Miss Dimple and the Slightly Bewildered Angel (3 page)

The woman certainly had her nerve. Dimple shaded her eyes and blinked. It must be the morning sun in the window.

“Oh, dear! I'm afraid all our rooms are taken.” Phoebe looked as if she might burst into tears. “But I'm sure we can find you a place somewhere.”

Velma laid her silverware across her plate and spoke up. “There is that room at the foot of the stairs. No one's lived in it since Elwin Vickery.

“It seems like forever since he boarded here, but it was only a few years ago,” she explained to Augusta. “It's used for storage now.”

“Couldn't we move some of those things to the basement?” Lily asked. My goodness, they couldn't take a chance on losing someone who made waffles like those! “I'll be glad to help.”

“So will I!” Annie echoed, glancing quickly at Phoebe. Had she spoken out of turn? After all, it wasn't
her
house.

“I expect I should get rid of some of that clutter,” Phoebe said. “Meant to do that months ago. I'm afraid I've let it collect.”

“I'm sure Charlie will help,” Annie said, speaking of her friend and fellow teacher. “As far as I know, we don't have anything on our social calendar for the afternoon.”

And with both of their young men serving overseas, she thought, that possibility wouldn't be likely until this war was over.

*   *   *

“I thought we might have heard from Dora by now,” Annie said to Miss Dimple that afternoon as they bent over a large box, sorting items former boarders had left behind: a badly stained raincoat with buttons missing; one mud-caked boot dangling a buckle; three hats so flattened, it was impossible to tell if they had begun as bowlers, Panamas, or berets.

Charlie tossed aside a wool sock with a hole almost large enough to jump through. “Who's Dora?” she asked, and Miss Dimple told her of their strange encounter the day before.

“She just disappeared,” Annie said. “I hope she found someplace warm to sleep. It was much too cold to be outside last night.”

“She seemed to be running from something or someone,” Dimple said. “I believe the woman was afraid.”

Charlie frowned. “Afraid of what?”

“I don't know,” Miss Dimple said, “but I suppose we'll find out sooner or later.”

It turned out to be sooner.

*   *   *

“Why, Augusta, I can't believe what you've done to this place! It doesn't look the same.” Phoebe stood in the doorway of the room they'd been using for storage and shook her head. “How in the world did you manage to do this so quickly?”

Annie spoke from behind her. “You must have a magic wand. Do you mind if I borrow it?”

After eliminating the clutter and transferring the remaining items to the basement, they had left the room dusty and bare a few hours earlier. Annie and Charlie had then pitched in to help with cleaning, until Augusta thanked them and shooed them away, announcing she would finish on her own.

Now the patchwork quilt Phoebe had discovered tucked away in a trunk looked almost new on the bed that had belonged to her mother, and its mahogany headboard gleamed with polish, as did the floors they had cleaned earlier. The braided rag rug they'd found rolled up in the closet made the room look cheerful and bright, complementing the blue-and-yellow curtains in the windows.

“Those can't be the same curtains that were here before!” Phoebe fingered a corner of the fabric. “And you've washed the windows, as well.”

Augusta smiled. “It only took a few minutes and a little soap and water.”

“But how did you get them dry?” Annie asked. She knew she hadn't seen them hanging outside on the line.

“I imagine you ironed them, didn't you?” Phoebe said, looking about. “And you must have mixed sunshine in with the wash water. I've never seen this room looking as bright.”

Augusta Goodnight only smiled in reply as she settled in the old bentwood rocker they had brought down from the attic and began to stitch on a bit of shimmering fabric she'd taken from her large tapestry bag.

She wore a shirtwaist dress of turquoise and rose with a wide white collar and three-quarter-length sleeves. It was an ordinary dress from an ordinary pattern, but it looked anything but ordinary on Augusta. She kept her lustrous hair away from her face with a narrow scarf of emerald green knotted under one shell-like ear, and a long string of glimmering stones dangled from her neck, the colors changing from amber to gold, purple to crimson, and a host of colors in between.

