The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

A couple of ladies he didn’t recognize—visitors from out of town, probably—stared wide-eyed at him from a table in the corner, then put their heads together, murmuring apprehensively, as Buddy hunched his shoulders and began on his pie.

When the customers had mostly cleared out, Violet and Myra May left Henrietta on the switchboard and Raylene and her helper, Holiness Hatfield, to clean up the kitchen, then took Buddy upstairs. But before they could begin their talk, Violet had to put Cupcake down for her afternoon nap, which took a little while because Cupcake resented taking a nap while her two moms were having an interesting conversation with a man in the kitchen. And Myra May was called back downstairs to solve an urgent culinary mystery involving a missing mess of catfish that had been brought in by Old Zeke, who sold them his day’s catch twice a week. It turned out that Zeke had put the fish in a burlap bag with some ice in the old soda pop cooler beside the back door without telling anybody where they were.

But at last the three of them were together, sitting around the kitchen table. Violet and Myra May were drinking coffee, and Buddy was finishing the orange Nehi (his favorite soda pop) that he had carried upstairs and was wishing he had brought another piece of pie upstairs with him.

For Buddy, the green and white kitchen was a familiar place. When old Mrs. Hooper ran the diner (years ago, before Myra May and Violet bought it), she used to pay Buddy a nickel an hour to weed her vegetable garden. He’d been about ten years old then, and when he was finished pulling weeds, she’d sit him down at the kitchen table—the very same table where he was sitting now—and give him a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. Then she’d open the window wide so the breeze would cool him off, and pat him on the shoulder and say, “Buddy, you did a real good job with those weeds. But you know how fast they sprout back up. I hope you’ll come back and tackle them next week.”

Now, the window was open and the breeze carried the delightful fragrance of the apple pie that Raylene was baking downstairs, along with the distant sound of the diner’s radio, playing “I Got Rhythm.” But even in that pleasant setting, he didn’t get the questioning off to a very good start. “I was wanting to see you both together because I . . . well, because—” He stopped, feeling clumsy.

“Because you didn’t want us comparing stories,” Violet offered helpfully. She had put on a fresh pale green dress with puffy little sleeves and was looking much better than she had that morning.

“Because you want to surprise us with your questions, and you don’t want us putting our heads together to agree on an answer.” Myra May reached into the pocket of her slacks for her cigarette packet and tapped out a Lucky Strike. “That’s how they do it in detective stories.”

Buddy grinned sheepishly. “Actually, what I want from you is a little help. There are some things I don’t understand.”

To tell the truth, there were quite a few things he didn’t understand, but “some” would do to start with. He took out his notebook and flipped to the page where he had copied the passage from Rona Jean’s diary.

“This morning, I found something Rona Jean had written. She said that Violet was the only person she could count on to help her out of the mess she was in. Is that true?”

“Yes,” Myra May said shortly. “She took advantage of Violet.”

Violet shook her head. “I didn’t exactly see it that way. She was in trouble and I felt sorry for her. I wanted to help, even though she didn’t always take my advice.”

“What kind of trouble?” Buddy asked.

“Gosh, we figured you knew that already,” Violet said. She traded glances with Myra May. “From Doc Roberts’ autopsy report.”

“About Rona Jean being pregnant,” Myra May clarified. “You’re the sheriff, Buddy. You must have heard about the report even before we did.”

“Not necessarily,” Buddy said. “You know how fast news gets around this town. So being pregnant—that’s the ‘mess’ she was thinking of when she wrote that?”