Wash, Rinse, Die: Cozy Mystery (The Teasen & Pleasen Hair Salon Cozy Mystery Series Book 2)

by Constance Barker

  “No. The thing is, the police are saying she was murdered. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense. She was poisoned and it was deliberate, but I don’t think she was supposed to be the victim.”

  Dawn put her mug down. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why not? And I’ll even go for the extra, optional question: Then whom?”

  “Because of the timing as much as anything. Even if this girl has enemies in Knockemstiff no one knew she was going to get her hair colored except for the people who were in the salon when she made her appointment. Anyone intending to kill her would have to have overheard that and acted quickly. They wouldn’t have time to find a poison and get it in the salon.”

  “And that involves me because…?”

  “Because she came in at the same time you were scheduled to have yours done. And because the yellow dye, your color, was poisoned. The whole universe knows you get your hair done every month and the gossip mill ran full tilt about it being moved back one day. If someone intended to kill you, they could’ve been planning this for some time.”

  She laughed, almost spitting her coffee. “Planning to kill me? Who would do that and why?”

  “Well, at least one wife might have a motive.”

  “Hildegarde?” She sneered. “I thought her weapon of choice was a chainsaw, not poison.”

  She was right about that. “Poisoning doesn’t seem her style but she certainly bears a grudge.”

  “She put Burl on a tight leash. I’d imagine he can barely breathe, much less sneak around on her. And if she was going to kill me for messing with him, wouldn’t she have done it long ago?”

  I thought she was taking the idea a bit cavalierly. “Maybe she thinks by waiting people wouldn’t suspect her. Or maybe she has reason to think Burl is getting off that lead.”

  She gave me an evil grin. “There are other men around that aren’t so closely watched.”

  I wondered who she had in mind. Given her preference for older men and that she didn’t mind them being married, lots of possibilities came to mind, including Mel Krisller, her newest client. I didn’t know him well, but his flirting might suggest something more went on.

  “It wouldn’t have to be Hildegarde, I suppose. I hope she isn’t a killer. But if not… Can you think of a reason someone might want to kill you? Anyone?”

  That amused her. “I’d bet it would be hard to find someone who didn’t have enemies. Whether or not they’d kill, well when you consider that people get killed for motives that aren’t even real, or over something you and I wouldn’t think serious enough to kill over, it’s hard to say. Road rage happens you know.”

  “This was coldly calculated. It took planning and preparation. It wasn’t a rage killing or spontaneous. They used my salon as their murder weapon.”

  She shook her head. “I think your theory is wrong. I’ll bet that the police will figure this out quickly. But I appreciate your concern.”

  I finished my coffee and stood. I didn’t think she was telling me everything, in fact she hadn’t told me much at all, except that officially the affair with Burl Botowski was history. I hadn’t expected her to spill the beans, although I’d hoped she might gloat about something or accidentally let out some information that would give me a clue to who might gunning for her, because despite her cheerful dismissal of the idea, I was convinced that Dawn had been the intended victim. But why?

  She handed me the plate of cookies. “I think a certain six year old will make better use of these than I will. Thanks for the thought though.”

  I carried my rejected offering of cookies and my unresolved concerns down the sidewalk and headed home. Maybe peanut butter and oatmeal cookies could be construed to be health food. I’d leave that to my spin doctor, Sarah Jameson.

  * * *

  Sarah was right that I didn’t feel much like cooking when I got home. I really wasn’t willing to settle for peanut butter and oatmeal as constituting a balanced meal either, however. I was new to the idea of playing parent to a precocious six-and-some-percentage year old kid and still working a lot out. When you are temporary custodian you tread carefully, maybe even more carefully than the actual parents do.

  Sarah was unsure of my decision-making ability however. “What if I said the cookies I already ate ruined my appetite and I just wanted seconds?”

  “Doesn’t fly with me.”

  “You aren’t thinking of fixing a salad are you?” The look of horror on her face was amusing.

