The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (16 page)

Beulah was so dismayed that she almost couldn’t answer. But true beauty could never be served by a lie. She took a deep breath and uttered the terrible truth.

“It’s your hair, Miz Biggs. It’s falling out!”

Mrs. Biggs screamed and struggled to sit up. “My
hair
? My
hair
is falling out? What have you done, Beulah Trivette? What have you done to my beautiful
hair
?”

“I . . . I just shampooed it the way I always do,” Beulah said in a small voice, knowing that a beautician worth her Montgomery College of Cosmetology certificate of achievement should never find herself in such a terrible position. “Honest, Miz Biggs, all I did was—”

Wet hair dripping, Mrs. Biggs boosted herself out of the shampoo chair and ran to the mirror to examine the bare spot on the side of her head. “Just look at what you’ve done!” she shrieked wildly. “Just look!”

“But I didn’t do
anything
,” Beulah protested. “I only washed your hair the way I always do and—”

“I will sue you!” Mrs. Biggs cried. She ripped off her cover-up cape, threw it on the floor, and stamped on it. “I will tell everybody in town that you’ve ruined my hair! I will destroy you. You will never have another customer!”

Beulah looked down at the hair in her hand, remembering something she had learned in cosmetology school. A suspicion began to form. “Miz Biggs,” she said, “those diet pills you’re taking. What did you say they’ve got in them?”

“My diet pills are none of your beeswax!” Mrs. Biggs cried hysterically, searching around for her handbag. “And don’t you try to change the subject, Beulah Trivette. I am going to sue you, do you hear? I’ll take you for every penny you’ve got!”

Beulah carefully laid the hair aside and took a deep breath, thinking that Mrs. Biggs’ response was totally out of proportion. Put it together with the story about her husband fooling around and Mr. Dickens trying to kiss her, and it was beginning to sound as if the poor woman had finally and totally lost all her marbles.

Was it the Change, which had driven Beulah’s great-aunt Clarice to pick up a butcher knife and attempt to amputate an important feature of great-uncle Abner’s anatomy?

Or was it an inherited malady? (Beulah had heard that Mrs. Biggs’ mother, Lucretia Dupree, had once spent six months in the State Hospital for the Insane.)

Or was it—

Beulah straightened her shoulders. Whatever it was, she had no doubt that Mrs. Biggs, who was well liked and well connected, could do a great deal of damage to her and to the business of beauty to which she had devoted her life.

“Please sit down, Miz Biggs,” she said as soothingly as she could. “Let’s just get you pinned and dried and try to figure out what’s goin’ on here. I’m sure I can style your hair so nobody will ever know—”

“So nobody will see that you’ve made my
hair
fall out?” Mrs. Biggs cried. She picked up a magazine and threw it violently against the mirror. “So nobody will notice that you’ve
ruined
me
forever
?”

“But I didn’t,” Beulah insisted, trying to be reasonable. “I just shampooed you, the way I always do. Please, let’s just—”

“Let’s just
nothing.
” Mrs. Biggs located her handbag and snatched it up. “I am leaving! And don’t you try to stop me, Beulah Trivette. I am going to hire myself a
lawyer
!”

And with that, she flung open the door and stormed out of the Bower, her hair limp and dripping wet over her shoulders.

Bettina came running into the room. “Oh, my goodness, what
happened
?” she asked anxiously. “Where is Miz Biggs going? Is everything all right, Beulah?”

“No,” Beulah said miserably. “Everything is all
wrong
, Bettina.” And then it all hit her like the ceiling caving in on her head and she began to cry.

Bettina put an arm around her and sat her down in the shampoo chair that Mrs. Biggs had so recently vacated. “There, now, you just rest yourself for a minute and cry, honey. A cry will do you a world of good. You just have a good one while I fix us some nice cold lemonade.”

