The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover Page 8

  Bettina spoke up. “Well, whoever is holdin’ onto that money,” she said plaintively, “I wish they’d turn loose of some of it. Can’t somebody have a talk with Mr. Whitworth? He needs to know he’s a stumbling block in the path of Darling’s progress. I am ready to get my phone fixed any day now.” She picked up a towel. “Come on, Miz Bessie, and we’ll get started on your shampoo.”

  But Beulah still didn’t have an answer to her question. Scissors poised, she glanced at Bessie. “What about Mr. Whitworth, Bessie?” she repeated. “Has something happened to him?”

  “I reckon you might say so,” Bessie replied in a meaningful tone. She sat down in the shampoo chair. “Roseanne heard from DessaRae this morning that he didn’t come home last night. The man has disappeared. Mrs. Whitworth is beside herself, of course. She’s called the sheriff.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Beulah said. “Well, DessaRae should know.”

  Everybody else nodded. This was one of those situations where, if you understood who worked for whom in Darling, you would understand everything. Roseanne had cooked for Bessie at the Manor for going on ten years now. DessaRae, a Creole from Louisiana who had married Roseanne’s second cousin (now passed on), worked for the Whitworths. Normally, DessaRae and Roseanne wouldn’t talk on the telephone during working hours. But as Bessie went on to explain it, the fact that Mr. Whitworth hadn’t come home made this call an acceptable exception. DessaRae had called to ask if Roseanne had any dried lemon balm, so she could brew up some calming tea for poor Mrs. Whitworth, who was quite beside herself with worry.

  Roseanne had told DessaRae that she didn’t have any lemon balm, but she knew that ImaJeen did. ImaJeen cooked for Mrs. Forenberry over on Cherry Street. DessaRae should call over there and ask. ImaJeen had made up a little packet and sent it over by her husband Doobie, who had been pulling weeds out of Mrs. Forenberry’s petunias when he was sent on the errand.

  So by the time DessaRae was able to brew Mrs. Whitworth some lemon balm tea, Roseanne, ImaJeen, and Doobie would have known that Mr. Whitworth hadn’t come home the night before. An hour later, that number would have easily tripled or even quadrupled. It was well understood that if you wanted to find out what was really going on in town, you had to ask the help. The colored folks always know what’s what—although they also know how to keep a secret and who to tell it to, which most likely won’t be their employers.

  “Well, what did I say?” Verna demanded, then added smartly, “It’s a kidnapping, that’s what it is. And the Whitworths have plenty of money, even if most of it came from Mrs. Whitworth’s side of the family. I wonder how much ransom the kidnappers are asking for him.”

  “Five or ten thousand at least, I would think,” Bessie said. “How much did they ask for that lady that got kidnapped in Indianapolis?”

  “They got ten thousand for her,” Beulah said. “I read it in the paper.”

  “So that’s why Buddy can’t come to supper tonight,” Bettina said, taking the cap off the shampoo bottle. “He’s investigating a kidnapping! Well, I must say I’m surprised that such a thing could happen in little old Darling, but it’s good to know what’s going on.”

  She turned on the faucet in the sink and adjusted the temperature. “You just put your head back, Miz Bessie, honey. You can tell us the rest of the story while you’re gettin’ beautiful.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BUDDY NORRIS INVESTIGATES

  “Mr. Whitworth has disappeared?” Myra May asked blankly. “What’s that supposed to mean, Buddy?”

  Buddy Norris sat down on his usual stool—the third one from the end nearest the door—and folded his arms on the counter. Watching Myra May’s face, he replied, “What I just said, Myra May. Whitney Whitworth didn’t come home last night.” Casually, he added, “Don’t suppose you know anything about it.”

  If she did, she wasn’t letting on. “Dunno how come you’re asking me,” she said, turning away to rearrange a pair of salt and pepper shakers. “Have you talked to his wife? She’d be the one to tell you where he is.”

  Buddy was disappointed. He had hoped that Myra May—who, after all, was Mr. Whitworth’s business partner—might have some information.

  “Yes, I’ve talked to Mrs. Whitworth,” he replied. Regina Whitworth was a quiet lady—surprisingly young and rather attractive—who was rarely seen around town. In fact, Buddy could remember running into her only a couple of times before she had called him to her house just before seven that morning. He added, “Do you reckon you could rustle me up a cup of coffee?”

