The Darling Dahlias And The Eleven Oclock Lady (A Darling Dahlias Mystery) - Hardcover

Albert, Susan Wittig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410482200 ISBN 13: 9781410482204

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 2015

Synopsis

"New York Times" bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert transports readers to the summer of 1934, when a sensational murder shakes up the small Southern town of Darling, Alabama and pulls in the ladies of the Darling Dahlias garden club, who never let the grass grow under their feet when there s a mystery to solve
The eleven o clock lady has always been one of garden club president Liz Lacy s favorite spring wildflowers. The plant is so named because the white blossoms don t open until the sun shines directly on them and wakes them up.
But another Eleven O Clock Lady is never going to wake up again. Rona Jean Hancock a telephone switchboard operator who earned her nickname because her shift ended at eleven, when her nightlife was just beginning has been found strangled with her own silk stocking in a very unladylike position.
Gossip sprouts like weeds in a small town, and Rona Jean s somewhat wild reputation is the topic of much speculation regarding who might have killed her. As the Darling Dahlias begin to sort through Rona Jean s private affairs, it appears there may be a connection to some skullduggery at the local Civilian Conservation Corps camp. Working at the camp, garden club vice president Ophelia Snow digs around to expose the truth before a killer pulls up stakes and gets away with murder.
Includes Southern-style Depression-era Recipes"

About this title

About the Author

Susan Wittig Albert grew up on a farm in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. A former professor of English and a university administrator and vice president, she is the"New York Times"bestsellingauthor of the China Bayles Mysteries, the Darling Dahlias Mysteries, and the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. Some of her recent titles include" Death Come Quickly, Widow s Tears," " The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush," and "The Tale of Castle Cottage." She and her husband, Bill, coauthor a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries under the name Robin Paige, which includes such titles as "Death at Glamis Castle "and "Death at Whitechapel.""

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Darling Dahlias Club Roster, Summer 1934

CLUB OFFICERS

Elizabeth Lacy, club president. Secretary to Mr. Benton Moseley, attorney-at-law, and garden columnist for the Darling Dispatch.

Ophelia Snow, club vice president and secretary. Holds two jobs: at the Darling Dispatch and as liaison officer in the quartermaster’s office at Camp Briarwood, the new CCC camp. Wife of Darling’s mayor, Jed Snow.

Verna Tidwell, club treasurer. Cypress County treasurer and probate clerk. A widow, Verna lives with her beloved Scottie, Clyde.

Myra May Mosswell, club communications secretary. Co-owner of the Darling Telephone Exchange and the Darling Diner. Lives with Violet Sims and Violet’s little girl, Cupcake, in the flat over the diner.

CLUB MEMBERS

Earlynne Biddle. A rose fancier. Married to Henry Biddle, the manager at the Coca-Cola bottling plant, and works part-time in the office there. Teaches reading at Camp Briarwood.

Bessie Bloodworth. Proprietor of Magnolia Manor, a boardinghouse for genteel elderly ladies next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse. Grows vegetables and herbs in the Manor’s backyard and manages the vegetable garden at Camp Briarwood.

Fannie Champaign Dickens. Proprietor of Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux and noted designer of women’s hats. Newly (and happily) married to Charlie Dickens, the editor of the Darling Dispatch.

Mrs. George E. Pickett (Voleen) Johnson. Widow of the former bank president and notable town matron, specializes in pure white flowers. Part owner (with Miss Tallulah LaBelle) of the Darling Savings and Trust Bank.

Mildred Kilgore. Owner and manager of Kilgore Motors. She and her husband, Roger, have a big house near the ninth green of the Cypress Country Club, where Mildred grows camellias.

Aunt Hetty Little. Gladiola lover, town matriarch, and senior member of the club. A “regular Miss Marple” who knows all the Darling secrets.

Lucy Murphy. Grows vegetables and fruit on a small market farm on the Jericho Road and supervises the kitchen at Camp Briarwood. Married to Ralph Murphy, who works on the railroad.

Raylene Riggs. Myra May Mosswell’s mother and the newest Dahlia. Cooks at the Darling Diner and lives at the Marigold Motor Court with Pauline DuBerry.

Miss Dorothy Rogers. Librarian for Darling and for Camp Briarwood. Knows the Latin name of every plant and insists that everyone else should, too. Resident of Magnolia Manor, where she plants her small flower-and-vegetable garden in very straight rows.

Beulah Trivette. Owns Beulah’s Beauty Bower, where all the Dahlias go to get beautiful and catch up on the latest news. Artistically talented, Beulah loves cabbage roses and other exuberant flowers.

Alice Ann Walker. Grows irises and daylilies, which don’t take a lot of time or attention—important for Alice Ann, who works full-time as a cashier at the Darling Savings and Trust Bank. Her disabled husband, Arnold, tends the family vegetable garden.

