Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause (32 page)

He sank into a chair. “I’d been on a buying trip to Atlanta, but I came home a day early and found my wife had been with another man. I didn’t know who, because he left as soon as he heard my car, but I’ll swear on my mother’s grave it was H. G. Dobbins, except at the time I had no idea he was the one. I’d heard her talking to somebody named Cowboy a couple of times on the phone, but she said he was just an old friend. I should’ve known better, but I wanted to believe her—oh, you just don’t know how I wanted to believe her!

“Cindy said she didn’t love me, that she wanted to be with somebody else and they were going away together.
And she told me Ross wasn’t even mine!
That’s when I hit her—hit her hard. She fell, and her head struck the marble slab that was in our kitchen, the one my mother used to make yeast bread. I’ve since had it removed—had new cabinets put in and everything. I couldn’t bear to look at it.”

“And then what?” Chief Tinsley asked.

“She wasn’t breathing! I tried to revive her, but it was too late. Oh, God, she was dead! Cindy was
dead.
I didn’t know what to do, so I put her in the car and drove all around the county for I don’t know how long. I’d brought along a shovel, and I buried her somewhere on the Hutchinsons’ property. Hell, I didn’t even know where I was! Ross was on some kind of camping trip with the Scouts, and as soon as I could arrange it, I enrolled him in that military school. I didn’t even want to be around him.”

Dimple Kilpatrick had never taught Ross Murphy as he’d attended one of the schools in the county, but she could imagine how the young boy must have felt at being abandoned by the only parents he ever knew, and she had to use every bit of her willpower to keep from leaping across the table and shaking Reynolds Murphy until his brains rattled.
It didn’t matter now if he was the boy’s natural father or not. The young man deserved better. Buddy Oglesby had professed a liking for Ross, and she thought he just might need company on the road he had chosen. Well … time would tell.

*   *   *

The sky was turning dark as Charlie raked crab apples into a pile in the backyard and tossed them into a bucket. The tree made a mess every fall, but it was beautiful in the spring, and if they could get enough sugar they made wonderful jelly.

Delia was upstairs putting Tommy to bed, and her mother had called from Aunt Lou’s to say she might be a little late and would tell them all about it when she got home. She and Delia had eaten a light supper of scrambled eggs on toast and some of the applesauce from last fall’s crop. Maybe raking up crab apples would keep her from thinking of Will. Had he been transferred to Craig Field or some other base before he could let her know? Or worse, maybe there’d been an accident with his plane! Things like that happened. She’d heard all about them. Charlie reached for another crab apple with her rake. She wasn’t going to think about that.

Her mother had sounded excited over the phone, and she was rarely late for supper, so something must have been going on. Between Jo Carr’s routine work at the ordnance plant and her humdrum job writing society news for the
Eagle,
Charlie couldn’t imagine what it could possibly be. Probably some wild scheme of Aunt Lou’s … Well, she would just have to wait to hear about it later. She tugged her hat over her ears against the cold and wished she’d thought to put on gloves. It was getting dark and Charlie could hardly see, but still she raked until the bucket was so full she could barely lift it.

Hearing footsteps on the driveway behind her, Charlie thought at first it was her mother returning until she heard his voice.

“Can I give you a hand with that bucket?”

Turning, she saw Will standing less than three feet away.
Will Sinclair was real and he was here—right here in her own backyard!
Charlie closed the gap between them in less than a second.

“I didn’t want to call because I wasn’t sure I could get a pass until the last minute,” he said between kisses, “so I thought I’d just surprise you.”

“Well, you did,” Charlie admitted. “How long will you be able to stay?” The touch of him, the smell of him, the warmth of his arms around her—if only she could keep it forever.

“Just until tomorrow,” he murmured into her hair. “What time does the jewelry store open in the morning?”

ALSO BY

Mignon F. Ballard

Miss Dimple Disappears

THE AUGUSTA GOODNIGHT MYSTERIES

Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed

The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders

Too Late for Angels

The Angel Whispered Danger

Shadow of an Angel

An Angel to Die For

Angel at Troublesome Creek

The Christmas Cottage

The War in Sallie’s Station

Minerva Cries Murder

Final Curtain

The Widow’s Woods

Deadly Promise

Cry at Dusk

Raven Rock

Aunt Matilda’s Ghost

MIGNON F. BALLARD grew up in a small town in Georgia. She is the author of
Miss Dimple Disappears,
along with seven mysteries featuring angelic sleuth Augusta Goodnight, and
The War in Sallie’s Station,
a novel about growing up in rural Georgia during World War II. She lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina, with her husband, Gene. Visit her on the Web at
www.mignonballard.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

MINOTAUR BOOKS

An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

MISS DIMPLE RALLIES TO THE CAUSE
. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon F. Ballard. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ballard, Mignon Franklin.

Miss Dimple rallies to the cause : a mystery / Mignon F. Ballard. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

e-ISBN 9781429981453

  1.  Women teachers—Fiction.   2.  Elementary school teachers—Fiction.   3.  Georgia—History—20th century—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3552.A466M59 2011

813'.54—dc23

2011026760

First Edition: December 2011

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Miss Dimple Disappears