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

find out who was responsible for Prentice’s death and had been questioning people on her own, but one young life lost was one too many. Prentice’s friend Karen James, Delia had reported, was surprised to hear Prentice could have been seeing someone other than Clay and seemed to have no idea who it might have been. Iris was spending part of the summer as a camp counselor in North Carolina, and her parents were withholding the news of Prentice’s tragic death until their daughter came home at the end of the session. “I wanted to write and tell her,” Delia had explained. “Maybe she would know who Prentice might have been seeing, but her mother asked me to wait. She didn’t want her to hear it like that.”
    “I doubt if she would have access to a radio or newspapers at the camp,” Miss Dimple had said. “You can find out more when Iris gets home.”
    “Her aunt Bertie says she has no idea who Prentice was seeing,” Delia added. “Frankly, I don’t think she believes it.”
    “We’ll just have to wait and see,” Miss Dimple told her, hoping the girl would take her advice. For Delia to try and investigate further could be dangerous, and she trusted she would keep that in mind.
    Since Prentice’s death, some of the retired men in the community were taking time about helping Knox at the Peach Shed. Delia couldn’t bear to even look at the place, and Charlie, who loved peaches almost better than chocolate, confessed that she hadn’t been able to drive past since Prentice disappeared over a week before.
    When she heard they were looking for helpers at Vacation Bible School at the Presbyterian church, Miss Dimple had offered Delia’s name. Charlie and her mother said they would be glad to take care of little Tommy, and all agreed it would be good for Delia to keep her mind and body occupied with something positive. It would also, Dimple hoped, prevent Delia from asking questions of the wrong people, and give her the time she needed to look into things on her own.
    Miss Dimple prided herself on being an unerring judge of character, and felt strongly that Clay Jarrett wasn’t capable of murder. She had promised his parents she would help clear their son’s name by finding the true killer, and now she would start at the beginning. With Leola Parker.

 
     
    C HAPTER T EN
     
    “I’m so glad you dropped by,” Chloe Jarrett said, pouring coffee for both of them. “Thank goodness the police decided to release Clay, but I feel like we’re walking a tightrope, waiting to see if he’ll be arrested.”
    Miss Dimple had telephoned before stopping by on her early-morning walk, hoping to speak with Clay before he and his father left to work in the orchards, but the two had already gone, and Chloe sounded so distraught, she found herself facing Clay’s mother alone. And so they talked of Clay and Prentice and what had brought them to that sad summer morning.
    “Clay told me Prentice was having a hard time dealing with Leola’s death,” Chloe told her. “She was with her when she died, or soon after—awful enough in itself—but Clay got the idea Prentice seemed afraid.”
    Miss Dimple nodded. Delia had noticed it, too. “Does he think it might have something to do with the way Leola died? That she might have seen or heard something?”
    “I don’t know. There was that fire right in front of her house. They think it started out near the roadside.”
    Miss Dimple wasn’t so sure about that. “But it seems she would have said something, told someone,” she said.
    “Maybe she wasn’t sure,” Chloe said. “Clay thinks she was afraid to say anything about it.”
    But afraid of what?
    Chloe rose and took a pan of cinnamon rolls from the stove. “I bake because I don’t know what else to do, and it helps me to keep busy,” she said, sliding the buns onto a plate. “Do have one while they’re hot, and let me heat up your coffee,” she offered, setting the platter on the scarred oak table. Miss Dimple