Petty Crimes & Head Cases

by Lola Beatlebrox

  “I thought the chief did that.”

  “He did, but he misses things. I like to sweep up afterwards, if I can.”

  “That chief is a pain. Mrs. Oscar gave me twenty dollars to pay for his haircut, but he took the money home with him.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Why not?” I said. “He’s the police chief—he should be honest!”

  “He’s cheap,” Carl said. “He picks up pennies off the sidewalk. He turns down expense requests. He’s getting addled in his old age too. He probably thought the twenty was his. Now, stop worrying about the chief and pay attention to me.” Carl raised the sheets and showed me something arresting.

  I pulled the sheets back down. “Did you know that the contracting business in this town is fixed? The painters and builders have an old-boy network and they decide who’s going to get which contracts and how much they’re going to bid. They won’t let newcomers in. I’ll bet the Spiderman robber is a guy who can’t get a job and is desperate for money.”

  “You’re right, he is,” Carl said.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I arrested him today and that’s what he is—an itinerant painter down on his luck.”

  “You got the guy? You got the guy and you didn’t even tell me?” I launched myself on top of him and pounded on his chest. “You knew all along and you kept me guessing? That’s not fair!”

  His brown eyes danced. “I drove around the RV Park in an unmarked car and checked license plates. I got a hit on a stolen camper van. We nabbed the guy and found everything inside the vehicle.”

  “Case closed?”

  “Case closed.” His hand slid down to my inner thigh. “But you did a great job. You figured it out, my beautiful detective.”

  A few lovely minutes passed; then I remembered. “One last thing,” I said breathlessly. “What are you going to do about those selfish contractors who keep all the business for themselves?”

  “Honey, if it will make you happy, I’ll go straight to the Attorney General’s office tomorrow and whisper in his ear.” His breath was warm and moist on my cheek. “I’ll tell him there’s some people screwing with each other in our little western town and they’re having a good old time.’”

  Case 2

  Bells at the Crossing

  “We’re all glad that Tracy Lemon could join us at book club this evening,” Meryl Thompson said. “She’s a friend of Sassy’s and the owner of The Citrus Salon. Welcome, Tracy.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled at Sassy Morgan, who’d invited me to her book club.

  “You’ll find that our discussion will be very freewheeling.” Mrs. Thompson gestured to the group of sixteen women sitting around Sassy’s living room as if she were Queen Elizabeth acknowledging the masses. “Please don’t be shy. Chime in whenever you have a comment.”

  I was about to respond when Mrs. Thompson moved on. “Before we get started, I’d like to suggest we decide on our book selection for next month.”

  A collective groan rose from the club members, including my friend from high school, Shelley Prothero, who sat across from me. She looked as worn out as Methuselah and I wished I could anoint her with water from the Fountain of Youth.

  An elegant lady in a designer dress spoke first. “I think we should read Spilled Milk. It’s about a young girl who calls social services to escape from her abusive father and then gets even more abused in foster care.”

  “I don’t know if I could stomach a story like that right now,” said Shelley. The worry lines on her forehead looked deeper than usual. I wondered what was going on at home.

  “Child abuse is an important social issue, Shelley,” said designer dress. “One can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”

  “I’m sure we can find a title we all like,” said Mrs. Thompson in a placating tone. “How about She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb?”

  A twenty-something blonde spoke up. “We read that a few years ago, Meryl. Don’t you remember? That was an Oprah pick.”

  “I guess I forgot, Orchid. What book would you suggest?”

  “The Leader in Me by Stephen Covey.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “How to instill leadership characteristics in children.”

  “That’s perfect for you, Orchid, you’re a teacher,” said Candy Fiber. “But I’m in sales. I’d rather read The Ultimate Sales Machine.”

  Candy Fiber is not her real name, but we call her that because she tries to sell us fiber-based dietary supplements at least once a week. She’s involved with one of those pyramid marketing schemes. Her sales techniques are manipulative enough without reading about them.

