by Bill Crider
He parked in front of the building. The pea gravel of the parking lot crunched under his feet when he got out of the car. He took a minute to look over the building. Lonnie Wallace had done a few things with it, including a new paint job, that had spiffed it up a bit. Lonnie had also installed a new alarm system after he’d been burglarized a few months ago. He should’ve done it sooner, but that crime had been solved, and the hair extensions that the thief had taken had been returned.
Rhodes went up the two concrete steps and into the building, where he was greeted by the usual indefinable smell of the place. Chemicals, hair spray, singed hair, and who knew what else. Lonnie was at the cash register running a credit card through a machine. A woman Rhodes didn’t know chatted with him while he did it. Abby Tustin, whom Rhodes had met in the course of his investigation into the death of Lynn Ashton, was washing a woman’s hair. Another woman, a petite brunette, was getting Polly Mercer seated under one of the big dryers. Polly, the wife of a local car dealer, had curlers in her hair.
Lonnie finished his transaction, saw his customer out the door, and walked over to Rhodes.
“Need a haircut, Sheriff?” Lonnie asked.
“Not today. I have a question for you, about Ella Collins.”
“Does it have to do with Burt and what happened yesterday?”
“It does,” Rhodes said.
“Is Burt filing charges on me?”
Rhodes didn’t answer. He looked around. There wasn’t any place where he and Lonnie could talk privately except the restroom, and that didn’t seem appropriate. So Rhodes went behind the counter where the cash register was. Lonnie followed him.
“Burt Collins won’t be filing any charges,” Rhodes said in a low voice. “He’s dead.”
Lonnie looked stunned. “Oh my God. What happened? Heart attack? Because he looked bad yesterday, you know? Like he had a blood pressure problem.”
“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Rhodes said. “Somebody killed him.”
“Oh my God,” Lonnie said again. He must have liked saying it because he said it a third time. “Oh my God. Who did it?”
“I don’t know yet,” Rhodes told him.
Lonnie took a step backward. “You don’t think I did it, do you? Because of what happened yesterday? I swear it was just an accident. I tripped on the curb. I didn’t want to hurt Burt.”
“I don’t know if you wanted to hurt him or if you killed him,” Rhodes said, “but everybody’s a suspect right now. You have a good alibi?”
“I’m still in shock from hearing about Burt,” Lonnie said, putting a hand to his forehead. “Give me a second.”
Lonnie’s shock appeared genuine, but Rhodes wasn’t going to eliminate him as a suspect just yet. He was willing to give him a second, however.
“I’m surprised you hadn’t heard about Burt already,” Rhodes said after a little more than a second had passed.
Lonnie had composed himself. He looked around the shop. “Those are our first customers. They didn’t know, or I’d have heard.”
“Who’s the new employee?”
“That’s Paula Jean,” Lonnie said. “She’s taking Lynn’s place. I’m still one person short, but I have somebody coming in later this week to talk about a job.”
“I hope you find somebody,” Rhodes said. “Now about that alibi.”
“I was just so surprised that I couldn’t think,” Lonnie said. He looked a little bit relieved. “I was at a party last night with a lot of other people out at the college. Don McClaren had a reception out there for all the artists.”
“All of them were there?”
“I think so. You could ask Don.”
“I will,” Rhodes said. “Were they all there all the time?”
“Well, that would be hard to say, but I was.”
Rhodes wondered if Lonnie could prove it, but he decided to let it go for the moment. He’d talk to Seepy Benton about the party. Seepy was observant, some of the time. He’d know if Lonnie had been there.
“Eric was there, too,” Lonnie said.
So everyone from the art gallery was there, or at least that was the case according to Lonnie, who might not be the most reliable witness. He’d want to protect Eric, and Eric would no doubt return the favor.
“I have another question for you,” Rhodes said, getting to the other reason for his visit to the Beauty Shack. “It’s about Ella Collins.”
“What about her?”
“Someone told me that she and Burt didn’t get along. You know anything about that?”
