Gia flicked her hand. "That's debatable, which brings me back to the guy. I meant someone on the right side of the law, like Donatello."
"That could get him fired," Amy exclaimed. "As a police officer, your boyfriend can't get involved in your contract dispute."
"Au contraire, mon Amy." Gia's accent wasn't French, but pure children's taunt. "Right after we moved in, Detective Ohlsen told Cassidi that the police wanted Vinnie's room to stay intact until his murder was solved."
I stared at my cousin, incredulous that a constructive idea had come from her Operation Goldfinger meeting. "That's true. And if Donatello tells Harriet that the room is still a crime scene, she'll have to stay away."
"Away from his room." Amy's eyes took on a lascivious gleam. "But not the sexy brothel stuff."
"Precisely." Gia moved to sit on her hot-panted haunches. "And seeing George this morning gave me an idea. I called Finials and Facades Renovation and Restoration Services and asked Alex Jordan to give us an estimate for renovations."
"What?" I was so upset I rose from the table. "I can't afford that. You have to cancel."
"Then how do you plan to get rid of Harriet?"
"I was thinking we could take down the picture, the old wooden Bottoms Up placard above the bar, and the gilt mirror on the ceiling and just leave the holes in the sheetrock for a while."
"What about the bedroom sinks?" Amy asked. "You can't take those out without sealing the pipes."
"I'll padlock all the rooms, not just Uncle Vinnie's."
Gia finished off her vodka. "That whack job will bring metal cutters. I guarantee it."
"It's our only option. The salon is losing money, and I just used my tax return to pay the tuition balance for my final semester of college. There's no way I can afford renovations."
"You can't afford not to afford them. Either Harriet goes, or The Clip and Sip does." She deposited her shot glass on the table. "I've got five thousand dollars put aside that we can use as a down payment."
I leaned against the kitchen counter, stunned by the offer. For one thing, Gia wasn't a blood relative, so Uncle Vinnie had left me his entire inheritance. And for another, she hadn't exactly struck me as a saver. "Why would you invest in the salon?"
She shrugged. "So I can get something out of it."
With Gia, that went without saying. "I take it you don't just mean income?"
"I want the tower room for Mad Makeup." She held up a hand to stop me from speaking. "Dream with me for a moment. I put a makeup chair in the center of the room and have circular floor cabinets installed to display my products and store my inventory. And you use my current station for manicures."
I bit my thumbnail. The third-floor tower was wasted space, and a manicurist, not to mention free staff manicures, would be amazing. But Gia's dream was a pipedream given our financial situation. "The tower would need a heating upgrade on top of your renovations. We're looking at twenty grand minimum, and I don't have the other fifteen."
Amy snapped her fingers. "You could take out a small business loan and use Vinnie's old Ferrari as collateral."
"Or"—I returned to the table—"I could sell the Ferrari and use the money for the renovation and a practical car."
Gia doubled over and made a spitting-hacking sound.
"Are you okay?" Amy patted her back.
"Relax," I said. "She's just choking on the word practical."
Gia straightened and hiked up her top. "Let's not do anything puhrack—I mean, drastic—just yet. There's always Vinnie's eight hundred grand."
I gave her a look. "If I had a dollar for every time you mentioned his missing money, we would already have eight hundred grand."
"We know he stashed it in the house the week before he died, so it's here somewhere. And if we do the renovations, it could turn up." She reached for my hand. "Good things are going to happen—I can sense it. And you know I'm kind of psychic."
Psychotic was more like it.
The salon bell rang.
"Darn it, I forgot to lock up." I stood and walked toward the waiting room. And when I saw the town gossip, Donna Bocca, with a copy of the newspaper, I had even more reason to doubt my cousin's pseudo-psychic prophecy.
Gia strutted into the room. "What do you want, Woman Mouth?"
Donna's wide nostrils flared at the translation of her Italian name. "I thought you two would want to see the evening edition of the Cove Chronicles."
Amy entered and pushed up her glasses. "There isn't an evening edition."
