Miss Dimple and the Slightly Bewildered Angel (13 page)

Annie brightened. “You can count me in,” she said, passing her empty bowl to Augusta.

“It sounds exciting,” Phoebe said, “but I suppose I'd better stay here. Somebody has to hold down the fort.”

Augusta frowned. “The fort? Oh my! Are we under attack?”

Silence descended on those around the table until someone finally laughed. “Well, after all that's been going on here, it would seem so,” Miss Dimple said.

“I suppose I'd better stay, too,” Lily said. “Report cards are due soon and I've grades to tally.”

“We've still room for one more,” Velma said, looking pointedly at Dimple.

“Oh, I think you'll be just fine without me.” Dimple rose hastily and began removing plates from the table. “You can tell me all about it when you get back.”

“But you always know just the right thing to
say
!” Annie protested. “Please come, Miss Dimple. We need you.” But Dimple Kilpatrick had already disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the door swinging shut silently behind her. Annie started to follow but was delayed when Phoebe put a gentle hand on her arm, and they watched as Augusta rose and slipped quietly into the kitchen.

“Memories can be fearsome things to face,” Augusta said. She put the empty muffin basket on the table and filled a dishpan with hot water. Dimple stood at the window overlooking the dark backyard, where a bare branch of the apple tree brushed the side of the house. She didn't speak.

“I believe it was Emerson who advised, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do.' And then our own President Roosevelt is noted for saying, ‘the only thing we have to fear is—'”

“‘Fear itself.'
I know very well
what he said!” Dimple turned and began to rearrange fruit in a bowl on the kitchen table, shifting apples and bananas from one side to the other. “I don't see any justification in opening old wounds,” she said.

“Unless perhaps they haven't properly healed.” Augusta spoke softly.

Dimple crowned her arrangement with a final banana and pulled a chair up to the table. This was all in the past and she did not—absolutely
did not
—want to dredge it to the surface. Augusta stood by the sink and silently met her gaze.

“Why are you here, Augusta?” Dimple asked.

“Why, to help, of course.”

“Help where? In the kitchen?” Dimple nodded in the direction of the vacant chair across from her and Augusta slipped into the seat and smiled. “Of course. Wherever I'm needed.”

“And I hear you've experience with the Dewey decimal system, as well.”

“It's been a while, but it comes back,” Augusta said.

“Who sent you? Some kind of agency?”

“I suppose you might call it that.”

“You are right. I am not interested in a visit to the Lewisburg area, although I believe you'll find it a lovely and hospitable place, and I hope you'll be able to locate Dora Westbrook's kin and find some answers there.”

Augusta smiled but didn't speak.

“I don't know why everyone thinks it's so important for me to go along,” Dimple continued, reaching for a small basket of pecans.
Crack!
With a nutcracker, she began to shell them and pick out the meats, dropping them into a cup with a ping.

“Once I found great happiness there,” Dimple said, apparently addressing the basket in front of her, “but that's gone now. Only the scar remains.”

“Surely memories remain,” Augusta reminded her. “Good memories. Happy memories.”

Against her will, Dimple Kilpatrick smiled. “Yes,” she said.

“And nothing can ever take those away,” Augusta said.

Dimple brushed pecan shells into the palm of her hand and tossed them into the trash. “I don't know why you're really here, Augusta, or how you came to know about these things in my past, but I don't believe it matters, does it?”

Augusta only smiled.

*   *   *

“Well?” Phoebe asked Dimple later as they sat alone in the small front parlor. “Did Augusta convince you to go to Tennessee with the others? And Dimple answered with a nod and a sigh. “I think I just met up with Brer Fox and the Tar Baby,” she admitted.

 

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

Edna's Groceries looked to be about a third the size of Harris Cooper's store in Elderberry and was crowded with only a handful of shoppers, none of whom, obviously, had made a list. One woman selected pecans one by one from a bin, tossing back the nuts that didn't suit, and another browsed over the glass counter in the rear of the store, where the butcher waited patiently for her decision.

