The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

“Oh, just—” She stopped, seeing the dilemma. “Just some . . . papers.”


“What kind of papers?” Buddy smiled in a helpful way. “I can’t make these women hand them over unless I know they belong to you—now can I?”

Desperate now, Angel said the only thing she could say. “It’s . . . it’s a letter I wrote, and some canceled checks. Come on, Buddy—they’re mine!”

“There!” Lizzy crowed. “Did you hear that? She’s just confessed!”

Buddy nodded. “I heard that. But first things first. Miss Flame, I saw what happened a few minutes ago, and it looked to me like you were using your fists to get what you wanted. Here in Darling, we call that assault and battery.” He paused and looked from Verna to Lizzy. “Hate to say it, but you two look like this woman landed a few pretty good punches—she got you both right in the eye. What about it? Do you want to press charges?”

“Maybe,” Lizzy said. Her left eye was throbbing and the cheek below it was still bleeding. She held Buddy’s handkerchief to it and looked at Verna. “You’ve got a shiner, too, Verna.”

“I’m in favor of charging her with assault,” Verna said grimly. She rubbed her throat, where the bruise was already beginning to show. “She’s strong as an ox. I’m lucky she didn’t break my neck.”

“Assault?” Angel rolled her eyes, as if their complaints were just plain silly. “That’s nonsense. I was only trying to persuade them—”

“Shut up, Miss Flame,” Buddy said. He held out his hand to Verna. “Okay, now that we’ve got that settled, let’s see these papers that Miss Flame insists are hers.”

“Oh, but it’s not necessary for you to look at them,” Angel said hastily. “They’re just a few pieces of paper, with no importance to anybody but me.” She pointed to Verna. “If she’ll give them to me, I’ll forget all about charging her with theft.”

“Theft?” Lizzy hooted. “Talk about nonsense!”

But Buddy was paying no attention. Verna had handed him the letter, the canceled checks, and the flier that Angel had signed. He was studying them carefully, chewing on one corner of his lip. Of course, he had already seen the letter and the checks when Lizzy and Verna had stopped at the sheriff’s office on their way out to the airstrip and asked his help with their plan. Now, all he had to do was compare the handwriting.

After a minute, he said, “Well, it looks to me like you and Liz got it right, Verna.” He folded the papers together and put them into his shirt pocket. “I’ll make sure that these documents get back to Mrs. Kilgore when we’re finished with them in the sheriff’s office.” He turned to Angel with a frown. “We don’t much like extortionists here, Miss Flame—or Miss Hopkins, or whoever you are.”

“Extortion?” Angel’s mouth worked. Her face was splotchy. “No! You’ve got it all wrong,” she said. “All of you.”

Lizzy took a deep breath and stepped forward. “We have it right,” she said firmly. “You wrote the letters and the telegrams. You endorsed the checks. And on one of the checks, you wrote ‘For deposit only’ under your signature.”

“So when that check is traced back to its deposit in your bank account,” Verna put in, “that will take care of any possible question. Your problem is that you just didn’t think things through. You didn’t cover your tracks. You thought you were so far out of the picture that nobody could trace you.” She chuckled shortly. “But you left a trail a yard wide and a mile long. Pink paper and purple ink. Dumb, dumber, dumbest.”

Angel’s chin trembled. “But why . . . why would I do such things?” she asked plaintively, trying to defend herself. “What possible motive could I—”

“Well, for starters,” Verna said, “there’s revenge. Bess Hopkins died in a fall from Lily Dare’s plane. You could be trying to get even with her for your sister’s death. You could be—”

Verna stopped. Angel’s face had crumpled at the mention of her sister. She squeezed her eyes shut and made a fist of her right hand and brought it to her mouth, as if to hold back a sob.

“Bess,” she said, very low. “Bess . . .” Her shoulders began to shake. “Lily was using second-rate equipment on that plane. She cuts corners. People die because of her—like Pete Rickerts. He’s dead, like Bess.” Her voice grew shrill. “She needs to pay for what she’s done.”

“That’s for the justice system to decide,” Verna said. “Not you. Anyway, you weren’t trying to get even with Lily when you defrauded Roger Kilgore out of nearly a thousand dollars. Why, for all we know, you’ve been pulling the same dirty tricks on other men—impersonating Miss Dare in order to solicit money.”