False Nails and Tall Tales (The Teasen and Pleasen Hair Salon Cozy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Constance Barker

  # # #

  When I’d made the decision to take the crew to New Orleans and talked Pete into competing in the hair styling competition, I thought it would be a good thing. It would give him some confidence, let him see that he was good. I hadn’t counted on him winning, getting a special grand prize. Now he was a tad overconfident.

  Since Pete Dawson was basically a good man, I was sure that would wear off over time, but in the meantime, with Betina gone, I had a staffing problem. Betina was our apprentice and that meant in addition to cutting hair she did a lot of the cleaning and other grunt chores around the salon. Pete, as the junior stylist, had always helped her out. Now though, as the winner of a big-city contest, he was in great demand. Everyone was excited that Knockemstiff had its very own prize-winning stylist and his calendar was totally booked. Lots of people who’d never come in before were calling and begging to get an appointment. We weren’t swamped or anything, but we felt Betina’s absence.

  That didn’t give Pete a lot of time for sweeping the floor or much interest in volunteering to do it in down times. Nellie was always in demand, doing nails, makeup, coloring hair and so on. So yours truly, Savannah Jeffries, owner and head stylist, was getting stuck with Betina’s workload.

  I didn’t mind doing it and there wasn’t really that much work, but in addition to running the salon, I had the seven-year old Sarah Jameson, my ward, to deal with. She could be quite a handful at times. And actually, I did resent doing the work. I lied.

  "I saw the ad you put on the town’s website," Pete said that morning. "Are you replacing Betina already?"

  "Not replacing her, no. I’d like to hire someone to do her work until she decides if she’s coming back."

  "Someone who is trainable, in case she doesn’t," Nellie said.

  "Someone who will fit in," Pete said.

  "Even if she comes back, if we stay this busy, we could use extra help." I shook my head. "I’m already getting emailed responses to the ad from people as far away as Epps and Delhi but I hardly have enough time to read their resumes. I need to organize myself better if I’m going to find time to actually interview anyone."

  I neglected to mention that I hated even the idea of interviewing, never really done any myself. I’d hired Nellie when I opened the salon but I’d known her forever and she’d been doing my nails since fifth grade. Pete had walked in looking for a job. He’d gone to school in Georgia and something appealed to him about our little town. Betina had gotten in some trouble when she was in high school. We all knew her. Betina had a serious knack for fashion that we thought we could cultivate. Chief Tanner agreed that if she apprenticed at the salon and behaved he’d forgive and forget.

  So our growth had been organic. The prospect of looking for an employee was daunting.

  Pete went over and got some coffee. "You don’t like that part, do you… the hiring stuff."

  "Not so you’d notice."

  "If you like, I’d be happy to do it." He stretched. "In fact, I’m finished for the day and Leander has a gig in Delhi tonight. Instead of being bored, I could get started today."

  I was stunned. Pete seldom volunteered for anything like that. "Really?"

  "Sure. Leander tells me that cutting people’s hair is just one aspect of my career path and that I need other sorts of experience. I’d be happy to help find someone to fill in for Betina."

  It wasn’t lost on me that if Pete hired someone to fill in then Betina was less likely to feel like we were making her decisions for her. "Great. After I pick up Sarah from school we will go home and I can send you the resumes I’ve gotten."

  "You on a computer?" Nellie laughed.

  "Sarah will do it for me."

  "Good call," she said.

  Pete smiled. "You don’t use a computer."

  "I can. I can do some things."

  "She can google recipes and stuff like that."

  Pete nodded. "Okay. I’ll set up appointments with anyone who looks promising."

  "That’s great."

  I felt a sense of relief at just passing that off, getting the search in motion. A little extra help would go a long way toward letting things settle down into a semblance of what passed for normal here in Knockemstiff.

  Across the room, Nellie paused from cleaning her station, sorting her nail polishes. "Karo syrup?" Then she shook her head.

  "A new flavor?"

