Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble (29 page)

“He probably used some of that sheet to wind around the cross he made,” Doc Morrison said. “And I suppose he must’ve soaked it in kerosene or something to make it burn.”

Dimple turned to Mimosa. “I’m sure you do laundry for people other than the Kirklands, don’t you?”

Mimosa nodded. “Why, yes, ma’am. I wash for lots of folks.”

“And how do you keep the clothes separate? Most sheets look pretty much the same, don’t they? How do you know which sheets belong to whom?”

“Oh, they’s marks on them, Miss Dimple,” she explained. “Some folks sew on some kind of tape, but most just put initials or a name on theirs with a marker that don’t wash off.”

“Do you remember how the Kirklands marked theirs?”

Mimosa thought for a minute. “It was just the last name, Kirkland, on the hem at the bottom, always in the same place. Miss Hardin, she’s real particular about that.”

Miss Dimple turned to Zeb Holland. “Sheriff, do you still have what’s left of that burned cross?”

“Of course.” Sheriff Holland smiled. “Well, it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a look-see.” He paused, thinking. “And he had to put that thing together somewhere. Where you reckon he’d go to do that?”

“The garage, I suppose,” Miss Dimple replied.

Zeb Holland nodded. “But you know we’re talking about something that happened a couple of months ago. I’d think he would’ve cleared away any evidence by now.”

“I believe most people would,” Miss Dimple began, “but probably not Chenault Kirkland. I’m afraid that young man believed he was above suspicion, and I doubt if it would even have occurred to him at the time that his actions would be in question.”

“Part of that cross was burned and what’s left of it was exposed to mud and water, so I’m afraid the odds are against finding a name on there, but I’ll sure see what turns up. As for the other, it could take me a little while to get a search warrant, but I’ll see if I can get ahold of the judge,” the sheriff told them. “If we’re lucky, I might be able to send somebody over there this afternoon. Meanwhile, keep this to yourself. We don’t want any word of this getting out.”

“You will let us know what you find, won’t you, Sheriff?” Miss Dimple asked. “This has been going on much too long, and I’m … well, I’m sure we’re all grateful for your help.”

But the sheriff held up a hand. “Don’t be too quick to thank me, Miss Dimple. Even if we find something, it’s probably just going to be circumstantial evidence.”

Dimple Kilpatrick only nodded. At this point, circumstantial evidence was better than no evidence at all.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN

“Well, I suppose you’ve heard,” Lou Willingham said to her sister Jo. “The sheriff found the Kirklands’ name on a piece of sheet wrapped around what was left of that burned cross. It was faded and dirty, but he said you could make it out plain as day. And more torn strips turned up out in the Kirklands’ garage. Sure looks like
somebody’s
been up to something dastardly.”

Dastardly?
Jo laughed. “Sounds to me like you’ve been watching too many of those old melodramas at the picture show.”

If they weren’t speaking over the telephone, Lou would have been tempted to shake her sister. “You know good and well what I mean, Josephine Carr! Seems to me it’s obvious Chenault Kirkland had a hand in what happened at Leola’s, and he must’ve had a good reason for running, or he wouldn’t have gone AWOL. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have something to do with killing poor old Hattie McGee, as well.”

“I heard Charlie say Hattie found something that might incriminate somebody,” Jo said. “I’ll bet that somebody was Chenault. Charlie was talking over the phone and didn’t know I was listening. Have you noticed how she’s gotten downright tight-lipped about telling me a blessed thing? And frankly, I’ve had about enough of it. I don’t understand why she’s become so secretive—and Annie and Dimple Kilpatrick are the same way.”

Lou pulled out the chair by the telephone in her hallway and made herself comfortable. This looked to be an interesting conversation. “I wonder what she found,” she said. “I’ll bet she’s hidden it somewhere.”

“Well, whatever it was must not have turned up, or I think we would’ve heard about it,” Jo said. “Chloe Jarrett told Bessie Jenkins at church last Sunday that the old trailer Hattie lived in had been turned inside out, things just thrown everywhere. If somebody was searching for something, they must not have found it.”

