Miss Dimple and the Slightly Bewildered Angel (7 page)

She found herself listening to dead air for a few seconds until her brother finally spoke. “I'm so sorry, Dimple. I wasn't aware you had phoned, and it's been … well … stressful at the plant lately. One of these days maybe I can explain, but I'm all right, and I will write soon—I promise. Take care of yourself, now. I don't have but one Dimple.”

As soon as Henry said good-bye, Dimple Kilpatrick buttoned up her coat, jammed on her hat, and grabbed her umbrella, but she waited until she reached the porch to let the tears begin. Now was the time for crying.

 

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

“Well?” Virginia asked when Dimple saw her in town the next day. “Did you send the telegram?”

Dimple had stopped in at Cooper's Store to pick up soy flour and molasses for her Victory Muffins, as well as bananas and cheese for Augusta, and heard Virginia calling to her from the sidewalk in front of Brumlow's Dry Goods.

“I didn't have to,” she said, shifting her burden. “I reached Henry on the telephone this morning—caught him just before he left for the plant.”

Her friend made a harrumphing noise. “And what did he have to say?”

“Sounds as if things have been more stressful than usual at Bell Bomber. I don't know what's going on, but I can tell my brother has a lot on his mind. It must have something to do with a special project—some kind of plane, I imagine. He can't talk about it, of course.” Miss Dimple managed a smile, although she didn't feel like smiling at all. “And he promised to write soon. That's about all I can ask.”

“Did you find out why he didn't return your calls?”

Dimple shrugged. “Seems he didn't get the messages.”

“Ah-ha!” Virginia said.

Dimple ignored the inference. What good would it do to make an issue of something she couldn't change? However, thanks to Augusta's advice, she was glad she had ignored Hazel's rudeness and insisted on speaking with Henry. “I don't suppose you've seen any more suspicious visitors at the library?” she said.

Virginia shook her head. “Bobby or somebody else on the force has been patrolling faithfully, and I can't say I'm not grateful.” She frowned. “Whoever was out there might've meant no harm at all, but it made me feel uneasy. You sensed it, too, Dimple—and he
did
run from the police. Anyway, he's probably long gone by now.”

Dimple hoped it was true. She didn't want to alarm Virginia, but she would be grateful if the police would continue to keep an eye on the library for a while at least.

“Bobby tells me Dora's husband is on his way here to see to her arrangements,” Virginia said. “Wonder what kind of person he is, and why she left the way she did.”

Miss Dimple wondered, too. “I've been thinking about a limeade all afternoon,” she said. “Do you have time to stop at Lewellyn's?”

*   *   *

“Do you know what time they expect Dora's husband to arrive?” Miss Dimple asked after the two were settled in a booth at the drugstore. She laid her recent purchases on the seat beside her and put in her order with Cal Stewart, one of her former students.

Virginia said she thought he was due sometime the next day and wondered if there was a way they might be able to meet him.

Dimple wondered the same thing and suggested it seemed only natural the two of them be introduced, since they had been the first to greet the unfortunate woman.

Except for a few customers waiting for prescriptions in the back of the store, Lewellyn's was relatively empty, as the after-school crowd had thinned, but the store still smelled of hot dogs with mustard and onions. Dimple took a deep breath and inhaled the mouthwatering aroma. She knew such fare was unhealthy, but now and then it was impossible to resist. In a hundred years, she wondered, would the pressed tin ceiling and black-and-white tile floor of the building still smell of that drugstore perfume?

“I believe they're releasing her body to Harvey Thompson,” Virginia said, referring to a local funeral director. “It would be rude, don't you think, if we didn't stop by and pay our respects?”

Miss Dimple stirred her drink with a straw and smiled when she saw tired Cal had remembered to add the usual maraschino cherry. “Indeed it would,” she agreed.

Virginia poured a Coca-Cola over crushed ice, watching foam fizz to the top. “What kind of person is this husband of Dora's that she was afraid to identify herself even to the police?” she said.

