The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Of course, that wasn’t exactly true, for right here in Darling, as Charlie was well aware, there were plenty of folks who felt that Roosevelt was dangerously liberal, maybe even socialist in his views. They saw the governor as old money from the northeast, a patrician snob who seemed to be possessed by the rash idea that he could hand out twenty million taxpayers’ dollars to the unemployed. Why, just look what he had done with that relief system of his in New York State, not to mention the old-age pension and unemployment insurance he was pushing through his state legislature. Hand a man like Roosevelt the power of the presidency, and there was no telling what he might do. The conservative Democrats were laying odds on John Nance Garner, Speaker of the House. Garner was a Southerner, a Texan, a regular guy whom Southern folks could count on to see things their way.

Anyway, Charlie knew that even if every Southern delegation went for FDR, they couldn’t carry the convention. Under party rules, the winning candidate had to muster a two-thirds majority, and there were other strong candidates. One of Roosevelt’s opponents was former governor of New York Al Smith, who was backed by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Smith, a Catholic and a Progressive, was hampered by his landslide loss to Herbert Hoover in 1928. But Hearst was using his publications to spread the rumor that Roosevelt—who had contracted polio some years back—couldn’t stand the strain of the presidency. Time magazine had just joined the Hearst-sponsored Stop Roosevelt chorus, repeating the rumor that while FDR might be mentally fit for the job, he was “utterly unfit physically”—this, despite the fact that a panel of noted physicians had just examined him and found that he had the “necessary health and powers of endurance” to carry out presidential duties. Mrs. Roosevelt was reported to have quipped that “if infantile paralysis didn’t kill him, the presidency won’t.”

Charlie folded his newspaper and laid it aside. Roosevelt’s candidacy wasn’t the only thing he had on his mind tonight, not by a long shot. He was still juggling the bombshell that Ruthie Brant had dropped on him that afternoon—a big fat bombshell that any investigative reporter would love to explode like a giant firecracker all over page one. But like the other offerings Ruthie had brought him, this one was long on narrative and light on the facts. He was still trying to figure out how he could confirm it—especially the part about the auditor’s report.

Of course, it would be best if he could see it for himself and dope out what it meant. But how was he going to get his hands on the damn thing? One thing for sure, Earle Scroggins wasn’t going to hand it over. Not if it said what Ruthie Brant claimed it said. Fifteen thousand dollars missing from the county treasury? Scroggins and the commissioners would keep that under their hats as long as they could—as long as the Dispatch let them, that is. Charlie was well aware of his responsibility as a guardian of the people’s interest in their government, even when the people themselves weren’t very interested in their interest.

Charlie had something else on his mind as well—the information he had uncovered at the library about that “secret code” Bessie Bloodworth had given him. After looking over the scrapbook and reading parts of the book he had borrowed, he had decided to have another talk with Bessie and ask her if he could get a look at that pillow. Since there was nothing he could do tonight about that explosive inside dope Ruthie Brant had slipped him, he’d walk over to the Magnolia Manor as soon as he polished off a slice of Euphoria’s chocolate pie.

Charlie’s trip to the Darling library and the couple of hours he had spent with the fragile old scrapbook and the history of Civil War battles had given him the information he needed to fill in the gaps in his spotty schoolboy memory of the facts of the First Manassas. As he leafed through the yellowed pages, reading contemporary accounts from the Richmond Daily Dispatch and battle reports compiled by a Confederate army captain, he had begun to formulate an exciting and (he thought) entirely plausible theory about the identity of the person who had stitched those unusual symbols and numbers on the pillow. And when he read the first few pages of My Imprisonment, he was even more convinced that he was right. Charlie now wanted to see that pillow for himself. He had an idea about it that he felt he just had to test out.

So when he finished his pie, he left coins on the counter and stopped at the hotel to buy a seven-cent cigar. He ran into Artis Biggs and inquired after his wife, learning that Doc Roberts had confiscated Dr. Baxter’s diet pills and was treating Mrs. Biggs for nervous prostration.

“Good news,” Charlie said, adding fervently, “I hope she has a full recovery.” He meant it. As far as he was concerned, anything that kept Angelina from throwing her arms around him again was good news.

Leaving the hotel, he went down the block and—yielding to an impulsive temptation—stopped in Pete’s Pool Parlor, where he shot a few balls with Freddie Mann and Len Wheeler, who ran the repair shop at Kilgore Motors. Freddie, as usual, had a flask in his back pocket and didn’t mind sharing it around. He got it from his second cousin, Mickey LeDoux, who managed a big moonshine operation over by the river. Everybody in town (including the sheriff) knew that Mickey’s finest could be bought off the shelf behind the horse harness and saddles in the back room at Mann’s Mercantile. But nobody would ever spill the beans to the occasional revenuer who dared to show his face around town. Mickey LeDoux’s corn whiskey was Darling’s best-kept secret.