The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady (24 page)

“So you gave her money,” Charlie said gently. “How much?” After a moment, he added, not quite so gently: “And when were you going to tell me about . . . this new addition to our family?”

Fannie bit her lip. “I was waiting for the right moment. I thought. . . I was hoping that when you saw how happy it made me, you would . . . well, soften toward the idea.” She paused. Not looking at him, she added, in a low voice, “I gave her a hundred and twenty-five dollars. She said she would probably need another hundred and fifty or two hundred.” She swallowed. “I know it's a lot of money, but I'd just gotten a check from Lilly Daché, and I . . . well, I cashed it and gave her what she needed.”

Charlie was stunned. A hundred and twenty-five was
more than he made in two months, and Fannie had just handed it over, with no assurance that Rona Jean would keep her end of the bargain. No wonder she hadn't wanted to tell him. It wasn't just the baby. It was the money she had paid for it.

“Did you mention anything about this to anybody else?” he asked.

Fannie shook her head. “Why?”

Charlie could think of all kinds of reasons, but he settled for one. “Because I'm not sure that it's legal to buy a baby in the state of Alabama.”

“I didn't
buy
a baby.” Fannie swallowed hard. “Rona Jean didn't want to be a mother. She wouldn't have been a
good
mother, Charlie, and the baby would have no father. I knew we could give it a home—a good home.”

“You
paid
for the child, Fannie. How could you be sure that she wouldn't just take the money and—”

“Please stop,” Fannie said despairingly. “Anyway, it doesn't matter. Rona Jean is dead, and the baby's dead, too. And I wanted the baby!” She dropped her face into her hands and began to cry. Charlie got up from his chair, went around the table, and leaned against her back, wrapping his arms around her and resting his cheek on her hair.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and knew he was telling the truth. He was sorry that Fannie was unhappy. He was sorry that Rona Jean was dead, and the baby was dead, and they weren't going to have the baby for their own. “I wish . . . I'm just sorry, Fannie.”

“Thank you,” Fannie said, her voice muffled. She turned on her chair, sheltering herself in his arms. “Do you think maybe you should tell Sheriff Norris? About the money, I mean. He may be looking through her things. If he finds it, he'll wonder who gave it to her. It might help if he knew.”

“Do you want the money back?” Charlie asked.
Assuming that Rona Jean hadn't already spent it.

“I don't know,” she said helplessly. “Whatever . . . whatever seems right to you and the sheriff.” She wiped her eyes on his sleeve. “I'm sorry about doing this behind your back, Charlie. When you and I discussed not having children, I got the idea that you really didn't want a family, which at the time, I appreciated. But then this came up, and I suddenly realized that I
wanted
a child. It seemed like the right thing to do—a good solution for her and for us, too. I know I should have talked to you before I made any arrangements, but I was afraid if I waited, she would change her mind. I thought I had to act fast.”

“I understand,” Charlie said gruffly. He put his fingers under her chin, lifted her face, and kissed her mouth. “It's okay, really it is, Fannie. Let's talk about this again, later. Now that I know how you really feel, maybe we can consider some other options. I mean—”

He stopped, not sure of what he meant, just sure that he wanted her to be happy. And if a baby was what it took, they could surely find a baby. The
right
baby.

“Oh, Charlie,” she sighed. “Oh, Charlie, I do love you.” She looked up at him, her eyes shining, and he knew that she understood what he wasn't yet able to say.

*   *   *

When Charlie left their apartment, the flags that hung from the courthouse windows were limp and listless, and the afternoon heat felt solid, like a damp sponge pressing down. Charlie had missed the noon weather forecast, but he wondered if the storm that had been brewing for several days had finally come alive and was gathering the strength to blow onshore. Looking to the southwest, he saw thunderheads building up,
dark against the pale afternoon sky. The farmers' fields and gardens could certainly use some rain, so a storm wouldn't be a bad thing, as long as there wasn't any wind.