  As Myra May went to the coffee urn, Buddy caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the counter and brushed his brown hair back off his forehead. Roy Burns’ nickel-plated sheriff’s star was pinned to the pocket of his khaki work shirt, which was about as close as he ever got to a uniform. People said that his cleft chin and wide forehead made him the spit and image of Charles Lindbergh, the famous airplane pilot who flew all the way to Paris, and whose baby boy had been murdered by a kidnapper a couple of years before.

  Personally, Buddy thought he might look more like Lucky Lindy if he didn’t have that scar across his cheek, which he’d got when Big Daddy Boudreaux got drunk and pulled a knife on him over at the Red Dog, a juke joint on the colored side of the L&N tracks. Big Daddy had slept it off in one of the town’s two jail cells upstairs over Snow’s Farm Supply, and Buddy let him go with a talking-to the next morning. He didn’t believe in holding a grudge against a man who was too drunk to know what he was doing—unless he did it a second time. Then it was time to take the matter seriously.

  Myra May slid a mug of coffee across the counter. “Have you had breakfast yet? Raylene might be able to round you up something.”

  “I had me a piece of shoofly pie,” Buddy said. He half-smiled as he remembered the thank-you kiss he had bestowed on the girl who had baked the pie. “But if Raylene is still in the kitchen, I figger I might could get around some ham and—”

  “This is for the sheriff,” Raylene Riggs said, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of buttered toast and ham and eggs, soft and sunny-side up, gently basted with hot bacon grease, just the way Buddy liked them. Myra May put the plate in front of Buddy and added silverware and a mug full of hot coffee.

  “There you are, Sheriff,” she said. “Now, what’s this about Mr. Whitworth?”

  Buddy appreciated the use of his new title. He’d grown up in this town and his old man still lived a few blocks down on Robert E. Lee. Lots of people called him Buddy, like they did when he was a little kid—and like he was still wet behind the ears. He was glad that Myra May and Raylene weren’t in that bunch.

  “I was hoping you could maybe shed some light on that,” Buddy said. “Either you or Violet.”

  Myra May raised her voice. “Hey, Violet. Somebody wants to talk to you.” To Buddy, she said, a little more sharply, “What makes you think we know anything?”

  “Just lookin’ for some help is all.” Buddy raked his fork across one egg and sopped up the yellow yolk with a piece of buttered toast. Myra May’s tone, he thought, was a little more challenging than usual. “For starters,” he added mildly, “I thought you or Violet might’ve heard something on the Exchange or over the breakfast counter.” He smiled, being friendly. “You girls remind me of spiders in the middle of a web, you know? Something happens in Darling, you gen’rally hear about it before anybody else.”

  It was true. Sheriff Burns used to say that the women who worked behind the counter at the diner were the best informed in town. And back when he was still just a deputy, Buddy had learned that when something happened, he could save a lot of time by sitting down with a cup of coffee and a piece of lemon meringue pie and asking Myra May and Violet what they knew about it. Nine times out of ten, they had picked up something he hadn’t heard, just by listening to the conversations at the tables and the counter, or by being curious about a call that went through the Exchange. Or in Raylene’s case, just by knowing, however that worked, wh
ich Buddy didn’t pretend to understand.

  “Spiders, huh?” Myra May gave him a slight smile that acknowledged the truth of what he had said, then shook her head. “But not this time, at least not so far as I’m aware.” She turned to Raylene. “You know anything about the whereabouts of Mr. Whitworth, Mama?”

  “Can’t say that I do,” Raylene said, in her rich, husky voice. She looked troubled. “But I have to admit that I’ve never been able to tune into that man. He’s different—not like most other folks, you know.”

  “Oh?” Buddy sopped up the last of the egg yolk. “Different like how?”

  Everybody knew that Myra May’s mother had “the gift,” as Buddy’s grandmother had called it. For instance, Raylene could tell you what somebody wanted to eat before he ordered. She said it was like tuning a radio to a distant station. When people wanted something, they sent off a signal, loud if they wanted the thing a lot, soft if they were only so-so about it. When the signal was loud and her internal radio was working right, Raylene picked it up. When the signal was weak or she wasn’t tuned in, she got a lot of static.

