“Slow down.” He held up his palms as if directing traffic. “You’ve lost me. Say it again now—slowly.”
I told him about Martha Farquhar and, of course, he knew who she was. I told him why I thought she was in the car with Angelica in the early morning hours and that maybe she was even driving. “She stopped the car on the tracks. Maybe she was trying to kiss Angelica and they were having an argument and Martha got out before the train came but Angelica didn’t!”
Carl burst out laughing. “What an imagination.”
If steam could come out of ears, mine were scalding hot. “Cars don’t just get stuck on the railroad tracks,” I said. “They get stopped there and the person who does the stopping can be very emotional. There’s something going on here—there’s got to be!”
“But with Martha Farquhar? Get serious. If I tell the Chief that I think Martha Farquhar had the hots for Angelica Diego, I’ll get run off the police force.”
I thrust the bag against his chest. “Fingerprints don’t lie. See if they’re in the car!”
“All right, all right.” He took the bag.
“Look,” he said, hugging me. “I love you very much and I thank you for wanting to help.”
“Carl, will you check those prints?”
He gestured toward room. “After I help the Feds. They’ve all got rods up their asses.”
“Let me know about the prints.”
“I promise, but Tracy, this is the wildest accusation I’ve ever heard.”
“Goodbye, Officer Skeptical.”
“So long, Miss Suspicious.”
The next day my three o’clock appointment was Don Westcott. He lives on a forty-acre ranch outside our town. Once upon a time in a big city on the East Coast, he made good money doing voice-overs for radio and television commercials. He socked away some bucks so he could retire early and raise thoroughbreds.
Don has been getting a haircut and a manicure from me every month for years, so there was a lot of data about him in my book: Race horse named Sally Mae foaling. Sire Dapper Dan. Wife having trouble with sun spots; dermatologist fears malignant. Emcee again this year for the Ms. Cowgirl beauty contest.
“How’s your wife?” I asked, as I draped Don’s angular body with a charcoal-gray cape.
“Much relieved,” he said. “The diagnosis was benign. She’s covering up now and wears sunscreen all the time and a hat. So do I.”
I placed Don’s new Stetson on the top shelf of the closet and slipped on a green bracelet to remind me it was there. People will leave their heads behind if you let them.
“Nothing like a scare to get you to do the right thing,” I said. “Our western sun is strong.”
“Ozone layer’s thin all over the world.”
“Same as usual today?” I asked.
“Yup.”
Don reached into his briefcase and pulled out an iPad. As I got to work, he scrolled through to the website of the New Mexico Horse Breeders Association. I read the headlines over his shoulder. “Penalties announced for Class 4 Drug Aminocaproic Acid; the latest look at the career of Sparkling Moolah.”
Sparkling Moolah. What a great name for a race horse. I wondered if Don was thinking of racing again. He scrolled down and enlarged the type on the screen:
Studies have shown that lungs don’t bleed from hard exercise when horses are given Aminocaproic Acid, but use of the drug in New Jersey and New Mexico results in stiff fines.
Don looked up from the iPad and examined himself in the mirror. “A little more off the top.”
“Too heavy up there?”
“I don’t want to look like a bubble top at the competition. Trim some more, but watch our ‘Little Secret.’”
“Will do.” I knew he was talking about his comb-over. His bald spot was the reason he was never on-camera but his voice is remarkable. It flows like chocolate syrup colliding with a maraschino cherry; just a little bit of bass to give the tenor texture with occasional high notes that make important words distinct.
“How does that look?” I asked.
“Good,” he said.
“How’s Sally Mae? She had her foal yet?”
“Yup. A filly.”
“Nice. No health problems?”
“None.”
Then why was he reading that article?
When I was finished, he inspected his hair in the mirror, turning his head from side to side. I couldn’t offer him the hand mirror because it was at the police station with Martha Farquhar’s fingerprints on it.
He fumbled at his neck.
“Let me take care of that.” I removed the brown sable terry cloth and the charcoal-gray cape.
He set his iPad down on the counter before we went into the spa. I made a mental note: “Three Green.” That meant the green bracelet would remind me he had three possessions to take with him when he left—the iPad, the briefcase and the hat.
Don sat down at my manicure table. I prepared a bowl of warm, perfectly temperature-controlled water with marbles in the bottom. Marbles make the water look special.
“Got a new horse trainer,” Don said, putting his right hand in the bowl while I turned my attention to the left.
“Anyone I know?”
“Friend from out of town. New Mexico.”
“Oh?”
“He was big in racing down there.”
“You woo him away? Offer him some moolah?”
“He got a bum steer.”
“What happened?”
“Gave a horse the wrong drug on race day. He got fined and the owner fired him.”
“Bad scene.”
“Had to leave in a hurry. There’s no reasoning with some people.”
“You’re right about that.” I pulled out my medium clippers and nicked any hang nails I could see.
“He drifted around for months real down,” Don said, “and ended up here this week.”
“How do you know him?”
