The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree (36 page)

But it was resolved. The sheriff, feeling as if he had just been handed a present (which he had), got into his car and drove straight to Monroeville, where he spent the better part of an hour obtaining a signed affidavit from Dr. Harper, who decided that voluntary cooperation was better than the alternative. Then he drove straight back and got the county judge to sign a search warrant.

The search of Fred Harper’s house was successful, at least as far as the sheriff was concerned (Mr. Harper would not have agreed), for a .22 revolver was discovered in the springs of the parlor sofa. Confronted with that, and with the photo, the bank book, and the statement that his brother provided, Mr. Harper broke down and confessed to shooting Miss Scott.

His motive? He had made the mistake of bragging to her that he had taken some money from the bank in Monroeville, and she knew that he was continuing the practice at Darling Savings and Trust. She was already blackmailing him to the tune of ten dollars a week. Thinking that this ought to be a family affair (and recalling the sight of Miss Scott in her teddy), he had asked her to marry him. She refused. She wanted more money or she would tell what she knew. He killed her to keep her from spilling the beans.

The day after Mr. Harper was arrested and charged with murder, an additional charge of attempted embezzlement was filed against him. He was accused of taking nearly five thousand dollars in small amounts from various depositors’ accounts and depositing the money here and there. Some of it had gone into Bunny’s account, the rest into various inactive accounts, some of them belonging to dead people. The money, however, was still in the bank. Mr. Johnson was able to reverse these deposits and the cash was returned to the accounts from which it had been stolen. Nobody lost a dime. And best of all (as far as the Dahlias were concerned): Alice Ann was invited to come back to work, where she was promoted to head cashier and given a raise of ten cents an hour.

In the end, even the bank examiner was satisfied. Miss Rutledge (vindictive or not) made good on her promise to discuss the bank’s loan portfolio with him. After hearing her story and her threat to go to the Banking Commissioner in Montgomery, the examiner met with George E. Pickett Johnson. Their discussion must have been an interesting one, for the next morning, the two unsecured loans that were the bank’s most potentially damaging liabilities—one to Mrs. Voleen Johnson’s father, the other to her brother—were paid in full, righting the bank’s capitalization-to-debt ratio and allowing Darling Savings and Trust to be removed from the “troubled banks” list. This was a good thing, because the examiner was a longtime friend of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. He would have hated to close their bank.

 

 

 

 

 

There were several other little mysteries, but they were cleared up over the next few days. Mr. and Mrs. Lester Lima came back home from their Florida vacation—a “second honeymoon,” Mrs. Lima called it, as she proudly displayed the diamond ring that Mr. Lima had bought her as a pledge of his undying love and affection. (“And an abject apology,” as Mildred Kilgore put it to Ophelia.) Mr. Lima reopened the drugstore and got busy filling all the prescriptions for the sick people who had gone without their medicines in his absence. Mrs. Lima put herself in charge of hiring, and after an exhaustive and highly competitive search, she found Miss Scott’s replacement, Mrs. Priscilla Prinney, age fifty-seven, mother of three and grandmother of eight.

Nadine Tillman, meanwhile, finally got around to letting her mother know where in the world she was. Her postcard arrived from Los Angeles, with a picture of the H-o-l-l-y-w-o-o-d L-a-n-d sign on the front (thirteen huge white letters planted on the side of Mount Lee, publicizing the new real estate development). Nadine had written a few lines on the back, saying that she was well and happy and hoping for a career in the movies. But she was broke and would really appreciate it if her mother could send a money order for ten dollars so she could pay her rent.

Maxwell Woodburn had no telephone, but Myra May was finally able to locate an address for him. He was very, very sorry when he learned about Bunny’s death. They had been corresponding for several years, he said, having met through the Baptist Sunday School Pen Pals list. He was a little surprised to hear that Bunny had been practicing her signature as Mrs. Maxwell Woodburn, for he was serving four years in the state penitentiary (he was truly a “pen pal,” he joked) and would not be able to marry anybody until he got out. But he appreciated the thought and wished that Bunny was still alive so he could tell her so.