“I imagine that place was a mess to begin with,” Lou said. “Poor Hattie! I doubt if she was much of a housekeeper.” Lou picked up a pencil and made meaningless doodles on the pad by the telephone. “But if it’s not in the trailer, then where is it?” Her doodles tuned into circles, and the circles turned into curlicues, and then the curlicues began to look like primitive flowers.
Roses.
“Jo, think of all those roses she planted! Maybe she buried whatever she found in there.”

“If you want to go and dig around in all those bushes in ninety-degree temperatures, go right ahead,” her sister told her. “Besides, whoever’s been looking for something out there might come back and find us.”

“Oh, good heavens, Josephine! Chenault Kirkland is locked away, and bound to stay that way for a good long time. And think, if she
did
bury something there, the soil would be disturbed, wouldn’t it? At least it’s worth our time to look. Think of Clay Jarrett wasting away in that awful jail! Why, I took him some of my apple cobbler the other day and the poor thing just set it aside. Seems to have lost his appetite.”

“That’s because everybody in town has been feeding him,” Jo said. “I’m sure he managed to choke it down later.” Her sister was a fabulous cook, and Jo couldn’t imagine a young man Clay’s age turning down anything she had to offer.

“And I doubt if the Jarretts would think kindly about our poking around on their property,” Jo added.

“Naturally, I was planning to ask their permission,” Lou explained. Of course she hadn’t thought of doing that, but it was a good idea. “I would think they’d welcome anyone who wants to try to clear their son’s name.”

*   *   *

“By all means, but I doubt if you’ll find anything. You know how Hattie carried on,” Chloe told Lou when she telephoned a few minutes later. “When would you like to come?”

“The sooner, the better,” Lou said. “It should be cooler in the early morning.”

“Knox and I will be at a funeral in Social Circle tomorrow. Knox’s aunt Rose Ellen—would’ve been eighty-nine her next birthday—and of course there’ll be a big dinner to follow, but we should be back by three.

“We’re closing the Shed for the day, but if you need anything to dig with, Hattie kept a couple of tools underneath the trailer,” she added. “I sure hope something turns up!”

Louise Willingham did, too. Her sister was not happy being roused from bed at such an early hour and expected to dig into dry red earth as hard as marble.

“I thought you said the soil would look different if it had been disturbed, Lou. It all looks the same to me. I worked all day yesterday at the ordnance plant and I didn’t plan to spend my entire morning digging in the hot sun!” Jo leaned on her hoe and blotted perspiration from her brow with a red bandanna.

“I worked yesterday, too, Jo, and we’ve been here less than an hour,” Lou reminded her. “I brought a Thermos of ice water if you want some. It’s over there under that oak tree. Why don’t you take a break and get something to drink?”

Jo willingly laid aside her hoe and did as she was advised. Refreshed by the water, she found a mossy spot and sat down under the tree to take note of her surroundings. It was at least ten degrees cooler here and she was in no rush to start digging again. Two robins played tag in the old oak’s branches and a soft breeze rustled leaves in the sassafras tree beside her. Their mother had been a firm believer in the pinkish tea made by brewing the roots of that plant, as it was supposed to purge you of all kinds of impurities and tasted a little like root beer. It had been a long time since she had chewed a twig of sassafras, and Jo reached over to break off a piece. That was when she saw the trail.

At first, she wasn’t sure it was a trail because it was so overgrown with weeds it was difficult to make out the pathway. It was probably made by some kind of animal, she thought; there were plenty of them around: rabbits, raccoons, possums. Still, it would be interesting to see where it went. Jo stood and wandered closer.

Briars clutched at her skirt as she waded through yellowing grass that brushed her ankles as she passed. Trees grew closer together here and dry twigs snapped under her feet as she stepped cautiously, her eyes on the trail.

She almost didn’t see it because the trail—or what there was of a trail—ended in a small woodland clearing carpeted with leaves so deep, her shoes sank into them with each step. Looking closer, she noticed a mound of vines heavy with muscadines climbing high into a black gum tree in the swell of the hill. In another few weeks, the plump green grapes would ripen into a dark, pungent purple.

For a few seconds, she had that peculiar feeling, like somebody had walked over her grave. Ignoring it, Jo crept nearer. It looked like some kind of cave. Did an animal burrow here? But what kind of animal would lean branches over a low overhanging limb to make a crude framework for the thick thatch of grass and underbrush? Jo leaned closer. It appeared to be a tent of sorts—a tent just large enough for one person.

