Susan Albert - The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

Mr. Moseley interrupted again. “Archie Mann suspects every stranger of being a revenue agent, Liz. He’s only right fifty percent of the time.”

Lizzy nodded and went on, hurrying to get it all out before she was interrupted again. “Buddy Norris rode up on his motorcycle and collared Diamond and put him on the train. But before he did that, Leona Ruth Adcock spilled the beans on where Miss Jamison was staying. So Diamond jumped off the train and came back to town and went to Miss Hamer’s house to try and shoot her through the kitchen window after it got dark. But Sally-Lou and DessaRae banged on pots and sang and Miss Hamer gave him the Rebel yell, which finished him off. Buddy Norris nabbed him and put him in jail, which is where he is right now.” Lizzy stopped, concerned that she might have mixed things up a bit or left out something important. “But of course,” she added, “Verna and Bessie and I had no idea about the tax case against Al Capone, or that Miss Jamison was a witness.”

“My god.” Mr. Moseley was staring at her. “You’re telling me that all this happened yesterday, while I was in Montgomery arranging Miss Jamison’s plea bargain? And that you were involved? You and the other… Dahlias?”

“Well, yes, I guess you’d have to say we were involved. You don’t have to worry, though. Miss Jamison is safe. Only she’s not a platinum blonde anymore. Beulah dyed her brown, and Miss Lake is wearing Beulah’s old red wig. Nobody will ever recognize either of them. And Frankie Diamond is in jail.”

Mr. Moseley was reaching for his jacket, thrusting his arms into it. “Diamond’s been booked? On what charge?”

“Attempted assault with a deadly weapon, attempted burglary, and trespassing. Oh, and disturbing the peace. And anything else that Deputy Norris was able to think of.”

Mr. Moseley was already on his way to the door. Liz got up and followed him.

“I’m going over to the jail, Liz. Telephone Sheriff Burns and tell him to meet me there, pronto.” He grabbed his hat from the coat tree and jammed it on his head. “I want to see that deputy, too. The kid deserves a medal. And there may be a reward, as well. Diamond is wanted on suspicion in a pair of murders last month in a Chicago whorehouse.”

“My goodness,” Lizzy breathed. “And to think that Bessie and Verna and Myra May and I were as close to him as-” Her breath caught.

In two strides, Mr. Moseley was standing in front of her. “I don’t know how you and your buddies do it, Liz,” he said, “but you’ve done it again.” And then, to Lizzy’s astonishment, he bent forward and kissed her, full and hard, on the mouth.

Then he turned and headed for the door again. “Call the sheriff,” he commanded over his shoulder. “Now!”

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.