Skating Under the Wire

by Joelle Charbonneau

  She shifted my head to the right and shrugged. “When I found both my house and salon had been broken into, I figured he had to be behind it. I mean, who else would break into a place just to swipe hair products, a few knickknacks, and a jar of spare change? Unfortunately, when Sean questioned Keith, he learned the jerk had an alibi, which meant the Thanksgiving thief was behind both robberies.”

  “The thief broke into the salon?” That seemed like something I should write down. For once I’d remembered to bring the notebook with me. Too bad the red plastic cape I was wearing prevented me from doing anything with it.

  “The thief found my extra set of keys on the kitchen counter.” Annette twisted a lock of my hair and looked over at Danielle, who shook her head. Sighing, Annette untwisted my hair and continued talking. “It was a good thing I put most of my smaller valuables in the trunk of my car before I left town for the holiday. The other people hit that Thanksgiving weren’t so lucky.”

  Crap. I’d left the list of victims in my car. “Who else was hit that year?”

  “Autumn and Jeremy Gullifer.”

  I ransacked my memory and came up blank.

  Annette must have seen my confusion, because she said, “They live in the old Bower place. Autumn’s an artist. She makes custom stained-glass windows and pottery. She had a booth at the St. Mark’s Women’s Guild craft fair the weekend before the theft and was in Moline the weekend before. With all the holiday bustle, she and Jeremy never had a chance to get to the bank to deposit the money. The thief walked away with several thousand dollars in cash.”

  Wow. My mother took a pottery class when I was in high school. The result was a brown and green vase that leaned precariously to the left. Something told me Autumn was a better craftsman than Mom.

  “Did you tell anyone that you weren’t going to be home for Thanksgiving that year?”

  “A few of my customers asked if I had someplace to spend the holiday. After my breakup with Keith, I think they were worried I’d be eating processed turkey sandwiches alone at home.” Annette grabbed the curling iron and began attacking the left side of my head.

  I sat up a little straighter. “Do you remember who asked you about your plans?”

  Danielle made an unhappy noise. The women up front stopped talking as they watched to see what would happen next. Annette sighed, put down the curling iron, and attacked my hair with a brush. Yeouch.

  Finally, she put the brush down, poured some familiar-looking green goop into her hands, and continued talking. “I gave Sean a list of the clients who were scheduled to get their hair done. I imagine he still has it, but I can honestly say I don’t remember which clients asked about my plans. The day before a holiday is always so busy it’s hard to remember exactly who said what. To make matters worse, one of my suppliers showed up that day with a delivery, most of which was wrong. The supplier wasn’t happy to learn about the mistake, or that the thief had helped himself to several of the boxes before it could be remedied.”

  “What was in the boxes?” I asked.

  “Four mobile tanning kits, a dozen heated booties, and a case of aerosol hair spray.”

  “That’s it!” Danielle’s shout made Annette and me jump. “That’s the perfect style for Rebecca and the rest of my bridesmaids.”

  I looked at the mirror and blinked. Other than being so filled with products that a strong wind couldn’t move it, my hair looked exactly the way it had when I’d walked into the salon that day.

  “Are you sure?” Annette asked. “I thought you said you wanted your bridesmaids to wear their hair up.”

  Danielle shook her head. “My mother-in-law was the one who wanted that. I was going to go along, but Rebecca reminded me that this is my wedding. What I want goes.” The gleam in her eyes made me want to duck for cover. When Danielle got that look, scarecrows went up in smoke. This wasn’t good.

  Before I could say anything, Annette whipped off my cape and escorted Danielle up front to the manicurist’s station to consult with Michelle on color choices. Grabbing my notebook out of my purse, I scribbled down the information Annette had given me. While considering my next investigative move, I studied my hair in the mirror.

  Huh. Maybe I’d judged the style too quickly. Now that I really looked at it, I noticed the wave Annette had added. She had also encouraged one lock to skim across my forehead just above my right eye, which looked kind of sexy. Ever since high school I’d been called cute, spunky, and sometimes, on a really good day, pretty. Sexy was never on the list. Straightening my shoulders, I gave my head a toss—and sighed. Hair that didn’t move wasn’t sexy. It was downright creepy.

