Elementary, My Dear Watkins

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Danny shook his head.

  “He was wrong to force you into that deal in the first place. You don’t need to feel bad.”

  She shrugged, obviously not convinced.

  “What kind of drugs was he buying?”

  “Same as he always gets. Speed. Everybody knows that’s how Bradford hides the drinking he does at night, by popping speed during the day.”

  “Who is ‘everybody’?”

  Alexa shrugged.

  “My mom mostly, I guess.”

  “How does your mom know that?”

  “Probably ’cause she talks to him a lot.”

  Danny tried not to react too strongly to that statement. What on earth was Bradford doing hanging out with Alexa’s mother?

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that? Are they dating?”

  Alexa laughed, shaking her head.

  “Eww! My mom with a hunk like Bradford? Yeah, right.”

  “What, then?”

  “Well, I don’t know a whole lot,” Alexa hedged, looking as though she was sorry she’d said anything, “and I learned a long time ago not to ask too many questions around my house…”

  “Yeah?”

  “But I think they’re in some kind of business together. I’ve heard them on the phone, talking about profits and sales and things.”

  Danny blinked, looking at Alexa.

  “Business together? What are they selling?”

  Alexa shrugged and looked at Danny, her expression earnest.

  “I don’t know, Danny. I try not to listen, because I don’t want to know.”

  It was nearly three o’clock in the morning before the final policeman left, along with the extra security personnel. Though Jo would have loved to send the bodyguard packing as well, she suggested he finish out his shift until morning and then they could wrap things up for good.

  Jo walked Alexa to her bedroom in order to retrieve Chewie, hanging around just long enough to tuck the girl into bed.

  “You’re a real hero, sweetie,” Jo told her, pulling the covers up and tucking them in along the side. “I’m so proud of you for telling the truth tonight and saving my grandmother.”

  Alexa just smiled and closed her eyes, looking peaceful but exhausted.

  Out in the hall, Jo asked the bodyguard if he would mind taking Chewie outside for a quick potty stop before bed. While man and dog were gone, Jo and Danny took advantage of the privacy to say goodnight.

  Jo didn’t want to part with him at all, and she was tempted to suggest that they simply cuddle together on the couch downstairs until morning. But she knew they both needed sleep—not to mention that on this almost wedding night, after having been apart for so long, they wouldn’t exactly be bubbling over with self-control if they did.

  Instead, they kissed goodnight in the hall and then simply hugged, holding onto each other for a long moment before parting.

  “You do forgive me for stopping the wedding?” Jo whispered.

  “As long as you don’t stop the engagement,” he replied, giving her one more kiss. “I completely understand.”

  It wasn’t until Jo was in bed, under the covers, that she realized there was still one matter left unresolved.

  If Winnie was the one who had been trying to kill her, then who was it who had been trying to warn her? Who was Toaster Man?

  Hoping to prod him into action, Jo got up, went to her computer, and wrote another e-mail to him. As she shut down the computer, put it away, and got back in bed, Jo knew one thing for sure. There were still more questions to be answered.

  24

  Danny awoke, for a moment unsure about where he was. Paris? Zurich?

  Neither, he realized. He was in America, at the home of Eleanor Bosworth.

  Sitting up, he glanced at the clock, shocked to see that he had slept until nearly noon. Between jet lag, the mixed-up body clock, and the late hour that they had gone to bed, it made sense. He ran a hand over his face, feeling more rested than he had in days.

  In the course of a week, Danny had slept in a grungy flat, a rattling train car, a cheap hotel, an airplane—and now the lap of luxury. He wasn’t one for material possessions, but this sure beat the rest. Vaguely, he wondered what the thread count was on the sheets. Eight hundred? A thousand? Whatever it was, they probably cost more than his last month’s car payment.

  But as he looked around the elegant guest room with its deep leather headboard and ornate carved furniture, as beautiful as it was, he knew he’d rather live in a cardboard box with Jo than a palace without her.

  Good thing, too, he thought as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, because last night they’d essentially signed away her future fortune with the lawyer. Upon Jo’s inheritance, they would still get the interest from the shares, whatever that came to, but the actual shares themselves would belong to the Bosworth Charitable Trust. Considering how heavily that money weighed on Jo, Danny thought it was a pretty good solution. Not that he would have minded marrying rich, but some things were worth a lot more than dollars, and Jo’s peace of mind was one of them.

  If only Danny could find peace of mind of his own and shake the cloud of uncertainty that had been enveloping him since the cops drove away with Jo’s Aunt Winnie last night.

  So many things simply didn’t add up.

  Danny was no crime expert, but he did know that matricide was extremely rare, especially without strange and horrifying extenuating circumstances. Eleanor Bosworth would never have won Mother of the Year, but she wasn’t a monster, either. The thought of her own daughter attempting to murder her was astonishing indeed.

