The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree (Berkley Prime Crime)

who would get what when he was gone. She was a careful typist and didn’t make many mistakes, but when she did, she had to get out the eraser shield and correct every carbon copy, which slowed her down considerably. There was also a list of telephone calls Mr. Moseley had asked her to make, as well as the court calendar to check, so she could have the necessary files on his desk before he needed them. He mostly did property and family law, with the occasional criminal case. There was nothing very exciting or even especially difficult about any of it, but it did require her to pay attention and notice things—which Lizzy considered to be a good thing, since she was a person who noticed.
    Lizzy had come to work for Moseley & Moseley not long after she got her high school diploma. Benton Moseley had been a young lawyer then, handsome, bright, just out of Auburn Law School, in practice with his father, Matthew Moseley, a widely respected lawyer and, at one time, a state senator. The elder Mr. Moseley had died in the 1918 Spanish Flu, which carried off quite a few folks. But the younger Mr. Moseley—Bent, his friends called him—had carried on, following in his father’s footsteps. He had even gone up to Montgomery in 1922 to serve in the Alabama Legislature, which meant more work for Lizzy, who had handled the office during the four years he was gone. In fact, she got to the point where she could do most of the things that Mr. Moseley could do, except go to court and argue in front of the judge. As it turned out, though, Mr. Moseley hadn’t liked politics all that much. After one term, he came back to Darling and to the office full-time.
    Lizzy was glad. She’d had a terrible adolescent crush on Bent Moseley in the early days of her employment and had mooned around, allowing herself to suffer greatly from unrequited love. But then he had married blond, beautiful Adabelle, a willowy debutante from a wealthy Birmingham family. They had two children, both girls who were blond and very pretty like their mother, and several years back had built a fancy house on the outskirts of town, near the Cypress Country Club. Adabelle’s father had helped build the house. He had helped to further Mr. Moseley’s political career, too, although it was rumored that he hadn’t been too happy when his son-in-law returned to private practice. Now, Lizzy didn’t allow herself to think of her earlier crush on Mr. Moseley—not very often, anyway. She just enjoyed working with him, did the best she could to make his work easier, and kept her romantic fire banked. These days, she wasn’t even sure it was still burning.
    This Monday was different from the usual because of the excitement of what had happened out at the Murphy place on Sunday afternoon, at the very hour that the Dahlias were holding their meeting. Mr. Moseley told her all the details when he came into the office. Two men had escaped from the prison farm. One had been shot in the shoulder—he was back at the farm, probably in solitary. The other had gotten away, Mr. Moseley said. He’d run back toward Briar’s Swamp along the river bend, but the dogs had lost the scent, which was very odd, because Sheriff Burns was always bragging that the dogs were the best in the whole state. Anyway, they hadn’t yet turned up his trail, as of this morning. Buddy Norris had tried to give chase on his Indian Ace motorcycle, but he hit a chicken, lost control, and rammed his motorcycle into the corncrib. The chicken only lost a few feathers, but Buddy ended up with a broken arm.
    “The same one that got broken before?” Lizzy asked, trying not to smile. It wasn’t funny, she supposed, at least, not to Buddy.
    “The other one,” Mr. Moseley replied. His tone was grave but his dark eyes were twinkling and the corner of his mouth twitched. “The one that didn’t get broken ... before.” The husband of the woman Buddy had been too friendly with had consulted Mr. Moseley about filing for divorce, but he and his wife had apparently made up, or maybe they decided that a divorce would be too expensive. Anyway, the wronged husband hadn’t kept his second appointment.
    “I hope Buddy’s going to be all right,” Lizzy said primly.
    “Doc Roberts says he’ll be fine. Not too sure about that motorcycle, though. Jed Snow said the frame was pretty badly bent.”
    “That’s too bad,” Lizzy said. “Buddy’s really crazy about that motorcycle.” He rode it up and down Darling’s