  Making a note to take a shower before I saw Lionel, I grabbed my stuff and headed to the front of the salon, where Danielle was receiving wedding advice from several of Annette’s clients.

  “The silver polish will look wonderful with a white dress.” This from a lovely older woman with tightly wound white curls.

  Ethel shook her now perfectly styled head. “Mauve will give you a pop of color without making you look like a harlot.”

  “Men like harlots.” Sweet-voiced Nan winked at Danielle. “Go with Rascal Red. Just make sure you file your nails down before the wedding night. I forgot to do that and made my poor Johnny bleed. The man was a tiger in bed. So don’t be bashful about talking to me if you need any pointers.”

  “Or me,” volunteered the white-haired lady. “My Matthew wasn’t very big, but he knew how to use what God gave him.”

  A good maid of honor would rescue her friend from this trio of Dr. Ruth wannabes. I was making a break for it. My jacket still hadn’t been returned, but one more word about Johnny’s jackhammer move and I’d be psychologically scarred for life. Frostbite would be easier to treat.

  Telling Danielle I’d see her at Erica’s fitting, I put my head down and dashed into the icy wind. One good thing about living in Indian Falls was that its small size meant most businesses were located close together. So I was only partially frozen when I raced into Fast and Clean—the only dry cleaners located within a fifteen-mile radius.

  The lack of competition meant job security and the customer base’s willingness to put up with the company living up to only half of its name. Which is why I left the store with Mr. Bettis’s flannel jacket and a promise my puffy white coat would be ready for pickup in twenty minutes. Enough time for me to stop for a quick snack at the DiBelka Bakery.

  The bagels, croissants, and doughnuts were a bit picked over by the time I walked into the blissfully warm and fabulous-smelling bakery showroom. Still, the cinnamon coffee was fresh, and slices of apple coffee cake were on the counter for free sampling. Yum.

  After scarfing down three pieces of cake, I selected a half-dozen Danishes to take to my next stop—the Indian Falls Sheriff’s Department. Annette had said she’d given Sean the list of clients who had been in the salon the day before the theft. Sean wasn’t the type to share information, but I was hoping his desperation for a break in the case combined with Mrs. DiBelka’s award-winning pastries would loosen his tongue. If not, I’d have six Danishes to eat later. It was a win-win proposition.

  Box in hand, I clutched my borrowed flannel jacket and raced to the building next door. No one knows if it was by design or chance that the DiBelka family established their bakery next door to the sheriff’s department. Regardless of whether luck or business savvy played a role in the neighboring locations, both sides were delighted with the results. A cop’s love of doughnuts was cliché, but Sean Holmes and the rest of the department staff proved clichés existed for a reason.

  Teeth chattering, I pushed open the glass door, walked to the front desk, and peeked over the counter, looking for the receptionist, Roxy Moore. Since Indian Falls wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, Roxy used the downtime to practice her pedicure technique. Today, however, Roxy and her polished toes were nowhere in sight.

  Buoyed by my good fortune, I walked down the hall to the offices, hoping my luck would hold and
Sheriff Jackson would be seated at his desk. The sheriff wasn’t always great at his job, but he tried. Better still, he liked me. He’d be more inclined to share information that Sean on principle kept to himself.

  Drat. Sheriff Jackson’s office was empty, but the light glowing from the office next door told me Deputy Holmes was in residence.

  Taking a deep breath, I marched into Sean’s office, took one look at his face, and fought the urge to flee. His cheeks were red. His eyes were narrowed. His hair was sticking straight up, or it would be when he stopped raking his hand through it in frustration.

  All around the room was paper. In piles on the desk. In the trash can. Sitting atop the three filing cabinets lined up against the far wall, and poking out of folders stacked up around the floor. The only thing not coated in paper was the computer that Sean was at the moment calling a string of very colorful names.

  “Troubles?” I asked.

  Sean jumped, sending a folder perched near his elbow careening to the floor. “Crap.”