  “Different like how?” Buddy repeated curiously.

  Raylene frowned. “He hides himself. On purpose.” Her frown deepened. “He’s like … Oh, I don’t know. A tin can, maybe.”

  “A tin can?” Buddy was interested. “How’s that?”

  “Well, you know.” Raylene waved her hand vaguely. “All you’ve got to go by is the label somebody pasted on it, which may or may not be right. You can’t see what’s really inside.”

  Myra May chuckled. “What Mama is saying is that when Mr. Whitworth comes in here, which he doesn’t very often, she never knows whether it’ll be meat loaf or fried chicken. That bothers her.”

  Buddy reckoned that if you were in the psychic business, a tin-can kind of person might be frustrating. But that wasn’t helping him much, since all he had to go by was the label. What he needed was somebody who could tell him where Mr. Whitworth might be this morning and why he hadn’t come home the night before.

  “Oh, hi, Buddy. What’s going on?”

  He turned as Violet Sims came out of the Exchange, which was in the spare room tacked on at the back of the diner. She was wearing a pretty blue and yellow cotton print dress, a yellow ribbon in her brown hair, and a yellow sweater with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. As usual, her outfit was a sweet, girlish contrast to Myra May’s red shirt and khaki slacks. Tilting her head, she smiled at him and he returned the smile appreciatively. Violet held a special place in his heart, but he knew better than to let Myra May see how he felt. She was the jealous type.

  “What’s going on is what the sheriff wants to know, Violet,” Myra May said. “Seems that Mr. Whitworth has disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Violet’s eyes widened and her hand went to her mouth. “You don’t suppose somebody might’ve kidnapped him, do you?”

  “What makes you say that?” Buddy asked.

  “Well, everybody’s getting kidnapped these days, aren’t they?” Violet said. “I heard on the radio about a girl down in Mobile who got kidnapped just last week. She was ransomed for I don’t know how much. A lot.”

  “Three thousand dollars,” Raylene said.

  Buddy whistled.

  “Whitney is one of the few people in this town who’s rich enough to make it worthwhile to kidnap him,” Myra May said drily. “They wouldn’t get more than two bits if they kidnapped me.”

  “Oh, come now, Myra May,” Violet objected. “You know we’d scrape up every penny we could find.”

  “I know you would, dear,” Myra May replied sweetly. “And if you shook out Cupcake’s piggy bank, you might get as much as a whole dollar. If you’re lucky.”

  Buddy forked up the last bite of ham and chewed. It was blanketed with Raylene’s good redeye gravy, which he would put up against anybody’s in the world. “I was wondering whether you might’ve picked up anything on the Exchange about Mr. Whitworth,” he said. “You know, somebody callin’ his house or mentioning his name or …” He let his voice trail off suggestively.

  Violet pursed her lips. “Nobody called his house,” she said, and her glance slid to Myra May. “Anyway, we have our rules, you know.”

  Actually, it was Myra May’s rule. She was on record as saying that if she got wind of so much as one single shred of gossip that might have possibly come from the switchboard, she would fire the loose-lipped operator on the spot, no excuses accepted.

  But he also knew that listening in was pretty much unavoidable, since it was too much to ask any human being—let alone a nineteen-year-old girl—to sit in front of the switchboard for eight hours a day with her headphones on without overhearing something. And since Myra May and Violet owned the switchboard (well, half of it, anyway), they figured that listening was a little bonus they got with their investment. So they broke their rule whenever they found it convenient.

  Buddy put down his fork, feeling that it was a little difficult to conduct an official interrogation while you were enjoying ham and redeye gravy.

  “I know you’re not supposed to listen in,” he said, “but you do. Sorry, ladies, but this is a police matter. Mr. Whitworth didn’t come home last night. He still wasn’t there when Mrs. Whitworth got up this morning, and she’s pretty frantic. I am investigating this as a missing person case. I’d really appreciate you givin’ me a hand here.”