Which leaves the mystery of Bessie Bloodworth’s ghost, the one she fired at with her twelve-gauge shotgun. Bessie was right, of course. The cloaked figure with the shovel was no ghost. He was Beatty Blackstone. He would not have revealed himself, except that he was wounded in his encounter with Bessie—not because she shot him (she really did shoot over his head when she discharged her gun) but because he somehow managed to slice his leg quite badly with the sharp edge of his shovel when he was trying to get away from Bessie’s twelve-gauge.

Beatty (who never liked to admit to weakness and didn’t like to spend money on doctors) put off treatment for several days. But when his leg became seriously infected and he could no longer walk, his wife Lenora insisted on taking him to the doctor. Doc Roberts scolded Beatty for not coming in earlier, then cleaned and stitched the wound and painted it with iodine. He had done all he could, he said, but Beatty would be lucky not to lose his leg. It was touch-and-go for a couple of days, but gradually the leg improved, and after a while, Beatty could get around again without too much trouble. But forever after, he walked with a limp.

This ghostly misadventure might not have come to light if it hadn’t been that Beatty, out of his head with pain, told Doc Roberts that he’d been injured when he was digging under the cucumber tree in Mrs. Blackstone’s garden. When Doc Roberts asked him why he was doing such an outlandish thing, Beatty, by that time rambling and incoherent, told him the whole story. Doc Roberts’ assistant, Maureen Wiggins, was helping the doctor sew Beatty up and overheard the tale.

Maureen told her mother-in-law, Leticia Wiggins, who had witnessed the ghost-bagging episode from the window of the Magnolia Manor.

Leticia told Bessie Bloodworth.

And Bessie told the Dahlias, when they met at the clubhouse the following Sunday afternoon.

“Dressed up like the Cartwright ghost!” Aunt Hetty Little exclaimed. “Why in the world?”

“And what was he looking for?” Earlynne Biddle wanted to know.

“He was looking for the Cartwright treasure,” Bessie explained. “Cornelia Cartwright’s mother’s family silver, which Cornelia buried in the garden when she thought that the Yankees were about to overrun the place and steal her blind.”

“I thought it was a baby she buried,” Mildred Kilgore said.

“She did bury her baby,” Bessie replied. “But she buried the silver, too.”

“But why was Beatty digging under the cucumber tree?” Lizzy asked, puzzled. “What made him think he’d find it there?”

“Because he had inherited a big box of papers from Mrs. Blackstone. Most of it was Blackstone family letters and diaries. But one of the items was a letter that Cornelia Cartwright wrote to Colonel Cartwright, telling him that the family silver was buried under their favorite cucumber tree. The poor woman died before the letter could be sent, and nobody ever saw it—until Beatty discovered it. He was hoping to find the Cartwright treasure.”

“Maybe that was why Beatty was looking at the plat books!” Verna exclaimed. “He must have been trying to determine the bounds of the property, to locate the tree.”

“Well, he obviously didn’t find the silver,” Myra May said. “Yesterday, his wife telephoned the grocery with an order. Mrs. Hancock reminded her that they owed four dollars, but Lenora said they could only pay half because it cost so much to doctor Beatty’s leg. If he had found what he was looking for, they’d have sold it to pay the bills.”

Aunt Hetty Little cleared her throat. “Speaking of paying bills,” she said, “we’d better talk about how we’re going to fix the roof on this house. We have a serious situation here, ladies. This afternoon, I mopped up a big puddle of water on the kitchen floor. That roof can’t wait”

“We could hold another plant sale,” Ophelia suggested hopefully.

“We only made two dollars and thirty-five cents at the last one,” Bessie replied. “It was a lot of work, too.”

“How about a rummage sale?” Mildred Kilgore asked.

“The Methodist ladies are planning two rummage sales this summer,” Beulah Trivette reported. “They wouldn’t take competition kindly.”