Bettina was right. Twenty minutes later, after a nice long cry and a cold glass of lemonade, Beulah had a plan. She left Bettina in charge of the Bower and set off to Lima’s Drugstore, on the southwest corner of the courthouse square. There, she went to the pharmacy counter at the back of the store and asked Mr. Lima if he had any of Dr. W. W. Baxter’s diet pills in stock. He took a slender cardboard package off the shelf and handed it to her. Peering at the contents, which were printed in the tiniest of letters, she saw that the pills contained strychnine, arsenic, caffeine, and pokeberries.

Arsenic!
Her suspicion was confirmed. Back at the Montgomery College of Beauty, she had learned that arsenic—even fairly low dosages, over an extended period of time—could make your hair fall out. Strychnine poisoning, she had read somewhere, could result in extreme agitation, anxiety, and delusions.

Well, that’s exactly how Angelina Biggs had behaved: agitated, anxious, and delusional. The pills were supposed to be safe, of course, and there was such a thing as the Pure Food and Drug Act, which was meant to keep manufacturers on the straight and narrow. But the government couldn’t be everywhere at once, even if it had the best intentions in the world, which it probably didn’t. And mistakes could easily be made in the manufacturing process. For instance, what if somebody dumped too much arsenic into a batch of pills, or too much strychnine, or both? And what if Mrs. Biggs took twice as many as she was supposed to? Or three times as many?

She glanced at Mr. Lima, a tall, thin man in his early fifties, dressed in a long white coat. He was standing behind the counter, recording a prescription in a ledger. She waited a moment, then cleared her throat. At last he raised his head, looking at her over the tops of his gold-rimmed glasses.

“Were you wantin’ to purchase those diet pills, Miz Trivette?”

“No,” she said, and put the package down. “But I’m worried about someone who has purchased them, Mr. Lima. I’m afraid she may be taking too many, and the pills are seriously affecting her health.”

Mr. Lima pulled his brows together. “Who’s that you’re talkin’ about?” he demanded brusquely. “Directions are printed right there on the package—one a day, ever’ mornin’. And I tell all my customers not to take too many. Arsenic and strychnine—” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Well, you gotta be careful, is all. That’s exactly what I tell anybody who buys these things. Follow the directions and be careful.” A frown. “Who’d you say it was?”

“It’s Miz Angelina Biggs,” Beulah said, and looked Mr. Lima square in the eye. She added, “Reason I’m worried, Mr. Lima, is her hair’s fallin’ out. I saw it when I shampooed her over at the Beauty Bower, not a half hour ago. And she’s tellin’ some pretty wild stories about a couple of our menfolks here in town. To tell the truth, she sounds like she’s ravin’.”

With a sigh, Mr. Lima went back to his ledger, running his finger down the page. “Well, it says here that Miz Biggs bought three packages two weeks ago today.” His finger tapped the column. “Three packages, twenty-four pills in each package. I s’pose if you can get a look at those packages, you can count what’s left and tell how many she’s taken. That way, you’d know for sure.”

Beulah frowned, trying to imagine asking the anxious, agitated, and delusional Mrs. Biggs if she could count her diet pills. “And just how do you suggest that I do that?” she asked.

Mr. Lima stretched his thin lips in a bleak and unhelpful smile. “That, Miz Trivette, is your problem, not mine.”

TEN

Lizzy

Lizzy prided herself on her ability to manage Mr. Moseley’s office, but that Monday, things happened that seriously challenged her organizational and management skills. It was one of those days when if it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

For instance, Lizzy was just getting a good start on her “Garden Gate” column (she had written the first two items) when Ophelia dropped in. She came to say that she had delivered Verna and Clyde to the Murphy place and they were comfortably installed in Lucy’s front bedroom. But Ophelia stayed a little longer and then stayed some more, and then finally came out with what was obviously bothering her. She had to find a job.

