Color Me Dead

by Constance Barker

  “Yuk,” Betina said.

  Nellie laughed. “Dentists make more than we do. We got the pole and they got the money.”

  “What hair stylist uses a barber pole?” Betina asked.

  “You’re missing the point,” Nellie said.

  “There is no point,” Betina said.

  “Let’s take a closer look,” I suggested. “They are disappearing. Who knows when you’ll get to see an old fashioned barber shop again?”

  The others didn’t seem sure, but I could sense their curiosity and when I crossed the street and went in through the door, they followed.

  There were three barber chairs and one customer, with his cape around his neck, getting his haircut. The smell of talc was strong. “Well hello,” the barber, a big, red-faced man said. “What can I do you for?”

  “We are tourists,” I said. “We saw this place and couldn’t resist checking it out.”

  He chuckled. “Is that damn hair styling convention in town again?”

  “It is.”

  “And you lot, you’re some of them fancy hair stylists who want to see what an honest, simple haircutting place is all about.”

  “Something like that.” I confessed. “There aren’t that many regular barber shops around—a few chain shops and some in rural places, but they are disappearing.”

  “I guess being a throwback to the dim and misty dawn of time has some advantages, Bubba,” the customer said.

  “Such as?”

  “If you weren’t such a dinosaur you’d never get pretty ladies coming in this dump.”

  Bubba grinned. “Man calls it a dump, but that doesn’t keep him from coming in every week for, what is it now, Ernie, twenty years?”

  “A lifetime of years,” Ernie said. “I always had low standards.”

  Pete was watching Bubba cut the man’s hair. “Does he always get it cut exactly the same way?”

  “Yeah, for, what is it now, Ernie, ten or twenty years?”

  “Somewhere in that arena.” He grinned. “Hell, kid, everyone who comes in here gets their haircut the same way. Bubba only knows one way to cut hair.”

  “The way my daddy taught me,” Bubba said.

  “It’s a take it or leave it approach to marketing,” Ernie said. “I know it’s a crappy haircut, but he gives me a lollipop if I’m good.”

  “At least I did when your daddy used to bring you in when you were twelve,” Bubba said. “How’s the convention this year?”

  “Interesting,” I said, making Bubba laugh again.

  “That’s one of them words,” he said.

  “One of them words?” I asked.

  “Interesting. That can mean almost anything, good or bad.”

  “Well there have been good and bad things.”

  “Including a murder,” Nellie said.

  That got Bubba’s attention. “Who got killed?”

  “A stylist from Baton Rouge named Victoria Russel,” I said.

  He shook his head. “There’s often weird stuff that happens at that show,” Bubba said. He tapped Ernie’s shoulder. “Ernie, remember a few years back, all the fuss there was?”

  “Oh yeah. There was that woman who swore a voodoo curse on the whole dang place and everyone in it. Made a big splash. Her name was… well it started with an ’S’ as I recall,” Ernie said.

  My heart raced. “Was it Sylvia?”

  Bubba shook his head. “No. That don’t sound right. I’d remember Sylvia. My wife’s sister is named Sylvia.” He chuckled. “I could sure see that woman shrieking a voodoo curse at me. Nope. Wasn’t Sylvia.”

  Ernie held up a finger. “Sabrina. Her name was Sabrina, like the witch on a television show years back.”

  “Why would she want to curse them?” Betina asked before anyone else could.

  Bubba laughed. “Seems like she was the favorite to win the styling competition. Beats me how ya’ll score a dang haircut in the first place. Hair is cut decent or it ain’t, as I see it.”

  “Bout right,” Ernie said. “Anyway, this little Sabrina gal was a ball of fire apparently, but she started having problems. Things went wrong with her equipment — missing things, broken stuff.”

  “I remember reading that she said someone replaced her styling gel with epoxy or something,” Ernie said.

