The Trouble With Tulip

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Terry Dugan Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota

  THE TROUBLE WITH TULIP

  Copyright © 2005 by Mindy Starns Clark

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clark, Mindy Starns.

  The trouble with Tulip / Mindy Starns Clark.

  p. cm. — (A smart chick mystery ; bk. 1)

  ISBN 10: 0-7369-1485-4 (pbk.)

  ISBN 13: 978-0-7369-1485-7 (pbk.)

  1. Advice columnists—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Fiction. 3. Photographers—Fiction.

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS3603.L366T76 2005

  813'.54—dc22

  2005001511

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 / BP-CF / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  About the Author

  Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark

  With tremendous gratitude and affection,

  this book is dedicated to the Smart Chicks in my own life,

  those women who have always known how to dish out

  not just good food and good housekeeping, but also good sense:

  Lucille Dickerson,

  Mildred Taylor,

  Fan Starns,

  Alma Beard,

  June Ann Murphy,

  Alice Clark,

  and

  Joyce Hammel.

  Ladies, your love and care has helped

  to shape my world. Thank you!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many special thanks to…

  John Clark, my husband and best friend. Thank you, honey, for working with me in so many ways to bring these books to life. You’re amazing!

  Debbie Clark, for sharing your heart in helping me to find the character of Jo.

  Fran Severn, for giving me Chewie.

  Robert Bruce Thompson, Mary C. Chervenak, and Paul B. Jones, for incredibly brilliant (and devious) minds.

  David Starns, for giving me much-needed humor injections.

  Robert M. Starns, M.D., for excellent medical advice.

  Jackie Starns, for eagle-eyed proofreading.

  Russ Bishop, for teaching me about the wide world of professional stock photography.

  Steve Brewer, for an insider’s look at being a newspaper columnist.

  Shari Weber, for guiding and assisting in ways too numerous to count.

  Emily and Lauren Clark, for story help, character names, and endless encouragement and love.

  Kim Moore and all of the amazing folks at Harvest House Publishers.

  Dave Sharpes and the ministerial staff of FVCN—especially Tracy Tucker and Doug Moister, for answering all of my crazy questions.

  Ned and Marie Scannell, for incredible hospitality when I needed it most.

  The members of Murder Must Advertise and DorothyL, especially those whose ideas and suggestions made it into this book, including Alison Moore, Sharon Wildwind, Maria Hudgins, Jayne Barnard, and Kate Bulman.

  To ChiLibris, for unwavering support, ideas, suggestions, information, and brainstorming. You are such a blessing!

  1

  Jo Tulip was suffocating.

  As the digital clock glowed 11:48 P.M. from her bedside table—fully two hours after she had climbed in bed and turned out the lights—Jo finally threw off her covers and sat up. Her mind was so full of thoughts and her house so full of people that she felt as though she could hardly breathe.

  Air. She needed to get some air.

  Jo pulled some clothes on over her pajamas, slipped her feet into her sneakers, and grabbed the rechargeable flashlight from the plug across the room. She tiptoed through her small house, passing one snoozing body in the spare bedroom, another on the couch, and more in sleeping bags on the floor of the living room. Quietly, she continued to the back door, grabbed her key ring from the hook, and stepped into the cool September night, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Already, just being outside, she felt better.

  Inhaling deeply, Jo tucked the keys into her pocket, clicked on the flashlight, and made her way along the side of the house to the driveway. She followed it forward to the road, intending to take a short walk around the block. It was a cool night, very peaceful, and her hope was that the air would clear her head and help her relax.

  It was no wonder she was feeling crowded. When her fiancé, Bradford, had asked if she would mind hosting a few of his relatives for the wedding weekend, she didn’t know he would be sticking her with the intrusive branch of the family. They were friendly enough, she supposed, but they had scattered their belongings from one end of her home to the other, and their three boys were so wild that they had already broken the doorbell, a planter by the back door, and the towel rack in the bathroom. Those same boys had looked so innocent as they lay dreaming on the living room floor, but Jo knew looks were deceiving. Come morning they would no doubt be at it again, probably setting her house on fire as their beleaguered mother tried to make cheese omelettes.

  Oddly, though Jo was barely tolerating them, the whole family had really taken to her, which made it even more difficult to deal with their chaos. The boys were constantly fighting for her attention, and their mom seemed eager to become friends and confidants. Already, the whole family was trying to make elaborate plans for Jo and Bradford to come up to Connecticut and visit with them. Jo was pleased that they saw her as a welcome addition to the family, but if she had her way, that visit wouldn’t be happening any time soon.