He glanced at his watch. It wasn't one thirty yet, and the sheriff's office was less than a block away from the apartment, so he thought he'd walk over there first, before he drove out to the old Loblolly School to meet Mata Hari. He was troubled about Rona Jean's willingness to trade her baby for Fannie's money, and the sooner he told Buddy Norris about it, the better he would feel. But there was more to it than that, of course. He hadn't seen the sheriff since early that morning, and there might be new developments that would affect the story he was already writing in his head.

And something else, too. Fannie's compassion for Rona Jean and her difficult situation had turned his attention away from the mechanics of the murder and the murder investigation, and he found himself wanting to know more about Rona Jean herself. Beyond being “Hello, Central” and an unwed expectant mother, who
was
she? The first sentence of a story began to take shape in his mind.
The victim—a dedicated telephone operator—was killed not long after she left the Telephone Exchange at the end of her eleven o'clock shift at the switchboard.
Which gave him the idea for a title, “The Eleven O'clock Lady.”

And with the title came a spurt of energy, the kind of energy Charlie had always felt when he began to get his teeth into a story, a really
good
story. This wouldn't just be a story about a murder. It would be a personality story, a story about the victim, about Rona Jean: where she grew up, where she went to school, who her people were, how she'd gotten her job at the Exchange—maybe even the motive for her killing, if Buddy managed to find it out before the paper went to press. He could interview the other “Hello, Central” girls at the Exchange and write an appealing description of how they
all worked closely together, night and day, every day of the week, to keep the Darling telephones plugged in. And, of course, he could include a couple of paragraphs about Violet Sims, that hardworking young mother and co-owner of the Exchange, who had discovered the body when she was picking beans in the garden early in the morning. (That would be a nice, earthy touch.) And Myra May Mosswell, who not only owned the Exchange with her friend Violet, but owned the car where Violet found the body and where the murder had likely taken place.

In fact, that old green Chevrolet touring car (Myra May called her “Big Bertha” and treated her like one of the family) was already famous locally. Big Bertha had been bought new back in 1920 by Myra May's daddy, a much-loved Darling doctor who had driven it to deliver babies and visit deathbeds all over Cypress County. Lots of Darlingians no doubt cherished fond memories of Bertha and would be saddened to know that one of their “Hello, Central” girls had died on her front seat. He could also mention the fact that Myra May took loving care of Bertha and did all the repair work on the car herself, including changing her oil and spark plugs. Yes, Charlie thought, the car, as the scene of the murder, would make a fascinating story all on her own.

He was still thinking of the stories he would write for the
Dispatch
—and sell to the
Atlanta Constitution
as a bylined special—when he reached the sheriff's office, opened the door, and walked in. Buddy and his new deputy, Wayne Springer, were looking at a Dr Pepper bottle and talking about getting fingerprints of the people who had recently been in Myra May's car. They broke off when Charlie came in.

“Well, hey, if it isn't the press.” Buddy stuck his hands in his pockets and cocked his head to one side. “I hear you're putting out a special edition on the murder.”

“Word gets around, doesn't it?” Charlie said, noticing that Buddy wore a holster on his hip and that the deputy was armed, too. Roy Burns had rarely worn a weapon—Darling didn't seem the place for it. But maybe the new sheriff and his deputy were a different breed of lawmen. Or maybe Darling was becoming a different place, now that the CCC camp had moved in. Did Rona Jean's murder mark a turning point in the town's history? Maybe that was yet
another
story.

“And when will that be coming out?” Buddy asked curiously. “The special edition, I mean.”

“I'm figuring on Tuesday, so there'll be copies on the Fourth, when everybody comes to town for the big parade. There'll be plenty of room for late-breaking news, so keep me posted on developments.” Charlie paused, raising an expectant eyebrow. “Got any?”

“If you're asking has anybody been arrested,” Buddy said, “the answer is no.” His grin was crooked. “As Sheriff Burns used to say, ‘We ain't caught up with that damn son of a gun yet, but we're a-fixin' to just as quick as he slows down.'”

Charlie remembered Roy Burns saying that, and had even quoted him once in print, which had made the sheriff laugh out loud—a memorable occasion, since Burns was notoriously surly. “I guess I won't hold my breath, then,” he said. “In the meantime, I've got something I think you might want to know. About Rona Jean Hancock and that baby.”

