’t entirely philanthropic, however. It was nice to be able to help Miss Rogers, yes. It was even nicer to discover the key to a cipher that had apparently eluded Civil War espionage buffs for decades—and embroidered on a pillow, no less. So like a woman, he thought ironically. Put it on a pillow, right out in plain sight—although this pillow, he gathered, had been hiding under a knitted cover for some seven decades.

  He reached Robert E. Lee, crossed the street, and headed north toward the courthouse square, patting the bulk of the papers in his jacket pocket. He would telephone his friend, Professor Litton, first thing in the morning. It would really be swell if Litton could help him find out more about the Confederate Rose. It would make a great story for the newspaper. He composed the first sentence in his head. Miss Dorothy Rogers, Darling’s beloved librarian, recently learned that she is the granddaughter of Rose Greenhow, the notorious Confederate spy.

  Beloved? Probably not, but it sounded good. And definitely not notorious, even though that was accurate. Celebrated was better. Rose Greenhow, the celebrated Confederate spy, who saved the day at First Manassas and got the Boys in Gray off to a triumphant start.

  Charlie made a sour face. Got them off to a triumphant start on the long road to inevitable defeat was more like it, but he wouldn’t write that, either. Write that, even though it was true, and half his subscribers would cancel. The other half would organize a tar-and-feathers party.

  But there was something else he could do. He could telephone his friend Horton Lomax, who was an expert in old ciphers and the editor of the Codes and Ciphers Journal. In fact, it would be a good idea to stake his claim to the Rose Greenhow cipher key right away—offer to write a paper for Horton’s journal, for instance. And if the pages he had discovered hidden in that pillow yielded what he guessed they would—well, they just might translate into a treasure that would bring in some serious moola. Museums didn’t have much dough these days, but lots of rich people still had money. Some wealthy collector of Confederate memorabilia might want this stuff—including the embroidered pillow—for his collection.

  But it wasn’t his treasure, Charlie reminded himself. It was Miss Rogers’ treasure, and if it helped her weather the storm that was likely to blow her over when the library closed (because he was sure it would), well, that would be a good thing. As he strolled along, he whistled quietly, feeling unusually pleased with himself. For Charlie Dickens did not make a general habit of doing good for other people. In fact, he rather cultivated the guise of a hard-nosed, cynical newspaperman whose main concern was looking out for Number One. But he had been moved by Miss Rogers’ delight tonight, and the thought of having helped her discover her relationship to the Confederate Rose, who was brave and loyal, if a bit overly dramatic about it—well, it made him feel good, that was all.

  And feeling good by doing good translated, surprisingly, into a bouncy step and a jaunty swing to his shoulders as he walked along the quiet street of this small town where he had grown up, in a nice house on the best street. Darling definitely wasn’t Paris or London or Berlin, where Charlie had enjoyed a riotous good living, lavishly laced with good wine, beautiful women, and boisterous song. But then he’d got the boot in Baltimore and he was still trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do when his dad took sick and died, which had hit him harder than he’d expected. He hadn’t been home for years—you’d’ve thought losing the old man would have been easier to deal with.

  So he’d been pretty much at a low point when his dad died and he had to take over the Dispatch—not just the newspaper, but the print shop as well. And now here he was stuck with the damn thing. There wasn’t a ghost of a chance of selling out, not in this economic climate, and he was too stubborn to walk away from something he’d put his time and effort into, even if it had been a mistake.

  So Darling was home now, like it or not. And since that was how it was, well, it wasn’t a bad thing to lend a hand where he could now and then, especially if there might be a little something in it for him.

  He reached the corner of Robert E. Lee and Dauphin, at the southeast corner of the square, by the Old Alabama Hotel. He stopped for a moment, glancing up at the clock on the courthouse bell tower. Nine forty-five, not that late, and still no rain. Instead of going back to his flat, he could drop in at P
ete’s and play another game of pool. Or he could walk over to the Dispatch office and catch up on the work he’d set aside in favor of those Civil War books he’d got from the library. He decided on the office. Since he was a kid, he’d always been a night owl. He’d liked working after hours, when everybody else had gone home to bed and the bright lights were a barricade against the dark outside the window, which he always knew was there, even when he couldn’t see it. Working nights, a guy didn’t get interrupted. A guy could think long thoughts, put some meat on the bones of his prose. Could have a drink or two, some smokes—writing went better with booze and a cigarette. What’s more, there was an umbrella in the office. If it was raining when he finally left, he’d go home dry.