Miss Dimple watched all this from a distance. There was no doubt the woman was extraordinary. In minutes that morning, Augusta had concocted waffles with strawberry syrup better than any she'd ever eaten, and in a matter of hours she'd converted a stuffy storage space into a room anyone would be happy to call home. So why did it prey on her mind?

That evening after a supper of cheese grits and eggs with a sprinkle of leftover bacon, they gathered in the living room for a game of bridge, with the exception of Lily, who didn't approve of playing cards on Sunday, and Augusta, who seemed preoccupied with her needlework and her thoughts.

Phoebe had turned on the radio earlier, as no one wanted to miss Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and of course they all wanted to hear the news that followed.

Augusta smiled in all the right places during
The Edgar Bergen–Charlie McCarthy Show,
laughing outright at times, but it seemed to Dimple their mysterious visitor was waiting for something to happen. But what? Where in the world had she come from, and what had brought her here to Elderberry?

Dimple Kilpatrick examined the cards she'd been dealt and decided to pass. But she wasn't passing on Phoebe's newest guest. One way or the other, she meant to find out why this person calling herself Augusta Goodnight had come to stay with them on Ivy Street.

 

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

Bob Robert Kirby, Odessa's husband and part-time sexton at Elderberry First Presbyterian, frowned as he glanced up at the town clock in the courthouse tower. Was it almost six already? He'd sure better hurry and ring the bell for vespers. Mr. Evan Mitchell had always treated him fair and square, but the preacher was a stickler about ringing that bell on time, and he still had to climb all those steps and then the ladder to get to the platform to reach the rope. Bob Robert usually rang it for the morning service, but today their congregation had met at the Methodist church, where the combined choirs presented a long-rehearsed program of patriotic music for an early celebration of Navy Day, just as they had observed Army Day in April.

Several people spoke to him as they filed into the small stone church, some having stopped to catch their breath halfway up the steep steps that led to the door.

“Whew! This sure doesn't seem to be gettin' any easier,” one of the older members said as he paused to wipe his face. “One of these days, Bob Robert, you'll understand what I mean!”

Bob Robert shook his head and smiled. He had a pretty good idea already.

The small closetlike room to the side of the narthex smelled close and musty. It always smelled close and musty, as it was used only as storage for church records dating way back before the turn of the century and stacks of ancient hymnals thick with dust, but that didn't bother Bob Robert. All he wanted to do was ring that bell and hurry home for supper. Odessa had promised chicken croquettes with mustard sauce tonight, as it was a favorite of her aunt Aurie's. Hooray for Aunt Aurie! Bob Robert smacked his lips as he pushed open the door to the narrow stairway that led to the steeple.

Or, he
tried
to push open the door, but something was in the way. He muttered under his breath. Were these young'uns playing a joke on him again? It seemed the higher they advanced in school, the more their spirits rose, especially the boys, probably because they knew their carefree days were limited, as the war loomed like the bogeyman ahead of them.

“You boys get away from this door,” he said sternly. “Service gonna start any minute now and I've gotta ring that bell.” He gave the door another push, but nothing happened.

“Mr. Evan sure isn't going to like it when he finds out you-all wouldn't let me get to that bell rope. Come on, now. You don't want to be late for church. You hear me?”

Bob Robert paused, but nobody answered. Not even the usual giggle, whisper, or scuffle. Sighing, he gave the door one final shove and succeeded in opening it just wide enough to see what was in the way.

At first, he thought it was a pillow wedged behind the door, but it was too heavy for a pillow, and what would a pillow be doing back there? And then he saw the shoe, a brown laced-up oxford like a lot of women wore, and in that shoe was a foot!

Bob Robert's first inclination was to slam that door and run, but what if this person was injured? What if she needed help? And he knew the person was a
she
because he could now see the hem of her skirt below the folds of her coat, a slender hand flung to one side.

“Ma'am?” Bob Robert stepped cautiously into the small enclosure at the foot of the steps and knelt beside her. She didn't move, nor did she respond. He didn't recognize her as a member of this church or as anyone else he knew, but he couldn't get a good look at her face. “Ma'am?” he said again, and touched her wrist. He didn't try to find a pulse, because her wrist was cold, and he knew it had been some time since there had been a pulse there. The woman lay on her side, her body stiff in death. The one eye he could see was open and glazed, and a dark trickle of what had probably been blood had dried on her mouth. It looked like she'd fallen from the steps or the ladder above them. But what had she been doing up there?

