The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (17 page)

But money was so hard to come by these days, and Verna’s only income, so far as Lizzy knew, was her job, which certainly wouldn’t pay enough to put a new roof on the Walkers’ house or buy Arnold a new leg. So where
did
that deposit come from?

She paused, thinking that since Myra May had brought this piece of news, she ought to tell her what she had just learned from Mrs. Wilson. “That money in Verna’s account—it must be the reason for the sheriff coming to her house a little while ago,” she said. “He had a warrant. I don’t know whether it was a search warrant or an arrest warrant.”

“A
warrant
?” Myra May asked, lifting both eyebrows. “My gosh, Liz. How’d you find that out?”

“From Mrs. Wilson, Verna’s next-door neighbor. Verna told her that she was going to Nashville.”

“Did she?” Myra May asked. “Go to Nashville, I mean.”

Lizzy only shrugged.

“Ah, I see.” Myra May chuckled, then turned serious. “The sheriff.” She pressed her lips together, shaking her head. “Sounds to me like Scroggins and the sheriff think Verna had something to do with that missing money, Liz.”

“Sounds that way to me, too,” Lizzy said grimly. She narrowed her eyes. “I wonder what Mr. Moseley will say when he finds out that Mr. Johnson let Mr. Scroggins have a look at Verna’s bank account. I’m not sure, but I think they should have told the sheriff he had to get a warrant to do that.” She thought of something and brightened. “If I’m right, and if the case comes to trial, Mr. Moseley might be able to get it thrown out.”

“Oh, really?” Myra May asked. “How?”

“Tainted evidence. When the police don’t do things the way they’re supposed to be done, Mr. Moseley objects. If the judge agrees, he refuses to allow the evidence to be entered in the case.”

Myra May gave her an admiring look. “You tell Mr. Moseley that he definitely ought to object to Mr. Johnson and Mr. Scroggins snooping in Verna’s bank account. They’ve got no business doing that.” She paused curiously. “Are you going to tell Verna about this?”

“Yes, but I can’t leave the office until quitting time and I don’t want to use the telephone. Lucy’s on a party line. I promised Bessie I’d come to her card party tonight, but I guess I’ll have to cancel. I’ll ask Grady if I can borrow his car and drive out to the Murphys’.” Lizzy clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh,
blast
,” she said disgustedly. “Now I’ve gone and let the cat out of the bag.”

“You can trust me,” Myra May replied in a comforting tone. “I won’t tell a soul. And I’m glad she didn’t go all the way to Nashville.” She tilted her head. “Would you like to borrow Big Bertha instead, Liz? I’m taking a shift on the switchboard tonight, or I’d offer to drive you. But I’d be glad to lend you the car, if you like.”

Lizzy considered. Big Bertha was Myra May’s old Chevy touring car, and probably a good alternative. If she asked Grady to lend her his car, he would volunteer to drive, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to share any of this with him. Grady was a dear and she loved him, but he could be a stickler when it came to rules. He might not understand about Verna hiding from the sheriff when there was a warrant out on her. And now that she had spilled the beans, she might as well take up Myra May on her offer.

“Thanks,” Lizzy said gratefully. “I’d love to borrow Big Bertha. That’s really good of you, Myra May.”

Downstairs, the old job press in the
Dispatch
office started up. It wasn’t as loud as the newspaper press, but it made quite a racket.

Myra May raised her voice. “Good, hell. You know me, Liz.
Curious
is my middle name. When you bring Bertha home, come in for a cup of coffee.” She gave Lizzy a wicked grin. “Maybe I can get you to tell me how much Verna really has in that bank account—and where she got it.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Lizzy said with a chuckle, picking up the letter she had to mail and pushing back her chair. “I’ll walk with you. I’m headed for the post office.”

ELEVEN

Charlie Dickens

Downstairs, in the
Dispatch
office, Charlie Dickens finished repairing the ink roller on the old Prouty job press, a real antique he had inherited with the business, and began printing the menus for the Old Alabama Hotel. While he worked, he was puzzling over what had happened that morning during that surprising and painful encounter with Angelina Dupree Biggs, his high school sweetheart.

Angelina was water under a very old bridge, very long ago, and their flaming, furtive passion—now as cold and unappetizing as last night’s okra gumbo, and difficult, embarrassing even, to remember—was a thing of a long-dead past. Angelina had decided not to wait for Charlie to finish college and get a job that would support her in the style to which her mother thought she should become accustomed. She had opted instead to become Angelina Biggs, and Charlie’s love for her (if that’s what it was, or something else) had died a sudden and chilly death.

This had happened so long ago that Charlie had all but forgotten it, except to be glad, now and again, that Artis Biggs and his Buick had come along when they did. Not being married to Angelina, he had been able to cut his ties to Darling. Not being married to anybody, he had been able to travel and work and play whenever and wherever and as much or as little as he pleased, having to consider only his own wants and whims. And as a bachelor, he had no wife to nag him about his drinking. He bore no ill will toward Angelina for jilting him, quite the contrary. He was glad that she had married a man who gave her children and treated her right. It had all worked out, the way things usually do if you let them alone for long enough.

