The Trouble with Tulip (44 page)

“You'll call the chief and let him know?” Jo asked.

“I'm calling right now,” he replied, one hand already on the phone.

When she was finished there, Jo drove back to Edna's, wondering if they would ever know whose hand had wielded that brick. It must have been a crime of passion, a spur-of-the-moment impulse followed by a quick bit of damage control that included pouring some bleach into the ammonia, or vice versa. Considering the danger of the fumes, the murderer must have had to cover his or her mouth and nose and then run away as quickly as possible once the deed was done.

It also had to be someone Edna had let come into her home voluntarily. More than likely, it was someone who balked at the notion that Edna was going public with what she'd done.

Which brought Jo back around to the same list of suspects she'd had before.

Who killed Edna Pratt?

There was a strange car parked in the driveway of Edna's house when Jo got there, a shiny white Chrysler. Jo parked along the street and headed up the walk, hearing Chewie barking furiously from the backyard. Jo wasn't quite sure what to do, but the front door swung open before she had to make a decision. Sally Sugarman was standing there, and she didn't look happy.

“For starters,” she said, “would you explain to me why there's a dog in my mother's backyard?”

“He's mine,” Jo replied defensively. “I had to run out for just a minute, so I left him here.”

“Well?” Sally said, stepping back from the doorway. “Come on in. I guess we need to talk.”

Jo hesitated, feeling strangely afraid. She glanced toward the house next door, relieved to see Betty peeking from behind a curtain. At least if Sally did her in, there would be a witness who saw Jo going inside.

She mounted the steps and went through the door, putting her keys and purse on the small front table. Sally gestured toward the couch and then sat on the chair beside it.

“Murder,” Sally said once Jo had sat down. “The police are telling me my mother was murdered.”

“She was hit on the head by a felt-covered brick,” Jo replied. “Then whoever did it set things up to make it look like an accident.”

“You knew I didn't want you to pursue this,” Sally said softly. “You knew this had the potential for derailing the entire election for me. But you did it anyway.”

Jo glanced toward the door, wishing someone would walk in.

“Your mother was murdered, Sally,” Jo said. “Even if you hated her, you can't tell me that whoever did it shouldn't be caught. Election or not, you can't tell me your mother doesn't deserve justice.”

Sally stood and began pacing.

“My mother deserved a lot of things,” she said. “But I don't know if justice was one of them. Certainly, I never had any justice growing up. Do you know what she would do if I spilled my glass at the dinner table, or accidentally tracked mud into the house? She'd spank me and send me off to bed without any supper, my only real ‘crime' being a typical kid. Her clean floors were more important to her than I was.”

“I'm sorry, Sally,” Jo whispered. “That must have been difficult for you.”

“The sad thing is, all those years, I kept expecting her to change. As a teenager, as an adult, somehow I just thought that one day she might turn to me and say, ‘I love you' or ‘I'm proud of you.' But no. Even when I was elected a senator for the state of Texas, all she had to say was that the skirt I was wearing on television made my hips look big. Can you imagine?”

Sally started crying, the tears spilling freely down her face.

“You know,” Jo said, “your mother may not have encouraged you to your face, but she was forever bragging about you to everyone else.”

“You've told me that before.”

“It's true. I used to avoid her in the grocery store because I just didn't have the time to stand there and listen to her go on and on about ‘my daughter the senator this' and ‘my daughter the senator that.' ”

“Really?”

“Really. She was proud of you, Sally, even if she never let you know.”

Sally dabbed at her eyes.

“What is it about you, Jo, that makes me pour out my heart?” she asked finally. “Do you know what my first thought was when the police called last night to tell me that my mother had been murdered?”

Jo shook her head.

“I thought, ‘It serves her right.' ”

“It serves her right?”

“Had I been a braver person, I might have killed her years ago myself.”

The room was silent except for Sally's weeping. Jo didn't know what to make of it, whether Sally was trying to make a confession or just unburdening a bitter heart. Before Jo could form a reply, her cell phone began ringing from her purse.

She excused herself and answered it, surprised to hear the voice of Keith McMann, the handsome—and persistent—professor from the college.

“I wonder if you have a minute to get together with me,” he said. “It's not a date. I need to ask you a favor.”

She looked over at Sally, who had found a tissue and was cleaning herself up. Suddenly, she wanted more than anything to be out of that house.

“Sure,” she said. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Wherever you want,” he said. “Pulio's? I could buy you lunch.”

The popular campus hangout was convenient, and it would probably be half empty at this hour of the day.

“Okay. I can be there in ten minutes.”

After Jo hung up the phone, Sally seemed like a different person. She had stopped crying, and now she was standing and walking around the room, peeking into all of the boxes.

“I'm sorry,” Jo said. “I have to leave in a minute. Something urgent has come up.”

“That's okay,” Sally replied. “I assume you'll keep the things I told you here confidential.”