  He leaned down and gathered the papers that had slid out of the folder and shoved them back inside. Without looking up, he asked, “Do you need something? I’m kind of busy here.”

  I leaned against the door frame and smiled. “Did you decide to take up origami? If so, I might remember how to make a dog. Jack Gatto showed me how in Algebra.”

  “Jack Gatto was a dog.”

  Since the person in question got two girls pregnant at the end of his senior year, I couldn’t argue the point. “So what are you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be saving the world from jaywalking?”

  “I could write you a ticket now, if you’d like.” Sighing, Sean ran a hand through his hair and looked around the room. “Roxy reorganized the sheriff’s case files. I’m trying to put them back into some logical order while she’s out sick. I don’t know what she was thinking when she set up the new system. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Something told me logical order wasn’t on the top of Roxy’s priority list when creating the filing system. Roxy had a serious crush on Deputy Sean, one he either didn’t notice or chose to turn a blind eye to. Ensuring that Sean had to enlist her help whenever he needed to find a file would give Roxy ample opportunity to flex her flirting muscles. Too bad Roxy had called in sick or she could be milking the helping-look-for-a-file routine right now.

  Since my mother taught me manners, I felt compelled to ask, “Is there anything I can do to help?” Tracking down a paper shredder or creating a bonfire seemed like good options.

  Thank goodness Sean turned down my request, which allowed me to circle back to my purpose in coming here. “Annette said she gave you a list of the clients who were in her salon the day before her house was broken into. Could I get a copy?”

  Sean raised an eyebrow and gave a pointed look to the explosion of paper on his desk. “You want me to find a file for you?”

  I smiled and held out the Danishes.

  Sighing, Sean took the box and said, “Tell you what, if you can find the file on Annette’s robbery, you can read it. It used to be filed under R for Robbery.”

  Made sense.

  As Sean dove into the Danishes, I took off the flannel coat, pulled open the first filing drawer, and began to search. After a few minutes, Roxy’s filing system became clear. Public nuisance reports were filed under C for Cow Tipping. Automobile accidents were in the F drawer for Fender Bender, and all drunk-and-disorderly records were listed under P for Pete’s Pub.

  Mildly disturbed that I was following Roxy’s train of thought, I dove into the T drawer. Eureka! There were the case folders for the Thanksgiving Day robberies. I found the file devoted to Annette’s break-ins, flipped to the list in question, and felt my pulse spike.

  There in the middle of the list was a name I not only recognized but knew had been connected to other thefts over a dozen years ago. Thefts Sean and the sheriff’s department knew nothing about.

  I had my first suspect.

  Six

  I copied the list into my handy-dandy notebook, refiled the folder, and slammed the drawer closed with a satisfying thud. It was time to hit the road.

  Grabbing my borrowed coat, I turned toward the door and found my path blocked by a baffled, Danish-holding Sean. “You found what you were looking for? How did you manage that?”

  “Maybe it was my keen investigative skills,” I quipped.

  “More likely it was dumb luck.”

  I wanted to be offended, but Sean wasn’t far off the mark.

  “If I didn’t know better,” he said, brushing Danish crumbs off his shirt, “I’d have thought you and Roxy plotted this whole files debacle just to drive me crazy. As it is, you drive me crazy enough all on your own.” He took a step closer. “You have a suspect. Who is it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He smiled and took another step toward me. “Your eyebrow goes up when you’re lying.”

  Crap. I’d been trying to control that. Apparently, all my practicing in the mirror had yet to pay off.

  “That’s okay,” Sean said, taking another step closer. “I’ll find out who it is eventually. Just remember, Rebecca…” His eyes met mine. Sweat prickled at the back of my neck. Sean reached out and tucked a plasticized strand of hair behind my ear. His smile vanished. “I’m watching you.”

  Yikes.

  Skirting around Sean and the piles of folders strewn across the floor, I headed for the door.

  “Oh, Rebecca.”

  I stiffened and turned. “Yes.”

  “Nice shirt.”