  Autumn leaves crunched under her feet as she walked down the sidewalk, her stride taking on a soothing rhythm. She practiced some deep breathing: in, out, in, out. Jo usually preferred in-line skating to walking, but if anyone were to glance out of their window at this hour and see her whizzing past on a pair of ’blades, they might think she was crazy! Better to be out for a simple stroll. And it was a lovely night. She reached the end of the street and turned right, careful not to trip where the sidewalk buckled near the big maple tree.

  Jo lived in a neighborhood that stretched for many blocks, a series of modest two- and three-bedroom homes with tidy yards on streets that were all named after trees. The town of Mulberry Glen (also named
after a tree; the founding fathers hadn’t exactly been a creative bunch) was a quiet place where neighbors mostly knew each other and a trip to the pharmacy or dime store sometimes took twice as long as necessary because of all the friendly encounters along the way. Jo loved living there, and though Bradford hoped eventually to convince her that they should move to New York City, where he worked, she didn’t think that would ever happen. Better that he try to find a job a little closer to Mulberry Glen, Pennsylvania, which was a good three and a half hours from New York. Where they lived was just one of the issues that remained to be worked out between them once they were married.

  Married.

  Tomorrow Jo was getting married—well, technically, today she was getting married. A strange wave of apprehension rolled through her at that thought, but she swallowed the feeling away, as she had all week. She didn’t know why she was feeling so anxious about it. The event was planned out thoroughly to the most minute detail. Jo assumed her midnight anxiety was simply standard prewedding jitters—and that as soon as she stood at the altar with Bradford and they were pronounced husband and wife, all would be well.

  Husband and wife, husband and wife, she told herself in a simple cadence as her feet struck the pavement. The air felt so good and the night sky was so soothing that when she reached the next block, she kept going straight rather than turning to round the block toward home. She would just make a bigger square, looping down Weeping Willow to where it met Dogwood. Wildly, Jo wondered for a moment if she could simply keep walking all night. She could stroll all over town and finally walk right to the church and all the way down the aisle. The deed would be done and all of this worrying about it would have been for naught. Then again, her absence from the morning appointment at the hairdresser might send her mother into heart failure—not to mention that showing up at the altar in jeans over pajamas would be a sad waste of a really pretty wedding dress.

  Jo reached the next corner and turned on Weeping Willow Way, the sound of her steps causing a cat to dart out from behind a trash can. Startled, Jo faltered a bit and then kept walking, glad that Mulberry Glen was such a safe town. She had taken plenty of late night walks last January, when her grandmother had been slowly dying and Jo’s only solace was to wait until the night nurse arrived and then head outside to burn off some steam. Jo had walked almost every night back then, slowly coming to appreciate the darkness, the calm, the quiet.

  Sometimes, as she went, she tried prayer-walking, where she would lift up to God the members of the households she passed. But invariably, her mind would become distracted: Oh, Lord, please bless the family who lives in this house, and I wish they knew that they could clean that filthy siding simply by using a long-handled car washing brush attached to an ordinary garden hose… Try as she might, Jo always had trouble keeping her mind from drifting toward household hints.

  She was thinking of some other housecleaning techniques when, up ahead, she heard voices. As she kept going, she could tell that they were coming from a home on the left. Jo couldn’t hear what was being said, only that someone was shouting in angry tones. Most of the other houses in the neighborhood were dark, but this one was lit up like a Christmas tree. The shades were all drawn, however, so as she walked past, she couldn’t catch a glimpse inside.

  From what she could recall, an older woman named Edna Pratt lived there. Edna was a fan of the Tips from Tulip column, though she and Jo’s grandmother had never exactly been friends beyond a hello in the grocery store and an occasional chat about cleaning methods. Jo tried to avoid the woman when she could. Edna’s daughter, Sally, was important in politics—a senator or a congresswoman or something like that—and it was always a bit tedious to hear Edna go on and on about Sally’s latest accomplishments.

  Jo kept walking, the sounds of the voices fading away by the time she reached Dogwood Drive. She turned right, feeling not a hint of tiredness, wishing she had taken four blocks instead of two. As she turned on to Oak Street and reached her own house, she decided to go around once more, this time at a slow jog. Maybe that would wear her out. Holding the flashlight a bit higher, she began jogging, passing her own dark home and those of her neighbors. Turning the corner, she took a big hop over the buckled sidewalk and kept going. The running felt good, and by the time she reached Weeping Willow a second time, her heart was pumping strongly, her breathing even and hard.

  As she took the corner, she realized a car was coming up Weeping Willow in her direction, moving much more quickly than it should have been. Jo hated that, hated the way someone would willfully break the speed limit in a nice little neighborhood, just because it was late at night and they thought no one was watching. Well, she was watching. She glared at the car as it came toward her, aiming her flashlight directly toward the driver. It was probably some teenager, thinking he had the road to himself.