  "I forgot to ask, but it must be something new he and Rudy are working on. Old Joe specializes these days. On his own he only makes fake Scotch… really good stuff. But that requires only malted barley and water. Corn syrup would ruin it, or at least make it something else."

  "If it’s good stuff, why is it fake?"

  Nellie made a face. "The booze industry has strict legal issues about names. Scotch, to be scotch, has to be made in Scotland and under certain conditions, like being aged three years in oak barrels. That’s for the cheap stuff. What Joe makes is elegant, but breaks a few rules such as being made in a Louisiana Bayou instead of the Scottish highlands. I think his barrels aren’t even all oak and I doubt the hooch is in there three years. He gets impatient."

  "So no Karo?"

  "Not for himself. Not hardly."

  "So you’ll ask Rudy what’s going on?"

  She made a face. "You know Rudy. It’s unlikely I’d be able to understand or believe any answer he gave me, when it comes to moonshine. That’s his turf."

  That was true. "I guess we will find out."

  "Sooner or later. One way or another." This was one of those times where Rudy’s antics seemed to amuse her. But then Nellie Phlint enjoys mysteries that stay mysterious. Unless she’s just feeling nosy she doesn’t feel compelled to get to the heart of them. In that way we are entirely different. Right now I had too many mysteries.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Pete amazed me sometimes. It only took him two days to hire someone new ― a young girl named Ella. She seemed bright enough, but when he introduced her around I had misgivings. She didn’t seem remotely interested in meeting us and, when he gave her a tour of the work stations and showed her how we booked appointments, she just looked bored.

  I hoped that was just the way she looked, but it wasn’t promising. Still, Pete was doing something. He’d gotten a warm body in the salon, which was more than I’d done.

  "Don’t you love the psychic energy today?" Selina Ferrara asked as she came in.

  "Do you think it’s different than usual?" I asked as if I noticed such things.

  "Oh yes. Much stronger than usual," she said. "With a hint of the dark."

  "Dark?" Ella asked.

  "I can smell it."

  "You can smell evil?"

  She nodded. "Some evil is afoot," Selina said. "It isn’t close yet, but circling."

  "Well, a nice shampoo and cut should make sure you are ready for whatever it is," Pete said. Selina was his nine o’clock appointment but she gave him an odd look, a scrutinizing look. "You are safe… today."

  "Good to know," he said.

  Pete and Selina got on well, although they made an odd couple. He didn’t think much of the supernatural, whether it was Selina’s spirit world or that of the regular churches, but didn’t make a big deal about it. She was of the opinion that he was gay because of a misunderstanding with the spirits that she could fix if he’d let her. Putting two people with such different beliefs and attitudes in close proximity had the potential for the relationship to become anything from an uneasy truce to open warfare. For some unclear reason, these two got along famously. Pete never rose to the bait of challenging Selina’s proclamations and she accepted that Pete was happy with the way his life was and didn’t want her intervening with the spirits even if it was something easily done.

  I suppose it helped that she liked Leander, his boyfriend, and was a fan of his blues.

  As Selina got into the chair Pete gave Ella a few chores to do. They all needed doing, but I got the impression she didn’t really see the point. I wondered if she thou
ght they were beneath her. That rankled a bit, since there are maintenance things that have to be done by someone, and everyone needs to do them at times.

  I bit my tongue and reminded myself to give her time, let her settle in. Despite those rather noble and generous sentiments, an hour later I was watching her sweeping the floor of the salon and feeling a spicy mixture of amusement and bewilderment. I was waiting for Paulette Strickland to arrive for her appointment. Like Dolores Pettigrew, Paulette was one of those people who, it seemed, had gotten up fifteen minutes late one morning around twenty years ago and never caught up. She ran a precise fifteen minutes late for everything, which meant I had five more minutes to wait for her to show up (at ten fifteen) for her ten o’clock. Watching Ella was the only distraction at the moment, and as I watched, it seemed clear to me that the girl entirely missed the point of sweeping. She poked the broom around the floor randomly, doing a fine job of pushing hair out from under the chairs and stacking it by the molding at the edges. She did it so deliberately that calling it careless wouldn’t be right. It irritated me.

