The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies (35 page)

A few hours later, Lizzy was straightening her desk and getting ready to go to lunch when the door opened. She turned to see Bessie step in and greeted her, surprised: it was the second time in two days that she had come to the office. But when Lizzy looked closer, she saw that Bessie’s eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying.

“Why, what’s the matter, Bessie?” Lizzy asked, putting an arm around the older woman’s shoulders.

Bessie sniffled and held out a key ring. “Would you drive me out to the cemetery, Liz? Myra May said we can take her car. I asked her to drive, but Violet isn’t back yet and she can’t leave the diner during the dinner rush. I could walk—it’s only a couple of miles, but I’d rather not do this alone. And I don’t feel as though I can wait until late afternoon, when Myra May will be free.”

With one more look at Bessie’s face, Lizzy decided that lunch could wait. She reached for the car key. “I’ve never driven Big Bertha before, but if you’re game, I’ll give it a try.”

Big Bertha, Myra May’s 1920 green Chevrolet touring car, was parked in the ramshackle garage behind the diner. Bertha was ten years old and on her fifth set of tires and her second carburetor, but she still had a good many miles left in her. Lizzy climbed in feeling doubtful, but the car looked enough like Grady’s Ford that she thought she could manage it. Bravely, she inserted the key and pushed the starter button, and (after a little coaxing) the engine started. Gingerly, she backed it out, shifted into low gear, and swung the car out onto Robert E. Lee, startling a fat white hen that clucked frantically and scurried to get out of the way. “Where are we going?” she asked, over the rattle and cough of the motor.

“Schoolhouse Road,” Bessie said, holding on to her hat as they bounced along. “The Darling Cemetery.”

The morning had been sunny, but gray clouds were beginning to gather to the south. The air felt heavy with moisture and the trees drooped, their limbs too languid to support the weight of their summer foliage. But driving was pleasant because the canvas-topped touring car, which had no side curtains, admitted a breeze.

Lizzy held her questions until they turned off Schoolhouse Road and drove through the black-painted ironwork gates and into the cemetery. The rolling, wooded grounds were crowded with gravesites dating back to Darling’s founding, marked by simple headstones as well as elaborate stone urns, stone Confederate soldiers with stone rifles, and stone angels blowing silent stone trumpets to summon the dead to their eternal reward.

Lizzy felt an immense curiosity. What were they doing here? Why had they come? Why had Bessie been crying? But all she asked was, “Where to now, Bessie?”

Bessie’s voice was shaky. “To the left. Follow the lane all the way around to the far right corner.” A few minutes later, she put her hand on Lizzy’s arm. “Stop, Liz. We’re here.”

Here,
Lizzy saw, was the unoccupied back corner of the cemetery, where a barbed wire side fence right-angled into an old stone wall that was covered in kudzu vines. The rest of the graveyard was neatly mowed and trimmed, and there were bouquets of flowers tucked into Mason jars at the foot of many of the headstones. There was even a recent grave, a heap of wilted flowers from mourners’ gardens blanketing the freshly turned soil—Mrs. Turner’s grave, Lizzy guessed. The old woman had died the week before. But there were no headstones in the back corner, hidden behind a clump of trees. The area had been allowed to grow up in Johnson grass and weeds, and in contrast to the tended graveyard, it wore an air of unkempt neglect.

Lizzy and Bessie got out of the car. The sky overhead was darker now, and a moist breeze that smelled of rain lifted the kudzu leaves on the vines along the stone wall. Lizzy shivered, feeling somehow apprehensive, but not knowing why. She clasped her arms around herself and stood for a moment, glancing around.

“Okay, so we’re here. What are we looking for?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Bessie said bleakly. “Maybe a grave marker, or maybe a metal stake. Or maybe nothing at all.” She pointed toward the corner. “Let’s just walk around and look. Back there, along the wall.”