At least, that’s what Charlie had thought until this morning, when Angelina (now almost twice the size she had been when he could scoop his arm around her tiny waist and twirl her around the dance floor) had come into the
Dispatch
office. She was there to turn in the copy for the next week’s menus for the Old Alabama Hotel, the way she usually did. Angelina was always a little diffident on these occasions, as if she might be remembering what had once been between them and wondering if Charlie remembered it, too, which he did, sometimes, in the way of a man who remembers a dream of something beautiful glimpsed long ago.

But this morning, Angelina had done something totally unexpected. Instead of staying on the customer’s side of the wooden counter that divided the public area from the working area, she had come around behind it, and before he realized what was happening, she had accosted him. Yes,
accosted
him—there was no other word for it. She had flung her plump arms around his neck and pressed the soft, heaving pillows of her bosom against him in a way that inspired not passion but panic in Charlie’s breast. The room was brightly lit and the two of them were standing in full view of the sidewalk. What if somebody walked past the plate-glass window and looked in?

“Stop it, Angelina,” he commanded hoarsely. “You gone crazy or something? Just quit! You hear me? Quit!” He grabbed her arms and pushed them down to her sides, freeing himself from her grip.

“Of course I’m crazy, Charlie,” Angelina had cried ecstatically, throwing her head back and looking up at him with half-closed eyes like someone drugged. The heavy fragrance of her perfume enveloped him in a cloud and he almost gagged. “I am crazy for you, just like I’ve always been. And I’ve seen the hunger in your eyes. I know you’re crazy for me, too!”

“Hunger?” Charlie was nonplussed. “Angelina, if I have ever once given you even the smallest reason to think I was hungry for you, I honestly and sincerely apologize. I never intended any such thing. Quite the contrary, I—” He stopped. If he said what he was thinking—that she was nothing like the slim perfection he had once known, that he did not find her appetizing in any sense of the word—she would be devastated.

“Don’t try to deny it, my darling,” she begged, reaching for him again. She was panting heavily, her red lips parted. “I know I hurt you when I married Artis. I was such a fool. My mistake has cost us so many years. But we’re grown-ups now. We can be honest with each other about the way we feel. We
have
to be honest! We have to own up to our love! We’re hungry for each other!” And she pulled down his head to hers and kissed him, full and hard on the lips.

That did it. That was the last straw. Charlie wrenched himself out of her passionate grip, turned her around, and marched her to the other side of the counter.

“Go home, Angelina,” he said firmly, pushing her in the direction of the door. “Go back to the hotel. Go back to Artis. He’s your husband, for God’s sake. And you have
children
. Think of your children!”

“My husband!” she cried feverishly, stamping her foot. “That lecherous old goat? That . . . that
philanderer
? Artis is having an affair. He and his mistress meet every day on the second floor of the hotel.”

Charlie pulled himself up straight. So that was what this was all about. Angelina must have figured she’d get even by having a tit-for-tat affair with an old high school flame. But Charlie wasn’t stupid enough to let himself get snared in that kind of trap. And in Angelina’s current frame of mind, he knew there wasn’t any point in trying to reason with her. He had to be cruel to be kind.

“I don’t care if Artis is having himself
two
affairs,” he said coldly. “I don’t care if he’s having a dozen. That’s got nothing to do with me. Now, you just scoot yourself out of here, Angelina, and go on back to Artis. We’ll forget that this ever happened.” He grasped her arm and gave her a little shove.

Her pudgy face crumpled. “Oh!” she wailed. “Oh, oh, Charlie Dickens, shame on you! I never thought I’d see the day when you—
you
of all people!—would reject me. You loved me once.” She held out her hands beseechingly. “I know you still love me!”

It was clear that he would have to take drastic action. “Out!” he roared. “You git yourself out of here before I lose my temper!” Hastily, he retreated behind the counter, feeling that he had to put a solid barrier between himself and this crazy woman.

Angelina stared at him for a moment, her eyes brimming with tears, then turned and flung open the door. And that was the end of it—or rather, it should have been, if Charlie could have pushed it out of his mind as easily as he had pushed Angelina out of the office.

And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have other things to think about—to worry about, actually.

The evening before, Zipper Haydon, who had operated the aged Linotype for the past two decades, had told Charlie he was quitting. He’d be glad to hang around and teach his replacement to operate the machine, but he’d come to the end of the line. It wasn’t unexpected, of course. Zipper was seventy-five and had a hard time getting around, with one crippled foot and an arthritic right elbow that gave him a lot of pain when he went to pull the casting lever on the old machine.

But predictable or not, losing Zipper was still a blow. Zipper had come to work at the
Dispatch
when Charlie’s father was the owner and editor, and he was a mainstay of the business. He might be worn out and subject to breakdowns, like the old Prouty job press, but he always kept on plugging. Even with so many people looking for work, Charlie knew he’d never be able to find a skilled Linotype operator for the fifteen dollars a week he paid Zipper.

