“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.”
“Okay.”
“As you know, I have to fly home tomorrow afternoon. To be honest, Jo, I’d like to hire you to clear out my mother’s things.”
“Clear out your mother’s things?”
“Yes. Clear out her closets, pack up her papers. Ship me whatever you think might be important or valuable, and get rid of the rest. I really don’t want to fool with all of this. Financially, I could make it very worth your while.”
Jo sat back, thinking she couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to solve the murder.
“What can I say, Sally? I’d be happy to do it.”
Danny spent the evening locked in his darkroom, making prints from some shots he had taken last month at Gettysburg. Though his color photos were processed at a lab in town, he preferred to develop and print the black-and-white film himself, using the equipment he’d gotten as a college graduation gift from his parents. His darkroom was very well stocked, and he loved nothing more than to lose himself in the creative process of printing pictures.
The final series was very exciting, the view from atop Cemetery Hill. He had taken several hours to set up the shot, and when he was finally ready, the setting sun had burst through the clouds, creating an amazing image. Danny had snapped up two rolls in ten minutes, capturing the scene in a way he’d never been able to do before. Now, as one print after another sprang to life in the developer tray, he knew this was some of the best work he had ever done.
If only his income could keep pace with his output.
Danny worked until midnight, glad to have the distraction of his photography to keep him from thinking about Jo. His sisters were so far off the mark it wasn’t funny. Danny did love Jo, but not that way. Too bad for them if they didn’t understand that.
And even if he did love her, it could never work. He was a slob; she was a neat freak. He was a creative spirit; she was scientific. He was gregarious; she was more of a loner. They were just too different.
Danny hung the last dripping print over the sink, made sure his paper was sealed up tight, opened the door, and breathed in the fresh air of the hallway. A few hours spent in close quarters with all those chemicals was a bit stifling.
Rubbing his sore back, he walked down the hall to the kitchen, realizing he was suddenly ravenous. He hadn’t eaten since the ice cream parlor, so he went to the freezer and pulled out a frozen dinner. He was too tired to cook, but he could certainly pop something in the microwave.
As he waited for the ding that would tell him it was done, he stood at the window beside the kitchen table. He couldn’t see much in the darkness, of course, but a light was on in Jo’s office. After being unaccounted for all day, was she finally there?
Danny reached for the phone. Though it was getting late, he dialed her number.
“So you’re home?” he said when she answered, hating the tight sound of his own voice. “I was worried about you.”
“Yes,” she said, “I’m here. You wanna come hang out? I’m just going through some old papers.”
“I guess,” he grunted. Then he hung up the phone, a surge of frustration overtaking him.
Was he being too clingy? Or was she wrong to simply disappear and not expect him to be upset? Was one of them taking the other one for granted?
He left his meal cooking in the microwave and stomped over, ready to yell at her for being so inconsiderate. All he wanted was to know she was okay. Was that too much to ask? Instead, she had simply disappeared, leaving him to worry all day for no reason.
“What am I doing?” he muttered as he got to her door. She had been inconsiderate, yes, but he was being ridiculous. Suddenly, “hanging out” while Jo went through old papers was the last thing he wanted to do. He knocked on the door, told her he wasn’t feeling well, and that he had changed his mind.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Unless you decide to disappear off the face of the planet again, of course.”
Then he turned on his heel and stomped back toward his house, not even giving Jo a chance to respond.
He wasn’t even thinking about the fence, and the night was so dark he was upon it before he realized it. The rail caught him right at shin level,
sending him toppling onto the ground with a thud. Muttering under his breath, he stood, brushed himself off, and then limped the rest of the way to his house.
In the kitchen he could see that he had scraped both knees and one elbow, drawing blood in all three places. Rather than tend to his wounds right away, he simply washed his hands, took his meal out of the microwave, sat down, and shoveled it into his mouth.
He wasn’t feeling any less angry ten minutes later when Jo tapped lightly at his back door and stepped inside. She apologized for not touching base with him earlier in the day, and she thanked him for keeping tabs on her.
