The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

“I don’t have any idea,” Bessie said bleakly. “Maybe a grave marker, or maybe a metal stake. Or maybe nothing at all.” She pointed toward the corner. “Let’s just walk around and look. Back there, along the wall.”


Lizzy followed her friend through the tall grass, the foliage catching at the hem of her dress. Not having any idea what they were looking for, she felt doubtful and hesitant. But following Bessie’s lead, she kept her eyes on the ground—or rather, on what she could see of it through the thick grass. The light seemed to be dimming as the clouds thickened over the noon sun, and in a nearby tree a crow squawked, protesting their intrusion.

A moment later, she stubbed her toe against something and looked down. At first she thought it was a rock, perhaps fallen from the wall. But when she reached down to push the grass aside, she saw that it was a small, irregularly shaped piece of rough-cut granite, sunk crookedly into the ground and almost covered with earth. There was only a corner sticking up an inch or so—the corner she had stumbled against. In the center, there were two crooked letters, shallowly and inexpertly cut with a chisel. HH.

“Bessie,” she called urgently. “Come and see.”

Bessie hurried over and looked where Lizzy was pointing. With a little moan, she dropped to her knees and touched the stone, then began to pull the grass away from it. As she did, Lizzy thought she could trace out the larger outline of a grave, its surface sunken a little.

Lizzy put her hand on Bessie’s shoulder. “It’s Harold, isn’t it,” she said quietly.

“It’s Harold,” Bessie replied, no longer trying to hold back the tears. “We’ve found him. He’s been here, right here, all these years. So close, so close!”

She bent over, her shoulders heaving, and gave way to sobs. Lizzy knelt beside her and took her in her arms, leaning her cheek against Bessie’s gray hair. She did not try to speak. There was nothing to say.

The rain began a little later, a gentle rain, like a warm mist enveloping the grasses and flowers. Lizzy and Bessie left the gravesite and went to sit in the car.

“How did you know where to look?” Lizzy asked, taking a clean handkerchief out of her handbag and handing it to Bessie.

“It was Miss Hamer,” Bessie said, wiping her eyes. “She told me yesterday that my father had bragged to her that he was going to pay Harold money to jilt me and leave Darling. But Harold wasn’t the kind of man who would let somebody bribe him into doing something like that. In fact, he was likely to be pretty angry about it.”

“I certainly hope so!” Lizzy exclaimed hotly.

Bessie was going on. “Anyway, I found a box of Daddy’s papers in the attic, and last night, after you and Verna left, I looked through them. That’s where I found this little map that my father had drawn. The date on it is the same week that Harold disappeared.” She opened her handbag and took it out. “When I saw it, I had an inkling of what could have happened.” She lifted her head and glanced around them at the softened outlines of the granite monuments, just visible through the mist. Her voice trembled and she drew in her breath to steady it. “I must’ve been here for buryings a dozen times since Daddy put him here, and I never knew. Never had the slightest idea.”

Startled, Lizzy asked, “Do you think your father . . . killed him? Because he wouldn’t take the money?”

Bessie gave a long, weary sigh, as if she were breathing out a century of sadness. “My father had a hair-trigger temper, Liz. He could explode at the littlest thing. Maybe he offered Harold some money—it wouldn’t have been very much, because he was such a skinflint. Harold probably laughed at him and told him what he could do with it. Daddy got mad and shot him.”

“He had a gun? Your father had a gun?”

Bessie’s hands were clenched tight. “He had a little revolver that he kept with him when he was at work. He said people sometimes do crazy things when their nearest and dearest died.” She opened her hands and flexed her fingers. “Or maybe he didn’t shoot him. Maybe they got into a fight and Daddy hit him with a stick of stove wood or something. Maybe . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“But how could your father bury him here without anybody finding out?” Lizzy asked.

Bessie sighed. “I don’t suppose it would’ve been very hard. There were always a couple of coffins in the back room at the funeral home, and Daddy was out here at the cemetery several times a week. He could have paid one of his gravediggers to dig the grave and given him a bottle of whiskey to keep it quiet.” She chuckled sadly. “By the time the whiskey was gone, the gravedigger would have forgotten where he dug it. Daddy could easily have brought the coffin out here and buried Harold himself, maybe at night. Or maybe he thought he was safe, screened by those trees, so he did it in the daytime. People saw him out here so often that I doubt that anyone would ask him what he was doing.”