“Whatever you decide,” he added, “I know this: You carried on as best you could for as long as you could. Your grandparents would be proud of you regardless.”
Danny was just packing up to leave the studio when Tiffany buzzed and told him Jo was on line one. His heart did a flip-flop in his chest as he tentatively reached for the receiver.
“Yes?” he said, his voice sounding strained in his own ear.
“Danny, hi,” Jo replied, her voice soft and far away. “I need a favor.”
“Sure,” he replied. “Anything.” His plans for the rest of the day were modest: balance checkbook, pay bills, and straighten up a little before a couple of guys came over to watch the game. On second thought, they were all slobs too. Maybe he’d skip the straightening part.
“I’m in Moore City meeting with Milton, and it looks like it’s going to take longer than I thought. Is there any way you could run by the school and pick something up for me? It’s just some papers the secretary put together.”
“Sure,” Danny said. “I can do it right now. No problem.”
“Thanks, Danny. I have to admit, even if I were in town, I think I’d be too embarrassed to show my face over there just yet. The kids are going to have a field day with my being stood up at the altar.”
“I understand. Not a problem.”
He hesitated, hearing something odd in her voice. Even as self-conscious as he was feeling, something told him she needed him right now.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. “You sound funny.”
“Guess I’m just thinking about next week when I do have to show up and teach. How humiliating.”
He tried to offer her some comfort, but she didn’t sound convinced. After they hung up, he drove across town to the high school, parked in a visitor slot, and went inside, requesting the papers for Jo Tulip. The secretary gave him a brown manila envelope. As he came back out of the office, he nodded toward the janitor, a big man with a scarred lip who looked very familiar. Danny glanced back at him again to see the man staring oddly at him as well.
“Do we know each other?” Danny asked.
The man smiled.
“Just trying to figure that out,” he said. “Oh, I know. You’re Jo Tulip’s friend. I’ve seen you with her at the park.”
“Yes,” Danny said, remembering now. “I thought you worked at Golden Acres Retirement Village.”
“I’ve got two jobs,” the man replied. “There and here.”
“Well, nice to see you again.”
Danny tucked the envelope under his arm and started walking.
“So how is Jo?” the man called after him. “I saw that article about her in the newspaper. Did she really have to go in and look at a dead body?”
“Edna Pratt,” Danny replied, nodding. “It was really something.”
“You were there too?” Angus asked, falling into step beside Danny.
“Yep. The police hired me to photograph the scene.”
“Photograph?” Angus asked. “You took pictures of the dead body?”
“Yep. They weren’t sure at first if it was a crime scene, so they brought me in to photograph it just in case.”
“There was other people there?”
“Sure. Lots of cops. Neighbors hanging around outside.”
“How ’bout a man, an older gentleman, silver hair, mustache?”
“I don’t recall anyone like that. Why?”
Angus shrugged.
“Mrs. Pratt, she comes to the retirement village sometimes to visit friends. He’s usually with her. Never knew if he was her boyfriend or what.”
“I have no idea.”
“But her death…it was an accident, right?”
“Yes, an accident.”
“And she really is dead? You saw the body with your own eyes?”
Danny hesitated, wondering why it mattered so much to this man.
“I-I mean,” Angus stuttered, “I was just curious, is all. Miss Tulip is a nice lady. I hate to think of her having to look at something like that.”
“Jo’s stronger than you think,” Danny replied. “She handled it well.”
“That’s good. And Edna Pratt, she really was dead?”
“She really was dead,” Danny replied. “Without a doubt.”
Angus looked oddly relieved.
Danny puzzled over that all the way to his car. Then he promptly forgot about it as he headed toward home, wondering if he ought to pick up some bean dip for tonight, just in case Ray forgot to bring it. Popcorn might be a good idea too.
14
Jo felt guilty about lying to Danny, but she really didn’t feel like getting into things over the phone. The truth was that her meeting with Milton had been finished for several hours. She just wasn’t ready to leave the city yet.
She had come out of his office in a daze and simply started walking. Before she knew it, the sun had moved much farther along in the sky and she was several miles from where she had started.
Jo called Danny and asked him to run the errand to the school, and then she hung up the phone, turned it off, and started walking back the way she had come. After a while, she passed a small riverside park that seemed clean and safe, so she made her way to a bench there that overlooked the water.
She knew she ought to pray, but she couldn’t. Right now, as far as she was concerned, God had done nothing in her life except, one by one, take away everything that was precious to her. Worse than that, not only had God failed her, she had failed herself. She had taken the legacy handed to her by her grandparents and driven it into the ground. There was no other way to see it. Not only had she not adapted to the changing times—she hadn’t even realized the times were changing! As soon as Annette had explained, however, Jo knew that it was true. More and more, her letters were from little old ladies with no money but lots of time—the exact opposite of the “desired demographic.” Her column had become obsolete.
Annette and Milton had encouraged her to forget the column and focus more on other media. Radio. Television. Maybe write a book. She would think about it, but thus far in her life, she had only done those things for promotional purposes. The column was the centerpiece of everything. Without that, what was the point of all the other?