“I suppose she assumed her husband had reported her missing and the police would certainly notify authorities there, and her husband as well,” Dimple said. “But according to the date on the stub from her bus ticket, she left home a whole day before she showed up in Elderberry, so where do you suppose she was during that time? It shouldn't take that long to travel here, even with the bus stopping at every crossroad.”

“I suppose she stayed with a friend,” Virginia said. “She must've had help from someone along the way.”

Noticing a smear of mayonnaise on the table, Miss Dimple slowly tore her napkin in two and blotted it away, wiping her fingers with the part that was left. “It seems our Dora was a mystery unto herself,” she said, shaking her head.

Virginia smiled. “Which means you'll have your work cut out for you.”

Dimple didn't argue.

*   *   *

“I suppose it will be all right if you and Mrs. Balliew speak with this fellow,” Chief Tinsley said when Miss Dimple telephoned him later that afternoon. “After all, I imagine he'd want to know of his wife's last few hours.

“Of course,” he continued, “I have a feeling you're going to see him with or without my permission, and frankly, I'd like your opinion. The man's background checks out okay, but I believe there's more involved here than a marital tiff.”

Later, over a supper of a delightfully fluffy dish called cheese strata and some of Odessa's home-canned peaches, Dimple told the others of Leonard Westbrook's upcoming visit.

“Oh, Dimple, do be careful,” Lily warned. “The poor woman must've had a reason for running away from that man, and you don't know one thing about him.”

Dimple only nodded and smiled. That was exactly what she intended to find out.

For dessert, Augusta had made cookie bars of oatmeal, nuts, and honey with a touch of apple butter. Annie stared longingly at the last one on the plate until Augusta laughed and slid it in front of her.

“I sure did want that last one, but I'd die before I'd ask for it,” Annie joked before taking a bite.

“I wish I could get a good look at this husband of Dora's,” she said as they cleared away the dishes. “He's probably spooky and grim, with a long beard and bad breath.”

Augusta laughed. “That in itself might frighten anyone away. Maybe Miss Dimple can give us a report after she meets him.”

“But don't expect me to get close enough to judge his breath!” Miss Dimple protested. “I wish there were some way we could talk with Dora's friends in Fieldcroft—possibly a neighbor or two,” she added. “You can't expect an objective opinion from the very person she was attempting to escape.”

Augusta paused to tuck a stray strand under the scarf that kept her sunbeam hair in place. “But isn't there a sister? I believe the policeman who was here the other night mentioned a letter from somewhere in—where is it … Tennesaw, I think?”

A lifted eyebrow from Miss Dimple stifled Annie's outburst of giggles. “You're right. A little place near Lewisburg. I believe her name was Elaine … something.”

Augusta backed through the swinging door to the kitchen, a stack of dishes shifting precariously in the curve of her arm. “Yes! Arnold. Elaine Arnold,” she said to Dimple and Annie, who followed to help. And with a motion as quick as a blink, she set the dishes next to the sink and began to scrape the few remnants of leftover food into a pail. “I should think she might be able to shed some light on the subject.”

Miss Dimple nodded. “I'm sure Chief Tinsley plans to speak with her, if he hasn't already.” Quickly, she snatched a dish towel and began to dry the dishes, finding it hard to keep up as Augusta dealt them, sparkling clean, into the dish rack.

Steam rose as Augusta scalded the silverware with boiling water from the kettle, and for a few seconds Dimple imagined a faint halo of mist around her hair. Of course, it was warm and humid in the kitchen and it had been a tiring day.

“There must be some way we can locate a neighbor of Dora's in that town where she lived,” Annie suggested as she gave the kitchen floor a quick once-over with the broom. “Do you think Bobby Tinsley might give us her address?”

“Certainly he would understand if we wanted to write a letter of condolence to the bereaved widower,” Dimple replied. And she managed to keep a straight face when she said it.

*   *   *

Harvey Thompson said he expected Dora's husband to meet him at the funeral home sometime in the early afternoon the next day, so Dimple prevailed upon a reliable room mother to help with her first graders so she and Virginia might get there in time to speak with him.

