Elementary, My Dear Watkins (2 page)

“At the very least, couldn’t you stake out the library between seven and eight each night? He sent the first one at 7:43 last Thursday and the second one at 7:22 on Monday. Obviously, he has some sort of routine. Can’t you at least try?”

The detective shook his head.

“Again, kind of hard to apprehend someone who ain’t done nothing wrong. There’s been no real crime here. He just says he knows someone whose life is in danger. That could mean a lot of things. Maybe his wife’s brake cables are nearly shot or his brother keeps playing golf in a thunderstorm or his diabetic mother won’t stop eating ice cream. We got no way of knowing.”

“But—”

“Or it could be a woman,” he continued, clearly on a roll, “maybe worried that her husband’s been drinking too much or that her best friend joined a motorcycle gang. Whatever. There just isn’t enough information here for us to act on.”

Jo shook her head. Surely, that’s not what this person—man or woman—meant.

“He, or she, whatever, called what’s going to happen a
crime
,” she argued. “They said they can’t get involved because in the past they’ve had their own mix-ups with the law. It sounds very serious to me.”

The detective looked at her with what seemed to be a cross between scorn and pity, as if he were sorry she was quite so dumb.

“Miss Tulip,” he said, patting his tie and tucking it into his jacket, “as a celebrity, surely you know there are nuts of all kinds out there, and some of them love nothin’ more than to play with the heads of good folks like you.”

“I’m not exactly a celebrity. I just write a newspaper column.”

“Yeah, a nationwide newspaper column, which makes you a lot more well-known than the average person. I mean, we appreciate what you’ve done to track this down and all, but I think you’re gonna have to write this one off as a prank. You’ve written back, urging this person to contact the authorities. I think that’s the most you can do.”

Jo watched as the man slipped the papers she had brought into a manila folder and then placed the folder on top of a filing cabinet behind him. She felt sure that the moment she walked out of the door that folder would somehow find its way into the trash. But what else could she do?

Actually, she knew exactly what she could do—and it didn’t involve trying to convince this guy with logic or reason. It was time to pull some strings over his head.

“Well, I appreciate your time,” she said, standing. “If you’re not going to follow up, may I have my paperwork back, please?”

“Uh, sure,” he said, handing her the file.

“Thanks,” Jo said, adding the words
for nothing
in her mind.

“No prob,” he replied, standing as well.

As Jo limped toward the door, trying to keep her weight off her injured foot, she started to turn around to tell him about the benefits of using steam on silk. But then she decided she wouldn’t.

A man with that kind of attitude deserved to walk around with an unfreshened tie.

Danny skipped down the steps of the
Métro
, relieved to see a crowd waiting at the platform and his train just coming to a stop. He had cut it so close, he was afraid he might have missed it.

The doors opened with a
whoosh
and he climbed aboard with the others, taking a seat on the gray plastic bench along the wall. As he did, he glanced at his watch and calculated the time back home in the States. It was 6:28 in the evening, Paris time, which meant 12:28 in the afternoon in Pennsylvania. For some reason, the longer he and Jo were apart, the more frequently he felt the need to calculate the time difference and think about her and picture what she might be doing at that moment. Right now, she was probably also on a train, heading from Kreston, in the Bronx, to Manhattan, where she would meet up with her grandmother and go see some world-renowned medical specialist.

Danny was interested to hear what the doctor would have to say about Jo’s ankle, of course, but he was also eager to learn about her visit to the police department in Kreston, where she had gone to report some creepy e-mails she had received last week through her Tips from Tulip website. Danny knew that Jo’s life was complicated enough as it was; she surely didn’t need to be hassled by some nut with an anonymous e-mail account and a dirty toaster oven.

In the past year, Jo had been instrumental in solving several high-profile murders, so now apparently someone had decided she must be the go-to gal not just for cleaning questions, but for police-related matters as well. Six weeks ago Jo had been caught up in an investigation that ended with a bang, literally, landing her in the hospital after being caught in an explosion. Since then she had had a lot to adjust to: injuries from that explosion, her home in ashes, a temporary residence, and her best-friend-turned-boyfriend moving to Europe to take a three-month magazine internship. At this point the poor thing needed a break, not more crime-related complications. Danny’s hope was that the Kreston police would take matters into their own hands and leave Jo free to concentrate on her recovery, her work, and her housing situation. The last thing she needed was another mystery on her hands.

“
Vas-y, vas-y
,” a mother said to her young son as they squeezed on board. The train car had filled up fast, so Danny gave his seat to the woman and reached for a handle in the middle instead. Once they were moving, he held on tightly as the walls outside of the windows turned to a blur.

He waited for the third stop and then got off and walked up the steps. He was still two blocks from the restaurant, so he started sprinting, covering the distance as quickly as possible, weaving in and among the more slow-moving pedestrians. He hated being an ugly American, rude and pushy and in a hurry, but this dinner was at the invitation and expense of his friend and coworker Luc, and Danny thought it would be even ruder to show up late to a free meal.

