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

by Constance Barker

  “I’m sorry to ruin your morning, Ma’am,” Woodley said, being all formal. “I just thought that since I’m in town for a spell I might as well do my job and catch a murderer.”

  She held the door open and we walked in. “Is sarcasm a required course at the cop school or an elective?”

  “The core curriculum,” he said. “But don’t worry; I have just a few questions and I won’t take up a lot of your time.”

  “I thought you already had the killer in custody.”

  “We have a person of interest.”

  “But you don’t suspect her any more?”

  “I suspect I still have some questions that need better answers.”

  The mess on Dawn’s dining table looked about the same as it had the last time I’d been there. I saw the name of Mel’s dealership on some of the top pages before Dawn flipped them over. “Don’t pry,” she said. “I don’t let anyone see your accounts, Savannah.”

  “Sorry.” I wasn't.

  She looked at Woodley. “So you are here to annoy me and remind yourself that I know nothing about the murder. I get that, but Savannah is here because…?”

  “I asked her to come along because she knows a lot about the people and events. She is helping piece things together, determining if it all fits.”

  “So she gets points for being a busy body?”

  “Something like that.”

  She indicated that we sit on the couch and she sat on a chaise lounge that faced it. “I’d offer you some coffee, but that might encourage you to stay longer than necessary.”

  “You had an affair with Burl Botowski, didn’t you?”

  “I think everyone in town knows that by now.” She sneered at Woodley. “I can thank the officers in law enforcement for giving the entire world the heads up on that.”

  “We never said who he was in a relationship with.”

  Of course that was because they hadn’t known. “Hildegarde made Burl tell her,” I said.

  She cocked her head. “True, I suppose.”

  “Are you still in a relationship with him?”

  “No way. That ended when his wife found out. It went hard on the rocks.”

  “Who ended it?”

  Dawn smiled. “His wife did. But I know what you are asking. When it was clear that her knowing meant nothing to him except that she’d be watching him, I moved on.”

  “So you didn't mind it ending?”

  “Not really. It had been fun, but wasn't that serious. I didn't ask Burl to leave her for me, if that’s what you are wondering. I didn’t think he would and I didn't expect or want him to. It was fun. But when she learned about it, I decided that I didn’t need the complication of carrying on with him while she tried to keep close watch. Burl is okay, but he wasn’t worth dealing with that.”

  “How did he react?”

  She cocked her head. “I didn’t talk to him about it. Hildegarde had him under house arrest. What was the point? I figured that me not calling would give him the message.”

  “So you didn’t go to Paudy with Burl a few days ago?”

  “To Paudy? With Burl?” She laughed. “I haven’t gone anywhere with him. Not since long before the crazy days around Annie’s murder.”

  Woodley nodded. “A few days ago you were seen in Paudy. You were getting out of the green Ford that Burl has parked in front of his store.”

  She chuckled. “Burl is color blind. When Mel first took it in trade he didn’t realize how ugly it was. Once people started teasing him about it, he felt he had to get rid of it. So Mel sold it to Burl at a loss, he said. He didn’t want that ugly piece of garbage on his lot if he could help it. He was ready to do anything to keep from having to give Burl his money back.”

  “How did you wind up in it in Paudy?”

  She waved her hand over the normal clutter of accounting ledgers and paperwork covering her table. “Work. I finished up Mel’s books and when I took them to him, he asked me to go to lunch. I told him that I needed to go to Paudy and he offered to drive me. He said he had to make a test drive anyway and he figured that would be a long enough drive to show up any problems with the car. It’s an awful car, but it seemed to run okay.”

  “Where did you go in Paudy?”

  “To my client.”

  “The Bright Motel?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Your eye witness was paying close attention. Yes.”

  “So the man you were with was Mel Krisller.”

  “That’s what I said. I was with Mel in Burl’s car.” Then she laughed. “Wow. Since we were seen together I bet we started some metal melting gossip. Do I have to worry about Tina Krisller coming after me too now?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “She seems rather oblivious.”

  “That’s a relief. And she has no reason to worry. Not about me. She might want to check out Laura O'Finnegan though.”

  “So why did you go to the store?” I asked. “If you've given him the heave ho...”

  She hesitated. “When we broke up he called me a few times. He wasn't taking it well. After Hildy got arrested he seemed to think that changed things. He thought that made him seem available. He started calling to tell me he wanted to get back together, that he missed me. ‘Like life itself’ were his words. I told him to shove it.” She looked at me. “I think you overheard me in the store when I told him it was history.”

  “And not to call about Billy.”

  “Yeah. I made that up about him recommending Billy. At the time I didn't want you to know what I meant.”

  Woodley was trying to keep up. “So you weren’t encouraging him?”

  She glared at him. “Pay attention. I had moved on. Even if I had still been seriously interested in him before, I had zero interest in sneaking around with Hildegarde on guard. Once I made the break, I moved on. I wasn't going back to him and all that nonsense of his. He was still married after all.”

  Woodley made some notes in his little spiral notebook. I noticed he was still using the Teasen and Pleasen pen I’d given him. “When did Burl first call and tell you he wanted to get back together?”

