The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

This was why the files in Verna’s office required cleaning and reorganizing. The shelves and file cabinets were overflowing with ancient records, going all the way back to the beginning of the town. They couldn’t be thrown away (heavens, no!) but they could be preserved for posterity (if posterity cared) in the courthouse basement. So Melba Jean and Sherrie were packing files in labeled boxes, and taking them downstairs.

Halfway through Tuesday afternoon, Verna (who had not forgotten the question that had bothered her the night before) declared that she was taking a coffee break. She walked across the street to the diner to get a cup of Violet’s coffee, which was always better than the coffee Melba Jean brewed on the office hot plate on the windowsill.

But it wasn’t Violet she wanted to see, it was Myra May. Verna found her out in the ramshackle garage behind the diner, where—dressed in striped coveralls and with an L&N railroad engineer’s cap on her head—she was changing Big Bertha’s spark plugs. Bertha was the green 1920 Chevrolet touring car that Myra May had inherited from her father, who for decades had been Darling’s only doctor. Bertha was on her second carburetor and Myra May had long ago lost track of how many spark plugs she’d used up. But her green canvas top was still sound, her chrome fittings were reasonably shiny, and Violet had repainted the spokes in her wheels a jazzy red. Chugging down the road, Bertha was a pretty sight.

Myra May ducked out from under Bertha’s hood and straightened up. “What brings you across the street in the middle of the afternoon? You’re usually at work at this hour.” She removed a stack of clay flowerpots from a wooden bench. “Have a seat. We can talk while I finish this job.”

“I was thinking about something you said yesterday.” Verna sat down and put her coffee cup on the bench beside her. “About Mr. Duffy.”

Myra May’s face darkened. “Oh, him,” she said, with a grim emphasis.

“What don’t you like about him, specifically?” Verna asked the question in a neutral tone, having decided not to reveal her own misgivings. She was sure that Ellery Queen would be wearing a poker face.

“Specifically?” Myra May picked up her spark plug wrench. “He’s a Romeo. You should see him giving the eye to Juliet.”

“Juliet?” Verna asked, and then immediately understood. “Oh. You mean—”

She swallowed, aware of a stab of disappointment. So she wasn’t the only woman Mr. Duffy was buttering up. A Romeo, was he? Well, at least she understood the score.

“Yeah.” Myra May was morose. “Juliet kinda likes him, too. I’m chicken to ask her, but that’s the way it looks to me.”

Wrench in hand, she went back under the hood. Verna heard a gruff curse, and a moment later, Myra May emerged triumphant, holding up a dirty spark plug. “Got the sucker!” she crowed. “Three down, one to go.”

Verna picked up her coffee and took a sip. “Is there anything else? About Mr. Duffy, I mean.”

“About Casanova?” Myra May narrowed her eyes. “Who the devil is he, anyway? He shows up in town one day, and the next he’s vice president of the bank. How did that happen?” She dropped the dirty spark plug on the workbench and went back under the hood.

“As I understand it,” Verna said, “his bank—Delta Charter, in New Orleans—bought our bank.”

There was another curse as Myra May wrestled with something under the hood. At last, she came out with another spark plug. “Hard as pulling teeth,” she growled, and tossed it on the bench. Frowning, she picked up a rag and wiped her hands. “Bought our bank? I didn’t know it was for sale. Can you sell a bank? Can somebody actually buy one?”

“Yes, they can, if they’ve got the money.” She’d read about banks being bought and sold in the newspaper. “As I understand it, it’s mostly banks that buy banks, not people.”