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

dictation.”
    “I didn’t call you in here for that, Liz.” He swung his feet to the floor and gave her an apologetic half-smile, studying her over the tops of his gold-rimmed reading glasses. “It’s about what happened this morning. I am truly sorry for being rude. It was unforgivable. I apologize. And I owe you an explanation, as well as an apology.”
    Lizzy was so startled that she dropped her pencil. “Oh, no,” she protested, bending over to get it off the floor. “Really, Mr. Moseley. Please don’t feel you have to—”
    “Be quiet,” he said mildly, “and let me talk.” He picked up his whiskey glass, drained it, set it back on the desk. “To start with, I need to tell you that my wife and I are ... Well, we’ve been having our problems lately. I won’t go into the details, but it’s possible that we may divorce. Or rather, I should say that it’s likely. Adabelle is in Birmingham, staying with her parents.” His lips quirked. “It seems that she is consulting a lawyer—her uncle. Her father is encouraging this, of course. He wasn’t happy when I left the legislature. He rather liked being able to brag about it. And I was a handy pipeline to the state capitol for projects he had in mind.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry!” Lizzy exclaimed. She meant it, too. She may have once cared for Mr. Moseley in a romantic way, but as she had told Verna, that was in the past. All she wanted was for him to be happy. And nobody could be happy when there was a divorce on the horizon. She knew that for a fact, because the people who consulted Mr. Moseley about getting a divorce all seemed miserably unhappy. Another reason not to get married, she thought. It might not work out and then—
    “Don’t be sorry, Liz,” Mr. Moseley said. “Whatever happens is fine with me, although of course I’ll miss the children. The girls will be heartbroken.”
    “Of course,” Lizzy murmured. She wondered whether this was true. Mr. Moseley didn’t bring the children to the office very often, but when he did, the girls didn’t seem especially interested in their father. They exhibited what Lizzy thought of as a flippant, almost disrespectful attitude toward him. It bothered her. She might be old-fashioned, but she felt that children ought to look up to their fathers—although it had crossed her mind that perhaps he wasn’t as attentive a father as he might be. He was often in the office during the evenings and on weekends.
    He leaned forward on his elbows, pulling off his glasses and brushing his hair out of his eyes. “The fact is, Adabelle and I haven’t had a real marriage in ... well, quite some time.” He cleared his throat, looking away. “I don’t suppose you want to hear that, but it’s true. I only tell you because of ... well, because of the girl. The girl who died.” He pushed the papers around on his desk until he found what he was looking for. He held up the Ettlinger’s invoice. “The girl I bought this bracelet for. I had it engraved with her initials.”
    Lizzy fastened her eyes on her steno pad. She could feel the flush creeping up her cheeks. Mr. Moseley was right. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t—
    “I lied to you, Liz,” he said steadily. “I did know that girl, as I’m sure you have already guessed. Eva Louise Scott. Bunny.” He sighed. “I met her in the drugstore and thought she was very pleasant. Pretty, too. A little flashy, but—” He sighed. “She laughed a lot, and I liked that.”
    Lizzy started to say something, but he held up his hand, stopping her.
    “One night after Adabelle had gone back to Birmingham, I was driving home late from the office. I happened to see Bunny walking back to her boardinghouse. She had been to the picture show. It was dark and beginning to rain, and she didn’t have a raincoat or an umbrella, so I stopped and gave her a lift. We started talking and—Well, I suppose you could say that I lost my head.”
    Lizzy pulled in her breath, trying to steady herself. Why was he telling her this? Why—?
    “It was a mistake, of course, and I knew it.” He picked up the bottle and poured a generous slug of whiskey into his glass. “Couldn’t help myself, I guess.”
    “Please,” Lizzy managed. His words were sounding slurred. “Please don’t—”
    “They say confession is good for the soul, Liz. So let me confess.” He turned to look out the window, sighing, putting his fingers together under his chin as if he were saying a