The Trouble With Tulip Read online

  “Bleach and ammonia.”

  “Bleach and ammonia?” Jo repeated. “That makes chloramine gas! At best, it would be highly irritating to the lungs. At worst, it would be lethal.”

  “Well, she’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “But Chief, that’s like housecleaning 101! Edna Pratt would not have done that.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Tulip. There’s just not enough evidence to call this a murder.”

  Jo wanted to argue her case, but she suddenly caught sight of her mother marching determinedly down the hall toward her.

  “I’ll call you later,” Jo said into the phone and hung up just as her mother reached her.

  “You’re supposed to walk down the aisle in eleven minutes,” Helen hissed. “I think you need to get in there and finish getting out that stain!”

  “Fine,” Jo replied. “I’m coming.”

  Helen spun back around and marched away.

  “I’ve got to get to the sanctuary anyway,” Danny said softly, taking back his phone. “I’ll see you in there.”

  Jo reached out and caught his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Thanks, Danny,” she said softly, looking into her friend’s warm blue eyes. He had to know she was thanking him not just for helping out this morning, but for all he did as her friend. He was more important to her than he could ever know.

  “No sweat,” he replied. He squeezed her hand back and released it. “Now get dressed, why don’t you? After all this work, I’d hate to see you getting married in a choir robe.”

  Jo raced back to the room and worked at the stain, finally declaring it good enough to go. The grease wasn’t completely gone, but it would do.

  She pulled on the dress, and as her mother worked the tiny buttons up the back and the bridesmaids fluffed the train where the repairs had been made, Jo checked her image in the mirror, straightening the pearl tiara that held her veil in place. She usually wore her hair down, where it hung several inches past her shoulders, or pulled back in a ponytail. Today, however, her mother had talked her into an updo. Though the elaborate hairstyle did look quite elegant, Jo was wishing she hadn’t been so easily swayed. Behind the fancy hair and the professionally applied makeup, she didn’t quite feel herself.

  “You look beautiful, honey,” Helen said, stepping back after the last button had been fastened. “A vision.”

  Everyone agreed that she looked lovely and that the dress repairs weren’t even noticeable.

  “So tell us, Jo,” Marie said, gathering everyone’s flowers from the box. “Will you put all of this in your column?”

  “Oh, that stupid column,” Jo’s mother interjected before she could reply, checking her own image in the mirror. “Please tell me you’ll be giving up that foolishness once you’re married.”

  Some of the bridesmaids gasped, but Jo merely held her tongue. Helen had always been vaguely embarrassed by Tips from Tulip, first when it was written by her mother-in-law and then when it was taken over by her daughter. Many a time she had chided Jo for squandering a perfectly good college degree on “trivial household matters” that were, as she said, better left “to Heloise or Martha Stewart.”

  A knock at the door saved Jo from having to reply.

  “Ladies?” Pastor Beacon said. “Are you decent?”

  Marie let him in, and he stepped inside, his face lighting up at the sight of them.

  “I trust everyone’s ready?” he asked. “Crisis averted?”

  “Yep. We have it under control.”

  He led them in prayer and then told them that it was time for them to go out the side door and around to the front of the church. As Jo walked among the small crowd of giggling, excited women, she thought not of the groom who waited for her at the altar or even of the music that was ringing majestically from the organ.

  She thought, instead, of a bucket of bleach and ammonia. Jo promised herself that as soon as she got back from her honeymoon, she was going to pay a visit to the police chief in person and insist that he figure out who killed Edna Pratt and why.

  7

  Jo!” her father whispered sharply. He was waving from the top of the stairs and pointing at his watch. “Come on. It’s time!”

  Jo looked up at her dad, who was strikingly handsome in his tuxedo. Her mother gave her a final hug and then hurried to move to the front of the line. As Jo mounted the steps herself, she couldn’t help but smile. The big moment was finally here.

  “You look stunning, dear,” her father said, giving her a peck on the cheek. She looked into his eyes, surprised to see he was tearing up a bit. As Marie arranged Jo’s train into place behind her, Jo slipped her hand into her father’s arm and gave it a squeeze, feeling oddly touched by his show of emotion. She doubted he had ever shed a tear over her before.

  “It’s showtime,” Marie whispered once the train was set. “You ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Jo replied, taking a deep breath.

  Marie ran up to take her place in line just as the organ music swelled from inside. As Jo held onto her father’s arm and waited her turn, she thought about her parents and her own difficult childhood.

  Though Jo’s paternal grandparents, the Tulips, had been humble and loving, her maternal grandparents were quite another story. The Bosworths were an old money, industrialist family who fully expected their only daughter, Helen, to marry a man capable of stepping into the family business and serving it well. Kent Tulip had not disappointed them. Starting in his twenties as a district manager, over the years he had worked his way up to the position he now held, that of CEO of the entire company. In the meantime, Bosworth Industries had bought and sold so many other companies and businesses that it was now a worldwide conglomerate.

  As a child, Jo had lived an odd and isolated life, relocating with her parents from country to country as her father worked to establish Bosworth’s international holdings.