Lonnie looked thoughful. “I don’t like to spread gossip.”
“Beauty operators aren’t lawyers,” Rhodes said. “There’s no confidentiality involved in the relationship.”
“Well, some of our customers might not see it that way,” Lonnie said, “but I guess you’re right. Abby did Ella’s hair. You should probably talk to her.”
Abby had begun to blow-dry her client’s hair. The dryer was not unlike the one that had been used to kill Lynn Ashton, and it sounded almost as loud as a jet engine to Rhodes, who stood beside Lonnie and waited until Abby turned it off. When she did, Lonnie went over and whispered something to her. She left him to finish with her customer and came over to Rhodes.
“Lonnie says you wanted to ask me about Mrs. Collins,” Abby said. “He says somebody killed her husband.”
“That’s right,” Rhodes said. “Somebody did, and I’m trying to find out who.”
“You don’t think it was Mrs. Collins, do you?”
Abby was as short as Paula Jean, and she had to look up at Rhodes. She seemed unhappy to be talking about Ella Collins.
“I don’t know who killed him,” Rhodes said. “I have to check everything out, and I’ve heard that Mrs. Collins and her husband didn’t get along. I thought you might know something about that.”
“People do talk an awful lot in beauty shops,” Abby said. “I don’t know why that is, but I guess it’s always been like that.”
Rhodes didn’t know why it was, either, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that the little shops seemed so cozy and so friendly that people thought their secrets wouldn’t go anywhere. Or that there really was some kind of confidentiality involved and that confiding in the person who was cutting your hair was like confessing to a priest. Or that the whine of the dryers would drown out their voices and that their secrets would never really be heard. Or maybe the smell and all those chemicals did something to the brain.
“What did Mrs. Collins say about Burt?” Rhodes asked.
Abby ducked her head. “She said he was mean to her.”
“Did she give any examples?”
“Well, she couldn’t sign the checks on the bank account. Burt kept all the money in his name, and he had a say in every penny she spent. She tried to save up a little now and then, but he always found out about it and took it away from her. There were a few times, two, maybe, that she couldn’t afford to pay for her haircut, but she said she’d bring me the money. I wasn’t sure I should trust her, but Lonnie said it would be all right. He said a woman needed a little something to boost her spirits now and then, even if it was just a haircut, and that she’d pay us. She did, too. The first time. Paid in cash. She didn’t tip, but I never minded. Her husband was awful mean.”
Money was the kind of thing that could lead to serious problems, all right. Burt hadn’t worked for a while. He got some kind of disability pension, Rhodes believed, and he did odd jobs now and then, but there wasn’t a lot of money flowing into the Collins household. Ella might have been able to get a job, but Burt wasn’t the kind to want his wife to be the one bringing in the income.
“What about the second time she couldn’t pay?” Rhodes asked.
“Well, that was just this week. On Tuesday. She said she’d have the money for me today, but she didn’t come. I can understand why, though. I’m sure she’ll be in with it when … when things are better for her.”
Rhodes wondered if Ella would even
remember about owing for the haircut.
“Did she say what happened when Burt found out about how she was squirreling money away?” Rhodes asked.
“He’d yell,” Abby told him. “He yelled a lot. Once he hit her. She kind of tried to make a joke out of that, but I could tell it was serious. She said he didn’t mean to hurt her. I think he did, though.”
So did Rhodes. When he’d started out in law enforcement, he’d been surprised at how many people stayed in abusive relationships. They were always good at rationalization. It didn’t surprise him anymore, but it still made him sad.
“Anything else?” Rhodes asked.
“No, that was all. She wasn’t happy much, though, not when I saw her, anyway.”
Rhodes imagined Burt yelling at Ella. He could see her snatching the bronze bust of Dale Earnhardt Junior and bashing him in the head with it. She could have hidden the head in the house, and that would explain why it hadn’t been found.
“Thanks,” Rhodes said. “I appreciate the help.”
“I’m glad to help.” Abby looked around the shop. “I wish I couldn’ve helped Lynn before she got killed.”
