The Trouble with Tulip (23 page)

“I'll make appointments with Professor Langley in the science department and somebody over in art,” she said. “I hope they can see me tomorrow.”

“Hope so.”

“In the meantime, I'll make a copy of Edna's key for you so you can come and go as you need.”

“You sure that's okay?” he asked. “I mean, Edna's daughter hired you for this job, not me.”

Jo smiled.

“Yeah, well, I'm subcontracting,” she said. “I have it on good authority that you're a trustworthy guy.”

She smiled at him, and after a moment he smiled back. There seemed to be something wistful in his expression, and for a minute she had the disconcerting feeling that he had something important to tell her.

The look passed, however, as he focused his attention on the road. Jo gazed down at the print in her lap, wondering who the man with the silver hair was, and why he seemed to be popping up all over the place.

Simon stole a bicycle.

He didn't like being a common thief, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

The bus he had taken ended up being one that made a large loop around Jacksonville. Sitting quietly in the very back row, Simon had managed to stay on board for three go-arounds, the driver not even noticing he was there. Each time, Simon had crouched low in his seat as they drove past the pay phone where he had made the call to Edna's house. Each time, he had seen no cops nor detected any sort of police activity.

Maybe the call hadn't been traced after all.

Finally, on the fourth time around, he steeled his nerves, waited until one stop past the one where he'd gotten on, and disembarked.

He was tired. His feet hurt. His
brain
hurt.

His intention was to make his way back toward Wiggles' house but not actually go inside. If the cops had traced the call, they might review his prison record and connect him with Wiggles and get a lock on his location. Better to spend the night nearby, where he could watch the house and see if the cops ever showed up. If they didn't, he'd probably be safe to go back there in the morning.

On the way he passed a bicycle, a battered, navy blue Schwinn with a torn seat. It was locked up, but the person who locked it had merely wrapped the chain around a post. Glancing around to make sure he wasn't being observed, Simon simply lifted the bicycle and slid the lock over the top of the post, leaving it hanging from the frame as he climbed aboard and took off down the street.

Simon hated stealing. But so much had gone wrong lately that he needed a break. People who didn't properly protect their belongings deserved to have them stolen anyway.

And riding a bike sure was easier than walking.

It was quite dark by the time he neared the house. Wiggles' car was in the driveway, and through the front window Simon could see the flashing of the television screen. No doubt Wiggles was sitting there with a little frozen dinner, food all over the front of his shirt as he shakily tried to get most of it to his mouth. That was the hardest part about rooming with a man who had tremor problems—the eating. It was hard to watch him and enjoy your own food at the same time.

Simon pedaled over the train tracks, aiming toward a utility structure in the field beyond Wiggles' house. He rode up to it and then climbed off the bike and pushed it around to the back, hiding it by laying it down in the weeds. The structure obviously belonged to the electric company, as signs on all four sides proclaimed “Warning! High Voltage!” But Simon knew he would be safe enough as long as he didn't stick a fork in a metal plate or something. He mounted the six-foot-high chain-link fence, carefully swung his leg over, and came back down on the inside. He stepped from the fence onto a concrete platform and then found himself a relatively comfortable spot leaning against the little building, his bottom on cement, his back against cinder block.

He was getting too old for this.

While hundreds of thousands of dollars sat in the bank farther north, Simon was huddled in the dark next to an electrical way station, waiting to see if the cops would raid his friend's house looking for him.

Still, if Simon possessed anything, it was his unflagging optimism. Somehow, deep in his gut, he knew this would work out okay. He was like a cat, always landing on his feet, counting mightily on those nine lives.

He leaned against the cold wall, tucked his hands under his arms, and tried to be thankful that the fence would protect him from any stray creatures that might go sniffing around in the night. He settled in for the long haul, comforting himself the way he always had—in the knowledge that somewhere, two thousand miles away, Edna was thinking of him. Despite what she may have done, at least he always knew that Edna loved him.

Still, it was going to be a long night.