  Suddenly, the car screeched to a stop.

  The action was so odd that for a moment Jo slowed. She glanced to her right and then her left, but the street was deserted except for her.

  The car continued to sit in the middle of the road, lights on, engine running. Jo felt a shiver begin at the base of her neck. Were they waiting for her?

  Or did the fact that they were sitting there in the middle of the road, engine running, have nothing to do with her at all?

  Feeling very uncomfortable but trying to act nonchalant, she made a simple U-turn on the sidewalk and began jogging in the opposite direction, toward home.

  Turning left at the corner, she listened for the car but it still hadn’t moved forward. She kept glancing back as she ran, but it wasn’t until she was two blocks away, at the corner of her own street, that she noticed the car finally pulling out onto the main road. It made a right turn, away from her, and in the darkness she couldn’t even tell what kind of vehicle it was.

  Jo slowed to a walk for her cooldown, and as she covered the half block to her own house, she tried to think of different reasons a car would just stop in the middle of the road like that for what had to have been four or five minutes. She decided it was one of two things. Either they needed to pause and consult a map, or they had spilled something, like a soda or a cup of coffee, and they had to stop and clean it up. (Jo always suggested keeping a hand towel under the passenger seat for just such an emergency.)

  By the time she reached her own home, she thought of the most likely scenario: They had been scared of her! After all, what kind of nut goes running at midnight—and then has the nerve to shine a flashlight in your face? Smiling to herself, Jo put the incident out of her mind. There were more pressing events going on there, and they all had to do with a certain guy at a certain church at a certain time, to whom she would say a certain “I do.”

  Suddenly, a wave of tiredness swept over Jo, and she thought she might finally be able to sleep. She decided not to go back to her bedroom but instead to the little building out behind her house, the one that served as her home office. There was a perfectly good couch inside, and she might do better to catch some z’s there. She just couldn’t face the crowd sleeping in her living room.

  Jo crunched through the leaves in the driveway, used her key to unlock the door, and stepped inside without turning on the light. She had been in there only a few hours before, doing some final paperwork, so she knew everything was neat and clean and put away until after the honeymoon.

  The couch was against the back wall, between the modified test kitchen to the right and the desk area to the left. Breathing in the sweet, spicy smell of her favorite room in the world, Jo crossed to the side closet, dug out a pillow and a blanket, and arranged them on the couch. This room was such a familiar, beloved place that she felt herself relax almost instantly. She pulled off her clothes, still wearing her pajamas underneath, and did a few stretches to complete her cooldown.

  Finally, she laid down on the couch and pulled the blanket up to her neck. Despite the tensions of the day and all the thoughts that had been swirling around in her mind, Jo began to drift off almost
immediately. In the quiet and the darkness, her breathing grew even and soft as she left behind the stresses of her world and slid into the deep, deep sleep that had been eluding her all week. She slept soundly, unaware that all was not well in Mulberry Glen.

  Two blocks away, Edna Pratt lay dead on her dining room floor.

  2

  Danny Watkins stood over the corpse, thinking he had never seen anything quite so grisly in his life. As the coroner and the cops watched and waited, Danny carefully leaned forward to shoot pictures of Edna Pratt, who lay dead on the floor in front of him. Though he wasn’t a cop himself, Danny was a freelance photographer, and this morning he was working in the employ of the Mulberry Glen Police Department. The police had hired him to photograph crime scenes before, once when a fellow had taken a bulldozer to his brother’s cornfield over a property line dispute, and another time when the local high school’s mascot, a giant papier-mâché cow, had been stolen and put upside down in the cupola over the town hall. But in this community, public humiliation of a synthetic domesticated animal was usually about as violent as crime got.

  If this turned out to be a murder, then as far as anyone could remember, it would be the first murder the town had ever had. It was certainly the first one Danny had ever photographed. In fact, this was the first time he had ever seen a dead person other than a few friends’ grandparents all dressed up and laid out nicely in their coffins for the funeral.

  This was different and quite disturbing, but somehow Danny knew he had to find a way to stay emotionally disengaged from the appalling sight of this woman sprawled out in such a bizarre fashion. So far, he was just glad he hadn’t had time to eat breakfast before getting the call that had brought him here.

  The police chief, Harvey Cooper, had warned Danny that it was going to be bad. Once inside, Danny had taken in the shock of the scene with as much professional detachment as he could muster. Still, as he snapped away with his Nikon DX1, he had to keep swallowing down the bile in his throat. The whole scene was disgusting, both the way it looked and the way it smelled.