  He picked up his pace, passing the courthouse. On the right, on the other side of the street, was Kilgore Motors, the local Dodge dealership. The lights were off and the place was dark, but Charlie knew what was in the showroom. He’d had a look the previous week, a long look, since looking didn’t cost a red cent. Didn’t cost anything to sit under the wheel and dream, either. And there’d been plenty to dream about. The latest DH Six four-door sedan, two-tone mint green and teal blue, with black fenders and running boards, enough shiny chrome to break your heart, an ebony-paneled dashboard, and wire wheels with adjustable spokes and nonskid balloon tires. Roger Kilgore claimed it would do ninety on a good straightaway, and Charlie didn’t doubt it. All for only $865—although there weren’t many people in Darling who had that kind of money to blow on an auto. Mr. Johnson at the Darling Savings and Trust, maybe. Or one of the bootleggers, who wanted a car that would pull away fast and hold its own in a hot chase. Charlie certainly didn’t have it—his pockets were empty. The Dispatch might turn a profit someday, but not yet.

  Past Kilgore’s was Mann’s Mercantile, and kitty-cornered, Musgrove’s Hardware. There were no lights in any of the businesses—except upstairs over the diner, where Myra May and her friend Violet lived with Violet’s little girl. And while he couldn’t see the back of the diner from here, he knew there was a light in the office of the telephone exchange, where somebody was on round-the-clock duty at the switchboard.

  It had just started to rain when Charlie crossed the street to the Dispatch office, unlocked the door, and went in, flicking on the light switch, inhaling (as he always did) the sharp scent of printer’s ink, paper, and cigarette smoke. He surveyed the room: the old black Babcock cylinder press, a four-pager, against the back wall; the prewar Linotype machine that only Zipper Haydon knew how to operate, with the Miles proof press on the table beside it; the old Prouty job press; the sturdy marble-topped tables where the pages were made up; the printers’ cabinets; the stacks of paper, press ready; and his battered desk with its tower of overflowing wooden in-boxes.

  More overflow than Charlie liked to see, really, especially when he had just three days to get this week’s paper out and Zipper coming in tomorrow to start setting columns. He turned on the green-shaded lamp on the corner of his desk, sat down, and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk, taking out a full bottle of Mickey LeDoux’s corn whiskey—white dog, some of the locals called it, or tiger spit, or chain lightning—and a glass. He poured and downed it, neat and fast. It wasn’t sipping whiskey. It was gettin’-drunk whiskey, not the kind you were inclined to savor at the back of your throat.

  He wiped a hand across his mouth. Thus fortified, he was ready to pick up where he had left off on the editorial for Friday’s paper. He would a whole lot rather be working on Ruthie Brant’s story, but he hadn’t yet figured out a way to verify the auditor’s report of the missing money. So he was writing about the state of the cotton market, the drought, and the job market. He planned to end his editorial with Herbert Hoover’s pie-in-the-sky presidential promise to put two and a half million people back to work. The unemployment rate was now fifteen percent and still rising. Where were those two and a half million jobs? he would ask. Still buried under Hoover’s hopeful imagination, he’d answer. There was no way to conjure them up unless the federal government put some muscle and money behind the effort. But Hoover wanted to depend on private business to come up with the jobs, and look where that was getting them. Nowhere, that’s where. Private business would do what was good for its investors, that was the bottom line. And right now, jobs for the jobless wasn’t good for investors.

  He lit another Lucky Strike, flexed his fingers, and attacked his typewriter.

  EIGHTEEN

  Lizzy, Verna, and Myra May

  Lizzy, with a blindfolded Coretta in the front beside her and Verna in the rear seat, drove Big Bertha back to Darling, taking another circuitous route. Coretta had given Verna what she needed—the copy of the state auditor’s report and a key to the office—and Verna seemed confident that she knew what to look for. But Lizzy still wasn’t sure that Coretta could be trusted.

  If Coretta was on their side, there was no problem, and she and Verna could go to the courthouse and do what had to be done. But if Coretta was what Verna called a double agent, she would telephone whoever she was working for as soon as she got home and tell them that she had given Verna the key to the county treasurer’s office. Somebody would call the sheriff and Verna would be a dead duck.