Jo closed her eyes, remembering the period of time when she and her grandmother had written the column together. Her grandmother was ready to retire and Jo was eager to take over, but they had taken it slowly so Jo could learn everything step-by-step. First, Nana had taught her how to choose the best reader letters for the column. They usually selected the quirky, the unusual—and especially the clueless. Those made the best letters of all.
Next, they would comb through their past experience, combining knowledge with theory until they had solved the issue at hand. If it was a stain or something else chemically based that Jo couldn’t figure out, she would work on the problem with Pap, who eventually found a solution for almost every problem.
Finally, she and Nana would construct the reply. Sometimes that was the hardest part of all, since it took a lot of work to sound so effortless. Nana said Jo had a real flair for humor, and that she should develop that. In the few years since Jo had taken over the column completely herself, she had found herself exploring humor more and more.
But there was nothing funny about her situation now. Jo closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Nana,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Pap. I’m sorry for letting you both down.”
Simon pulled the card from his pocket and balanced it on top of the pay phone. According to the teller at the bank in Mulberry Glen, he could dial into their automated system and check the balance on his account. He had hesitated to do that in case the call set off some sort of electronic tracking system. Surely the account had been closed by now and the police were looking for any indication of his whereabouts.
But just in case…
Just in case the money was still there, ripe for the taking…
He had to do i
t.
Fingers shaking, Simon pressed the buttons that would connect him to the system. Once he was in, he held his breath as he entered his account number and then the passcode the teller had given him.
After a moment, an automated voice responded.
“Your balance is four hundred thousand dollars and zero cents. Funds currently available for withdrawal are zero dollars and zero cents.”
The voice went on to offer him more menu options, but he hung up, heart pounding. Did that mean the account was still intact, still sitting there, just waiting for the checks to clear? Or did that mean the police had put some sort of “freeze” on the account so that they could track him down while he tried to get his hands on the money?
Simon slid the card into his pocket and stood there, tuning out the noisy sounds of the gas station behind him. So Wiggles wouldn’t know what he was doing, he had walked half a mile to get to this pay phone. Now he wondered if there was one more call he wanted to make before returning to the house.
He decided to think about it for a while first. It had been in the back of his mind since he snuck out of Mulberry Glen. But would it be a mistake? If he made the call, would the phone lines point a trail directly back to him?
Across the street was a small diner, and in the window was a faded, dirty sign that advertised a three-dollar omelet twenty-four hours a day. As if in response, his stomach growled. He decided to spring for the three bucks, get some chow, and think about the call. If he made this particular call, one of two things would happen: Either it would solve his problems, or it would greatly compound the ones he already had.
Jo knew she couldn’t sit in a park and feel sorry for herself all day. In her purse was the check from Sally for clearing out Edna Pratt’s house, so that seemed like a logical next step. Besides, she had a murder to investigate.
Jo walked all the way back to the parking lot near Milton’s office, feeling her spirits lift just a bit with the prospect of the project. Housecleaning was always her favorite antidote for whatever ailed her, so completely clearing out a house would probably make her feel much, much better. At least it would help keep her mind off her string of failures: Bradford, the column, her life.
At least I have life, Jo thought as she started up the car. Poor Edna Pratt no longer does. Jo was determined to do a good job clearing out Edna’s things—and hopefully find some clues to what might’ve caused her death in the process.
Jo organized the task in her mind as she drove. Once she got back to Mulberry Glen, she decided her first stop would be to get some empty boxes from behind the shopping center. She would also have to hit the dollar store, where she could grab some packing tape and permanent markers.
Just thinking about all of that activity had her in much better spirits by the time she reached the main highway. She decided not to think about Bradford for now. Somehow, someway, she would deal with the fallout from her failed wedding later.
As for her column, Jo realized that what she needed most right now was time to think, to brainstorm. If her household hints weren’t relevant to the modern woman as they were now written, what could she do to change them, to make them relevant? Ideas flowed through her mind, from cleaning computers to day care issues. Surely out there somewhere was the right angle for the Smart Chick!
Finding that angle would require careful thought and a bit of research, observation, and testing—and the more she thought about that, the more excited she became. Something would pop up soon, she just knew it. Household hints were still relevant. She just had to figure out how to communicate that to today’s modern woman.
Danny sat at the computer in his home office, staring at the figure on the bottom line. He had just balanced his bank account, and the resulting number was so low he wondered how he could pay off the stack of bills sitting next to the keyboard.
Something had to change, and soon.
Danny was used to piecing together an income from an assortment of odd jobs (like taking photos for the police), his studio job, and the sales of his stock photography. He had all of his best photos listed with different stock photo agencies around the world, and in any given month he earned from several hundred to several thousand dollars from them, depending on the leasing of the rights to his photos. Stock photography would never make him rich, but unless he started landing plum assignments from Scene It magazine, it would have to do.