  "Ella, are you sweeping the floor or hiding the hair so I think you did?" I asked, finally.

  She didn’t answer me, and since I was already out of sorts that made me a bit angry. I was going to ask again but when she turned her head I realized she was wearing ear buds. I walked over and pulled one out of her ear. She snapped her head around to look at me. "What?"

  "I asked you a question and you didn’t answer me."

  Her sneer had an incredulous quality to it. "I didn’t answer because, like, I didn’t hear you. I had the ear buds in and was listening to music, okay?"

  "Not okay, Ella. You are supposed to be working, but if you can’t hear you can’t do the job. That’s why those things are a no no at work."

  "I can’t listen to music while I’m doing boring stuff?"

  "Nope. This is a service business and one in a small town. In the salon we don’t isolate ourselves. We interact… with each other, with the customers. You need to be able to hear when you are spoken to, and you are expected to reply. After work you can plug up your ears all you like."

  "Fine," she said in that way people say it when they don’t think things are fine at all.

  "You are supposed to be sweeping the hair off the floor," I said.

  She held up the broom. "I am. See… broom."

  I pointed at the hair by the baseboards. "Pushing hair around the floor is not sweeping it up."

  She looked. "No one will see it there."

  "Sweep it up into a dustpan and get it in the trash," I said, pointing over at the long-handled dustpan. "The point is to get up the hair, not just make the place look neat."

  She signed. "Fine."

  I decided that it would be easy to learn to hate that word.

  I saw Pete looking over at me with a certain amount of apprehension. I guess he felt like his novice people-management skills were on trial. When Ella did get the hair up, as none of the local bakers had shown up with anything for snacks, I gave her some money and sent her to Paramabet’s to get some cookies. After she left, Pete came over to where I was (at last) engaged with Paulette’s hair.

  "I really thought she’d be more enthusiastic," he said. "When I interviewed her she came across so much better. She said she wanted to work hard."

  "You don’t know how they’ll be for sure until they start, I suppose. Even then, it takes a little time to see who they really are. Maybe she’ll get into the swing of things."

  "You aren’t happy with her."

  I wasn’t. "I get the impression that no matter what she said at the interview, she doesn’t really want to be here. She doesn’t seem that interested in what we do. But I’m happy to give her some time. Maybe the good qualities you saw in her will show themselves."

  He sighed. "I hope so. I hate to criticize people, but if you hadn’t said something about her excuse for sweeping, I would’ve as soon as I finished with Selina."

  "If you are thinking about the business end of things then you’ll need to learn how to give direction effectively, if not criticize."

  "I suppose that’s true."

  I was glad that Pete was interested in learning more than just haircutting. Depending on how things went, I might even have to push him. From the sound of things I could get Leander to help with that.

  # # #

  Wednesdays are usually slow days at the salon, and this one was pretty flat. We had no bookings that afternoon, and when I came in from lunch at BaconUp I’d left Pete sitting in a booth talking earnestly with the new girl. I imagined he was giving her some sort of pep talk. I’d prefer it if he was giving her notice, but Pete was big on second chances.

  With the day pretty flat I was considering closing up and giving us all the afternoon off. And then I walked in to find Nellie standing next to a folding table that she’d set up next to the coffee urn. It held four bottles that were labeled with handwritten numbers.

  I raised my eyebrows. "What’s going on?"

  Nellie looked over at me and smiled. "An impromptu tasting party. Sort of."

  "Sort of? Tasting what?"

  She grinned. "Possible new flavors of moonshine."

  I snapped my fingers. "The Karo?"

  "I’m not quite sure. I wanted to know what was going on as much as anyone else so last night I asked Rudy what he and Old Joe were doing with all that Karo syrup. It turns out that they’ve been collaborating."

  "Collaborating or conspiring?"