  Lizzy had considered (not very seriously) the idea of holding on to Coretta while Verna did her work. But to do that, they would probably have to tie and gag her, which seemed pretty extreme, not to mention illegal. As she drove, Lizzy wracked her brain, trying to come up with another strategy. And then finally, just as they got back to town, she thought of something that might work. About six or eight blocks from Coretta’s house, she brought Big Bertha to a stop.

  “End of the line,” she said, and turned off the ignition.

  Verna leaned forward. “Why are we stopping here?” she asked.

  Lizzy mouthed, Just wait, and Verna, frowning, sat back. Lizzy leaned over and untied Coretta’s bandana. “There you are,” she said soothingly. “I’ll bet that feels better, doesn’t it, Coretta?”

  Coretta didn’t answer. Rubbing her eyes, she looked around, spotting the sign that pointed to the Cypress Country Club. “Hey, wait,” she said accusingly. “I thought you were taking me home. But we’re all the way out by the country club. You don’t expect me to walk, do you? It’s acting like it’s going to rain.”

  “Afraid so,” Lizzy said. She reached across Coretta and opened the passenger door. “Verna and I have an errand to do before we go to the office, so we’re letting you out here. You’re only about six blocks from home. If you hurry, you’ll get there before it starts to rain.”

  “Eight blocks is more like it,” Coretta grumbled, getting out of the car. “Happy hunting, Verna,” she snapped, and slammed the door hard to show that she was peeved at the idea of having to walk.

  Verna got into the front seat and they drove off. “What was that all about?” she asked curiously. “Why didn’t we just drop her off at her house? It’ll take her another fifteen minutes to get home, if she walks fast.”

  “Because I’m afraid she can’t be trusted,” Lizzy said, and explained her plan.

  “Ah,” Verna said, understanding. “Liz, that is very, very clever.” She grinned. “We’ll make an espionage agent of you yet.”

  Lizzy parked Bertha in her garage and she and Verna went through the diner’s back door. The diner was closed and Myra May was at the switchboard. She took off her headset and turned around.

  “Hey, Liz,” she said. “Hi, Verna.”

  “Thanks for letting us use your car,” Lizzy said. “She got us there and back without any problems. And no flat tire,” she added. The last time she’d borrowed Bertha, she’d had a flat.

  “I hope everything works out,” Myra May replied. She raised an eyebrow at Verna. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Nashville, visiting a friend?” she asked slyly.

  “It was a short trip,” Verna replied with a
chuckle. “I came straight back.”

  “We have another favor to ask, Myra May,” Lizzy said. “Coretta Cole is on her way home right now. When she gets there, she may try to make a telephone call to . . .” She frowned. “Well, we’re not exactly sure. Maybe Mr. Scroggins or Mr. Tombull—or maybe somebody else. If she does this, she’ll want to tell the person she’s calling that Verna has the key to the treasurer’s office and will be there tonight. We hope you will . . . that is, we wonder if you could . . .” She took a breath. “Well, keep that call from going through.”

  “In other words,” Myra May said quietly, “you want me to pull the plug.”

  “Something like that,” Lizzy said in an apologetic tone, and Verna added, “Look, Myra May, we’re trying to figure out who took that money from the county treasury. I have a copy of the auditor’s report. It looks to me like there are several good clues in it, for somebody who knows how to follow them. If I can get just a few hours with the account ledgers and some other records in the office, I think I can track down the thief. But if—”

  “But if Coretta makes that call, Verna could end up in jail,” Lizzy finished the sentence.

  “And whoever she warns,” Verna continued, “may have a chance to destroy the evidence so nobody can follow the clues.”

  “I see,” Myra May said. “So all I have to do is—” The switchboard buzzed and she turned around. “That’s her now,” she said.

  “So she didn’t go home and go straight to bed!” Lizzy exclaimed. “Which means—” She stopped. No, it didn’t necessarily mean that. Maybe Coretta was calling her mother, or her sister, or a friend. Maybe her phone call had nothing to do with what had happened tonight.

  “We won’t know what it means until we find out who she’s calling,” Verna said urgently. “Myra May, could you—”