Cate didn’t “just love” the idea, but after thinking it over for a few moments, she reluctantly nodded. “I guess I could do a wig.”
Robyn tapped her fingertips together in a gleeful clap. “Great! There’s a salon over in the mall with an awesome collection of wigs. I’ve even thought of getting one myself for, you know, those bad hair days.”
Robyn have a bad hair day? Maybe. On the same day pigs flew. In formation over the Pentagon.
“When could we go look for one for you?” Robyn sounded anxious.
“Tomorrow, I guess.”
Robyn turned to her aunt. “You don’t mind if I take a couple of hours off, do you, Aunt Carly?”
Carly inclined her trim body into an elegant little bow. “Never let it be said that I stood in the way of the perfectly color-schemed wedding.” She winked at Cate.
Cate and Robyn arranged to meet at the hair salon the following afternoon. Cate got to the mall early so she could pick up shoes to replace the oil-soaked ones, but Robyn was already looking at wigs when Cate arrived at the salon. She had four possibilities picked out, all dark brown but of varying lengths and styles. A hairdresser sat Cate in a salon chair, pinned her hair up, and fitted the first wig to her head.
Robyn didn’t wait for any comment from Cate. She instantly waved a dismissing hand. “Too poufy.” The next wig was “too hairy,” whatever that meant. The third, a stick-straight style, made Cate look ready for the morgue.
Then the hairdresser placed the last possibility on Cate’s head, and Robyn gave a little gasp. So did the hairdresser.
Cate stared at herself in disbelief. The dark hair was longer than Cate’s own hair, with a loosely tousled curl and sideswept bangs unlike anything Cate had ever worn. Her nose went from snub to elegant, and even the shape of her face looked different. In an instant, she had changed.
Robyn stepped back. “I can’t believe it. You look so … not you.”
If Cate didn’t know the dark-haired woman staring back at her really was her, she’d think the mirror had made a twilight-zone mistake. She looked sultry. Mysterious. A woman who might jet off to the south seas or Paris on a moment’s notice. A woman with provocative secrets.
The hairdresser, as if the decision had already been made, asked, “Do you want it in a box, or would you rather wear it today?”
Cate didn’t hesitate. Sultry and mysterious was a new and exhilarating experience for her. “I’ll wear it.”
She walked out of the salon feeling as if she could do all sorts of new-woman things. Walk into some elite boutique and, without a qualm, try on $500 shoes. Eat caviar without the yuck reaction that it was really just fish eggs. Walk up to Celeste Chandler and say “I know you killed Eddie the Ex, and I’m going to prove it.”
Back home, Uncle Joe was in the Belmont Investigations office, on the phone with someone. He put a hand over the phone when Cate entered the room.
“Could you wait in the other room, please? I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Uncle Joe, it’s me, Cate!”
He peered at her suspiciously, then reared back in the chair. “Cate?”
Rebecca came in the door behind her and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize someone was here—”
Cate turned. “Hey, it’s me!”
Joe ended his phone call, and both he and Rebecca stared at her. Only Octavia, who wandered in at that moment, seemed unstartled. She pawed Cate’s leg in her usual pick-me-up gesture. Cate complied and snuggled the cat against her cheek.
Finally Joe said, “You doing some undercover job I don’t know about?”
“No, it’s a wig to fit a color scheme at a friend’s wedding.”
Uncle Joe still looked skeptical, but Rebecca stated firmly, “It’s quite lovely. Are you going to show Mitch?”
Cate hadn’t thought about that, but … why not?
Cate picked up a pepperoni/mushroom/olive pizza on her way over to Mitch’s that evening. She was holding the box in one arm when she rang the doorbell with the other hand at his condo.
“Oh, I didn’t know the pizza was being delivered.” He reached for his wallet. Then he did that rearing back thing that seemed to go with a hair surprise. “Cate?”
She stepped inside and twirled. “What do you think of the new me?”
“I’m not sure. Give me a minute. What brought this on?”