  Bubba nodded. “Whatever it was, she never managed to finish her hair style thing and she just exploded. The rumor was that she was in touch with voodoo people. Some folks thought that the trouble she had was because some spell she was using went bad on her.”

  “They think she was using voodoo to win?” Betina asked. Her hushed voice added drama to the moment.

  “That was the rumor. Then, at the awards ceremony, she stormed on the stage and grabbed the microphone and cursed them all. Said that the entire competition would suffer.”

  “That part at the awards ceremony was on the television news,” Ernie said. “Talk about your murder… that gal was ready to kill someone right then.”

  “Maybe everyone,” Ernie said.

  “I’ve never heard about that, or this Sabrina,” I said.

  “She sounds like a real sore loser,” Nellie said.

  Bubba even thought that was funny. “I can’t imagine they promote her rant as part of the show.”

  “They’d be wanting the world to forget that little episode,” Ernie agreed.

  “I’d imagine they would. It wasn’t the best publicity.”

  “Well guys, thanks for letting us look around,” I said. “And for the story.”

  “Come in anytime,” Ernie said. “I think that’s our only decent haircutting story though.” He looked thoughtful. “Although there is that one about Bubba shaving his cousin Ralph’s head when he fell asleep in the chair.”

  “There you go inviting people into my place again, Ernie. And telling stories out of school.”

  “If it ain’t the customers pays the rent, then who is it?”

  As they left, Nellie looked back over her shoulder. “This place has made me city sick again,” Nellie said. “In a strange way it’s a lot like Teasen and Pleasen and the city is closing in around it.”

  I started to object, but I could see her point. What made our salon special to us was the camaraderie, the relationships with each other and our customers. If we lost Betina, that dynamic would change. We’d go on, but differently.

  Another bittersweet moment in the city settled over me.

  # # #

  The restaurant we’d set out to find, the one James had recommended, wasn’t far from Bubba’s, but it was off the beaten track. It took us a while to find it and by the time we arrived, we’d all been thinking about the new possible suspect—Sabrina. Whoever she was, she had an axe to grind with the competition and one or more competitors.

  The restaurant was nice and had a homey feel. I could see the attraction. “James said that the food is good but spicy,” I warned everyone. “It caters more to locals than tourists.”

  “It has a great feel to it,” Nellie said. I was glad she felt it too.

  A board on the sidewalk out front listed a few specials and there was a card on the table that had them too. They sounded so good that we all ordered from that without a glance at the menu, much to the delight of the mustachioed waiter, who turned out to also be the owner. “What made you seek out my little bistro?” he asked.

  “A recommendation,” I said. “Investigator James Woodley suggested we come here if we wanted authentic Cajun food.”

  “Did he now?” The man was even happier. “He has come in many times over the years. Why hasn’t he brought all of you before?”

  “We are visiting from Knockemstiff,” Nellie said. “It’s a small town to the northwest.”

  “I know of it,” he said.

  “You do?” We all voiced our surprise in unison.

  He grinned. “It isn’t likely I’d confuse that name with another town. My auntie teaches there.”

  “Mrs. Lacey is your auntie?”

&nb
sp; He grinned even broader. “That’s the lady. She goes on about the brilliant little girls she has in her school. You say it’s a small town… Do you know Sarah and Ginny?”

  “I think we do,” Nellie said. “Savannah is responsible for the care and feeding of Sarah.”

  “And Ginny is her coconspirator,” he said, clapping his hands.

  “I prefer ‘best friend’,” I told him.

  “At that age it’s much the same thing. They are, I believe, seven? You should bring them to enjoy New Orleans sometime. Let James show them the city.”

  “Are you in the pay of James Woodley?” I asked.

  “Only a friend. Not an employee. In fact, we got to know each other because he was in here and mentioned that he’d just come back from investigating a murder in Knockemstiff.”

  “And you told him you were related to Mrs. Lacey,” Nellie said. “A small world, even in a big city, effect strikes again.”