“I feel uneasy about this, Dimple,” Virginia said as she locked the door to the library behind her and paused to look about. “Do you think Leonard Westbrook might've been the person we saw hanging around here the other day? And how do we know
he
wasn't the one who ordered those vanilla wafers from Harris Cooper?”

“But, Virginia, how could he possibly know Harris Cooper, or Jesse Dean, either, for that matter?”

Virginia chose to ignore that. “And has anyone checked to see where he was the night Dora died?”

“Chief Tinsley assured me the police in Fieldcroft can vouch that he didn't leave the county during that time. Seems the tires need replacing on his car, and with rationing the way it is, he hasn't been able to find others. You can't go far on bald tires.”

“Then how is he going to get here today?”

“I imagine he'll either take the bus or ask someone to drive him,” Dimple said as she climbed into the passenger side of Virginia's faithful Plymouth and immediately rolled down the window. Even in late October, the small car became uncomfortably warm when parked in the sun. “At any rate, what reason would he have to stand out there under that magnolia and watch the library?”

Virginia didn't have an answer for that. “But if he can find a way to get here today, how do we know he didn't do the same when his wife met her end at the foot of that ladder?” she asked.

Dimple shook her head and smiled. “Why, Virginia Balliew … and you accuse
me
of reading too many mysteries!”

She was pleased to see Bobby Tinsley's police car parked in front of the funeral home when they arrived a few minutes later, and had to admit to herself she was a little uneasy about intruding on what should be a solemn and private occasion. Perhaps the two of them might be able to offer a few words of comfort to Dora's husband, but frankly, Dimple couldn't imagine what they might be.

Dora had looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, so Dimple expected her husband to be close to the same age or older, but the man who sat in the vestibule seemed much younger. Leonard Westbrook stood and took her hand and then Virginia's as Chief Tinsley introduced them, and Dimple found it difficult to speak when she thought of the shocking way his wife had died.

Of medium height, Leonard Westbrook was clean-shaven and tanned, as if he spent a good bit of time in the sun. They had learned earlier that the family owned a small farm outside of town, where they raised beef cattle. His brown hair was tinged with gray at the temples, and he wore a dark suit and white dress shirt, but no tie. He listened gravely as they spoke their condolences, and nodded and thanked them quietly, as, Dimple thought, any grieving family member might. Leonard didn't ask and they didn't tell him of Dora's visit to the library or the brief time she spent at Phoebe's, and neither Dimple nor Virginia saw the need to bring it up. They did, however, think to get the man's address from Harvey Thompson before they left.

“Well, what did you think?” Virginia asked as they drove away.

Dimple didn't answer right away. “I don't know,” she said finally. “I was dying to ask him if he had any idea where his wife went when she left there, but I'll have to admit he wasn't at all what I expected.”

“He seemed all right to me. Makes you wonder why she left him,” Virginia said.

Dimple Kilpatrick took a deep breath and sat a little straighter. “And that's exactly why we need to get in touch with their neighbors,” she said.

 

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Jo Carr sat at her sister Lou's kitchen table and helped herself to the ginger cookies. “I shouldn't,” she said, and took two.

“And why not?” Louise Willingham rolled her eyes. Her sister, at fifty-five, was still as skinny as a stick, while she seemed to put on weight if she walked past a bakery. Jo's daughter Charlie taught with Annie and Miss Dimple at the grammar school, and the two women were usually kept abreast of the goings-on at Phoebe Chadwick's rooming house. Recently, however, they sensed they were missing out on something, and that didn't suit at all.

Three days a week, the sisters, along with others from the community, boarded a bus to nearby Milledgeville, where they worked in the ordnance plant, providing much-needed munitions for the war effort. Tired at the end of the workweek, Jo usually walked the few blocks home, but today the two had decided there were puzzling issues they needed to discuss.

A few hours after Dora Westbrook's body was discovered at the foot of the steeple ladder, most of the people of Elderberry had learned of the tragedy. Later, Annie told her friend Charlie of the strange woman's brief visit at Phoebe's, and, of course, Charlie told her mother. But the rest of the story appeared to be shrouded in mystery—at least to Lou and Jo—and a bit of detective work seemed in order.