Unti Susan McBride #2

by Susan McBride

  “You’re putting me in jail?” Charlie kicked over the chair so that it cracked hard against the bare floor. “This is so effing messed up!”

  Mattie covered her mouth with her hands.

  The sheriff didn’t even flinch. “You should thank your lucky stars I’m just putting you in a holding cell. It’ll be a whole lot worse if I find out you killed Grace Simpson.”

  Chapter 22

  LAVYRLE’S BEAUTY SHOP buzzed with voices that fought to rise above the hum of the hair dryers. The persistent snap of scissors seemed to punctuate the chatter. The odor of solution for permanents and dye jobs pervaded the air, overpowering the sweet scent of shampoo and spray and the omnipresent tangle of perfumes.

  Helen’s senses throbbed at the discord the moment she walked through the door. The place was crowded even more than usual. “Come on in, Nancy,” she called behind her and waved a hand to urge the girl inside.

  “Helen!” someone shouted, and Helen saw Bertha Beaner sidle off a chair in the waiting area, leaving a pair of chattering women with their heads bent together. Soon enough, Sarah Biddle emerged from the back to join them, while Mary watched and twisted her ponytail behind the reception desk.

  “Well, hello, Nancy,” Sarah said, perhaps a tad too brightly. “It’s good to see you.”

  The whispering duo in the waiting room instantly looked up as Nancy came to stand at Helen’s side. Helen could feel the stares directed at them both, and she suddenly doubted her decision to bring Nancy to the salon for one of LaVyrle’s special “perk-­me-­up” pamperings.

  “Yes, it’s wonderful seeing you out and about,” Bertha remarked, as though Nancy had been ill.

  Bertha looked much as Clara Foley had the day before, Helen mused. She wore the requisite lavender cape, and her head seemed wired with tiny pink curlers, around which a ring of white fluff had been tucked to catch dripping solution. The powerful smell of it caused Helen to wrinkle her nose.

  “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Bertha asked, trying so hard to force a smile that her cheeks resembled a chipmunk’s. When Nancy didn’t respond, Bertha glanced sideways at Sarah as if to say, Hey, help me out here!

  The sheriff’s wife quickly stepped in. “Don’t let Frank push you around,” she told Nancy bluntly, and her long face compressed. Even with lips pursed, her prominent teeth protruded. “You can’t let him get to you. He’s like a bulldog when he latches onto something. But he’ll realize he’s made a mistake with you and find the real killer soon enough.”

  Nancy cast her eyes to the floor.

  Helen grabbed the girl’s hand. “Of course he will,” she said.

  Sarah poked at the foil-­wrapped strands in her hair. “It’s just that he has to question everyone related to the case. It’s his job to be thorough.”

  “So he’s questioned the two of you then, has he?” Helen asked, not in the mood to mince words.

  Sarah blinked and looked at Bertha. “Well, he did give me a talking to last night when he got home about my seeing Grace more than once without telling him. But he knows where I was the night Grace died, because I was with him. In my book, that’s a rock-­solid alibi.”

  “While we’re on the subject,” Helen said and nodded at Bertha, “Grace’s book had you awfully worked up as well. I assume you’ve spoken with the sheriff?”

  Bertha turned one shade darker than the lavender cape. “Are you suggesting that I murdered Grace Simpson?”

  Helen blurted out, “Anything’s possible.”

  “That’s right,” Sarah Biddle agreed, going on, “why, it could’ve been any number of ­people who hit Grace with that bat—­her husband, Max, for example.”

  “Yes, or her publisher from the city,” Bertha remarked, sounding miffed. “I heard that he hated Grace’s guts.”

  “What about that awful boy, Charlie Bryan,” Sarah added, looking around nervously. “This isn’t for public consumption, but just this morning Frank put the boy in lockup after he found out Charlie had sold one of Mattie Oldbridge’s stolen items to a dealer at the Grafton flea market. . . .”

  “What?” Helen said, not having heard that tidbit yet.

  Even Nancy raised her downcast head.

  “Does the sheriff think Charlie’s the one who’s been burglarizing houses in River Bend?” Helen asked, wondering again if the break-­ins and Grace’s death were related.

