The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

“You’ve met him?” Ophelia asked Verna.

“Only through the teller’s window. He’s thin, kind of bony, actually. Pale hair, steel-rimmed glasses, no eyebrows. Sort of ... finicky.” Verna looked at Myra May. “It wasn’t his car?” She answered her own question. “I don’t suppose it was. Somehow, he doesn’t strike me as the roadster type. More like a bicycle sort of person.” She raised her eyebrows. “I could see him on one of those old-fashioned high-wheelers, like my old granddaddy used to ride.”

Myra May nodded. “He told the sheriff that he’d borrowed it from his brother, which I guess made it worse, far as he was concerned. He was half hysterical. Kept saying he didn’t know how he was going to explain it. To his brother, I guess he meant”

“If he saw somebody stealing his brother’s car,” Ophelia said reasonably, “why didn’t he just go out there and stop them? Why was he wasting time on the telephone, for pity’s sake?” She shook her head. “If Jed saw somebody stealing our Ford, he’d pick up his gun and stomp out there and haul them out of the car before you could say Jack Robinson. Then he’d tie them up with the clothesline and then he’d call the sheriff.” She smiled a little, as if she was proud of Jed’s ability to act in this strong, manly way.

“Well, I don’t know,” Myra May replied, frowning. “I seriously doubt that Mr. Harper has a gun. He’s renting the old Lewis house, next door to my cousin Mabel, so I see him sometimes, puttering around in the backyard. Doesn’t strike me as the gun-totin’ type. And if he had one, he probably wouldn’t know how to shoot it. Or the robbers would’ve grabbed it and shot him and then stolen the car. Things like that happen, you know.”

She was right. Darling itself was law-abiding and so safe that people had never felt it necessary to lock their doors—until the hobos had made them nervous. But just down the road at the Watering Hole, people got shot up all the time. Moonshine whiskey and guns didn’t mix.

“Maybe it was the escaped convict,” Ophelia suggested. “From the prison farm. They say he’s not much more than a boy, but I guess he’s old enough to steal a car.”

Verna shook her head. “I still can’t believe that Bunny would do that. And she certainly wouldn’t be hanging around with an escaped convict” She chuckled sadly. “She had other fish to fry.”

Myra May pursed her lips. “Lizzy said she was driving the car when it went into the creek. Sounds like pretty clear evidence, if you ask me.”

Nobody said anything for a minute; then Lizzy spoke. “Fred Harper,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve met him—at the bank. He hasn’t been here in Darling more than a few months. He came from a bank somewhere else. Can’t remember where. But there’s more, ladies.” She turned to Verna. “Verna and I missed Bunny at lunch today, so Verna went to the drugstore and found out from Mr. Lima that she hadn’t come in to work. Tell them the rest of it, Verna.”

Verna filled them in on the general outline of her visit to Mrs. Brewster’s boardinghouse and her informative talk with Amanda Blake.

“You actually went to Bunny Scott’s room?” Ophelia asked admiringly. “You went through her things?” She sounded as if she thought Verna had done something brave.

“I didn’t intend to, but I’m glad I did. Seeing her room—well, it’s sad, that’s all. Just a little hole in the wall. And Mrs. Brewster is a witch. You can’t blame Bunny for wanting to escape.” She glanced inquiringly around the table. “Anybody know Maxwell Woodburn?”

The others shook their heads. “Why?” Ophelia asked. “Who’s he?”

“Somebody Bunny was apparently thinking of marrying. She’d been practicing ‘Mrs. Maxwell Woodburn’ on a scrap of paper. Amanda Blake thinks he might be her pen pal, in Montgomery. And what’s more—” She told them about the deposit book.

“Two hundred and seventy dollars!” Myra May exclaimed, her eyes widening. “Where in the world did that girl get that kinda money? Why, she couldn’t be making as much as I do, and I sure as shootin’ can’t salt away ten dollars a week! Hardly a dollar, truth be told.”

“It’s nice that she was saving it, though,” Ophelia remarked. “If everybody would save, we’d be better off. And if she was thinking of marrying this Woodburn fellow, why, of course she’d save, bless her heart”

Myra May rolled her eyes. “Well, sure, sweetie. But where did she get all that moola? Was she lifting it out of the drugstore till?”

“I guess it would be easy enough to do,” Ophelia said slowly. “But she wouldn’t take the same amount every week, would she? That would be a dead giveaway.”