Bubbles All The Way

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Should a judge ask, Dr. Lori Caswell informed me, she was fully prepared to report that Jane should be barred from any and all contact with me and she should move in with Dan. Unless Dan and I remarried. Then Jane could live with both of us—provided Dan kept vigilant watch over my erratic behavior.

  Dan had already asked me to remarry him, but I had wavered. Now, with Dr. Caswell’s declaration, he held the trump card. I needed to either say yes to his proposal once and for all or lose my daughter. If I turned him down, he vowed to seek an emergency custody revocation order and have Jane removed from my home by Christmas.

  So as much as I despised him, as much as I could not bear to sit across the table in view of his puffy face or even hold his fat hand, I said yes. But I agreed only because Jane wanted Dan and me together as parents. She told me she felt safer in a home with a father and a mother under the same roof, more secure, more normal. And I would have done anything, anything, for Jane to feel normal again.

  Next I knew, Dan had started divorce proceedings against his socialite wife, Wendy, in the highly respected jurisdiction of Guam. I had no idea where Guam was. I’d flunked that course: “Seven Foreign Countries Where You Can Get a Quickie Divorce” at my alma mater, Two Guys Community College. Apparently Guam is not a foreign country, but part of America, according to information I later received. (Damn Two Guys and its used 1949 textbooks.)

  With the divorce almost final, Dan had arranged for us to get rehitched on Saturday. In fact, as soon as I was done with Debbie, he was picking me up to apply for the license at city hall.

  Sandy had no idea what a terrible dagger Dan was holding over me. I was too embarrassed to confide even to her that a psychologist had ruled me an unfit mother. Of all my failures in life—and, trust me, I’ve failed more than most—this was the absolute worst.

  Nor had I been able to tell Stiletto. I mean, what would he think if he knew that I was too much of a screw-up to raise a kid? He’d find me revolting, that’s what. Better he remain under the misimpression I was remarrying Dan simply for the sake of Jane and leave it at that.

  Though, God, I did miss him. Missed the way his capable hands would slide over my bare hips, how he pressed his hard naked body against me, purposeful, unrelenting, determined . . .

  “Hey!” Debbie gave me a dirty look. I realized I’d been yanking her hair.

  “Sorry,” I apologized. It was true what they said in magazines. Sexual frustration can lead to baldness, but only if it’s your hairdresser who’s frustrated.

  Debbie returned to her cell call. I stopped thinking about Stiletto and concentrated on the up do. And then, just as we were finishing her hair extensions and I was applying the last coat of shellac, uh, Final Net, the most awful, devastating, horrific event ever to befall the House of Beauty befell.

  Debbie blinked and rubbed her eyes. “Is it getting warmer in here? I feel dizzy.”

  That was when I noticed the red blotches. First on her neck. Hickey, I thought, immediately reconsidering when another red blotch appeared under her ear.

  I motioned for Sandy to take a look.

  Sandy’s very practical and not easily flustered. She wears peach polyester uniforms and keeps her curly brown hair tied up neatly in a matching peach bow. She padded over to inspect.

  “Debbie?” she inquired. “Do you feel okay?”

  Debbie was clutching her stomach, the cell phone shaking in her hand. “What’s wrong with me? I feel so dizzy. I feel like something bad is going to happen.” She began to scratch maniacally. Little red welts were popping up all over her arms. Her nose was running like a dripping faucet.

  The welts. The dizziness. The running nose. This was an allergic reaction.

  “Debbie, are you allergic to anything?” I asked.

  “Latex,” Sandy said, adding quickly, “but I didn’t use it.”

  “Not that.” Debbie wheezed. “Remember? Wheat . . . fatal. Shouldn’t forget.”

  A fatal wheat allergy? Holy crap!

  Suddenly, Debbie brought her hand to her throat. “Ugh” was all she could manage. “Ugh.” Her tongue was swelling and she was breathing funny.

  Sandy’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. I’m calling 911.”

  Completely panicked now, I leaned over and slapped Debbie’s cheeks. She was going. She was going fast. This was a code blue. Whatever that was.

