The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

“I think you’re right,” Myra May murmured, and replaced the book on the shelf.

Miss Rutledge scooped the coins off the desk and handed them to Myra May. “You’d better give me a receipt. Just in case Miss Rogers forgets to cross me out of her little black book.” She found a scrap of paper and wrote Rcvd of Imogene Rutledge 40￠ for library fine, and handed it to Myra May.

Myra May signed and dated the receipt and gave it back. “I wonder,” she said, pocketing the coins. “If I told you that Alice Ann Walker was suspected of embezzling money from the bank, what would you say?”

“I’d say that’s crazy, that’s what I’d say!” Miss Rutledge hooted. “Alice Ann is as honest as the day is long. And I’d tell whoever ‘suspects’ her to look a little higher up in that bank. At the man at the top. The man who made those bad loans and thinks he can move money around to cover up the losses.”

Myra May gave her a straight look. “There’s a bank examiner in town right now. Would you be willing to tell him what you know about those loans?”

A smile spread across her face. “Would I be willing to tell? You bet I would. Any day of the week.” She eyed Myra May. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

Myra May told her.





Lizzy’s experience as a Dispatch reporter was mostly confined to the Darling Flower Show and the Peach Festival that took place at the Cypress County Fairgrounds every year. In addition, Charlie always had her cover the Watermelon Roll and the Tomato Fest and the Garden Tour—and of course, there was her weekly column. But Dr. Harper didn’t need to know that she mostly wrote garden pieces.

Now Lizzy stood on the street in front of the dental office, with its sign: DR. A.V. HARPER, D.D.S., GENERAL DENTISTRY. There was a light inside, and a man—a patient, she thought—had just come out, slamming the door behind him and jamming his hat on his head with a pained expression. It was late in the day, but Dr. Harper must still be there. She checked to be sure that she had her notebook in her purse, took a deep breath, opened the door, and went inside.

The room was small, with only a couple of straight chairs for people who were waiting to see the dentist and an empty receptionist’s desk with a chair behind it, a small vase of wilted flowers on one corner. A man wearing a white coat came through a door in the back and into the waiting room. He was in his forties, thin-faced and slightly balding, with gold-rimmed glasses perched at the end of his nose and a droopy dark moustache on his upper lip. Behind his glasses, his eyes had a red-rimmed, squinty look, as if he had been rubbing them.

“We’re closing now, miss.” His voice was oddly high-pitched. “Miss Thomas, my receptionist, has gone home for the day. Please come back tomorrow. Or you can leave your number, and Miss Thomas will call you.”

“Oh, thank you, Dr. Harper,” Lizzy said breathlessly. “But I’m not here to make an appointment. My name is Elizabeth Lacy. I’m from the Dispatch, over in Darling, and Mr. Dickens—Charlie Dickens, he’s our editor—sent me to see you.”

This was a lie, of course, but Lizzy thought it was justified, under the circumstances. Anyway, she could write up something from the interview and give it to Charlie. He might find a way to use it.

“Oh, he did?” Dr. Harper asked, raising his eyebrows. “About what?”

“He wants to run a human-interest story about what happened on Saturday night. About your car being stolen, I mean, and that poor young girl dying in it. Would you have a few minutes to talk to me?”

Under his moustache, Dr. Harper’s mouth tightened. “That was a bad thing,” he said. “A real sad situation. I could hardly believe it when Fred telephoned me yesterday to tell me what’d happened. My brother was so distressed, poor fellow, that he couldn’t give me any of the details.”

“It must have been terribly upsetting for both of you,” Lizzy murmured. He didn’t seem to notice that she had taken her notebook and a pencil out of her purse.

“Oh, it was. Yes. Very,” he said fervently. He frowned a little. “Miss ... Lacy, you say?”

“Yes. Elizabeth Lacy. The girl stole it from your brother’s house, the way I understand it,” Lizzy said. “That was Saturday night, around midnight. On Monday afternoon, the car was found in the ravine at Pine Mill Creek, where the bridge had washed out.”

“She crashed right through a barricade, my brother said.” He looked away, chewing on his moustache. “Drinking. Killed in the wreck.”

Not true. Bunny had been shot—murdered. But since Dr. Harper didn’t seem to know this already, Lizzy didn’t think she’d tell him. Not just yet, anyway.

“A sad situation,” Dr. Harper said again, shaking his head gloomily. “I feel very sorry for my poor brother.”

But not for the poor girl who was dead? “You loaned the car to him, I understand,” Lizzy said.

“Well, yes. I suppose you could put it that way.”