by Mary Feliz
Chapter 8
The best way I know to quickly find a great hairdresser in an unfamiliar town is to find someone who has hair that is similar in texture to your own. If you like their hairstyle, ask who cuts and styles it. Most people will be flattered to know you admire their look.
From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald,
Simplicity Itself Organizing Services
Tuesday, November 4, 1:30 p.m.
I leaned against my car and consulted my phone’s search engine for the number of Sarah’s hairdresser.
Before it could bring up any information, my phone rang. It was Elaine, calling from Jason’s house. She’d been principal when Jason was in junior high and when he was a rookie cop working as a school-liaison officer. Now with her house directly across the street from the same school, she kept a sharp eye on the property, the students, and visitors to the campus. She and Jason had become great friends over the years.
“Hey Maggie,” she said after I answered. “Jason is fast asleep. When you come back to the house for Belle, come in the back. The more he can sleep, the faster he’ll heal.”
“What are you doing over there?”
“Whatever needs doing. Loading the dishwasher, unloading the dryer, taking the trash out, answering the phone on the first ring. I figure the more of those pesky daily details I can take care of, the easier it will be for both Stephen and Jason.”
“It sounds as if your day has been more productive than mine,” I said, telling her about my interviews at the garden. Elaine and I had worked together trying to solve the last violent death in Orchard View, and I knew she had an insatiable interest in local intrigue.
“Don’t pout, dear,” Elaine said. “You may have gleaned more than you know, even if it’s only that everyone connected to the garden is innocent.”
“I’m not sure about ‘innocent,’” I said. “Those girls are hiding something.”
“Aren’t all young people hiding something?”
I laughed. “Okay, Elaine, you win. You can read a teenager or young adult better than anyone I know. You might want to make a trip over there and see what you think. For now, I’m going to see if I can schedule an appointment with Sarah’s hairdresser. Give me a call if Stephen has something else he wants me to do; otherwise, I’ll check in later. Do you have any of those broken-leg cookies left? They’re delicious. I may need one for a quick sugar fix when I come to pick up Belle.”
After we ended the call, I accessed Sarah’s calendar on my phone and found the name, address, and phone number of her hairdresser, Lily Takahashi. Luckily, her building was a few blocks from Linc’s house. After I dialed I was greeted with:
“Hair Affair, this is Donna. May I schedule a clip, color, perm or facial for you today?”
“Hi Donna, I’m Maggie McDonald. I wondered if Lily has had any cancellations and could fit me in this afternoon?”
“Normally Lily books up two months in advance,” Donna said. “But I’d be happy to check her schedule for you. If she’s not available today I could give you her first available opening.”
“Thanks, Donna.” It was a delight to talk to someone who was fully trained in how to make a customer feel special.
“Wow, I’m glad I checked,” Donna said. “She had a last-minute cancellation for an appointment in ten minutes. How fast can you get here?”
I looked at my watch. “It will be close, but I think I can do it. See you soon.”
I sent a text to Max asking if he could pick up the boys. He responded before I got back to the car. Leaving now. Will pick them up and bring them back here for dinner. Home 8pm.
Relieved, I typed back quickly. Thanks. Love you!!! I tended to overuse exclamation points in my texts. Max said I texted like a fifteen-year-old girl in love. The boys said I texted like an old lady. I liked Max’s version better.
Influx, like many other Silicon Valley companies, offered dinner for employees who worked into the evening. Families were welcome. The boys enjoyed having dinner with their dad and selecting exactly what they wanted from a wide variety of fresh and locally sourced food. Google devoted nearly as much square footage to recreational activities as they did to workspace, and its grounds resembled a resort. Influx was a much smaller company, but they still offered workout equipment, exercise classes, a basketball court, and a wide array of video-gaming platforms. The video games were a draw for our boys, but I was confident Max would insist they finish their homework before food and games distracted them.
