The Trouble With Tulip

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Simon didn’t get any work out of the visit, but something happened while he was there that had never completely left his mind. The guy had been going through art catalogs, trying to choose some lesser-known works that could have feasibly been owned by the homeowner—and lost in the fire that was going to burn his home to the ground. He ran across one painting, and he held it out toward Simon, laughing.

  “Hey, buddy, I know you’re getting old,” he said, “but I didn’t know you were this old.”

  He was pointing toward a painting of the Nativity, one where a small group of men were looking down at Mary and the baby. One of the men in the painting looked almost exactly like Simon.

  “Weird, huh? That guy could be your double.”

  Simon studied the painting, something stirring in the back of his mind. That he looked like a character in an old painting was just a coincidence, but in his world, a good coincidence never went unexploited.

  Simon had taken down the information about that painting and hung onto it, knowing that someday he would come up with a way to use it to his advantage. It wasn’t until probably two years later when he met a talented young computer technician whose specialty was fake documents and doctored photos that everything began to come together in his mind. As a part of his preparations for the con, Simon had his hair cut exactly as the man’s in the painting and then he grew a mustache. By the time he was done, the resemblance was close enough that he knew the right kind of mark—the gullible, hopeful kind—would fall for his claims hook, line, and sinker.

  By the time Jo got back to Edna’s, Chewie was gone. Jo wasn’t sure what had happened, but the gate was swinging open and there was no dog to be found.

  She was more upset than she thought she’d be. Not knowing what else to do, she ran next door to Betty’s house and knocked.

  “Oh, hey,” Betty said, standing in the doorway as her two children watched a blaring TV in the background. “Would you like to come in?”

  “No, thank you. Have you seen a dog around? A cute chocolate lab?”

  “No, but I did hear some barking earlier,” Betty said. “Is he yours?”

  “Sort of,” Jo replied. “I was keeping him in Edna’s backyard.”

  “The doggie opened the gate,” the boy said, suddenly appearing at his mother’s side.

  “What, honey?” Jo asked, leaning down.

  “The big brown doggie was really smart. I watched him open the gate.”

  Jo looked up at Betty, who shrugged.

  “Where were you when you saw the doggie open the gate?” Betty asked.

  “I was in my room, playing,” the boy replied. “But I could see through the window. The doggie kept chewing the latch, and then it popped open, so he went out.”

  “Do you know where he went?” Jo asked.

  “He’s probably just hanging out in the neighborhood.”

  Jo hit the ground running, calling for Chewie as she made her way down the street. She whistled and called and looked but saw no sign of the animal. Finally, as she was almost back to Edna’s, she could hear barking and children’s laughter. She looked up, and across the street at the playground she spotted a brown lab, climbing up the ladder of a children’s slide. Jo froze, watching in amazement as the dog reached the top of the ladder, sort of hunched down, and slid down the other side. The kids who were there squealed with joy and cried, “Do it again, dog! Do it again!”

  Jo crossed the busy street and ran over to where they were playing, knowing for sure it was Chewie the closer she came.

  “Chewie!” she cried, scolding him.

  He looked up at her and ran over happily, as if he was completely innocent of all charges. Again, she hesitated to fuss at him, because he probably wouldn’t even understand what she was mad about.

  “He’s quite an amazing animal,” an older woman called from a nearby bench. “The kids have been having great fun with him.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Jo told her. “He’s new, and I didn’t realize he could get out of the gate.”

  “Oh, I’ve known a few dogs like that,” she said. “They’re much smarter than we give them credit for.”

  Jo reached down and impulsively hugged the dog, whose tail swung back and forth in delight.

  “No harm done anyway,” the woman said. “I believe he just felt it was his duty to patrol the area and make sure things were in good order.”

  Jo thanked her, led Chewie back to Edna’s, and brought him inside, blocking him in the kitchen this time where there weren’t any couches to demolish. While he rested on the tile, catching his breath, Jo ate the lunch she had packed, forced herself to focus, and stared at the telephone.

  She needed to talk to Bradford.

  It wasn’t just that she couldn’t handle the demands of an active dog right now. It was that this shouldn’t have to be solely her responsibility. She had already been saddled with facing her friends and trying to pick up the pieces of his abandonment. This dog was simply the icing on a very bad cake.

  Jo dialed Bradford’s home number first but got no answer. She hung up when the machine answered and tried dialing her parents’ house instead. She got her mother, who sounded out of breath and distracted, as though she were just heading either in or out.

  “Is this a bad time?” Jo asked.

  “No, I have a second,” she said, the usual amount of time Jo was allotted when she called. “What can I do for you?”

  Jo exhaled slowly, trying not to dump her anger toward Bradford onto her mother.

  “I just wondered if either of you have heard from Bradford. There’s a situation here that needs his attention.”

  “He called a while ago,” she said. “He got back from Bermuda this morning.”

  Jo was too stunned and angry to respond. So he really had no intention of coming to Mulberry Glen and talking to her and trying to straighten this out.

  “He and your father had a talk,” Helen continued, oblivious. “And it looks like Bradford may be putting in for a transfer to Chicago.”