  I turned to the young teacher. “What school are you in, Orchid?”

  “Sunshine Elementary. I know your son Jamie. I’m Miss Fisher.”

  “Let’s not read anything dark or serious,” Shelley said. “Let’s try something fun like a mystery.”

  “Or a romance,” said Candy. “Sandra Brown writes thrillers with the best sex scenes. You’ll be creaming your jeans in your chair.”

  Everyone laughed. Leave it to Candy to say something raunchy. Her flamboyant behavior was known all over town.

  But I knew romances wouldn’t do. People don’t bring bodice rippers to the hairdressing salon. Neither do they bring the classics. They want to be seen reading important books—titles with Oprah’s Book Club seal on the cover saying “Winner of the Such and Such Book Award.” Then, when they set them aside in sheer boredom, my customers turn to me and talk.

  “I like a book that informs me,” said designer dress, sniffing slightly.

  “We could consider non-fiction,” said Sassy. “Your husband’s a policeman, Tracy. What’s Chief Fort Dukes reading right now? Something about identity theft? Racial profiling? Community policing?”

  “I think his reading material is rather dry,” I said. “But a client of mine was raving about a science book the other day.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Packing for Mars.”

  Shelley came alive. “Absolutely hilarious. Space toilets. Space sex. Space stiffs. ” She looked at Candy Fiber. “Something for everyone.”

  “But is it scholarly?” asked designer dress.

  “The author, Mary Roach, writes New York Times book reviews and participates in scientific studies,” Shelley replied, failing to mention the author’s scholarly topic was sexual intercourse.

  When the group voted unanimously to read Packing for Mars, Sassy whispered her thanks. “You’ve been a real help. Every book we’ve read before this has been so turgid.”

  Later I looked up the word “turgid” on dictionary.com. “1: swollen; distended; tumid.” That sounded like a porno film. “2. inflated, overblown, or pompous; bombastic.”

  I gathered this was more to the mark.

  I was sweeping the salon floor when I heard a deep voice. “You have time to cut my hair?”

  I whirled around, my broom tracing an arc as if to ward off the stocky muscular man who appeared at my workroom door.

  “Now,” the stranger added and it wasn’t a question. I could tell he was agitated. Blunt fingers plowed through unruly salt and pepper hair. His jowls had a five o’clock shadow left over from yesterday and the day before that. I assumed he’d come off the highway—we get a lot of drifters in town, although how he’d ended up at my salon instead of the barber shop on Main Street was anybody’s guess.

  I leaned my broom against the wall where I could get it if I needed a weapon. “Take a seat,” I said.

  He grunted.

  I selected a drape—taupe to match his tanned neck—and tucked a Turkish towel over the collar of his brown jacket. “Just a trim or—?”

  “Take off at least three inches.” He pointed at his head. His fingers were dark—stained with oil or grime.

  “You’ve been letting it grow for a while, I see.”

  “I’ve been away from civilization.”

  Most of my clients require
warm towels, aromatherapy and my sharpest gold-colored scissors. This customer looked like his last haircut was done with a pair of pruning shears.

  “I think a wet cut is in order,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A shampoo, then a deep conditioner.” I lifted the ends of his hair. “Your hair is damaged. Have you been in the sun?”

  “The sun is outside. I’ve been outside.”

  I led him to the bank of shiny black basins where he surveyed the backwards chair as if he was not sure what to do. After he sat down, I maneuvered his muddy work boots onto the foot rest. Then I tipped the chair back so his head dropped into the yoke of the sink and his legs pushed out into an extended position on the foot bar.

  “This will feel warm.”

  He closed his eyes while I massaged his head and his body relaxed. Perhaps he’d never had his hair shampooed by someone else. Perhaps he had and there was a fond memory. I tilted him up, applied a towel to his head, and changed his neck cloth. He gave me a look I imagined was grateful.