I walked around the back of my car to open the driver’s-side door, but stopped and looked up at the sound of a loudly revving engine. A swanky black Range Rover stopped at the end of Linc’s street. Its hulking body reminded me of a raging bull from a kid’s cartoon—the kind with red eyes and steam escaping its nostrils, and that pawed the ground before charging. The vehicle lurched toward me with a squeal of its tires and I stepped back, molding myself to the side of my car and wishing I had time to hide behind it. The Rover slowed as it passed me and I peered through the front window, trying to identify the driver. I only got a glimpse. All the other windows were darkly tinted, defying state laws limiting tinting on the front-side windows. I couldn’t identify the driver and the passenger ducked out of view, but I was almost certain the passenger was Santana.
I stared after the Range Rover as it sped away, then remembered the phone in my hand. I snapped a picture of the license plate. It was a little blurry, but I could make out most of the digits. I shivered. The vehicle and its odd behavior had felt threatening, but grabbing the image gave me a small sense of control that felt surprisingly good.
Take that, you beast of a car, I thought as I climbed into my SUV, which in retrospect seemed tiny and not in the slightest bit protective.
* * *
Bells above the front door of the Main Street shop rang as I opened the door to Hair Affair. The woman at the first station raised her eyebrows in greeting. She held a hair clip in her mouth that would have made it difficult to speak.
“I’m here for an appointment with Lily,” I said.
The hairdresser positioned the last clip into a snail curl. “Sorry! Our receptionist stepped out for coffee. She’ll be back any moment and will check you in. Please, have a seat. There’s bottled water in the back if you’re thirsty.”
I took one of the three chairs in the waiting area. The salon was small, with only four stations each for cutting, washing, and drying. A spa chair for manicures and pedicures was positioned across from me and I eyed my short and scruffy nails. Maybe it was time for that too, but not today.
Two young women came through the door and the bells announced their arrival. The shorter one took her place behind the counter. I figured she must be Donna. She wore her hair, which was magenta on one side and black on the other, in stiff spikes. She had pixie-like features and the short hair made her look like a space-age elf.
The taller one wore her purple-streaked dark hair in a ponytail. She put down her coffee cup and hung her fuchsia hoodie on a coat tree, exchanging it for a lab coat with her name on the pocket.
“Maggie? I’m Lily. Do you want to change?” She held up a fluorescent green nylon smock. I wondered if there’d been a sale on the cover-ups.
I shook my head and tugged a bit on the hem of my white T-shirt. “Thanks, but I don’t think you can do anything to hurt this shirt,” I said. “Let’s go for it.”
She sat me in the chair and finger-combed my hair. “What were you thinking? A shorter style? A trim? Maybe some highlights?”
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and barely recognized myself. The woman staring back at me looked exhausted and washed out. I’d put off some basic self-care. My hair needed serious help.
“I’m open to suggestions, style-wise,” I said. “As long as it’s easy to care for and will look halfway decent if I need to let it air-dry.”
I must have looked a little wary, because Lily laughed and said, “All righty, then. No wild streaks or mohawks for you.
” She fluffed my hair a little, bit her lower lip, and moved slowly from one side of the chair to the other, glancing between the mirror and my hair.
“Do you still want to be able to put it up in a ponytail?” she asked.
I nodded. “Practical, easy care, and ponytail-able in case it’s super-windy or I don’t have time to wash it.”
“Got it. Let’s cut it to here,” she said, indicating a point just below my chin. “Nothing too drastic for your first visit. If you don’t like it, you can still grow it out, but if you like what I do and want to be more daring, we’ll try that next time. Whaddaya think?”
“Sounds great,” I said. “You’re very reassuring.”
“I’d suggest some highlights too, for next time. A bit lighter around your face and enough elsewhere to make it look subtle, natural, and blended. Let’s get you washed and we’ll get started.”
Lily shampooed my hair herself, chatting about how thick and healthy my hair was and how she thought it would be fun to work with and that she hoped I’d come back.