  He always brought his wife and child with him on these long-term assignments, so consequently Jo had spent much of her youth starting over—new home, new school, new friends, often after only six months. And though there was usually an American-centric place to live and go to school wherever they ended up, Jo always found herself among children who were a lot like her: friendly, but afraid to form lasting bonds. Unable to connect. The only consistent people in her life were her grandparents and her best friend back home, Danny Watkins. More than anything, Jo treasured the times between foreign assignments when her father would work out of the main office in New York City, her parents would live in their apartment there, and Jo was allowed to stay with her father’s parents in Mulberry Glen.

  The summer after Jo graduated from the eighth grade, she asked her grandparents if she could live with them year-round. Much to her relief, they embraced the idea enthusiastically. Armed with their consent, she approached her parents and told them she was tired of moving, she wanted a normal high school experience, and she wanted to live with her grandparents from here on out.

  Jo had expected fireworks, as both of her parents were rather stubborn and difficult people. Instead, once they had worked through a few of the details, they agreed that it might be a good idea. Jo moved permanently to her grandparents’ house, into the bedroom that had always been hers anyway. And though she’d been glad to get what she wanted, she had also felt oddly hurt that her mother and father hadn’t put up more of a fight to keep her.

  After high school came college, and Jo attended locally there in town, content to continue living with her grandparents. She had planned to move out on her own once she graduated, but by then they were in poor health and she needed to stay for their sakes. Once they had both passed away, of course, the house became hers. After today it would be hers and Bradford’s, the perfect place to begin their new life together.

  “Here we go,” her mother whispered when it was her turn to head down the aisle. After that went the bridesmaids. Jo watched them slowly make their way to the front as Danny took each photo in turn.
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br />   He was so utterly adorable in his tuxedo—and so completely clueless as to his own adorableness. Jo treasured him in a way that was different from how she felt about anyone else in the world. That’s why it was so difficult for her to hear his objections to her marriage.

  Jo watched the flash of his camera, forming a final response in her mind. So what if Bradford and I rushed into things? After today we will be husband and wife. And then we can spend the rest of our lives together, learning everything there is to know.

  The music changed and the congregation stood and turned.

  “We’re on,” Kent said softly.

  Together they walked down the aisle toward Jo’s future.

  Bradford was standing tall at the front of the room, looking more handsome than any movie star. From his precisely cut blond hair to his tan skin and square jaw, he really did look as though he could have stepped straight from the big screen. As she walked forward, Jo studied his face and tried to lock onto his gaze, but he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes.

  The moment Jo reached the altar, she knew something was wrong. At first, she blamed it on the heat. The lights. The attention. Maybe Bradford wasn’t used to being up in front of a crowd, especially not in a tuxedo, about to be married, so it wasn’t terribly surprising that his eyes were darting about, his skin pale. But as Jo’s father gave her away and she stepped into place beside the man who was about to become her husband, she couldn’t help thinking it was more than that, that Bradford looked as if he were ready to faint.

  Jo could see the sweat on his forehead, the shaking of his hands, the panic in his eyes. Briefly, she considered stopping the ceremony to ask if he needed a glass of water or to sit down and put his head between his legs. Maybe a whiff of camphor on a cotton ball or a cool compress to the pulse points at his wrists would do the trick, she thought, remembering one of her past columns, “Tips for Conquering Stage Fright.”

  “Dearly beloved,” the minister said, snapping Jo from her thoughts. “We are gathered here today to unite this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”

  The minister opened the ceremony with a few words of greeting and then a prayer. Jo closed her eyes for the prayer, asking God to calm the heart of the man beside her.

  Still, she could practically feel the tension radiating from Bradford. He was breathing heavily, little huffs that kept getting stuck in his throat. She opened one eye to steal a glance at his face, half expecting him to be crying. But, no, he was just standing there with his head bowed and his eyes closed, his lips puffing together, opening and closing, like a fish. Were he not such an incredibly handsome man, the mannerism would have looked ridiculous. As it was, Jo couldn’t help thinking how very much she wanted to comfort him. He needed to relax and enjoy the ceremony.

  She reached out to slip a calming hand into the crook of Bradford’s elbow, but as she touched him he jerked away, almost as if he had been electrocuted. Jo quickly retreated, placing her hand back on the stem of her bouquet and feeling her face flush with heat. As the prayer ended, she kept her eyes on the minister, blinking back tears. While he proceeded with the ceremony, Jo could hear Bradford softly clear his throat repeatedly, his breathing even more rapid than before.

  Deep in her heart, then, she wasn’t really surprised when everything fell apart. They were at the point in the ceremony where the minister asked Bradford if he took this woman to be his lawfully wedded wife. Bradford hesitated in his answer long enough to earn gasps from some of the bridesmaids.

  “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” the minister prodded a second time, his eyebrows lifting just a bit.

  Biting her lip, Jo turned to look directly at Bradford, and the expression on his face told her all she needed to know. He looked first at her, and then he turned and directed his gaze toward her father.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head. “But I don’t.”

  Then he dashed out the side door of the church, the same way he had come in.

