Elementary, My Dear Watkins

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Jo wished she had time for a shower and full makeup and hair and everything. But then she thought of her almost wedding last fall, to Bradford, and she decided that what she looked like as she walked down the aisle wasn’t important at all.

  What was important was the man who would be waiting for her when she got there.

  “Oh, my, you do look handsome.”

  Danny returned to the study to see Jo’s grandmother beaming at him from her chair. He had freshened up and was now dressed in his slightly-wrinkled sports jacket and slacks, once again wishing he had his tuxedo instead.

  “There’s a stereo in the cabinet,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to look through the music. I doubt that we have the bridal march, but check the Mendelsson, just in case. If not, there should be something else suitable.”

  He did as she suggested, finally selecting a CD with “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” followed by Pachelbel’s Canon. He loaded it into the stereo and adjusted the volume as it played.

  “Oh, and you don’t need to call me ‘Mrs. Bosworth’ anymore,” she added. “Please, make it Eleanor.”

  “Okay, Eleanor. How are you doing? Are you feeling okay?”

  She didn’t look very good.

  “I’m much better now, knowing that my granddaughter will be safe.”

  There was a knock on the front door, and Eleanor suggested that he answer it.

  “That would be the judge,” she pronounced. “It’s showtime.”

  Alexa couldn’t believe this!

  It was so exciting and so romantic, and she was going to be a part of it. She chose her frilliest, girliest dress, some pink designer thing that the old lady had picked but that Alexa had never worn. There had never been an occasion dressy enough for it until now.

  Standing at the mirror, admiring herself once she was ready, she caught sight of the canopy over her fancy bed and got an idea. It was trimmed with a garland of silk flowers, so she kicked off her nice shoes, climbed up on the bed, and reached as high as she could to pull the flowers down. They were a little dusty but very pretty, so she blew on them with the blow-dryer until they were clean and then used scissors to cut the garland into four pieces.

  One piece she wrapped into a circle, to wear on her head like a crown of flowers. She made a second one for Jo, in case she wanted it, then the third she fashioned around Chewie’s neck, like a collar. Finally, with the small clump that was left, she formed a bridal bouquet for Jo to carry. Alexa didn’t know much about weddings, but she knew that the maid of honor should be helpful in as many ways as she could.

  Alexa led Chewie out of the room and knocked on Jo’s door, and when Jo answered, it was obvious right away that the flowers had been the perfect touch. Jo looked really, really pleased, especially when she saw the flowers on Chewie too. That made Alexa’s heart soar. She liked Jo so much, and she really wanted to make her happy.

  Instead of wearing the whole ring of flowers on her head, Jo decided to pull out just one and pin it in her hair. Then she put the rest in her bouquet.

  “So what do you think?” Jo asked, stepping back from the mirror and twirling around.

  “I think you look like a bride,” Alexa said, grinning widely.

  They didn’t waste much time down in the study. With the door safely closed and only Jo and Danny, Alexa, Eleanor, Sidney, and the bodyguard in attendance, the judge started right in with the ceremony.

  Though Jo was thrilled to be standing at Danny’s side, about to become his wife, she also couldn’t help but feel sad. For a day she had dreamed of her entire life, this wasn’t exactly how she had envisioned it. She hated that none of their friends were there, or Danny’s family, or that their minister was not even the person conducting the ceremony. Instead, it was some judge Jo didn’t even know, reading the words for the ceremony out of a black book that wasn’t even the Bible. It was just some handbook for civil servants.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “we are gathered here to join this man and this woman in matrimony…”

  Not holy matrimony? Just matrimony? Jo hated that, hated that they were racing through the biggest moment of their lives, totally pressured, just so some aspiring murderer might be thwarted in his or her schemes. Jo thought of the people who had had access to that toaster, and it struck her that even her own parents might somehow be involved in the attempts on her life.

