by K C Hart
“I can’t. I want to, but I really can’t.” Joe sighed, “I’m dyslexic. They just thought I was stupid in school and passed me through every grade as special ed. When I graduated, I went to one of those adult learning centers in Hattiesburg on my own and asked them to try to figure out why I couldn’t read or write. I wanted to, I just couldn’t make heads or tails of what I saw.” He smiled a sad smile and looked at Katy. “The lady running the place had pity on me and sent me to some kind of specialist. It took him about ten minutes to tell me what was wrong. I still can’t write worth a flip, but once the doctor filled out some paperwork for me, I was able to get my driver’s license with an oral test and get my job offshore. I’ve been working on it off and on through the years and I can get by with the reading now, but my writing’s a joke.”
“Dyslexia.” Katy's eyes stretched wide. “Well, no wonder you didn’t write down a statement. You’re not trying to be uncooperative.” She took a deep breath and looked down at the cot. “Look, Joe, you’ve got to get in touch with your lawyer and let him know this. I’m sure someone can dictate your statement or video it or something, but you’ve got to let them know what’s going on.” Her voice climbed with excitement. “I don’t mean to sound cruel, but if you don’t start helping yourself a little here, things are going to go from bad to worse quick.”
“I know you’re right,” Joe said as he got up. He took one step across the small cell and stood directly in front of her. “I’ve just been overwhelmed with this. Kind of in shock, you know. I’m sorry mam, but what did you say your name was? I’ve been spilling my guts to you like you’re my momma, and I can’t even remember your name.”
“That’s okay, you’re under a lot of stress. My name is Katy Cross. I’m Todd’s aunt.”
“Mrs. Katy, would you do me a favor and have Ms. Lois call my lawyer and get him over here. She knows how to get in touch with him and talking to you has lit a fire under me to start trying to get some help.”
“I sure will.” Katy smiled and patted Joe’s hand as he squeezed the bars that separated them. “Joe, I know you said you don’t go to church, but would you mind if I start praying for you? I think you’re innocent, and you need all of the help you can get.”
“Yes mam, please do. I believe in God and Momma taught us to do right even if she didn’t take us to church. I guess I’ve just not given God much thought. I’ve been doing some praying on my own though since I’ve been in here. I think I need a miracle about now.”
Yes, you do, she thought as she walked away.
Chapter Nine
“I can’t believe how busy this place is. Their parking lot always looks full.” Katy gawked, mentally counting the cars. “Am I the only woman in Skeeterville who doesn’t get her nails done?”
“Naa, you’re not completely alone,” Misty laughed. She pulled into one of the few available parking spots in front of the salon. “I don’t think Mike’s ninety-year-old grandmother gets hers done anymore. It’s too much trouble getting her wheelchair and oxygen tank in the salon door.”
“Okay, okay smart mouth.” Katy raised an eyebrow. “Point taken. I realize most women like beautiful, nails and don’t get me wrong, so would I. It’s just that I can’t have those long fake nails with my job, and then I think about how much money it costs and how busy I am, and well, I just don’t ever get it done.” She looked at her hands in disgust. The nails weren’t bitten, but they obviously didn’t get any attention either. The right thumbnail was long with a jagged edge resembling a rickety staircase. The other nine weren’t quite as bad. She needed to buy a nail file to keep in her purse. She slipped her hands between her knees and looked over at Misty’s hands resting on the steering wheel. The short even manicure with glossy pink nailbeds spoke volumes to Katy’s bruised ego.
“Don’t act like your money’s so tight that you can’t afford to get your nails done.” Misty pulled the key from the ignition. “There’s nothing wrong with not getting your nails done. I just think you deserve to pamper yourself a little, that’s all. You’re always running around doing this, that, and the other for everybody else. Why don’t you do this for yourself?” She reached and grabbed her purse from the backseat. “It really is nice. I get mine done about every two weeks along with my eyebrows. It’s just part of my life.”