  Sarah’s rabbitlike front teeth pulled on her lip. “Honestly, he isn’t sure. The boy said he found the piece behind Mattie’s house, like someone had dropped it.”

  Bertha let out a hardly subtle, “Hmph.”

  Helen glanced at Nancy. “You’re right, Sarah, anyone could have done it. I just wish your husband was as open-­minded as you.”

  Sarah sniffed, her eyes softening. “I never believed for a moment that Nancy was guilty.”

  “Nor did I,” Bertha chimed in.

  Nancy very nearly smiled for real.

  “Thank you,” Helen told them, seeing her granddaughter perk up a bit. “I just wish you could get your husband on the same page, Sarah.”

  The loud clack of approaching high heels effectively put an end to the conversation. LaVyrle appeared from her secluded station, bringing with her the smell of hairspray and Miss Clairol. She cocked her blond head and smiled tightly.

  “Sorry to break up your gabfest,” she said, and her dark eyebrows arched. “But it’s back to the dryer for you, Mrs. B,” she told the sheriff’s wife, poking at the foil-­wrapped strands in Sarah’s hair with gloved fingers. “Five more minutes, you hear me?” she announced and tapped the face of her wristwatch.

  Sarah nodded obediently before scurrying back to where her waiting hair dryer hummed.

  “And you, Mrs. B,” LaVyrle said, turning her attention to Bertha Beaner. “Let’s check things out.” She unsnapped a pink roller and unfurled a wavy strand. “Looks like you’re just about done.” She turned toward the lanky girl at the reception desk. “Hey, Mary, go rinse Mrs. B’s hair, will ya?”

  Eyes wide, Mary bobbed her head. With a squeaky “Follow me,” she led the way to the sinks as Bertha Beaner hurried to keep up.

  LaVyrle looked at Nancy and Helen. “So, Mrs. E,” she began, “Mary said you called earlier. Your granddaughter needs a cut and blow-­dry?”

  Helen hugged Nancy to her side. “I thought she could use a little pampering.”

  LaVyrle winked at the young woman. “Well, I’m just the one to do it.”

  “How about a manicure, too, with the paraffin wax,” Helen suggested. “That felt wonderful, I must say.”

  LaVyrle jerked her chin at Nancy. “How’s that sound, honey?” she asked. “You want the works?”

  “Sure.” Nancy shrugged. “Whatever.”

  LaVyrle ignored her lack of enthusiasm. “We’re pretty booked up today, but I can squeeze you in.”

  “Pretty booked up is an understatement,” Helen commented, as the place seemed almost overcrowded. “Is there something going on tonight that I don’t know about? Or has your reputation spread well beyond River Bend?”

  “I’d love to say that’s the reason.” LaVyrle exhaled upward, blowing at blond bangs. “Though I think it’s got more to do with morbid curiosity,” she remarked and shook her head. “God rest her soul, but it’s Grace Simpson who’s bringin’ them in. There’s been more traffic today than I’ve seen in months. And what with that memorial ser­vice in the chapel tomorrow morning. . . .”

  “What ser­vice?” Helen asked, yet another piece of gossip she’d missed.

  Nancy’s eyes grew wide. “Tomorrow morning?” she whispered.

  “Heard it from Darcy at the diner,” LaVyrle told them, leaning in. “She spent a while yesterday refilling Max Simpson’s coffee cup, can ya even believe? He’s hangin’ around, waiting for the will to be read. So he figured he’d do a quickie memorial ser­
vice at the chapel since he can’t do a proper funeral yet, not without the body,” the beautician explained with a wiggle of latex-­gloved fingers. “He’s not even puttin’ a mention in the paper. Poor Mrs. S. She deserved better than what she got.”

  Helen glanced at Nancy, who gnawed on her bottom lip.

  “Enough chitchat,” LaVyrle said, seeming to pick up on Nancy’s discomfort. “You ready, darlin’?” she asked and took Nancy’s arm, drawing her away from Helen. “You put yourself in my hands, honey, and I’ll doll you up real good. No long faces allowed at LaVyrle’s. So how’d you like your hair cut? You thinkin’ about trying a new style?”

  Helen heard LaVyrle going on and on as she walked Nancy away.

  Helen found an empty chair in the waiting area and settled in. Though she was surrounded by the cacophony of the salon, she hardly heard the buzz of hair dryers and drone of voices.