Jo didn't reply. If Sally murdered her mother—or had had her murdered by someone else—then nothing she had said was confidential.

“I have some boxes in the bedroom I was planning to send to you,” Jo said instead. “And everything in the sewing room is tagged for a yard sale, if you want to look through that.”

“You've accomplished so much so quickly,” Sally said. “I'm very impressed.”

Jo shrugged.

“A friend helped me,” she said. “Together we've really made some progress.”

Sally nodded, seeming at loose ends. Jo wondered why she had come.

“The police wanted me here to ask me some questions,” she said, as if she could read Jo's mind. “I guess I need to get down to the station.”

“Guess so.”

“Come on,” Sally said. “We can walk out together.”

Simon knew the drill. He remained silent, almost in a daze, as they photographed him, printed him, and locked him in a cell. He didn't speak a word to anyone, not even when they brought him into an interrogation room and started peppering him with questions. It wasn't until they said the word “murder” that he seemed to snap out of it.

“What?” he asked, focusing in on the detective.

“Why did you murder your sister?”

Simon tugged at his ear, wondering if he had heard correctly.

“Why…what?”

The detective put his hands on the table and leaned forward.

“Why did you murder your sister?”

Simon's head started spinning. Edna had been
murdered?

“I didn't,” he replied. “She killed herself.”

“Killed herself,” the detective repeated sarcastically, glancing at the other cop. “By whacking herself in the back of the head?”

Simon's heart pounded.

“My sister committed suicide, did she not?”

“No, she did not. You hit her in the head with a blunt object. Why'd you do it?”

Simon's mind was spinning. Someone had killed Edna. Someone had done her in.

“I…why do you think it was me?” Simon asked.

“I'm asking the questions here. Were you mad at her, Simon? Was she going to tell the cops all about your little con game?”

Simon didn't know what was going on here. All he knew was that Edna was dead by someone else's hand, not her own.

Not her own
.

Simon didn't know why that made his heart soar. He didn't know why tears of joy sprang into his eyes. Most of all, he didn't know why the pressure in his chest returned, tighter than before. No matter how guilty he may seem to these cops—no matter, even, if he ended up going to prison for a murder he didn't commit—just knowing she hadn't taken the easy way out, that she hadn't had “too much” as their mother had—made all of the difference.

Before he realized it, Simon was on the floor, the pressure in his chest unbelievably tight. He thought someone was sitting on him or pressing him down, but when he opened his eyes, all he could see was the two detectives, their faces swimming above his, their mouths moving but no sound coming out. He saw something roll into his peripheral vision, some kind of machine, and instinctively he knew it was a defibrillator.

Simon was having a heart attack.

He closed his eyes, unable to breathe. Then everything around him simply went black.

29

K
eith McMann was more handsome than Jo remembered, with one dimple in his cheek when he smiled. He was in the restaurant when she got there, sitting at a table beside the window. He rose until she was seated and then sat again himself.

“Thanks for coming,” he told her. “I went ahead and ordered a pepperoni pizza for us. Hope that's okay with you. I'm a little pressed for time.”

“Sure,” she replied, though pepperoni wasn't really her preference. “What did you need to see me about?”

He rolled his eyes, and Jo could tell that he was embarrassed.

“I saw your picture splashed all over the TV this morning,” he said. “And I realized you might be able to help me. I hope you don't think it rude of me once you hear my request.”

Jo studied his face, thinking she'd be happy to help out anyway she could, feeling surprised at her rather gut-level reaction to this man. Less than a week ago, she had been about to exchange lifelong vows with Bradford. Now she was already sitting here with someone else, thinking how very good-looking he was?

What was wrong with her?

“I'm coming up for review with the university,” he said. “From all indications, they're going to promote me from assistant professor to associate professor. This is part of the tenure track, something I've been working toward all along.”

“I understand,” Jo said, nodding. Among her grandfather's chemist friends, academic standing had always been a frequent topic of conversation.

“This…um…problem with Edna Pratt's murder and the whole con game and everything…”

“Yes?”

He shook his head, taking a sip of tea.

“Well, it's not going to do me any favors. The university hates scandal of any kind. I'm afraid if I get lumped into this whole thing in the media, then not only will my promotion be at risk, but the job I have now will be at risk as well.”

Jo's pulse surged.
The university hates scandal of any kind. Would he have killed Edna to keep her from going to the police?

“Keith,” Jo said, reaching for her water glass, “are you asking me to keep your name out of this? Because I can't lie to the police.”

“Oh, gosh, no,” he said. “I've already been contacted by them, and I gave a statement about what happened and everything. They were very nice.”

“What is it, then?” she asked. “What do you want me to do?”

He leaned forward, looking at her hopefully.

“You're just so media-savvy, Jo. I wondered if you could tell me how to keep myself and the stories of my involvement in this thing off the news and out of the papers.”