“You mean, you're not here to pump
me
for information for your story?” Buddy's eyebrows went up. “Well, now, that's a switch. Come on in here and let's talk.”

He led the way into his office and pointed Charlie to a chair. Charlie hung his straw boater on the wall hook and took the chair, looking around at the bare office, thinking how many times he'd sat across this very desk from Roy Burns. He would be trying to pry story details out of the
sheriff and Roy would keep saying, “No comment.” Roy was like that. He never wanted anybody looking over his shoulder, trying to see his hand. He had a poker face, too. You never knew what he was thinking—and you usually didn't want to.

Now, Charlie wondered whether Buddy Norris would hold his cards close the way Roy had. He was young for a sheriff, and he was a Darling boy, which was both an advantage and a disadvantage. On the one hand, he'd grown up with the town's secrets and knew where all the skeletons were hidden, so to speak. It'd be a lot harder to pull the wool over his eyes. But people—especially the older folks—might not be inclined to take a hometown boy seriously, especially one who hadn't seen his thirtieth birthday yet. This might just be Buddy Norris' make-or-break case, the most important case of his career.

Buddy pulled out a lower desk drawer and swung one boot onto it. “So what's this about Rona Jean and her baby? You here to pass along some gossip, or you got something to add to the case?” He spoke with a smile and mildly, but the question was a deliberate challenge.

Charlie decided not to pick up the gauntlet. “I guess you'll have to be the judge of that,” he replied, equally mild. “Fannie—my wife—just told me that Rona Jean was one of her regular customers. The young lady liked hats, it seems.”

“That's the truth,” Buddy said, more to himself than to Charlie. “That girl did have a passel of hats.”

Charlie nodded and went on. “A couple of weeks ago, the two of them had a conversation. Rona Jean told Fannie she was pregnant and that she didn't want to keep the baby. She wasn't keen on Darling, either. What she wanted was to get out of town and make a new life for herself somewhere else. So Fannie gave her some money in return for her promise to give us the baby.” At the look on Buddy's face, he added, “I know—it was a dumb thing to do. We've talked, and Fannie understands
that. But she can't have children, and she felt sorry for a baby whose mother didn't want him. Fannie did—want him, I mean. She wanted him very much.”

Buddy gave him a look he couldn't read. “Just how much did Miz Dickens give Rona Jean?”

“A lot, I'm afraid.” Charlie gave him a rueful look. “A hundred and twenty-five dollars. Rona Jean said she needed it to pay a doctor over in Monroeville and to handle the hospital. Fannie told her she could come up with more, if she needed it. We thought . . . Fannie and I thought we'd better tell you, in case you found some of that money in Rona Jean's possession and wondered where she got it. And I thought you might want to know what she was up to.”

Buddy whistled. “A real con artist, wasn't she?” There was an edge to his voice. “That girl was playing all the angles. It's beginning to sound like one of her shakedown tricks caught up with her.”

“Con artist?” Charlie frowned. “All the angles? What angles?”

Buddy pursed his lips, thinking. After a moment, he said, “Are we off the record?”

“If that's how you want it,” Charlie said. Of course, when he got something off the record, he could always try to get somebody else to confirm it. He'd played that little trick any number of times. And in Darling, nothing was
truly
off the record. Secrets had wings. And mouths. And legs.

“That's how I
need
it,” Buddy said. “I'm not telling you this because you're a newsman, Charlie. I'm telling you because your wife got caught in a con. Y'see, Rona Jean didn't promise that baby just to Miz Dickens. She promised it to Violet and Myra May.”

“She
what
?” As the information sank in, Charlie felt a hot, mounting anger. “How much did
they
pay her?”

“They hadn't given her any money directly, at least not yet. But they paid the doctor—Dr. DuBois, his name is—over in Monroeville. And they told her they'd pay the hospital and give her money to get a new start somewhere else. Like your wife, they wanted her baby.” Buddy picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on the desk. “At least, Violet did. Myra May maybe just went along to keep Violet happy.” He kept his eyes on the pencil. “Violet's the one who wants kids.”