The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

But there wasn’t a tactful way to ask this nosy question. And anyway, Charlie was turning back to his desk, obviously putting an end to the conversation. Over his shoulder, he added, “I’ll give you a call if I learn anything about this so-called secret code of yours.”


“Thanks,” Bessie said, still puzzling over what he’d said about Angelina Biggs and slightly offended at his patronizing reference to that so-called secret code of yours. She pushed open the door and left, going kitty-corner across the square to Mann’s Mercantile. Roseanne’s old straw broom was in tatters, and she needed a new one. Miss Rogers wanted some black darning cotton for her stockings, and Bessie was looking to buy three yards of bleached cotton to make dish towels for the kitchen.

*

If Bessie had stepped out of the Dispatch office just a minute or two earlier, she would have seen Myra May heading back from the grocery store, her shopping finished for the morning. But Myra May didn’t go back to the diner, at least, not right then. Instead, she turned at the corner of the Dispatch building and went quickly up the stairs to the second-floor law office. Bessie wouldn’t have wondered at this, for Liz Lacy and Myra May Mosswell were good friends. She would have thought that Myra May was just dropping in to trade a little gossip and maybe have a cup of coffee before she went back to work.

But truth be told, Myra May had a much more serious errand. She had decided that she needed to tell Liz what she and Violet had learned when they broke the Rule. She wanted to get Liz’s advice about what to do.





SEVEN

Lizzy, Verna, and Myra May



It had taken Lizzy quite a while to reach Mr. Moseley in Birmingham, where he was closeted in a morning meeting of the Alabama Roosevelt for President club, but their conversation took only a few minutes. She hung up the receiver and put the black candlestick telephone back on her desk, then turned to Verna, who was leaning forward eagerly in her chair.

“Well,” Verna demanded. “What did he say? Is he going to take my case? What am I supposed to do?”

Lizzy took a breath, knowing that Verna would not be happy to hear the message. “Mr. Moseley says he’s terribly sorry but there’s nothing he can do unless you’re actually arrested.” She hurried on. “He understands how you feel about taking some sort of action immediately, but he says that isn’t a good idea. For one thing, you don’t even know what’s really going on. It’s probably just a mistake. He says you should go home and wait to see what happens.”

“Go home and wait?” Verna cried desperately. “No, Liz! I can’t!”

“But you have to, Verna.” It took an effort, but Liz made her voice firm. “You may be jumping at shadows, you know. This problem, whatever it is, could get sorted out in a couple of hours and you’ll be back at work.” She took a breath. “Of course, if you should get arrested—although we hope it won’t happen—Mr. Moseley says you need to call me right away and I’ll come and post bail. That way you won’t have to spend the night in jail.”

Lizzy occasionally made arrangements on behalf of one or another of Mr. Moseley’s clients with Shorty Boykin, Darling’s only bail bondsman, who had a storefront office next door to the jail. It was painful to think of doing it for one of her friends, but she certainly knew the procedure.

Verna pushed herself out of her chair and began to pace back and forth in front of Lizzy’s desk, her shoulders bent, her hands clasped behind her back.

“I can’t just go home and wait for the sheriff to show up, Liz. I’ve got to find out what’s going on. This is either a huge mistake or . . .” Her voice dropped. “Or somehow, for some reason, somebody’s trying to frame me. For something. For embezzlement.”

“Frame you?” Lizzy asked doubtfully, thinking that Verna had probably been reading too many of those murder mysteries she liked so much. Lizzy knew what frame meant, because she’d heard the word in The Last Warning, starring Laura La Plante, which she and Grady had seen at the Palace a couple of weeks before. But who in the world would want to frame Verna? And why?

“Yes. Frame me. Make me look guilty of something.” Verna threw out her hands. “It’s the only explanation I can come up with. Nothing else makes sense. That’s why I’ve got to find out what’s going on. I need to know what really happened to that money. And the sooner the better.”

“But how is that possible?” Liz asked reasonably. “Unless you want to go directly to Mr. Scroggins and ask him to—”