  “A transfer?”

  “It’s a little uncomfortable now, you know, for Bradford and your father to be working directly with each other.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “Now, darling, don’t sound like that. It’ll all work out in the end.”

  Jo could feel the muscles in her jaw clenching shut.

  “Do you know if Bradford has any intention of calling me and discussing what happened at the wedding?” Jo asked.

  “Oh,” Helen said, as if that were a novel idea. “I don’t know. I’m sure he knew you and I would be speaking.”

  Jo’s pulse surged.

  “Mother, he owes me an explanation,” she said fiercely. “And not through someone else. Face-to-face.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you give him a call? You could probably reach him on his cell.”

  She just didn’t get it. Why did Jo think she ever would?

  After she hung up with her mother, she dialed Bradford’s cell phone, her heart in her throat as it rang. He answered after a long while, and Jo knew he must have been staring at the number on the screen for a few rings, trying to decide what to do. The big chicken.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Bradford,” she replied, wishing she had been more prepared before dialing. “It’s Jo.”

  “Hi,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  She counted to ten.

  Very slowly.

  “That’s all you can say to me?” she asked finally. “How’s it going? How do you think it’s going?”

  “You’re angry.”

  “No, Bradford, I’m not angry. I love being publicly humiliated. I simply adore looking like an idiot, being abandoned in the middle of my own wedding.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “I guess I deserved that.”

  The man was an absolute, utter… She didn’t know what. There weren’t words for what he was. Not decent words, anyway. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to be done
with the conversation.

  “Look,” she said, “we have a problem. Remember the dog we picked out together? The animal shelter delivered him this morning, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “Oh, wow,” he said. “That’s too bad.”

  “I am in no position to care for a dog right now,” she said, glancing over at Chewie, who seemed to know she was talking about him. He perked up his ears, wagged his tail, and then rested his chin on his front paws. “So I need to know what you want to do about it.”

  “Gee, Jo, wish I could help you out. But it looks like I’ll be moving soon, and I can’t take a dog with me. You understand.”

  You understand.

  Sure.

  Suddenly, she understood a lot.

  “So you’re not going to do anything to help,” she said. “Fine. Do you have anything useful to say to me about what happened? Any last words that you’d like to offer before I hang up?”

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “Just that in the last few days, I really had some time to think.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I understand thinking is a popular sport in Bermuda.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Jo. I had some time to think, and I decided that maybe we moved things along too quickly. I don’t want to give up on us completely. I just think we need to slow it down.”

  She wished she could reach through the telephone line and strangle him. The nerve of him, to think he had even the slightest chance with her after all that had happened.

  “Slow it down,” she repeated, her free hand curled into a fist. “Good idea, Bradford. Why don’t I start by ending this phone call? That should slow things down significantly.”

  She set down the phone without waiting for a reply. Then she laid her head in her hands and waited for tears that didn’t come. Was she all cried out? Or, when it came down to it, did she just not care anymore? She had to admit that less than a week after Bradford walked out on her, she was still feeling more angry and embarrassed than heartbroken. That had to be significant.

  After a while, Jo could feel a presence next to her, and she opened her eyes to see Chewie standing there, his shoulder at her knee, his head resting gently in her lap.

  “Ah, Chewie,” she said, rubbing him behind the ears. “Maybe Danny was right all along. Maybe I didn’t really love Bradford after all.”

  23

  When Danny arrived at Edna’s house, Jo wasn’t there. Eager to talk to her, he drove toward home, passing her on the road. She was Rollerblading, and in her hand was a green leash attached to a big brown dog.

  “Hey!” he called, slowing the car and rolling down the window. “Who is this?”

  “This is Chewie,” Jo replied, rolling her eyes. “Long story.”

  “Okay. Can’t wait to hear it. Are you headed to Edna’s?”

  “Actually, I’m going to pick up some dog food first. But can I meet you at Edna’s in, say, half an hour?”

  “Sure. That’ll give me time to do something first anyway. See you there.”

  He drove off, curious about the dog but eager to keep his attention on the investigation. He had a feeling that things were about to become much more clear.

  After a stop at the library and a call to his sister Denise, Danny was back at Edna’s, waiting for Jo, when she rolled up the drive. She put the dog into the backyard, locked the gate, and then tied it shut in a complicated knot with a rope.

  “Expecting Houdini?” Danny asked, climbing from his car.

  “Hah,” she replied. “You have no idea.” She gave a terse explanation about where the dog had come from.

  Danny reserved comment. While he couldn’t imagine Jo Tulip as the mother of any creature who might make a mess, he was secretly glad to see her with a little canine protection. The dog might come in handy for her own personal safety.

  “Anyway,” she said tiredly as they went inside the house, “why do you look like the cat who ate the canary?”

  He would have sat on the couch next to her, but it was missing a cushion. Instead, he took a seat on the ottoman to her right, eager to lead her through his thought processes. Since picking up the gold pin that afternoon, he had done a lot of thinking and had come up with a theory, which had then been confirmed by his magician sister and by what he had found at the library.

  “What is it?” Jo asked, her eyes on his, a slight smile to her lips. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”

  He sat back and crossed his arms.

