The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

Those were the right questions, Buddy thought, but it was clear that neither Myra May nor Violet had an answer, and he certainly didn’t. He closed his notebook. “One last thing. Rona Jean says in her diary that Violet would be taking care of the bills, before and after. Before the birth, I assume, and afterward.” He looked up. Violet was nodding. “And then she wrote, ‘And I can leave it there.’ Leave what?”


Myra May ground out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Ask us a hard one, why don’t you, Buddy?” Her laugh was brittle.

Violet was smiling sadly. “Leave the baby, of course,” she said. “With us.”

“Oh,” Buddy said. “I see.”

Of course. The baby. It explained a lot of things. Like why Violet had befriended Rona Jean and why Myra May was willing to pay the bills. And why Rona Jean had told Bettina Higgens that Myra May wouldn’t dare fire her, and why Violet had been so upset by Rona Jean’s death. Violet hadn’t just lost a friend, she had lost a baby—the baby she hoped would become her own. He felt like all kinds of a fool for not figuring this out for himself.

Violet sighed. “Rona Jean didn’t have any way to take care of a baby—she didn’t want a baby. But we do.” She looked at Myra May. “We adopted Cupcake after my sister died and Cupcake’s father couldn’t take care of her. We don’t want our little girl to grow up as an only child. We would just love to give her a little brother or sister. We thought . . . I mean, we were hoping . . .” She shrugged and sighed again.

“So in return for letting us have her baby,” Myra May said in a hard, flat voice, “we were paying Rona Jean’s bills. And she was holding our feet to the fire.”

“Myra May,” Violet said plaintively, “I really wish you wouldn’t—”

“Well, she was, Violet. That girl listened in on the switchboard and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. She knew it was against the rules, but I couldn’t stop her and I couldn’t fire her, because if I did, she’d leave town. And you wanted the baby.” Myra May raised her hand as if to ward off Violet’s protest. “I know, I know, dear—I wanted the baby, too. Both of us did. But that doesn’t change the fact that Rona Jean was blackmailing us.”

“No, no,” Violet protested. “That’s not how I saw it. Not at all.”

“That’s exactly how it was, Violet.” Myra May mimicked Rona Jean’s Southern drawl. “‘You pay my bills, you let me do what I want, and I’ll give you my baby. Maybe I’ll give you my baby, if I don’t decide to leave town first.’ It was blackmail, pure and simple.”

Buddy picked up his fork and went back to his pie. He was now convinced that the money he had found—the $140—was a blackmail payoff of some kind. But whose? And what for, exactly? Blackmail was a powerful motive for murder, he reminded himself. Answer those questions and you’d probably have the killer.

He finished his pie, picked up his notebook and pencil, and put them in his shirt pocket. “Thanks,” he said. “You’ve been a big help. If you think of anything else I should know, please get in touch.”

“We will,” Violet said. She leaned forward with a wry little smile. “To tell the honest truth, Buddy, we were kind of disappointed when Rona Jean told us that the baby wasn’t yours. Myra May and I would have been proud to raise your child.”

That was almost too much for Buddy, who for the life of him couldn’t think what to say. He was grateful for the knock on the kitchen door that prevented him from saying anything.

It was Raylene again. “Buddy, there’s a phone call for you on the switchboard. It’s your deputy.” She hesitated. “And I wonder if you’d stop in the kitchen on your way out. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Tell Henrietta to ring the phone upstairs, so Buddy can talk to his deputy up here,” Myra May said, and stood up. To Buddy, she said, “Raylene and I made up that list of people who’ve been in my car in the last few weeks. You can pick it up from her before you leave.”

“I’ll be down as soon as Cupcake wakes up,” Violet said, and disappeared into the bedroom.