“Maybe it’s the spa. There certainly is an expectation there that everyone will do whatever it takes to be perfect—including but not limited to starvation and surgery.”
Wally looked thoughtful. “But who gets to decide what’s perfect? And is a perfect outside any guarantee of a perfect inside?”
“I know you’re right, it’s just hard to resist the propaganda. I hope Frannie doesn’t succumb to it. Good thing we’ll only be there one more day.”
Wally nodded. “Except, of course, that only gives us one more day to find the real killer. Ms. Blossom still insists she did it, and her lawyer doesn’t seem inclined to talk her out of her confession. I did speak to the ME again, and he said the dissection and tox screens definitely won’t be done until Monday, but when he completed the external examination he found several injection sites between the eyebrows.”
“That’s probably from a Botox treatment. Margot mentioned that Esmé got them.” Skye pressed her fingers against her temples, trying to remember all she wanted to tell Wally. “I’m not doing much better with my investigation. Although I did spot several more indications of digging, and I was waylaid by a reporter, so people are getting past the guards. Simon claimed responsibility for one of the holes, but I saw at least three.
“Also, Amber and Elvis are definitely an item. I saw them together last night in one of the VIP cottages. She must have lied about him stalking her because of Margot’s rules. And there was a light in another cottage, too.”
“I’ll stop by and ask the guards to tighten up the perimeter.” Wally took a sip of coffee. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“I have appointments with Ustelle, Kipp, Amber, and Dr. Burnett this afternoon.”
“Good. Keep that fanny pack I gave you with you at all times and be careful.”
“Yes, sir.” Skye gave a mock salute.
They were silent as their food was served and they ate, but toward the end of the meal, Wally finally said, “You mentioned that Reid was treasure hunting? That doesn’t seem like him.”
“He’s good with riddles and he got permission from Margot.”
“Oh.” Wally kept his gaze on his plate. “So, how did it go with Reid last night?”
Skye hesitated, torn by conflicting emotions. She hated discussing Simon with Wally, yet he had a right to know where he stood. Heaven knows she had made him wait long enough for her decision.
As she stalled for time by adding Sweet’N Low and cream to her freshly refilled coffee, an angry voice rose from the restaurant’s entrance. “What do you mean you can’t seat me immediately? I see at least three empty tables.”
Skye saw a man in his late forties arguing with the Feed Bag’s owner/hostess, Tomi Jackson. She was a tiny woman, although her platinum-blond beehive added several inches to her height, and although she seemed ageless, she had to be at least in her sixties, since she’d run the restaurant for as long as Skye could remember.
Tomi’s voice was firm. “Those are for my regulars. It’ll only be a short wait until one of the other tables is vacated.”
Wally, who was facing the door, tensed, then as the angry customer continued getting more and more abusive, he slid out of the booth.
Skye watched as he approached the man, who looked somewhat familiar. Next to Wally’s six-foot plus height, the troublemaker appeared short, but his open shirt revealed a muscular chest covered with curly brown hair.
She couldn’t hear Wally’s words, spoken in a low soothing tone, but she heard the man’s high-pitched reply as he poked Wally in the chest. “Take that badge off and step outside, and we’ll see who leaves this dump and who gets to have breakfast with the chubby cutie in the back booth.”
In a move too fast for Skye to really see, the troublemaker’s hands were cuffed behind his back and Wally was marching him outside. The city police might need to wait until someone broke a law to handcuff him, but in Scumble River, an ounce of prevention was considered just fine on the scales of justice. No judge in Stanley County would ever convict a police officer of harassment for taking such a precaution.
Several minutes went by, and Skye was about to make sure everything was all right, when Wally rejoined her. There wasn’t a mark on him. “What happened?” she asked.
“He decided to eat somewhere else.”
“Did you arrest him?
Wally shook his head. “The only thing I could charge him with would be ignorance, and, unfortunately, that isn’t against the law. I told him if he caused any more trouble in Scumble River, I’d throw his ass in jail and forget where I put the key.”