  “Come back to my chair.” When I began to cut, all we could hear was the snip-snip of my scissors and his breathing, which was a little ragged.

  “Just passing through?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Here and there.”

  “What brings you this way?”

  “Work.”

  I held up a three-inch lock of hair. “Am I taking enough off?”

  “More.”

  I cut some more.

  “I saw it,” he said.

  “I know. Three inches.”

  “No, I saw it.” His brow was furrowed, his face contorted.

  There could only be one thing he was talking about. It’d been on the news. “The train wreck?” I asked.

  His eyes were black pools where nothing could make waves except a train wreck. There were ripples in there now. They were making spouts between his eyebrows, rivulets out from the corners of his eyes, and creases down his mouth.

  “I saw the car the train crashed into.”

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I was sleeping in the shed behind the hardware store. No one saw me go in there, so I decided to spend the night. Good a place as any.”

  “Mm hm,” I murmured as if I looked for places to sleep by the side of the railroad tracks on a routine basis myself. “What happened?”

  “I heard the horns—once at midnight, again at three, and then at five. The last one was just before dawn. Then the awful noise—the car screeching all the way up the tracks with the engine right behind it. When I looked out, there was a dead baby in the bushes.”

  I stopped cutting. My scissors hung at my side. My mouth was open. I was staring at his face. He saw horror just behind the mirror. I couldn’t see what he saw but I could tell it was living inside him.

  “I walked around for hours until I saw your shop. Your sign said Walk-ins Welcome.”

  “You want a drink?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Chips? Chocolate? Anything?”

  “I don’t feel good.”

  I sat down in my extra chair. “Shouldn’t you see somebody?”

  “Who?”

  “A priest? A social worker? Someone at the police department? My husband says they have counselors there.”

  “I’m seeing you. You’re fixing my head for now. Could you finish it?”

  “How high do you want your sideburns?”

  “Here.” He fingered a spot near the top of his ear.

  “You want your nose hairs trimmed?”

  “Yeah.”

  I worked on the forest up his nose. “I don’t offer a shave, but I have a razor and some soap,” I told him. “You can use the bathroom.”

  He grunted.

  I took that as a yes and found the razor. My soap is organic with jojoba bean and aloe, but I didn’t mention these finer points to him. He took the dark gray Turkish towel I offered and disappeared into my powder room.

  Ten minutes later he came out looking fairly decent.

  “What will you do now?” I asked.

  “Move on down the line.”

  I pictured him following the tracks with his brown coat slung over his shoulder. Of course, he’d probably get in his pickup truck and head off down the highway. But then why was he sleeping in a shed instead of his truck? I realized there was no truck.

  We drifted out of my workroom toward my front desk.

  “How much?” he asked, reaching into his back pocket.

  “Twenty-five.”

  He gave me thirty and left.

  I sank onto an upholstered chair, feeling a little shaky. The accident had made the news on TV and radio—a woman and her nine-month old son were smashed to death by the 6:01. God, I’d heard the train screeching from our house. Carl had left for the police station; Jamie and I were just getting up. Afterwards we heard the sirens.

  Carl should know about this guy. I picked up my cell and hit My Favorites, but just then Mrs. Hernandez walked in for her 10:30 appointment.

  “You look surprised to see me,” she said in her Mexican accent.

  “No, no. I was expecting you.”

  “Somet’ing wrong?”

  “No, everything’s fine.”

  “Well, ev’rything not right with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know that girl that got killed this morning?”

  “By the train.”

  “She my sister’s child’s teacher’s daughter.”

  I pondered this connection for a minute. They say there are only six degrees of separation; there appeared to be only four here. “A close friend then,” I said with only a hint of laughter in my voice.

  “Very close. She married to the best friend of my grocer’s son. I see her all the time at the Amando Mercado. She a housekeeper at the Resort.”

  “You must be in a state of shock,” I said.

  “It very, very bad.”