And it was quite fun sometimes. He never knew where one of his pictures might end up, whether in a corporate brochure, a glossy calendar, or a CD or book cover. As he slowly made a name for himself, he found that more and more of his photos were being accepted by the larger agencies for representation. Sales had been steady, but if he didn’t land something a little more lucrative soon, he was going to have to give some things up, like cable TV or his cell phone.
He glanced up at the sign that hung over his desk: God has promised to meet all of our needs. God has not promised to satisfy all our wants. Cable TV was definitely a want. For that matter, so was the cell phone. He took a deep breath, let it out, and smiled.
Thanks, God. Thanks for reminding me how it works.
Before Danny started going through the bills, he printed out the first check, ten percent of last month’s income for his Sunday tithe. His non-Christian friends thought he was nuts for giving money to the church when he could barely afford to feed himself, but he knew what his priorities were. Priority number one was to be a faithful steward of all the Lord had given him.
The rest usually fell into place, one way or another.
Jo used the key Sally had given to her to unlock the door to Edna Pratt’s house. It was almost dark outside, so she walked through and flipped on most of the lights. Despite the fact that Jo had murder on her mind, she didn’t feel frightened to be there. There had been no signs of a struggle or a forced entry surrounding Edna’s death, so whoever had purposefully mixed the chemicals that killed her was someone Edna allowed into her home willingly. Jo figured she was safe as long as she didn’t let anyone in.
On the way into town, she had filled her car with sturdy cardboard boxes, but before she unloaded them, she wanted to look around and size up the task in front of her. She studied each room, opening closet doors, sliding open drawers. It was a small, two-bedroom house, though the guest room doubled as a sewing room. In fact, Edna’s sewing skills were on display throughout the house, from the curtains in each of the windows to the gingham skirts around the sink and tub in the outdated master bathroom.
Besides the two bedrooms and two bathrooms, the house had a living room, a dining area, and a small, tidy kitchen. Jo finished her tour at the back door, where she looked out on the porch, the little yard, and a shed.
The job seemed simple enough, though from what Jo could see, Sally had left town without doing much more than the two of them had accomplished together the day before. Edna’s food was even still sitting in the refrigerator.
Jo decided to start there, finding a garbage bag under the sink, opening it up, and filling it with everything inside the fridge and the freezer. When she was finished, she continued on to the pantry, tossing everything except canned goods. Those she bagged up to donate to the local soup kitchen. Everything else, sadly, needed to be tossed for safety purposes.
The food completely filled the garbage bag, so Jo carted it to the back porch and then came back in, located Edna’s stash of cleansers and rags, and went to work on the inside of the refrigerator. It was clean already, but Jo knew she might as well get it completely scrubbed out, even putting a washcloth over a butter knife to clean the rubber tracks around the door. When she was done, she found a pencil and some paper and started a shopping list with the first item being two boxes of baking soda, for clearing out any lingering odors.
After Jo had thoroughly cleaned the fridge, freezer, and pantry, she decided to take a break and do a little digging around. She knew that over the course of the next few days she would come into contact with all of Edna’s stuff. But for now she j
ust felt like looking in the more “private” areas of the house. Under the beds. In the tops of closets. In the backs of drawers.
She didn’t know what she was looking for, only that she’d know it when she found it. Sure enough, at the back of the closet in the sewing room, hidden by a pile of blankets, was a small black trunk, sealed up tight by a rusty metal padlock. Maybe it would hold something important, something relevant to Edna’s death.
Jo carried the trunk to the bed and then went digging for a key, which she found in the drawer of the sewing table. She had a feeling it was the right key, though when she tried to insert it into the lock, she realized that the lock was rusted completely shut. Undeterred, Jo carried the trunk into the master bathroom and balanced it on the corner of the tub. Then she went out to the kitchen, where she retrieved a shallow bowl and a can of cola.
Back in the bathroom, Jo knelt in front of the tub. She opened the cola, poured it into the bowl, and then held the bowl directly under the lock so that the lock rested down in the brown liquid. The substance bubbled and fizzed for a few minutes, and Jo knew that the cola was eating away the rust that was freezing up the lock. Finally, she set the bowl down in the tub, used a nearby towel to wipe off the lock, and tried again with the key.
This time it worked.
Jo pulled the trunk right down onto the floor in front of her and opened it. As she did, the smell of must and dust filled the room. The trunk was filled with papers and photographs, scrapbooks and mementos—all of it obviously quite old. Jo flipped through everything, seeing pictures of Edna Pratt as a young woman, a bride, a pregnant housewife. Sally would enjoy the shots of herself as a baby, then a toddler, and then a little girl, both by herself and with other children, other adults. There were dried corsages and snips of fabric and treasured letters and documents.
But there was nothing there that was relevant to now—or that could point to murder.
Disappointed, Jo closed her eyes and leaned back against the tub. As she did, her hand bumped something just behind the gingham skirt that surrounded the tub. Sitting up, she lifted the skirt to see what it could be.
The Trouble With Tulip Page 12