“Is that little ole hen the best ya got, Al?” she asked, tapping on the glass.

Al wiped his hands on his spattered apron and grinned. “Now, Mrs. Hendricks, if you add a few onions and a stalk of celery to that bird, she'll stew up just fine.”

“Well, I reckon it'll have to do.” Mrs. Hendricks sighed and put a container in a brown paper bag on the counter. “This here's the grease I've been saving. Lid's not tight, so watch it don't spill.”

Lou and Jo saved their cooking grease as well, as did many in Elderberry and elsewhere as it was used in the manufacture of ammunition for the war effort.

The little lady in the flowered hat they had seen in Lulu's earlier examined sweet potatoes, choosing a few before moving on to the turnips. The store smelled of earthy root vegetables and brine from a barrel of pickles, and while Jo browsed about, Lou selected apples from a basket on the counter. They were green and speckled with a yellowish tint and smelled so sweet, she couldn't wait to bite into one.

“Those are Disharoons brought in from north Georgia.” The woman behind the counter, whom Lou guessed to be Edna of “talking out of school” fame, put them in a paper bag and rang up the sale. “Won't get these just anywhere,” she said.

“They smell wonderful,” Lou said. “Don't believe I've ever heard of this kind before.”

Edna smiled. “Didn't think I'd seen you around. Where you from?”

“My sister and I are from Elderberry,” Lou said. “We're only here for a day or so.”

Eyes narrowed, Edna leaned over the counter. “Elderberry? Isn't that the town where poor Dora Westbrook met her maker at the bottom of a steeple?”

“Well … I guess you could put it that way.”

“So,” Edna said, making change for the pecan-buying customer, “do they know who did it yet?”

Lou shook her head and leaned closer. “Did you know her well? Dora, I mean.”

Edna looked about. The pecan customer had left, as had Mrs. Hendricks and her fair-to-middlin' chicken. Miss Flowered Hat had moved on to examine the canned goods on the other side of the store.

“Known her since she came here, I reckon,” Edna said. “But
well
? I doubt if anybody knew Dora Westbrook well.”

Jo, joining her sister, selected a couple of packages of cheese crackers from a glass jar on the counter. “We were hoping to talk with somebody who might have an idea why Dora left the way she did,” she said, speaking barely above a whisper.

Edna shrugged. “Looks like it took old Leonard by surprise, and most everybody else, as far as I know. Dora … well, she just wasn't the type to go bolting off out of the blue like she did.”

“So, what do
you
think made her do it?” Jo put a dime on the counter for the crackers. “Was she running from something or someone?”

Edna flipped the dime into the cash drawer and frowned. “Seems more likely she was heading
to
somebody.”

“What makes you think that?” Lou asked.

“It was just a feeling, but Dora acted like she might be expecting something to happen—something good.” Edna lowered her voice. “Can't put my finger on it, but right before she left, seemed her whole attitude changed. She was like a different person. Maybe she thought she was coming into some money somehow. That Leonard's tight as Dick's hatband, you know, so it couldn't be coming from him.”

Edna looked pointedly at Flowered Hat, who, at the moment, seemed to be considering a box of Post Toasties cereal. “Ready for me to ring that up?” she said, and the woman obediently brought her groceries to the counter, paid for them, and left.

Edna watched the departing figure with a quizzical look. “Did you notice that?” she asked.

“Notice what?” Jo asked, as she obviously hadn't.

Edna took a deep breath and sighed. “She smelled like peppermint.”

“Hmm … maybe she was eating them.” Jo had to agree the air in the little store had become peppery fresh. Was there such a thing as peppermint perfume?

“You were saying you thought Dora was on her way to someone,” Lou reminded Edna. “Why?”

For a minute, she didn't think Edna would answer, as the woman seemed to be biting her lips to keep from speaking. “I shouldn't be repeating this,” she said finally, “but it came from a reliable source, so I suppose there's some truth in it. I understand Dora had received communication from someone in South Carolina.”