  Beyond that, Danny still wasn’t very happy with the whole Bradford element, especially after talking to Alexa last night. He had learned just enough to get some ideas about what might be going on, but not so much that he could be sure if his ideas were correct. With Bradford in the hospital and refusing to speak to anyone except family—refusing particularly Jo—the situation was difficult indeed. What was Bradford trying to hide? And what had made him go from his tell-all intentions at the train station to the closed-mouth stance he was taking now? At least after speaking with Alexa, Danny had some leverage with which to get information.

  He just had to figure out a way to get to Bradford in order to use that leverage.

  Putting it out of his mind for now, Danny walked to the window and pulled open the curtains, thrilled that it was such a gorgeous spring day. There was something about being home in the States after spending time in Europe that felt so relaxing, so normal. His stomach growling, Danny realized that the one thing he wanted most, right now, was a real American breakfast, even though he’d slept so late that it was nearly lunchtime. He thought he could smell bacon cooking somewhere in the house, so he decided to get ready for the day as quickly as possible and head out to the kitchen.

  Danny’s hope was that he and Jo could talk about their engagement over bacon and eggs. Now that they had almost tied the knot the night before, he was impatient to see that through.

  He wanted Jo Tulip as his wife, soon, and nothing was going to stop him until he made that happen.

  Jo was scooping eggs onto a plate when Danny appeared in the doorway. He looked adorable, freshly shaven and no longer road weary, with the sparkling blue eyes that made her fall in love with him, all over again, every time she saw him. He came straight over to her, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and whispered in her ear.

  “Good morning, Almost-Mrs.-Watkins.”

  “Good afternoon, Very-Much-Engaged-Mr.-Watkins.”

  Somehow, now that they had almost married, Jo could think of little else. She wanted it to happen for real. She wanted to be Danny’s wife.

  “Is that amazing plate of food by any chance for me?” Danny asked, pulling away to look at it hungrily.

  “In your e-mails,” Jo replied, grinning, “all you’ve talked about for five weeks is how much you missed a normal American breakfast. So I made you one. Eggs, hash browns, bacon, fruit, toast, freshly
squeezed orange juice, and coffee. May your cholesterol recover somehow.”

  “How did you know I was awake?”

  “I didn’t. It was getting so late, I decided to cook it and then wake you up and serve you breakfast in bed.”

  She turned to face him, and he put his arms around her again. He was still looking hungry, but now his hunger seemed to be more for her than for the food. As he moved in for a kiss, she put a hand to his lips and said that maybe it was better that she hadn’t delivered that breakfast in bed after all.

  Smiling, he just groaned and pulled her into a tight hug. Grinning to herself, Jo hugged him back and then moved away and said that his meal was getting cold.

  They sat together at the kitchen table. As Danny dug in, Jo brought him up to speed on all that had been happening while he was catching up on his sleep.

  Consuela and Fernando were still at the hospital with Eleanor, where they would probably remain for the rest of the day. Jo’s grandmother was a little better, hooked up to an IV and ordering around the hospital staff as though they were her own personal minions. Consuela was afraid that if they left Eleanor’s side she might actually start hiring and firing hospital personnel.

  “Yep,” Danny said after swallowing a sip of juice. “That sounds like your grandmother all right.”

  Jo said that the bodyguard service had been terminated this morning and that Alexa was outside playing with Chewie, waiting for her mother and the mother’s boyfriend to pick her up for their visitation day.

  “She’s been dressed and ready to go since ten. I guess they’re running late.”

  “Poor kid.”

  Jo said that once Alexa was gone, things around there should be quiet, at least until the police returned. Since taking Winnie into custody, the cops had managed to get a partial confession from her. Winnie was claiming that she hadn’t been trying to kill her mother by tampering with her thyroid medication, but merely make her seem confused. According to the stipulations of the trust, Eleanor’s shares would be distributed upon her death or incapacitation, and Winnie was insisting that that was all she had been going for—trying to get her mother declared incapacitated so the shares could be distributed.

  Winnie denied having anything to do with any attempted murder on Jo. Doubtful of her claims, however, the police had obtained a warrant and were coming back out to do a more thorough search of the guest house where she’d been living, to try and find some sort of evidence to the contrary. Winnie had no alibi for Wednesday around the time Jo was pushed. She said she’d simply gone out driving around for a few hours to look at some of the local gardens, and had never interacted with anyone who could corroborate.

  As for the tampered-with toaster, though Winnie denied doing that as well, the cops weren’t taking it very seriously anyway. Just as Jo had suspected, they said the setup wouldn’t have done much harm, and it certainly wouldn’t have been deadly.

  “Still, what does that have to do with it?” Jo asked Danny as she made herself some tea. “Attempted murder is still attempted murder, even if the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

  “I agree.”

  “I’ll just be glad when this whole thing is over. All I’ve been thinking about all day is Toaster Man.”

  “Toaster Man?”

  “That’s my nickname for the person who’s been sending me the anonymous e-mails—though of course in the end it might turn out to be Toaster Girl. I just don’t know.”

  “If Winnie’s the attempted killer,” Danny said, “then who do you think your anonymous e-mailer is?”

  Jo shook her head, frustrated that she had no good answer for that.

