The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

“I’m here because Mr. Scroggins called me up on the phone on Saturday afternoon and told me I had to stay away from the office,” Verna said tautly. “He ordered me to give him my key.”


“Stay away?” Lizzy asked in dismay. Now she guessed what Myra May must have overheard when she put the call through the Exchange: Verna’s boss telling her not to come to work. But she still didn’t understand. “Why? Are they painting the office or something?”

It couldn’t be as simple as that, though. Myra May wouldn’t be worried and Verna wouldn’t look so desperate over an office paint job. And there wouldn’t be any nonsense about a key.

“No, they’re not painting,” Verna replied in a choked voice. “Mr. Scroggins told me that Coretta Cole is coming in to manage my office. Coretta Cole!” she repeated, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. “Coretta doesn’t know beans about anything. She always depends on me to tell her what she’s supposed to do, and even then, she can’t be trusted to get it right. And the other two women in the office know even less than Coretta does. When I get back—if I get back—there’ll be chaos. Total chaos. It’ll take me months to straighten things out.”

“You haven’t been . . .” Lizzy pulled in her breath. “You haven’t been fired, have you?”

The way things were these days, firing was just about the worst thing she could think of. Jobs were scarce as hens’ teeth, and if you’d been fired from one, it was next to impossible to get another. But if Verna had been fired, that would account for Coretta Cole, with her gray suit and red hat and Joan Crawford eyes, having breakfast with Verna’s boss and a county commissioner.

But Verna was shaking her head. “Not fired—yet. Officially, I’m furloughed. But it’s going to get worse, Liz. I . . . I think I’m about to be—” She stopped and took a breath, as if she had to steel herself to say the next word. “Arrested.”

“Arrested!” Lizzy repeated, feeling as if the floor had just tilted under her chair. “But that can’t be, Verna. What makes you think—”

“I need to talk to Mr. Moseley,” Verna broke in. “This morning, Liz. Right now, if I can.” Anxiously, she looked toward the open door to his office. “He isn’t in yet? What time can I see him?”

“He’s not here, Verna. He’s in Birmingham, and then he’s driving over to Warm Springs to meet with Governor Roosevelt. He won’t be in at all this week.” Lizzy shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t understand. Why would anybody want to arrest you?”

“Not here?” Verna wailed, disconsolate. She sank into the chair on the other side of Lizzy’s desk. “But I need him, Liz! I need Mr. Moseley.”

And with that, she began to sob, which by itself was incredibly shocking, since Lizzy had never once seen her friend cry, not even when Verna sprained her ankle on the courthouse steps and had to hobble a whole block to Doc Rogers’ office, leaning on Lizzy’s arm. Verna was one of those stoic women who hid her feelings and kept an absolutely stiff upper lip. And now she was falling apart, right in front of Lizzy’s eyes.

Lizzy stood up and took charge of the situation. “What you need more than anything else,” she said firmly, “is a cup of coffee and a doughnut. And then you need to tell me all about it. All,” she repeated emphatically. “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Verna. I can’t help you if I don’t know every detail.”

Actually, she didn’t know whether she could help Verna at all. There must be something seriously wrong, if her friend was afraid of being arrested. But they had to start somewhere. And she had heard Mr. Moseley say those very same words to many clients who came to him in desperation, wanting him to fix this or that predicament they’d gotten themselves into. He always insisted on knowing every little detail about the situation, good, bad, or indifferent.

“You?” Verna asked in surprise, and then bit her lip. “I didn’t mean—That is, I wasn’t expecting . . .” She stopped, took a breath, and went on lamely, “I was hoping that Mr. Moseley would take my case, Liz. I can’t ask you to listen to—”

“Oh, yes, you can,” Lizzy said firmly, and put the coffee cup down in front of Verna. “If you want Mr. Moseley to take your case, you are going to sit right there and tell me everything from A to Z, every single thing you know about this situation. I am going to write it all down.” She opened the drawer and got out the bag of doughnuts. “When Mr. Moseley calls on the telephone, I’ll relay what you’ve told me. He can tell us what to do. When he gets back, he can take over.”