Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa

  “Isn’t that outfit a little skimpy for school, Sara? I don’t want to get a phone call to come pick you up.”

  My lovely daughter rolled her eyes. “It’s a billion degrees out there. What do you want me to wear—a snowsuit?”

  Pick your battles, I told myself.

  Bobby came down from his room in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He grabbed a granola bar, and I poured a glass of milk for him. I reminded him to take a vitamin but didn’t lecture Sara about taking hers. For the past six months, she had been on a no-meat kick and claimed all vitamins contained trace amounts of animal products.

  Another non-battle, I thought.

  The kids had barely gotten out the door when Matthew Oliver and his helper stepped out of their HAK truck and walked up the driveway. They looked slightly wilted, which would strengthen my plan of plying Matthew with lots of cold, refreshing iced tea and plenty of chitchat about Dizzie.

  “How are you this morning?” Matthew asked.

  I held the front door open for him and his helper. They each carried heavy tool boxes and looked more ready for bed instead of the beginning of a grueling day wrestling with a bulky furnace and air unit.

  “I’m hot, thank you,” I told him. “Hopefully it will be cooler here by nightfall?”

  Matthew chuckled and handed me a square of yellow cardboard with large black printing on the front. “Stick this in the front window. It’s a permit to do the work on your air systems. And don’t worry. If everything goes as planned here, you should be nice and cool by tonight.”

  I closed the door and let out a sigh. I hoped nothing would go wrong. Of course, when it came to home repairs, it seemed like something always went wrong.

  The men found the breaker box and cut off the electricity to the furnace. Then the banging and hammering began and continued for the next three hours. I heard plenty of foul language, two furnace-related jokes I didn’t understand, and back-and-forth talk about a guy named Petey and what a waste he had been to the company.

  I made my move at 11:05 a.m.

  “Hey, guys!” I called down the stairwell. “Would you like a cold drink?”

  Both men trudged up the stairs. The helper, I learned, was Chuck, and he looked to be somewhere in his twenties. He took a tall tumbler filled with iced tea and left the kitchen.

  I looked at Matthew and cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

  “He’s going out to the truck to text his girlfriend,” Matthew explained. “You know these kids. They can’t go twenty minutes without alerting the media.”

  I had become all too familiar with nonstop texting. Sara carried her cell phone around like it was growing out of her hand.

  I filled a tumbler for Matthew and offered him a seat at the table. The sliding door was wide open, yet there wasn’t a breeze to be had. Though obviously hot and sweaty, the Hot Air King didn’t seem hampered by the heat. I supposed he was used to working under harsh conditions.

  “All part of the job,” he told me when I asked how he managed to keep going despite the high temperature. “I’m fine with it. It has to be done. Nobody calls for new central air in November. It’s usually July or August.”

  “I still don’t see how you can take working in this heat,” I said, beginning to bait him. “Even my hair refuses to cooperate in this humidity.”

  Matthew glanced at my unruly head of hair. “People pay good money to get curls like that,” he said.

  “As a matter of fact,” I began, jumping at the opportunity to discuss my former hairdresser, “I was going to see about getting my hair straightened on the morning I found Dizzie.”

  Matthew drained his cup, and I went to the refrigerator to get the pitcher of iced tea. He waited until I finished pouring before he spoke. “She was great with hair. Dizzie had a knack. She could have done something with that crazy mop of yours in no time flat.”

  Okay, I thought. Exactly how bad do I look? I glanced at my reflection in the toaster. If I had been born the kind of girl who adored romantic curls, I would have been delighted. Unfortunately, I wanted the exact opposite of what nature had seen fit to give me.

  “Will the beauty shop reopen?” I inquired.

  Matthew shook his head. “I haven’t decided any of that yet.”

  “I hope so,” I told him sincerely. “I really hate the thought of going to that Trina’s Tresses place.”

  Matthew finished his second round of iced tea and stood up, ready to get back to work. “Trina’s not that bad. I went to her salon a few days ago. I needed a trim.”