“Racing.”
I put the left hand in the warm water and began on the right.
“He’s a nice guy,” he said, “who didn’t deserve what he got. Drug’s not outlawed in other states. He just wanted to protect the horse.”
“Sounds like he has good instincts.”
“We met in Vietnam. Good guy to have around.”
Don served two tours in Vietnam, one in combat and the next one on the army’s radio station. Good Morning, Vietnam is his favorite movie.
“Did you guys get in some tight spots together?” I asked.
“Nah. I didn’t meet him ‘til my radio stint, but he got stung badly there too.”
“What happened?”
“Witnessed a massacre. Women and children. Dying babies. Still has nightmares about it.”
I digested this information in silence. Could this be my first customer of yesterday? That could explain his reaction to the baby.
“May I have some water, Tracy?”
“Sure. Sparkling or spring?”
“Sparkling.”
“Ice?”
“No thanks.”
I headed for the refrigerator where I keep the Pellegrino and poured him a glass. Then I poured myself one, returned to the spa, and placed the two glasses on the manicure table. He took a long draught. I followed suit.
“Darndest thing about that beauty contestant,” he said, putting his empty glass down.
“Isn’t it, now? Did you know her?”
“Yes.”
I covered his fingertips with warm moisturizer and massaged it into his cuticles. “What do you think happened?”
“I think she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“But how do people miss the train horn and the stop lights and the bells at the crossing? Not to mention the bar coming down?”
“Young girls listen to loud music in their cars. She could have stopped to attend to the baby. It was dark. Pre-dawn. Just one inattentive moment and wham!” He clapped his hands together. Moisturizer spattered.
I pulled a tissue and wiped the moisturizer from my face.
“Sorry,” he said.
I applied more cream and massaged up to his elbows. “I think I may have met your friend,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Stocky guy, salt and pepper hair, deep tan, brown coat?”
“Yeah.”
“He came in for a haircut that morning. Said he’d seen the baby in the bushes.”
“You’re kidding.” Don’s eyebrows pushed up against his comb-over.
“He was pretty shook up, but he went down to the police station and talked to Carl.”
“That was brave. He’s had a tough time with cops lately.”
“People said they saw him running away from the train crossing just before the engine hit.” I watched Don’s face in the mirror. “But I think it was someone else.”
“Who?”
“Someone who was driving Angelica to work and stopped on the tracks to scare her. Someone who ran away while Angelica was trying to get her baby out.”
Don stared at me. “Her husband?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
The phone rang. I let it go to voicemail.
“Who do you think?” I asked. “Someone who has salt and pepper hair about the same length as your friend and wears a similar brown coat.”
“I can’t think of anyone,” Don said. “Unless you’re talking about Larry Big Pouch. He’s one of the Ms. Cowgirl contest judges.”
This was not the answer I expected. “What’s his story?”
“Native American. Comes into town from the reservation for the contest. Promotes the participation of all ethnic groups, not just Indian. But would he be involved at all? Judges don’t have any contact with contestants before the day. It’s just not done.”
I didn’t doubt for a minute that a lot of things that just aren’t done are done. I had heard stories about the preposterous, the nonsensical, and the unthinkable from many people sitting in that very chair, and all the stories were true. I cleared my throat. “Does the Tribe have a horse in the race this year?”
“Yeah.” Don laughed. “Tina White Horse. Larry’s wife’s sister’s daughter.”
“A close relative.”
He laughed again. “They’re all close on the reservation.”
This was getting interesting: Here was a young Hispanic mother who incurred the wrath of her husband for entering a beauty contest, the displeasure of her boss for spurning her advances, and fear from a judge who wanted his niece to win the same contest.
I loved this lineup of suspects and I was itching to interview them all, but then I caught sight of my face in the mirror. I looked quite nasty. Could any of these people have really caused the incident on the railroad tracks? Don’t get carried away, Tracy.
I wiped the moisturizer off Don’s arms and hands, then buffed his nails. He had long fingers and manly hands.
“Were you ever a hand model?” I asked him.
“Always stayed behind the camera,” he said. “My voice was the moneymaker.”
“Must have been fun.”
“Never had to do any heavy lifting. Worse thing was a script where I had to say ‘tweedy striped wrap’ half a dozen times.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“You say it.”
“Tweedy stwipe wap.” I giggled.
“See what I mean? Say Redwood Road real fast.”
“Wedwood Wode.”
Don examined his hands with an appreciative smile.
He moved to my desk, made an appointment for the next month, and paid with a credit card. “Are you coming to the beauty pageant?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. Don likes an audience.
I spied the green bracelet on my wrist and grabbed the Stetson from the closet. He remembered his iPad. I saw him out the door, cleaned up the manicure station, and swept up the hair from underneath the chair. There was Don’s briefcase.
Drat.
My computer said that Margaret Pyle, back office maven of Fu Tsu’s Hardware and Auto Supply, was next.