“A job?” Lizzy had repeated, surprised. “But—”

“Please don’t ask why,” Ophelia said miserably. “I just
have
to get work. I can type sixty words a minute without any mistakes, and I can spell, and I can take shorthand. Well, I can with a little practice,” she amended. “I had shorthand, back in high school, and I still have my Gregg book and some old steno pads.” She looked around. “I was wondering . . . that is, do you think Mr. Moseley could use another assistant?”

Lizzy thought about her workload, the firm’s bank account, and said, regretfully, “I really don’t think so, Ophelia. I can ask Mr. Moseley, but even if we needed the help, which we don’t, we couldn’t afford it.”

Ophelia sighed. “Well, I had to start somewhere. You were the first person I thought of. Can you come up with any other possibilities?”

Lizzy frowned. “Jobs are pretty scarce just now. I guess if I were you, I’d look in the
Dispatch
want ads. Or maybe I’d run a work-wanted ad myself.”

Ophelia brightened. “That’s a swell idea, Liz. I think I’ll go downstairs and talk to Mr. Dickens about running an ad. I wouldn’t have to put my name in it, would I?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe something like
Excellent typist looking for work. Sixty words per minute, no mistakes, also shorthand.
Something like that.”

“I’ll do it,” Ophelia said decidedly. “That’s a lot better than hoofing it from one business to the other, looking for work. That’s so depressing.”

Lizzy nodded, although she wasn’t sure that a newspaper ad, all by itself, would get Ophelia a job. She’d probably end up hoofing it—and even then, finding something would be a matter of luck, one of those right-place-at-the-right-time things. “I hope you get what you’re looking for,” she said.

“Thanks.” Ophelia paused, looking a little guilty. “Oh, by the way—if you see Jed, please don’t mention this.” She turned down her mouth. “I . . . I haven’t told him yet. I don’t know how he’s going to take it.”

Uh-oh,
Lizzy thought. It sounded as if Ophelia was in some kind of trouble. But she didn’t like to pry into her friends’ business, so she just nodded.

After Ophelia left, Lizzy settled down to work again. But she managed to write only two more items for her column when Old Zeke, the colored man who delivered grocery orders for Mrs. Hancock and did odd jobs around the neighborhood, showed up to report that Sheriff Burns had come knocking on Verna’s front door—with a warrant.

As Lizzy pieced the story together later, it had happened this way. Just before Ophelia arrived to drive her out to Lucy’s place, Verna got one of her bright ideas. She went next door and told Mrs. Wilson that she planned to visit a friend in Nashville for a few days and would appreciate it if Mrs. Wilson would keep an eye on things at her place. If anybody happened to come looking for her, Mrs. Wilson should tell them she had gone to Nashville and then telephone Miss Lacy in Mr. Moseley’s office and let her know who was asking, so Miss Lacy could relay the message. (Verna later told Lizzy that she had stumbled on this idea, a classic strategy of misdirection, in one of the true-crime magazines she was always reading.)

Mrs. Wilson was happy to help out in this way, for Verna had been ready to lend a hand in Mr. Wilson’s last illness and Mrs. Wilson (who was eighty-five and not as spry as she used to be) was grateful to have a neighbor who didn’t mind picking up one or two things at the Mercantile or getting one of Doc Roberts’ prescriptions filled at Lima’s Drugs on the way home from work.

Anyway, Mrs. Wilson didn’t have much else to do. She spent her days rocking on her front porch, crocheting granny squares for afghans for the missionary box at the church and keeping an eye on the neighborhood in general. She certainly didn’t mind watching Verna’s front door and letting Verna’s visitors know that she was out of town. Nothing very exciting had happened on the block since the month before, when Mr. Renfro’s second cousin (the Renfros lived across the street) had parked his old Buick out front and neglected to put on the hand brake. Mrs. Wilson had seen the car start to roll down the hill and shouted out a warning, but it was too late. With Mr. Renfro and his cousin in hot pursuit, the Buick had rolled merrily all the way down Larkspur to Rosemont. There, it smashed into a light pole and caved in the radiator, which had spouted like Old Faithful out in Yellowstone Park.