While Wally was talking, Skye was thinking. Where had she seen that guy before? Finally it came to her. “You know, Whitney showed us a picture of her dad last night, and I think that might have been Rex Quinn.”
“Shit.”
“Sorry, I should have figured out who he was earlier.” Skye bit her lip. “But he certainly didn’t seem grief stricken.”
“No. I think he was lining you up as wife number three,” Wally teased.
“Yeah. I’m sure he’d go for a ‘chubby cutie’ after having a Cosmo cover girl.”
“Maybe he’s seen the error of his ways.”
“Right.” Skye changed the subject. “He must have just gotten in from Europe, if he was telling the truth about where he was when Esmé was killed.”
“Great. Now I have to find him for questioning.”
Skye grinned. “My guess is he’ll go to the spa to pick up his daughter.” She paused. “That is, as soon as he finds another place to have breakfast.”
“Then I better be at the spa to greet him when he arrives.” Wally stood up. “Are you going back too?”
“Not right away. First I’m stopping at the grocery store. I’ve got a good business going in black-market food. Though from what I’ve overheard, someone on the staff may be competing with me. I’d lower my prices, but no one’s paying me to begin with.”
Wally chuckled. “You can’t make people stick to a diet like the one you’ve described if they don’t want to.”
“I think Margot and Dr. Burnett will have to rethink their mandatory diet if they want the spa to succeed.”
“Where are you going after the grocery store?”
“To the Dooziers’.” Skye followed Wally to the register. “The Elvis and Amber relationship bothers me. I just know she’s going to hurt him. And to top it all off, rumor has it the Doozier clan has started their own Scumble River beauty mud business.”
CHAPTER 19
In Hot Water
The Dooziers were hard to describe to anyone who hadn’t grown up knowing what and who the Red Raggers were. The best comparison Skye could come up with was a group of wild dogs, intensely loyal to their pack but with no empathy toward outsiders. They weren’t known for being the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they did have a certain instinct for finding and taking advantage of those people whose blades were even duller.
Earl Doozier, Elvis’s older brother, was the patriarch of the Red Raggers. He and his clan always seemed to turn up whenever there was trouble. They didn’t necessarily make the first move, but they never missed an opportunity to contribute to the commotion.
Skye had established a good relationship with Earl through working with his many children, sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews in her job as a school psychologist, but for the most part the Dooziers kept to themselves—except when they were running some con on the out-of-towners.
As Skye drove north on Kinsman, she was surprised to see orange traffic cones blocking off the street. She hadn’t heard of any road work going on, and usually if one of the major thoroughfares leading to I-55 was going to be closed, the story made both the paper and the local radio.
Once Skye saw that the cones were rerouting traffic directly to the Dooziers’ dirt driveway, understanding dawned. How else would the Dooziers get customers? They didn’t exactly live in the middle of town or on a busy street. In fact, they often took do
wn the street signs so people couldn’t find their house, which was probably for the best.
The Dooziers’ property was almost as hard to describe as its owners. Dried-up weeds lined the cracked sidewalk, and dead grass showed between the carcasses of junked cars and shells of old appliances littering the yard.
The house’s color was indeterminate. It might have been white at one time, but now the siding resembled the interior sections of a cardboard box. Long years of neglect made it seem about as stable as a house made of playing cards.
A barking dog was nowhere in sight, but the odor of the canine’s recent visit to the front lawn hovered in the air.
Only one thing had changed since Skye’s last visit. A crooked and misspelled sign painted on the back of a flattened carton read:
MAGIC MUD
GAURANTEED TO STOP THE SIGNS OF AGING
YOUR VERY OWN FONTANE OF YOUTH
$5.00 FOR ONE JAR TWO FOR $10.00
Skye appeared to be the only customer. She had barely gotten out of the Civic when Earl rushed out of the house, letting the front door slam shut in his haste. He was wearing sweats and a flannel shirt with the arms cut off above the elbow. Even though it was November, temperatures remained in the seventies.
