Miss Dimple Disappears (15 page)

“I can’t imagine that school without her,” Marjorie Mote said. “Why, I almost expect the buildings to crumble into dust! Have you not heard any word at all?”

Charlie told her about Miss Dimple’s brother and his perplexing absence from Elderberry. “And I don’t know if it means anything or not, but Virginia Balliew found a small scrap of purple yarn on the crape myrtle next to the street not far from where Miss Dimple lived … lives.” She fingered the crocheted doily on the arm of the chair and felt herself wanting to doze. The house was warm from the wood burning fireplace and smelled richly of wood smoke, spices, and sweet summer wine.

She had baked her customary fruitcake that morning, her hostess explained. “I had to make substitutions, of course, and used a lot of hickory nuts and honey, but I think it’s important to carry on with traditions even though it’s just the two of us this year.” Marjorie Mote’s lips smiled bravely but Charlie thought her eyes held more pain than a person ought to bear.

“And Fain,” she asked as Charlie was leaving. “Any word from him?”

Charlie shook her head. “Not for a while,” she told her, and when they said good-bye, Marjorie clung to her for a long, long time. It was not until she was on her way home that Charlie remembered they had not once mentioned Chester’s death.

*   *   *

“I didn’t even tell her how sorry I was about Chester,” Charlie confessed to her mother when she got home.

Jo put aside the article she was writing about the Magnolia Garden Club’s autumn reception and spoke softly to her daughter. “Don’t you think she already knows that? Just your being there assured her that you care.”

Charlie took two small pork chops from the Frigidaire and sliced potatoes and onions for frying. “I told Mrs. Mote I planned to try and reach Miss Dimple’s brother tonight and she agreed it was a good idea.”

“And why would you do that?” her mother wanted to know.

“I thought he might be able to give us some idea of why she was taken. After all, he
is
her brother and should know her better than anybody. I can’t understand why he hasn’t come here to help look for her.”

“That could be because there are things he doesn’t want us to know,” Jo said, setting her writing tablet aside to put plates on the table.

Charlie frowned. Sometimes her mother said the strangest things. “Why not? What kinds of things?”

“Think about it, Charlie. He lives in Kennesaw—that’s near Marietta and the Bell Bomber Plant. And Miss Dimple told me one time her brother was an engineer of some sort … not the train kind,” she added with a wave of her hand. “We don’t know what they might be working on there.”

“Do you really think somebody might be holding her for ransom?” The shortening in the frying pan began to smoke and Charlie quickly added the vegetables before it started to flame. Was this really happening right here in Elderberry? And to quaint Miss Dimple of all people! It was like something out of a movie. Now she was even more determined to speak with Henry Kilpatrick.

Charlie shoved the potatoes and onions aside to sear the meager chops before adding salt and pepper, wishing she could bottle and sell the fragrance of the sautéing onions. Neither Charlie nor her mother had mentioned the morning’s fiasco with the milkman
yet,
but Charlie didn’t mean to let the opportunity pass. She waited until Jo stood at the stove warming up leftover butterbeans before asking her mother if they happened to find Miss Dimple hidden under the milk bottles in the back of Amos Schuler’s pickup.

Jo concentrated on stirring the beans before answering. “All right, I’ll admit I’d almost rather go through childbirth again than let Lou drag me along on one of her outrageous ventures, but the morning wasn’t a complete waste of time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know your aunt—she just out and out asked Amos Schuler if he ever saw Miss Dimple out walking while he was on his morning route.”

Charlie flipped the pork chops to the other side. Knowing her aunt, she wasn’t a bit surprised. “And what did he say?”

“He said something like, ‘You mean that old lady with the umbrella everybody’s been talking about? Sure I’ve seen her.’ Said he just about ran over her once when she stepped behind his truck just as he was backing out of somebody’s driveway.”

Charlie shrugged. “Still, that doesn’t prove anything.”

“But that’s not all,” her mother continued. “
Then
Lou asked him if he’d seen her on the morning she disappeared, and I’ll swear, Charlie, that man has the most unpleasant expression—looks like he just ate a rotten potato with a hair in it …”

Charlie made a face at the image that brought to mind. “And had he? Seen her, I mean?”

