Holiday Hooligans: Cozy Mystery (The Teasen & Pleasen Hair Salon Cozy Mystery Series Book 3)

by Constance Barker

  “That’ll blow over.”

  Pete didn’t look convinced. “I hope so. Meantime it’s making for a poisonous atmosphere at the rehearsals.”

  “How can they think you’d do something like that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “No one else seemed to have any reason to hurt Jerry and someone said they saw someone about my size on the stairway that night. It doesn’t matter that they couldn’t see who it was, or even any features, I benefitted so I get the blame. I’m finding it sad how many people want to believe something so nasty about me.”

  “You know that none of us think you’d do anything like that, Pete.”

  He gave me a thin smile. “Thanks. I appreciate that. It’s hard right now. Not only is having people think badly of me upsetting, I don’t think I’m doing a good job with the part. It’s hard to keep in character or even your head in the play when you hear people talking about you, saying you are a rotten person.”

  “Oh, Pete, that sounds terrible,” Dolores Pettigrew said. “It reminds me of the time that everyone thought Evelyn… what was her name? Oh, yes, Evelyn Duvall… everyone at the club was convinced that she was cheating at bridge because she was on a roll and winning everything in sight. The gossip and whispering almost drove the poor woman mad.”

  Lucille Braxton looked up from the month-old issue of MODERN SCREEN magazine Betina had left in the waiting area. “But Dolores, Evelyn Duvall was actually cheating. She had found some way to mark the cards. Mrs. Toler took the deck to that son of hers who deals cards in Las Vegas and he showed her how they could be read.”

  Dolores clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Lucille, you’re right! I’d forgotten that part entirely. I’m sorry Pete. That was a bad example, although I remember how miserable it all made the woman.”

  Pete went to the cafe area and put on the electric kettle to make himself some herbal tea. “I’m considering quitting.”

  Nellie frowned. “Quitting the play? It meant so much to you.”

  “Don’t do that, Pete,” Betina said.

  I couldn’t let that pass either. “If you let people drive you out when you’ve done nothing wrong, then it won’t end just because the play is over. And you like the theater so much.”

  “Think like Barry Goldwater’s campaign slogan,” Nellie said. “Illegitimi non carborundum.”

  “Sounds impressive enough, but then I don’t know Latin,” Pete said.

  “It’s fake Latin,” I said.

  “It’s real enough for politics,” Nellie said. “Of course ‘fake’ and ‘politics’ are interchangeable terms. But it is a powerful, if crude way of saying you shouldn’t even let other people get to you.”

  “That’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you are working closely with them. It’s like constantly being stabbed in the back. Honestly, if it weren’t so close the date the curtain goes up, I would quit. But then that wouldn’t be fair to the others.”

  “Who aren’t being fair to you,” Nellie said.

  All Pete could do was shrug. “It’s hell being a nice guy sometimes.”

  * * *

  After work Sarah and I drove over to the house where Nellie and Rudy Phlint lived with their three boys, Aubrey, Norris, and Dale, ages fifteen down to five. Rudy had built their house at the edge of town. Rudy wasn’t my favorite person in the world, and he could be a bit of a wild man. He had two qualities that made him okay with me: he loved Nellie madly and he was clever in some ways. For all his carelessness, when he wasn’t be accidentally destructive, he was handy with tools. I think it was just that when he focused, he could do good things. He didn’t focus that often.

  He decided that he would build his family a home that would be noticed. Given that Rudy’s regular ideas can be bizarre, that made us all expect the worsts. This was back in the days that they didn’t have much money, before the family moonshining business became legitimized and they became the licensed artisanal distillers of Bayou Shine.

  Without a lot of money, his labor force for the task had consisted of his sons and a few miscellaneous relatives. Never particularly well organized, the house raising was a typical Phlint family project. The way Nellie told the story, she measured the progress of the house construction in terms of trips to the emergency room. “It was a race to see if they could get the work done before someone got killed,” she said.

  In truth, I was surprised that Rudy had any limbs left at all, but after all was said and done, he’d lost only a single finger and that was just the pinky on his left hand, and broken a few bones. The boys had gotten off with scraps and bruises, and the minor panic when Aubry, the fifteen-year old, stapled his hand to the wall with the staple gun.

  Overall that made the entire project practically painless by the standards of the Phlint household.

  The location of their house was a compromise. “I wanted to be more in town, and further from the cottonmouths. Rudy would have us living in the middle of a swamp if I gave in to him and didn’t put my foot down,” she said.

  “But he listens to you? That’s good.”

  “Usually because when I put my foot down, I put it down hard. And on his head.”

  The house wasn’t fancy but it was oddly comfortable. Cozy and homey, I suppose would be the best description and the floor plan had to be called ‘contemporary odd.’ I’d been in it many times, but being inside always made me chuckle.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This house always amazes me.”

  “How so?” she asked. “And is that a good thing?”

  “It isn’t a bad thing. It is odd. With this layout I’m never quite sure where I am. The hallways are so long, for one thing.”

