The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

“Think about it,” Mata Hari commanded sharply. “Where did Rona Jean work?”


“Well, she worked at the . . .” And then Charlie understood. “Of course. She worked at the Exchange. She listened in on a telephone call.” It was against the rules, of course, and not all the operators did it. But some did, especially at night, when the traffic was slow and they had nothing else to do. People in Darling knew, and if they had something they didn’t want anybody to hear, they didn’t trust it to the telephone. But somebody from out of town, somebody who was used to privacy on the phone, wouldn’t know this. He might—

“Yes,” Mata Hari said. “That’s how it happened. She listened in on a telephone call. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time for her. She figured out what he was doing and snooped around until she discovered who he was, and when she did, I’m sure she thought she’d found herself a gold mine. She got herself introduced to him.” Her voice became bitter. “From then on, it wasn’t hard at all. He was a pushover—for her, anyway.”

Charlie had stopped writing now and was listening hard, listening to the story but also listening between the lines, listening to the woman who was telling it. And beginning to guess at another reason for her refusal to let him know who she was. The man she was talking about had been her friend. No, more than that, she had been in love with him, married woman or not. Maybe she had even been thinking of leaving her husband for him, leaving Darling and starting a new life somewhere else. And maybe he’d been in love with her, too, a lot or a little. Or maybe he was just taking advantage of her interest in him, finding her willing, even eager for kisses and whatever else he wanted. Which had maybe been just fine, for both of them.

Until Rona Jean had come along and changed the equation.

“I couldn’t figure out what he saw in her.” Mata Hari went on, now speaking flatly, mechanically. “She wasn’t all that pretty, but there was something . . . I don’t know, seductive maybe. They went to the movies over in Monroeville, and to the roller rink and the dances at the camp. I could see that he was getting in over his head and I tried to warn him, but he thought he was in charge where women were concerned and he wouldn’t listen. Until she told him what she wanted.”

Almost playfully, lightning skipped and skittered outside the window. The wind pummeled the building. “What was that?” Charlie asked. “What did she want? Marriage?”

She laughed abruptly. “No. Not that. She might have wanted a husband in the beginning, but somewhere along the way she changed her mind. What she wanted was a lump-sum payoff—a substantial payoff—to keep quiet. She wanted to leave Darling and get a new start somewhere else. She demanded money. Five hundred dollars. And when he heard that—” A blast of wind and rain rattling against the windows blotted out the rest of her sentence.

Charlie waited until the assault quieted. “When he heard that, he what?” he prompted.

Her voice flattened out, lost all inflection. “I don’t really know, because I wasn’t . . . because after that we didn’t . . . we didn’t talk anymore.” In her pause, Charlie heard a final chapter of aching regret, the ending of a love affair, the beginning of a new and painful understanding.

After a moment, she went on. “I don’t know, but I can guess. He decided he couldn’t trust her. He was afraid that once he gave her anything, there’d never be an end to it. She’d keep coming back to him, asking him for money, for the rest of his life. He isn’t the kind of man who could live with somebody holding something over his head. I hate the thought of it, and I almost can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think . . .” Her words were swallowed by a sob.