“Didn’t say. Drove off and left us standing there in the middle of nowhere, but if looks could kill, your aunt Louise and I would be laid out as cold and stiff as yesterday’s grits over there in Harvey Thompson’s Funeral Parlor!”

“He didn’t even offer you a ride back to town?”

Her mother spooned butterbeans into a bowl. “He did at first, but you could tell he didn’t really want to. Anyway, that was before Lou asked him all that about Miss Dimple. By then we’d already decided we’d take our chances on somebody else coming along.” She sighed. “But I sure don’t know what I would’ve done if your uncle Ed hadn’t shown up when he did. I thought I was going to wet my pants!”

*   *   *

Charlie waited until they had washed the supper dishes before placing her call to Henry Kilpatrick. She had no idea what his working hours were or when he ate his evening meal. She did know he was married because Virginia had hinted that Miss Dimple wasn’t particularly fond of her brother’s wife. If she wasn’t able to speak with Henry, however, maybe his wife would tell her what she wanted to know.

But she soon learned that wasn’t going to happen.

“My husband isn’t available.” When the woman spoke it sounded as if each word had been chopped off with an ax. “May I ask your reason for calling?”

Charlie took a deep breath. She could sympathize with Miss Dimple’s opinion of her sister-in-law already. Be calm, be pleasant—or at least sound pleasant, she reminded herself as she explained who she was and where she lived. “I not only teach with Miss Dimple, but I was also once one of her students. We’re all concerned about her absence and are hoping her brother might be able to give us some idea of why this has happened. Do you know if he plans to come here to Elderberry anytime soon?”

“He most certainly does not! This is a private matter, and I have no intention of discussing it with you or anyone else.”

“Who is it, Hazel?” A man’s voice interrupted and Charlie overheard a rather loud whispered explanation of her identity: “Some woman who says she teaches with Dimple in that town where she used to live.”

Used to live?
Did they know something she didn’t know? Was Miss Dimple already dead? When Henry Kilpatrick came on the line, it was all she could do to keep from crying. “We all care deeply for your sister,” she told him, “and frankly, we’re worried that something terrible has happened,” Charlie began. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard—”

“I share your concern, believe me,” Henry said, “but I give you my word that everything possible is being done to assure my sister’s welfare.”

At that Charlie breathed a little easier. “I—we thought it might help if you came here to … uh, kind of assist in the … uh, investigation.”
Why was she stammering so? Just come out and say it, Charlie!
“I mean, you should know her better than any of us, and we hoped you might have some idea—”

“I’m sorry, but right now that would be impossible. However, I do appreciate your concern, and I thank you for calling.”

And Charlie Carr stood in her chilly hallway on Katherine Street listening to the terminal click as he hung up the phone.

How could anyone be so callous? Wasn’t the man worried at all? His
sister
has disappeared! Henry Kilpatrick should be right here in Elderberry, dragging the river if necessary! Charlie stood with her fist knotted around the receiver and reminded herself to breathe.

“Well, I’ll be!” Florence McCrary muttered from her switchboard in the Elderberry Telephone Office. “Don’t that just beat all?”

*   *   *

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to hold up your shoulders?” Miss Dimple said. “A proper posture is so important. It affects your entire physical well-being … gives your internal organs space to do what they’re meant to do.” She put aside the Agatha Christie book,
Murder in Three Acts,
one of several he had brought earlier and which she found she hadn’t read. “I had an uncle once with stooped shoulders like yours. Uncle Leon. Such a sad thing—died fairly young, I’m afraid. Of course he didn’t eat right. Perhaps you should try deep-breathing exercises.”

Her jailer set her supper tray on the table with a rattle and muttered as he turned to leave. She seldom understood him when he spoke from behind the mask—another witch one today, and he was obviously making an effort to disguise his voice—but Dimple Kilpatrick knew enough to realize the man was cursing under his breath.