Rhodes looked at the spot on the floor where Lynn Ashton’s body had lain. There was no sign now that anyone had died there.
“You had no way to know that was going to happen,” Rhodes said.
Abby sighed. “I guess, but I still wish I could’ve done something.”
People always wished that. Rhodes wished it, too, but all he could do was to come along afterward and try to make things as right as he could.
“You’d better go back to your client,” he said, “before Lonnie steals her.”
Abby smiled. “He’d never do that. He’s a good boss. Better than Sandra, even.”
Sandra had been the previous owner of the Beauty Shack. She hadn’t been such a good boss, Rhodes thought, taking everything into account.
“Ask him to come over here,” Rhodes said, and Abby went over to Lonnie, who relinquished the client and returned to his spot behind the counter.
“Was she any help?” he asked.
“We’ll see,” Rhodes said. “It’s too soon right now to make any assumptions.”
“You know I didn’t have anything to do with Burt’s death, right?”
“I hope you didn’t, but I don’t know it,” Rhodes said.
“Well, I didn’t,” Lonnie said. “Trust me.”
Rhodes grinned. “Sure. Can I use your phone?”
“Since you trust me, I’ll trust you,” Lonnie said. “Phone’s right there.”
Most of the businesses left in Clearview still had landline telephones, and the Beauty Shack had a classic model, an old one that crouched on the countertop like a big black bullfrog. It had pushbuttons, though, and not a dial, so it wasn’t an antique. Beside it lay something else that was nearly as obsolete as the phone, a telephone book. It was a thin one, but it held the numbers for Blacklin and two other counties. The illustration on the cover was a photo of the Clearview downtown in the 1940s. There seemed to Rhodes to be as many cars parked along the streets in the picture as there were at Walmart these days. Probably not, however.
He found Frances Bennett’s number in the book and punched it in. After a couple of rings, someone answered.
“Bennett residence. This is Doris Clements speaking.”
“Hello, Doris,” Rhodes said. “This is Sheriff Dan Rhodes.”
“Sure it is, and I’m the Queen of the May. You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m going to report you to the phone company, and then I’m going to call the real sheriff.”
Rhodes knew Doris slightly. She was one of the women who’d been outside the senior center yesterday.
“Doris,” he said, “this really is the sheriff. I saw you at the senior center yesterday when all the excitement was going on.” He thought for a second. “You were wearing a blue jacket.”
“Hmpf,” Doris said. “I guess you are the real sheriff. You’re pretty observant.”
“I’m a trained lawman.”
Doris laughed. “That must be why you keep getting elected. I’m sorry I snapped at you like I did. Frances is always getting annoying phone calls when I’m here, and sometimes I get a little cranky about them. Those telemarketers ought to be strung up.”
Rhodes wasn’t fond of telemarketers, either, but stringing them up might be going a little too far.
“I hope I’m not being too annoying,” he said, “but I need to speak to Frances if she can come to the phone.”
The second he said “come to the phone,” Rhodes realized how old-fashioned it made him sound. Nobody had to come to the phone anymore except in places like the Beauty Shack or the sheriff’s department. Elsewhere the phone was just carried to the person being called if she didn’t answer.
If Doris noticed anything odd, she didn’t mention it. “Frances is right here. Hang on.”
Rhodes heard Doris say, “It’s the sheriff,” and then Frances was on the line.
“Hello, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”
“First you can tell me how you’re doing after your surgery.”
“It was a knee replacement, is what it was. Since Larry passed away, I don’t have anybody here to help me get around. If we’d had kids, maybe one of them could’ve come and stayed, but as it is, I need some help. I’m not in a lot of pain because I have pills for that, and I don’t mind taking them like some folks do. If I hurt, I’ll take whatever will help me. Even if I’m not hurting, though, I need help getting around and bathing and cooking and such. I’m lucky to have so many friends here in town, like Doris. They’ve all been really nice to me.”