“Lou!” Jo shouted, shuffling back through the scratchy grass as quickly as she could. “Louise! Come here, and hurry! I think I’ve found something.”

Her sister, red-faced and perspiring, let her spade drop where she stood and followed, fanning herself with a large straw hat as she ran. “What is it? Where?”

The two of them stopped short at the bramble-covered burrow in the woods and Jo dropped to her knees to examine it closer. “Hattie must’ve made this, Lou. Somebody had to drag that limb in front of the entrance to hide it.” And with one hand, she shoved aside the limb.

“What’s in there? Can you see?” Louise squatted beside her but had no desire to crawl into the mysterious tunnel of grass. No telling what was in there. Spiders? Snakes? Lou Willingham shivered. It was one thing to dig in a rose bed, but this wasn’t at all what she’d had in mind.

“Let’s wait on the Jarretts, Jo. They should be back before too long. Let Knox find out what’s in there.”

But Jo had come this far and she was not to be deterred. “Aren’t you even curious? I don’t want to wait that long.” And she crawled on her hands and knees until she disappeared inside.

This time, it wasn’t difficult to find where the soil had been disturbed, although someone had attempted to disguise it with a scattering of dried grass. “There’s something buried under here,” Jo announced, shoving the earth away with her hands.

“What?
What?”
Her sister crouched closer.

“Wait a minute … it’s a…” Jo brushed off the dried red earth. “It’s nothing but an old cocoa tin!” She shook it and something rattled inside.

“You mean
real
tin? Then it must be old—or at least from before the war. I think they’re made out of pasteboard now. What’s in it?” Lou urged, leaning closer.

Jo backed carefully out of the narrow confines of the makeshift tent and wiped the dirt from her skirt as she stood. “I need something to pry off the lid,” she said, shaking the tin again. “Sounds like there might be a couple of things in here.”

“Hattie had all kinds of junk underneath that trailer,” Lou said. “I’m sure we’ll find something there.”

Using a small hand spade with a broken handle, Jo pried off the rusty top and emptied the contents onto the hard-baked earth behind the now-abandoned trailer.

“This is what I was afraid of,” Jo groaned as she looked at the trinkets scattered on the ground. “All that work for nothing!”

Lou picked up the single opal earring and a tarnished ring with a chipped red stone that obviously had come from the dime store. “These were Hattie’s treasures, so they must’ve been important to her. It’s sad, isn’t it? What’s that in the bottle?”

Jo made a face as she removed the top. “Ugh—Blue Waltz perfume!” She set aside a lapel pin with several rhinestones missing; a small plastic whistle that looked as if it had come from a Cracker Jack box; a gold tab from a key chain; a man’s pocket watch with a broken crystal; four dollar bills folded together, and thirty-six cents in change.

Lou put the broken key chain in the palm of her hand to examine it more closely. “This is the only thing that looks like it might be worth anything. I think it’s gold—and look, there’s something engraved here.”

It looked as if the delicate links of the chain had been separated from something—probably a ring of keys—but the thin rectangular tag remained attached. Lou held it up to the sunlight, and although it was almost noon and the sun was high in the sky, she felt a frightening chill.

“Can you read it? What does it say?” Jo leaned closer, wishing she’d brought her reading glasses.

“Jo, it’s
Chenault’s
!” Lou narrowed her eyes to read the inscription:
G. Chenault Kirkland.
She closed her fingers over the metal. “Good grief, Jo—this must be why Hattie was killed. She knew too much—”

“And talked too much,” Jo added, reaching for the gold trinket and turning it over in her hands. “Look, it’s engraved on the back, too:
Love, Linda—6/12/44.
That must be his girlfriend in Savannah. I guess she gave it to him on his birthday or for some special occasion.…” She dropped the key chain into her sister’s hand. “Only a few weeks before Prentice was killed.”

Lou examined it more closely. “It looks like the link has been pulled apart here from the rest of the key chain. Hattie must have found it somewhere.”

“And I think I know where,” Jo said. “Chenault probably dropped it behind the Peach Shed during his struggle with Prentice. Delia said a train passed through about that time, so I doubt if anybody across the road at Grady’s would have heard her.”