Miss Dimple Disappears (12 page)

“If you think that tightwad Emmalene Brumlow’s going to put herself out cooking, you’ve got another think coming,” her aunt had said when Charlie told her Hugh insisted on bringing the picnic. And as it turned out, she was right, but, Charlie learned, Hugh had managed to help himself to a bottle of homemade blackberry wine from the family cellar.

Turtle Rock was a large granite formation remotely resembling a turtle on the banks of a creek by the same name and had been a popular picnic spot for as long as Charlie could remember. As a child she had come there often on Sunday school picnics and, later during her teen years, on wiener roasts and hayrides. The family who owned the property and farmed the adjoining land had always been glad to share it with others as long as they first asked permission, as Hugh had done, and cleaned up after their outings.

Hugh pulled off the road and parked the car in a grassy area where, not too many years before, they had hunted four-leaf clovers, made daisy chains, and played innumerable games of ball. Charlie helped him carry the picnic items to a rustic table, which they spread with a cloth Arden had tucked into the basket. Although most of the trees were bare; star-shaped remnants of red fluttered here and there in the sweet gum trees, and the occasional scattering of hickory leaves mottled the ground in gold. Other than the scampering of a squirrel in the underbrush nearby and the soothing lap of tea-colored water over mossy stones, the woods were quiet, and Charlie let the silence envelop her in an effort to sense its peace. This was a familiar place, a favorite place for both of them. Why did everything feel so strange?

“Let’s go for a walk before it gets too dark.” Taking her hand, Hugh led her under an archway of hardwoods onto a narrow path that meandered around the hill above the creek. “I helped to blaze this trail with my Scout troop about a million years ago,” he said. “Look, you can still see the mark we left on that big sycamore.” His words sounded proud, yet sad in a way for a time that was lost. Charlie watched his face as he looked about. He was storing up mind pictures of this place he loved, and she felt privileged that he chose to share it with her.

“Here’s where we camped out overnight,” Hugh said as they moved farther up the trail, “and Dennis Chastain got homesick and cried.” He laughed. “To tell you the truth, I was homesick, too, but I was too embarrassed to admit it.”

Charlie thought of lanky Dennis, who was such a smooth dancer all the girls wanted to be his partner. Years ago in high school, she had been lucky enough to dance the Lindy with him and it spoiled her for anybody else. One of the first to be called for the draft, Dennis was now with the marines somewhere in the South Pacific where he surely must long for home. His aunt Sarah taught at Charlie’s school and a few months ago, she and some of the other teachers had mailed him a box that they hoped would reach him by Christmas. Sarah had later confided that she’d even tucked in a sprig of red cedar so Dennis could at least have the smell of Christmas. Charlie considered telling Hugh about it, but thought better of it. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

It had grown colder by the time they tramped by a circuitous route to the top of the hill where they drank in the view over the outskirts of the town stretching before them in the dying sunlight: a gray and brown quilt stitched with roads and streams and dotted with splashes of green.

Hugh drew her close as they stood, not speaking until a chill wind made her shudder. He tightened his arms about her. “This place is special to me, Charlie,” he said, taking in the scene below. “And so are you.”

And for a time Charlie Carr forgot about being cold, forgot about the war that was taking him from her, and thought only of the warmth of his lips and the brisk clean smell of his face next to hers.

She also forgot momentarily about the school custodian’s mysterious death and the puzzle of Miss Dimple’s disappearance. And she almost—but not quite—forgot she was hungry. On the hike back to the campsite they collected dry tinder from fallen pine boughs, and with a lot of patience and an armload of dry kindling he had brought from home, Hugh built a respectable campfire on a flat part of the rock that had been blackened by past fires over the years.

Charlie pointed out the spot where she and her brother and sister had attempted to dam up the creek for a swimming hole and disturbed a water moccasin under a rock. “It was at least two years before I’d go wading here again,” she admitted, laughing.

It was comfortable sharing stories of growing-up days as they warmed themselves by the fire surrounded by the pleasant smell of wood smoke and the nose-tickling scent of leaves, and the two managed to put away their share of the picnic with surprising ease. The wine, rich and pungent, tasted of summer, warming her as she watched the fire send an eddy of bright sparks into the darkness. Charlie could feel the throbbing of Hugh’s heart as she leaned against him, encircled by his arms.