  Danny wanted to deck the guy! This whole event had been a nightmare, from pulling on a monkey suit to keeping his mouth shut about the wedding to watching Bradford slowly decompress at the altar. Now, as two of the groomsmen ran out after Bradford, Jo just stood there with her big green eyes full of tears. And though Danny was thrilled the guy was gone and the wedding obviously wasn’t going to take place after all, he was enraged that Bradford had let things get this far.

  Had he actually just dumped her at the altar?

  Danny looked at Jo, having no idea how to comfort her. He hesitated, trying to decide whether to go after Bradford or stay there with her. The pastor seemed similarly torn, and a buzz was starting up among the congregation. Finally, Danny knew someone had to take action.

  “I’ll go see what’s up,” he said. Then he ran from the sanctuary.

  Danny had been a member of Trinity Church for most of his life, so he knew the intricate hallways of the old building like the back of his hand. He ran first to the room next to the pastor’s study where the groomsmen had been stationed prior to the wedding. It was dark and empty. Danny thought of the parking lot, so he ran down the hall and out the back door just in time to see Bradford speeding away in his Corvette. The best man, Bradford’s younger brother, was standing there watching him go.

  “Did he say why he ran out?” Danny asked, trying to catch his breath.

  “No,” the kid replied, shaking his head. “He just kept saying ‘I gotta go. I gotta go.’ ”

  “Go where?” Danny demanded. “He’s got the most perfect woman in the world standing there waiting to marry him and he takes a powder? Is he crazy?”

  “Cold feet, I guess. Better he figure it out now than after the deed is done, you know?”

  “What an idiot!”

  Danny took his anger out on a discarded soda can, kicking it as hard as he could. It struck a nearby stone wall, bouncing back toward the two men and splashing their legs with the cola that was left in the can.

  “Aw, man, I’m sorry,” Danny said, feeling the anger inside him evaporate like the fizz from the can. The anger was replaced by despair and a heavy heart. He had known all along that this relationship was doomed—had hoped for it, in fact. Now that this had happened, though, all he could feel was Jo’s pain and embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the fellow said, shaking out his legs. “The suit’s just a rental.” He ambled back toward the building.

  “Wait,” Danny called after him. “What do we tell Jo?”

  He held out both hands and shrugged.

  “She’s your friend, Danny,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Simon settled back against the seat of the bus, gazing out of the window as they crossed into Virginia. He was glad to have the wad of cash in his pocket—both the money he’d stolen from the lady’s house and the bills he received from selling her gold—but mostly he lamented the fortune he might never be able to get out of Mulberry Glen. Four hundred thousand dollars!

  All of it gone. All of it wasted. All of his hard work shot to pot.

  All because of Edna.

  He closed his eyes, thinking of his buddies down in Jacksonville. If he could round up the gang, there was no limit to the games they could get going. They might even try the same one he’d had running in Mulberry Glen, but using the lessons he’d learned this time to get it right.

  Four hundred thousand dollars, probably out of his reach forever.

  The very thought of it made him sick.

  8

  Jo sat on a stool in front of the mirror, her mind racing in a million different directions. Just beside the sanctuary, this was the room where she and her bridesmaids had worked so furiously to fix her dress before the wedding began. Now it looked as though the wedding might be over before it had barely started. What on earth had gone so wrong?

  “Here’s some water,” Marie said, handing her a paper cup, as if that would somehow help to save the situation.

 
Jo took it from her absently just as organ music swelled from the other side of the wall. A moment later the pastor appeared in the doorway.

  “Jo, I asked the organist to play a few songs. I’m going to talk to Bradford and see what’s going on.”

  “What did you say to the congregation?”

  “I just asked for their patience and suggested that they enjoy the special music.”

  Jo nodded, wondering how she was ever going to live this down. She was an idiot, a complete and utter fool who had been humiliated at the altar. With an inner groan, she thought of her column from the last few months, all of those handy wedding tips. Here was a handy wedding tip she obviously forgot to mention: Pick a groom who won’t bolt when it’s time to say the vows.

  “Uh, Jo?” She looked up to see Danny in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he told her, “but Bradford left. He’s gone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I watched him drive away.”

  Jo stood, setting the cup of water on the table in front of her, spilling a bit of it into an open tray of face powder.

  “Everyone out, please,” she said. “I need a moment. Danny, you come in.”

  The bridesmaids silently filed out of the room. Danny stepped inside and pulled the door shut. He sat awkwardly on a nearby stool, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else in the world.

  “What did he say?” she asked quietly.

  “I didn’t talk to him. His brother is under the impression that Bradford had cold feet. All he said was ‘I gotta go, I gotta go.’ And then he left.”

  The room was silent between them. On the other side of the wall, the music swelled to a crescendo.

  “Maybe he just needed a bathroom,” Jo said.

  Danny smiled in spite of himself.

  “I’m afraid that’s not what he meant.”

  As Jo closed her eyes, twin tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Ah, Danny,” she whispered, “It’s not like you didn’t warn me…”

  There was a soft knock at the door. It opened and the pastor leaned into the room.