  Sudafed, I thought, grabbing my purse and searching for Benadryl or any antihistamine I could find through the mess of lipsticks, pens, paper, bank receipts and assorted tampons. So much makeup. All my Maybelline for a single EpiPen.

  “Does anyone have any Benadryl?” I hollered across the salon.

  Sissy Dolan and Trula Kramer, octogenarians in hearing aids, lifted their hair dryers. “What?” they both hollered. “There’s a fire drill?”

  Oscar, Sandy’s miniature poodle, hopped off his plaid doggy bed and began yipping madly just to add to the commotion. I wanted to slap some sense into all of them.

  Sandy was on the phone describing the scene to the dispatcher. Before I knew it, sirens were blaring across the South Side. Alerted by their uncanny sixth sense for incoming tragedy, a crowd of babushkas gathered outside, equipped with aluminum lawn chairs and bags of popcorn for the free show. Then an ambulance pulled up and emergency crews rushed through the door. They were so fast, they must have been next door at Manny’s Bar and Grille having a beer when the call came in.

  Wouldn’t be the first time.

  Sandy directed them to Debbie, whose face was now a queer shade of purple. I stepped back and looked away while they did their jobs.

  “Where’s the fire?” Tula Kramer said, rollers stuck all over her gray hair. “I don’t smell no smoke.”

  Sandy gathered Oscar into her arms and began petting madly as the medics pounded on Debbie’s chest and applied oxygen. Finally, after zapping her a couple times with portable defibrillators, they lifted Debbie onto a stretcher, tucked a white sheet around her and carried her to the ambulance.

  They left behind Lehigh detective Monica Wilson, otherwise known as “Vavavavoom” or “Vava,” for short.

  Vava used to be a knockout before she became a cop, starting out as a lowly meter maid and working her way up to the rank of detective. She was busty and tall and gorgeous with high cheekbones and the kind of figure that made men forget their first names.

  Vava brought out a tablet and began asking Sandy and me questions: who was Debbie, how old was she, who was her next of kin.

  “Next of kin!” Sandy screeched.

  “It doesn’t look good. They weren’t able to resuscitate her. I’m assuming they’ll pronounce her DOA at the hospital.”

  “Oh, no,” Sandy wailed, petting Oscar so hard he was getting static cling. “This is horrible. Just horrible.”

  I thought of Phil. What would he do without his soul mate? Scrap that, what would the single women in my neighborhood do once they found out the most ideal husband in Lehigh had been widowered? There’d be so many casseroles he could open a restaurant.

  “Who called in that it was poison?” Vava asked.

  “Poison?” Sandy said. “I called 911, but I didn’t say anything about poison.”

  “Well, someone did because at 13:05 an anonymous call came across dispatch that one Debbie Shatsky, age thirty-eight, was in the process of being poisoned at the House of Beauty.”

  Stunned, Sandy and I looked at each other. I felt an odd sensation at the back of my neck—the one you get when you realize that the due date on your Visa bill changes each month so Visa can collect more late fees.

  The feeling you get when you realize you’ve been set up.

  Chapter Two

  “That’soutrageous,” Sandy said. “What kind of creep would make a disgusting crank call like that to the police?”

  A handsome, red-haired man in a navy jumpsuit and rubber gloves carrying a kit of test tubes and swabs and other alarming scientific stuff walked through the door. I recognized him as Eric Wachowski, a nice en
ough guy who went to St. Anne’s Catholic Church and was putting himself through med school by working as a tech in the medical examiner’s.

  I knew all this because he happened to be Sissy Dolan’s grandson, which meant as soon as Sissy saw him she would announce to the world that Debbie was dead.

  “Crime lab,” Vava said flatly. “Mind if he takes a few samples?”

  “I have nothing to hide. Go ahead.” Sandy tossed him the keys to her office.

  Sandy may have had nothing to hide, but as a crime reporter myself—as well as the ex-wife/fiancée of the sleaziest lawyer in town—I wasn’t so sure letting the crime lab have free range without a search warrant was such a hot idea. I mean, when a girl’s got rights, she needs to protect them.

  “Oh, look, it’s Eric!” Sissy squealed. “That must mean Debbie didn’t make it. That must mean she kicked the bucket.”