“I wish we could stay this way forever,” Hugh said, nuzzling her cheek, and she sighed in response. Neither spoke for a while as the fire popped sporadically, burning lower, a flickering orange nucleus of their small world. They watched it diminish to a mound of ruddy embers when Hugh spoke again, his voice little more than a whisper. “When I think of coming home after the war, I think of you. Will you still be here, Charlie?”

Would she? Of course!
She was sure she would. Well … almost sure. “Hugh—”

“I know. I said I wouldn’t ask you to wait, and I’m not. I’m not asking you to make any kind of commitment right now. I just want to know … well, I guess I just want to know if I have a chance.”

Charlie turned and took his face in her hands and kissed him. “You’ve always had a chance, Hugh Brumlow. Let’s just leave things as they are for now. Just come back. Come back safe and sound.”

He rose to add a few more pieces of wood to the fire and draped one arm loosely about her shoulders when he sat beside her again. “You’d think I was going off to battle next week when I’ll be coming home on leave after I finish my medical training—that is, if they don’t throw me out first.”

Charlie ignored his last comment, realizing he was making an attempt to be amusing. “And after the medical training, then what?” she asked.

“If I survive that, they’ll move me to one of the marine bases to complete my instruction as a corpsman.”

“Christmas is going to be strange with Fain clear on the other side of nowhere, Delia in Texas, and now you’ll be away.” Charlie stopped herself before she said more. What right did she have to complain when she wasn’t the one who was having to put her life on the line? She thought of happier Christmases before Fain enlisted and her sister married and moved away. Christmases when war was an intruder that disrupted
other
people’s lives.

“You’ll have to write and keep me informed about the whereabouts of our Miss Dimple,” Hugh said, jarring her back to the present. “I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for her since she let me help with the scenery instead of giving me a speaking role in our first-grade play. I was scared to death I’d forget my lines, so Jimmy Lay got my part as the Big Bad Wolf. I guess she felt sorry for me.”

Charlie smiled and snuggled closer. “I hope I’ll have something positive to tell you,” she said, sobering. “I still don’t understand why she would leave a note saying she had gone to care for her sister if her only sister’s been dead for years.”

Hugh was quiet for a minute. “Are you sure she was the one who wrote that note?” he asked.

“Phoebe Chadwick said it was in her handwriting but it does seem strange that nobody saw it until Bobby Tinsley found it underneath the hall table. I guess it could’ve fallen there.” She shrugged. “Who else would’ve left it?”

“Could’ve been one of the other roomers.” Hugh chuckled. “Most likely the suspicious Elwin Vickery! Or, I suppose anybody might’ve walked in there unobserved while everyone was either asleep or busy. I don’t think Phoebe ever locks her doors.”

“But why would anybody do that?” Charlie asked. “Unless—”

“Unless they don’t want anyone looking for her,” Hugh said grimly.

*   *   *

Charlie arrived at school the next day to find Annie waiting by her door. Pulling off her glove, she held out her left hand for her friend’s inspection. “Go ahead and take a look. I know that’s what you’re waiting for,” she said. “Notice anything different?”

Puzzled, Annie shook her head. “Not that I can see. What do you mean?”

“
Nothing’s
different. That’s what I mean.” Charlie unlocked her door and deposited a sheaf of papers on her desk. “I’m not saying that can’t change, but we’ve decided to leave things as they are for now.”

Annie followed her inside and perched on a front row desk. “And are you satisfied with that?”

Charlie draped her jacket over the back of her chair. “I think Hugh was ready to propose, and actually, he did in a way, but something held me back … held us both back. Remember when we had to go off the high dive back in college? That water was a long way down and it seemed like I stood there forever before I had the confidence to jump.”

Annie laughed. “You never did, you chicken! I had to push you, remember?”

“Oh. Well, I never would’ve passed phys ed if you hadn’t, so I guess I should thank you,” Charlie admitted. “But I don’t want to be pushed into matrimony. The world’s too unstable right now.”