Mrs. Wilson knew it wasn’t funny, especially because when the light pole went down all the lights in the neighborhood went out. But she had to laugh because the chase reminded her so much of the Keystone Kops. Mr. Renfro looked a lot like Fatty Arbuckle, who had starred in Mr. Wilson’s favorite Keystone Kops movie,
The Gangsters.
When the Palace showed a Kops flick, Mr. Wilson, God rest his soul, had always been the first one in line, no matter how many times he had already seen the movie. He was heartbroken when Fatty got in trouble over that girl in San Francisco back in 1921 and got tried for manslaughter, not once but three times before a jury finally saw the light and acquitted him.

And when Sheriff Burns parked his Model A at the curb, marched up the front porch steps, and banged on Verna’s door, Mrs. Wilson had another laugh. Roy Burns (whom Mrs. Wilson had known ever since he was a little kid with a runny nose who went around with his pet chicken under his arm) had grown up to be another Fatty Arbuckle lookalike. She was still chuckling about that when she called out, “If you’re lookin’ for Miz Tidwell, Sheriff, she’s gone off to visit a friend in Nashville. She left just a little bit ago. Won’t be back for a few days.”

“Now ain’t that a coincidence.” The sheriff scowled, took off his hat, and scratched his head. “I’m lookin’ to have a little talk with her and she runs off to Nashville.” He pushed out his pudgy lips and squinted at her. “Wouldn’t happen to know the name of her friend, would you, Miz Wilson?”

“She didn’t say,” Mrs. Wilson replied, suddenly and uncomfortably aware that Roy Burns might not have come calling to ask Verna to contribute to the county employees’ welfare fund. She sat back in her rocking chair and picked up her current granny square and her crochet hook. “Is it impo’tant, Sheriff?”

“I reckon it is,” the sheriff said with heavy irony, “or I wouldn’t have this here warrant in my pocket, would I? And I wouldn’t be wastin’ my time bangin’ on this here door, neither.”

A warrant? “Well, now, I don’t reckon you would,” Mrs. Wilson replied thoughtfully. “You have a good day, Sheriff.”

“I’ll do that,” the sheriff said. “You happen to hear from Miz Tidwell, you tell her that I was here. And that I’m lookin’ to talk to her jes’ as soon as she gets back.” He stomped to his Model A and drove off, trailing a cloud of dust.

Mrs. Wilson put down her crocheting and puckered her forehead in a frown. Verna had told her to telephone Miss Lacy in Mr. Moseley’s office if anybody came calling. But Mrs. Wilson was thinking that she was on a party line and maybe Verna wouldn’t want everybody in town to know that the sheriff had dropped by to see her with a warrant in his pocket, which they certainly would, if the Newmans or the Ferrells or the Snows happened to pick up the receiver.

Mrs. Wilson was still considering the possible ins and outs of this when she looked up and saw Old Zeke trudging slowly down Larkspur, pulling a rusty red wagon with wooden slat sides. The wagon was empty. She had seen him earlier, when the wagon was full of groceries and he was on his way to make deliveries. He was likely on his way back to Hancock’s for another load.

“How are you today, Mr. Zeke?” she called out pleasantly.

Old Zeke wore bib overalls and a sweat-stained brown felt hat mashed down on his grizzled head. He’d been a middleweight before the Great War, traveling around the Southern circuit, fighting any fool who would climb into the ring with him. Now, he was bent and frail, his nose misshapen, his face as leathery as a piece of old cowhide hanging on the side of a barn. He lifted his head and shaded his eyes, as if the bright sunshine was too much for him.

“I’s right po’ly,” he replied in his cracked voice, “but I sho’ do thank’ee for askin’, Miz Wilson.”

Mrs. Wilson understood. Old Zeke was known to indulge in the local moonshine and was a frequent overnight guest at the county jail on the second floor of Snow’s Farm Supply. He always felt poorly after a riotous weekend.

