Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause (16 page)

Tommy, not understanding what was going on, began to cry, and Charlie walked about with him to soothe him while Delia sat down to read the letter again. “I’ll bet your grandmama Jo has a box of graham crackers hidden away somewhere,” she said, kissing the baby’s soft cheek. “Let’s go see if we can find them.” She knew Delia wanted to be alone for a few minutes to reread her letter from Ned, and she was feeling weak with relief herself at hearing the good news. She knew that Delia was aware, as she was, that Ned’s letter was several days old.
He had been alive then, but was he now?
Charlie put her nephew in his high chair, tied a bib around his neck, and gave him a cracker as a treat. One could go crazy dwelling on things like that, she thought. It was a good thing her aunt Lou would need help planning her party next weekend. They would be too busy to have much time to think.

*   *   *

Dimple Kilpatrick helped herself to the tuna salad and a small serving of Odessa’s refreshing congealed salad of pineapple, nuts, and grapefruit sections. Like most of the people in Elderberry, Phoebe Chadwick’s roomers enjoyed their main meal in the middle of the day and ate sparingly at supper. Miss Dimple sipped her iced tea and nibbled on a cracker. She hadn’t had much of an appetite since her conversation with Virginia the day before, and of course much of the town was in an uproar over the news about Jesse Dean as well. She was relieved that at least the authorities had so far managed to keep the information from the public about the stolen War Bond money, but she was much afraid her friend Virginia was going to make herself sick with worry about it.

“I don’t know when I’ll ever feel right about trading with Murphy’s Five and Ten,” Lily Moss said, helping herself to the bread-and-butter pickles. “Who would’ve thought such a thing of Reynolds Murphy of all people!”

“We don’t know Reynolds had anything to do with that, Lily,” Phoebe said. “At least he didn’t run away. I, for one, am curious to know what happened to Buddy Oglesby.”

Velma Anderson spoke up. “Now Buddy. He always was a bit peculiar. I remember him back in high school.”

“Did Buddy take secretarial science?” Annie asked. “Somehow he just doesn’t seem the type.”

“No, but I had him in study hall, and then he was on the annual staff when I was their faculty advisor.” She frowned, remembering. “Not that he misbehaved or anything like that, and he seemed to enjoy working on the annual, but he was shy—kinda kept to himself. I don’t remember him having many close friends.”

“Do you still have any of those yearbooks?” Miss Dimple asked.

“I think so.” Velma concentrated on spreading tuna salad on a soda cracker. “I don’t keep them all, of course, but I think I did manage to hold on to a few during the years I was advisor.”

Miss Dimple squeezed lemon into her tea and took another sip. Ah, that was much better. “Would you mind if I looked through them?” she asked Velma.

“Not at all, if I can remember where I put them, but I can’t imagine what you hope to find in there.”

Dimple wasn’t sure, either, but she knew it was going to haunt her if she didn’t look.

After supper, Velma obligingly stood on a chair to search her closet shelves with no success. “I can’t imagine … oh, wait! I remember now. I stored them in a box in the basement.”

“I’m sure you don’t want to bother with that right now,” Miss Dimple said reluctantly, although that is exactly what she
did
want her to do.

“It is rather dark down there, but if Sebastian would kindly go with me,” Velma volunteered. “I think I know where I put them, but they’ll be heavy, you know.” Velma gave Miss Dimple a quizzical look. “Mind telling me why you want to see them?”

Dimple Kilpatrick smiled. “It’s simply a hunch, that’s all, and will probably come to nothing. It can wait if you’d rather not—”

“No, no! Now I’m curious, too.” And enlisting Sebastian’s help, the three made their way down the dim basement stairs to the box filled with high school annuals that had been stored in a corner along with an ancient badminton set, a broken rocking chair, and enough flower vases to furnish a florist.

They agreed that it would be easier for each of the three to carry several books than to try to lift the heavy box, and although Dimple didn’t mind sharing the load, she was glad when they had left the damp basement behind them. The dank, musty smell stirred unpleasant memories of a dreadful experience of the year before, and it would be well with Dimple Kilpatrick if she never stepped into another basement again.