“Robyn and Lance’s wedding. She wants all the bridesmaids to have dark hair.”
“I’m glad she didn’t have some height requirement that everyone had to be shorter than she is. No telling what she’d have wanted then.” He cautiously fingered the dark hair as if he thought it might bite.
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m just kind of used to the old you. The redheaded one. I mean, you do look nice. It’s just so … different.”
She let him pretend all through the pizza that the change was fine until finally he said, “How permanent is it?”
She went to the bathroom, pulled off the wig, and returned to the kitchen in her normal flyaway redhead state.
He looked at the brown wig dangling from her fingertips. His smile held relief. “Good. I mean, I’ll love you even if your hair turns green, but—”
He broke off, and they stared at each other, because this statement was something newer than a change of hair color between them. They were together a lot. They enjoyed each other’s company. Cate had tentative thoughts about a long-term future together. She thought Mitch sometimes had those thoughts too. But love was a new word between them.
It hung there like a piñata waiting to be whacked.
A strange mixture of confusion and surprise and awkward joy ricocheted through Cate. Had she been waiting for this? She wasn’t about to jump to conclusions over a few words that had just popped out, however. Although neither did she want to whack them.
Instead, with purposeful irrelevancy, she said, “Wouldn’t Robyn be surprised if all the bridesmaids showed up with green hair?”
“I might surprise you sometime too. My grandfather went bald by the time he was thirty-eight.”
I’ll love you anyway.
She instantly retracted that mental leap. She wasn’t ready for that yet. So this time all she said was, “Bald is beautiful.”
The next morning Cate went out to Lodge Hill to talk to LeAnne again. In the distance, she spotted a green tractor and some kind of equipment on a trailer among the rows of grapevines. Several people were working around it. Inside the office, LeAnne was on the phone telling someone that Lodge Hill would be operating as usual, and if the caller wanted a spring wedding it should be scheduled now.
“Wasn’t Mr. Kieferson’s funeral beautiful?” Cate said after LeAnne’s call ended.
“Very well attended,” LeAnne agreed.
Was that a polite detour around expressing an opinion of the service? Cate decided to bypass further small talk and slid a business card across the counter.
LeAnne picked it up. “You’re a private investigator?” Accusingly she added, “But you said you were in the McPherson-Doherty wedding.”
“I am. I’m also a private investigator.”
“Investigating what?” LeAnne asked warily.
“Mr. Kieferson’s death. I know you’ve told the police everything you could, but I’m thinking you were close enough to him to know something important, something no one else might know. Something the sheriff’s deputies may not even have thought to ask about.”
The flattery had a softening effect on LeAnne. She nodded. But then she stiffened again. “You’re working for Kim or Celeste?”
“No. Jo-Jo Kieferson is our client. The police seem suspicious of her.”
“That’s ridiculous! Jo-Jo is just the sweetest person ever. She wouldn’t kill Mr. K even after … everything.”
“So I’m wondering if you could tell me anything that might help in my investigation for her. Observations, suspicions, guesses, speculations, anything.”
“I’d like to help, but …” LeAnne lifted her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.
Cate was undecided whether that meant she didn’t know anything, or if the status of her job held her back. Something along the line of “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”?
“Mr. Kieferson had a gun, and a permit to carry it. Do you have any idea why he might feel the need for a concealed weapon?” Cate asked.
“Maybe something to do with picking up money at the restaurant? Though I didn’t know he carried a gun. I do know Rolf has one. But I doubt he has any permit.”
“Why would Rolf carry a gun?”
“Maybe something to do with the people he hires to work in the vineyard? Or maybe Rolf just figures carrying a gun is the macho thing to do.”
Cate could think of another reason. If Rolf was into a marijuana-growing sideline, maybe he dealt with people for whom a gun was an essential accessory.
“Do you think Rolf could have killed Mr. Kieferson?”
“I wouldn’t rule him out.”
“What motive would he have?”