  Jo pictured her mother as she had been today, in the garden, and her words of warning against marrying Danny. When Jo tried to reconcile that with Danny’s own story about how her mother had attempted to woo him back to America with a big job offer and then suddenly changed course and took steps to get him fired instead, it didn’t make any sense.

  He’s not good enough for you, she had said. Good enough? Jo thought now. He was far more than she deserved or ever dreamed of.

  “Danny Watkins,” the judge was saying, instructing them to face each other and join their right hands, “do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward…”

  Jo’s mind was spinning.

  Just don’t marry Danny Watkins, whatever you do, her mother had said.

  But why had she said it? A few weeks ago, when Jo finally told her mother about the change in her relationship with Danny—that they had gone from friends to much-more-than-friends—the woman had been thrilled. So why the change of heart today, in the garden? Why the strange tactics with Danny in Europe?

  “I do,” Danny said now, his voice strong and sure.

  Jo looked at him and she felt terrible, terrible that such a dear and loving man was being manipulated, just as she had been manipulated.

  Just don’t marry Danny Watkins, whatever you do.

  “Josephine Tulip, do you take this man…”

  As the judge asked her one of the most important questions of her life, Jo gasped, realizing with sudden clarity that her mother had been using reverse psychology on her! Helen Tulip knew that Jo was just stubborn enough and just angry enough that the one way to get Jo to do what Helen wanted was to tell her specifically not to do it. She told Jo “don’t marry Danny” so that Jo would marry Danny.

  “…till death do you part?”

  Till death did they part. Slowly, Jo shook her head, her heart pounding.

  “I’m sorry,” she said suddenly, looking from Danny to the judge to her grandmother. “But I don’t. Not right now. Not like this.”

  Alexa didn’t understand what was going on. First Jo stopped the wedding just when it was getting good, then Danny wasn’t mad or anything, he just looked concerned, Then the old lady started feeling all weak and dizzy and had to lie down. Alexa would have thought it was all just a bunch of crazy drama until she heard Danny say something to Jo about Eleanor maybe having been poisoned.

  Poisoned?

  Jo quickly shushed him, glancing at Alexa, but Alexa wasn’t stupid. There was something going on that they didn’t want her to know about.

  The problem was, she knew something they didn’t know about too.

  “What about poison?” Alexa asked, tugging at Jo’s sleeve.

  “Nothing, honey. Would you please take Chewie upstairs to your bedroom and wait there? I’ll come up and talk to you in a bit.”

  Unfortunately, Alexa couldn’t do as she was asked.

  Eleanor was a tough old bird, but Alexa really liked her and always had. She would feel just terrible if something bad happened to her—something Alexa could have prevented if she hadn’t been afraid to speak up.

  She had to tell them what she’d seen.

  Steeling her nerve, she brought Chewie upstairs and locked him away so he wouldn’t be in all the confusion. Then she came back down and stood in the study doorway, listening as Jo talked to the police on the phone about poison and toasters and electrocutions. Danny was kneeling on the floor beside the couch, holding the old lady’s hand and telling her that everything would be okay.

  “Alexa,” Danny said, noticing her. “I thought Jo
asked you to wait upstairs.”

  Alexa took a step forward as Jo finished her call and hung up the phone.

  “I saw something,” Alexa said. “Last night. I saw something outside.”

  That got all of their attention. Even the old lady twisted her head around from where she was lying on the couch.

  “Alexa, what are you saying?” Eleanor demanded. It wasn’t until then that Alexa realized the old lady wasn’t looking like herself at all. Her face was swollen and puffy, as were her arms and legs.

  “About five o’clock this morning,” Alexa said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I didn’t want to get in trouble. I was outside, and I saw someone climb in through your bathroom window and mess with your medicine cabinet.”

  That earned gasps from all of them.

  “Can you describe this person?” Jo demanded.

  “I don’t have to describe them. I know who it was.”

  “Who?” they all asked at once.

  “It was Winnie.”

