The Trouble With Tulip

by Mindy Starns Clark

  But what good was Christianity in the outside world? Most of the inmates he knew who became Christians while on the inside went right back to their old lives once they were out. The best Simon could tell, all religion did in the real world was complicate things the way it had complicated the con with Edna.

  In hindsight, Simon supposed, he should have seen it coming. When he first came to town and convinced his sister to get back in the game, she had really hesitated. Edna hadn’t worked a con in the forty years since she ran away from the carnival and reinvented herself. But Simon convinced her to do it, promising money and excitement and a whole new life together. Edna was bored with being a widow, bored living in Mulberry Glen, bored by knowing her own daughter couldn’t stand the sight of her and hardly ever visited. Finally, Edna relented. But as her friends and acquaintances got sucked into their little game, one by one, she hadn’t seemed to be enjoying herself. Where Simon drew excitement and pleasure from clever deception, she seemed only to grow more withdrawn and guilty.

  In the end, all it had really taken for her to change her ways was a kind word from the pastor’s wife and a few well-chosen Bible verses.

  “The Lord has washed me clean as snow, Simon,” Edna had told him that night. “All of my sins are gone. Do you understand that? They’re gone, simply swept away, through the power of prayer and the redemption of Christ. Your sins can be gone too, Simon, just by letting the Holy Spirit into your heart.”

  He let her make her pitch. But when she was finished, he told her he wasn’t interested. It was after that that she dropped her bombshell.

  “Well, then, you need to know,” she said, “at noon tomorrow I’m meeting with my lawyer to turn myself in. What you do between now and then is completely up to you.”

  He realized that she had called him over there to give him fair warning. She was telling him that the con was off, and that he could either disappear on the double or stick around and end up getting arrested.

  It broke his heart, and he cursed God, if there was one, for being more important to his sister than her own flesh and blood. How could she turn on him like that? Hadn’t they always stuck up for each other? Hadn’t he always been there for her?

  Simon tried convincing her for over an hour, but she wouldn’t budge. Even his stories about the misery of prison wouldn’t dissuade her.

  “My sins have been forgiven,” she kept saying, “but that doesn’t mean I can continue to sin. I have to make this right, no matter what the cost.”

  Her mind was made up. In the end, despite his anger, they had hugged goodbye—a long, tender hug that Simon knew might have to hold him for a good long while. From now on, he would be just another ex-con on the run, and his sister would likely be spending the next few years in jail.

  After telling Edna goodbye, Simon had walked to the main road and caught a bus back to the hotel and packed up his things. At first he planned to get as far away as he could as quickly as possible. But the more he thought about it, the harder it was to leave. He ended up staying awake all night, trying to figure out some way to get out of town with the money. At least the bank had Saturday hours. In the end, he had caught the bus to the bank, gone inside as soon as it opened, and attempted to make a withdrawal. It hadn’t worked, but that had still given him several hours to get away. He assumed Edna had gone along as planned, meeting with her lawyer at noon and confessing to their crimes. Little had he known, though, somewhere between the time he left her house and the next morning, that she had committed suicide. He wouldn’t have predicted that, given her emotional state when he left, but one never knew. Before their mother killed herself, she made a batch of cookies and changed the kitty litter.

  You could never know what someone else was really thinking.

  Exhaling slowly, Simon stood and carried his bowl and spoon to the sink, setting them down without even bothering to wash them. Then he went outside and waited for the delivery, knowing that as soon as it came, his life would forever be changed.

  To avoid the reporters camped out in front of her house, Jo parked at Danny’s and went home across the backyard. She picked up Chewie on the way, who had once again been stashed in Danny’s guest room. Jo knew she was taking advantage of Danny’s hospitality, but she just couldn’t bear the thought of Chewie running loose in her own home when she wasn’t there. There was no telling what he might eat!

  Chewie was delighted to see her, of course, practically knocking Jo over in his enthusiasm. She led him to her house on the leash, letting him stop at almost every tree to lift a leg. Once they were home, she slipped in through the back, went into the kitchen, and gave Chewie a nice big bowl of dog food. He wolfed it down while she checked her telephone messages.

  There were plenty.

  Her favorite was from her agent, who sounded more excited than he had been in a long time.

  “Hey, doll!” he exclaimed. “It’s Milton. Looks like you just got your fifteen minutes of fame. Call me right away so we can figure out how to use it to our advantage.”

  The other calls were from reporters or friends, each wanting to pump her for information. Jo decided to ignore all but Milton. She called him back and they mapped out a strategy for how to proceed. He was going to put several things into motion right away, including trying to get her some television appearances and responding to an offer of a book deal.

  “You need to start putting together a ‘Best of’ collection,” he said. “Go through the old columns and think about how you would organize them into a book. I don’t know what kind of advance we’re talking about, but if you’re gonna try to put something out, it would be nice to strike while the iron’s hot.”

  Jo felt a bit guilty once she hung up. It was one thing to fight her column’s demise with grit and determination. It was quite another to capitalize on a tragedy just to make a buck.

