The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

Kinnard was tall and stoop-shouldered, with a pitted, unsmiling face, sharp eyes that seemed not to miss a trick, and a softly careful tread, no doubt the result of years of creeping through the woods to the sites of secret stills. He was dressed in a wrinkled brown business suit and a wide-brimmed brown hat that he never took off, and he lit one cigarette after another, constantly. He had come to the office several times before to study plats of Cypress County and ask questions (and make notes) about land ownership. He had never said why, but Verna had no difficulty guessing. Moonshiners usually built their stills on their own property or on property that belonged to relatives or friends, where they could booby-trap the access or at least set up some sort of warning system. The ownership of a certain piece of property might be the necessary clue that would lead Agent Kinnard and his deputies straight to a hidden operation.

The agent spoke in a soft, low voice. “Afternoon, Miz Tidwell.” He dropped his Camel cigarette in the spittoon beside the door and tipped his hat. “Thought I’d spend some time in the plat room, if I won’t be in your way.”

“Not at all,” Verna said. “Do you need any help?”

“Thank you.” He pulled a crumpled pack out of his coat pocket, tapped a cigarette on his sleeve, and lit it with a flick of a match. “I b’lieve I can find my way around.”

They always exchanged exactly the same words. Verna understood that Agent Kinnard didn’t want anybody looking over his shoulder—not even the county clerk, who might be related to the owner of the very still he was looking for. She suspected that he’d had a lot of practice finding his way through plats in county courthouses all over his district, searching through old land records and poring over county maps. This time, he spent only twenty minutes in the plat room, and when he came out, he wore a satisfied expression. Verna suspected that he had found whatever he was looking for, and wondered what it was.

She didn’t have long to think about it, though, because Agent Kinnard had no sooner left than Miss Tallulah LaBelle swept in, followed by her chauffeur, Tobias, who stood respectfully by the door while his mistress came to the counter to do her business. A friend of Aunt Hetty Little, the old lady—a Darling legend—wore a lace-trimmed gold-colored dress that must have been the height of fashion during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration and a wide-brimmed hat swathed in yards of fine tulle and decorated with white silk rosebuds, a red ostrich floss, and loops of gold velvet ribbons. Miss Tallulah always reminded Verna of European royalty of the long-gone Edwardian era, especially when she caught a glimpse of her tooling along in her custom-built town car—a bright red 1924 Packard with a closed rear compartment for herself and an open front compartment for Tobias. Red was her favorite color.

Miss Tallulah had come, as she did once every year, to pay the property tax on the LaBelle plantation, over a thousand acres of rich bottom land along the Alabama River. Of course, she could have had her bookkeeper make the payment or sent it in with Tobias. But it was the kind of thing the shrewd old lady liked to do herself—and she always paid in cash. She did not trust banks, and today, Verna didn’t blame her. What’s more, she thought as she wrote out the receipt, she was very glad to get Miss Tallulah’s tax payment. It wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent in the payroll problem, but it was something. The two of them chatted amiably for a few moments, then Miss Tallulah swept out again.

That transaction was barely completed when Myra May dropped in, bearing two pieces of Raylene Riggs’ strawberry-rhubarb crumb pie—made, Myra May said, from the Dahlias’ rhubarb. Since Myra May rarely left the diner in the middle of the day, this unusual event made Verna suspicious. And after several moments of squirming in her chair and beating around the bush, Myra May got around to telling her why she’d come.

“I need to warn you,” she said in a low voice, “about something I overheard at the diner on Saturday. I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind because it’s . . . well, odd. Have you met Mr. Duffy from the bank—the new vice president?”