The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

Wayne Springer was tall and rail-thin, with a beaked nose that looked as if he had inherited it from a Cherokee ancestor (which he had), in a narrow, sun-darkened face, and he preferred a battered felt cowboy hat to his deputy’s uniform cap. Buddy had hired him because he had five years of experience as a deputy over in Jefferson County, where he’d worked with a bigger and more up-to-date sheriff’s office and had gone through a law enforcement training program.

But what was even more important to Buddy’s way of thinking was the fact that Wayne came from Birmingham. He had no local baggage or history or kin, unlike the dozen or so other men who had applied for the job, five or six of them with daddies who had political muscle in the county and fully expected to be hired. Buddy thought it would be better to bring in somebody who was essentially unknown and didn’t have any special friends or foes. Wayne had smarts and he definitely knew his business. He also had more experience than Buddy, especially when it came to handling a .38 Special, the standard cop gun. (Buddy was a fair shot when it came to pinging cans on a fence, but he’d never gotten used to the idea that he might actually have to shoot somebody.) And so far, Wayne had been easy to work with. But they were still trying each other out.

Buddy peered over Wayne’s shoulder. The deputy had dusted the dark surfaces of Myra May’s car with Chemist Gray Powder made of mercury and chalk, then lifted the prints with strips of that handy new Scotch cellulose tape. Still at the scene, he had transferred the print tapes to individual cards and labeled them with the site where he’d lifted them (the steering wheel, the gearshift, the door handle) and the date and time. Now, he was sorting and classifying them, getting ready to make comparisons.

Wayne sniffed. “You been usin’ perfume?”

“I was searching the victim’s bedroom,” Buddy said. “Is it bad?”

“Not as long as you don’t get too close.”

Buddy stepped back. Looking down at Wayne’s work, he said, “You get the prints of the ladies at the diner and the Telephone Exchange?”

“Yeah.” Wayne nodded at a thin stack of cards at the corner of the table. “From all the weepin’ and moanin’ that went on, you’da thought their fingers would be purple forever.” The fingerprint kit contained a purple ink pad that some people objected to using.

“Females are like that,” Buddy remarked. “Where you at on that job?”

“Just getting organized. There were lots of prints on that car, but I’m focusing on the doors, the front seat area, and the dashboard. Miss Mosswell is supposed to be giving me a list of everybody that’s been in that car in the past month—could be three or four more, on top of the ladies I printed this morning. They’ll all have to be excluded.” Wayne’s voice was flat, uninflected, unexcited. Buddy liked that about him. “Anything that’s left could belong to our man. There’s a good one on the driver’s side door handle that I haven’t found a match for yet. A thumbprint with a scar.”

“Yeah. Well, stay with it, Wayne,” Buddy said, congratulating himself on hiring somebody precise and methodical enough to do a picky job like matching prints. “Could be what’s needed to get a conviction.”

He went into his office, in what had once been the dining room of the house, and set the coffee mug on the corner of his desk. Taking down a large brown envelope and a smaller white envelope from a supply shelf, he slid Rona Jean’s diary into the brown one and the $140 in twenties into the white one, labeled both, and dated them. He raised his voice, speaking through the open door.

“Nothing from Doc Roberts yet, I reckon?” He was asking just to be sure. Even if the doctor had gotten to Rona Jean first thing, he wouldn’t call with the results until after he’d written the report—unless there was something extra special he wanted to pass on.

“Nope,” Wayne replied. “Nothing. Been quiet as the grave since I got here. Except for the weather report, just before you came in. Might want to keep an eye on the sky today.”

“Oh yeah?” Buddy opened the top drawer of the scarred wooden desk and slid the envelopes into it. “What’s happening?”