At least it felt good to be able to move so fast. Coincidentally, Danny had broken his foot a few days before Jo had—though his injury had come from pure stupidity, slipping on a rock while trying to help Jo’s dog, Chewie, scamper out of a pond. Danny’s cast had come off last week, but, unlike Jo, he’d had no further complications and was already almost back to normal. The doctor said he recovered so fast because he was in such good shape to begin with, but Jo was in better shape than he was, so the delay in her recovery really wasn’t fair. Besides, it was a relief to be on two good feet, and it made him sad that Jo wasn’t also able to enjoy that feeling yet.

He reached the restaurant and stepped inside, pausing in the foyer to catch his breath and run a hand over his messy brown hair. From what he could see, the place was definitely swanky and oh-so-French, with several low-lit crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, lots of pinched-lipped waiters, and tiny servings on fancy plates. Stepping into the dining room, Danny spotted Luc discreetly waving him over from a corner table, where he was sitting with an older man dressed in a suit and sipping a glass of red wine. Danny hadn’t realized anyone else would be joining them, but considering the way the guy was dressed, he was glad he’d thought to throw on a jacket and tie at the last moment. Crossing the room, Danny reached the table and was introduced to Chester Parks.

“Nice to meet you,” Chester said, shaking Danny’s hand.

“Sounds like a good ol’ American accent to me,” Danny replied with a smile, taking his seat. “Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“Chester’s with
Haute Couture
magazine,” Luc added, one eyebrow high.

Danny simply nodded, immediately reassessing the situation. Luc was quite ambitious, with aspirations more cosmopolitan than the nature photography of
Scene It
magazine, where he and Danny both currently worked. Danny realized that Luc must be angling for a position with
Haute Couture
, and his hope was that Danny would make him look good.

Danny could do that. He liked Luc well enough, and the guy was a decent photographer, if a bit of a cold fish. He and
Haute Couture
might be a perfect fit, especially blue-tinted shots with unsmiling models draped stiffly around stark sets. That wasn’t Danny’s cup of tea, but if that’s what Luc wanted, he’d be happy to help out.

“
Haute Couture?
Impressive,” Danny said. “What brings you to France?”

“I had some business in our Paris office,” the man replied. “Tonight, however, you might say I’m on a recruiting mission. But enough of that for now. What will you have? I recommend the
coq-au-vin
. In fact, may I order for all of us?”

That sounded good to Danny. His French was still a bit rudimentary, and the descriptive phrases in the menu were mostly over his head.

“Please do,” Danny said, closing the menu and handing it to the tuxedoed waiter. “I’m game for anything except
escargot
—a mistake I won’t make twice.”

Chester placed their orders in fluent-but-American-accented French, and once the waiter was gone the conversation turned to New York. Knowing that’s where Jo was right now, Danny felt a sudden, painful surge of loneliness. After being apart for nearly five weeks, the separation was getting harder and harder to take. In the beginning, his job had absorbed so much of his time and energy that he was able to put thoughts of Jo out of his mind for most of the day. Lately, however, that was getting more and more difficult to do. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to get through two more months without her.

Chester was waxing poetic about the city, and as he went on, Danny kept picturing Jo, striding—well, limping, maybe—through stately Penn Station, meeting up with her grandmother’s limo for the ride to the doctor, peering out of the vehicle’s sunroof at the tall buildings that flanked the busy Manhattan streets.

Danny especially missed Jo tonight because he’d had such a busy day that he never had time to go online and check his e-mail. She usually wrote to him throughout the afternoon, either from her home computer or from her handheld digital assistant if she was out and about, and the near-constant communication kept him feeling connected to her despite the distance that separated them. Though he would enjoy this dinner, the highlight of his day was going to be when he got home to his computer and had a chance to go online and read about Jo’s day.

“Earth to Danny,” Luc said, and Danny glanced over to see his friend staring at him. “Are you—how do you say—zoning out on us,
mon ami?
The food
est arrivé
.”

Startled, Danny looked up to see the waiter placing a small plate in front of him. The first course featured a long, thin slice of cucumber wrapped around a dollop of what looked like crab salad. Called an
amuse-bouche
, the small but tasty serving was supposed to wake up the appetite and whet it for all that would come next.

“Sorry,” Danny said, forcing a smile as he picked up his fork. “It’s been a long day.” Sure enough, just the sight and smell of the food in front of him made him realize how hungry he was.

The men began to eat, resuming their conversation between bites. As they talked, Danny asked a discreet and silent grace first, asking God to bless the food and please, please bless Jo as she navigated the complicated waters of that disturbing e-mail that had sent her to the police in Kreston—not to mention the even deeper, more turbulent waters of having to spend time with her grandmother.

Jo’s grandmother, Eleanor Bosworth, sat stiffly in the limo, shaking her head. The diamonds in her earrings caught the sunlight as she did so, casting a shower of tiny sparkles around the elegant interior of the vehicle.

“You’ve been reckless, Jo,” Eleanor said. “For such a sensible person, I must say I’m surprised at your cavalier attitude about your health.”

Jo sighed heavily, regretting ever telling her grandmother about the complication with her ankle. This was so like the woman to step in after the fact and try to run the show—when she’d never even bothered to show up once when Jo was in the hospital or in the weeks of her recovery since.

“I’ve not been cavalier, Gran. The doctors have signed off on every one of my injuries except for the foot. And at this point, they say it’s simply a matter of time.”