  I looked down, remembered I was wearing Lionel’s shirt, and felt my cheeks start to burn. My archnemesis knew I’d had a sleepover with Lionel. I wanted to scream or say something pithy that would wipe off the smirk that I was certain was gracing Sean’s handsome, albeit annoying, face. Instead, I did what any self-respecting girl would do.

  I bolted.

  My face was still hot when I exchanged the flannel coat for my puffy one. I was thankful the weather made everyone in the dry cleaners think I was cold instead of mortified. To avoid future embarrassment, I steered my car to the rink. A quick shower and change of clothes later and I’d almost convinced myself Sean was simply complimenting my sense of style. While my lying needed work, my denial skills were coming along nicely.

  Now that my hair could move and my clothes weren’t broadcasting my newly rejuvenated sex life, I headed to the north side of town, where I was certain I’d find the person I needed to question: Doc Truman’s nurse and all-around girl Friday, Eleanor Schaffer.

  Sure enough, Eleanor was exactly where I expected to find her—soothing sick patients and handing out lollipops in the reception area of Doc Truman’s office. A little blond girl raced around the room, singing at the top of her lungs, while Eleanor talked to her harried mother about a follow-up appointment to make sure little Bianca was no longer contagious and could return to school. The girl in question shoved her fingers in her mouth and then proceeded to rub them on the table, two of the four waiting-area chairs, the counter, and her mother’s jeans. Little Bianca was an epidemic waiting to happen.

  Once Bubonic Bianca and her mother were safely out of my airspace, I sat on a chair untouched by Bianca’s slobber-coated fingers and waited for Eleanor to escort the remaining patient back to see Doc Truman. When she returned five minutes later, she gave me a weak smile and dropped her ample body into one of the waiting-room chairs with a thud.

  “What a day. Our part-time receptionist just quit, and almost every second grader in Mrs. Malarky’s class has lice.”

  “Lice?” I reached up and touched my freshly washed hair.

  Eleanor waved off my concern. “Just make sure none of the kids take skating lessons until they’ve been cleared to go back to school and you’ll be fine.” She squinted at me from behind her fake eyelashes. “Speaking of fine, what are you doing here? I hope you’re not sick. Not with the wedding only a week and a half away.”

  “I’m good.
” Ignoring the desire to scratch my scalp, I said, “Mrs. Johnson hired me to look into the Thanksgiving Day thefts.”

  Eleanor smiled. “Ethel said something about that this morning when she called to ask if I’d heard anything about Ginny’s funeral service. Everyone I’ve talked to is heartbroken about Ginny’s passing. Especially since so many of us talked to her at Danielle’s bridal shower just before she passed on. She was so happy and energetic, talking about her upcoming trip. I guess it just goes to show that you have to live every moment to the fullest because you just never know when you’re going to go.”

  I thought back to the last conversation I had with my mother. Mom talked about the new improvements to the rink and how she planned on celebrating their completion by coming to visit me. She wanted to see a play, kayak down the Chicago River, and go shopping on Michigan Avenue. We were going to have an entire week to ourselves. The next day she was gone.

  Tears lodged in my throat and burned the back of my eyes. I couldn’t help it. Not a day went by that I didn’t miss Mom and wish she hadn’t left me alone.

  Swallowing down the lump of emotion, I changed the subject back to one that wouldn’t evoke tears. “I’ve been talking to the victims of the robberies. Annette mentioned you were in the salon the day before her house was broken into.”

  “I’ve had my hair done the day before Thanksgiving for twenty years.” Eleanor smiled. “My appointment for next Wednesday was made six months ago. Good thing, too. The salon has been booked solid ever since your father got everyone dreaming about being in magazines. I have my photo shoot scheduled for this Friday.”

  Of course she did. Biting back a sigh, I reached into my purse and pulled out my notebook. “Do you remember hearing Annette say that she was going out of town for the holiday?”

  “Sure. I was relieved that she was getting out of town before her rat of an ex-boyfriend could sweet-talk her into thinking about reconciliation.”

  “Did you talk about Annette’s travel plans to anyone after you left the salon?”