Annie stood and faced her. “Do you love him, Charlie?”

“I don’t know. I think I do … maybe.”
But shouldn’t she know? Other people did. Delia, her mother, even Aunt Lou admitted she fell for her husband Ed the first time she set eyes on him.
“I feel comfortable with Hugh. We share so much in common … and he’s good looking, too …”

Annie looked up at her. “What about his kisses?”

Charlie smiled. “His
kisses
? Hmm … nice! Maybe I’m just holding out for something that isn’t going to happen.”

“Then I suppose you’ll know for sure when the time
is
right,” Annie said, her statement lingering like a question in the air.

“I think Hugh was trying to say good-bye to his past yesterday. We’ve both had a lot of happy times at the rock so it was good to share them, and sad, too, but I believe it brought us closer—as friends if not for something more.” Charlie took reading workbooks from her cabinet and stacked them on her desk. “He leaves for Virginia in the morning.”

“What about tonight?” Annie asked, but Charlie made a face.

“This is Emmalene’s night—just family—and that’s fine. We’ve said our good-byes for now.”

“Will he be home for Christmas?”

Charlie shook her head. “He won’t get leave until after he’s finished his medical training,” she said. “Like forever and a day.”

Annie paused on her way out. “I talked with my brother last night and Joel wants to come here for Thanksgiving. It’s too far for him to go home, and he and his friend Will have a chance to hitch a ride on a plane to Fort Benning. Do you think you might put them up in Fain’s room? There’s just no space at Phoebe’s.”

“Well, of course! We’d love to have them,” Charlie said. “And I think it would do Mama a world of good. Our house is much too quiet with Fain and Delia gone. Besides, it will give me a chance to get even with him for that rotten telegram he sent.” She knew Annie’s brother from the times she had visited with her roommate during their college years and was aware that her friend hoped the two would develop a romantic relationship, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Joel, who had more girlfriends than he could count, looked on Charlie as another little sister and teased her unmercifully. Earlier in the school year, Joel had sent her a telegram proclaiming his undying love and promising to keep their recent “elopement” a secret, so naturally Ben Whitfield at the local Western Union circulated the news of her sudden “marriage” all over town. And the coward hadn’t even signed his real name!

Charlie smiled as she distributed workbooks on the children’s desks. Annie had gone out with her brother’s friend a couple of times, wrote to him regularly, and kept a snapshot of Will Sinclair in the frame of her mirror. It was going to be an interesting Thanksgiving after all.

She had been so preoccupied with Annie’s news that Charlie didn’t even think to ask her about the new first-grade teacher. The first bell hadn’t rung yet when the principal tapped at her door and called her into the hallway with Geneva and Annie to meet Miss Dimple’s replacement.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

Miss Dimple stood at the foot of the stairs and listened. As instructed, she had written the required note to Henry. Of course she had no choice, but Henry had a choice, and she was certain he wouldn’t do anything foolish because of her. Her brother knew or had something these evil people wanted (she was sure Mr. Smith wasn’t working alone), and Dimple Kilpatrick knew Henry well enough to realize he would never let them have it.

Everything was quiet upstairs so he must have gone out. She had detected enough of his routine to know he came and went during the day and sometimes even at night. At least he had begun to include fruits and vegetables in her diet: a few carrots and some cabbage—overcooked, of course—a banana or two, and wrinkled apples that looked as if they had been stored in a cellar. The night before he had even brought down a stack of magazines, which he had dumped unceremoniously on the floor. All were outdated issues of
The Country Gentleman, The Woman’s Home Companion,
and
The Saturday Evening Post.
Miss Dimple devoured the
Post
from cover to cover, and had especially enjoyed the stories about Tugboat Annie. The name of the subscriber, she noticed, had been torn from the front of the periodicals.

Now, with great effort, she pushed the table intended for dining next to the wall under the small window. Then, taking one of the drawers from the chest in the bathroom, she used it as a step to climb onto the table. At five-feet-five, Dimple Kilpatrick had never considered herself short, but even standing on the table, she couldn’t see out of the window.