Lizzy followed her friend through the tall grass, the foliage catching at the hem of her dress. Not having any idea what they were looking for, she felt doubtful and hesitant. But following Bessie’s lead, she kept her eyes on the ground—or rather, on what she could see of it through the thick grass. The light seemed to be dimming as the clouds thickened over the noon sun, and in a nearby tree a crow squawked, protesting their intrusion.

A moment later, she stubbed her toe against something and looked down. At first she thought it was a rock, perhaps fallen from the wall. But when she reached down to push the grass aside, she saw that it was a small, irregularly shaped piece of rough-cut granite, sunk crookedly into the ground and almost covered with earth. There was only a corner sticking up an inch or so—the corner she had stumbled against. In the center, there were two crooked letters, shallowly and inexpertly cut with a chisel.
HH.

“Bessie,” she called urgently. “Come and see.”

Bessie hurried over and looked where Lizzy was pointing. With a little moan, she dropped to her knees and touched the stone, then began to pull the grass away from it. As she did, Lizzy thought she could trace out the larger outline of a grave, its surface sunken a little.

Lizzy put her hand on Bessie’s shoulder. “It’s Harold, isn’t it,” she said quietly.

“It’s Harold,” Bessie replied, no longer trying to hold back the tears. “We’ve found him. He’s been here, right here, all these years. So close, so close!”

She bent over, her shoulders heaving, and gave way to sobs. Lizzy knelt beside her and took her in her arms, leaning her cheek against Bessie’s gray hair. She did not try to speak. There was nothing to say.

The rain began a little later, a gentle rain, like a warm mist enveloping the grasses and flowers. Lizzy and Bessie left the gravesite and went to sit in the car.

“How did you know where to look?” Lizzy asked, taking a clean handkerchief out of her handbag and handing it to Bessie.

“It was Miss Hamer,” Bessie said, wiping her eyes. “She told me yesterday that my father had bragged to her that he was going to pay Harold money to jilt me and leave Darling. But Harold wasn’t the kind of man who would let somebody bribe him into doing something like that. In fact, he was likely to be pretty angry about it.”

“I certainly hope so!” Lizzy exclaimed hotly.

Bessie was going on. “Anyway, I found a box of Daddy’s papers in the attic, and last night, after you and Verna left, I looked through them. That’s where I found this little map that my father had drawn. The date on it is the same week that Harold disappeared.” She opened her handbag and took it out. “When I saw it, I had an inkling of what could have happened.” She lifted her head and glanced around them at the softened outlines of the granite monuments, just visible through the mist. Her voice trembled and she drew in her breath to steady it. “I must’ve been here for buryings a dozen times since Daddy put him here, and I never knew. Never had the slightest idea.”

Startled, Lizzy asked, “Do you think your father . . .
killed
him? Because he wouldn’t take the money?”

Bessie gave a long, weary sigh, as if she were breathing out a century of sadness. “My father had a hair-trigger temper, Liz. He could explode at the littlest thing. Maybe he offered Harold some money—it wouldn’t have been very much, because he was such a skinflint. Harold probably laughed at him and told him what he could do with it. Daddy got mad and shot him.”

“He had a gun? Your father had a gun?”

Bessie’s hands were clenched tight. “He had a little revolver that he kept with him when he was at work. He said people sometimes do crazy things when their nearest and dearest died.” She opened her hands and flexed her fingers. “Or maybe he didn’t shoot him. Maybe they got into a fight and Daddy hit him with a stick of stove wood or something. Maybe . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“But how could your father bury him here without anybody finding out?” Lizzy asked.

Bessie sighed. “I don’t suppose it would’ve been very hard. There were always a couple of coffins in the back room at the funeral home, and Daddy was out here at the cemetery several times a week. He could have paid one of his gravediggers to dig the grave and given him a bottle of whiskey to keep it quiet.” She chuckled sadly. “By the time the whiskey was gone, the gravedigger would have forgotten where he dug it. Daddy could easily have brought the coffin out here and buried Harold himself, maybe at night. Or maybe he thought he was safe, screened by those trees, so he did it in the daytime. People saw him out here so often that I doubt that anyone would ask him what he was doing.”