Earl was skinny, except for the bowling-ball-sized potbelly that hung over the elastic waist of his pants. His greasy brown hair formed a horseshoe around the back of his head, leaving a cereal-bowl-sized bald spot.
As he loped toward Skye, a wide smile appeared on his face, revealing several stumps and missing teeth. “Miz Skye. What’re you doin’ here? I heared you were spending the weekend at that fancy new spa.”
“I am, but I heard you had better mud than they do, so I came to check it out.” Skye allowed herself to be hugged, trying not to make contact with any of the many tattoos covering his bare arms. They had a scaly feeling that reminded her of handling a snake. She knew tattoos usually felt smooth, but Earl’s were as different as he was.
“Maybe you could sell it for us. Instead of bein’ an Avon Lady, you could be a Doozier Doll.” A crafty look appeared in Earl’s brown eyes. “You know what they say. Strike while the bug is close.”
“Gee, thanks, Earl.” As Skye tried to sort out his meaning, remove herself from his embrace, and not agree to go door-to-door with Magic Mud, all at the same time she flashbacked to Wednesday morning when she had agreed to go to the spa in hopes of meeting a prince or a duke or an earl. Earl Doozier had not been what she’d had in mind. “But you know how busy I am fixing up my new house.”
“Sure. Sure. But why do you want to see our mud? You don’t got no wrinkles.”
A high-pitched voice suggestive of someone who had sucked on a helium balloon screeched, “Earl Doozier, if brains were taxed, you’d get a refund.”
Striding toward them, carrying a box of clinking mason jars, was Glenda Doozier, the family matriarch. From her grimy feet shod in gold stiletto-sandals, to her dyed blond hair with two-inch black roots and eyes heavily framed in black eyeliner and false lashes, she was the embodiment of an ideal Red Ragger woman.
Earl rushed over and took the box from his wife’s hands. “Now, honey pie, how can you say that? You know we don’t pay no taxes.”
She ignored her husband and glared at Skye. “We ain’t doing nothin’ illegal. You just get off our property.”
“Why, Glenda, I never said you were,” Skye assured the volatile woman. Dealing with Glenda was like handling a snake; you never knew when it would bite.
“If rich city women want to spend their money on mud, there ain’t no reason it can’t be our mud instead of that fancy pants place at the edge of town.”
“Except,” Skye paused to carefully word what she had to say. “Except, the spa mud is actually sterilized before they use it on people. Do you do that?”
As quick as a boa attacking a hapless bunny, Glenda grabbed a bottle from the box Earl was holding, twisted open the lid, scooped out a handful, and smeared it on Skye’s cheek. “See, ours is just as good as theirs. We may not have special silver colored towels and a fancy bathtub, or a private underground room, but nobody’s died in our mud bath.”
Skye was only half listening to Glenda’s sale pitch as she rummaged around in her purse for a tissue, but the last part of the woman’s spiel caught Skye’s attention.
Wary after already having mud spread on one side of her face, Skye asked, “You have an actual mud bath? You don’t just sell the jars?” This she had to see.
“Sure, Miz Skye.” Earl plunked the box he was holding down on the ground and took her arm. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’s out back.”
In the many times Skye had visited the Dooziers she had never been in their backyard, and she was a little nervous of breaking that precedent, but she followed Earl. Glenda trailed behind, muttering.
They rounded the corner, pausing as Earl unlatched the metal gate. Another hand-lettered sign read:
$25 FOR 1 HOUR
TOWEL EXTREE
DON’T PET THE DOG !!!
Earl led them across the backyard toward a small metal shed—the type used to store lawn mowers and snowblowers. As they neared, a dog started to bark. Skye looked in the direction of the yapping and saw a hound dog standing in a pen baying at them.
“Don’t pay Lady no mind. She’s just sayin’ howdy.” Earl kept hold of Skye’s arm, not stopping until they stood in front of the shed. Skye had a bad feeling, but forced herself not to turn on her heel and run away. Earl would never hurt her, of course, but Glenda was another story.