“With Nana gone, you’re really the only one who cares if I’m coming or going,” she said. “I’m sorry if I abused that.”
Before he could form an apology in reply, she noticed his wounds.
Jo ooed and ahhed over the injuries, insisting that she help clean and bandage them. Making herself at home, she bustled around in his bathroom, not saying a word about what a mess it was the way she usually did. After a few moments she emerged with the items she needed to play nursemaid. Danny was silent through the whole exchange, his mind reeling from thoughts and feelings he didn’t understand. Jo was so sweet and apologetic that he felt his anger melt into something else.
Something infinitely more disturbing.
She put everything on the floor and knelt at his feet, placing a small tub of soapy water just behind his ankle. She gently lifted one of his legs and then rinsed the scraped knee, using a clean washcloth to drizzle water over the wound. Once both knees were clean and patted dry, she applied antibacterial ointment and then wide Band-Aids.
When she finished tending to his knees, she started in on the elbow. That was a much smaller scrape, though she went through the same process as before. As she worked, her head was bent over his arm in concentration, close enough that he could smell the incredible scent of her hair. Were he to lean forward just a few inches, he realized, he could actually kiss her on the forehead.
Instead, he sat back and closed his eyes and admitted what his family had known all along.
Danny was in love with his best friend.
12
Jo sat in her car in the funeral home parking lot and watched people going inside. Edna Pratt’s funeral was scheduled to start at 10:00 A.M., but before Jo had the nerve to slip into the back of the service, she wanted to know who else was going to be there.
She had kept a low profile since being stood up at the altar on Saturday, and she didn’t relish walking into a crowd now where she might become the main topic of conversation and gossip. But she felt that she owed it to Sally and to Edna to be there. Since Edna was older and had belonged to a different church than her own, Jo didn’t think she would know many of the attendees.
So far, it looked as if the service wasn’t going to draw much of a crowd. Of the seven or so people who had already gone inside, Jo only recognized one, and she was just the woman who worked the counter at the dry cleaner.
As the time got closer, a few more people drifted in. Finally, a car pulled up and parked behind Jo. She watched in her side window as two women got out. Jo recognized them as Iris Chutney and Louise Parker, two ladies who went to her own church.
The two women walked past Jo’s car, deep in conversation and obviously not aware that she was there. Though she couldn’t make out everything they were saying, she thought she heard Mrs. Chutney say something about calling the police.
Jo froze, wondering if she had heard correctly.
“…not a word about the money,” Mrs. Parker said. “Not yet.”
Jo couldn’t hear any more, but her heart was pounding. She waited a beat and then followed the women into the funeral home, choosing an empty seat directly behind them. They were so wrapped up in their conversation that they hadn’t even noticed she was there.
“We just have to talk to Simon,” Mrs. Parker whispered to her friend. “He’ll tell us what to do.”
“But I told you,” Iris whispered back, “I’ve been trying to reach him since we found out Edna was dead. He’s nowhere to be found! I don’t think we can afford to wait.”
Whoever this Simon fellow was, he hadn’t come to the funeral. That was clear by the women’s behavior as they craned their necks to study the small crowd, whispering back and forth. Mrs. Parker kept glancing toward the door, but only two other people came in before the service started, obviously neither of them the man in question.
Sally was seated by herself in the front pew, and Jo felt a surge of pity for her for having to do this all alone. At least when Jo’s grandmother died, she had had both her parents and some aunts and uncles and cousins to sit with. Theirs wasn’t a large family, but no one had to sit by themselves, not like this.
The service was short and sweet, and Jo realized about halfway through that the minister hadn’t really known Edna Pratt at all. He spoke in vague, general terms about the Lord’s will and seasons of life, but there was nothing of Edna’s personality or her life details in his sermon. Jo thought about all the things Sally had said the day before, and she had a feeling it was true: Edna had had her daily swim at the Y and her household cleaning to keep her busy, but otherwise, it didn’t seem as if she had used her time on earth all that well. Certainly, she hadn’t been very loving or giving.