Margaret Pyle is larger than life. She wears a teased-up hairdo, left over from the days when she was a cheerleader and every one of her boyfriends was a local linebacker. What Margaret can’t do in the bookkeeping department she manages to do in the meat department. It was twenty years since the beginning of her first marriage and only three months since the ending of her fifth.
“Yoo hoo!” Margaret swept into the salon, the smell of perfume permeating every nook and cranny within seconds.
“Hey, Margaret, how’s tricks?”
She plunked her large handbag down on the sofa. “Tea with honey,” she said, “and a big bag of chips.”
“How do you keep that figure?”
She sashayed down to my drape closet, her voluptuous, big-boned body parting the air. She extracted a gold cape embroidered with her initials—MVP. The V stands for Vera, but of course, she maintains the initials stand for something else.
I gathered the tea, the chips and a gold terry cloth towel I keep for her behind the cookie jar. The cookies are reserved for my son, Jamie.
“I’m conducting an investigation!” she said as I draped her.
“At the hardware store? Sounds important.”
“It is.”
I pulled off the hair band buoying up her white-gold tresses and began the hardest part about working on Margaret—combing out her teased crown.
Knit one gnarl two.
She gritted her teeth.
“You have nothing to say about this.” I pulled on her hair again.
She scowled even more.
“If you didn’t tease your hair every day, we wouldn’t have this trouble.”
“What are you?” she asked. “My mother?”
“I’m your hairdresser and it hurts me to see how much you damage your hair. It’s a wonder you have any left.”
Margaret is blessed with abundant hair, but it breaks off as fast as she finds a new man. The roots are brown, the ends are dry, and the style is vamp. We have this discussion every single time. It always ends the same way—I untangle her hair, mix the bleach, burn the roots, and run the blonde through. I bought a new dishwasher with what I earned from Margaret last year.
The torture session over, I dipped my paint brush into her formula. “So what’s this about an investigation?”
“I’ve found something fishy,” she said.
“What?”
“Wrong orders.”
“What do you mean?”
“Computer reports show that the right car parts are ordered, but not as much stuff has gone out the door as we should have sold. Wu says he hasn’t been entering wrong orders so who has?”
“Hu?”
“He hasn’t either.”
Wu and Hu are brothers. Each has an equal share in the hardware store which was started by their father, Fu.
“Who do you suspect?”
“It has to be Hu, Wu, Humphrey, or Juan Diego. They’re the only ones who use the ordering system.”
“Okay,” I said as I painted Margaret’s roots. “How does that work?”
“A customer calls up and asks for a part. If it’s not in stock, we order it over the net.”
“How could someone monkey with that?”
“I don’t know.”
“How would you do it if you were the thief?”
She rubbed her chin. “I guess I’d go back into the system later and change the order.”
“Can anyone do that?”
“Any one of those four. But why would they? What’s in it for them?”
“What was ordered?”
“Car batteries. Spark plugs. Air filters.”
“Stuff that can be sold under the table?”
“Sure, but if their order was missing, customers would complain.”
“Not if the quantity was changed,” I said. “Two car batteries instead of one. A dozen spark plugs instead of six.
Could it happen that way?”
“I guess so.” Margaret scratched the top of her head. “Oops.”
I wiped the platinum dye off her fingers. “Earlier you mentioned ‘Juan Diego.’”
“What about him?”
“Is he by any chance, related to the Angelica Diego who died on the train tracks this morning?”
“He’s her husband. He hasn’t been to work since it happened.”
“Check to see if there’s extra stuff waiting around for him to pick up.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He’s one of the suspects, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then check it out. If half was picked up by a customer and the other half is still there, then maybe he’s your guy. And look up the start date of all the orders you’re worried about and the employee hire dates for him and Humphrey.”
I gathered a shower cap tight around Margaret’s ears and parked her under the hair dryer.
“More tea?”
“Yeah. And more chips.”
Thirty minutes later, I checked Margaret’s highlights. “Looking good.”
She moved to the sink and then to my chair for styling. “Can we fix your hair without the rat’s nest?” I asked.
“Not a chance.”
Puffed and platinum, she twirled around in front of the mirror, let the gold cape swirl off her hourglass figure, and undulated up to the front of the salon.
“Put it on my account,” she said. “With a twenty percent tip.”
“I think I’ll up the quantity. Two hair colors and two cuts.”
“Knock it off.”
“Call me.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Ciao.
“Chow,” she said.
After the door shut behind her, I turned on every ceiling fan, hoping to banish the heavy perfume.
“Hello, Love.”
I whirled around. There he was. The handsomest, sexiest policeman on the planet, standing at the front door of my shop holding my plastic bag.
“I just came to tell you that the fingerprints on your hand mirror were not found in the car.”
My movie of Martha Farquhar driving Angelica to the tracks faded to black.
“And there’s more,” he said. “Angelica was on her cell phone.”
“With—?”
“Her husband, who she dropped off at the hardware store, and –” He looked at me.
Petty Crimes & Head Cases Page 5