  For the time being, Jo wasn’t even going to ask Alexa why she had been outside at five o’clock in the morning. All she cared about was figuring out what substance Winnie had used as a poison, so that they could help Eleanor in time. At least the police were already on their way.

  Could it really have been Winnie who pushed Jo at the train, who tried to kill her with the toaster, who had been trying to poison her own mother? Truly, Jo was shocked. She hadn’t thought Winnie had it in her.

  Once the police were there, it didn’t take much explanation to convince them that the woman staying out in the guest house should be detained for suspicious behavior, though they stopped short at calling it “attempted murder” until they had more of the facts. Of course, it helped that both uniformed men who responded to the call were well aware of who Mrs. Bosworth was and her influence in the community. Surely, they knew that they would do well to heed her request to take her daughter into custody.

  Jo was relieved to see that they were able to do the apprehending without any trouble. Winnie was watching a gardening show on television, jotting down ideas for a new planter layout, when the cops simply knocked on her door and told her she needed to come with them. Before going, she insisted on talking to Sidney, who coldly told her to phone her own lawyer, who advised her not to say one word about anything until she was at the police station and he could be there with her for questioning. Unfortunately, that meant she was giving no denials or confessions for the time being.

  She also wasn’t giving any clues about what she had done to the capsules in her mother’s medicine cabinet.

  Thus, under the careful supervision of a detective who did not want any of the evidence compromised, Jo donned a pair of gloves and went through her grandmother’s medicines, trying to figure out which one had been altered.

  First she narrowed it down to the three bottles that had capsules rather than pills. She thought she might have to pour out some of each, but as soon as she opened the lid of the first bottle, she was hit instantly with a strong scent of orange flavoring. She read off the label as Danny wrote down the information, and then they called Eleanor’s doctor to see what he would have to say. According to him, the medication was for Eleanor’s thyroid condition. Once they explained what was going on, he said that his best guess was that Winnie had indeed simply replaced the medicine inside the capsules with the sugar powder from Pixie Sticks, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice the difference.

  “If that’s the case,” he said, “then I don’t think there was any poison involved. When someone with a thyroid condition as serious as your grandmother’s is deprived of her medication, the symptoms would fall exactly in line with what she’s experiencing now: dizziness, confusion, swollen face and arms and limbs. The blood work we had drawn this afternoon included tests for TSH and T3 and T4, so as soon as the results come back, we’ll be able to confirm if her thyroid levels are indeed off. I’d be willing to bet that’s exactly what it is.”

  He was going to do some checking and call back. After they hung up, Jo realized that she had forgotten to ask him if denying someone their thyroid medication could be fatal or just disorienting. Either way, Jo wasn’t sure if Winnie’s motivation was greed for the money or the desire to ensure the development of Fibrin-X for her son’s sake or just an attempt to stop others from messing with her planting season. As Winnie’s lawyer had told her not to talk, she had been driven away from the estate in the backseat of a police car with her lips sealed.

  Fernando and Consuela, who had been roused from their garage apartment by all of the police activity, were beside themselves with worry about Eleanor, insisting that she allow them to bring her to the hospital right away. The doctor called back and confirmed that her thyroid levels were indeed a mess. He said that a bed was ready and waiting for her at the hospital in White Plains, and he would meet her at the ER.

  “We’ll do more tests, of course, but if that’s all it is, we should be able to get her stabilized within the next twenty-four hours,” he told Jo in a reassuring tone. “Don’t worry.”

  The men helped Eleanor into the back of the limo and Consuela climbed in beside her. Before they drove away, however, Eleanor insisted on speaking to Alexa.

  The girl approached the vehicle and stood there self-consciously until Eleanor opened her arms and Alexa fell into them for a big hug.

  “You probably saved my life, young lady. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Alexa replied in a small voice.

  “But when I get out of the hospital, we’re going to talk about this little matter of you being outside at five o’clock in the morning. I do believe I shall have to take that iPod away from you for a while as a punishment for trying to sneak out.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Alexa replied, her face red. “You get better, okay?”