“I had the impression Mr. K wasn’t fully satisfied with Rolf’s management of the vineyard. I saw him go to Rolf’s cottage on several occasions.”
Cate could think of at least one motive herself. If Rolf were running an illegal pot-growing operation somewhere out in the vineyard, and Ed Kieferson had been in on it, maybe they’d had a falling-out. Or if Ed wasn’t in on it, maybe he’d found out and was going to turn Rolf in, and Rolf took a murderous step to prevent that.
“Do you have any other ideas on who could have done it?” Cate asked.
LeAnne took a deep breath and glanced sideways in both directions, as if afraid someone might be lurking and listening. “If I were a betting person, although I’m not, of course, my money would be on Celeste. And the thing is, her conscience, if she has one, wouldn’t even bother her. She’s so into that ridiculous past-lives stuff that she’d figure Mr. K being dead was only temporary anyway. That he’d be back in some new life before long. Like some cosmic washing-machine cycle, going round and round.”
“Why would she kill him?”
“If she found out he was cheating on Kim, she’d whack him. If she thought he was leaving Kim for another woman, she’d double whack him. And she was suspicious of him. She even asked me once if I knew anything about his being involved with another woman.”
“Was he involved with anyone?”
“He had plenty of opportunity to meet women at the restaurant. But I don’t think he was into anything.” With a pink bloom rising to her plump cheeks, LeAnne added, with a certain defiance, “He knew I had … much admiration for him, and he never tried to take advantage of that. I wouldn’t be so sure about what Kim might have going on the side, however.” With sudden alarm in her eyes, LeAnne added, “This is all strictly confidential, of course.”
“Of course.” Cate planted her elbows on the counter, expectantly hoping for more confidentiality, but a young couple with wedding-radiant faces came through the door, and LeAnne, obviously relieved to end the conversation, turned to them as if they were long-lost buddies.
That evening, Cate worked on her report for the insurance company on the man with the disability claim, making an extra copy for the office files. Then she started a list of what she knew about Jo-Jo and the Eddie the Ex case. She used a separate page for each suspect. Celeste. Kim. Rolf Wildrider nee Robert Johnson. Jo-Jo herself. Those were the big suspects. But there was also LeAnne Morrison, a long shot, but with a possibility she was skimming money off Lodge Hill receipts, and Ed Kieferson had found out. Or maybe the accountant had his hand in Kieferson’s financial pot. And who was the mysterious person who had called Celeste at the Mystic Mirage and gotten her so “agitated”?
In fact, there could be any number of people who might have killed Ed, Cate realized gloomily. People who weren’t even a blip on her radar. Some disgruntled employee at the restaurant. An illegal immigrant worker at the vineyard who thought the top boss might have him deported. Someone who really hated men with dandruff.
The phone rang, and Cate answered automatically. “Belmont Investigations, Assistant Investigator Cate Kinkaid speaking.”
“Ms. Kinkaid, I’m interested in possibly hiring you in regard to a situation that has come to my attention. Perhaps we could arrange a personal meeting?” The unfamiliar woman’s voice spoke with crisp formality.
“Of course. And you are … ?”
“Dr. Celeste Chandler.”
Cate choked on her surprise, coughed, cleared her throat, and made some other noises more often associated with barnyard animals than a competent PI. This couldn’t be about that day at the Mystic Mirage … or could it? Finally she managed to apologize for her coughing spell and croaked, “This is in regard to … ?”
“I prefer to speak with you in person. But I can say that it concerns someone I may need to have investigated.”
So this hadn’t anything to do with Cate’s unfortunate inspection of the Kimmy doll’s anatomy. Relief whooshed through her.
“You were recommended to me by a friend,” Celeste added. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but I believe it may be a matter of life and death.”
“You should go to the police, then.”
“I may do that. But I’d like to talk to you first.”
“Well, um …”
Tempted as she was by the chance to find out why Celeste might want to hire a private investigator, she knew that as soon as the woman recognized her, she’d cut off the conversation like a chainsaw zapping through a marshmallow.