She pushed herself out of her rocking chair. “Would you mind doing a little something for me? I need to send a note to Mr. Moseley’s office.” The office was next door to the grocery store, so it wouldn’t be out of his way. “I don’t happen to have any spare change right now, but I’d be glad to give you some cookies. Would that be all right?”

“Cookies.” Old Zeke grinned toothlessly. “Cookies is allus good. Ol’ Zeke likes cookies.”

And that’s why, ten minutes later, Old Zeke, hat in hand, was standing like a battered Western Union delivery boy beside Lizzy’s desk and Lizzy was opening an envelope with her name written on the outside. She took out a note, seeing that it came from Verna’s next-door neighbor.

“Thank you for bringing this, Zeke,” she said, and reached into the drawer where she kept the office petty cash. She took out a dime and gave it to him. He pocketed it eagerly and looked around.

“You got ’ny jobs Old Zeke might could do?” he asked hopefully. “Sweepin’? Fixin’? Totin’?”

“Not here in the office,” Lizzy replied. “But could you mow the front yard at the Dahlias clubhouse? It’s looking a little shaggy.” The Dahlias managed the garden, but Zeke kept the grass looking nice.

He brightened. “Sho’ thing, Miz Lacy.” He put his hat on his head and saluted. “I’ll do it this evenin’.”

When Lizzy read the note, she was glad that Mrs. Wilson had had the presence of mind to write down what she had seen, rather than go to the telephone. It would not have been a good idea to let everyone in Verna’s neighborhood know that the sheriff was knocking at her door. She frowned apprehensively. He’d said he had a warrant. Was it a search warrant, or a warrant for her arrest? Either way, he had to have some sort of probable cause before the judge would sign off on it. Probable cause—what was it?

But while she was worrying about this, the telephone rang with an urgent question from one of Mr. Moseley’s clients that required fifteen minutes of research before she could call him back with the answer. Then Judge McHenry’s clerk called to say that the judge had mislaid a document in one of Mr. Moseley’s court cases and hoped that Miss Lacy could replace it. She located a copy, locked the office, and ran across the street to the courthouse, where she left the document with the clerk and then came back, to another ringing phone.

This time it was Mr. Moseley, asking her to take dictation over the telephone, then type the letter, sign it for him, and make sure it went out in today’s mail. Thinking of Verna and the warrant, she wanted to ask Mr. Moseley about probable cause, but he was in a hurry, so she skipped it. Anyway, he wouldn’t be happy to hear that Verna had refused to follow his advice to stay home and wait for the sheriff. He would be especially unhappy to learn that Lizzy had aided and abetted her decision. It was probably better not to open the subject.

Lizzy had finished typing the letter and was getting ready to take it to the post office when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs and Myra May pushed the door open. She was panting.

“I thought you went over to Beulah’s to get beautiful,” Lizzy said. She didn’t say so, but Myra May’s hair looked no different than it had earlier that morning. What’s more, there were deep puckers of worry in her forehead.

“I did,” Myra May answered breathlessly. “But while I was waiting for Bettina to come and shampoo me, I heard something you ought to know about. And Verna, too, wherever she is. Thought I’d better come straight on over here and tell you.”

Quickly and succinctly, Myra May reported what Alice Ann Walker had said about Mr. Scroggins, Mr. Johnson, and the sheriff, all showing a great interest in Verna’s bank account.

“Alice Ann wouldn’t tell us how much got deposited into Verna’s account,” she concluded. “But she did say it was a tidy sum. Said it would be enough to get Arnold a new leg and a roof on the house and a new water well, plus paying off her bills, so it sounds like it must be in the thousands of dollars.” She frowned apprehensively. “Did Verna ever happen to mention how she managed to get her hands on that much money?”

Taken aback by this new information, Lizzy shook her head. “You know how closemouthed Verna is. She almost never discusses her personal money affairs with me—or anybody else.”