  That made her laugh. “I’m not sure if Rudy really likes hallways or just couldn’t figure out how to put the rooms closer together. There is also the possibility that he just measured everything wrong and then had to compensate. We will never know though. Whenever I ask about anything, try to get an explanation for why he did something a certain way, he just says it was a design feature.”

  “The only word is ‘unique’ and I think Rudy would be flattered by that description. He’s not one to run with the crowd.”

  “Unless it’s at a tractor pull or gun show. But it’s true that he’d be pleased if people think his design was weird. I won’t tell him.”

  “I said unique, not weird.”

  “I think he was happy that it didn’t actually collapse around his ears. That it withstands the storms is a big deal.” She shrugged. “It isn’t drafty, has plenty of rooms for the kids, and hasn’t fallen down. I’m calling it a win.”

  Once the building was up, Rudy had considered his job done, except for putting in the big screen television and his recliner. Nellie took care of the rest, choosing the furniture, convincing the utility companies companies it was safe to connect the house to the grid and so on. If you didn’t know the family you’d suspect that Nellie was a minimalist, but with her rough and tumble boys running loose, taking after their father, the lack of decoration was just a reflection on how anything fragile in her house would have a short life span. So called it pragmatic more than minimalist.

  Nellie grinned at Sarah. “For whatever it’s worth, the boys are expecting you and looking forward to seeing you. Just follow the shrieks,” Nellie said. As if the boys wanted to make her point, we heard a series of yowls come in from the back yard.

  “Is someone being hurt out there?” Sarah asked.

  “That isn’t the sound of pain. More of something else, but who knows? Rudy is out there with the boys, so anything might be going on. The last time I dashed I ruined their debut attempt at filming a karate movie. It hadn’t occurred to Rudy that they might actually learn karate before jumping off the buildings onto each other. So, at any rate the point I’m making is that those various howls and screams are useful. They will lead you right to wherever they currently are demolishing something.”

  “I’ll report any major blood spills,” she said s
ounding eager, then darted out the door.

  “That kid has her bright little head set squarely on her shoulders,” Nellie said as she went to the refrigerator. “I promised you a beer, but if you’d prefer coffee I can put on a pot.”

  “No thanks. Beer sounds about right given all that’s going on.” It was funny how offering people coffee was one of those reflex things we do without thinking. After a day at Teasen and Pleasen I’d usually had more than my fill of coffee. A beer was more in line with a friendly conversation, especially given the topic.

  She handed me the beer. “Now, away from other ears, there is no excuse not to talk.”

  “That call… it was about Sarah, or supposed to be.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Everything is fantastic. Thing is, I’d like to do what I can to keep things that way. She is doing so well.”

  “Then why the stress and mystery? I mean you know I love a good mystery, but…”

  “I don’t have any way of knowing if she’ll stay with me.”

  “No word from her folks at all?”

  “Not a peep. That’s what makes it so bad.”

  “Recap your status.”

  “Effectively I’m nothing more than the babysitter. When they left town in the chaos surrounding our first murders, Bea asked if Sarah could stay with me for a time. She said they were going to New Orleans to rekindle the flame in their marriage. They were on a bit of a bounce back to good times.”

  “So you were thinking they’d take a long weekend?”

  “Maybe a week even. She left everything open ended, but I didn’t think that meant they’d drop out of sight entirely.”

  “Now you’re worried they might not come back?”

  “The truth is that other than the fact that I need some legal status so that I can take proper care of her, I wouldn’t mind that at all. It would be far worse if they suddenly dropped in out of the blue and wanted to take her away from me.”

  “You’re hooked on the kid.”

  That was the truth. “It’s only been six months and I’m getting real used to having her around. It’s far too comfortable and not a little precarious. What if they came for her after two years? It would be hard on us both. I wonder if there is come sort of timeline where she becomes my common-law daughter.”

  “I don’t think so, somehow. So you like being her de facto mom?”

  I did. “It’s been a surprise finding out much I like it. We’ve bonded from the first day although more like colleagues that parent and child at times. It’s getting harder and harder to think that one day she might leave. But the way things are I can’t assume that she’ll stay with me forever; heck I can’t assume she’ll stay another month.”

  “That is tough.”

  “Even when it comes to simple things, I’m not sure what to do. Soon enough she’ll be out of Mrs. Lacey’s school and ready for middle school somewhere. If I knew how long she’d be with me I could make some plans… for her. Not that I’m going anywhere.”

  “So you were trying to call Bea Jameson?”

  I nodded. “And not just to ask about those things. I thought it would be nice for Sarah if she and Lester were here for her birthday.”

  “I can see that. And if you get them here, you could talk to them and maybe actually find out what they intend to do. It can’t be easy to care for Sarah without knowing if they are coming back to Knockemstiff at all, or if they will send for her, or whatever is going to happen.”

  As usual, Nellie nailed the situation.

  “But her phone is out of service, whatever that actually means.” I laughed. “That phrase always makes me picture a phone up on a lift in a garage somewhere, having it’s oil changed… anyway, I never had a number for Lester and can’t find anyone who does. So I’m stuck waiting until they contact me.”

  Nellie rubbed her chin. “You could take some steps.”

  “Steps?”

  “See about trying to get legal custody of her.”

  That startled me. “Talk to a lawyer.”