  But I had an idea that I knew she’d go for. “I was thinking we might feed Fin and then wander down to the Bacon Up.”

  She wiggled happily. “And the open mic after?”

  “Sorry. I think you are a little young to go to an open mic in a tavern.”

  “They serve beer at the Bacon Up.”

  “But at the open mic you’d have to listen to the Bald Eagle’s bad jokes.”

  “That’s okay. Sometimes they are funny.”

  “They aren’t always child friendly. No you’ll have to settle for dinner and then we’ll come home and watch television.”

  She chewed on the idea for a time before deciding that anything that distanced her from one of my salads was a noble compromise. It was a lovely evening stroll. “Pretty soon we are going to need to bring sweaters when we go out in the evening.”

  “We could drive,” she said. “The car has a heater.”

  “Walking is good for us. Besides, you don’t like my driving.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “You always complain about it.”

  “I think there’s room for improvement,” she said. “You tend to lose focus.”

  I didn’t want to think about what a six-year old knew about focus. At her age I was the poster child for unfocused. My brain wandered everywhere. Still does, I guess. What’s good about my work is that once you get the techniques down, it’s mostly routine and I don’t have to focus on anything but my thoughts.

  “Like now.”

  “What?”

  Sarah took my hand. “You are listening to voices in your head and about to step off the curb,” she said.

  There was something to her observation. My tendency is to pick at the loose threads of thoughts and ideas, tug at them like bits of yarn and try to untangle them, or at least see what sort of pattern they make. Pick your own metaphor.

  When we got to the Bacon Up the pre-open mic crowd was there. If the Knockemback Tavern ever realized how much business they were losing by not having decent food, Claude might be in trouble, but as it was, Thursdays were one of his busiest nights.

  Both Laura and Margie were working, and redhead Laura had our table. Sarah scrutinized her. “Hello. I’m Sarah Jameson. You must be new.”

  She grinned. “I am. I’m Laura O’Finnegan.”

  Sarah’s ears perked up. “Are you related to our dog. His name is Finnegan.”

  “It’s a popular Irish name,” she said, amused.

  “Are you Irish?”

  “I’m American. My parents were Irish.”

  “Irish-American.”

  “And then what are you?”

  “A big, messy mix, according to Mommy. ‘Heinz fifty seven varieties,’ she always says.”

  “Ah. Indigenous ketchup then.”

  Suddenly Laura O’Finnegan had won Sarah’s heart. “Perfect,” she said. “I’m one-hundred percent indigenous ketchup.”

  We ordered the inevitable bacon cheeseburgers, with onion rings, a coke for Sarah, and a beer for me. And Sarah ordered indigenous ketchup on her burger.

  “There’s Pete,” Sarah said. “Who is the guy?”

  I looked where she was looking and saw them in a booth. “That’s Leander. I don’t know his last name, but he’ll be playing at the open mic tonight.”

  “What does he play?”

  “Guitar. Blues.”

  Sarah’s eyes got wide. “Does he do any Brownie McGhee songs?”

  “I have no idea who that even is.”

  “You’ve never heard of Brownie Mc
Ghee and Sonny Terry?”

  “Afraid not.”

  She shook her head. “Are you sure we can’t go to open mic?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then can I at least go ask him if he plays Brownie tunes?”

  “As long as you are polite about it and come right back.”

  My beer and her coke arrived. Sarah took a sip and then dashed over to their table. I watched as she said hello to Pete, allowed him to introduce her to Leander. I couldn’t hear any words but as soon as she asked her question, Leander showed some surprise and then the two of them launched into an animated conversation. I let it run for a time, but then Laura brought our food and I went over to bring her back to this planet.

  “He not only plays Brownie, but he does Blind Boy Fuller AND Blind Lemon Jefferson,” she told me excitedly.

  “I’m sure that’s wonderful,” I said.

  “You do ‘Weeping Willow’?” she asked him.

  “Of course.”

  “Before you get too engrossed in your new world of blues groupie, we have a meal getting cold on our table.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’m sorry we butted in,” I told them.