How far could she push him? For all she knew he probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if it wasn’t in his interests to keep her alive and minimally healthy. He had demanded she give him the gold brooch that had belonged to her mother along with the message for Henry—to prove, she supposed, that she was, indeed, their prisoner. She was fond of the brooch as it was the only possession of her mother’s she had, but she hadn’t hesitated to comply with his request. After all, she assumed it would end up in Henry’s hands. The message to Henry had been brief and to the point, letting him know she was alive and well, and although her jailer had suggested it, she did not beg her brother to go along with any demands.

As soon as he slammed the door on his way out Dimple rose to see what he had brought for her supper: a baked potato, a small dish of canned tomatoes, a wedge of cheese, and a slice of baker’s bread—the presliced kind that came wrapped in wax paper. She was pleased to see it was accompanied by a large mug of steaming tea. She sniffed. Not ginger mint, but it was hot and strong, and she sipped it gratefully. She didn’t plan to give up on the ginger mint, just as she had continued to ask for mystery novels. This one, she noticed, had come from the local library. Would her friend Virginia take note? Not that she was the only mystery reader in town, but it was worth a try. She had even left a message—several, in fact—within the pages of the books, but she suspected her captor didn’t mean to return them.

Miss Dimple broke off some of the cheese, added it to the still-warm potato, and spooned canned tomatoes on top. Surprisingly, she found it quite palatable.

Earlier that day she had leapt to her feet and run to the window when gravel crunched under the wheels of a vehicle close by. It sounded as if it might have been a heavy truck or perhaps a van, but it didn’t come near enough for her to see it or call to anyone. Although she had on occasion crept to the top of the stairs to listen to what went on above her, Miss Dimple had never heard anyone talking. A telephone rang now and again in some distant room and she could hear someone walking about. She wasn’t certain how many people were staying in the place where she was being held, but there was one thing about which she was sure. She now knew who her jailer was.

After her meal, Miss Dimple stacked the empty dishes on the tray and carried it to the top of the stairs as she had been asked to do. An overhead lightbulb suspended from the ceiling over the stairway burned day and night, and from the very first day, a plan had begun to form in Miss Dimple’s mind, but she wasn’t ready to put it into action just yet.

Miss Dimple sat in the rocking chair by the gas heater and began sewing on her patchwork quilt of patriotic colors in red, white, and blue, and it was coming along quite nicely, she thought. As she stitched, she thought of her brother. Poor Henry! What a dilemma he must be in, but she knew he would make the right choices. Her freedom, and possibly her country’s depended on it.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

Cornelia Emerson lingered in her room until the very last minute when she heard the cook—Odessa something or other—ring the bell for supper. Actually, it wasn’t her room but belonged to Miss Dimple, or it had until recently, and everything about it was modest and unassuming: the small oak desk by the window, the white-painted bureau against the wall, even the neat single bed with its white tufted counterpane. The tiny closet, which had been emptied of the former occupant’s clothing, was spacious enough to hold all she would need for a while at least. The room suited Cornelia just fine. That Chadwick woman who owned the place had informed her in no uncertain terms the arrangement was only temporary until Dimple Kilpatrick returned. Well, that was all right with her!

Wetting her fingers, she tucked a stray strand of dark hair into place and pinched her cheeks for color. The others should be seated by now and were probably waiting for her. Well, let them. She had promised—very much against her will—to submit to a game of bridge after supper. Cornelia sighed before going downstairs. It was all part of the job, wasn’t it? But at least the food was good.

*   *   *

Charlie stood on the corner and watched them, what seemed an unending line of khaki-colored trucks filled with soldiers lining benches on either side. She smiled and waved as they passed, and most of them waved back. They looked so young—
were
young—many younger than she, and when they tossed addresses from the truck, she tried to write to as many as possible. She still heard from a couple of them, but recently, many of her letters had gone unanswered.

Last night she had written her brother again. It had been almost a month since his last letter and it had become literally painful to watch her mother wait for the mail. Charlie tried to find peace in the anesthesia of
not knowing
. If you didn’t know, then he couldn’t be somewhere fighting for his life or wounded, or lying dead on a distant battlefield. Fain would be safe until the boy on the black bicycle knocked at their door with a telegram from the War Department.
We regret to inform you …