In the past few years, though, Lizzy had begun to feel that her ideal of justice and the law might be a bit na?ve and unsophisticated, for the more she saw of the law, the more elusive justice seemed. There were too many cases where the rich got all the “justice” they wanted and the poor got none at all, even though Mr. Moseley did the very best he could to get a fair hearing under the law for every one of his clients, rich and poor. And then there were the colored folks over in Maysville, who were most in danger of getting the short end of the stick, as Mr. Moseley put it when he was frustrated with a case. What kind of justice did they get?
In fact, justice was beginning to seem to Lizzy a lot like that shiny brass balance scale that sat on the shelf behind Mr. Moseley’s big walnut desk. It had two small metal pans that were supposed to balance against one another, both of them equal. But there was something wrong with the scale’s mechanism, so that no matter how carefully it was adjusted, one side always hung lower than the other. Lizzy didn’t like to think of it, but that was the way justice seemed to operate these days. It tipped in the direction of the people who had money and influence and power, and the rest . . . well, they came up short.
But Lizzy wasn’t thinking about justice today. She was thinking about what Charlie Dickens had told her about Lily Dare, the sabotaged airplane, and the possibility that the air show might be canceled. Of course, the Watermelon Festival would go on, with or without Miss Dare and her Dare Devils. There would be plenty of fun for everybody, especially for the young folks, who would enjoy the carnival rides and cotton candy and free watermelons.
But the air show—well, that was something people were looking forward to. It was the brightest spot in an otherwise pretty dismal summer, what with Ozzie Sherman cutting back on the hours his men worked at the Pine Creek sawmill, and the Coca-Cola bottling plant laying off one full shift, and Cypress County reducing the size of the road repair crews. If Dad was out of work and the family couldn’t afford the buck it cost to watch the air show from the field, they could pay fifteen cents apiece for tickets to the Watermelon Festival and watch the show from the fairgrounds. They wouldn’t get to see the clown or the magic show or the head-on car crash, but they could see the airplanes and the wingwalker. If that was canceled, there’d be dozens of disappointed dads, moms, and kids.
Lizzy thought for a moment more, then reached for the telephone. What she had to tell Mildred was important, and she could say it without mentioning anything about Lily Dare and Roger Kilgore. She would call and be sure that Mildred would be home this evening, then ride her bike out there after work and have a little talk with her friend.
? ? ?
During her lunch hour on Wednesdays, Lizzy usually treated herself to a shampoo and set at the Beauty Bower over on Dauphin Street, just a couple of blocks from the office. The Bower was owned and operated by fellow Dahlia Beulah Trivette and located in the enclosed back porch of her house, where her devoted husband Hank had installed two shampoo sinks, two barber chairs, and two big wall mirrors in front of the chairs. Hank also put in an electric hot water heater, which meant that Beulah and her helper, Bettina Higgens, wouldn’t have to pour hot water for shampoos out of teakettles and pitchers, with the potential for somebody to get scalded.
In addition to the hot water heater, Hank had recently installed another innovation for his wife: a new electric permanent wave machine. Well, it wasn’t new, it was used, but the condition was “like new” and the price was right. Aunt Hetty Little had sniffed at the contraption and said it looked like a “flock of black caterpillars dangling from a buzzard’s nest.” But as far as Beulah was concerned, it turned the trick. With that magic machine, she could make any woman beautiful.
Beulah loved everything that was beautiful but especially adored big, floppy pink cabbage roses and had wallpapered the Bower’s walls with them. In fact, pink was her very favorite color, so she painted the floor a beautiful shade of pink and spattered yellow, gray, and blue paint all over it, much to the amazement of her older customers, who had never seen so unusual a thing as a deliberately paint-spattered floor, let alone one that started out pink. (“A pink floor,” Mrs. George E. Pickett Johnson had sniffed. “I don’t know what this world is coming to.”) After the floor was spattered, the walls were covered with roses, and the furnishings installed, Beulah hung her beautiful gilt-framed degree from the Montgomery College of Cosmetology on the wall where everyone could see it and declared that the Beauty Bower was open for business.
The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star
Susan Wittig Albert's books
- The Face of a Stranger
- The Silent Cry
- The Sins of the Wolf
- The Dark Assassin
- The Whitechapel Conspiracy
- The Sheen of the Silk
- The Twisted Root
- The Lost Symbol
- After the Funeral
- The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
- After the Darkness
- The Best Laid Plans
- The Doomsday Conspiracy
- The Naked Face
- The Other Side of Me
- The Sands of Time
- The Sky Is Falling
- The Stars Shine Down
- The Lying Game #6: Seven Minutes in Heaven
- The First Lie
- All the Things We Didn't Say
- The Good Girls
- The Heiresses
- The Perfectionists
- The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly
- The Lies That Bind
- Ripped From the Pages
- The Book Stops Here
- The New Neighbor
- A Cry in the Night
- The Phoenix Encounter
- The Dead Will Tell: A Kate Burkholder Novel
- The Perfect Victim
- Fear the Worst: A Thriller
- The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct
- The Fixer
- The Good Girl
- Cut to the Bone: A Body Farm Novel
- The Devil's Bones
- The Bone Thief: A Body Farm Novel-5
- The Bone Yard
- The Breaking Point: A Body Farm Novel
- The Inquisitor's Key
- The Girl in the Woods
- The Dead Room
- The Death Dealer
- The Silenced
- The Hexed (Krewe of Hunters)
- The Night Is Alive
- The Night Is Forever
- The Night Is Watching
- In the Dark
- The Betrayed (Krewe of Hunters)
- The Cursed
- The Dead Play On
- The Forgotten (Krewe of Hunters)
- Under the Gun
- The Paris Architect: A Novel
- The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush
- Always the Vampire
- The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose
- The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree
- The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies
- The Doll's House
- The Garden of Darkness
- The Creeping
- The Killing Hour
- The Long Way Home
- Defend and Betray
- Madonna and Corpse
- Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow
- Bone Island 02 - Ghost Night
- Bone Island 03 - Ghost Moon
- Last Vampire Standing