The Trouble with Tulip (17 page)

“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 have 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.

“I'm fine,” he said. “Are they gone?”

“Yeah. She decided on the Pride and Joy package. Not too shabby.”

Tiffany walked closer and slid the paperwork into the “pending” tray. Even from five feet away, Danny could smell her perfume—a cheap knockoff that reeked strongly of citrus.

“You seem really distracted today,” Tiffany said, sliding onto the desktop and twirling a lock of hair around one finger. “Long weekend, maybe?”

“Tough weekend,” he replied. “Jo's wedding didn't go exactly as planned.”

He gave his coworker the basic rundown, leaving out the more personal details. The story was all over town by now anyway, so he wasn't exactly betraying a confidence. Tiffany seemed fascinated by the tale, but then again she was always quite attentive whenever they chatted, all eyes and ears no matter what he was saying. Sometimes he wondered if she was really listening at all, or if her exaggerated reactions were simply some sort of knee-jerk, man-catching response. A lot of what she did seemed quietly calculated, from the clothes she wore to the hints she dropped to the double entendres that filled every conversation. Danny had the secret notion that she kept the heads of her biggest conquests stuffed and mounted over her fireplace like a hunter.

“What do our appointments look like for the rest of the day?” he asked, changing the subject. “I've got some new shots of my own I need to get out to the Stock Shop.”

“You've got a corporate sitting in half an hour,” she said, “followed by a kid and his dog. Then I think you're free.”

“Interesting,” he replied. “I've had some ideas I want to try with a pet sitting.”

Tiffany shook her head, her little bell-like earrings tinkling among her artfully teased hair.

“Keep it simple, hon,” she chided him with a smile. “I keep telling ya, even as good as you are, you can't get too creative with this hometown crowd.”

Sally invited Jo to lunch, so they drove back to the funeral home, parked there, and then walked halfway up the block to a small diner. As they waited for their food, Jo broached the topic, once again, of murder.

“Jo, do you really have suspicions about my mother's death?”

Jo put both hands in her lap and looked at Sally earnestly.

“I do. Sally, I'm convinced your mother was murdered. A woman who was so precise with all of her household knowledge would never do something as elementary as mixing chlorine bleach and ammonia. Never. A lot of folks might make that mistake, but not Edna Pratt. Not from what I've seen of her house, of her notes.”

“But why would someone want to kill my mother? She didn't have any enemies.”

“Are you sure?”

Sally had already told Jo that she only talked to her mother on the phone about once a month or even every other month. If they had such little contact, how would she even know?

“How about the name ‘Simon'?” Jo asked, recalling the heated conversation she had overheard between the Mrs. Chutney and Mrs. Parker at the funeral. “Did your mother know anyone by that name?”

Sally shook her head.

“We used to have a relative named Simon, but he died when I was a child. I'm not aware of anyone else by that name. Why do you ask?”

“Just a conversation I overheard at the funeral. And speaking of the funeral, didn't you think those two women were a bit odd when we asked how they knew your mother?”

“Frankly, I didn't notice a thing.”

The waiter showed up with their food. By the time he left the table, Sally had visibly collected herself. There was a hard glint to her eye, though she spoke in soft, staccato tones.

“Jo,” she said, leaning forward, “let me tell you the only thing more inconvenient than having my mother die in the middle of a campaign.”

“What's that?”

“My mother being
murdered
in the middle of a campaign. Something like this could derail everything I've worked so hard for.”

“What are you saying?” Jo asked softly. “You're going to sweep this under the rug?”

Sally sat back, patted her mouth with her napkin, and set the napkin on the table.

“You'd better believe it.”

“But Sally—”

“Jo, please. My mom was a normal, small-town gal who liked to swim every day and play Bunco with the girls and occasionally give herself a cucumber-honey facial. Who would kill someone like that? We've already determined that nothing was stolen from the house. I know my mother didn't have any big money or other valuable assets. What other motives could there have been?”

Jo closed her eyes, the certainty of a murder growing more firm in her mind, not less.

“Let's not discuss it anymore,” Sally said. “Now, I have something for you.”

She pulled from her purse a check, already made out to Jo Tulip, for fifteen hundred dollars.

“Tell me if you think this is a fair amount for the job I'm hiring you to do,” Sally said. “Fifteen hundred up front, with another fifteen hundred to follow when you're finished. Plus half of anything you can get for my mother's belongings and a ten percent sales commission on her car. I just want to be rid of this stuff. I did a blue book search of the vehicle, and it looks as though it's worth about eight thousand dollars. So that alone would be another eight hundred in your pocket once it's sold.”

Jo took the check from her, nodding.

“Of course,” Jo said. “That sounds more than fair.”

“Good. I want you to go through the whole house, send to me whatever you think might be important—papers, photos, items of that nature. Have her furniture appraised in case there's anything of value there. Sell the best, donate the rest. Maybe have a garage sale. List her house with a Realtor. Sell the car. That's it. That's what I would like for you to do. Are you up to it?”

“Absolutely, Sally. Even more than you could imagine.”

13

S
imon found the toy in a thrift shop: a wooden rocking horse so old and used that most of the paint had worn away. Perfect.