  She tried to think it through as she showered and dressed for the day. She was just buttoning her shirt when the phone rang. Letting it go to the machine, she listened until she heard Danny’s familiar voice.

  “Hey,” she said, picking up the phone. “Shouldn’t you be on stage whacking a drum right now?”

  “In about five minutes,” he said. “I had to talk to you first.”

  “What’s going on?”

  According to Danny, they now had a whole new perspective on Edna Pratt’s last days.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I just had a significant conversation with Cora Pepperdine. The pastor’s wife here at the church.”

  “Several weeks ago,” Danny said, “Cora had heard rumors that Edna Pratt was offering some of the older widows in the church a chance at ‘eternal life on earth.’ Feeling concerned, Cora had paid a visit to Edna to talk about it. Edna had been very closemouthed during the whole encounter, but as Cora was leaving, she made Edna a promise. She said, If you really want eternal life, Edna, I can tell you how to get it. It’s not something you can earn or buy or wish into existence. It’s a gift and it comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. Call me if you want to know more.

  “Edna must have been thinking it over ever since,” Danny said, “because last Friday morning she called Cora and asked if she could meet with her again. According to Cora, Edna Pratt had been reading the Bible, and she was feeling strongly convicted in her heart.”

  “But, Danny,” Jo said, “don’t you think this was just another swindle? It would have been easy for Edna to fake some sort of conversion if it would get the pastor’s wife off her back.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Danny replied. “On Friday afternoon, Cora presented the plan of salvation and prayed with Edna, who seemed to genuinely come to faith. Afterward, Edna was crying and saying how evil she had been and how much she needed forgiveness. Cora assured her that God had given her that forgiveness the moment she asked for it, but then Edna said—are you ready?”

  “What? What?” Jo prodded.

  “Edna said, ‘I have to set things right. I have to go to the po
lice and make them understand what I’ve done.’ When Cora started asking questions, Edna just clammed up and said she had to talk to someone first and that the truth would all come out in the end.”

  Jo sat there for a moment, thinking about the implications of what Danny had just told her.

  “Edna was going to confess her part in the con,” Jo said softly. “She was going to own up to it, hoping to set things right. She was going to blow the whistle on the whole game. That means her brother must have been the one to kill her.”

  “Maybe not,” Danny replied. “What if she warned him first? What if she told him what she was planning to do and gave him a chance either to convert and confess along with her or get out of town? That would explain why he disappeared right in the middle of the con. He got out while the getting was good.”

  Jo nodded to herself. That would also explain why Edna had been in the middle of housecleaning and beautifying when she died. She was putting all of her ducks in a row before valiantly marching off to jail. Had she not been murdered Friday night, chances are Edna would have shown up at her lawyer’s office on Saturday at noon, ready to tell all.

  “It makes sense,” Jo said.

  Danny had to go, as they were calling him to the stage. Jo hung up the phone, thinking of what they had learned.

  If Edna was killed because she was going to confess, then whoever killed her was someone who needed to stop her from making that confession. Jo thought again of Edna’s daughter, Sally, a woman whose political career took precedence over everything. She blinked, thinking also of the older women who had been duped—any one of which would have been mortified to see the truth come out in that way.

  Jo got out the phone book and looked up the medical examiner’s office. She had to go through several people, but finally she was connected with the coroner. She gave her name and reminded him how they met at Edna Pratt’s crime scene. Then she asked if he would mind answering a few questions about the autopsy.

  “If I can,” he replied.

  “If Edna Pratt didn’t pass out from fumes,” Jo said, “then that means she was pushed down where she hit her head against the window. Am I correct?”

  “Not exactly. She had no other bruises or marks that might indicate she was pushed. So my theory is that she was bludgeoned on the head with something dull and square. I made some good drawings of the fatal head wound when I was doing the autopsy, and though at the time I felt certain the shape matched that of the windowsill, further study has shown that perhaps it was something else squared-edged, like a piece of wood or metal. Obviously, once she was dead, the killer hit that same implement against the widowsill, to make it look as if Edna had fallen and hit her head.”

  “Could a woman have done it?” Jo asked.

  “Not an older woman, unless she was abnormally strong. But a young woman, certainly. Especially in the heat of the moment.”

  Jo thanked him and hung up, a sudden image coming into her mind. She recalled walking with the police through the crime scene, explaining the different oddities in the house. Jo closed her eyes, remembering the felt-covered brick on the coffee table.

  Simon heard the truck before he saw it. As it came around the bend, he stood, heart pounding at the sight of the familiar purple-and-orange logo.

  The money was here.

  He walked to the edge of the driveway, watching as the driver put the big truck into park but left the motor running. The man climbed down from his high seat, went around back and reached inside, leaving the doors open. Then he came around to Simon, an envelope in his hand.

  “Howdy,” he said. “Are you Simon Foster?”

  “Yes, I am,” Simon said, reaching out to take the envelope.

  Once he took it from the guy, he saw that there was a gun in the driver’s other hand, aimed directly at him.

  “Then you’re under arrest.”