The dining room table had already been set for breakfast, so Dimple took the yearbooks into the front parlor and stacked them on the floor by the sofa. There she could spread them out, one at a time, on the low marble-topped table in front of her. Velma and Sebastian joined Annie and Lily for a few hands of bridge at a table by the window, leaving her to her quest, and although they had shown interest at first, eventually the others abandoned her and went up to bed.

The annuals covered a period from twenty-five to thirty-five years before, when Velma was a handsome young woman not long out of college, and Dimple only a few years older. It had been a short time after that that both women had come to live at Phoebe’s while her husband, Monroe, was serving in what was supposed to have been “the war to end all wars,” only, of course, it hadn’t. Before that time, Dimple had lived with a grandmotherly lady who rented a room in her small cottage only a few blocks from town. When her landlady died, the house was torn down to make room for the Baptist manse, and Dimple had been made welcome by Phoebe Chadwick, who had since become a close friend.

She smiled as she recognized the familiar young faces of those she had taught as children. Some were grandparents now, and many had sons in the military. Even without the name, Dimple would have recognized Buddy Oglesby’s face when she first found it among the junior class. He wore his hair slicked back, as did most of the boys in that day, and sported a wide tie with a high-collared shirt. The following year, she noticed, Buddy had become more casual in an open-necked shirt and pullover sweater.

Stopping for a cup of tea, she continued to pour over names and faces of the other students, and had almost given up on learning anything of interest when she came to the page featuring the senior class dance.

Buddy Oglesby, wearing a dark suit and a wide grin, stood under a flower-covered archway with a pretty dark-haired girl who reminded Dimple of Clara Bow in the old silent movies.

Underneath the photograph, the cutline read:
Buddy and Cynthia—Still waters run deep!

Had Reynolds Murphy’s wife, Cynthia, attended Elderberry High School? Certainly she didn’t remember teaching her in the first grade, so she must have enrolled later. Dimple thumbed back to the beginning of the annual from that same year, which would have been the year Buddy graduated. And there, in the freshman class, already looking older and more knowledgeable than her classmates, was Cynthia Ann Noland, who would later marry Reynolds Murphy and end up in a lonely, waterlogged grave beside a cotton field.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Annie attached postage to letters for Frazier and her brother Joel, pressing them down with her fingers to be sure the glue held, and slipped them through the slot in the post office lobby. If she moved fast enough, maybe she could make it to Brumlow’s Dry Goods before they closed for the day. She had been eyeing a certain pullover sweater on display there for several weeks and was hoping Emmaline would finally put it on sale. The sweater was a deep burgundy, the color of ripe mulberries or sweet gum leaves in the fall, and it would look perfect with her gray pleated skirt. Frazier liked her in vivid colors, and it had been a long time since she’d bought something new. Annie smiled to herself. Soon she would be meeting him in Atlanta for their last time together before he left for overseas, and she was counting the days.

*   *   *

She was disappointed, but not surprised, to find the price of the sweater the same. Annie didn’t see Emmaline in the front of the store, but her daughter Arden, who was waiting for Bessie Jenkins to decide on a pair of gloves, smiled at her as she came in.

“I’ve been wanting to congratulate both of you for the fine job you did with the follies Saturday,” Arden said, including Bessie as well. “The costumes were great, and you did a fantastic job with the entertainment, Annie.”

Annie thanked her, as did Bessie, but neither seemed to know what to say next since Arden’s cousin Buddy seemed to have disappeared, and there was still some doubt as to whether he’d had something to do with what happened to Jesse Dean. It had even been rumored that the federal government was sending somebody to investigate.

Annie wandered about the store pretending interest in a display of jewelry under the glass case until she noticed the fine lace-trimmed underwear at the lingerie counter, and her face grew warm as she thought of what it might be like to feel the delicate peach-colored panties next to her skin. What if she and Frazier …

“Can I help you with something, Annie?” Arden asked, and Annie quickly moved away from the counter. Bessie had obviously made her purchase and left, and Annie returned her attention to the sweater.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of this going on sale anytime soon?” she asked, fingering the garment.

Arden smiled and shook her head, then glanced toward the back of the store, where Annie supposed her mother lurked. “We overstocked on this particular item, so I can give you a few dollars off,” she said in a low voice. “But please don’t spread the word.”

