Free Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble by Mignon F. Ballard Page A

instinctively.
    “Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch you. Look, you know I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Prentice. You’ve got to believe me!” Clay glanced at Charlie, who was watching him with interest, and lowered his voice. “Delia, listen, I really need your help. Can you meet me somewhere later?”

 
     
    C HAPTER S EVEN
     
    Jo Carr inched her vehicle into the somber line behind Dora Delaney’s faded Plymouth, which was jammed with everybody who had ever filed a nail or shampooed hair at Total Perfection. Bertie always had her hair cut there, and Dora had closed the salon for the funeral.
    “What does Clay want to see you about?” Charlie asked, having tried and failed to overhear the conversation.
    Delia sank back against the seat and closed her eyes. “Says we need to talk.”
    “Whatever for?” her mother asked. Perspiration fogged her glasses and she snatched them off and wiped them on her sleeve.
    “Wants to talk about Prentice. About what happened—or didn’t happen, I guess. Clay swears he wouldn’t have hurt her.”
    “Do you believe him?” Charlie asked.
    Delia didn’t answer. She could hardly bear to look as they drove past the grammar school, where playground swings hung limp and empty in the sun. How many times had she and Prentice played there to see who could swing the highest, made tiny houses in the roots of the giant oak?
    Her mother turned left at the corner and followed the chain of cars past Lewellyn’s Drug Store where Phil Lewellyn, the pharmacist, stood respectfully in the shade of his green-striped canopy with the local dentist, Lou’s husband and the girls’ uncle Ed. There was hardly any traffic in town because almost everybody in Elderberry was in the funeral procession.
    “Well, do you?” Charlie persisted.
    Their aunt spoke up from the front seat. “I think we should at least hear what he has to say,” she announced.
    “We?” Delia glanced at her sister, who rolled her eyes. Their aunt was incredibly nosy.
    “Well … someone should be with you, Delia. There’s safety in numbers, you know.”
    Delia was grateful when her mother stepped in. “Your aunt Lou has a point,” she said, “but I doubt if Clay would speak freely with one of us hanging about. He might be less intimidated if Charlie went with you instead.”
    “I don’t even want to be in the same room with him,” Delia said. “Why should I listen to Clay Jarrett if he had anything to do with what happened to Prentice?”
    “But what if he didn’t?” her mother said.
    *   *   *
     
    Jo spied her at the end of the block when a blob of dark skirt bobbed into view. She resembled a dusty balloon after most of the air had escaped. Hattie McGee. It was a wonder the woman hadn’t dropped from heat exhaustion in all those underskirts. Jo lifted her foot from the accelerator; they were practically crawling along as it was. “I can’t believe she’s out in all this heat,” she said. “Do you suppose she wants a ride to the cemetery?”
    Before anyone could answer, the old woman glanced behind her and darted into a side street.
    “Seems to be going the other way—thank goodness!” Delia said. “Looks like she’s planning to sit on Doc Morrison’s wall.”
    Jo glanced down the narrow, tree-shaded street and saw Hattie McGee perched there, knees up, her back propped against the low column of the Morrisons’ brick wall. She hoped Amanda Morrison didn’t have any roses she’d mind sharing. “Guess she’s only cooling off a little. I suppose she’s all right.” She hated to leave her there like that, but there was no time to stop. Jo gained speed to catch up with Dora’s car before winding up the hill to the cemetery.
    “That woman’s never going to be all right,” Delia said. “I like to have never gotten away from her back there at the church! Thought I’d die of asphyxiation.”
    “Honey, she can’t help the way she is,” her aunt Lou reminded her.
    “Well,