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Chapters (30)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. ONE - The Naked Ladies
  5. TWO - Lizzy’s Key
  6. THREE - Verna Is Rebuffed
  7. FOUR - Saturday Night in Darling, or Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
  8. FIVE - The Roof Falls In
  9. SIX - The Dahlias in Full Bloom
  10. SEVEN - The Skeleton in Bessie Bloodworth’s Closet
  11. EIGHT - Verna Has a Visitor
  12. NINE - Beulah’s New Customer
  13. TEN - Bessie Bloodworth Learns a Thing or Two
  14. ELEVEN - Lizzy Goes to Work
  15. TWELVE - Verna Makes a Phone Call
  16. THIRTEEN - Verna Works the Switchboard
  17. FOURTEEN - Buddy Norris Collars a Crook
  18. FIFTEEN - Lizzy Faces the Lion in His Den
  19. SIXTEEN - “The Game Is Afoot!”
  20. SEVENTEEN - THE GARDEN GATE
  21. EIGHTEEN - Bessie Bloodworth Pays a Call
  22. NINETEEN - Lizzy Lays Down the Law
  23. TWENTY - The Dahlias Score
  24. TWENTY-ONE - Mr. Moseley Clears Up a Mystery
  25. TWENTY-TWO - Bessie Solves a Mystery, Myra May’s Car Breaks Down, and Violet ...
  26. TWENTY-THREE - Showtime!
  27. The Dahlias’ “Dirty Dozen” Housecleaning Tips
  28. Glossary
  29. Recipes
  30. Reading List

Until the last few years, nobody in Darling had bothered to lock their houses. But since jobs had gotten so scarce, men and boys (and sometimes even girls) were riding the rails, looking for work and food and a place where they could sleep out of the weather. Darling wasn’t on the main Louisville & Nashville rail line, but the hoboes often rode in on the freight cars that came to the sawmill. If a house looked vacant, they might try to break in. The residents of Darling weren’t exactly afraid, but they were—well, uneasy. The town felt different, somehow, with strangers traipsing through it.

And even though the strangers might only be down on their luck and without a shred of malice in their hearts, they were also quite likely to be desperate. In Mobile, a string of local household robberies had been attributed to a pair of young vagrants picked up by the police when they were found sleeping in a nearby park. The boys, barely out of their teens, protested their innocence and the only evidence that connected them to the crimes was circumstantial.

At least, that’s what Mr. Moseley had said to Lizzy, after he read about it in the Mobile Register. He called it scapegoating and had gotten quite angry, saying that it sounded to him like the police had simply collared the nearest hoboes, in order to make an object lesson of the poor fellows. But a jury had agreed with the police, and they were sent to jail.

As the district attorney said during his final summation to the court, “Desperate men will commit desperate acts. It is our duty to be watchful.”

SEVEN - The Skeleton in Bessie Bloodworth’s Closet

SEVEN

The Skeleton in Bessie Bloodworth��s Closet

008 Bessie Bloodworth was a dedicated student of Darling’s history and knew the family stories of almost all of the local residents. She could tell you anything you wanted to know about who was related to whom and where people’s ancestors had come from. She had even written a little book, which was sold by the local history club. It was called A Few Skeletons in Our Closets: A Peek at Darling History.