"Sometimes a special edition comes out." Donna's mustache curled. "Like when a big news story breaks."
I sunk into the chair at my station. I'd already gathered that the story would somehow involve the salon.
"Give me that rag." Gia snatched the paper.
Donna sniffed and shoved her hands into her brown woolly coat. "I'll spare you the trouble of having to read. The charges against Jesse Rothman have been dropped on a technicality. He's getting out of jail."
That was a big story, one that made my stomach quease.
Because Jesse Rothman had killed a man. And thanks to reporter Duncan Pickles, it was common knowledge in the Cove that Jesse and my Uncle Vinnie had done at least one illegal business deal.
CHAPTER TWO
"Your uncle sold Jesse Rothman counterfeit Viagra." Zac's voice and the sound of his Jeep engine projected from the phone resting on the pedestal sink in my bathroom. "What's the big concern?"
I placed my morning triple espresso beside my makeup bag. "I know Jesse has no reason to come after me or the salon, but I feel this sense of dread that I can't shake."
"It's those tours. They're getting to you."
"I know, and that's why I'm going ahead with the renovations Gia suggested. Alex Jordan is on her way over."
"How are you going to pay for that?"
I brushed blush onto my paler-than-usual cheeks. "By selling the Ferrari."
"That's a drag."
"Tell me about it. When life blows up in your face, a drive along the coast in a fabulous Italian sports car helps take away the pain."
"Look at it this way—the last time you sold something of Vinnie's was when we met."
The mirror reflected the semi-smile that the memory brought to my lips—semi because it was tempered by Sexy Sadie, my uncle's tacky statue that Tucker Sloan hired Zac to help him move to his antique store, One Man's Trash. "Maybe you and Gia are right. Something positive could be on the road ahead—like a new boyfriend."
"Over my dead body." The engine went silent, signaling his arrival at work. "I'm sorry. That wasn't the best choice of phrase."
Death was a dicey subject at The Clip and Sip.
He cleared his throat. "I was thinking more along the lines of your money problems disappearing."
The brothel relics would go away, but I wasn't so sure about Harriet, which meant that we would continue to lose clients, renovations or no. Still, I wanted to be optimistic for Zac. "Here's to both of our money problems disappearing. That reminds me, what's new on the treasure hunt front?"
"It's been suspended."
I sat on the side of the claw-foot tub. "How come?"
"Clark's ready to retire, and he wants to see how much he can get from the sale of Pirate's Hook Marine before he decides whether to spend any more money looking for pirate booty."
My heart sank like an anchor. Finding the treasure Bart Coffyn had stolen from Sir Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind was Zac's best shot at buying back his late father's marine supply store from Clark Graham, his boss. "You guys found a couple of silver pesos. Surely those are valuable."
His Jeep door opened and slammed shut. "Not enough to make Clark want to keep searching." He fell silent, and I heard shouting in the background. "Hang on a sec."
Muffled conversation ensued.
I wished there was some way I could help Zac, but ever since I'd opened the salon, I'd been struggling to help myself.
"Cass, I've got to run. We've got a
crisis."
"It's nothing serious, is it?"
"Only a two-hundred-thousand-dollar sailboat at the bottom of the bay."
I gasped. "How did that happen?"
"The water was choppy last night, and a log crashed through the side. The worst part is that we had a buyer lined up, but the sale capsized with the boat."
That was a shame, because the loss would probably make Clark more eager to sell the business. "What are you going to do?"
"We'll raise it and salvage what we can."
I heard knocking downstairs. "Someone's at the door. Be careful, okay? And call me later."
"Wait, babe."
"Yes?"
"Make sure I'm there when you sell the Ferrari."
"Are you implying that I can't negotiate a good price, Zac Taylor?" I said in mock outrage.
"I'm implying that I need to keep an eye on the buyers. I don't want you to trade me in for a new model."
"Then you'd better hope all the buyers are women," I joked. "Now go raise that boat." I ended the call and hurried down the stairs.
