The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I was just now locking up. I’m on my way, sir.” She hung up the receiver.

It didn’t hurt to “sir” Amos Tombull—not out of respect, for Verna knew from personal experience that you couldn’t trust him any farther than you’d trust a canebrake rattlesnake. But he held the strings in Cypress County, and when he pulled them, people danced. Verna, being a practical person who intended to keep her job, liked to stay on his good side as much as possible. Which meant that while she didn’t do everything Mr. Tombull ordered, she usually let him think she did. He was so full of himself, he was easy to fool.

And anyway, she thought as she made a quick detour to the powder room, she was curious. Those four men—banker, mayor, county commissioner, and newspaper editor—were an improbable gang of counterfeiters, if that was indeed what they were up to. She still found that idea very farfetched. Nobody would be that dumb. But they were up to something, and she wanted to know what it was.

As Verna washed her hands, she gave herself a critical look in the mirror over the sink. Perms made her dark hair go all frizzy, and last week, when she went to the Beauty Bower, she’d had Beulah cut it in a short, sleek bob, with straight-across bangs. Beulah (a friend and fellow Dahlia) said it was a 1920s style and a little out of date.

“Everybody’s doin’ loose hair these days, honey,” she’d said, fluffing her own beautiful blond hair. “Lots of curls. And curls are easy, with the new ’lectric perm machine.” She’d pointed proudly to the contraption in the corner, with all the wires dangling down. “I can perm you, too, Verna. You’ll be beautiful.”

But Verna didn’t want curls. She was pleased with her new look. Her short, straight, easy-care hair was as polished and sleek as a helmet. She ran a quick comb through it, then took out her compact and powdered her nose. She didn’t usually bother with lipstick, but she’d found a red one at Lima’s Drugstore that complemented her olive complexion. She put it on, blotted her lips together, and regarded her image.

Those men couldn’t really be planning to print counterfeit money.

Could they?

*

The afternoon sun was half hidden behind a bank of dirty gray clouds and the air carried the scent of rain. Crossing Franklin in the direction of the Dispatch, Verna noticed that there were no cars or wagons parked in front of Hancock’s Grocery. This was a surprise, since Mrs. Hancock had the only grocery in Darling and there were usually three or four vehicles out front and people coming and going. Verna glanced in the other direction. There were no vehicles in front of the diner or Mann’s Mercantile, either. The entire town square was deserted, at five o’clock on a Monday, when the streets should have been full of traffic. She shivered, suddenly cold. The scene was eerie. Darling was a ghost town.

The front blind was pulled down at the Dispatch and the door was closed. Feeling a little unnerved, Verna knocked three times, and a moment later, Charlie Dickens let her in, closing the door quickly behind her. The green-shaded lamp on the editor’s desk cast a tinted light and the large room was dim. The newspaper printing press and the Linotype machine were hulking shadows in the dark corners.