Elementary, My Dear Watkins

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Taking a chance on a different approach, she waved at a lone cab that was sitting under the street light in the train station parking lot, got inside, and gave him the address of the old lady’s house. After seeing those two new security guards at the house earlier in the evening, her hope was that the men manning the gate and the front door were also new and wouldn’t recognize her.

  “You’re awfully young to be out and about by yourself at this hour,” the cabbie said as he clicked the meter on and started driving.

  She pulled out her hand mirror and a tissue, and started wiping off every speck of makeup, including the eyeliner. According to the clock on the dash, it was 4:55 AM. By her estimation, that should still give her enough time to get to her room before the sunrise started lightening the sky.

  “Sometimes you’ve got to get an early start,” she told him, “when you’re working in a greenhouse.”

  When she finished removing the makeup, she brushed her hair, took off her belt and jewelry, and then put everything away in her bag. Her hope was that the security guards would let her right on through once she told them she was there to do some early yard work. Coming in the front gate in a taxicab took a lot of nerve, but in a way it was the sneakiest entrance of all because it was so overt.

  Sure enough, when the cab pulled up at the gate, all she had to do was roll down the window and repeat her lie to the security guard. He spoke on the walkie-talkie and let her through, telling the cabbie not to leave until she had been cleared by the guard at the house. Once they made it up the long curved driveway and came to a stop, she paid the cabbie with the money she kept in her backpack and then smiled at the next security guard as he opened the door for her.

  “It’s pretty early to be coming to work,” he said, looking vaguely suspicious. “You’re not on my list.”

  “I’m supposed to help Winnie in the greenhouse. We’re hardening the seedlings today. Gotta get an early start.”

  He pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it.

  “Can’t let you stay if your name’s not on here.”

  She bit her lip and thought for a moment.

  “It doesn’t have an Alexa?”

  He scanned it again and then nodded.

  “Yep, there you are. Somebody goofed and put you down under family.”

  “I wish,” she said, smiling.

  “I hear you. You have a good day now.”

  “You too.”

  Then she walked around the house toward the garage and made a wobbly beeline along the back of the house once she was out of sight.

  Somebody goofed and put you down under family.

  Just the thought of being listed as “family” warmed her to the very core.

  At the stairs, Alexa began climbing up, one step at a time, though her leg was so weak she practically had to crawl. Almost to the top, she had to pause and catch her breath, afraid her leg was going to give out completely any minute now. There wasn’t much more to go—surely, she could pull it together long enough to get up four more stairs, across the veranda, and into her window.

  She was about to make that last push when she spotted movement in the backyard. Someone was coming her way. Alexa crouched down and sat perfectly still, praying that she was well hidden in the shadows. As the person drew closer, she saw that it was Winnie, walking over from her apartment in the guest house. Oh no! The security guard must have woken Winnie up to make sure Alexa was really supposed to be here, and Winnie was coming to check it out.

  But then she did the strangest thing instead.

  When Winnie reached the main house, she didn’t head for the back door or even the back stairs. She looked all around, as though to make sure that nobody was watching, and then she slid open a window and crawled inside. Being kind of chunky, it wasn’t easy for her to squeeze through, but she finally made it, her little white Keds dangling out the window for a minute before disappearing inside.

  What was up with that?

  After a moment, a faint, moving light could be seen inside the room where Winnie had gone. Despite her exhaustion, Alexa couldn’t help but crawl back down the stairs and over to the window to take a peek inside and see what she was doing.

  From what Alexa could tell, Winnie was in the front part of the old lady’s bathroom. She was there holding a flashlight in her mouth and going through the medicine cabinet, grabbing bottles of pills, reading the labels, and putting them back, one by one. Was Winnie a druggie? Looking for a fix? If so, Alexa doubted she’d find anything more interesting in an old lady’s medicine cabinet than arthritis medicine or a bottle of laxative.

  Finally, Winnie seemed to find the one bottle that she wanted, but what she did next was totally weird: She took out the capsules, opened each one, dumped its contents into the sink, and then refilled it with something else. Alexa would have thought she was putting in poison or something, but from what she could tell, Winnie was filling the capsules with the sugar powder from some Pixie Stix.

  Pixie Stix?

  Alexa could not begin to imagine what that was about. But with the sun due to come up soon, she couldn’t stick around long enough to find out. Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from the window and returned to the stairs. She made it all the way up this time without stopping, crept across the veranda to her window, slid it open, and climbed inside.

  Her leg made a bit of a thump as she hit the floor, but she didn’t even pause. She just slid the window shut, stripped off her clothes, and pulled on her pajama pants and T-shirt. Then she pushed the lump of pillows out of the way and got into the bed, wondering what kind of a game Winnie was running in there and thinking she’d never been so tired in her life.

  17

  For some reason, Jo awoke early and couldn’t get back to sleep. She tossed and turned for a while but finally had to admit defeat. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well get up.