Well, Rhodes thought when Frances stopped to take a breath, I asked. “It was one of your friends I wanted to ask you about. Ella Collins.”
“Oh, lordy, poor Ella. I guess you’ve heard about Burt. That was a real shock. Ella called and told me about it this morning. It happened while she was over here, you know, and she went home and found him. She thinks it might’ve been a heart attack. Burt’s always had high blood pressure, you know, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’d had a stroke or a heart attack or something like that. Ella said she’d try to come over tonight to help out, but I told her it would be all right if she couldn’t. Doris said her sister, Margaret, could come if Ella can’t. I swear, I don’t know what I’d do without these good women. I just worry that if Ella had been home with Burt, she might’ve been able to do something to help him.”
Rhodes didn’t see any reason to tell Frances that Burt hadn’t died of perfectly natural causes. Apparently Ella had convinced herself that he had, and she’d put Dale Earnhardt’s head out of her mind. Or maybe she just hadn’t wanted to tell Frances what had really happened. Frances was just the type to spread it all over town, not that everybody in town wouldn’t know as soon as they looked at A Clear View for Clearview. It would be the big headline on the Web site today, and for days to come, probably.
“I’m sorry about Ella’s loss,” Rhodes said, “but I don’t think there’s anything she could’ve done to help Burt, even if she hadn’t been there with you the whole time.”
“I guess you’re right. I needed her last night, and she was an angel of mercy. If she didn’t make sure I took my pills, I might not ever get to sleep.”
“I know she was a help to you,” Rhodes said. “I’m glad you have friends to take care of you. I hope you’re up and hopping around soon.”
“That’ll be the day, but I appreciate the thought. Thank you for your concern.”
Rhodes hung up. If she had any idea that Rhodes had called for any reason other than to check on her, she didn’t say so. She liked talking so much that she’d never even thought that he might have another reason, like checking on Ella’s alibi. He was glad he hadn’t had to mention that.
Rhodes looked around the Beauty Shack. No one was paying him the least attention. Paula Jean was combing out her client’s hair, and Abby was getting another client settled in front
of a sink. Lonnie was greeting a client at the door. As soon as she was inside, Rhodes thanked Lonnie for the use of the phone and left.
* * *
The senior center didn’t have many activities on Saturdays, so most of the cars parked along the block in front of the art gallery belonged to the artists or to the curious who’d come to see how the judging turned out.
Rhodes stood in the doorway and looked around. In the center of the gallery was a table with refreshments, some kind of punch, with crackers and cheese and vegetables set out on plates. Rhodes was not surprised to see Seepy Benton standing near the table. Benton liked to be near free food. He was talking to Jennifer Loam, who appeared to be listening intently. It was just as well that Andy Shelby wasn’t there.
The room hummed with conversation. Don McClaren was showing someone one of the paintings that had a blue ribbon hanging from the frame. The painting was colorful, Rhodes had to admit that, with various shades of pink and red and blue, and some white thrown in occasionally. It didn’t look like anything that Rhodes had ever seen before, and he figured that might be a point in its favor.
Eric Stewart and Marilyn Bradley were standing with Dr. King, the college dean, a tall woman with lacquered hair that Rhodes thought was an unnatural shade of black. Someday he’d ask Lonnie about that, though Lonnie might not want to tell him. If it didn’t involve murder, Rhodes was willing to admit that confidentiality might be all right. Marilyn seemed quite agitated, and Rhodes wished he could hear what was being said.
Seepy caught sight of Rhodes, and he and Jennifer Loam came over to the door.
“Come on in,” Seepy said. “Have some punch.”
“While you’re drinking it, you can tell me all about Burt Collins,” Jennifer said.
“How did you find out?” Rhodes asked.
“It was easy. I’m a reporter.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Just me,” Seepy said. “She knows I can be trusted, since I’m the model for Sage Barton.”
“That was an item I hadn’t uncovered,” Jennifer said. “Why didn’t you tell me, Sheriff? It should’ve been obvious to me, considering the initials, but it was the martial arts moves that clinched it.”