  “Alchemy,” he said triumphantly.

  “Alchemy?” she asked, shaking her head.

  “The science of turning metal into gold. Also, some believe, the secret to eternal life.” As she processed what he had said, he reached into his bag and pulled out a stack of books on alchemy he had taken from the library. “You studied chemistry, Jo, so you know basically what alchemy is. Half science, half mysticism, it’s been around for thousands of years. Studied by kings and chemists and philosophers, it’s supposedly the ancient art of securing both immortality and great wealth through ‘transmutation.’ Legend has it that someone who possesses the secrets of alchemy can turn ordinary metals into gold and they will never die.”

  Jo nodded.

  “Some famous scientists believed in alchemy, didn’t they?” she asked.

  Danny opened one of the books and flipped through the pages.

  “Roger Bacon, Nicholas Flamel, Sir Isaac Newton, Carl Jung. They all dabbled in alchemy, even when it wasn’t legal. Newton almost died from mercury poisoning because of his secret experiments.”

  Jo exhaled slowly, running a hand through her hair.

  “So how does this fit in here?”

  Danny leaned forward.

  “We know Simon was working a con game on some rich but gullible women. I think his whole con centered around alchemy. He used the photos and the painting to prove he had already achieved immortality himself. As for the ability to turn metal into gold, well, look what I got from the jeweler.”

  Danny opened the envelope and handed Jo the metal pin.

  “Last week, Simon Kurtz brought this to the jeweler and ordered an identical one to be made in gold,” Danny said. He pulled out the gold version and handed her that as well. “The jeweler told me that Simon has placed a number of orders with him lately, and that every single time he has brought in some sort of metal trinket and had it duplicated in gold.”

  “Keep talking,” Jo said, studying both items.

  “On the way home, I was wondering why a person would do something like that. Then I started thinking that maybe these were props in a very elaborate trick. I called Denise and asked her how it could be done, exactly, and what she said made perfect sense.”

  Jo looked up at him expectantly.

  “Let’s say Simon wants to convince some rich widow that he has the power to turn metal into gold. He tells her to bring him some trinket, some small worthless item, and he’ll prove it to her. Once he has the trinket, he says he needs a few days to mix up some of the secret formula or something. In the meantime, he takes the trinket to an out-of-town jeweler and has a duplicate made in gold.”

  “I’m with you.”

  “When they get back together, he brings out the trinket and the magic formula. Right in front of her eyes, he drops the metal trinket into the liquid, stirs it around, and pulls out the golden duplicate.”

  “But why go to all of that expense? I don’t understand.”

  “Because she takes back the trinket, now golden, and brings it to her trusted jeweler. He examines it and pronounces that it’s real, through and through. What she doesn’t know is that at the bottom of the pot, hidden by the liquid, is the original trinket. She thinks she witnessed magic, when all she really saw was a simple switch.”

  Jo sat back, her eyes wide. Danny could tell she was coming on board with the idea.

  “So,” she said slowly, “first he makes them think he can turn metal into gold. Then, with the painting and the photos, he leads them to belie
ve that he’s been alive since the seventeen hundreds. He dupes local experts into validating his claims, and then he tells these women that they, too, can have the Midas touch and can live forever. They, too, can know the secrets of alchemy—for a price.”

  “Right.”

  “But, Danny, who would be gullible enough to really believe that?”

  “Who indeed? What about Sir Isaac Newton? What about all of the alchemists through the ages? What about a few women in this very town who are old and alone and afraid to die?”

  Jo’s eyes met his and she nodded.

  “I think you’ve hit the bull’s-eye, Danny,” she said. “In fact, I may even have found the special liquid he used for supposedly transmuting the metal into gold. It’s in a paint can in the shed.”

  Jo led the way out back, where the dog was nearly frantic with joy to see them, knocking over his water bowl in jubilation. While Danny knelt and rubbed him behind the ears, Jo ran to the shed and came back out with an unlabeled paint can, an ornate silver and marble container, and a long, silver spoon.

  “These were all together, in a box. The ‘magic formula.’ ”

  There on the back porch, she pried open the paint can to reveal a strange, sparkly liquid. They stared at it for a moment as Jo went through a sort of scientist’s checklist.

  “Viscous, odorless, opaque,” she whispered. “I’d almost guarantee this is nothing more than some sort of ionic liquid, probably with a dye added for opacity. Or maybe a petroleum distillate. Or a synthetic latex.”

  “Whatever you say, Jo. Can you run a few tests, analyze it, and figure out what it is?”

  She shook her head.

  “I could do a few rudimentary things here,” she said. “But defining an unknown is not as easy as you think. We’ll have to send it out to a lab, one with some very high-tech equipment.”

  The irony, Simon thought as he finally rolled the bicycle into Wiggles’ driveway, is that Edna died while involved with a con that was supposed to provide eternal life. As he thought about that, he finally understood the appeal of his own con: Nobody wants to die—particularly not those who are already frail and failing and alone.

  Rolling the bicycle around to the back, he remembered the rules his father had taught him years ago, rules about why elderly women were the most perfect pigeons.