  “I’m sorry. How did it happen?”

  “She taking her baby to day care. Then she going to work. Every day she go across those tracks. Why problem today?”

  “You’re so upset. Are you sure you want to have your hair done?”

  “Si, si.” She headed for the back of the shop and sat in my chair. “I cannot sit at home. I cannot sit.”

  I looked at her sitting in the chair. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”

  “Coffee, a little sweet.”

  I fixed her a cup. Then I went to my closet to pick out a cape.

  “The turquoise one,” she said.

  She once told me it matches the color of the Gulf of Mexico where she was raised in a tiny beach town in the state of Tamaulipas. I consulted my Client Notebook where I had notated her children’s names, her husband’s name, and her hair style information.

  “So,” I said. “We’ll continue to grow out the length of your hair in the front and trim a little at the neck and in the back. You are liking the shape, I take it?”

  “Could you use bigger rollers this time so the hair is more—” She groped for a word and settled on “Poof.”

  With this and her hand gestures, I got the picture. “A fuller look?”

  “Si.”

  I set to work, shampooing and conditioning first, then getting the dryer up to temperature before I finished the cut. Mrs. Hernandez was quiet. I put that up to the events of the morning, but as I rolled her hair she said, “She wasna hoppy.”

  “Who wasn’t happy?”

  “The one who got killed.”

  “Why not?”

  “She was too beautiful.”

  I’d expected to hear men troubles, money troubles or immigration troubles. Or all three. “What do you mean?”

  “She was going to be in that beauty contest—Miss Cowgirl. And she had a real chance. But her husband didn’t want to let her do it. He said she was making herself a fool, she would never be chosen, and she had no business be
ing married and being Miss Cowgirl.”

  “It’s Miz Cowgirl, not Miss Cowgirl,” I said. “The contest is open to both married and unmarried women.”

  Mrs. Hernandez took a sip of her coffee and set the cup in its saucer. “She was unhoppy. A girl who is unhoppy with a beautiful baby and a husband and a good housekeeping job and who is a chica muy hermosa has no business being unhoppy.”

  I accepted this pronouncement with good grace. “The customer is always right” has always been my mantra. I knew people in this world with many, many blessings could be dreadfully unhappy, but who was I to correct my client?

  “Why don’t you get under the dryer now, Mrs. Hernandez,” I said, “and I will get you a magazine. Would you like to read Siempre Mujer or Hola!?”

  “I cannot read anything,” Mrs. Hernandez said, as she reached for both magazines.

  I placed her coffee cup on the table beside the hair dryer. “A refresher?”

  “Por favor.”

  With Mrs. Hernandez enjoying a magazine and coffee under the soft, warm air of my best hair dryer, I headed toward the phone to call Carl, just as it rang.

  “The Citrus Salon,” I said.

  “Tracy, this is Martha Farquhar at the Resort.”

  My favorite customer. Not. Martha Farquhar is the rudest, most imperious woman I’ve ever met and she’s a city councilor as well as an executive at the Resort, our town’s main claim to fame.

  “Cancel my appointment Friday,” she said. “I’m going to a conference tomorrow and I need to see you this afternoon.”

  My heart sank. She usually demanded an appointment after work which meant I couldn’t be home on time to pick up my son Jamie at the neighbor’s.

  “I can’t stay late today,” I said. “How about four?”

  “Sooner.

  Relieved, I scrolled down my computer screen. “Is two o’clock all right?”

  “Two o’clock sharp.”

  “See you then,” I told Martha, but she had already hung up.

  The UPS man walked in the door. I signed for a stack of packages and followed him to the storage room where he unloaded his trolley.

  On our way out, Mrs. Hernandez said, “Am I done?”

  As the UPS man left, I felt her rollers. “You are.”

  I brushed out her hair and styled it. The reddish brown highlights in Mrs. Hernandez’ abundant hair, make her appear more regal than anyone I know.