  Myra May narrowed her eyes. “If you know anything, Violet, you might as well tell him.” She slid a glance at Buddy. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Buddy wondered why Myra May thought she had to say that, but Violet was speaking. “Well, Lenore Looper was on the night shift. But I happened to be on the switchboard yesterday afternoon when Mr. Dunlap called Mr. Whitworth.”

  “And?” Buddy prompted.

  “Well, of course I—”

  Buddy sighed. “And?” he repeated.

  “And they agreed to get together at Mr. Dunlap’s house yesterday evening. It was about the Clovers, as I remember. Something about Mr. Ewing having to drop out of the Clovers because he has pimples on his throat.”

  “That’s unlucky,” Myra May remarked.

  Buddy thought that this was probably unrelated. “Anything else?”

  Violet frowned. “Well, there was a call this morning—”

  “Buddy Buddy Buddy!” cried Cupcake, running out of the Exchange and careening toward him, laughing, arms flung wide. “Jackie Jill fell up a hill!”

  “Did he really now? That’s pretty amazin’.” Buddy reached down, scooped up the little girl, and nuzzled her neck. She was wearing pink corduroy bib overalls and smelled like talcum powder and roses. She wriggled with delight when he blew the curls on the back of her neck.

  “And Humptiddy Dumptiddy cracked his head!” She bounced on Buddy’s knee, clapping her hands.

  “That’s enough, Cupcake,” Violet said firmly, taking her out of Buddy’s arms. “The sheriff is here on business.”

  Cupcake wrinkled her nose. “One two buckle my shoelaces,” she retorted with dignity. “Three four—”

  “I wonder if there’s a good little girl who would like a glass of orange juice,” Raylene remarked in a thoughtful tone. “I’m sure if there is, we can find—”

  “Me, me, me!” Cupcake cried. Buddy set her on the floor and she ran around the end of the counter. She and Raylene disappeared into the kitchen.

  Feeling the need to bring the conversation back to the central issue, Buddy took his notebook and a pencil out of his shirt pocket, and looked at Violet. “You were saying something about a phone call this morning. Somebody called the Whitworth house?”

  “Not so far as I know.” Violet leaned against the counter. “It was Mrs. Whitworth, calling Mr. Moseley’s office. I stayed on the line until Liz Lacy answered, because I wasn’t sure she’d got to work yet. Liz had just left here with one of Raylene’s cinnamon-sugar doughnuts. They’re her favorite.” She turned to Myra May. “Myra May, you might tell R
aylene they’re all gone so she can—”

  Buddy cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” Violet muttered. “Anyway, I stayed on the line, but just long enough to hear Liz answer and Mrs. Whitworth say she had to speak to Mr. Moseley. That’s when I got off.”

  “You didn’t hear anything else?”

  Violet hesitated. “Only that Mr. Moseley was doing a deposition in Montgomery and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days.”

  Depozition, Buddy wrote. Montgomry. He wondered why Mrs. Whitworth was calling a lawyer. “Anything else?”

  “Well, it seemed like Mrs. Whitworth was pretty upset. She must have really wanted to talk to Mr. Moseley because she called him, long distance. But of course, I got off the line as soon as they were connected.”

  Upset. Long distance. Buddy had the feeling there was more. “And then?”

  Violet sighed. “And then Mr. Moseley called his office—long distance again—and talked to Liz. But I didn’t hear anything they said. And that’s all,” she added, with a note of finality. “Honest.”

  “All that callin’ back and forth happened this morning?” Buddy asked.

  Violet nodded. “Sometime after eight, because Lenore had just gone home. She worked the board last night, so if you want to know anything about that, you’ll have to ask her.”

  “Thanks,” Buddy said, “I will.” He looked at Myra May. “I’m wondering when was the last time you talked to him. To Mr. Whitworth, I mean.”

  “Me?” Myra May raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking because …”

  “Because you’re his business partner,” Buddy replied. “Because I’ll be talking to his other business partner. And some more folks, too,” he added, because to tell the truth, he wasn’t exactly sure who he would be talking to. He had never investigated a missing person before, and Mrs. Whitworth had been too upset to give him any good leads. She was genuinely frightened, he had thought. All she could do was cry and wring her hands, so pale and hysterical that he’d thought she was maybe going to faint on him, and he sure as hell didn’t know what to do about that. He had left in kind of a hurry.