“They do eyebrows too?” She glanced at Misty’s perfectly arched brows before looking out the windshield. She knew that their appearances were a sharp contrast of a well-groomed attractive woman and a rather sloppy friend who could be easily overlooked.
“Girl, they’ll wax any body part you stick in front of them. I get my chin waxed too; but if you tell anybody, there’ll be another murder in this town before sundown.”
“You mean to tell me grown women go into that building and get their uh... stuff waxed right there in front of their friends and neighbors and the UPS guy if he happens to be walking through?” Katy’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe that. You might have to go in and snoop around without me. There’re some things about the women of this town that I just don’t want to know.”
“You’re cracking me up.” Misty swatted at a tear trickling down her cheek. She took a deep breath to control the laughter bubbling up after Katy’s rant. “To be so smart you sure are ignorant about some things.” She dabbed a tissue under her eyes to prevent her mascara from running. “I don’t even get my eyebrows waxed in front of anybody else and I sure wouldn’t be going in there if bikini waxes were being done in the parlor.”
She flipped down the visor and checked her face. “Let me fix my mascara real quick before we go in. I look like a gothic princess.” She repaired the damage with swift accuracy. “Hey, Marissa Holmes is a waxer. She doesn’t do me. I go to Jaylynn, but everybody says she’s good. Why don’t you get your eyebrows done? That way she’ll have to take you into the little room in the back. Yaw will be alone, and you’ll have a chance to ask her some questions.”
Katy pulled down her visor and looked in the mirror. She turned her head from side to side, looking at one brow, then the other. She hadn’t plucked in over a month and a small briar patch was growing over her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. “My girls have been trying to get me to wax my brows for years, but I know it has got to hurt.” She leaned closer to the mirror. “I don’t know.”
“It’s not that bad, and don’t you want to find out why Marissa and Jessa were fighting? If she’s working on other people, I probably won’t get a chance to talk to her. She usually stays pretty busy.” Misty opened her car door. “It’s up to you, but if you really want to find something out, I recommend manning up and getting them bad boys done.”
“You’re right.” Katy snapped the visor shut. “John’s coming home today, and boy will he be surprised.” She opened her door and slid out. “What the hay, I might even get my nails done while I’m at it.”
“Whoop, whoop!” Misty pumped her arm in the air as she stood up. “I like this sleuthing stuff. We’re going to make a girly girl out of you yet Katy Cross.”
“I’m girly, sort of. I’m just practical, and uh, understated.”
“Sure girlfriend,” Mist laughed as she locked the doors and they started across the parking lot. “Anything you say.”
Ninety minutes later the women were back in the car headed towards home. Katy pulled the visor down again and looked at her new, perfectly arched brows. The skin between her lids and the artistically shaped line was puffy and an angry shade of hot pink. “I almost wet my pants when she ripped that wax off. I cannot believe I paid somebody money to inflict that kind of pain on me.” She lightly touched the angry skin above her nose with her finger. “Forget waterboarding, waxing should be the mode of extracting information from terrorists. I’m sure it would be way more effective.” She cut her eyes across the car. “I thought you said it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Now I never said it wouldn’t hurt. I just said that it’s not that bad.” They stopped at a red light and Misty turned to exa
mine her friend’s new look. “They are fantastic and I’m jealous. Did you get your chin done too?”
Katy grinned as she took one last look in the mirror before flipping the visor back into place. “They do look good, don’t they? I’ve always wondered how women got their eyebrows to look so pretty.” She rubbed her fingers across the lower half of her face. “Yeah, she did my chin, and lip too. It’s a little numb. I guess I had an old lady mustache going on that I didn’t know about.”
“It wasn’t that noticeable. I would look like Magnum P.I. if I didn’t take care of things like that. Let me see your nails.”
Katy held out her hands for inspection. Her cuticles had been soaked and pushed back making the nails appear longer even though they didn’t extend past her fingertips. She had chosen a very pale shale of pink called Champaign Blush. For the first time in so long that Katy couldn’t remember, she was not ashamed of the way her hands looked. “What do you think,” she proudly asked.