  Leander grinned. “It’s the price a blues bum has to pay. She’s delightful and she knows her music.”

  Back at the table I wasn’t totally forgiven for interrupting her conversation. “I want to hear him play.”

  “I’ll find out if he is playing at some venue that is more appropriate for a third grade fan.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Pete likes him a lot,” she said.

  “You think so?”

  “Haven’t you seen the look on his face when he looks at Leander? When you look at someone like that it means you like them.”

  I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. It was hard to know how much a kid of any age actually knew in these modern times. I was pretty sure she meant exactly what she said — that she saw that Pete was enamored of Leander. I was pretty sure Leander was well aware of how Pete looked at him, and didn’t mind in the least.

  “Pete needs more friends,” I said finally. “I’m glad they like each other.”

  Sarah bit into her cheeseburger. “Should we order an extra burger?”

  “What for? Are you that hungry?”

  “I’m hungry enough that I’ll eat every bite of this, but then we wouldn’t have anything to put in a doggy bag, and we can’t go home smelling of bacon cheeseburger and tell Fin we didn’t bring a doggy bag.”

  “That could be difficult to explain.”

  “Impossible. We need to have Laura O’Finnegan get us a plain bacon cheeseburger for Finnegan.”

  “You win,” I told her, and then, “Don’t laugh with your mouth full.”

  Sitting across from Sarah I was so happy she was in my life right now. Finnegan too. I was getting used to having them both as part of my world and I wondered what would happen when Bee and Lester Jameson came back from New Orleans.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah asked suddenly. “You were frowning.”

  “I guess I was borrowing trouble from the future.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I was little my daddy always said that if you found yourself thinking about things that might happen, things you’d rather didn’t happen, it must mean things were pretty good right now — you didn’t have enough trouble right now to keep you busy and you had to borrow it from the future.”

  She grinned. “Like if I were thinking about something going wrong at school tomorrow instead of enjoying my bacon cheeseburger now.”

  “Exactly that.”

  She picked up an onion ring. “Is your daddy still around?”

  “No. Unfortunately he died a few years ago. Why?”

  She chomped down on the crispy shell of the onion ring then wiped her lips with a napkin. “Because I think I’d like him.”

  “I know you would’ve.” In fact I was pretty sure those two would’ve been fast friends.

  · CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next day was Friday. It was a long, empty Friday. After all the hubub on Thursday we all sort of crashed, emotionally exhausted. The salon was still closed and despite spending the day gardening I still didn’t feel much more chipper. The work did, however, go some way toward making my yard look cared for, if not loved.

  The highlight of the day was getting out of my gardening clothes, taking a shower and then walking an excited Fin to the school to get Sarah. We came home and made pizza.

  When Sarah settled down to do her homework, I set off for what I expected to be the lowest point of the dreary day — I went to a seance. I’m not big on that sort of thing under any circumstance. I’ll admit that Selina’s boisterous confidence in her command of the supernatural puts me off more than a little, but I’d agreed to go. Some of the others were curious to see how it went and you never knew what other interesting things might come up.

  I doubted we’d get anything admissible in a court of law.

  Betina and Pete got there ahead of me and they were both impressed by the setup at Selina’s house. Ornate tapestries hung over her windows; the lights were off and the room was illuminated by the shadowy light from a vast array of candles dotting the room. There were all sorts of them, ranging from votive candles to huge ones. Sandalwood incense burning in metal dishes and that was augmented by bundles of what I took to be sage and other herbs added to the smoke from the candles to make the air heavy.

  “She takes this all very seriously,” Pete said in hushed tones.

  “It’s pretty over the top.” Betina said. “Who needs herbs and incense. Am I right?”

  As we took it all in, Selina took our attention to the details as showing interest. She beamed. "The mood needs to be right. I wanted to do everything I could. The stronger the belief, the better the results.”

  “You are sure right about the mood,” Nellie said coming in with a shopping bag. “I brought mood enhancer.”

