The Trouble with Tulip (15 page)

“Danny, what's wrong with you today?”

He looked up at his sister Denise and shook his head.

“What?”

“You're so distracted. What's going on?”

Danny and his sisters and their children were in The Depot, an ice cream parlor in downtown Mulberry Glen. The far end of the room housed a full electric train set, and the kids thought working the buttons on the train was a bigger treat than the ice cream. Danny and his sisters came here sometimes on Sunday afternoons because it entertained the kids and gave the grown-ups a chance to chat. Right now, the place was empty except for their group and the novel-reading teenager behind the counter.

“I don't know,” he said finally, dipping his spoon into caramel sauce and whipped cream. “I'm worried about Jo. She didn't come to church this morning and she's not answering her phone.”

“Can you blame her? If I were her, I'd be so embarrassed I wouldn't show my face around town for at least a week.”

Danny shook his head.

“No, Jo's not like that. She's just…”

His voice faded off and he shrugged. He didn't even know what he wanted to say. Truth be told, Danny always got a little agitated when he couldn't find Jo; he figured it tapped into all those times when they were children and she would disappear on him without any warning. Rarely did they get a chance to say goodbye back then. He could remember waking up and throwing on clothes and running over to her house to play—only to be told by her grandmother that Jo's parents had whisked her away on yet another extended trip.

“I'm sorry, dear, Jo is gone,” the kindly woman would say. “But she might be back by Christmas.”

Crestfallen, Danny would make his way home, kicking the dirt as he went, feeling so hurt by her horrible parents who disrupted his little world without a second thought. He was a grown man now, but sometimes he still felt like that lost, brokenhearted little boy.

“I wouldn't worry about Jo,” Donna said. “She's the most resourceful woman I know.”

“You're right,” Danny said. “But this was a pretty big blow in a year that was tough all the way around.”

The sisters looked at each other, some undercurrent of understanding passing between them. He squinted, looking from one to the other. All three had the same attractive features, big hair, big eyes—not to mention the same strange look on their faces.

“What?” he asked finally. “What are you not saying?”

Denise shrugged.

“I don't know, Danny. Just that now that the fiancé is out of the way, maybe it's time for the real romance to begin.”

“The real romance?”

“You and Jo,” Donna said, stifling a smile.

Danny put down his spoon, picked up his napkin, and wiped his mouth.

“Jo is my best friend,” he said calmly. “She has always been my best friend.”

“Call it what you want, bro,” Denise said. “But I hate to tell you: You've been in love with her for a while now.”

Danny looked over at his nieces and nephews, who were arguing about whose turn it was to push the button that would raise the bridge. Over the years he and Jo had had to defend their friendship plenty of times, but never to his own family.

“What makes you think I'm in love?” he asked. “That's crazy.”

“Is it?” Diana pressed. “Why did you buy Grandma and Grandpa's house when they wanted to move to the retirement home?”

“Because it was cheap! They gave me a great price.”

“They gave you only slightly less than market value and you know it. You bought that house because Jo encouraged you to do it. She wanted the two of you to be neighbors. Just like when we were kids, the way you used to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's whenever she was in town.”

“I used to stay there because she and I had fun together. It seemed easier to sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa's than to have Mom drive me over there day after day.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you know what it's like to be the only boy in a house full of sisters? Going over there was the only way to keep the three of you from interfering with my life!”

“Whatever.”

“Besides, Jo and I aren't kids anymore,” Danny said. “We each have our own lives.”

“Who do you call when you have a problem?” Diana said.

“Who do you run to when you have good news?” Donna added.

“Why do you think you're feeling so funky today?” Denise concluded. “I'll tell you why. Because you can't find your true love. You're lost without her.”

The women giggled hysterically.

“Lost without her,” he said, growing angry. Suddenly, Danny's appetite disappeared. He set down his spoon, put his napkin on the table, and pushed back his chair. “Let me tell you something.”

They waited respectfully, listening, biting their lips to hold in their smiles.

“Jo Tulip is one of my favorite people in the world, that is true. But we are just friends. We always were just friends, always will be
just friends.
Think whatever you want, but my relationship with Jo will never be anything more than it is right now.”

With that, he stood and grabbed his jacket.

“I gotta go,” he said. “See you at Tuesday's rehearsal.”

Angrily, he stomped out of the ice cream parlor. As he went, he expected to hear at least one of them calling after him. Instead, not surprisingly, they all burst into giggles. Good grief.

Just like he said, the three of them were always interfering with his life!

Jo sat at the desk in Edna Pratt's bedroom, flipping through a photo album. She put it back and pulled out the next item on the shelf, a small scrapbook filled with memorabilia. Jo had been at Edna's house for most of the morning, helping Sally get a handle on the job at hand and getting a good look at Edna's “stuff,” all in a fruitless attempt to find some sort of sign of foul play. Jo hadn't found anything suspicious, and she still hadn't brought up the subject she most wanted to pursue—the notion that Edna had been murdered. Somehow, the mood had not yet been right for introducing such a radical thought.