  “This is so delightful,” he said, turning away. “I am bringing you all a bottle of the perfect wine to go with our specials on the house.”

  “James Woodley…” I muttered.

  “You think he recommended the place because the man has ties to Knockemstiff?” Pete asked.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he arranged it somehow,” I said. “He might’ve planted Mr. Lacey on us.”

  “Great tinfoil hat theory,” Nellie said.

  “He’ll probably put something in the wine that makes New Orleans seem even better than it is,” I said.

  “Hey, free wine is good,” Nellie said. “Don’t go getting negative on us.”

  Betina seemed lost in thought. “A penny for your thoughts,” Pete said.

  “I was thinking about what it might be like to be a model,” she said. “The city might be harsh, but it sure seems to be a place that feeds dreams. Right now we are all thinking about what if, I’d be willing to bet.”

  Nellie took her hand. “I don’t think anyone at this table would be willing to bet against you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The food that came was almost predictably delicious, although Betina found it a little too spicy. Being rather on top of the world at the moment, she found it funny that she couldn’t eat what the rest of us were wolfing down. “I guess I’ll just have to drink more wine than I should to calm my burning mouth.”

  “Nice call,” Nellie said. “Is it too late for me to claim this delicious food is too spicy for me too?”

  “It is when you are talking to someone who has eaten gumbo at your house.”

  “That was an accident. The lid on the cayenne pepper was loose.”

  “None of your clan noticed anything.”

  “Those guys eat molten steel.”

  “True. And you can have more wine just because we love you.” I poured some into her glass.

  “So what do we do about this Satina person?” Betina asked.

  “Sabrina,” Pete said.

  “Really? Satina sounds so much better for a voodoo child. Oh wait, isn’t that a song Leander sings?”

  “Yeah, but that’s irrelevant.”

  “I think we should find out what we can about Sabrina,” I agreed. “If she’s at the show she might know something about the sabotage that’s been going on and maybe even the murder. It’s a small community.”

  Nellie poured some wine. “Which is a polite way of saying she might have done one or both—that she’s your prime suspect, Investigator Savannah Jeffries.”

  “What’s wrong with being nice?”

  Pete scowled. “About a murderer. Somehow I think everything is wrong with that.”

  “You know, if she made such a fuss back then and was around this year, wouldn’t someone have mentioned it?” Betina asked. “Most of these people know each other pretty well and they remember people who make a scene like the one Ernie and Bubba described.”

  “I think that the organizers would be watching for her to keep her out.”

  “Now we know what’s on Gloria’s clipboard,” Nellie said. “A photo of Sabrina.”

  I ignored her. “If she’s got in somehow, someone would notice. I mean she wouldn’t exactly be in disguise, would she?” I asked. Then I noticed the way all three of them were looking at me. Nellie was wearing her very best ‘are you nuts?’ look. “Okay, I get it. She would so she could get in, and so she could carry out the sabotage. But she’d have to be involved in the show somehow or she couldn’t have access. Whoever did all this nasty stuff was able to get into the ballroom when everyone was just setting up and maybe into the place they stored the boxes.”

  Betina smirked. “Right. So now, instead of being the guard dog, Gloria with the clipboard is her sister?”

  “Or Gloria is Sabrina,” Nellie said. “How would we know?”

  The thought stopped me. She was right. We wouldn’t know. We had no idea who Sabrina was or what she looked like. “But other people would recognize her.”

  “Maybe. Depends on how good a disguise she has.”

  “Why do we assume that the sabotage is connected to Victoria’s murder?” I asked.

  Pete smiled. “Because they both involve the competition.”

  “Maybe they do, but not necessarily. What if the person committing the sabotage had no beef with Victoria? Sabrina’s curse was on the whole show.”

  “If we were sure it was someone who didn’t have a beef with Victoria, then we’d know exactly who it was,” Nellie said. “That would be you.”

  I stared at her for a moment before I realized that she was making a joke. “Right. She did make a lot of enemies.”