  She shrugged. “Annoyingly, several times. He got pretty angry about it.”

  Woodley was sorting out his timeline. “Was this before the girl was killed?”

  She rolled her eyes back, trying to recall. “A couple of days before that he called and said that Hildegarde wasn’t being so watchful and we could meet. I told him to take a hike.”

  “How did he take that?”

  “He wanted to know who I was seeing as if that was any of his business. He said he’d seen me at Mel’s when he was doing the paperwork to buy that stupid car. He was at it again at the Tavern.”

  “What night was that?”

  She thought. “It was Tuesday… the day before the killing. I dropped in because that guy who plays the blues was going to be there. Pete said if he drew a crowd he might get a regular gig there.”

  “And Burl was angry.”

  “I was sitting with Mel and Tina. Burl and Hildegarde were at the bar with Pete and some others. Mel was flirting with me like he does, it's more of a reflex than anything else. He knows I'm not interested. When I went to the bathroom, Burl grabbed my arm and said that if I could get cozy with Mel then there was no reason we couldn’t get back together. I reminded him that Mel’s dealership was a client, but he…” Then she paled slightly. “If he thought I was getting it on with Mel…”

  I couldn’t resist finishing the sentence for her. “…he might have been trying to kill you when he accidentally killed Esther Evans.”

  For the first time, Dawn seemed to accept the idea that her life might have been in danger and she didn’t like that. Not at all.

  “He’d kill me because he couldn’t have me? That’s stupid. Even for Burl that would be dumb.”

  Woodley shrugged. “It’s a time-honored motive, whether it makes sense or not. We certainly can’t find any reason, even one like that for anyone to kill Esther. Her boyfriend
was shattered at her death. She was well liked, didn’t owe anyone money, or have any secret life that we could uncover. Even if there was a secret to kill her over, no one in Delhi seemed to be aware that she was in Knockemstiff, much less that she was having her hair colored at ten in the morning on that Wednesday.”

  “Or anywhere else,” I added. “She was acting more on impulse and the coloring was to be a surprise for her boyfriend.”

  Dawn mulled it over. “I don’t see Burl trying to kill me. Especially not that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First, I remember that when I told him we were through, even though he thought there was someone else, I got the impression he wasn’t done trying. He thought he’d be able to convince me to go back to him sooner or later. I’m sure of that. As long as he felt he had a chance, killing me wouldn’t make sense.”

  “She has a point,” I said.

  “Assuming he thought that way.”

  The other point interested me more. “Why don’t you think he would have killed you that way?”

  She smiled. “Before things changed, before the missus got put on alert, I’d told him I was planning to change my hair color. I told him that I was going to have it done red, like Betina’s hair.”

  “I remember you talking to her about doing that,” I said. I looked at Woodley. “That was a few weeks back.”

  “Right,” Dawn said. “I was still intending to do it then — get it a bright red with some gold highlights.”

  “That sounds like it would be gorgeous on you,” I said. “Why didn’t you do it?”

  She grinned. “Just before I made this trip, back in Delhi, I met a gentleman who made it clear he prefers blondes.”

  “Betina will be crushed.”

  “I won’t tell her.”

  Woodley flipped through his notebook. “And that means you think Burl thought you’d be using red dye, not the yellow.”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “Exactly. See, I had made a big point of telling Burl I was going to change to red, so he wouldn’t poison the yellow if he intended to kill me.”

  That seemed reasonable. “Unless the killer was someone who didn’t know about your reddish intentions,” Woodley pointed out.

  “I guess.”

  “And only if he actually heard and remembered you.”

  “What?”

  “How often does he notice, did he notice, when you got your hair done?”

  She hung her head for a moment. “Good point.” She sighed. “Men.”

  * * *

  We left a somewhat more somber Dawn to get back to her accounting. Woodley drove me to the salon. Nellie would be wondering where I was.

  “I enjoyed the picnic, yesterday,” I told him.

  “Even though we wound up talking nothing but the murder?”

  “Even though. It’s as hard for me to let go of a puzzle like that as for you.”

  “So, I’ve noticed.” I could’ve sworn there was a sparkle in his eyes. “You still think we don’t have the right person in jail.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No. I think it might be worth talking to Burl about some particulars.”

  “It wasn’t a crime of passion.”

  It came to me then. “James, we’ve been thinking about this all wrong.”

  He pulled the car over, put it in park and turned toward me. “Okay, you have my complete attention. Explain that.”

  “We are making far too many assumptions about what the killer did and didn’t know. I’ve been in the middle of the flow of information and I let it confuse me. I mean, we are working on the basis of thinking the killer knew details about who was getting their hair done and when, and about the changes, Esther coming in… so many things.”

  “Well…”

  “I talked about liking puzzles. When I was a little girl I loved jigsaw puzzles — the harder the better. I used to drive daddy nuts because he’d get me a puzzle and I’d put it together too quick and want another one.”

  “I can see that.”