  “To protect yourself.”

  I hadn’t considered it at all, and I shook my head. “I can’t do that. I won’t. It makes things confrontational and would be me saying that Bea and Lester deserted her.”

  “They sorta did.”

  “Not in a small town sense. Bea asked me to take care of her for a while, not take over as her mother. I couldn’t turn that into some story that she’s a bad parent.”

  “Then there is the traditional Phlint family solution to such problems. You pack a bag for each of you and go hide out in the swamp until everyone forgets about you or decides you’re dead, like his granddaddy does.”

  “Somehow I think that might make it hard to run my salon.”

  Nellie arched her eyebrows. “Then you will have to deal with things staying in flux.”

  “Other things are in flux too.”

  Nellie cocked her head. “Such as?”

  “Woodley called.”

  “James Woodley? Our favorite investigator?”

  “The very same.”

  “I like him.”

  “Good, because he decided to spend spending Christmas in Knockemstiff. He called me for ideas—he wanted to know if I could recommend a place to stay.”

  Nellie’s eyebrows shaped themselves in two mountain peaks. “And could you?”

  “I told him Claude had a room he rents out.”

  “And?”

  I shrugged. “And nothing. He got called away to investigate some new terror. As far as I can tell, it was something he was considering doing.”

  “On the other hand, he is thinking about it. And I think Betina has moved on.”

  “She did show an interest in him at first.”

  “I’m pretty sure she saw him as someone who might get her out of here and to New Orleans. She was also smart enough to realize that he wasn’t her type. She doesn’t mind having a fling or three to keep herself busy, at least when she isn’t depressed, but when it comes to long term relationships I think she’s surprisingly level headed.”

  Just then a scream, one that could have been agony or ecstasy, and could have easily come from a seven year old girl or a boy slightly either side of that age, reached our ears. I cringed. I sighed. “I should check that out.”

  Nellie cocked her head. “Not necessary. I’m familiar with the entire repertoire of cries of the local wildlife. I know that one well. That was Dale showing his appreciation for some important discovery.” Just the we heard the crash of garbage cans outside and the bubbling laughter that told me Rudy was out there with the kids. Nellie winked. “You don’t need to leave to find out what it’s about. In about thirty seconds you’ll hear a stampede as my pride of wild creatures charge in through the door to share whatever it is with us. Be prepared for their expectation that we show appreciation for this new, possibly yucky, thing.”

  Despite her extensive local knowledge, Nellie’s estimate was way off. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds before the back door flew open, admitting bedlam and it’s horde of young practitioners into the house. Sarah brought up the rear, her eyes were wide and eager, but she was calmness itself compared to the three boys who were shouting and vying for our attention.

  “I get to tell her!”

  “No I do!”

  “Well I have him and I get to show him to her.”

  Then we were surrounded, with Norris, the middle boy poking something wiggly in my face. It was about two feet long, with four legs and not a cat or a dog. “Look what we got,” he said.

  As my eyes focused I found myself staring at a longish snout. “An armadillo?”

  “Yeah!” Aubrey, the oldest, said. “A seven-banded armadillo. Is that great?”

  I glanced at Nellie. “I suppose it might be. Armadillos aren’t bad.”

  Dale pouted. “You said she’d scream.”

  “Did not,” Aubrey said in a way that told me that was exactly what he had promised his little
brothers. I was sorry to disappoint them.

  Sarah stood by the door, watching things unfold with an amused smile.

  Nellie put out a hand and stroked the creature’s back. “I like armadillos.”

  “You do?” This from a disappointed and confused Aubrey. “You don’t think he looks freaky?”

  “Oh no. Freaky? Not at all. He looks rather yummy,” Nellie said. “Thanks boys. He’ll fatten up nice.”

  Dale, the youngest, scratched his head. “Yummy?”

  Nellie nodded. “Sure. Armadillo are delicious. They make a great stew.”

  “You can’t eat him!” Norris said.

  “Of course we can. Dillo is a traditional cajun delicacy. Once we plump him up a bit, we boil the little sucker until he’s tender, add a little onion and celery, some mushrooms, and put it in the oven for a couple of hours. Then we serve him on a bed of rice.”

  Aubrey made a face. “Mom! That’s disgusting.”

  “This from the kid who loves to eat snake when you camp out in the swamp?”

  “But snakes are different.”

  “Okay then, how about my Aunt Hilda’s recipe? She marinates the little guy in white wine, garlic and spices, then makes up a mustard sauce. A dillo this size could feed us all for a couple of days.”

  “But Daddy said we could keep him as a pet!” Aubrey said.

  Nellie feigned a surprised look. “Really? Then do you mind telling me what your daddy brought home for dinner? He was supposed to bring the main course. If he forgot, then I’m afraid we will be forced to eat your new pet.”

  “No!” Norris looked horrified. “You can’t eat Django.”

  “Django?” Nellie laughed.

  Norris held the armadillo close to his chest and held out its paw. Several of the fingers seemed fused together. “Because of this.”

  Aubrey stepped up. “Sarah said his hand looks just like that of an old time gypsy guitarist named Django. He got his fingers burned in a fire and they got stuck together.”