  Betina suddenly slapped her hand on the table. “And we have to consider the possibility that Victoria was the one doing the sabotage. She was trying to fluster everyone, but someone found out and killed her for doing it. Manus certainly wanted to blame her for the scissors deal.”

  The idea was out in left field, but not impossible. “I still don’t see Victoria as the sabotage type, but we should keep an open mind. What about Dave?” I asked.

  “Why would he sabotage himself?” Nellie asked.

  “That assumes that the person who messed with his invention was the same one who did all the other things,” I said.

  “Conversely,” Nellie said, “the other things could be a smoke screen for sabotaging his invention. I think I remember that in a movie.”

  “Or Sylvia could be the saboteur,” I said. “Stealing Victoria’s style, going to all that trouble, makes her seem desperate to win.”

  “If she did steal it, that wasn’t just Victoria wanting to make her look bad,” Nellie said.

  “For that matter, we can’t assume all the sabotage was the work of one person. There could’ve been a copycat. A single incident gives other people the idea that this is a great time and place for revenge for some real or imagined wrong.”

  Betina clapped her hands and laughed. “I think we went backwards. We’ve widened the hunt instead of narrowing it.”

  “We’ve certainly done that,” Nellie said. “At this rate we are going to have to figure out the motive Bubba and Ernie had for telling us about Sabrina. And speaking of her, I don’t see how we can take this any further until we know more about who this woman is and where she is now.”

  I got out my phone. “I’ll call James and tell him what we’ve learned.”

  “I’d leave out all our brilliant analysis that managed to muddy the waters,” Nellie said.

  “Good idea.”

  Nellie frowned. “The problem is that learning who did those things, bad as they were, doesn’t tell us who killed Victoria. We don’t know if that is even related to the sabotage. For all we know she was killed in that meeting room because that’s where she was when the killer caught up with her.”

  “And unless we know why she was killed, we don’t know that the killer only had her in his or her sights.”

  “Ugh,” Betina said. “I didn’t really want to hear that right now.”

  “I didn’t ever wa
nt to hear it,” Pete said. “You think they could strike again?”

  “I honestly have no idea,” I said. “Nellie’s right. We can’t know until the murder is solved.”

  I called James then and we had a lovely dessert, but the mood of the party had changed. The festive atmosphere evaporated and as we walked back to catch a taxi to the hotel, we retreated a bit into our own concerns, our private worries.

  # # #

  When we got back to the hotel without anyone suggesting it we somehow drifted into the bar. I don’t think it wasn’t that anyone was particularly in a drinking mood, but that we were all thinking through the events of the past few days. It had our brains working overtime and then there was the unsettling knowledge that a murderer was walking free among us. A killer is bad enough, and when you don’t know the motive or if they are done killing, it can disturb the idea of sleeping peacefully.

  Nellie slipped off to make a call home that apparently didn’t reveal any new catastrophe while I settled into a booth. When she came back, Pete and Betina went off to chat and drink with a young crowd. Some of them were models and from the squeals I heard, I think Betina told them about the approach from the agency. “They are the best,” a handsome young guy said. He was tall and muscular and had flowing, shoulder-length raven-black hair that almost glowed under the lights.

  “He looks like something off the cover of a romance novel,” I said.

  “The guy with hot and cold running muscles? Well, I think you nailed it,” Nellie said. “I heard someone saying that he is a model, so undoubtedly he’s been on a few of those. Go over and say hi. Maybe he’ll flex an arm for you if you ask him nice.”

  “Wow! The Stearnes Agency,” a skinny blonde was saying as she looked at the business card Betina was holding out. “My God, I’d do anything to get them to represent me. I’d dump my current agent in a heartbeat. They came to you? Unbelievable.”

  “They are good then?”

  The hunk grinned. “They’ve sure gotten me some good jobs.”

  “You’re with Stearnes?”

  He nodded. “They are pretty picky too.” He moved closer. “So am I.”