For the last hour, Jo had concentrated on the bedroom, clearing out the closet and then the dresser, making neat piles on the big bed. Sally was in the dining room with her mother's lawyer, where they were going through estate papers. From what Jo could hear, nothing sounded complicated or surprising. It seemed much like when her own grandmother had died.

She hoped Sally and the lawyer would be finished soon, and by then Jo would have gotten up the nerve to approach the subject of murder. Jo wasn't sure why she hadn't brought it up already. It was just that Sally seemed so bereft when they finally arrived at the house. Despite all of her bravado in the car, she had started crying, and after that Jo hadn't had the heart to talk about it.

Jo put back the scrapbook and pulled out another one, surprised to find that it was filled with newspaper and magazine clippings—mostly Tips from Tulip columns. Edna had highlighted some parts, circled others, and even made notes in the margin. Jo smiled as she went through them, pleased that Edna had taken her work so seriously.

The dining room chairs scraped back, which was Jo's cue that the lawyer was ready to go. She listened as Sally walked him to the door. He again expressed his shock and dismay at learning of Edna's death, saying he knew now why Edna had never shown up for their appointment on Saturday.

“Appointment on Saturday?” Sally asked. “You mean yesterday?”

“Yes,” the lawyer replied. “Your mother called me Friday night and said she wanted to see me the next day, even if she had to pay extra for a weekend appointment. We scheduled it for noon, but she never showed. I later learned of her death, of course, and then it made sense.”

“Do you know what she wanted to see you about?”

“No, I don't. I assume she just wanted to make sure her affairs were in order. Fortunately, they were, even without the appointment. Your mother was extremely organized.”

As she showed him out, they said a few more things Jo couldn't quite hear, and then, a moment later, Sally appeared in the bedroom doorway looking drained.

“Well, that was exhausting,” she said. “But at least it looks like everything's in order.”

“Did I hear him say your mother had an appointment with him yesterday?”

“Yes. What do you want to bet he'll bill me for the time even though she never showed?” Sally sat on the bed and leaned against the headboard.

“But don't you think that's odd?” Jo pressed. “Why would she call him on a Friday night and insist on an appointment the very next day?”

Sally shrugged.

“That's how my mother was,” she said. “The minute she was ready to make a move on something, she expected everyone else to jump.”

I think your mother was murdered
, Jo wanted to say. But something inside made her tone it down.

“You know, I overheard something here on Friday night. Your mother was having an argument with someone. A very loud argument.”

“My mother? What were you doing here?”

“I wasn't. I was out jogging. But as I ran past the house, I could hear yelling.”

“Who was it?” Sally asked, seeming genuinely intrigued. “What were they saying?”

“I don't know. I couldn't tell. But I have to be honest. When I learned the next morning that your mother had died, my first thought was that she had been murdered.”

Much to Jo's surprise, Sally threw back her head and laughed.

“Murdered!” she cried. “My mother? I tell you what, if anybody was going to kill that old broad, it would have been
me
years ago.”

She was kidding, but suddenly Jo felt rather uncomfortable. “Listen, Sally,” she said, leaning forward. “There's been enough fishy stuff here to warrant a closer look by the police, but to them it's a done deal. Your mom's death was an accident, case closed. I happen to disagree.”

“Fishy stuff? Like what?”

Jo tried to explain, repeating her story about the argument, her strange encounter with the car, and then the utter implausibility of Edna making such a rudimentary mistake with the cleansers. When she was finished, she had hoped to see suspicion alive in Sally's eyes as well. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

“In a way, I think how my mom died is very symbolic,” Sally mused, shaking her head.

“Symbolic?”

“She lived to clean. Now she has died by cleaning as well.”

Jo hesitated, studying Sally's face. Why wasn't she buying into her theories?

“I'm sorry,” Sally added. “Obviously, my mother and I had plenty of unresolved issues.”

Jo waited a beat, understanding that Sally obviously wasn't willing to entertain the thought of murder. Jo decided to drop it for the time being. Maybe she would bring it up again tomorrow, after the funeral.

“I must be nuts,” Sally said softly, “inflicting all of this on you. I hardly knew you before today, and now here you've gone and done all of this for me. I don't know how I can ever repay you.”

“It's okay,” Jo shrugged. “I guess the Lord put our paths together for a reason. This wasn't exactly the best day of my life, either.”

She began to tell Sally the story of the aborted wedding, followed by the sad tale of her trip to the airport. The more she told, the funnier it all began to sound, and by the time she finished, they were both crying from laughter. Though there was at least a twenty-year difference in their ages, they shared the common bond of having been raised by truly reprehensible mothers. Somehow, that made them sisters.

“Oh, Jo, you're not kidding,” Sally said, “you're almost in as bad a shape as I am.”

“I know!”

They laughed again, and it felt good, in a sad sort of way.

“Can I make a crazy suggestion?” Sally said. “You don't have to answer me right now, but think about it.”