Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble (28 page)

Charlie!
She must tell Charlie! Telegram in hand, Annie cut through the backyard and ran across Katherine Street to find Charlie in the kitchen making tuna croquettes for the noon meal. Was it almost time for dinner? Except for the arrival of the telegram, she had little recollection of the rest of the morning.

At the news, Charlie forgot her hands were covered in raw egg and cracker crumbs and threw her arms around Annie, flinging gobs of breading about. “I’m so happy for you! I can’t tell you how relieved I am.…” And she sank onto a kitchen chair and cried into her apron.

“Why, Charlie…” Annie knelt beside her. “What’s wrong? This is
good
news. Why are you crying? Will’s all right, isn’t he? Odessa told us about your getting all those letters.”

“It’s what was in the letters,” Charlie began. “I didn’t want to tell you, worry you even more, but Will had to ditch his plane. He’s in a hospital in England.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? What happened? Is he going to be all right?”

“I didn’t know myself until all those letters came at once. It had been a while since I’d heard from him, so I was getting more concerned than usual.”

Charlie rose and washed her hands at the sink. “It happened near the end of July, during a raid over France. The Germans shot out his engine and it caught on fire. Will said he managed to jettison the engine and was trying to make his way back to England when the plane began to plummet over the English Channel.”

Annie stiffened, finding it hard to breathe. This easily could have happened to her brother, Joel, as well. “Dear God! How terrifying, Charlie! What happened then?”

Charlie wiped away her tears with a dish towel and smiled. “He pulled the rip cord on his parachute.”

“And then what?”

Charlie shrugged. “Will doesn’t remember. He woke up in a hospital a day or so later. He has a broken collarbone and is pretty banged up, but he’s going to be all right.” She sighed. “Frankly, I hope they’ll keep him there until this awful war’s over.”

*   *   *

That evening, Phoebe brought out a bottle of champagne a former boarder had given her and invited Charlie to join them in a toast to all their brave men. Even Odessa, a strict teetotaler, downed her portion without protest.

Miss Dimple was in the front yard the next morning, clipping a few roses for the table, when Clay’s sister, Loretta, pulled into the driveway and hurried toward her. Dimple’s first thought on seeing her was that something had happened concerning Clay, and she became so careless with what she was doing that she received a bad jab from a rose thorn.

Laying the flowers aside, she quickly wound a clean handkerchief around the bleeding finger and went to meet her. “What is it, Loretta?”

“You asked me to let you know if I remembered where I’d seen the card you were telling us about—the one that said ‘Bold Victory’ with the combined initials. Well, this morning when I first woke up, it came to me. It was Mrs. Kirkland—you know, the one with all those names.”

Loretta followed Miss Dimple to the porch, where they sat in the shade. “I was helping Daddy in the Peach Shed a few weeks ago and she had written down what she wanted on the back of a card like that. I remember thinking it was an interesting name, and I believe I commented on it, but she said she’d just picked up the card from her son when he was at home a few days before.”

“Chenault.” Miss Dimple nodded.

“Do you think
Chenault
had anything to do with what happened to Leola and Prentice?”

Miss Dimple hesitated before speaking. “I think it would be worth our while to find out,” she said. “I wouldn’t mention this to anyone else yet, Loretta. Let me think about it a bit and I’ll see what I can come up with.”

Who would best be able to find out about the mysterious company in Florida?
She couldn’t think of one person in Elderberry who might be able to help her. Miss Dimple took the roses into the kitchen to arrange in Phoebe’s lovely blue crystal bowl. It would have to be someone who had the means and incentive to look into this on Clay Jarrett’s behalf.… Miss Dimple jammed a rose stem into the bowl and pricked another finger.
Why, his attorney, of course!
Chloe had told her the lawyer’s name. Someone from Atlanta, she said, and he was supposed to be one of the best. Tisdale, Chloe had said. Curtis Tisdale.

Dimple put the roses in water and went to the telephone to call the Jarretts.

*   *   *

On meeting the attorney at the Jarretts’, Miss Dimple was surprised to learn that she had gone to college with his aunt Lavinia at Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville and had, in fact, roomed across the hall from her in the large drafty house heated by fireplaces.