  Suddenly, five men in full SWAT gear spilled out from the back of the truck, each of them with guns trained firmly on Simon. He put his hands into the air, wondering for a moment if he were still asleep and this was just a dream.

  Then they had him down on the ground, one foot against his back, two men pulling his hands together behind him for the handcuffs.

  Simon felt a crushing weight in his chest, more than just the weight of the cop’s foot. It was the weight of betrayal and lost dreams and a dead sister.

  It was the weight of his own greed.

  When Jo arrived at Edna’s house, she left Chewie in the yard and ran inside to dig through some boxes, trying to remember what she had done with it. She finally found it in the bottom of a trash bag: a brick, wrapped in green felt, with some steel wool affixed to the bottom.

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the police station. Once she identified herself, they put her directly through to the chief.

  “Miss Tulip?”

  “Chief!” she cried. “I may have found the murder weapon.”

  She went on to describe the item, reminding him of what she had said at the crime scene, that Edna was probably using the brick as a sander while fixing the water rings in her coffee table.

  “It’s heavy, it’s square, it’s dull, and I bet you anything it was sitting nearby when someone came here to kill her.”

  “Have you touched it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “On Saturday, and then when I came here to clean out the house for Sally Sugarman. It’s in a box now.”

  “It’s covered in felt, you said?”

  “Yes. Green felt.”

  “Probably wouldn’t hold a print anyway, but it’s certainly worth a look.”

  He asked if she could bring it straight to the coroner’s office, which was downtown about a block from the police station.

  “The coroner can measure it, at least,” he said. “Compare it to the measurements of the wound site. And you never know, there might be some latent prints there.”

  She agreed to bring it right over, and then they hung up. She ran into the kitchen, retrieved a plastic bag, and carefully put the brick inside.

  Before leaving, Jo ran out back to check on Chewie, dismayed that he had turned over his water bowl yet again. Pausing to think, she ran back into the sewing room, pulled out Edna’s bundt pan she had put in the yard sale pile, then brought it into the kitchen, and filled it with water.

  “Here you go, boy,” she said, carrying it outside. She set it down on the grass, grabbed a wooden stake from Edna’s tomato plants, and drove it into the ground right in the center hole of the pan. “Just try to knock that over.”

  In the car, Jo realized that life with a dog might yield all sorts of new possibilities for her column. Already, she had dealt with several frustrating situations, using her ingenuity to solve each one.

  “That’s why they call you the Smart Chick!” she said out loud to herself.

  Then she drove as quickly as she could to the coroner’s office.

  28

  Regeneration finished their set to enthusiastic applause. They took their bows, and then Danny slipped off to the side to close the curtain. The women’s group was going to have a meeting now, so the family would have to dismantle their equipment quietly and carry it from the stage through the back exit.

  He had some spare time before he had to be at the studio, so he helped his sisters with all of their stuff before loading his own. By the time everything had been put away, his mother was standing in the parking lot, divvying up the love offering the women had given them.

  Each share came to only forty-three dollars, and Danny wondered briefly if it had been worth it. Considering the time and trouble they’d gone to—not to mention the quality of their music—they were worth much more than that.

  Aggravated, Danny told his family goodbye and climbed into his car. Before he could pull out of his parking space, however, the passenger door opened and his mother plopped down into the seat next to him.

  “Wait a minute, Danny,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

&nb
sp; “What is it, Ma? I have to get to work.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “You seem upset.”

  He put the car in park, hesitated, and turned off the key. It was a cloudy day, dark and oppressive, and he wondered if his life would always be like this—lots of hard work for very little money and some big dreams that were never going to come true.

  “How do you do it, Ma?” he asked her. “How do you collect these penny-ante love offerings when you know what our shows are really worth? How do you keep plugging away with the band when you know that your goals and dreams are never going to come true?”

  That was probably more than she had expected to hear, Danny realized. But he was tired and frustrated, from the situation with Jo to his career as a photographer. Soon, something somewhere was going to have to give.

  “You’re right,” his mother said softly. “I did have big dreams when I was younger. I just had to rethink things, is all.”

  “Rethink things? How do you reconcile your desire to be a big music star with the knowledge that you just made forty-three dollars from a morning’s worth of talent and hard work? It’s crazy.”

  “Yeah, it is,” she admitted. “I guess I just tell myself that the Lord knows what He’s doing. Maybe you need to surrender.”

  “But how?” Danny demanded. “How do you surrender something you want with every fiber of your being? How do you give something over to God’s control when you still have to spend every waking moment trying to make it happen for yourself?”

  She exhaled slowly, reached out, and patted his hand.

  “Ah, Danny,” she said, “it’s so hard to explain. Part of the peace I have comes from knowing that God is using me, no matter how limited the fashion. Given the choice, I would rather have performed this morning for an audience of thousands. But today God put me up in front of about sixty women, and so that’s what I did instead. Hopefully, a song we sang or a story we shared touched someone in there in ways we can’t ever understand. Don’t you see? That’s much bigger than anything I might have planned because that’s letting God use me for His purposes.”