The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

“I didn’t say it made him holy, Mama,” Lizzy protested.

But in a way, her mother was right. Having worked for Mr. Moseley for quite a few years, Lizzy had a respectful attitude toward the law and anybody who enforced it. It seemed to her that the law put up a barrier between the civilized and the savage—a necessary barrier that separated the good from the bad. Mr. Moseley was always telling her that it wasn’t as simple as that, that good people often did bad—that is, unlawful or immoral—things, and vice versa. And she knew from her own experience that it didn’t take much black mixed in with the white to make a fuzzy-looking gray.

But as far as she was concerned, anybody who enforced the law stood for justice and order, and justice not just for some but for everybody, which right now, meant justice for Rona Jean Hancock, who had been murdered. And Buddy Norris had been elected to stand up for Rona Jean, find out who had killed her, and assemble the evidence that would allow Mr. Moseley (who was county attorney this year) to get a conviction. Buddy was only a man, yes, and young and inexperienced at that. But she knew him well enough to know that it was ridiculous to think that he’d killed Rona Jean. He had an important job to do, and out of a sense of fairness, Lizzy didn’t think people should be saying things that made his job even harder.

Her mother turned her glass in her fingers. “Well, of course, the sheriff wasn’t the only one who was fooling around with Rona Jean. Adele Hart says she was sitting out on her front porch one night this week and saw a man waiting around the back of the diner for Rona Jean to go off her shift at eleven.”

Lizzy thought about that. Adele Hart and her husband, Artis, owned Hart’s Peerless Laundry, at the corner of Franklin and Robert E. Lee, across from Musgrove’s Hardware. The Harts lived in the house next door to the laundry, which was convenient because they both had to get up well before dawn to get their help started on the day’s washing, as well as manage the three grandchildren who had recently come to live with them. Lizzy and Adele worked together on the Darling Christmas pageant every year, and Lizzy sometimes stopped in for a cup of tea when Adele wasn’t too busy. She knew that the Harts could see the vegetable garden behind the diner—and the garage where Rona Jean’s body was found.

“Did Adele say who it was?” Lizzy asked.

Mrs. Lacy shook her head. “Just that she thought he was from the camp.”

From the camp, Lizzy thought. And the man she had seen with Rona Jean at the movies was a CCC man, maybe even an officer. Was he the same person?

Her mother was getting her teeth into the subject of the camp. “Those men out there—I swear, they’re makin’ trouble all over. Have you heard about Lucy Murphy?”

Lucy was a Dahlia who lived on a small farm on the Jericho Road and worked at the camp. Her husband, Ralph, had a railroad job. He was gone all week and didn’t usually make it home until late Saturday.

“Lucy?” Lizzy felt a flare of concern. “She’s all right, isn’t she?” Lizzy had always thought of Darling as a safe little town, but after what happened to Rona Jean, she was thinking that women who spent a lot of time alone—women like herself and Lucy—ought to be extra watchful. It was an unsettling thought.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘all right.’” Her mother pressed her lips together disapprovingly. “Ouida’s widowed sister, Erma Rae—the one that lives out on the Jericho Road—saw her riding on the back of one of those Army motorcycles.” She lowered her voice. “Just at dark, it was. Last Wednesday night, when Ralph was gone on the railroad. And Erma Rae said she’s heard that motorcycle before, comin’ and goin’ late at night, only she didn’t know who it was until she saw her. Lucy Murphy, I mean.”