ONE

“I’ve Got the World on a String”

In less than an hour, Violet Sims’ well-ordered life was going to change. But right now, she was enjoying what in her opinion was the very best hour of a summer’s day—the earliest hour. That was the time when she went out to work in the vegetable garden behind the Darling Diner, which she owned and managed with her friend, Myra May Mosswell. And this hour, on this Saturday, seemed especially perfect. It had been hot and sultry all week, and the day ahead was likely to be another hot one, with the prospect of a storm in the afternoon. But the morning air was still cool and fresh, the dew was a silvery sheen on the ripe and flawless tomatoes, and the sun had just begun to peer over the rooftops of the little town of Darling to see if something of interest might be happening there on this very last day of June 1934.

And yes, things were already happening, interesting or not, depending on your point of view. Next door to the diner on the east, J.D. Henderson, who helped Mr. Musgrove in the hardware store, was burning trash in an old metal barrel behind the store. Across the alley and two doors to the north on Robert E. Lee, Mrs. Vader’s rooster was letting Mr. Vader know that it was high time he jumped out of bed and started for his foreman’s job at the Pine Mill Creek, where another big lumber order from the new CCC camp down by Briar’s Swamp was waiting to be filled. In fact, Camp Briarwood had placed so many orders recently (construction materials for officers’ quarters, a headquarters building, and a mess hall) that Mr. Vader had to get up extra early to supervise the three new men he’d just hired. But he didn’t complain. Everybody was happy that the sawmill was hiring again.

On the other side of Robert E. Lee, Bill Board, the milkman, was whistling as he delivered two quarts of Board’s Best milk and a pint of Board’s Best cream to Mr. and Mrs. Hart and the three little Hart grandchildren, who lived next door to Hart’s Peerless Laundry. Bill Board was whistling because the Harts had not only doubled their dairy order but paid their bill, to boot. The laundry business was flourishing, so much so that the Harts had had to hire two colored girls from Maysville to help with the extra washing. More jobs!

And from the diner’s kitchen window came the not-so-melodic sound of Myra May Mosswell singing along with Bing Crosby’s rendition of “I’ve Got the World on a String.” The song made Violet smile as she bent over and began filling her lard bucket with fresh green beans for the noon lunch. Actually, she thought, she’d better fill two buckets while she was at it. Now that the CCC camp was shifting into high gear, business was picking up nicely. In fact, it had gotten so good that she and Myra May were finally able to pay themselves a halfway decent salary. Under her breath, Violet hummed along with the radio. She had the world on a string and the morning was off to a glorious start.

Which was exactly how she felt for the next, oh, ten minutes or so. After that, the storm clouds began to gather (metaphorically speaking) and the day went downhill in a hurry.

*   *   *

In the sunshine-filled kitchen, Myra May glanced up at the clock over the sink. It was six thirty, and the diner would be open for business in a half hour. Violet’s sourdough bread was baking in the oven, and it was time to get the breakfast items started. She opened the refrigerator and took out eggs and milk, in preparation for stirring up pancake batter. On the menu, the pancakes were paired with her mother Raylene’s Southern fried apples and bacon or ham. Raylene’s fried apples had become a big hit with the Darling Diner’s breakfast customers.

Over in the corner, three-year-old Cupcake was dressing her Patsy doll and warbling gleefully with the radio. “Sittin’ on a rainbow, gonna make the rain go!” she crowed, and danced the Patsy doll up and down in time to the music. Seeing the morning sun glint off her soft strawberry curls, Myra May thought that Cupcake was much cuter than little Shirley Temple, the child movie star. She was an even bigger hit with the customers than her grandmother’s fried apples. In fact, she was such a popular little girl that she had been selected as Little Miss Darling for the town’s Fourth of July celebration coming up next week.

On the other side of the kitchen partition, behind the diner’s long counter, Cupcake’s grandmother, Raylene Riggs, had just finished making a pot of coffee, and the aroma of fresh coffee filled the air. Myra May could hear Raylene singing along, too, in her odd little tuneless way: Life’s a wonderful thing as long as I’ve got that string.

The song had it right, Myra May thought as she began breaking eggs into the heavy yellow pottery bowl. Life was a wonderful thing these days—well, it was going in that direction, anyway. She was her own boss, serving good, wholesome food to customers and friends in her very own place of business. Around her were gathered the three people she loved most in the world: her dear friend Violet, their little Cupcake, and her mother, from whom she had been separated for most of her life. Best of all, the gray skies of the Depression were finally beginning to lighten, at least here in Darling, where people seemed to have more money than they’d had in the past three or four years.

And the credit for this improved state of affairs, in Myra May’s opinion, was almost entirely due to the Civilian Conservation Corps camp, a half-dozen miles south of town. Some of the local people were working at the camp in various capacities, so they had a little extra money to spend. The camp quartermaster bought supplies, equipment, and services from local merchants, like the Pine Creek Sawmill and Mann’s Mercantile and Hart’s Peerless Laundry. The camp advertised its needs in the Dispatch and bought milk, butter, eggs, and produce for the camp kitchen from the local farmers. And when the CCC boys came to town on weekends, they spent their money at the Palace Theater, the dime store, the new roller rink, the pool hall, and (of course!) the diner. A couple of months ago, Myra May had started staying open late on Friday and Saturday nights just so the boys could stop in for a hamburger or a milk shake after the last picture show.