I sank into the cushy chair and put myself in what I hoped were Lily’s capable hands. And then I remembered that the haircut was an excuse for my real mission: finding out anything more I could about Sarah. I pondered where to begin. But Lily took care of that for me.
“So, how did you find us?” she asked.
I explained that I was new to town, hadn’t had a good cut since July, and that my friend Sarah Palmer had recommended her.
“Oooh,” said Lily. “She was one of my favorite clients. I was so sorry to hear about her passing. Do you know if there are funeral plans? How is her fiancé? Do you know him?”
If I wasn’t careful, Lily was the one who would get information out of me, instead of the other way ’round.
“It was such a shock,” I said. “Last I heard, the police were looking for relatives and investigating her death.”
“Investigating? What happened? I’d heard it was an electrical accident in that old house that belongs to her fiancé. For all he’s some smarty-pants at Stanford, I guess he must not have been too careful about those old electrics. With all the dryers ’round here, and wet hair and hands, we’re hyper-aware of power hazards. I guess it’s easy for people to forget electricity kills.” She shook her head and her facial muscles drooped, giving her a look of grave sadness.
“Sarah was so excited about her wedding and Linc’s move to her cottage,” Lily continued. “That’s all she talked about for the last few months—the renovations they were making, the dress she’d picked out, who was coming—all the details.”
“Did she mention family?”
“Maybe a brother? In Seattle? No, that was someone else. Sarah’s sister died pretty young. She had cancer. Her mom did too. They died within a few years of each other, I think. It was really hard on Sarah because they were her only family.”
“What about her fiancé? Did she talk about him much?”
Lily laughed. “Linc? I loved hearing those stories about him. She was so madly in love, you know? She was proud of him—all the meetings with the Nobel Prize guys and saving the planet. But then she’d tell me about how he’d put sunscreen on his toothbrush or left the car running in the driveway, because he was preoccupied and all.”
“Did that bother her?”
“No, like I said, she was so in love. She thought he was adorable. How did you know her?”
I saw no reason to hide my relationship with Sarah. I explained my volunteer work at the library and that she’d hired me to help consolidate her household with Linc’s.
“Oh, my God. Of course. You’re Maggie. Well, I knew your name was Maggie and all, but I didn’t realize you were Sarah’s Maggie. She was so thrilled to find you. And not just because of all the help you were giving her. She said whenever she and Linc argued about giving something away they’d just say, ‘Let’s see what Maggie thinks.’ And you’d suggest a solution that made ’em both happy.”
She stopped cutting and pointed the scissors toward me in the mirror. “Do you have some cards you can give me? I’d be happy to recommend you. Sarah pretty much figured you could walk on water and that’s enough of an endorsement for me.”
I blushed, thanked her, and dug in my backpack for my cards. I gave her all I had. “I’m glad you said Sarah was happy. She seemed to love her job and when I worked with her at her home or at Linc’s, she was almost effervescent. Floating, even. But the police were asking questions like they thought maybe she could have committed suicide.. . .”
“Suicide? Sarah? No way. No frickin’ way.” Lily stopped the blow-dryer for a moment. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said frickin’. But you know, Sarah was the most upbeat person I’ve ever met. Never saw even a hint of depression in her.”
“I thought the same,” I said. “And I couldn’t think of anyone who disliked her.”
Lily shook her head again. “Me neither. It had to be an accident, right? Unless there was some family thing she never talked about. Family she’d run away from, hoping to never see again.” Lily’s voice took on the tones of an announcer catching up faithful watchers of a daytime drama.
I looked up at her and grinned. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m taking some classes up at Foothill—you know, the junior college? Trying to finish my degree. I’ve got a presentation for Vampire Literature in Diverse Cultures tonight. I’m reading a short story I wrote. I’m wearing a black cape and I want to sound dark and haunting. I guess I’ve been practicing a little too much. Gives me goose bumps when I think about it. It’s one of the last night classes to get out, so I’m afraid to walk alone to my car. The fog settles in up there at night. It’s dark and spooky—the perfect setting for a vampire attack.”