Suddenly, Jo had a vision of the future, a flash of how her own funeral might look. She’d had some good friends, of course, but in the end, what if she, too, died all alone, socks on her hands, cleaning mini-blinds? The thought was enough to bring tears to her eyes, which she quickly wiped away. How pathetic was that, to come to someone’s funeral but sit there and cry about your own?
“Look at the ducky!” Danny cried, shaking a bright yellow rubber duck above the camera. “He’s saying ‘quack quack quack’!”
The little boy saw the duck and grinned. Danny snapped the camera at just the right moment, capturing his expression perfectly.
“How about that one?” Danny asked, pointing toward the monitor.
The high-strung young mother studied it intently and then nodded.
“Good,” she finally pronounced. “That’s a keeper.”
It was about time.
Danny had already taken nearly twenty shots of the kid, and this was only the third shot the mother had deemed acceptable.
“One more pose and then we’re finished,” he said, gesturing for her to pick up the little boy while he moved around the things under the blanket. He had suggested a variety of unique poses and props, but she wanted nothing but the standard sitting, just like the first two customers of the day.
Did no one have any imagination besides him?
The only reason Danny kept the part-time job at the studio—besides the fact that he needed the money, of course—was because it came with a fringe benefit that other part-time jobs didn’t: use of the color printer.
As long as he supplied his own paper, he was allowed free access to the FSX 4000, a state-of-the-art color photo printer that put out the most consistently high-quality prints he had ever seen. For the sake of his career, he didn’t mind waving around a few rubber duckies a couple days a week.
At least I don’t have to fool with the sales end of it, he thought as he finally finished. He thanked the woman, patted the kid’s head, and walked down the hall to the computer room. Tiffany would take things from there, sitting the mother down and pitching the full package. Tiffany worked almost purely on commission, so she was very persuasive. According to her, her own income had gone up significantly since Danny started working there because he was such a good photographer. The better the pictures, the more likely people were to buy.
Danny wasn’t sure the sittings this morning were up to his usual standard, however. He was so distracted he could hardly think straight. The whole revelation about Jo last night had thrown him for a major loop.
What am I going to do?
All morning he had carried around a sick sort of feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why did it h
ave to be love?
More importantly, what is this going to do to our friendship?
Danny had heard plenty of stories about friends who became couples and ended up breaking up, ruining both the love relationship and the friendship. He didn’t think he could handle losing Jo. Their relationship was the single most important one in his life.
Well, the second most important, he amended. God came first, of course. Come to think of it, he hadn’t brought this matter to God yet. As Tiffany and the customer interacted down the hall, he closed his eyes and bowed his head and began to pray silently to himself.
I want Your will for my life, Father, he prayed. But does that will really include a different kind of relationship with Jo than what we have now?
When the funeral service was over, the minister invited those present to come to the cemetery where Edna would be laid to rest. Jo offered to drive Sally, which made hers the first car in line behind the hearse.
Once they reached the cemetery, among the smaller crowd at the graveside were Iris Chutney and Louise Parker. When the service was finished, they offered their condolences to Sally upon the death of her mother.
“So how did you know Edna?” Jo asked as they were just about to walk away.
The ladies glanced at each other, something passing between them.
“We were in a club together,” Mrs. Parker volunteered finally.
“A club?” Sally asked. “What kind of club?”
The women shared a glance yet again, this time with a panicked, deer-in-the-headlights look on their faces.
“Bunco!” Mrs. Parker said. “Edna was a great Bunco player.”
The women quickly turned to go. Jo watched them leave with one thought on her mind: That bit about Bunco was a bunch of bunk.
“You okay, Danny?”
Danny glanced up to see Tiffany in the doorway of the computer room, one elbow propped on the doorframe. She was wearing low-riding jeans and a shirt that barely reached her waist, so when she stood like that, the effect was several inches of bare stomach and abdomen, lean and tanned. Danny looked away, turning his attention to the computer. He wasn’t interested in Tiffany, but she was an attractive girl—and she had been making it clear for a while now that she was interested in him.
The Trouble With Tulip Page 10