“And the grave marker?” Liz asked.

“It’s nothing but a scrap of granite. Daddy owned the gravestone business, Liz. It could have been just something he had around. It looks like he cut the initials himself.” Another sad chuckle. “He was never much of a hand when it came to stonecutting.”

“Oh, Bessie,” Lizzy said. “I am so sorry. What . . . are you going to do?”

Bessie dried her eyes again and handed Lizzy’s handkerchief back. “Do you mean, am I going to tell anybody? Like—the sheriff?”

Lizzy nodded. “Or have the body exhumed and autopsied, so you know for sure how he . . . how it happened?”

Bessie was silent for a moment. “I doubt if I have a legal right to ask that, Liz. And I really don’t think Miss Hamer is strong enough to go through all that ugliness. She’s convinced that Harold took Daddy’s money and left and was too ashamed to ever get back in touch.” She swallowed a little hiccup. “As for telling the sheriff—Well, Harold’s been dead for nearly thirty years now, and nobody remembers him except for his sister and me. Miss Jamison is a cousin, but I doubt if she ever met him.”

“And your father’s been dead for a decade,” Lizzy said. “A dead man can’t be prosecuted.”

Bessie nodded sadly. “So I’m not sure there’s any point in telling anyone. I’m the only one who really cares.” She looked back in the direction of the grave. “But the mystery is finally solved. And I know where he is—at last. Maybe I’ll get a proper headstone. And have the area cleaned up and mowed.”

“Yes, you could do that,” Lizzy said gently. “I’ll be glad to help, if you want.”

“Thank you, Liz,” Bessie said, reaching for her hand. “What would I do without you?” She sniffed. “Without you and Verna and Myra May and—” She shook her head, unable to go on.

“I know,” Lizzy said, and put her arms around Bessie. “We all depend on one another. And that’s good. That’s the way it should be.”

They sat together for a while, and then Lizzy glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, but I need to get back to the office. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bessie said. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I hope I haven’t kept you too long.”

“Not at all,” Lizzy said warmly, and pushed Big Bertha’s starter button.

But nothing happened. She pushed it again. Still nothing. She pumped the accelerator pedal, but she knew that wasn’t the problem. She tried again. “The battery, maybe?” she hazarded. “I’m not sure how often Myra May drives this car.”

“Oh, dear,” Bessie moaned. “Don’t tell me we’re
stranded
!”

“Looks like maybe we are,” Lizzy said with a sigh. “At least it’s stopped raining, and it’s a little cooler.” She picked up her handbag, opened the door, and got out. “We’re no more than a couple of miles from town. I can walk back and send someone to pick you up.”

“To heck with that,” Bessie said smartly. “I’m not too old to walk.”

But as it turned out, Lizzy and Bessie didn’t have to walk all the way to town. They had gone about halfway, walking along the side of the dirt road, when Lizzy heard a vehicle chugging up behind them. She turned to look.

It was Mr. Clinton’s old red Ford two-seater taxi, from Monroeville. Many people preferred to pay him to drive them home to Darling, instead of waiting all afternoon for the train. Sometimes, he brought more than one passenger, dropping them off along the way. Often, people flagged him down from the road and he took them where they needed to go, either to Darling or Monroeville, depending on which way he was headed. Most of the time, he charged only fifteen cents for a one-way trip (a nickel less than the twenty-cent train ticket).

This afternoon, he had just one passenger. In the backseat of the taxi sat Violet Sims, her red felt cloche askew, her taffy-colored curls slightly bedraggled. Her face was drawn and tired.

When she saw Lizzy and Bessie, she sat up straight and leaned forward to tap Mr. Clinton on the shoulder. “Stop!” she cried. “We need to pick these ladies up!”

Mr. Clinton, a cigarette hanging out of one corner of his mouth, braked the Ford. “You gals goin’ into Darlin’?” he asked in his cracked voice. “Well, come on. Hop in. One up here in front with me, one in the back with the little mother.”