“I’ve heard stories about how you girls used to secretly make fudge on the hearth,” he reminded her once introductions were made. He had immediately driven from Atlanta when Knox Jarrett telephoned him about the possible connection between Leola’s death, and, ultimately, Prentice’s, and the unknown company in Florida.

After learning of Jasper’s statement, Curtis had spent some time attempting to interview him, but had come away unconvinced of the man’s testimony. “I believe he did see someone set that fire,” he told them, “but I have serious doubts as to whether it would hold up in court. Jasper, I’m afraid, doesn’t come across as a very reliable witness.”

“But you can’t argue with the fact that someone—or some corporation—is extremely interested in buying the land Leola’s daughter now owns,” Knox said. “All we know is that it’s located in Jacksonville and that Chenault Kirkland may or may not have something to do with it.”

“And that’s what I’m trying to find out,” Curtis assured him. “I’ve already made some inquiries and hope to learn more soon.”

It had been late afternoon when he arrived and the Jarretts and Miss Dimple gathered on the porch of the farmhouse, where Loretta and her mother served fruit punch and gingersnaps for the ladies, while Knox invited Curtis Tisdale back to the kitchen for something a little stronger.

Miss Dimple sipped her punch while watching shadows lengthen across the lawn. In a short time, September would be upon them, and most of the summer, it seemed, had been overcast by heartbreak and murder. Curtis Tisdale, she thought, appeared competent as well as confident, and for the first time since that awful day she and her friends were summoned from the orchard, she felt they might begin to see the light.

Being of clear conscience, Dimple usually fell asleep soon after her head hit the pillow, but that night sleep wouldn’t come no matter how many verses of Scripture she remembered or fruits and vegetables she named in alphabetical order. Finally, in exasperation, she went downstairs to brew a cup of ginger mint tea, and discovered Annie in the kitchen before her.

“You, too?” Annie sat at the table, sipping a cup of steaming milk, and Miss Dimple told her of the meeting with Clay’s attorney while waiting for her water to come to a boil.

“I certainly hope we’ll hear something soon,” she said, “and that it will make a major difference in Clay’s defense.”

Annie agreed. She hoped, too, that she would finally receive that long-awaited letter from Frazier.

But the next day passed uneventfully. It wasn’t until the day after that Chloe Jarrett telephoned Dimple to tell her Clay’s attorney had found a definite connection between Chenault Kirkland and and the mysterious undertaking called Bold Victory. Chenault, Curtis had discovered, owned stock in an obscure offshoot of a huge chemical plant with ambitions to branch out in Georgia.

“That seems all on the up-and-up,” Chloe explained further, “although Griffin Kirkland denies any knowledge of the company. Leola’s land backs up to the river, you know, and I understand that’s important in the production process and would be a valuable asset to this particular industry.”

From what Chloe had learned from Curtis Tisdale, they planned to manufacture synthetic fabrics such as nylon and viscose rayon, and that some of these materials would be used in the making of parachutes and coverings for lightweight planes, in addition to affordable clothing.

“Surely they could find other places with access to a river,” Miss Dimple said. “It seems both Leola and her daughter made it clear they weren’t interested in selling their land.”

“It looks like there’s more to it than that,” Chloe told her. “It seems that particular piece of land would be perfectly suited for what they need. Mr. Tisdale explained that access to raw materials, energy, and transportation would be determining factors in selecting a site, as well as the water supply and the mild climate here.” She hesitated. “What’s of interest to the police is how they apparently chose to go about getting their hands on the property.”

Miss Dimple had to admit to herself that she had never cared for Griffin Kirkland; nevertheless, she couldn’t see him dressing in Klan attire to frighten Leola Parker. For one thing, it would ruin his reputation if anyone found out.

“Griffin claims to be in the dark,” Chloe continued, “but they do have that testimony from Jasper—for whatever it’s worth. However, there’s no way to prove who was behind that hood.”

“What about Chenault?” Dimple asked. “I would assume he’d deny it, as well.”

Chloe Jarrett paused. “They haven’t been able to question Chenault yet.”