“Under those circumstances, I think I’d be more worried about an attack from a mountain lion or even a real-live bad guy rather than the undead,” I said. “Do you all walk together when you leave?”
She restarted the blow-dryer. “Of course,” she said. “One of the girls has some guy she’s really afraid of. We all try to park in the same general area and we leave at the same time, chatting all the way to the parking lot. It’s a great class. The young guys are really protective of us.”
“Did Sarah ever talk about the garden at the back of her house?”
“That community thing?” Lily nodded, sending her purple-streaked ponytail flying. “She had lots to say about that Boots lady. Sarah thought she was abrasive and full of herself. She didn’t like the way Linc left the back door unlocked so she could come and go. I guess Boots was a friend of his mother’s going way back.”
“So Sarah didn’t like her?”
Lily stopped the dryer again. “I dunno about that. They weren’t buddies or anything, but Sarah admired the work she did with those kids that used to be in the foster system. They were working with similar groups, just at different ages. Sarah was planning on getting together with Boots and coordinating some of their resources. I guess that won’t ever happen now, though.”
“Was there any truth to the rumor . . .” I hesitated, since the rumor I was talking about was one I’d just made up. I was normally a very truthful person and lying, for however good a reason, made me uncomfortable.
“Go on,” Lily said. “We’re done with the dryer.”
“Was Boots ever accused of doing anything not quite right?”
Lily frowned and stared at me as if I were crazy. “Are you kidding? That would be like dissing . . . I dunno, Glinda the Good Witch. I mean, I don’t know her personally, but everyone in town knows about her. She may be hard to get along with sometimes, but she gets stuff done. She’s always in the paper getting some award for creating yet another program that benefits the community.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to placate her. “I’m fairly new to town. I just wanted to form a complete picture and make sure that Sarah hadn’t seen something at the garden she shouldn’t have. I’ve been
trying to come up with reasons someone would have wanted to kill her. It’s hard when we’re talking about Sarah. Everyone loved her.”
“You got that right.” Lily gave my hair a final brush. She squinted at my head and trimmed an invisible bit off one side. “If Sarah saw anything illegal going on at that garden, it wasn’t something Boots was involved in. I’m sure of it.”
She sprayed my hair with a tiny bit of light hairspray and spun me around so I could see the back with the mirror. “What do you think?”
I fiddled around with the mirror until I could see. “I like it.” And then I repeated it with more confidence. “I like it. It’s very me, but a little . . . different . . . better.” I smiled up at her. “It’s perfect.”
“Highlights next time? Something soft, nothing brassy?”
“Definitely.”
We made the appointment and I paid her, leaving a generous tip. I hadn’t learned much from Lily that I didn’t already know, but she’d confirmed my own impressions of Sarah’s life. I’d gotten a great haircut and found that elusive suburban treasure: the hairdresser who would listen to what I wanted and give me a perfect cut. A cut that looked like me, but better.
I sent a little message of thanks up to Sarah and my eyes dampened. I missed her terribly. She would have loved knowing that Lily and I had met.
I glanced at my watch. I had time to check in at Jason’s and pick up Belle. After that, I was hoping to spend some quality time with a cold glass of wine and a hot bath.
* * *
I climbed the steps leading to Jason and Stephen’s front door before I remembered that Elaine had asked me to go around the back. I tiptoed down the steps and around to the side gate. My efforts to be quiet proved wasted. As soon as Belle and Munchkin heard me, they came barreling down the walkway at the side of the house, barking to greet me.
“Sit!” I said, firmly and loudly to make sure they could hear me over the sound of their own voices. To my surprise, both of them slammed their bottoms to the ground. Belle scooted forward a little just to let me know how much she loved me and how hard it was for her to do as I asked.