  "Knowing them it’s gotta be some of each. In this case it seems all good. Since the business got legal Aubrey’s taken a real interest. Not so much in making hooch, but he’s been doing the branding, created our web site, designed the labels. That got him researching things and he has gotten fascinated by the way distilleries sell and distribute their stuff. You can learn anything online these days. He said there are podcasts about rum."

  Aubrey was seventeen now and the Phlint’s oldest son. "He’s a sharp kid."

  "And it’s probably a good thing he is interested, seeing as he will be taking over the business some day. Not to mention that he’s suddenly discovered something besides hacking computers to use his math skills for. Anyway, a month or so back he suggested to Rudy that there might be a lucrative niche market in a flavored version of the stuff. You add a few cents worth of some flavorings to Bayou Shine and have a whole new, higher-priced hooch."

  Bayou Shine was the brand name for the Phlint family artisanal moonshine—a registered trademark. "Flavored?"

  "According to my brilliant kid, those flavored vodkas and rums you see in supermarkets… in towns bigger than Knockemstiff, are selling like hotcakes. I’m not sure why. Maybe the folks with money don’t want to doctor their own drinks. But it got Aubrey thinking is that it wouldn’t hurt to expand the brand by testing out a flavored moonshine and see how it goes. It wouldn’t be a huge investment."

  "Clever kid."

  Nellie beamed. "He is. Anyway Rudy talked to Old Joe and they decided that even if he was wrong, trying to see what they could come up with would be great fun. They made a few tests and now they want some feedback from people not involved in the process. They want to see which one people would like, if any."

  "And the Karo? They can’t have already perfected a recipe with that. They were just getting that stuff."

  "That seems to fall under the heading of what Rudy calls ‘follow on research.’ Apparently creating these flavors was not only fun but it gave the boys even more ideas." She shrugged. "I don’t ask. This ‘research’ is keeping Rudy safely and productively occupied. Besides, with all that syrup sitting around it inspired him to make waffles for us all this morning."

  I looked at the four bottles sitting on the table. "So these are all modified versions of Bayou Shine?"

  "It is. Same honest booze but tarted up in four different ways."

  "Like with Karo syrup?"

  "If they come up with something… That might come later. In the meantime, we me
re drinkers are not to know the secret ingredients as it might color our choices."

  "And we are the guinea pigs?"

  "Call us what you will. The fact is that them who wants to are invited to taste it for free." She held up a hand-lettered sign: "Help select Knockemstiff’s next moonshine flavor," it said. "Free tasting, this afternoon only. While supplies last."

  Just then, Pete and Ella came in and Nellie filled them in on the plan for the afternoon. "Put the sign in the window," she told Pete.

  "Sure thing." Then he paused. "Although… if supplies are limited."

  "Not that limited, kid. Rudy is the supplier. There’s enough for a decent party. Aubrey just told me the message had to include a sense of urgency, sort of a ‘buy now’ clause." I was staring at Nellie and she stopped and looked a little embarrassed. "I know I should’ve asked first, but it’s for a good cause. You don’t mind being forced to drink a little moonshine do you?"

  I didn’t at all. "No problem. I’ll call Paula and see if she minds taking Sarah over to her place when she picks up Ginny from school." Ginny was Sarah’s best friend.

  "I know the girls won’t mind that in the least."

  "And since I can’t trust the fact that I’ll remember to pick her up after tasting your hooch…" I said.

  "It’s not that strong," Nellie chuckled.

  "Rudy made it—it won’t be weak." I gave her a wink. "I’m willing to bet it will be that good."

  So I went in the back room to make the call. Paula was delighted. "That’s no problem. Any time. Why don’t you let her spend the night. After all, now we are all set up for that sort of thing." It was true. The girls stayed at each other’s houses so often that we’d packaged up a full overnight kit for each of them that stayed at the other girl’s house, so Sarah would have her own pajamas, toothbrush, clothes for the next day… everything a parent would want her to have.

  "Maybe I should take them for a weekend soon and give you a break."