The machine wasn’t difficult to learn and Zipper had offered to teach him, but Charlie knew that wasn’t the answer. He was in way over his head already, what with the job printing business he was still learning and that old Babcock flatbed cylinder press that broke down every few weeks. He’d been trained as a reporter, for Pete’s sake, not as a publisher, pressman, press repairman, job printer, advertising salesman, and subscription manager. There was no way he was going to add Linotype operator to his already long list of responsibilities. But finding somebody in Darling who could type and correct copy when necessary, who could learn the Linotype and come to work on time and do it all for less than fifteen dollars a week—that wasn’t going to be easy.

Charlie was fretting about this and worrying about what he was going to do when Zipper’s two-week notice period was over and he was without a Linotype operator, when the bell over the door tinkled and Ophelia Snow walked in. She was wearing a practical-looking white V-necked blouse and dark skirt, and her brown hair was drawn back away from her face.

“Good mornin’, Miz Snow,” Charlie said, switching off the job press and going to the counter. “What can I do for you today? Want some printin’ for the feed store, maybe?” In addition to being the mayor of Darling, Ophelia’s husband Jed owned Snow’s Farm Supply a block west on Franklin. Jed sometimes sent his wife with orders for printed signs, posters, and the like. Charlie was always glad to get the work. The job printing didn’t bring in much and he hated to run the noisy old Prouty, but it was extra income and he needed it.

“Well, no,” Mrs. Snow said hesitantly. Her forehead was furrowed and her brown eyes were troubled. “Not today, anyway. I’d like to place an ad. A classified ad.”

“Good enough.” Charlie took out the ad form he had printed up. “Classified is two cents a word if you want to run it just once. You get a discount for multiples. What category? Help Wanted? Is it for the feed store?”

“No, not for the feed store,” Mrs. Snow said quickly. She thought a moment. “Work Wanted, I guess. Or Job Wanted.”

“That would be Situation Wanted,” Charlie said, and picked up his pencil. “Okay. You give it to me and I’ll write it down.”

Mrs. Snow bit her lip. “Well, I guess maybe,
Fast typist, takes shorthand, seeks full-time work. Phone 1422
.”

Charlie wrote this down, then frowned. “We don’t usually put a telephone number in for something like this. Crank calls, you know.”

“Well, then, how—”

“I’ll put in a box number and
Care of
Dispatch
.
The replies will come here. And you don’t get charged for those words.” He looked back at the ad. “Most people would also put in something like
experienced, will provide references
,” he said. “Want to include that?”

“I’m . . . not experienced,” Mrs. Snow confessed, “except as a housewife and mother.” She brushed a strand of flyaway brown hair out of her face. “And I don’t have references—at least, from an employer. But I’m very anxious to work,” she added quickly. “Maybe we could say that? Something like
eager and willing
? No,” she corrected herself. “Don’t put in the
and
. It’s another two cents.”

Charlie looked at her, surprised. “This is for
you
? You’re looking for work?”

Mrs. Snow pulled herself up. “Yes. Yes, it’s for me. But I wish . . .” She bit her lip again. “I haven’t told my husband yet. So I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it until I’ve had a chance to talk to him.” She took a breath. “Tonight. I’ll tell him tonight.” She said it as if she were steeling herself to something very difficult.

Charlie put his pencil down, an idea beginning to form. “You say you’re a fast typist,” he said, peering at her. She had always struck him as a competent woman, although there was an air of uncertainty about her. Lack of confidence, he thought. “How fast?”

“Sixty words a minute, when I was in high school,” Mrs. Snow replied proudly. “And no errors. Of course, that was a while ago and I’m a little out of practice. But I’m sure I’ll pick it up again.” She smiled engagingly. “Typing is like riding a bicycle. Once you’ve learned, you don’t forget.”

No errors. Accuracy was more important than speed, for what he had in mind. In fact, speed was out of the question on that machine. It was one letter at a time. “And you’ve never worked before?”

She frowned. “I work all the time. I’ve worked for years. But not for money.” She sighed. “I’m sure that’s a strike against me.”

“Tell you what, Miz Snow,” he said, coming to a sudden decision. “I’ve got a position here at the
Dispatch
that you might be able to fill. You’d have to show you could do it, though.”

“A job . . . here?” she gasped incredulously. “As . . . as a
reporter
?”

Well, now that you mention it,
Charlie thought. But he said, “No, as a Linotype operator. Mr. Haydon—you probably know him—has to quit, for health reasons. He’ll be here in the morning. Maybe you could come in and take a little aptitude test on the machine.”

The Linotype machine was thought to be too hard for women to operate, but Charlie had known a couple of female Linotype operators in other small newspapers. If Ophelia Snow could type and had enough strength to operate the levers, she’d do okay. She’d need help in handling the type cases—lead was heavy. But he had to give Zipper a hand, so there’d be no difference there. If she could do the work . . .

“What time tomorrow?” she asked eagerly.

“Eight in the morning,” he replied.

“I’ll be here.” She smiled, her eyes lightening. “I can’t thank you enough for giving me the opportunity—”

“Wait,” he said. “Don’t you want to know how much it pays? It’s not very much. Only ten dollars a week to start. You’d have to come in on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, all day. If it works out, we can discuss a raise.”