  My mouth dropped open, but I made a smooth recovery. “Oh, it looks fine,” I said, thinking his hair looked a little ragged at the nape and around his ears. “But why not just go to a regular barber? You know—a guy place?”

  “Because barbers cut it too short and ruin my hair.”

  Chuck stood outside the patio door holding an empty tumbler. He had apparently finished texting his girlfriend and was ready to tackle the furnace again.

  “Gotta get that furnace out of the basement, Chuck. The truck will be here by noon to take it away and deliver the new one,” Matthew told him, prompting the kid into action.

  I took the empty tumbler from Chuck and straightened up the kitchen, running over in my head what Matthew had said about getting a trim at Trina’s. I realized the Hot Air King wasn’t the most sensitive guy in the world, but the knowledge that he went to his dead wife’s competitor, not to mention the crappiest hairdresser in town, both bothered and intrigued me. Something was off there, but I couldn’t say what. I could speculate, though. There wasn’t much else to do, as I was trapped in the house in near-ninety-degree heat and would stay a prisoner there for the rest of the day.

  I wondered about the Olivers’ marriage. There could have been problems. Who would tick off the newly dead by going to the sole competition in town, a woman Dizzie came close to hating, just for a trim? I wouldn’t have blamed Dizzie if she came back to haunt him. It seemed disrespectful. Disloyal. And stupid, too. The police and county prosecutor’s office had their collective eye on Matthew Oliver, and he knew it. Didn’t he think they would view something like that with some suspicion? Of course, my reasoning could be all wrong. Maybe the guy was simply an insensitive clod and had never given his actions a second thought. It would have been such a guy-type thing to do. His hair needed a trim, and he simply went to the nearest hair establishment to have it cut.

  Very practical. Extremely logical.

  I waited until the workers left for lunch and called the newspaper. Ken Rhodes insisted he was busy, but he was willing to listen if I didn’t go on and on and on.

  “Is this Insult Colleen Caruso Day?” I asked, annoyed. “I must have missed the memo. First Sara mouths off at me because I didn’t like the skimpy outfit she was wearing to school. Then Matthew Oliver disses my hair, and now you’re calling me …”

  “Are you finished?” Ken asked.

  I knew he had held the phone up in the air and only brought it back down to his ear to tell me to stop talking.

  “And I really hate when you do that!” I yelled.

  I heard him sigh. “It’s too hot, Colleen. I don’t have the patience today. Get to the point. What did you want to tell me?”

  I composed myself in my million-degree kitchen. “Okay. Matthew Oliver doesn’t know whether or not he’s keeping the salon or closing the business.”

  “And?”

  “He went to Trina’s Tresses to get his hair cut,” I continued. “He said she isn’t that bad with a pair of scissors, though I have to tell you I don’t think she did such a bang-up job on …”

  This time Ken groaned.

  “Okay, okay! Anyway, Dizzie and Trina were competitors. Why on earth do you suppose he would go to Trina’s salon when he knew his wife couldn’t stand her?”

  “Because he needed a trim, and his wife couldn’t do it for him because she’s dead?” he guessed.

  “You men all stick together!” I said, and slammed down the phone.


  * * *

  The men finished work at the house long after the sun went down and the air had turned cool outside. I closed every window and lowered the thermostat to seventy degrees to test the new unit. I heard a blessed, far-off click from the basement. Seconds later, crisp, refreshing air blew from the vents.

  “Leave it on for a few minutes to get the temperature down, then we’ll try out the heat,” Matthew suggested.

  We retreated to the kitchen and cold drinks. Chuck grabbed one of my Diet Cokes and went to his sanctuary, the truck, to text his girlfriend.

  “What can I get for you?” I asked Matthew.

  “One of your famous gin and tonics,” he said.

  It felt like a celebration of sorts. I had gotten a more comfortable climate inside my house, and Matthew would be expanding his bank balance, provided Neil didn’t have a stroke while writing the check. I took the tonic water from the refrigerator and retrieved the gin from the cabinet. Matthew poured, using far more gin than I would have. I diluted my drink with lots of ice, but Matthew only took two cubes. He shook his head no when I suggested a slice of lime.

