The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

“Yes, I know, but—” Verna took a breath. “Ralph wasn’t shot, was he?” She and Ralph had been high-school sweet-hearts back before she married Walter and Ralph had married Emma, who died of a cancer in her breast, leaving him with two very young boys. Verna had been glad when he married again, although it would have been better if he’d found somebody older and more firm-handed than Lucy. The boys—Junior and Scooter—needed somebody to whack their behinds and keep them in line.

“No. Ralph’s working on the railroad and doesn’t get home every weekend. Lucy was out there with the kids by herself and pretty scared. Guess she thought of Jed and felt like she needed a man around while the prisoners were on the loose.”

“Oh,” Verna said. “Did they catch both the prisoners?” She wasn’t asking because she was anxious, but because she knew that everybody on the line would want to know.

“They caught the one they shot,” Myra May replied, “but not the other one. Got clean away into Briar’s Swamp, they said. He’ll wish they’da shot him, I reckon. You go in there, you’re gonna get eaten alive by mosquitoes.” She paused. “You’ll tell Buddy’s dad?”

“I’m on my way over there right now,” Verna said. Myra May hung up, but Verna didn’t, not right away. She just stood there, listening, as Miss Silver might have done.

One. Two. Three. Four.

Everybody on the party line had heard the news.





FOUR





Lizzy


Monday, May 12,1930





Mondays were always slow in Mr. Moseley’s law office, which didn’t bother Lizzy Lacy a bit. It gave her time to catch up on what she hadn’t finished the preceding week. If she had a few minutes left over, she worked on her newspaper column, which was always due on Wednesday.

Today, there wasn’t much work left over from last week, just some bills to pay (Lizzy did the office books and handled Mr. Moseley’s personal accounts) and Lester Sawyer’s will to type up, in triplicate, a job that Lizzy always hated, and especially in this case, because Lester Sawyer had a lot of property and was particular about who would get what when he was gone. She was a careful typist and didn’t make many mistakes, but when she did, she had to get out the eraser shield and correct every carbon copy, which slowed her down considerably. There was also a list of telephone calls Mr. Moseley had asked her to make, as well as the court calendar to check, so she could have the necessary files on his desk before he needed them. He mostly did property and family law, with the occasional criminal case. There was nothing very exciting or even especially difficult about any of it, but it did require her to pay attention and notice things—which Lizzy considered to be a good thing, since she was a person who noticed.

Lizzy had come to work for Moseley & Moseley not long after she got her high school diploma. Benton Moseley had been a young lawyer then, handsome, bright, just out of Auburn Law School, in practice with his father, Matthew Moseley, a widely respected lawyer and, at one time, a state senator. The elder Mr. Moseley had died in the 1918 Spanish Flu, which carried off quite a few folks. But the younger Mr. Moseley—Bent, his friends called him—had carried on, following in his father’s footsteps. He had even gone up to Montgomery in 1922 to serve in the Alabama Legislature, which meant more work for Lizzy, who had handled the office during the four years he was gone. In fact, she got to the point where she could do most of the things that Mr. Moseley could do, except go to court and argue in front of the judge. As it turned out, though, Mr. Moseley hadn’t liked politics all that much. After one term, he came back to Darling and to the office full-time.