  Tula Kramer gasped.

  Sissy waved crazily. “Hi, sweetie! Is wittle Ewwic woowking hawwd?”

  Eric waved hi to his grandmother, bowed his head out of mortification from being addressed in baby talk and headed to Sandy’s office.

  “Why does he have to take samples from there?” Sandy asked, her voice reaching a new level of panic.

  “Just following the tip,” Vava said.

  “Must have been some tip,” I observed, “what with all the excruciating detail.”

  Vava nodded. “It was very thorough, yes. By the way, you know anyone who might have wanted to harm Mrs. Shatsky?”

  That was when I remembered the mysterious Marguerite. Right before she broke out in hives, Debbie had been yapping about how this desperate housewife was out to claim Phil and how Marguerite would have to step over her dead body first.

  Like they say, be careful what you wish for.

  I decided to keep the Marguerite info to myself. This could be a blockbuster news story and I wanted to get to the main suspect before the cops did and ruined all my fun.

  “Not really,” I answered. “Everyone liked Debbie. Say, Sandy?”

  Sandy furrowed her brows.

  Vava bent down and picked up the hair extension Sandy had been applying when Debbie suddenly went berserk.

  “What’s this?” Vava asked, sniffing the glue end of the hair extension.

  “A hair extension,” Sandy said nervously. “Debbie gets them here all the time.”

  Vava looked doubtful. “All the time?”

  “Whenever she and her husband go out to dinner or a special occasion. She likes to have her hair piled up high.”

  Had to have the highest hair in the room, that was our Debbie.

  “It smells weird,” Vava said.

  “That’s because of the special hypoallergenic glue I have to use. Debbie mixes it herself at home and brings it in.” Sandy bit her lip. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Officer. Debbie’s allergic to latex. Superallergic. She told me once that a pair of false eyelashes could kill her. Or even a condom.”

  “No kidding,” Vava said. “A lethal condom.”

  And here I’d assumed that was an urban myth boys used to spread in high school.

  “It’s true,” Sandy insisted. “That’s why Debbie brings her own glue. She brought a fresh batch today. It’s right there. On the vanity.”

  Vava leaned over and sniffed the small Tupperware container of white stuff. “And is that the glue you used?”

  “Oh, absolutely. It’s the glue I always use.”

  Vava snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, pulled out a plastic bag and dropped in the hair extension. Then she got another bag, capped the Tupperware and threw that in.

  Sandy’s eyes were bugging. She was used to living a normal life, running a respectable salon where nothing dramatic happened except maybe a dryer overheated or the washing machine overfilled. She paid her taxes quarterly, kept her premises litter-free, got a Pap smear every year and invested regularly in her IRA.

  She’d been married to the same boring man for twenty boring years, going to bed at eight and waking up at four because he was a baker. She was not used to the police holding hairpieces she owned as evidence or the crime lab going through her back office.

  “Are you sure you didn’t accidentally confuse Debbie’s glue with a latex-based glue?” Vava asked.

  “I’m positive.” Sandy held up her hand, Girl Scout-like. “I’m always careful.”

  I came to her defense. “It’s true. Sandy is the most conscientious hairdresser I know. If Debbie’s dead, it must have been by natural causes or murder.”

  “Murder?” Vava wrote this down.

  Sandy poked me. “Thanks a bunch, Bubbles.”

  I rushed to clarify. “What I mean is that Sandy would never cause a client’s death, at least not through negligence.”

  “Negligence? Did I just hear my favorite word?”

  Dan was pushing his way through the crowd. As usual his black hair was slicked back and he wore a black wool coat. I didn’t know what look Dan was going for. Maybe Vampire GQ.

  His fat white fingers were adorned with garish gold pinky rings, including one for Lehigh University, where we met at a fraternity party and—after five minutes of conversation, one glass of rubbing-alcohol punch and two minutes on a sticky, beer-soaked fraternity floor—conceived our daughter.

  I’d forgotten that he was supposed to pick me up so we could get our marriage license today. Funny how that slipped my mind.

  “What’s all the commotion?” he asked, glancing at Vava, trying to place her.