Alex Jordan was at the back door in a flannel shirt, Carhartt work jacket, and jeans. She had a backpack over one shoulder, and her brown hair was in a ponytail beneath a baseball cap. And if I were a TV director, I would've signed her to a home renovation show on the spot because she would have been stunning in a hazmat suit. Even Gia thought Alex was a knockout, which was notable because she barely wore makeup. But the two shared a passion for bronzer—Alex a faint sprinkling, Gia a full storm.
I opened the door and ushered her in. "Thanks for moving up the appointment time."
"It's always fun to come to the salon."
"If only our clients still shared your enthusiasm."
"They will after we do these renovations." She glanced around the room. "Where's Gia?"
"These days she doesn't leave her I Dream of Jeannie bottle bed before nine, which is why I moved the appointment to eight. I need to do this as cheaply as possible, and she's all about upgrades."
Alex snort-laughed. "Doesn't the salon open at nine?"
"It does, but we haven't had enough business to warrant both of us working, which is where you come in. Follow me, and we'll start with the offending items."
We climbed the stairs, and when we reached the landing I pressed a finger to my lips. Gia's bedroom was across from mine in the front of the house, and I didn't want to wake her. We proceeded past the other four bedrooms to the back of the house and entered the living room.
Alex went straight to the seating area on the left. "Love the velvet Victorian furniture, especially that violet high-back chair and crimson couch." She pointed to a player piano beside the bar on the back wall. "Does that work?"
"It does, but Gia disabled it. She says uncool music gives her migraines."
"That girl's a card."
"Yeah, the Joker."
She pulled a clipboard from her backpack. "For this room, I have instructions to remove the gilt mirror on the ceiling and the Bottoms Up placard above the bar and repair the hole." Her brow furrowed. "And to take down a picture bolted to the wall?"
I pointed to a poster-sized photograph above the fireplace of three prostitutes who'd worked at the brothel. They were on their backs and propped up on their elbows with legs splayed in a V formation. Originally, they wore only shoes and socks, but Gia had begun stapling lingerie to their lady parts. "The infamous Hope, Faith, and Charity."
"No…Gold…Diggers?" Alex said, reading the appliquéd word on each of the women's underwear.
"Gia changes the phrase to suit the situation. This one is a message for Harriet and her tourists."
"That's hilarious. Are you sure you want to take it down? Hope, Faith, and Charity are decent now, and it's a shame to remove history from the house."
"This history is better left in the past."
She ran her fingers along the edge of the frame. "I should be able to fill the bolt holes with caulk and touch up the paint. You know, Tucker Sloan would probably buy this off you."
"I was planning to store it in the attic for posterity." And prudence so that the likes of Duncan Pickles couldn't get his hands on it to write another scandalous article about The Clip and Sip. "Speaking of the attic, let's do the tower room next."
We returned to the hallway and climbed the stairs to the third floor. The room was twelve feet in diameter and unfinished. When my uncle bought the house in 1995, it had been abandoned since the 1955 fire, and no one had ever repaired the damage. He spent a fortune restoring the building, refinishing the living quarters, and adding the salon, The Yankee Clipper. My guess was that he'd never gotten around to fixing up the tower.
Alex glanced at her clipboard. "For this room, I have cabinets, a raised platform for a makeup chair, and a Victorian-inspired throne."
I gave an eye roll. "There will be no throne. If Gia wants to feel royal, she can use the high-back chair in the living room."
She pulled a pen from her pocket, and it caught on her jacket and catapulted across the floor. She knelt to retrieve it and paused. "There's something stuck between the wall and the floor. It looks like gold."
"Don't tell Harriet that. She's likely to mine the place."
Alex pulled a hammer from her backpack and pried up a loose floorboard. "Whoa. It's a cameo, surrounded by pearls." She rose and handed me the oval-shaped brooch. "Is it yours?"
"It looks expensive, so it's not from my jewelry box." I studied the scene on the front. A woman stood in a field among some trees, with a dog at her feet. Her dress, or maybe a toga, blew behind her in a breeze, and she held a bow in one hand, while the other arm was raised. "Who's she supposed to be?"