  So Max Simpson had come to town, had he? And he’d decided to throw Grace a memorial ser­vice in River Bend despite the ongoing investigation?

  He’s hangin’ around, waiting for the will to be read.

  It sounded to Helen like the man had come out of greed, not love for a woman who was dead. All Max Simpson wanted from Grace now was to see what she had left him.

  Chapter 23

  HELEN WAS DIGGING into a third issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal when the tippy-­tap of LaVyrle’s stilettos on the floor caused her to look up from the pages.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, hoping the “perk me up” pampering had actually done its job.

  “Ah, we’re just about done,” LaVyrle told her. “Mary did up her nails real nice, and I gave her a cut. I added some highlights so she’s got that sun-­streaked look without havin’ to spend all day outside pouring lemon juice on her noggin.” LaVyrle went behind the counter and scribbled out the bill. “I even got her smilin’ once or twice.”

  “Ah, you’re a magician, LaVyrle. I tell you what.” Helen set aside the magazine and stood. She walked over to the reception desk and leaned against it. “I don’t know how the town would get along without you.”

  LaVyrle glanced at her sideways with blue-­lidded eyes. “Well, until this mess with Grace dyin’, it seemed like some folks did just fine. Half my old clients were doin’ their own hair to save a few bucks, and it cut into my bottom line something fierce.”

  Helen sighed. “It’s the economy. A lot of ­people have fallen on hard times.”

  LaVyrle sniffed. “Tell me about it.”

  “You’re doing all right, aren’t you?” Helen asked.

  LaVyrle tossed her blond head and pressed her painted mouth into a smile. “And what if I wasn’t, Mrs. E? Are you and your rich widow friends gonna throw me a fund-­raiser?”

  Helen slapped a hand against the reception desk. “You’re darned right we would. All you’d have to do is ask. We could always raffle off one of Erma’s handmade quilts.” At LaVyrle’s cocked eyebrow, Helen added, “Now don’t scoff. We raised a pretty penny on the last one. It bought a new organ for the chapel, as a matter of fact.”

  “An organ, huh?” LaVyrle said and chuckled. “If you ladies got me one of them, I’d have your whole bridge club in here singin’ ‘Onward, Chris­tian Soldiers’ while I cut and colored the lot of you. I’d end up in the loony bin for sure.”

  “And we’d scare Mary to death,” Helen said, joining in.

  “It don’t take much to do that.”

  Helen laughed.

  LaVyrle gave the crowded waiting room a long look. “If things keep goin’ like they are, I won’t need one of Erma’s quilts to get the Cut ’n’ Curl back in the black.”

  “Silver linings,” Helen told her, patting her hand. “What would we do without them?”

  LaVyrle nodded.

  Helen stepped around her and peered up the hallway. She could see a pair of heads tucked beneath the helmet dryers, but she couldn’t see LaVyrle’s private station from where she stood. “Could I check on Nancy?”

  “Sure, go on back.” LaVyrle looked up as a woman brushed past Helen to approach the desk. The lady raised her hands in the air, as if a victim in a holdup, though from the whiff of nail polish, Helen realized she was just fresh from one of Mary’s manicures. “Tell Nancy I’ll be there in a sec t’ comb her out,” LaVyrle said to Helen before she turned to take care of her customer.

  Helen’s sneakered feet squished softly on the vinyl floor as she made her way toward LaVyrle’s boxed-­in station. She reached the opened doorway and peeked around it. Nancy’s back was to her. A lavender cape covered her from her neck to her bent knees. Fat hot rollers wound their way up and down her scalp.

  Nancy’s reflection stared blankly into the mirror. Helen summoned up a smile and swept in. “Hey!” she said and squeezed Nancy’s shoulders, eliciting little more than a sigh from the girl’s lips. “LaVyrle take good care of you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You like the cut, then?”

  “It’s fine, Grandma.”

  “And the highlights?”

  “They’re okay, too.”

  Helen brushed at wisps of hair curled upon Nancy’s temples. “We’ll go home in a minute,” she promised. “LaVyrle just needs to comb you out. Can you hold on till then?”

  Tears slipped from Nancy’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Yeah, I guess.” The girl bit at her lip and nodded.