  Together, they watched the limo drive away, Jo’s hand on Alexa’s shoulder. Jo was amazed to realize that the girl had cracked the toughest nut of all, Eleanor Bosworth. Jo realized now that she and her grandmother had been getting along better in these past few days than they ever had before, and she had a feeling that Alexa’s influence was to thank for that.

  The old dog had finally been taught some new tricks.

  Danny couldn’t believe how tired he was, but this long night was not over yet. Though it was late, the police still needed to finish taking statements. Alexa had already given hers earlier, when Eleanor and the lawyer were still there. Now it was Jo’s turn, so while the cops questioned her in the study, Danny and Alexa kept each other company in the kitchen.

  Alexa was a neat kid, and Danny soon found himself entertaining her with funny Chewie stories.

  “But once Chewie ate the remote control,” Alexa said, fascinated, “how did you change the channel?”

  “We’d just squeeze his tummy to go up and tug his tail to go down. Oh, and we pulled his ears to adjust the volume.”

  “Now you’re teasing me,” she said, eyes sparkling, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  Danny was hungry, so he decided to whip up a midnight snack. Raiding the refrigerator, he was able to find everything he needed to make a massive club sandwich, which he split with Alexa.

  Talk turned more serious as they sat at the table to eat. Jo had already given Danny the whole story of Alexa and how she had come to be living there, but he wanted to hear it from her point of view. He asked about the original incident, when she had the stroke. Something had been bothering him since he heard it the first time, from Jo.

  “Wait a minute,” Danny said, interrupting Alexa’s tale almost as soon as it started. “You were out taking a walk, all by yourself, in the middle of the night, near Newark? Is that the kind of place where a kid just goes for a walk in the middle of the night?”

  Alexa hesitated, her face flushing bright red. Danny felt bad, because whatever Alexa had been doing when she had the stroke was clearly none of his business—but what Bradford had been doing was.

  “Yeah, it’
s not the best place to be late at night,” she finally allowed.

  Danny put down his sandwich and looked Alexa right in the eyes.

  “You probably just think I’m being nosy,” he said, trying to give her a reassuring smile, “but this is important for Jo’s sake. Alexa, do you know a man named Bradford Quinn?”

  “Of course. He’s the one who saved my life.”

  She went on to describe how Bradford had driven her to the hospital and retrieved her mother and coordinated her treatment and introduced her to Dr. Stebbins.

  “And he did all of that,” Danny said, “for a total stranger he found on the side of the road, out of the goodness of his heart?”

  Alexa nervously tore the crust from what remained of her sandwich.

  “He was on his way to a meeting and he saw the strangest thing on the side of the road, and when he pulled over to check it out, he realized that it was a young teenage girl, just lying there. It was me, and my whole right side—”

  “Alexa. You’re giving me a speech. A nice, convincing, rehearsed speech.”

  She took a big bite of her sandwich.

  “Why don’t you tell me what really happened that night?” Danny prodded. “Why was Bradford there, and what were you doing?”

  She chewed that bite a record number of times, but eventually she had to swallow. Then she looked at him, her eyes wary.

  “I’m not supposed to tell,” she said. “He made me promise.”

  “Some promises shouldn’t be kept, Alexa. Not if they put other people in danger.”

  “The old lady and Dr. Stebbins, they’d be so ashamed of me.”

  “Why?”

  She exhaled slowly.

  “Because I was making a delivery. A drug delivery. A hundred and fifty bucks to make a drop at the indigo blue Jaguar by the old caboose. I had done it plenty of times before to the same guy. This time, I was almost at his car when I tripped and fell. I didn’t bump my head all that hard, really, but it was enough to rupture the aneurysm. I don’t remember much after that, except Bradford making me promise not to tell anybody why he was there. He said if I promised not to tell, he’d make sure I was taken care of. Well taken care of. He kept his promise, but now I’ve broken mine.”