All of these new customers added up to a lot more money flowing into Darling. Why, according to Mayor Jed Snow, the camp had pumped some forty-five hundred dollars into Darling’s economy in just the last month alone! Which in turn meant that Darlingians who had been flat broke and despairing could now afford to pay thirty-five cents for a meal at the diner or a dollar fifty for a new pair of shoes at the Mercantile or a quarter for a kite or an O-Boy Yo-Yo for the kids at the Five and Dime.

Sitting on a rainbow. Myra May was smiling as she beat the eggs and milk together. Yes, it was actually beginning to seem that they had put the worst of the dark clouds and hard times behind them. Life was good and getting better and better every day.

At least, that’s how Myra May felt at that instant. She would be feeling very differently a few moments from now.

*   *   *

On the other side of the partition, behind the lunch counter, Raylene finished with the coffee percolator and began wrapping the silverware in paper napkins, so they would be ready to set the tables as the customers came in. She was making extra wraps this morning, because she had the feeling that today was going to be a busy day—and something of a strange day, she thought, wrinkling her nose and frowning just a little.

Raylene had learned long ago to trust her feelings, for she was psychic. “Not very much, actually,” she told people when they noticed. She liked to downplay her ability so folks wouldn’t pester her to read their palms or tell their fortunes. “And mostly just about little things.”

Like what things people wanted to eat. At today’s lunch, for instance, Raylene already knew that Sheriff Buddy Norris was going to change his mind and order liver and onions instead of the usual meat loaf, while Mayor Jed Snow would go with the meat loaf instead of fried chicken, and the county commissioner, Amos Tombull, would top off his stewed chicken and dumplings with peach pie and ice cream. It was a good thing to be psychic about, as she told her daughter, Myra May. It meant having a pretty good idea of how much of everything to cook.

But occasionally there was something else. Like right now, she had a disquieting feeling that she couldn’t quite shake when she thought of the day ahead. She frowned again, catching a fleeting glimpse, in her mind’s eye, of men traipsing through the diner’s backyard and strangers coming into the place and asking questions about—

“Miz Raylene,” came an uncertain voice. “Miz Raylene, you busy?”

Raylene looked up. It was Lenore Looper, a slight, brown-haired young woman who worked the eleven-to-seven shift on the switchboard three times a week. The Darling Telephone Exchange was located in the back room of the diner. When the Exchange first opened, with only a couple of dozen customers, it had operated from seven in the morning until seven at night. Now, practically everybody in town had a phone and the Exchange had to be staffed around the clock. The girl who worked the night shift was allowed to nap on the narrow cot along one wall, as long as she kept an ear cocked for emergency calls. It looked to Raylene as if Lenore had been doing just that, for the bobby pins were falling out of her hair, her print dress was twisted, and she was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Raylene reached up and turned down the volume of the Philco radio that sat on a shelf behind the counter. “What is it, Lenore?”

Lenore pulled at the bodice of her dress to straighten it. “It’s Bettina Higgens, who works over at the Beauty Bower. She just called the switchboard, askin’ about Rona Jean.”

“Rona Jean?” Raylene asked, frowning. The room seemed suddenly darker, as though a couple of the light bulbs over the counter had just burned out. “She worked the three-to-eleven shift yesterday, didn’t she?”

“Yes, ma’am. But it seems she didn’t come home last night.” Lenore yawned, covering it with a dainty hand. “Bettina is Roma Jean’s roommate. She’s asking if anybody here knows where Rona Jean might’ve went. If they do, she says would they please call her.”

Feeling a flutter of apprehension, Raylene went to the pass-through and leaned across the shelf into the kitchen. “Myra May, Bettina Higgens is calling about Rona Jean, her roommate. Seems she didn’t get home last night.”

“She didn’t?” Frowning, Myra May dropped the big whisk into the crockery bowl. “Where did she go?”

“That’s what Bettina wants to know. Any ideas?”

“Afraid not.” Myra May wiped her hands on the cotton apron she wore over her slacks and plaid blouse. “I checked her out at eleven last night, when she finished her shift. I didn’t ask where she was headed—I just figured she was going home.” She quirked an eyebrow. “But you know Rona Jean.”

As a matter of fact, Raylene did know Rona Jean, who—while she was an excellent switchboard operator when she paid attention—was a little on the wild side. She’d be late to work or ask to get off early. Or she’d be talking to one of her friends when she was supposed to be on duty and let the calls get ahead of her on the switchboard. Worst yet, she had listened in at least once on a private telephone call, which was against the Exchange’s hard-and-fast rule. Myra May had cautioned her that if she was caught listening one more time, she’d be looking for another job.

By now feeling distinctly uneasy, Raylene turned back to Lenore. “Myra May says that Rona Jean finished up here at eleven last night, and that’s the last we’ve seen of her. If Bettina is worried, she should let Sheriff Norris know, so he can keep an eye out for—”

At that moment, the back door banged open and Raylene turned to see Violet, ashen faced and trembling, in the doorway. “Come quick!” she cried breathlessly,...

Edition details

• Publisher: Thorndike Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1410482200
• ISBN 13: 9781410482204
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 453