  “I would have to say Neil or Ian, or maybe even Muck.”

  “Muck?”

  “The gardener. Winnie comes and helps him out every year with the spring planting. Maybe they’re close.”

  “Maybe, though I can see why he’d want to warn you if he knew something.”

  “The problem is,” Jo said, “whether it’s Ian or Neil or Muck or someone else, if they knew Winnie was a threat, why did they allow her to stay here in such close proximity both to me and Gran? A few anonymous e-mails would not have been enough to protect us. I say if it’s any of them, they’re culpable in the poisoning of my grandmother, not to mention the attempt on my life with the toaster.”

  Danny took a bite of bacon and chewed thoughtfully.

  “I thought you said the e-mail person had had trouble with the law.”

  Jo nodded.

  “That might point to Ian, then,” she said. “I know he was stopped for drunk driving a few times during college.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by Alexa, who swung open the door to announce that her mom was finally there and she was leaving.

  “Chewie’s inside the fence,” Alexa said, looking adorable in jean shorts and her new neon green socks, “and I gave him some fresh water.”

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “Hi, Danny.”

  “Good morning, sunshine.”

  “Jo, before I go, can I see you outside?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Curious, Jo went to the door and stepped out, pulling it shut behind her. In the distance, waiting at the curve of the driveway for her daughter, Misty gave a halfhearted wave. Jo waved back.

  “Are you ever going to marry Danny?” Alexa whispered. “You really should. He’s such a hottie.”

  Jo laughed out loud.

  “Yes, he is a hottie. He’s also a good, good man. And what’s on the inside of a person is way more important than what’s on the outside, you know.”

  “More important than those gorgeous blue eyes?”

  “Yes.”

  “More important than that sexy smile?”

  “Why, Alexa,” Jo teased, “I do believe you have a crush on my fiancé.”

  The girl blushed, and Jo realized that it was true. How cute.

  “Yes, I am going to marry Danny,” Jo said as she patted Alexa on the shoulder. “So you’ll have to find your own hottie, okay? This one’s taken, for sure.”

  Danny was grinning at Jo as she came back inside.

  “What?” she asked, crossing back to the table and taking her seat.

  “What what?”

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin and then reached out to put a warm hand on top of hers.

  “Because I was just thinking what a wonderful mother you’re going to make. Have we talked about how many kids we want?”

  The conversation took a more personal turn after that, as Jo and Danny sat at the table and discussed the future and for the first time made a number of concrete plans. Of course, having been best friends for so many years, they had similar life goals and values, so ironing out the details of how they envisioned their life together wasn’t very difficult. They both wanted to live forever in Mulberry Glenn, Danny working as a nature photographer and Jo continuing with her household hints. When Danny admitted that he’d been thinking a lot about Jo’s burned-down house and had come up with an idea, Jo was all ears.

  “What if,” he said dramatically, “we used your insurance money to expand my house rather than rebuild your house? We could get rid of the rubble, move your home office closer to the front, and fence in both yards as one. How great would that be? With such a big yard, we’d have room for plenty of little Watkinses to run around in, not to mention the world’s coolest swing set, which their father would personally help build.”

  Jo realized as soon as he said it that the idea was perfect. She had a feeling that the reason she’d postponed doing anything about rebuilding was because she knew subconsciously that there was a better way to go—and that turning the two properties into one was it.

  Beyond that, of course, was the thrill in her heart when he talked about “little Watkinses.” Her dream had always been to have a big family, and the thought of Danny as the father of her children thrilled her to the very core.

&
nbsp; As they continued to talk, Jo was not surprised to find that they agreed on so much—particularly on their intention to marry sooner rather than later. About the only area they disagreed on was travel. Having spent a lifetime being whisked around the world by her parents, Jo wasn’t keen on the notion of an extended European tour. She hated to disappoint Danny, but she’d rather stay home, where she was cozy and warm and safe.

  The police arrived as Danny and Jo were washing up the dishes. She went to greet them and then stayed outside to keep Chewie calm while they worked out in the guest house, looking for incriminating evidence.

  Danny thought it might be the perfect time to run a couple of errands. He returned to his room for his wallet and keys, and then he went outside to tell Jo he’d be back in a few hours if she thought she’d be okay without him.

  “Sure, but where are you going?” she asked, surprised.

  He merely winked and smiled and said she’d have to wait to find out once he got back.

  Driving out of the estate, he reached for his cell phone and dialed the home of his sister Denise, back in Mulberry Glenn. He wasn’t sure how to tell his family why he was here rather than in Europe, so he simply said that he’d taken a few days off of work to come home and get officially engaged to Jo.

  Of course, that set Denise to yelling and cheering, and she actually wanted him to hold on while she used her cell phone to spread the word along the family grapevine. Laughing, he told her that he had to go, but that before he hung up, he wondered if she could tell him the name of her husband’s cousin’s jewelry store in New York City where they always got such good deals.

  Squealing again, she dug out the name and address of the place and made Danny promise that he would call her back to describe the rings he was considering as soon as he got there.