Then inspiration hit Cate. The wig. As different as she looked in it, maybe she could carry off a meeting with Celeste.
Mitch and probably Uncle Joe too would point out that this might be the dumbest idea since a local criminal wrote his bank holdup note on the back of an envelope addressed to himself. Celeste Chandler was a possible killer. Unpredictable. Dangerous.
But talking to Celeste might be her best chance to figure out who killed Eddie the Ex.
Cautiously Cate asked, “When did you have in mind meeting?”
“I have a small New Age store, the Mystic Mirage. We close at 5:30. Could you meet me just after closing time tomorrow, say 5:40? We can talk privately in the back room.”
“Yes, I can do that,” Cate said.
Celeste gave her an address and an order. “Come alone.”
Cate had second thoughts as soon as the call ended. Meet Dr. Celeste Chandler, likely killer, in a back room for an after-hours rendezvous? Alone?
Not a smart idea. Even in a brown wig.
The phone number from which Celeste had called was on the caller ID. Cate could call her back and cancel. Or she could simply not show up.
A better idea crashed into her head. She reached for the phone and clicked a familiar number on her contact list.
12
Mitch eased his SUV to the curb directly in front of the Mystic Mirage. Cate brushed a fingertip across her left eyebrow. The long brown hair had seemed to call for more dramatic makeup, but had she overdone it? The eyebrow felt large as the wing of a jet plane, and her mascaraed eyelashes sticky and clumpy enough to qualify as insect traps. She had an uneasy vision of the eyelashes gluing her eyes shut at some inopportune moment.
At 5:40 this time of year, the cloudy day had already darkened into evening. Rain spotted the windshield as soon as Mitch shut off the wipers, and a flickering streetlight turned shadows into one-dimensional monsters only temporarily trapped in the sidewalk. Wind swayed the Mystic Mirage sign hanging from the crescent moon. A few cars passed by, and in the next block a handholding couple emerged from a sandwich shop, but here the street looked like zombie territory. Lights still shone inside the store, but they suddenly dimmed to creepy movie level.
“I still don’t like this,” Mitch muttered.
Okay, Cate had to admit, she didn’t much like it either, and the uneasiness had nothing to do with sticky ey
elashes. She couldn’t see the Kimmy doll, and the dim light oddly emphasized a wicked gleam of the Oriental swords decorating the back wall. They looked oddly out of kilter now, the display unbalanced.
The situation suddenly seemed decidedly peculiar. Maybe Celeste already knew Cate was investigating Ed Kieferson’s murder. Maybe she thought Cate knew more than she did, and this meeting was a clever trap and she’d find herself shanghaied to some snaky, jungly place. Maybe—
Cate determinedly broke off the maybe jitters. She concentrated on putting confidence into her voice when she assured Mitch, “Everything’s fine.”
“Famous last words.”
“We have all the bases covered.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket to demonstrate. Mitch’s cell phone number showed on the screen. “If anything happens or doesn’t seem right, I just push the call button. As soon as your phone rings, you rush in and rescue me. Although …”
“Although what?”
“Maybe someone else will call just at that time. An old girlfriend. A stray message from outer space. You’ll think it’s me and burst in like gangbusters just when I’m using my dazzling investigative skills to extract crucial information from Celeste.”
Mitch didn’t comment on her investigative skills, dazzling or otherwise. “Better safe than sorry.”
“You’re just full of clichés tonight, aren’t you?” Cate grumbled.
“Clichés become clichés because a lot of times they’re right.”
“How about a ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ cliché?” Cate ended the discussion by leaning over and kissing him lightly on the cheek. “Thanks for coming along as my backup tonight. I really appreciate it.” She opened the door.
“Don’t forget your briefcase,” he said. With what seemed ill-timed curiosity, he added, “What does a PI carry in a briefcase anyway?”
“PI stuff,” Cate muttered. She wasn’t about to tell him what was actually in the briefcase.
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