  “It’s cooling down nicely,” I told Matthew when we sat down at the kitchen table. He had brought a folder with him, and he pulled out a sheet of paper from HAK, which listed various parts and prices on the pre-printed form. I noticed the entire bill was about a thousand dollars less than my best-case-scenario expectations.

  “What’s this?” I asked, sliding the bill over for him to see.

  “You need a copy of the bill for the warranty,” he explained.

  “No, I mean the discount.”

  “It’s post-season, Mrs. Caruso. There aren’t too many people rushing to get new central air units installed.”

  “You gave me a break?” I asked.

  Matthew nodded, clearly uncomfortable at being caught extending a kindness.

  “Thank you, Matthew. I know Neil will appreciate it. Me too! I won’t have to hear him run off at the mouth.”

  The temperature inside the house had dropped to seventy-six degrees. I knew it would have to go down even further to get the bedrooms upstairs cool enough to sleep in.

  “You won’t have any more problems now,” Matthew told me. “The blower inside the new furnace is strong. Your old one sucked.”

  I didn’t quite understand what my furnace had to do with cool air, but I decided to let it remain a mystery. I was more concerned with plying the man with booze to get him to open up about his wife’s death than the inside scoop on central air conditioning.

  “Is there anything new going on with Dizzie’s investigation?” I asked, completely out of the blue.

  Matthew shook his head. “They questioned me again, of course. There’s nothing new at all.”

  “But you’re doing okay?”

  “Just fair,” he told me. He drained half of his gin and tonic before he continued. “Between the questioning and the quiet house, sometimes I think I’m going crazy. I’d like to get away—take my mind off things.”

  “Did the police tell you not to leave town?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “No. They never said anything like that.”

  “Then go somewhere. How about Atlantic City? Spend a day or two. Gamble. Swim a little,” I suggested.

  “I doubt the lifeguards are still on duty at the beach. It’s almost October.”

  “The hotels all have pools.”

  He looked at me like I was some kind of genius. “That’s right! They have pools in the hotels.”

  “You don’t do many overnighters in AC, do you?” I asked him.

  “I do it all the time,” he insisted. “I went twice last month. Stayed over Friday and Saturday night both times. I just didn’t realize they had pools and stuff.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of idiot would frequent Atlantic City and not know the hotels all had pools and spas.

  The temperature inside the house dropped a few more degrees. I got up and made another drink for Matthew. Rather than join him, I switched to bottled water.

  “Tell me something—exactly what do you do down in Atlantic City when you go overnight?” I asked.

  “I gamble.”

  11

  The phone rang a short time after the kids left for school. Nobody ever called me before 9:00 a.m., so I was surprised to hear my little editor’s voice so early in the morning.

  “Did you make an appointment at Trina’s Tresses yet?” Meredith asked in an almost-whisper.

  “No. I meant to, but with so much going on around here, I kind of forgot,” I lied.

  “Consider this a heads-up then. Ken Rhodes is on the warpath about absolutely everything today. He specifically mentioned your column—or lack of a column. He told me he reminded you about it.”

  I had hoped to delay my visit to the world’s worst hairdresser for at least a little while longer. “I had something else planned for the column,” I told her.

  “Postpone it and call that hair place. Don’t tell the boss I talked to you.”

  Meredith abruptly hung up.

  Okay, I thought. So Ken Rhodes is annoyed. I knew it probably wasn’t specifically at me. The newspaper had been experiencing a profound lack of advertisers in the last several months, which meant the corporation that owned the various media outlets, including the Town Crier, was pressuring him. I didn’t think Trina’s Tresses would make all that interesting a column. It had been Dizzie Oliver who was murdered, not Trina. Except for the fact that they were both Tranquil Harbor hairdressers, why would anyone connect the two?

  I had often disagreed with Ken Rhodes. He was, however, my boss—regardless of his offhanded kindness and prickly generosity toward me and my little family and definitely regardless of my feelings for him. Whatever else he was, he had a job to do. I needed to do as I was told.