“What kind of communication?” Jo asked.

“How do you know that?” Lou's words tumbled out.

Edna pushed up her glasses and frowned. “Naturally, he didn't think anything about it until after Dora's death, but then, of course, he remembered the letters.”

“Who? What letters?” The sisters spoke in unison.

“Why, Eli, our postman. He has one of those—what do you call it? Photogenic memories, and he remembered Dora receiving a couple of letters from there.”

“Where in South Carolina?” Jo persisted.

“I believe it was Columbia.” Edna thought for a minute and smiled. “Yes! Columbia.”

“Would he remember who sent them or the return address?” Lou asked.

“Of course not! He only noticed the postmark. Why, that would be an outrageous invasion of privacy!”

*   *   *

“Seems to me,” Lou said as they returned to the car, “if this Eli had a ‘photogenic' memory, he could've at least remembered the return address on those envelopes.”

Jo giggled. “Shame on you! Don't you know that would've been an outrageous invasion of privacy?”

“So, what now? It's getting late and the stores will be closing soon.”

“For one thing, we need to let Reece Cagle at the police department know about Dora's letters from South Carolina,” Jo said. “Then he can telephone that information to Bobby Tinsley.”

Lou nodded. “Jo, I don't know about you, but I feel that little piece of gossip has made this whole trip worthwhile. It looks, though, like we've just about run out of people to question.”

“Not quite. There's still Dora's mother-in-law—right next door to Priscilla, remember?”

Lou frowned. “What makes you think she'll talk to us? From all we've heard, she doesn't come across as the warm, cuddly type to me. Besides, we don't even know her name.”

“Mrs. Westbrook, I guess, unless she married again, but that shouldn't matter.” Jo frowned. “We're not far away, but I'd like to speak with her before Dora's husband gets home. We can stop and see Reece after that.”

“Jo, I'm afraid we'll just be wasting our time. That woman isn't going to give us the time of day.”

Lou smiled as she pulled out of the parking space. “How could she turn us away when we've gone there to return a personal item Dora left behind?”

“What personal item? I don't remember her leaving anything.”

“This personal item.” Lou tossed a small paper bag on the seat between them and watched as her sister opened it to draw out a head scarf with a geometric design in patriotic colors.

“Then you'd better remove the price tag,” Jo said, examining it closer. “According to this, it came from Murphy's Five and Dime.”

“Well,
she
doesn't know that! Here, take off the tag and wad it up a little so it'll look like it's been worn.”

Jo laughed. If her sister had gone to all that trouble, she supposed it would be worth a try.

*   *   *

“You came all this way just to return
this
?” Leonard Westbrook's mother stood in the doorway, holding the scarf at arm's length, as if it might contaminate. She wore her dyed black hair in a bun and had a mustache almost long enough to curl. She did not invite them in.

Lou forced a smile. “First of all, we want to tell you personally, Mrs. Westbrook, how very sorry we are about what happened to your daughter-in-law. This tragedy has upset many of us in Elderberry, and … well, we're doing our best to try to find out why it happened.”

“I'm sure the police have taken a statement from you, but the authorities in Elderberry are still trying to act on every lead, and so, with their permission, we're following up on this,” Jo added. “We're hoping you might be able to shed some light on why Dora left so abruptly.”

“And why should I answer you? You don't look like Nancy Drew to me.”

Was the woman actually smiling?

“I've already answered all the questions I intend to.” With one hand on the door, Dora's mother-in-law narrowed the gap between them. “My son's wife was selfish, conniving, and what's more, she was a thief to boot!”

Whoa!
“A
thief
? What did she steal?” Jo asked the door as it slammed in her face.

Lou shrugged. “Somehow I get the idea Leonard's mother wasn't exactly fond of Dora.”

 

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Except for Lily, who lingered over a dessert of applesauce cake with whipped cream, everyone at Phoebe's had finished supper when Charlie Carr exploded into the living room with news from the police in Fieldcroft.