“Gorgeous, and you can still play the guitar and wear your nursing gloves to do all that disgusting nursing stuff you love.” The light turned green and she moved the car forward. “Now do you see why the parking lot is so full all of the time?”
“I guess so. I have to agree,” Katy conceded, “this is very nice. I can see why you would want to make it a habit to keep looking like this; even with the pain of having your face ripped off.”
“Good because I scheduled us appointments again for two weeks from today.”
“Oh really,” Katy looked at her friend and smiled. “You were that sure that I would want to come back?”
“I was sure hoping you would. I think maybe next time you can get your toes done too. I’ll get one of the technicians to explain how they make sure you don’t get the golden toe like you are so scared of catching.”
“We’ll see,” Katy said slowly. “I’m going to have to ease into this or John will go into shock, bless his heart. He ain’t going to know what to think now with these new eyebrows.”
“Do you think he’ll notice?” Misty asked, glancing quickly at Katy then back to the road. “Mike is a sweetheart, but he never notices things like that.”
“That’s because he’s always used to you looking so perfect,” Katy sighed. “Poor John. Yeah, he’ll definitely notice. I have sort of let myself go.” She looked again at her new and improved hands. “Maybe this is the start of something good.”
“And speaking of something good, did you learn anything about Jessa’s fuss with Marissa? That blue hair has to be hers. Who else around here has electric blue highlights?” Misty reached up and unconsciously rubbed her lip. “And did you notice those red marks on her neck? I heard her telling one of the women that a tree branch scratched her while she was mowing grass this weekend.”
“I saw that,” Katy said. “She also has the end of her pointer finger on her right hand bandaged up. I asked her what happened, and she said she accidentally tore off a nail while pumping gas.” She looked down at her fingers. “Are those fake nails that secure? Will they damage your finger if they get hung in something like that?”
“Sister please,” Misty’s hand fluttered up from the steering wheel. “That stuff they use to stick on those nails is stronger than crazy glue. It takes a force of nature to get them off. Usually, if someone chips one, or cuts it down, or just wants it off for some reason, they go in and have it soaked off with acetone, or whatever they use.”
“I would bet you good money that was her nail I saw tangled in Jessa’s hair.” Katy pursed her lips. “You know, Joe Phobs said that Tubby Robinson knows about Jessa’s personal life and that he loves to talk. Since Marissa is also a member of their band, I bet he knows all about how they got along. He could probably tell us if they had a fight over the weekend.” She raised her new fingernail to her lips then self-consciously dropped it to her lap. “I don’t know this Tubby Robinson fella, or I would go ask him what happened between those two women. I’ve seen him with The Wildcats, but I’ve never spoken to him.”
“He’s Jenny Faye and LeRoy Robinson’s youngest boy. You know that family. LeRoy owns Robinson Logging. Tubby works for his daddy.”
“They don’t sound familiar. Maybe John knows them.”
“His wife is a teller at the bank, Emma Robinson. She’s short and blonde and wears a lot of makeup.” Katy continued to shake her head and Misty tried to think of how to further describe her. “You’ll know her when you see her. She sells About Face Make-Up and Skincare and if you compliment her, she tries to sell you something. She’s the teller at the bank’s first window.”
“Oh yeah,” Katy finally nodded her head, “looks like a Barbie Doll.”
“Exactly. That’s Tubby’s wife.”
“That beautiful girl is married to big ole Tubby Robinson?” Katy’s eyes stretched wide. “I never would have put them two together. She’s so put together, and he is so country looking, you know, with the flannel and beard and all.” She leaned her head back against the seat. “That doesn’t help me anyway. I don’t know her either except for seeing her at the bank.”
“I don’t know,” Misty’s voice tilted in a sing-song rhythm. “I think she’s just about as gossipy as Tubby. Mike says that she’s always coming in telling some kind of tale about different folks. He has to remind her not to be gossiping to the customers. People don’t want the person handling their money to be spreading around their affairs. I bet her and Tubby are just fountains of information.”