  “We had an accident,” I explained. I knew Sandy would be worried that Dan might misconstrue or, worse, might claim to be Phil Shatsky’s lawyer and file a lawsuit on the spot. “A client suffered an allergic reaction.”

  Dan raised an eyebrow. “Is the client okay?”

  “Not really,” I said. “She’s kind of dead.”

  “That sucks,” he said.

  Vava pointed her pencil at him. “Aren’t you Chip Ritter, the lawyer? You must have broken every speed limit to catch up to that ambulance.”

  Dan smiled, as if chasing ambulances were a special talent. “Actually, I was on my way to pick up this little lady.” He wrapped his arm around me. “How’s about a kiss, foxy mama?” He pursed his bluish, wet lips. They were like two slugs fresh out of the garden.

  I fought back a gag.

  “You two know each other?” Vava asked.

  “He’s my ex-husband,” I said.

  “She’s my fiancée,” Dan answered.

  Vava seemed confused.

  “It’s complicated,” Sandy explained. “Honestly, you don’t want to know. It’s sordid. Let’s get back to Debbie.”

  A bright light flashed. Over Sandy’s shoulder I could see Travis Miner with his omnipresent TV camera. Travis Miner was a patrolling shark, just like Dan, though instead of searching for victims to exploit through litigation, he searched for victims to exploit through grainy cable TV news.

  Not that Travis worked for a television station. He was a freelancer—or mercenary, depending on your perspective—who kept two police scanners on his belt and cruised the town, trolling for that mother of all news stories: the five-car pileup, the full-blown house fire or, if lucky, a homicide in a beauty salon.

  “What’s he doing here?” Sandy hissed.

  “Don’t you worry, Sandy. Let me handle this.” Never one to miss an opportunity to grandstand before a television audience, no matter how small or how house-bound, Dan brushed off his coat sleeves and marched toward Travis.

  “Perhaps I can help you. I’m Chip Ritter of the law firm of Ritter, Ryjeski and Gold. We’ll sue when others won’t.” Dan then molded his eyebrows into his “serious squint,” which he always did at the end of his introduction. “What’re your concerns, son?”

  “Um,” said Travis intelligently. “I don’t know if you’d exactly call them concerns. I’m looking for the owner. A Sandy something. I got a tip that a murder just took place here.”

  A murder? I looked to Sandy, who h
ad petted Oscar so his head was a smooth ball while the rest of his fur stood on end.

  “There was no murder!” Sandy corrected. “And it wasn’t poison.”

  Travis swung his camera onto her. “Poison, you say. Do you often go around poisoning your clients? And I happened to notice that your license on the wall has expired.”

  Damn. I’d reminded her about that just yesterday.

  Vava went over to check the license and took it off the wall, dropping it in yet another plastic bag.

  Sandy burst into fresh tears.

  Travis said, “We had a tip this joint was behind code.”

  “Hmm-mm.” Detective Vava Wilson shook her head. “All these tips. There is something fishy going on here.”

  I checked my watch to see if school was out yet. That might explain the bogus murder tips. Kids.

  “Excuse me, Detective Wilson.” Eric the lab guy was back, holding another Ziploc bag with something white in it. I noticed that Travis had swung his camera off Sandy and was now focused on the bag.

  “Yes, Wachowski?” Vava said.

  “Just want you to know that we found this in the locked bathroom in the office. It appears as if someone might have been trying to flush it down the toilet.”

  Sandy wiped her tears. “But I’m the only one with keys to the bathroom. I didn’t put anything down the toilet.”

  “What is it?” Vava asked.

  “It’s a type of adhesive,” Wachowski said. “It appears to be homemade.”

  Debbie’s hair glue. But why would someone have tried to flush it down the toilet?

  “And this?” Vava asked, handing him the bag with the glue Sandy had been using. “Is this latex?”

  Wachowski opened the bag and sniffed. There certainly was a heck of a lot of sniffing going on. I mean, how scientific was it to just sniff?

  “Well, I haven’t run any tests, obviously, but it smells latex-based to me. Pretty strong odor, like a brand-new car.”