  Quietly, she left the snoring Chewie at the foot of the bed and padded over to the window. Looking out, she saw that the sun was just peeking through the trees. Though she didn’t catch the sunrise often, it was still her favorite part of the day. She pulled the easy chair closer to the window, sat, and simply gazed out at the morning, listening to the chirping birds and thinking about God. She tried to remember a verse from the book of Psalms, something about protection and fear. Retrieving her Bible from the nightstand, she looked for it now, flipping the pages until she found it: The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?

  That was it. Jo read it again, several times, until she committed the verse to memory. Really, that was all she had to hold onto right now when she was under attack, just as King David had been under attack when he wrote it.

  Grateful for the Lord’s continued love and protection, Jo closed her Bible and began to pray. She spent a while with her head bowed, bringing to God every question she wasn’t able to answer and every problem currently seeming so insurmountable. By the time she was finished, she felt as though she had covered it all—and she felt much more at peace.

  Jo finally opened her eyes to see that the sun had come all the way up and Chewie was awake and wagging his tail. Jo gave him a big hug and then dressed as quickly as she could, eager to check out Chewie’s new fenced-in area out back and then get them both some breakfast.

  Danny listened, his mouth agape, as Luc related the conversation he’d had with Jo’s mother, Helen. According to him, her intention was to get Danny home quickly, no matter what it took, for Jo’s safety. It was complicated, but apparently it had something to do with the family’s wealth and a will and a certain clause that was preventing Jo from inheriting her rightful share of the family fortune.

  “Helen said that she had connections at Haute Couture,” Luc continued, “so when she arranged for a job offer and you turned it down, she simply directed Chester Parks to keep upping the offer until you had no choice but to say yes.”

  “You’re telling me that Chester
’s going to call me back and offer me even more money for that job?”

  “Non. Something has happened to change their plan—to make it much more urgent for you to come home than before.”

  “Something happened? What?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me, just that it was imperative that you come home immediately. I asked her why she didn’t call you up herself and explain the whole situation, but she said that if you felt you were being manipulated, you wouldn’t cooperate. She said it would be best for her purposes, not to mention my bank account, if you were simply fired and sent on your way.”

  “But this is crazy. If I knew Jo needed me, I would be there in flash. Without question.”

  “I know. I do not doubt that. But there is something very fishy going on here, my friend. I simply had to tell you the truth—though last night, with all of that money being thrown at me, I must confess that I accepted her offer. I agreed to sabotage your position. She still thinks that is what is going to happen.”

  For a hundred thousand dollars, Danny almost understood why Luc had made such a decision.

  “What went on between last night and right now to change your mind?” Danny asked, knowing that the inner conflict must have been what had sent Luc to the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

  “I am not sure,” Luc replied, “except that this morning, when I got up and looked at myself in the mirror, I decided that I did not want it to be the last time I could look at myself in the mirror. Could I really sell my soul and betray a friend—especially one with such talent and passion for his work? I do not think so. Not for any price.”

  Before Danny could respond, they were interrupted by a knock at the door. It opened, and Mr. Bashiri looked inside.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked. “We still have much work to do, but the doctor said that the two of you are in here arguing. May we postpone your conversation until lunchtime, perhaps?”

  Mr. Bashiri seemed irritated, and Danny didn’t blame him. The problem was, suddenly there were more important things going on here—including the fact that for some reason Helen needed him home in a hurry, and it had to do with the family fortune. Danny did not like Jo’s parents, and he certainly didn’t trust them, but if Helen was willing to throw a hundred thousand dollars at Luc just to get Danny to come home, then something very big must be going on there.

  Suddenly, an image of Jo popped into Danny’s mind. She might be independent and self-reliant, but she was also sweet and trusting and vulnerable, and he knew she could easily become an unwitting pawn in somebody’s financial game if she wasn’t careful or if she didn’t understand what was really going on. If Helen Tulip was pulling out the big guns, then it must be time for out-and-out war.

  Danny just wished he knew what they were fighting for.

  “Well?” Mr. Bashiri said, glancing at his watch. “We do not have much time to waste.”

  “Come in, please,” Danny told him, feeling terrible for what he was about to say. But even Mr. Bashiri himself had told Danny to make sure his priorities were in order, and that professional success was not always worth the cost.

  Danny only wished he had realized that truth six weeks ago, when he first abandoned Jo to take this job.

  “I’m afraid there’s a problem with my visa,” Danny said now. “I think we need to make a change of plans.”

  Breakfast was a decidedly unpleasant affair, beginning with Eleanor’s announcement that Bradford was doing so much better that he was being moved out of intensive care and into a regular room—but that he was being uncooperative with the police and refusing to answer any of their questions.

  “He’ll talk to me,” Jo cried, but Eleanor said that Bradford and his parents had specifically requested no visitors, especially not Jo Tulip.

  Jo couldn’t understand why he had done that, but it sounded for some reason as though he was trying to weasel out of the situation entirely. She could only wonder what he might do next—perhaps deny ever saying any of those things to her in the first place?