“I wish we could go knock on their door and just ask them to tell us everything they know about Jessa Williams’s and Marissa Holmes’s catfight,” Katy said. “I couldn’t be a cop. That kind of power would go to my head.”
“I have an idea if you’re willing to go along with it.” Misty pulled her car into the Burger Barn parking lot to drop Katy at her vehicle. “Tomorrow I’ll go by the bank and casually tell Emma how much I love her lipstick, or eyeshadow, or something. It will be true because she always looks perfect. This time when she asks me to host a party, I’ll take her up on it. Then, when we have her at my house all excited about selling her stuff, we can quiz her down.”
“How can you be sure that she’ll ask you to have a party?” Katy asked. “She’s never asked me to have one.”
“That’s because you’re a customer and she can’t solicit. For some reason, she has it in her head that Mike and I are loaded with money.” Misty’s chin jutted forward. “She drops little hints about how nice it must be to have money to blow, or how nice it is to be married to a rich man. That’s why I’ve never offered to host one of her parties, she gets on my nerves.”
“And you don’t have to have one now,” Katy said, turning down the offer. “I’ll figure something out. Just give me a little time.”
“I want to do this,” Misty insisted. “It won’t be a lick of trouble to get The Moonlighters, Mama, Aunt Virgie, and Pickle to come over to the house for a party.” She counted the women off on her fingers. “I’ll make a couple of snacks and we’ll have a good time while we figure out why Jessa and Marissa had a throw down. Plus,” she dragged the word out slowly, “once she’s in my home and I’m free to talk to her, I’ll set the record straight on being married to a rich man. I worked my behind off waiting tables to put Mike through school. It’s about time she knows that.”
“Okay,” Katy said. “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“It’s no trouble, I promise,” Misty smiled, her voice returning to its normal happy tone. “I’m getting kind of excited about it. I hope that stuff she sells is good because she’ll expect everybody to buy a little something.”
“Let me know when it is.” Katy opened the car door. “Don’t forget about band practice tomorrow night. Oh, and are you going to Jessa’s funeral? I need to find out when it is.”
“She’ll be at the funeral home tomorrow from four until nine and the service is Wednesday morning at eleven.” Misty rattled off the schedule. “They’re doing everything at the funeral home
. I guess she didn’t go to church with the Browns since they aren’t having it at the Methodist church. I’m dropping by on my way to practice. I have to work at the shop all day Wednesday.”
“I might do the same thing. I feel like I need to at least stop in.” Katy looked at her hands as she pushed the key fob to open her car door. That looks so much better. It’s a shame it took somebody dying to get me to pay attention to how raggedy they had become.
Chapter Ten
“Hello, are you in here?” John dropped his bag by the front door and headed through the house to the bedroom.
“I’m back here.” Katy turned around and bumped into John as he walked up behind her. Her arms wrapped around his neck as always when he came home in the afternoon. Over the past thirty-plus years of marriage, she had learned that few things felt as good as a hug from her husband.
“I’m glad to be back.” John’s full force hug followed by a heartfelt kiss showed how much he meant it. “I know I just left last Thursday, but it seems like I’ve been gone a month. After talking to you Saturday night about that girl being killed, I really wanted to get home.” He looked down at Katy’s face then stepped back and held her at arm’s length. “Well my, my, don’t you look nice. I would’ve told them folks in Missouri to take a flying leap and came on home Sunday if I’d known you were going to meet me like this.”
Katy’s throaty laugh was something she only did when John teased her. He had called an hour ago to say he would be there soon. She decided to use the time to fix up a little, which, according to his response had been a good idea. Putting on make-up, fixing her hair and changing into something besides her grey sweatpants and wrinkled, green John Deere tee-shirt must have been a good idea. “I decided to do a little experiment. Looks like it was a success.” She showed him her hands. “Look at this. Don’t they look nice?”
