The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

“I’ll do it,” Ophelia said decidedly. “That’s a lot better than hoofing it from one business to the other, looking for work. That’s so depressing.”


Lizzy nodded, although she wasn’t sure that a newspaper ad, all by itself, would get Ophelia a job. She’d probably end up hoofing it—and even then, finding something would be a matter of luck, one of those right-place-at-the-right-time things. “I hope you get what you’re looking for,” she said.

“Thanks.” Ophelia paused, looking a little guilty. “Oh, by the way—if you see Jed, please don’t mention this.” She turned down her mouth. “I . . . I haven’t told him yet. I don’t know how he’s going to take it.”

Uh-oh, Lizzy thought. It sounded as if Ophelia was in some kind of trouble. But she didn’t like to pry into her friends’ business, so she just nodded.

After Ophelia left, Lizzy settled down to work again. But she managed to write only two more items for her column when Old Zeke, the colored man who delivered grocery orders for Mrs. Hancock and did odd jobs around the neighborhood, showed up to report that Sheriff Burns had come knocking on Verna’s front door—with a warrant.

As Lizzy pieced the story together later, it had happened this way. Just before Ophelia arrived to drive her out to Lucy’s place, Verna got one of her bright ideas. She went next door and told Mrs. Wilson that she planned to visit a friend in Nashville for a few days and would appreciate it if Mrs. Wilson would keep an eye on things at her place. If anybody happened to come looking for her, Mrs. Wilson should tell them she had gone to Nashville and then telephone Miss Lacy in Mr. Moseley’s office and let her know who was asking, so Miss Lacy could relay the message. (Verna later told Lizzy that she had stumbled on this idea, a classic strategy of misdirection, in one of the true-crime magazines she was always reading.)

Mrs. Wilson was happy to help out in this way, for Verna had been ready to lend a hand in Mr. Wilson’s last illness and Mrs. Wilson (who was eighty-five and not as spry as she used to be) was grateful to have a neighbor who didn’t mind picking up one or two things at the Mercantile or getting one of Doc Roberts’ prescriptions filled at Lima’s Drugs on the way home from work.

Anyway, Mrs. Wilson didn’t have much else to do. She spent her days rocking on her front porch, crocheting granny squares for afghans for the missionary box at the church and keeping an eye on the neighborhood in general. She certainly didn’t mind watching Verna’s front door and letting Verna’s visitors know that she was out of town. Nothing very exciting had happened on the block since the month before, when Mr. Renfro’s second cousin (the Renfros lived across the street) had parked his old Buick out front and neglected to put on the hand brake. Mrs. Wilson had seen the car start to roll down the hill and shouted out a warning, but it was too late. With Mr. Renfro and his cousin in hot pursuit, the Buick had rolled merrily all the way down Larkspur to Rosemont. There, it smashed into a light pole and caved in the radiator, which had spouted like Old Faithful out in Yellowstone Park.

Mrs. Wilson knew it wasn’t funny, especially because when the light pole went down all the lights in the neighborhood went out. But she had to laugh because the chase reminded her so much of the Keystone Kops. Mr. Renfro looked a lot like Fatty Arbuckle, who had starred in Mr. Wilson’s favorite Keystone Kops movie, The Gangsters. When the Palace showed a Kops flick, Mr. Wilson, God rest his soul, had always been the first one in line, no matter how many times he had already seen the movie. He was heartbroken when Fatty got in trouble over that girl in San Francisco back in 1921 and got tried for manslaughter, not once but three times before a jury finally saw the light and acquitted him.

And when Sheriff Burns parked his Model A at the curb, marched up the front porch steps, and banged on Verna’s door, Mrs. Wilson had another laugh. Roy Burns (whom Mrs. Wilson had known ever since he was a little kid with a runny nose who went around with his pet chicken under his arm) had grown up to be another Fatty Arbuckle lookalike. She was still chuckling about that when she called out, “If you’re lookin’ for Miz Tidwell, Sheriff, she’s gone off to visit a friend in Nashville. She left just a little bit ago. Won’t be back for a few days.”

“Now ain’t that a coincidence.” The sheriff scowled, took off his hat, and scratched his head. “I’m lookin’ to have a little talk with her and she runs off to Nashville.” He pushed out his pudgy lips and squinted at her. “Wouldn’t happen to know the name of her friend, would you, Miz Wilson?”