  I went over to her. “Great. I could use a drink.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “What’s this?” Selina demanded. “I told you I provide everything.”

  “I brought popcorn.”

  “Popcorn?”

  “I thought you’d forget the popcorn so I brought enough for everyone.” Selina scowled as Nellie passed out individual paper bags of the stuff.

  I took one. “A tall glass of Bayou Shine would do a lot more for my mood than popcorn.”

  “Later,” she said, hefting her purse to let me know she was thoroughly prepared.

  Selina stared balefully at the bag in her hand. She took a piece of popcorn out and ate it. “This isn't a party.”

  I found that an interesting statement. “Why not?” I asked. “You invite people over, and spirits too, I might add, and it’s not a party? What kind of hostess are you?”

  “This is serious.”

  That gave Nellie her opening. “Some of us take partying very seriously. And why can't an evening spent summoning spirits be festive and entertaining? If I was a spirit and you wanted to summon me you’d need popcorn.” Nellie stuck her chin out at Selina, giving her a fierce glare. “Are you going to try and tell me that there’s some spirit bias against popcorn? Is the spirit afraid to show herself when the living eat a little snack? I even used garlic butter."

  “I don’t suppose…” Selina began.

  “This is good," Pete announced with his mouth full. “Garlic butter. I’ll have to remember that."

  “Just add garlic powder to the melted butter." Nellie explained. “Don’t use garlic salt."

  “A tiny bit of cayenne can be good in it too,” I added. “Gives it some snap.”

  “Great!” Pete was scribbling down Nellie's culinary wisdom on a piece of the paper bag he’d torn off. By then everyone was munching the popcorn, even Selina.

  “Please finish your popcorn before we start. There will be no eating popcorn at m
y table." Selina was firm and I could see why when I looked at her dining table. She’d covered it with an ornate tablecloth, rich in golds and reds and blues. In the center of it a crystal ball sat on a stand.

  “I get that. You don’t want grease stains on that tablecloth. Where did it come from? You didn’t buy that in town.”

  “As a matter of fact, I brought it back from a trip to Lebanon."

  That surprised me. Few people in town go overseas without making a big deal about it. ”You went to the Middle East? How long were you there?”

  She scrunched up her face. “No, in Lebanon, Tennessee. I found it at the Pier One store there when I was taking a course in Tarot reading.”

  “Oh.”

  “So are we going to chat with the spirits or stand around all night?” Nellie asked.

  Selina went to a closet and came back to hand out wet wipes. I gave her a questioning glance. “When we hold hands to form the magic circle, no one will want butter smeared all over their fingers."

  “Doesn’t having buttery hands make singing Kumbaya more palatable." I couldn't resist.

  She glared at me. “There won’t be any singing.”

  Nellie didn’t much care for all the rules. “So if the spirit starts to sing are you going to make her shut up?” Selina tried to think of an answer. “No, I didn’t think so. The truth is you don’t know if there will be singing or not, Selina. Heck, an hour ago you didn’t know there would be popcorn.”

  “She has a point,” Betina said. “You didn’t think there would be popcorn and yet here it is.”

  Selina went to the table wiping her hands with the wet wipe. “Why don’t we get started. I, for one, want to see if we can find some answers from the other side. Isn’t that why ya’ll came?”

  Mostly it was, and I’d take answers wherever they came from, although I was sure that those from dead people needed to be taken with a grain of salt.

  So we sat around the ornate table and I found myself at a seance for the first time.

  As lavish as the setting was, I’ll give Selina points for keeping the event itself understated. There was no table tipping, no cold drafts crossing over us, no windows suddenly opening. Selina picked up the crystal ball, which I’m sure was plastic, and held it in both hands. Her eyes glazed over and she began making some rambling comments about hoping the spirits would be helpful and kind, totally leaving out trustworthy and brave, which I would’ve insisted on. Then she put the plastic (crystal) ball down and insisted we all hold hands. “To combine our energies,” she said.