  I called Trina’s Tresses right away for an appointment. When I gave the receptionist my name, I was told that Trina had a cancellation and that I should come right in. The thought of Trina working on my hair terrified me. I called Bevin and begged her to come with me as sort of a hair bodyguard.

  Bevin drove us in her Mercedes, looking, as usual, elegant and not the least bit in need of any kind of beautification. As for me, my hair turned curly even though the day wasn’t all that humid. I had on gray yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt pushed up to my elbows. My sneakers were white and very comfortable, and they made my feet look enormous.

  “Just look at this place,” Bevin whispered when we walked through the door. “No wonder Trina’s prices are so high.”

  Trina’s Tresses differed from Dizzie’s Salon in that it looked Hollywood glam, and not the way a respectable, quiet, shore-community beauty parlor should look.

  The waiting area, which was in the front of the salon, featured thick-cushioned brown leather chairs, a large marble coffee table, and various pedestals with expensive-looking vases. I didn’t see a rack filled with the usual hair magazines.

  “This joint looks more like a spa,” I told Bevin. “And check out that staircase halfway back.”

  We both gazed into the interior of the salon. Bevin’s mouth popped open when she caught sight of the exquisite wrought-iron spiral staircase that led up to the second floor.

  “What do you suppose is up there?” she asked.

  “A lounge? Torture chamber? Who knows?” I said.

  A woman emerged from the depths of the shop. “Can I help you?” she asked, eyeing my abundant curls.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m Colleen Caruso,” I began.

  “Oh! The reporter! I’m Trina Cranford. I’m so very happy to meet you!”

  Trina Cranford looked to be somewhere in her mid-thirties. She was a tall woman, and she moved with the grace of a natural athlete. Her chestnut hair, peppered with low-lights, was carefully coiffed. She had a charming face, huge blue eyes, cheekbones to die for, and a deep Tranquil Harbor summer tan. She had dressed meticulously for her workday in beige slacks and a light, of
f-one-shoulder airy beige blouse. I, on the other hand, was as white as a ghost, and I had chosen my outfit in anticipation of the little snippets of hair that would inevitably cling to every inch of fabric I wore.

  “This is Bevin Thompson,” I told Trina. “She came to give me moral support.”

  Bevin gave Trina’s hand a limp shake. “Pleased to meet you, Trina,” she said. “This is quite a place you have here. If you don’t mind my asking, what’s going on at the top of that spiral staircase?”

  “We do makeup, facials, and waxing on the second floor. Down here, it’s hair and nails.”

  I detected a slight accent, something immediately noticeable to my Central Jersey ears.

  “You’re not from here originally, are you, Trina?” I asked.

  “Upstate New York, as a matter of fact. Albany.”

  “That’s a long way off. That’s somewhere near Cooperstown, isn’t it?” I asked, recalling a long car trip Neil and I took with the kids, so Bobby could visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.

  “Cooperstown is about sixty miles west of Albany, but from here you’d be in the general vicinity.”

  “I have no sense of direction,” I said.

  “Me either, my dear. I can get lost going around the block. So, let’s get down to something we both have a sense of—hair business. You told the receptionist you were interested in having those lovely curls straightened. Do you have a preference, Colleen?”

  “I want it straight,” I said.

  “Well, there’s the La-Brasiliana treatment or maybe thermal reconditioning.” Trina reached out and ran her fingers through my hair. “I think you’d be okay with a Brazilian Blowout, my dear. Let’s consult with the technician first,” she said and turned to find someone on her staff.

  The technician? I thought. Like I’m having a virus removed from my computer? And, boy, I hated being called “my dear,” especially by someone younger than me. It was one of those phrases that made me feel elderly, like when someone calls me “sweetheart,” or even worse—“ma’am.” I glanced Bevin’s way.

  “Bev? Is this Brazilian thing the way to go? Maybe I should think this over.”

  “I don’t know a thing about hair straightening. I’ve never had anything like that done. I only get my hair trimmed, and I only let Dizzie touch it. She said I had the best hair in town.”