Elementary, My Dear Watkins
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
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. NIV
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. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Cover by Terry Dugan Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Cover photo
©
Christopher Wilhelm / Photodisc Red / Getty Images
ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATKINS
Copyright © 2007 by Mindy Starns Clark
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Mindy Starns.
Elementary, my dear Watkins / Mindy Starns Clark.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7369-1487-1
ISBN-10: 0-7369-1487-0
1. Tulip, Jo (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Westchester County (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.L366E44 2007
813.'54—dc22 | 2006028635 |
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 / BP-CF / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
Discover the First Smart Chick Mystery: The Trouble with Tulip
Discover the Second Smart Chick Mystery: Blind Dates can be Murder
This book is dedicated to
Kim Moore,
Christlike example of love and service,
editor extraordinaire,
and dear friend.
You are such a blessing in my life!
Many, many thanks to:
John Clark, for everything.
Emily and Lauren Clark, my precious daughters, who really had to go the extra mile for this one.
Jackie Starns, my mom and friend and the best cheerleader going.
My trusted staff of “medical advisors”: Robert M. Starns, MD, J.K. Wolf, MD, and D.P. Lyle, MD.
Fran Severn, for Chewie. I hope he enjoyed the ride!
The lovely folks at Harvest House Publishers, who are always living examples of the One we serve.
My small groups at FVCN, both of which contain some mighty prayer warriors.
Those who bless me with their hospitality just when I need it most: Larry and Bebe Hebling, Ned and Marie Scannell, and the Teske-White Family.
Some great brainstormers and idea people, including Sharon Pontillas, DiAnn Mills, Josh Himes, and Sharon Wildwind.
Miriam Stein, Siri Mitchell, and Tim and Peggy Wright, for sharing their areas of expertise.
The brilliant minds of DorothyL, especially Colleen Barnett, Wendy Bartlett, Sarah Bewley, BA Bolton, Carl Brookins, Alafair Burke, Tony Burton, Lee Carper, Tammy Cravit, Carola Dunn, Ellen H. Ehrig, Sarah Fisher, Sara Hoskinson Frommer, Anne M Jones, Clyde Linsley, Kay Martinez, Shelley McKibbon, Meredith Phillips, Jeanna Schilling, Triss Stein, Cathy Strasser, Shannon Surly, and Cindy Williams.
Chi Libris, for being there in so many ways. Truly, I couldn’t do this without you!
J
o Tulip sat across from the detective, trying not to be distracted by his tie. It was obviously silk, but it was flat and dull and very much in need of freshening. She wondered if it would seem intrusive if she advised him to turn his iron on the highest setting, wrap a damp cloth over the soleplate of the iron, and run it back and forth directly over the fabric, almost but not quite touching it. The steam would bring the tie back to life nicely, for sure.
“That’s as close as we gonna get to this person, unless we stake out the library,” the detective was saying in a thick Bronx accent. “And that’s not gonna happen. So I guess it ends here, least ’til something further develops. But thanks for bringing the situation to our attention.”
Jo took her gaze from the man’s tie and met his eyes. He was in his mid-forties, chubby and red cheeked, with a collar too tight for his thick neck.
“Until something further develops,” she repeated. “You mean like when somebody gets hurt? Or even killed?”
He glanced at his watch.
“I’m sorry, but at this point, we can’t justify the manpower for a stakeout if there’s been no real crime.”
“But look at his second e-mail. It says something’s going to happen ‘in a day or two.’ He wrote that one on Monday—and it’s already Wednesday!”
“So maybe whatever he was talking about is over and done with by now. Like I said, there’s really nothing we can do about it anyway.”
Jo sighed heavily, wishing Chief Cooper had come with her. His official cop presence might have carried more weight with this guy than she obviously did. Harvey Cooper, who was both a friend and the local police chief for her hometown, had helped trace the source of the strange e-mail Jo had received at her “Tips from Tulip” website, a trail which led to a library in Kreston, New York. The police there hadn’t responded with much interest to the chief’s report or Jo’s subsequent phone calls, so she had decided to stop by the Kreston station today in person, since she had to come up to nearby Manhattan for an appointment with an orthopedic specialist anyway.
Now that Jo was there in person, however, she was still hitting a very frustrating dead end. The detective who had agreed to meet with her had contacted the library, but they said that since a library card was not required for using the computers, there was no way to check their records to learn the real identity of the person who had been online at the time the e-mails were sent.
“Chances are, the person with that e-mail address will be back again,” Jo said to the reticent detective. “I believe you can put some sort of electronic alert system on the computers in the library. Then if this person logs on again, you’ll be notified and can move in and apprehend them.”
“No can do.”