  Oh, dear.

  Helen dug into the pockets of her jacket but felt only the folded-­up twenties she’d brought to cover Nancy’s makeover. How could she have forgotten to fill up with tissues?

  Nancy sniffled and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

  Helen turned around to face LaVyrle’s countertop. A box of Kleenex sat atop it, but the darned thing was empty. Helen tugged open a drawer below. “There’s got to be a tissue here somewhere,” she murmured, staring down at the mess of butterfly clips, hairbrushes, and combs.

  She poked around with a finger. She found an unopened box of disposable gloves, the printed pad upon which LaVyrle wrote her clients’ tickets, and half a dozen pale chunks of paraffin wax. One bore the perfect impression of a bobby pin, reminding Helen of a fossil. And then she struck gold.

  “Ah-­ha!” she said, locating a sleeved pack of purse-­sized tissues stuffed near the back. She pulled it out, dislodging several plastic hair clips, which fell to the floor and clattered about her feet. A small photograph fluttered to the floor not far behind.

  Helen dropped the pack of tissues into Nancy’s lap, then bent to pick everything up, muttering all the while. She had the clips put away and the picture of a brown-­haired boy in her grasp when she heard LaVyrle’s angry voice.

  “What’s goin’ on here, Mrs. E?”

  LaVyrle stood at the mouth of the cubicle, hands on hips.

  Nancy sniffled and wiped at her tears.

  Helen tried to explain. “Nancy needed a tissue, and the big box is empty, so I just . . .”

  “You decided t’ go through my things,” LaVyrle finished.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind,” Helen said.

  LaVyrle took a quick step toward her and snatched the photo from her hand. “I’ll take that,” she snapped.

  “Who is he?” Helen asked as LaVyrle pushed the picture into the pocket of her purple skirt. But LaVyrle acted like she didn’t hear and went about removing the rollers from Nancy’s hair, her motions brisk enough to make Nancy wince once or twice.

  “Is he your son?” Helen asked.

  “I didn’t say,” LaVyrle replied, using her fingers to manipulate the brown waves so that they softly framed Nancy’s pale face.

  “I’m sorry,” Helen told her. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  LaVyrle grabbed a tall can of hairspray from her counter and let it loose on Nancy’s hair. Helen coughed as she breathed in the cloud.
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  “Look, Mrs. E,” the beautician said when she finally put the can down, “all everyone who comes in here does is yap, yap, yap, telling me who’s sleepin’ with who, who’s split up, who’s headin’ to Florida when the first snow falls. No one pays t’ listen to me gab about my life or my troubles. And that’s just the way I like it.”

  Helen’s cheeks warmed. “I understand, LaVyrle. Your life is certainly your own.”

  LaVyrle popped open the snaps on Nancy’s lavender cape. “You can pay up front, Mrs. E. I already got your bill written out. Mary’ll take care of it.”

  “LaVyrle, I—­”

  But the beautician didn’t even glance up. She busied herself with a broom, sweeping hanks of fallen hair across the floor.

  Helen took Nancy’s arm and headed out, all the while silently chastising herself for being so nosy. If LaVyrle wanted to keep her private life to herself, it certainly wasn’t her business to pry.

  Chapter 24

  NO MATTER HOW many times Helen assured Nancy it wasn’t necessary, her granddaughter insisted she was attending the memorial ser­vice for Grace Simpson the next morning.

  Indeed, when Helen awoke just after dawn—­with the weight of a very hungry Amber standing on her chest—­she found Nancy already seated at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee. The watch on Helen’s wrist told her it was five minutes past seven, yet Nancy was dressed in black jeans and a crisp white blouse.

  The girl glanced down at her outfit as Helen stared. “I know, it’s not exactly a little black dress, but these are the nicest clothes I packed, and I don’t want to have to go back to my apartment.”

  “No,” Helen said.

  Nancy wrinkled her brow. “You think I should change?”

  “No, I mean, you can’t go,” Helen said and sat down at the table beside her. “Grace treated you terribly!”

  “But I need to, Grandma, can’t you see?”

  No, Helen didn’t see at all.

  “The sheriff thinks you killed her. If you show up at the ser­vice, ­people will talk, and it’ll only shake you up even more.”