“He’s stationed over at Fort McPherson, isn’t he? Shouldn’t be too hard to find him.”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” Chloe said. “Frankly, I don’t understand it, but maybe we’ll hear something soon.”

Dimple certainly hoped so. She was usually a patient person, but her patience, it seemed, had been tried to the limits lately.

When they still had no word from Chenault Kirkland the next day, things took a different turn. His father said he had no idea where he was, and, naturally, his mother claimed she didn’t, either. When his commanding officer verified
he
had no knowledge of his whereabouts, Chenault Kirkland was officially declared absent without leave, and in less than twenty-four hours, he was arrested at his girlfriend’s house in Savannah.

*   *   *

“What I don’t understand,” Charlie said, “is why Chenault would run away like that when there’s a good chance he might never be connected to what happened at Leola’s.” She had stopped by Phoebe’s after giving her small nephew a ride in his stroller, and now she sat on the back steps while Tommy attempted to throw fallen apples into a bucket in the backyard.

Miss Dimple sat beside her as Annie raked up apples from underneath the tree nearby. “I believe there may be more to it than that,” she said, clapping as one of Tommy’s apples went into the bucket with a bang. “It must have something to do with what Hattie said. Remember, Hattie claimed she
knew
something—even led people to think she might have found something important?”

Annie paused in her work. “Do you think that’s why she was killed?”

“I think she bragged to the wrong person, someone who wanted to silence her before she was taken seriously,” Dimple said.

Charlie shook her head. “I don’t know. If she really found anything incriminating, then where is it?”

“And
what
is it?” Annie asked. “If Chenault ran away because he was afraid something Hattie found would connect him to a murder, it must’ve been important. It doesn’t seem likely, though, that they can prove he was the one who set that fire.”

*   *   *

She wasn’t counting, however, on Mimosa Armstrong. Mimosa did the weekly washing for the Kirklands, picking it up on Monday and delivering it in a large wicker basket early Friday morning. Mimosa didn’t own a washing machine and had never heard of a dryer. She boiled the clothing in a big black wash pot in her yard, stirring it with a long wooden paddle, and, once it was rinsed in several waters, hung it on the line to dry. The articles, including sheets, were then ironed with a flatiron heated on the stove in Mimosa’s kitchen before being returned, usually on foot, to her customers. Only once in a while, if the weather was bad, would Hardin Haynesworth Kirkland drive over in her car to collect the clean laundry.

Earlier in the summer—and Mimosa remembered exactly which day it was because it was the same day her papa scared them so with those bad chest pains and Dr. Morrison had to take him to the hospital over in Milledgeville—she had taken the Kirklands their clean laundry. Mrs. Kirkland always made her wait while she counted everything, and this time she was short one sheet and a pillowcase. Mimosa knew exactly where they’d been because she’d seen Chenault take them out of the dirty clothes pile when she went to pick up the laundry, and naturally, she’d asked him if he didn’t want her to wash those, too. He’d told her not to worry about it because he was planning to use them in some kind of entertainment at the fort.

In spite of Mimosa’s claims, she was blamed for stealing the bed linen and was paid less than half of what she was owed. Later, when she heard rumors about somebody in a sheet setting that fire at Leola Parker’s, it was only a matter of checking her calendar to set the wheels of justice in motion. But first, she needed a little help from Doc Morrison.

Still simmering from hurt and anger over being treated unjustly, Mimosa went to the doctor in tears. Who would believe a colored woman over people as rich and powerful as the Kirklands?

Ben Morrison understood her problem, but he also understood human nature, and he had treated most of his patients in Elderberry long enough to be a pretty good judge of character. And that was when he got in touch with his friend Dimple Kilpatrick.

With Mimosa and the good doctor to back her up, it took only a short time for Miss Dimple to convince Sheriff Holland something was rotten with Chenault Kirkland in addition to his being AWOL. She had shared her suspicions earlier with him that someone had deliberately started the fire in order to frighten Leola from her property.

“Still, I’m afraid it’s going to be difficult to prove the sheet Chenault took was the one used to frighten Leola,” the sheriff told her.