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

Coca-Cola plant, so that’s out.”
    “My goodness,” Ophelia said weakly. Of course, young people these days didn’t always keep in touch, but this definitely sounded suspicious.
    “Which, to tell the truth,” Mildred added in a significant tone, “is why I was curious about Bunny Scott. I was wondering just how she managed to drive into Pine Mill Creek.” She paused. “I mean, I have never been one to cast aspersions. If I didn’t already know what I know about Nadine Tillman dropping off the face of the earth, maybe I wouldn’t think anything of it. But it does seem to me that it is just too coincidental. Don’t you think? Nadine disappearing the way she did. And then Bunny Scott driving into that creek.”
    Ophelia shivered, not liking what she was hearing. “They didn’t see you, did they?” she asked apprehensively. “Mr. Lima and Bunny Scott, I mean.”
    Mildred shook her head. “I decided the aspirin could wait. I went to Hancock’s and bought some groceries and went back to the drugstore after that. When I walked in, both of them—Mr. Lima and that girl—were as cool as cucumbers. You’d never know anything had happened between them.” She turned the key in the ignition and the Dodge started smoothly. “Well, I have to go. Thanks for letting me dump all this. As I said, I’m not one to cast aspersions. But I just had to tell somebody. And you’re such a good listener. Really, Ophelia, we ought to see more of each other.”
    “Sure,” Ophelia replied, and said good-bye. By nature, she was not a suspicious sort of person. But as she went up the steps to her front porch, she couldn’t help wondering whether Mrs. Lima knew about Mr. Lima and Bunny Scott. And if she did, what she might have said. Or done.
    She frowned. This wasn’t the kind of information she wanted to pass along on the party line. She looked at her wristwatch. It was just past ten, and the courthouse was only a couple of blocks away. She would drop in on Verna in the probate office and deliver this surprising fact in person.
    Verna and Lizzy were conducting an investigation into Bunny’s death. This was something they needed to know.

TWELVE
    Myra May Learns Some Startling Facts
    Myra May Mosswell’s daddy had been a doctor. When he died, he left his only child a small house and a nice little bundle of money, not very big, but big enough to get her started in a business. Myra May, who was a practical sort of person with a good head on her strong shoulders, spent several months considering in a logical, rational way what she wanted to do with her inheritance. Did she want to move to a big city that would offer exciting opportunities for a woman of ambition and common sense? Memphis, maybe, or Mobile or Atlanta? Or did she want to invest her money in Darling and live in a small, comfortable, but essentially boring town for the rest of her life?
    While Myra May was turning these important questions over in her mind and trying to decide what she wanted to do with her life, she was managing the dining room and kitchen at the Old Alabama Hotel. As things turned out, however, staying in Darling was not a calculated decision based on a commonsense approach to planning for the future. It was sheer, random happenstance—a bit of luck. Or, as Myra herself said afterward, a piece of stunning good fortune. Just before Labor Day brought a close to the long, hot, boring summer (during which Myra had just about decided she’d be better off in Atlanta) a young woman got off the Montgomery-Mobile Greyhound bus and came into the hotel looking for work. Her name was Violet Sims. She had curly brown hair and a sweet voice and she was very pretty.
    Now, Myra May was not what anybody would ever call pretty. She had a strong jaw, a broad forehead, a firm mouth, and a way of looking at people—especially men—as if she might bore a hole right through them with her eyes. When men were around her, they had a tendency to stumble and mumble and make themselves scarce as soon as they could. She had never yet met a man she wanted to marry and by this time (she could see thirty in the rearview mirror) she was pretty sure that she never would. Women liked her because she was strong and a straight shooter, but they were afraid of her, too, although not as much as the men.
    Violet, as it turned out, was not at all afraid of Myra May. She had been born and raised in Memphis and had seen enough of the city, as she put it, to last her for a couple