The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

But Buddy was good enough to be a deputy, almost everybody agreed. He had taught himself how to take crime scene photographs and dust for fingerprints out of a book on scientific detective work that he had mail-ordered from True Crime magazine. He was especially interested in fingerprint evidence, which had been used as forensic evidence in the United States since 1911, when Thomas Jennings was convicted of murder after he broke into a Chicago home and killed the owner during an attempted burglary. Jennings left his prints on a freshly painted railing, was convicted, and hanged. Buddy didn’t have much confidence that fingerprints would ever solve a case in Darling, but he wanted to know how to use them if the opportunity ever presented itself.

All things considered, Buddy had proved himself to be a good deputy. He wasn’t afraid to wade in with his fists when that was necessary, as it sometimes was. He was strong and athletic and (having been a sprinter in high school and a regular winner of the hundred-yard dash) he got around much faster than the sheriff, who had forty years and fifty-plus pounds on him. What’s more, he rode his red Indian Ace motorcycle when he was on patrol duty, which guaranteed Sheriff Burns some serious bragging rights: Buddy was the only mounted deputy sheriff in all of southern Alabama.

In fact, everybody said that the sheriff and his deputy functioned as a pretty good team—until the sheriff was struck down dead by a rattlesnake. He was fishing all by himself below the waterfall at the very bottom of Horsetail Gorge when it happened, which was a very bad place to have a rattlesnake tuck into you. Roy Burns weighed well over two hundred pounds, and with his arthritis, he couldn’t move too fast on a good day. On a bad day, when the rattler had bitten him hard on the wrist, he didn’t make it back up to the camp. He sat down and died beside the waterfall. It took three men, a mule, and a block and tackle to hoist him out of the rocky gorge.

The county commissioners met the next week, as Amos Tombull announced somberly, “to plan for a special election to fill Sheriff Burns’ empty size twelves.” There were two candidates on the ballot, Buddy Norris and Jake Pritchard, who owned the Standard Oil station on the Monroeville highway. But although many had misgivings about Buddy, the endorsement of the Darling Dispatch helped him eke out a win. He was also helped by the fact that Jake had recently raised the price of his gasoline from ten cents a gallon to fifteen, which made some of the voters a tad bit unenthusiastic about him. Jake had the only gas station in town. Some folks may have thought that making him sheriff was giving him too much of a monopoly.

With all this in mind, Buddy knew better than anybody that, in Darling’s eyes, the investigation into Rona Jean’s murder would be a test case. His reputation, his career, and quite possibly his entire future were on the line here. Which meant that he had to take full charge of the investigation and do most of the legwork himself, rather than rely on his new deputy, Wayne Springer. Wayne, who had learned his policing over in Montgomery, already knew how to dust for fingerprints. He was working on the car right now, and doing a good job. That’s the kind of deputy he was. But everything else connected with this murder, all the interviews, all the people stuff, Buddy knew he would have to do himself.

He straightened his shoulders, suddenly aware of the burden on them. “Just a couple more questions and I’ll be finished.” He leaned forward. “When you went into the garage, Violet, did you hear anything or see anybody? Or maybe when you were out in the garden, picking beans?”

“No,” Violet whispered. “I didn’t hear a thing when I was in the garden—except for the rooster up the street and Bill Board delivering the milk and Myra May singing along with the radio. And then I saw the double garage doors open and thought I’d better close them. When I went in, at first, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was just too awful. The way Rona Jean was . . . all spread out, I mean. Like she’d been—” Her voice trembled and she bit down hard on her lip. “And then I saw that stocking around her neck. I just ran.” After a moment she looked up at Raylene. “I’m so sorry, dear. I spilled the bucket of beans I was picking for lunch.”