16

J
o sat at her kitchen table and flipped through the paper as she did every morning, looking for her column. Sometimes it was edited down for size, and she liked to keep an eye on the omissions, at least in her local area. Luckily, today's column was there in its entirety. She read it as she ate a bowl of oatmeal, considering the words of her agents as she went.

The second letter was about the wasted cleaner that sits at the bottom of spray bottles. Tips from Tulip recommended to Wasteful in Waukeegan that she drop a few marbles in the bottom to raise the liquid high enough to get sucked into the squirter.

So don't lose your marbles
, it said,
just look at the pennies you're saving in cleansers!

Jo hesitated, a sort of internal groan going off in her mind. What woman in this day and age would take the time to find marbles and drop them into a cleanser bottle just to salvage the last half inch of liquid? Answer: A woman who's old and cheap. Everyone else would simply toss it and buy a new one.

Jo went on to the third letter, where Twice as Nice wrote to suggest that old handbags could be recycled by cutting up the leather and using them as elbow patches on jackets.

It had seemed so clever at the time. Yet now, as Jo thought about it, she realized most women didn't sew these days—and even if they did, leather elbow patches on jackets weren't even in style anymore!

She set the paper down and blinked away sudden tears. Exactly how long had she been so disconnected from reality?

Long enough to run this column into the ground
, she answered to herself.

Lord, what do I think I'm doing? Of course this stuff isn't relevant anymore
.

She put the paper away without reading the rest of the column. She'd seen all she needed to see.

Jo rinsed out the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal and put it into the dishwasher, ran a damp cloth over the table, and dropped the newspaper into the recycle bin. Then she stomped back to her bedroom to get dressed for the day. As she did, she thought about today's women, the desired demographic, and knew that their lives were filled with all sorts of challenges she had never addressed. Child care. Working wardrobe. Office politics. Cell phones. Computers. Soccer moms. The Internet.

She pulled on her grungiest cleaning clothes, ready to put in a few hours at Edna's house. Jo promised herself that as she worked, she would think very hard about how to include some or even all of the above in her new approach.

She still hadn't heard a word from Bradford, but between thinking up a new direction for her household hints and investigating the murder of Edna Pratt, Jo knew there was plenty to occupy her mind anyway.

Simon jerked awake, the hot morning sun already beating down on his face. It was a little after seven
A.M
., and he realized he must have drifted off a few hours before.

Stiffly, he stretched out his legs, wondering how it had come to this. He was too old to spend the night sitting against hard concrete. He was too old to be hiding in wait to see if the police were going to show up and arrest him.

The original plan was to stay there and keep watching until noon, but suddenly Simon had an irresistible urge to get up, go in the house, grab a bite, and take a hot shower. After that, he would stretch out on Wiggles' couch and try to get back to sleep. He'd had a very rough night. To heck with the police.

The trip over the fence wasn't nearly as easy as it had been the night before. Then, he had been driven by fear; now, he could barely move he was so achy. Slowly, he managed to make it over the top, but he slipped and fell the last few feet, landing flat in the grass on his bottom. It was a miracle he hadn't broken a hip!

Leaving the bicycle in the weeds, he limped home, glad to know that Wiggles would probably sleep a few more hours himself. Simon crept into the bathroom and got under the hot spray, grateful at least to have somewhere to stay. He couldn't keep going like this, though.

Something had to give, one way or another.

Danny reached the studio before Tiffany, eager to have some time to work on the photos Jo had given him. As he walked past her desk, he glanced at the day's schedule, which was light. Commission-seeker that Tiffany was, she wouldn't be too happy, but that worked fine for him, as he was paid by the hour.

He put away his things and then brought the six photos into the lab and scanned them in one by one. After that, he pulled up the most modern of the bunch, the shot from the '50s or '60s of the family all dressed up and gathered on a front stoop. On the computer screen he was able to enlarge the face of the silver-haired man until he could find some irregularities in the pixels surrounding it. From what he could tell, the image had definitely been added to the scene.