  “So one day he gave me a puzzle that seemed impossible. You know how you put the top of the box where you can see it because that’s what it’s supposed to look like when you are done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well I had pieces in that puzzle that just didn’t seem to make any sense. Like why someone would want to kill Esther, or Dawn, for that matter. It doesn’t match up.”

  “How did you solve it?”

  “It took me several hours, but I finally figured out that my daddy had put in pieces from another puzzle. When I got suspicious, I counted them. The box said there were 1500 pieces and I had 1750. Then I sorted them, tossing the suspicious ones in a pile. Once I got past the idea that every piece had to go somewhere, I finished the fool thing.”

  “And your daddy?”

  “Was pleased as punch. He said I probably learned more from that little exercise than I would’ve doing a thousand puzzles. I think he was right. It taught me that the game isn’t always exactly what you think it is. Even though I did more complex puzzles later, that was the only one I was really proud of solving.”

  “So you think we need to throw some pieces of this puzzle away?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And how do we know which pieces to toss out?”

  “We take the ones that only someone who hung around the salon would know and put them in the suspicious pile.”

  “Like?”

  “Like Dawn cancelling her appointment.”

  “Well, we assumed that one when we decided she might be the intended victim.”

  “Right. And how about knowing whether Esther would get a tint or dye? What if we assume that the killer wouldn’t know anything but the color?”

  “Okay. I don’t see what that does for us.”

  “We are just sorting pieces here, not solving the puzzle yet — but that’s one piece we can put aside for now. Remember that we aren’t throwing the pieces out, just setting them aside because we don’t think they belong in this puzzle.”

  “Fair enough. This is your game we are playing.”

  “And let’s assume that the killer doesn’t have access to the appointment book.”

  “That’s consistent.”

  “That would mean…”

  “What? I know that look.”

  “I know who did it. I know who the killer is and who the victim was supposed to be.”

  “How nice for you. Do you mind sharing?”

  “Not at all.”

  When I did, James Woodley let out a whistle. “Too obvious to see.”

  I smiled at that. “The Purloined Letter.”

  “If it hadn’t been for all the silly little things… but then, that’s often the way cases unfold. You spend at least half the time eliminating irrelevancies that cloud the real facts.”

  “So now what?”

  “I’m sure your conclusion is right. I think we need to set up a situation so that the killer has a chance to confess.”

  “Now I’ll be interested in seeing how you do that.”

  “Me? No, you are going to do it.”

  “Swing by the salon so I can get Nellie to cover my appointments.” I wasn’t going to miss this for the world.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When we got to the hardware store it was open. Woodley and I stopped outside the door and stared at the iridescent lime-green Ford Fusion parked there. “The first step is to verify a few things,” Woodley said. “We don’t know for certain that Dawn was entirely truthful with us.”

  “We certainly do know that everyone was truthful and accurate about the ugliness of this car.”

  “That doesn’t help much.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to get external confirmation of her story.”

  “And we do that by…”

  “If we ask the questions in the right way we can kind of push his thinking in the direction we want it to go, help him jump to the right conclusions.”

  Woodley scowled.
“I have a question for you… How long have you worked for the CIA as an interrogator?”

  “Just for the last five years or so. And only part time. I don’t get benefits.”

  “I thought so.”

  Burl looked up as we came in and gave us a welcoming smile. “Good morning. What can I do for you?”

  I thought he seemed rather cheerful for a man whose wife was being charged with murder, but then the day it happened it hadn’t fazed him at all. Woodley’s face didn’t tell me anything about what he thought. It never did. He went up to the counter. “I was hoping you might answer a few questions for me.”

  “Sure. I would’ve thought you folks had asked about every conceivable question by now, but go ahead. Knock yourself out.”

  “I was wondering if you’d been in Paudy recently, Burl?”

  “Me? No. They have a big chain hardware store. I can’t make any sales to folks there — I can’t compete with their prices, so I don’t deliver there.”

  “I was thinking more about going there on personal business.”

  He shook his head. “No. I haven’t been there since… well, I took Hildegarde to dinner at that French restaurant, le something or other, but that was back a while ago.”

  “When you were trying to get back on her good side?”

  He managed an embarrassed grin. “Yeah. She expected me to court her a little. A lot really.”

  “But you used to go once in awhile with Dawn?” I asked.

  He grimaced. “Yes.”

  “It seemed that your car was seen in Paudy a few days ago.”

  The effort of considering that twisted his face even more. I thought he wasn’t finding answering our questions as much fun as he’d thought he would. “Well, I wasn’t there. You know I left it with Mel Krisller for a couple of days. Maybe he drove over there. I told him it was a lemon and he said he’d test drive it.”

  “It looks more like an ugly lime,” I said.

  “He promised that he’d drive it around for awhile and see if he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Maybe he drove it to Paudy.”

  “With Dawn?”

  That got his attention. “She was with him?”

  Woodley pretended to consult his notebook. I looked over his shoulder. The page said: “Don’t forget dry cleaning.” His handwriting was terrible. He looked at Burl. “She was seen getting out of the car in Paudy and going into a motel with a man.”