Bob Robert didn't stick around to find out, but backed quickly from the tiny enclosure, shutting the door firmly behind him, and hurried through the stuffy records room to the narthex, where a few stragglers were still making their way into the sanctuary.

He had to tell somebody—but who? That poor woman was way past needing help, but he couldn't just leave her there!
Oh Lord!
He felt like he didn't have any bones in his legs to hold him up, and Bob Robert gripped his hands to keep them from shaking. He had seen dead people before, even helped lay some of them out, but this was different. He had never just come upon somebody like that.
Crazy woman had no business in that steeple anyway!

Those chicken croquettes didn't sound so good anymore.

Doc Morrison!
He needed Doc Morrison. Oh, why couldn't the doc be Presbyterian instead of Methodist?

“Bob Robert. Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost.” Phil Lewellyn, the local druggist, paused in the doorway and took him by the arm. “I think you'd better sit down.”

Mr. Phil! He would know what to do. Bob Robert wanted to hug the man. “The steeple—she's at the bottom of the steps in the steeple, and no use calling a doctor,” he said. “Don't know how long she's been there, but she's way past helping now.”

*   *   *

“Who in the world could be at the door at this hour?” Phoebe glanced at the clock as she put away the playing cards. “Why, it's ten-thirty already.”

“Do you think it might be Dora?” Annie, who was folding up the card table, looked around for Miss Dimple, but she had gone to the kitchen for a cup of her ginger mint tea before bedtime. The others had all retired to their rooms.

“It might be an emergency.” Dimple, steaming cup in hand, appeared in the doorway. “I'll see what they want.”

“We'll
all
see what they want,” Phoebe said, flicking on the porch light, and one glance at the two men standing there warned them that something was terribly wrong.

Bobby Tinsley, Elderberry's young police chief, removed his hat as he stepped inside. “Sorry to bother you so late, but there's been an incident at the Presbyterian church, and I need to speak with Miss Velma right away.”

“Velma?”
All three gasped in surprise at the idea of the proper middle-aged teacher being involved in anything illegal, or—heaven forbid—illicit.

Doc Morrison's voice was soothing. “Now, why don't we all sit down. We didn't mean to upset you. Your friend hasn't done anything wrong, but the chief here just needs to ask her a few questions.”

“Well, of course she hasn't done anything wrong! I'm surprised at you, Ben Morrison—and you, too, Bobby Tinsley, coming here in the middle of the night like this.” Phoebe barely paused for breath. “There's such a thing as a telephone, you know.”

The two men looked duly chastised. “I'm sorry,” the doctor said. “We just wanted to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.”

“Get to the bottom of what? What in the world's going on?” Velma Anderson stood in the hallway, hugging her blue flannel bathrobe closely about her.

Chief Tinsley twisted his hat in his hands and sighed. “Well, it seems a young woman fell from that ladder that leads to the steeple over at the Presbyterian church—”

“My goodness! Who was it?” Phoebe sank into the nearest chair. “Is she going to be all right?”

Chief Tinsley shook his head. “I'm afraid not. That's why we're here. She had no identification, but the coat she was wearing had your name in the label,” he said, addressing Velma.

“Dora!”
the four women exclaimed together.

“When did this happen?”

“What was she
doing
in the steeple?”

“Do you know how she fell?”

“Is she very badly hurt?”

A chorus of questions followed, but the chief waved them aside.

“I'm afraid Chief Tinsley is trying to tell us Dora is dead,” Miss Dimple said quietly before he could continue.

He nodded. “We're hoping one of you might be able to give us a last name or some other information about her. She had no identification other than a stub from a bus ticket that was in the pocket of her skirt. It seems she bought the ticket a couple of days ago in some little place in south Georgia.…” He paused to consult a small notebook. “Fieldcroft. That's not too far from Savannah, I believe.” He glanced at Velma. “Know anybody there?”