Annie knew she probably meant for her not to say anything about her discount to Emmaline and kept a watchful eye on the back as Arden rang up the sale. She wouldn’t blame Arden Brumlow if she did it just for spite, as everyone knew Emmaline discouraged her daughter’s marriage to her ensign fiancé to keep from having to hire extra help in the store.

At any rate, the sweater was hers, and she could hardly wait to wear it when she met Frazier in Atlanta. Annie left the store with her purchase in the familiar green-and-white bag, eager to show off the new addition to her wardrobe to her friends at Phoebe Chadwick’s.

She was waiting to cross Court Street when someone blew a horn and a familiar truck pulled up beside her.

H. G. Dobbins reached across and opened the door on the passenger side. “Hop in! I’ll give you a ride.”

“Thanks, but I have another stop to make,” Annie lied. Oh, well, she could always use a bottle of hand lotion from Murphy’s.

“Then how about supper tonight? Pick you up at six?”

“I’m sorry, H.G., Miss Phoebe’s planning on me for supper there, but thank you anyway.” Annie glanced at the traffic light. Drat! It had changed to green, forcing her to continue standing there.

“I hear there’s a pretty good movie,
The Desperadoes,
I think it’s called, playing over in Milledgeville. What say we try for tomorrow, maybe grab some supper on the way?”

A few cars were beginning to line up behind him, and although most were too polite to blow their horns, Annie could tell they were getting impatient. Well, so was she, and it embarrassed her to be put in such a position. Why couldn’t the man take a hint?

Stepping up to the truck, she put a hand on the passenger door and spoke as directly as possible. “I’m seeing someone, H.G., so I won’t be able to go out with you … and I believe we’re holding up traffic.” She noticed that he still wore the cowboy boots. Maybe he slept in them.

The deputy frowned, omitted a loud “Huh!” and roared away. Clutching her package, Annie hurried homeward. Surely the persistent man had finally gotten the message!

*   *   *

Charlie’s aunt Lou frowned as she shoved the thick yellow dough through her cookie press. “I’ve never made cheese straws with margarine in my life, but it’ll just have to do. Maybe they’ll taste all right.”

Charlie sat at her aunt’s kitchen table cracking pecans for the miniature tarts Lou would make with dark corn syrup and heavy cream for her upcoming party. “Everything you bake tastes good, Aunt Lou, and if people don’t know about rationing, they must’ve been living on the moon.”

“All this business with Reynolds Murphy’s wife turning up dead like that has sure put a damper on things, and now the police are questioning him about her murder,” Lou said as she lined up dainty pastries on a baking sheet. “Why, Reynolds was crazy about that woman—gave her anything she wanted. I just don’t know what to think anymore.”

Charlie said she guessed Cynthia Murphy would rather not have turned up dead, either, if she’d had a choice in the matter.

“Oh, you know very well what I mean, Charlie Carr!” Her aunt Lou made a face at her as she slid the cheese straws into the oven. “And now it looks like Buddy Oglesby’s disappeared with all that money from the bond sales, and poor Virginia’s about to have a nervous breakdown. You can’t tell me this didn’t all start when what was left of that woman turned up on the Hutchinsons’ farm.”

Her aunt had a point, Charlie thought as she picked out the last of the nut meats and scooped the shells into a newspaper. It did seem that many of their recent problems had begun there.

“I hear Jesse Dean’s home from the hospital,” Aunt Lou continued. “Bless his heart, I think I’ll take him some vegetable soup and cornbread. Do you think he’ll be able to eat things like that?”

Charlie laughed. “He didn’t seem to have a problem with the cookies I brought him, and he’s able to walk a little now. He’s still weak, of course, but raring to go. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back at the store before too long.”

Her aunt frowned. “Does he seem uneasy about … well, you know … somebody coming back to finish the job? Poor Jesse Dean! I’d be looking behind me every minute.”

“I know. He did seem a little jumpy, but I suppose that’s natural after what he’s gone through. From what I’ve heard, the police aren’t sure that bullet was meant for Jesse Dean.”

“Then who?” Aunt Lou asked.

“Could’ve been Buddy,” Charlie said. “He was usually on that side of the stage, and both were wearing dark clothing.”