  Jo had been in a good mood when she first sat down, but the wind quickly sputtered from her sails after that. The looming presence of her bodyguard only served to remind her of the gravity of it all.

  Down at the end of the table, Winnie was sullen and morose. Apparently, Eleanor had talked to her yesterday while Jo was in Pennsylvania and told her everything that was going on. Now, the woman who had been so bubbly about her gardening the day before had not said two words since sitting down.

  Eleanor looked as though she was worn out. With a listless appetite and dark circles under her eyes, Jo knew that the situation was taking a serious toll on the woman. Jo could only pray that it would be resolved soon. At 86, her grandmother didn’t have the stamina to get through something like this unscathed.

  Alexa hadn’t made it to breakfast at all. According to Eleanor, she had come down earlier and complained of a sore throat and a headache, so they had canceled her tutor for the day and she had gone back to bed to sleep.

  Only Consuela seemed to be in a good mood, singing to herself as she carried in a platter of homemade waffles and set it down next to the heated syrup.

  “For goodness’ sake, Consuela, this is breakfast, not Carnegie Hall. Please be quiet.”

  Jo looked up at her grandmother, surprised at the outburst.

  “I think Consuela’s just in a good mood,” Jo said, trying to smooth things over.

  “Yes. It’s watching your dog out the window that’s making me happy,” Consuela concurred. “So sweet and funny. He reminds me of my little Koko, best pet I ever had.”

  She babbled on a bit about her childhood dog, obviously not realizing that no one except Jo was interested. Once she left the room, Eleanor let out a sigh and then went back to picking at her food.

  Jo thought it might be as good a time as any to mention her need for a little office space to do her work and ask if any of the outbuildings could accommodate her. Her grandmother said that she should feel free to use either an empty office in the carriage house or a table in the studio.

  “There’s a sink in the studio, isn’t there?” Jo asked. “I’ll work in there. I’m going to concentrate on some household hint questions today.”

  She didn’t add that the questions would all revolve around toaster ovens to give her more fodder for drawing out Toaster Man and encouraging him to write back. Perhaps if Jo was able to sneak enough details out of him, she could track down the case that way. Given the confines of her situation, she figured that was better than nothing.

  “Oh, please,” Winnie interrupted suddenly, her voice harsh. “Household hints? There are more important things going on here than that. I think you both should know that my son, Ian, called me in the middle of the night. He said that he had a visit from the police, asking him questions about what happened.”

  Jo turned to her grandmother, one eyebrow raised, wondering how the cops knew to question Ian.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Eleanor snapped. “Yes, I’m the one who gave his name to the police. They have received my full cooperation. I will not tolerate this sort of behavior in my home, my family, or my company. Lying, double-dealing, contract killing—whatever. I won’t have it.”

  “Mother, do you honestly think my son—your own grandson—could be a murderer?” Winnie demanded.

  “Actually, no, I don’t. But he is the most likely suspect, and we had to start somewhere. For what it’s worth, the police will probably question you and Neil too.”

  “Perfect,” Winnie snapped. “Turned in by my own mother. Will you look the other way as they beat me with a rubber hose?”

  “Uh, the cops don’t really do that,” Jo said, fighting the urge to smile.

  “Do you want me to move out of here and back to Manhattan, Mother? Go as far away from Jo as possible, just in case I might be trying to kill her myself?”

  “It’s an investigation, Winnie,” Eleanor explained tiredly. “The police have to go through a systematic pro
cess of eliminating suspects. You and your husband and son would each benefit quite handsomely from Jo’s death. They simply need to rule you out so they can move on to the real murderer.”

  Jo put down her fork and wiped her mouth with her napkin, wishing this entire mess could simply go away. She knew she could be wrong, of course, but she’d almost be willing to stake her life on the fact that the killer was not Winnie or Neil or Ian.

  “Winnie,” Jo said, “according to my father, there are plenty of people in the company who would stand to gain by my death. The police will be talking to all of them eventually, I’m sure. Don’t take it personally.”

  “Don’t take it personally?”

  Winnie threw her napkin onto the table, slammed her hands down, and stood up so quickly that the bodyguard sprang into action, poised to take her down if necessary.

  “My nerves can’t take this,” Winnie said, near tears, her hands shaking. Jo was sad to realize that the carefree, happy Winnie she’d glimpsed yesterday was now completely gone. “It’s not fair!”

  “It may not seem fair right now, but—”

  “I wait all year for planting season,” Winnie interrupted. “All year. And you people are just ruining it for me.”

  With that, she ran from the room in tears. They could hear the back door slam and then Chewie barking and then another door slam in the distance. Jo looked at her grandmother, her eyes wide.

  “Well,” Eleanor said precisely, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin, “what were we thinking? How very thoughtless of us to have placed a greater value on human life than we have on planting season.”

  Danny decided that he was going to catch the next possible flight home. Above all else, he needed to be with Jo. He didn’t intend to quit his job with Scene It or close out his Paris apartment or anything like that. He simply had to find out what was going on and make sure she was okay. He’d deal with whatever ramifications came from his actions later.