"I dunno, but I've never seen anything like it, and it's definitely an antique. I wonder if it belonged to one of the ladies who used to work here."
"Well, it certainly wasn't my uncle's." I turned the brooch over in my hand looking for identifying marks, but there weren't any. "If it did belong to one of the women, I'd love to find their relatives and return it."
"My grandmother has a book about cameos. Why don't I take a picture and show it to her? Maybe she could help you date it or figure out the brand."
"It's worth a try."
She pulled her phone from her pocket and snapped a photo. "I'll take some of the room while I'm at it."
While she photographed the tower, I counted the pearls mounted on the gold around the cameo. There were thirty-seven, and they didn't appear to be fake. Someone had lost a gorgeous piece of jewelry. If I couldn't find the rightful heirs, I would gladly keep it. Maybe the find was one of the good things that Gia had predicted.
Alex pulled a tape measure from her back pocket. "It feels weird to be in here again."
"Did Gia already show you around?"
"Actually, it was your uncle." Her mouth twisted into an unspoken apology. "He was almost my first client when I moved to Danger Cove."
I didn't reply. Even though I hadn't known my uncle, his death still was an open wound for my father and the rest of the Conti family. And I regretted that I couldn't thank him for the inheritance, because it had allowed me to start a new life in Washington after I'd made a mess of things back home in Texas. The only way I knew to repay him was by keeping the salon in business and bringing his killer to justice. But after ten months in Danger Cove, I feared that I would fail at both objectives.
"I'm sorry." Alex's tone was gentle. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No, it's okay. The truth is that I only met him once."
"He was super nice. And such a character."
I hoped by "character" that she didn't mean "player." From what I'd heard about my uncle, Alex's work outfit, or even a hazmat suit, wouldn't have hidden her generous curves from his lecherous gaze. "Just out of curiosity, what did he want to do to this room?"
"Mainly, he wanted me to finish it out—paneling, baseboards, wood floor. But he also asked me to make a raised platform for his bed."
"He was goin
g to move his bedroom up here?"
Her head tilted. "This was his bedroom."
It was my turn to be confused. "No, it was and still is next to mine."
"That was his office. He had me take measurements in there for some custom shelving."
He must've switched rooms. "Do you remember when this was?"
The corners of her mouth tightened. "The morning of December thirty-first."
Her tense look suddenly made sense. Fifteen months before, my uncle was found dead in his bed late New Year's Eve. "Did you tell any of this to the police?"
"Bud Ohlsen interviewed me since I was one of the last people to see Vinnie, but I don't remember discussing the layout of the house. Is it important?"
I looked at the cameo, unsure how to respond. Because if what Alex was saying was correct, then my uncle might not have been strangled in the place we all had thought.
* * *
Gia slid low in her seat at the Danger Cove police station and toyed with the ties at the collar of her leopard top. "Humor me here—what are the odds that Alex Jordan was the one who wrapped the fishnet stocking around Vinnie's neck?"
"You did not even"—I spun in my chair and did a quick scan of the open-style office. Luckily, it was lunchtime, so most of the officers were away from their desks—"just ask that here."
"You can unwad your panties. The cops know she was with him."
"Exactly," I whisper-huffed. "So if the stocking were hers, they would've traced it to her."
"Valid point." She crossed her legs in jeans so distressed that more of her skin showed than fabric. "But I still say we should get a discount on those renovations."
Detective Bud Ohlsen entered, to my relief. Without our clients as buffers, my cousin and I were spending too much time together. And if he hadn't come when he did, I might've killed her right there in the police station.
"Cassidi and Gia," he said in a well-what-do-you-know tone as he settled his big frame behind the desk, "I haven't seen you two since Christmas."
Gia pursed her lips. "It was a good run."
"Indeed." He glanced at a framed picture of his boat, no doubt wishing he were on it, and moved a stack of papers to make room for his arms. "So, what's new in your uncle's case?"
Killer Eyeshadow and a Cold Espresso (A Danger Cove Hair Salon Mystery) Page 2