With a flourish worthy of Ralph Lauren at the beginning of a fashion show, Earl flung open the metal door, yelling, “Ta da!”
The lighting was dim, provided by a single Coleman lantern, but Skye could make out a children’s inflatable pool filled with watery mud resting on a rough plywood floor. Off to the side was a pile of thin, gray-white towels and an eight-track player on an old plastic picnic table.
Glenda finally caught up with them, having been hampered by her four-inch heels sinking into the lawn, and declared breathlessly, “See. We mighten have snazzy tile floors and deluxe marble tubs, but we got everything they got that’s important. Even music.”
“Yes, you do.” Skye nodded and stepped away, determined to make it back to the car without ending up in the pool of mud. “I can see you’ve worked really hard.” As she hurried across the yard, she asked over her shoulder, “Has anyone taken one of your mud baths yet?”
Earl trotted up to her and undid the gate’s latch. “Nah. We can’t figure out why nobody wants to give it a whirl.”
“Well,” Skye shrugged, relieved to be on the other side of the fence, “you know what they say. You can lead a horse to water—”
Earl interrupted her, “But how?”
She shrugged again. “That’s a good question.” She kept on walking until she arrived at her Civic. She was anxious to leave, but had one last thing to take care of. “I saw Elvis working at the spa. Did he get a job with a construction company?”
“Not full-time. They just calls him when they needs him.”
“Oh. Uh, did he mention liking a girl who works at the spa?” Skye had no idea where she was going with this, but the train had left the station and she was on board—with or without a ticket.
“Yeah, name of Amber.” Earl wrinkled his brow. “What you gettin’ at, Miz Skye?”
“Well, she’s a lot older than Elvis, at least five or six years, and she’s sort of, uh …” Skye couldn’t exactly come out and say that Amber was richer, more sophisticated, and smarter.
“Ain’t she good enough for Elvis?”
“That’s not it. It’s just that… you know how the city folks come out here to hunt, but they just leave the animal they shot. They don’t skin it or dress the meat. They only do it for the thrill of the pursuit, not to take it home to eat. Understand?”
Earl’s gaze went flat. “You’re sayin’ this girl is playin’ with Elvis and she’s goin’ break his heart?�
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Skye nodded. “That would be my guess.”
“Gotcha. I’ll talk to Elvis tonight.”
“Good.” Skye put her hand on the car door handle, ready to make her escape.
But Earl said, “Before you go, could you look at somethin’ for me?”
Skye glanced longingly at the driver’s seat, so close yet so far, then said, “What’s that, Earl? I really don’t know much about the spa business.”
“This is for school.” Earl dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. “Junior and Cletus missed school on Monday, and when they went back on Tuesday they were told they need a written excuse. I been workin’ on it all weekend, but I’m not much on writin’, so would you look at it and see if it’s okay?”
“Sure.” Skye held out her hand. “Let me see it.”
Earl smoothed out the blue-lined notebook paper and handed it to Skye.
She read:
Deer Techer,
Please exkuse Junior and Cletus for missing skool. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday and went back to bed.
Earl Doozier
Skye bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling, but quickly sobered when she saw Earl’s serious expression. Should she let the boys turn in this excuse, or was there a way to write one for Earl without insulting him?
Before she could come up with a graceful way to suggest he let her write the note, Earl said, “You know, if you don’t mind, Miz Skye, it might be best if you just wrote it and let me sign the paper. After all, I don’t want to embarrass the boys.”
“I don’t mind at all.” Skye whipped out a pad of paper from her purse. “I’m sure your note would be fine, but better safe than—”
Earl interrupted her again, “Than punched in the nose.”
Skye nodded, wrote the note, then made her escape, knowing she had learned something important, but unable to put her finger on what it was.
CHAPTER 20
Pour Body Oil on Troubled Waters
Murder of a Botoxed Blonde Page 18