“We could raise the dues,” Mrs. Johnson proposed.

A collective sigh ran around the group and several shook their heads. But nobody could come up with any more ideas. Mrs. Johnson looked pleased.

“I move that we raise the dues,” she said.

“Let’s table that motion while we give the matter some more thought,” Aunt Hetty Little said, and the motion passed.

“Well, then,” Lizzy said, “if there’s no other business, the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn, so we can go out front and plant our sign.” Zeke still hadn’t gotten around to it.

A few moments later, they were all gathered out front. Bessie brought a shovel. Lizzy had her Kodak. Beulah and Verna placed the sign where it was supposed to go, and marked the spots where Bessie could dig the holes. Everybody else stood around and offered suggestions and encouragement as Bessie began to dig.

“Well, that was easy enough,” Bessie said, when the first hole was completed. She had dug about eighteen inches down. She handed the shovel to Lizzy. “Your turn, Liz.”

“Sure,” Lizzy said, and gave her Kodak to Verna to hold. She pushed the point of the shovel into the dirt, then cut out a small circle of turf. That done, she began to dig the hole, dumping the dirt off to the side. The job went easily until her shovel struck something. She put her foot on the shovel and pushed harder. It didn’t budge.

“A rock,” Alice Ann suggested.

“Doesn’t feel like a rock,” Lizzy said. “It’s a root, I think.”

“Probably a cucumber tree root,” Bessie said fondly, looking up at the tree overhead.

“Magnolia acuminata,”
Miss Rogers corrected.

Lizzy got down and began to pull the dirt out with her hands. “Yes, it’s a root. Must be huge.”

“Oh, dear,” Beulah said distractedly. “Will we have to put the sign somewhere else?”

“Maybe,” Lizzy said, still digging. “Or maybe—” She looked up. “I don’t think it is a root, after all. It looks like a box. A wooden box.”

“A box?” the Dahlias exclaimed, in unison.

And that’s what it was. The hole had to be enlarged, which required quite a bit more digging. Verna took over from Lizzy and Mildred Kilgore took over from Verna, and by the time Mildred handed the shovel over to Earlynne, they were nearly ready to lift it out. It was square, about two feet by two feet, and about eighteen inches deep.

A few moments later, the box, rotten and splintering, was sitting on the grass. Eager hands were opening it—carefully, for it was obviously very old. And when the lid was lifted, there was a collective chorus of awed ohs and ahs.

“Why, it’s the Cartwright silver!” Bessie cried in great excitement.

That’s exactly what it was: a set of thirty-six place settings of sterling silver flatware, Gorham’s Chantilly pattern, engraved with an ornate C. It was stained black from nearly seven decades underground but otherwise undamaged. And when they began to look more carefully, they found several pieces of old-fashioned jewelry—a bracelet set with a square-cut emerald, a pair of pearl earrings, and a small diamond ring—and a bag of twenty-dollar gold coins. Ten gold coins. Two hundred dollars’ worth of double eagles, still as perfect as the day they were minted, in 1852.

“Yankee money,” Earlynne Biddle said, and sniffed. Earlynne’s mother had been a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Earlynne had inherited her distaste for all things Yankee—even money.

“It’s Cornelia’s legacy,” Bessie said in a reverential tone. “Right where she said it was. Under the cucumber tree.”

“It’s
Magnolia acuminata,”
Miss Rogers said sharply.

“It’s our roof,” Aunt Hetty Little said happily. “Glory be, it’s our roof!”

1. Save all your bits of bread, the heels, crusts, etc. Use them for bread pudding, in stuffing, and to bread catfish. With the right care and attention, you will never run out of bread crumbs. (Lizzy Lacy)

2. Don’t throw away old feather beds or feather pillows. You can wash the feathers and they’ll be good as new. Take out the feathers and wash in a tub of real hot suds. Then spread them in the attic to dry, in a single layer. Do not dry in the wind, or you will have feathers all over the place. (Bessie Bloodworth)