Tulip Season

Copyright 2012 Bharti Kirchner

Cover Design by Greg Simanson

Edited by Toddie Downs

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

ISBN 978-1-935961-47-5

DISCOUNTS OR CUSTOMIZED EDITIONS MAY BE AVAILABLE FOR EDUCATIONAL AND OTHER GROUPS BASED ON BULK PURCHASE.

For further information please contact
[email protected]

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012905630

For Didi, Rinku, Tinni, and Tom

For holding the light, as I take another step

And in loving memory of Kachi, Niveditamami, and Satyada

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I've been fortunate to have the help and encouragement of a number of friends in completing this project. Their names (in no particular order) are: Margaret Donsbach, Sarah Martinez, Holly Warah, and Christine Mason.

I would like to thank Mike Hawley, Mike McNeff, and Greg Mills for answering my questions about police procedures.

For their effort on the publishing side, I thank Toddie Downs, Katherine Sears, Heather Ludviksson, and Ken Shear.

I am indebted to my readers who have urged me to write another book.

And I am grateful to my husband Tom for his loving support. Without you, I couldn
't have done it.

Nothing in the world is really precious until we know that it'll soon be gone. The lily, the starry daffodil, the regal irises are the lovelier for their imminent vanishing.

Donald Culross Peattie

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-NINE

FIFTY

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

READING GROUP QUESTIONS

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ONE

“GUTEN MORGEN.”
Mitra rolled over on her side to face Ulrich, the sensual feel of his German name in her mouth. A sliver of sun winked through a crack in the window draperies.

Ulrich turned his golden blond head, nuzzled the pillow, and regarded her with his soft green eyes. “You look so ravishing,” he whispered, “with your hair falling down over your face.” Playfully, he reached out for her.

Mitra smiled at him, at the sculpted hardness visible beneath the sheets. Usually, she rose at dawn and slipped into her greenhouse, her heart swelling with new hope as she appraised the overnight progress of the seedlings. This morning was different. Swallowing a feeling of awkwardness, for he was still a stranger, she snuggled into the warmth of his chest and lay there curled up in the sheets, savoring the musky sweetness of his skin.

If her mother were to peek in at this instant, she would draw a corner of her sari over her mouth to stifle a scream. “Sin!” she'd say. “My unmarried daughter is sleeping with a man!”

Fortunately, Mother lived in Kolkata, whereas Mitra was half a world away in the bedroom of her bungalow in Wallingford, Seattle's garden district. And although she was unmarried, she was in fact twenty-nine, old enough to take a lover.

Ulrich glanced at the clock on the lamp stand, tossed the blanket aside, and bolted from the bed. “8:30?
Ach
, I was supposed to be at work by 8.”

He scrambled toward the bathroom, mumbling to himself in his native tongue. Mitra could hear the sounds of water splashing in the sink and snatches of a German song. Although an engineer by training, Ulrich chose to do physical labor, to escape the tedium of days spent at a desk poring over equations and blueprints. It was a quirk that she had found intriguing last night. He happily hammered nails all day, fixing roofs, patios, kitchens, and basements. Siegfried, his German shepherd, always went along.

The silky, iris-patterned linen sheets were bunched up on his side. He slept more messily than she did but for some reason she liked the rumpled look.

The ringing of the telephone startled her. Not fair, this intrusion. If it was Kareena on the line, Mitra could whisper the truth to her:
I met a cool Deutscher last night. He's in the shower. Okay, so, it's not like the usual shy me, but … Look, I'll call you back later, okay?

She had to answer; it could be a client. Tangles of long hair drowned her vision, as she reached for the receiver. “Mitra Basu speaking.”

“Veen here.” Her friend's voice lacked its usual bounce. “In the name of Ma Kali, have you heard? Kareena is missing.”

“Missing?” Mitra felt shaken, the way a plant must feel when uprooted, the solid support of the firm earth stripped away. “What are you talking about?”

“I called Adi after I got stood up for tea this morning. He told me he hasn't heard from her in two days. I haven't seen her since girls' night out—over a week ago, was it? When's the last time you spoke with her?”

Mitra's heart thumped away. “She didn't show up at Toute La Soirée last night to meet with me.”

She skipped the rest of the story. Last evening had not started out well. After waiting for about an hour and not getting even a beep on her cellphone, she'd driven to Kareena's house. Neither she nor her husband Adi answered the door. Mitra told herself that her friend had probably gotten caught up in another appointment. A little miffed, she'd opted for a distraction—something cold, sweet, and decadent—and made a beeline for an organic ice cream parlor, where an acquaintance introduced her to Ulrich. A long conversation, a second helping of parfait, and the evening had turned out delightfully.

“When did Adi find her missing?” Mitra asked.

“The night before last Adi apparently got home late. Her car was in the garage, but she wasn't home. There was no sign of a forced entry. Yesterday, he called 911. The police came over, asked a lot of questions about her—height, weight, eye color, tattoos, her habits, who's last seen her—things like that. They filled out a form and
requested a photo. There aren't any leads.” Veen paused. “I wonder if she had an argument with Adi and just left.”

“She'd have told one of us, don't you think?” Mitra said. “You know I've been asking her to be extra cautious.” Silently, Mitra repeated her warnings to Kareena: Don't use your last name with your clients, take a different route home every day, always let someone know where you are. She wondered which one Kareena had forgotten.

“Adi didn't have much more to say,” Veen said. “He was leaving for the office. Speaking of the office, I'm late. Let's talk in about an hour.”

Something wasn't right here. How could Adi go to work when his wife was missing?

Mitra searched for her clothes. Last night's coupling, with its wild tumbling, had put her into deep communion with her body, but she was also a bit out of her zone. The long-sleeved print dress she wore last evening, a tantrum of wildflowers, lay tangled on the floor, intermingled with her bra and panties and Ulrich's charcoal jeans. Hands trembling, she rummaged around in the closet, grabbed a pewter-gray bathrobe, and wrapped it around her body.

Adi says she's missing
.

Adi? Who could trust what Adi said? At her cocktail party a few weeks ago, a paisley Kashmiri shawl had slid off Kareena's shoulders. Through the sheer sleeves of a tan silk top, Mitra glimpsed dark blue finger marks and a fresh swelling on her upper arm. She nearly shrieked. Had Kareena been mugged by a stranger, grabbed by a client's angry husband, or had Adi attacked her? Upon realizing that Mitra had noticed, Kareena glanced down and repositioned the shawl. Before Mitra could speak, a male friend approached, asked Kareena to dance, and they'd floated away. It'd be ironic and tragic, if Kareena, a domestic violence counselor, suffered abuse at home.
Was it possible?

Ulrich stepped into the room. His well-scrubbed face shone, but the rest of his body looked unwashed. An awkward pause fell, which Mitra attributed to seeing each other for the first time in broad daylight.