by Lila Dare
“The police in this town don’t see beyond the end of their noses, Vi,” Althea put in. She stood by the coffeemaker, as if by looming over it she could intimidate it into faster production. The aromatic liquid slowed to a drip-drip and she pulled a mug from the cupboard. “Why, they suspected you of doing away with Connie DuBois.” She snorted. Today’s caftan was sand colored and fringed with knotted strings at the hem. I had to admit it looked good on her, setting off her dark skin and making her tall figure look graceful. An ankle bracelet of bells tinkled when she crossed the room to hand my mom her mug.
“Thanks,” Mom said. “But Stella. No one could suspect Stella of violence.”
“No one who knows her,” I agreed. “I told Agent Dillon the idea was ridiculous.”
“So he’s back, is he?” Althea said with a knowing look at me. “Hmmm.”
To my annoyance, I felt myself blushing. “There’s nothing to ‘hmmm’ about,” I said. “He was interviewing me about a murder, not asking me for a date.” I plied the broom more vigorously than I intended, floofing the hair and dust I’d collected so it dispersed again. “Shoot.” I swept more carefully and bent to scoop the pile into a dustpan.
“But he will,” Althea said confidently.
“I’m worried about Stella,” I said, dragging the conversation away from my social prospects. “Agent Dillon asked me for her phone number, but no one answered when he called. And then they sent an officer over to the house, but no one was home.”
“He told you that?” Mom asked, her brows knitting.
“No. I heard his end of a phone conversation.” He’d made me hang around until he finished interviewing Marv … I couldn’t help overhearing the crime scene techs’ conversations, the bantering of the other officers, and Dillon’s phone calls. In addition to the tidbit about Stella and Darryl not being home, I’d learned that the coroner suspected Audrey had died within the last two hours (duh), and that whoever killed her would have been splattered with enough blood to impersonate an extra in a Friday the 13th movie. Dillon speculated that the murderer stole a costume from the rack to cover his or her bloodied clothes. It took me about two seconds to realize the caped figure I’d seen had probably murdered Audrey. It still gave me the shivers when I thought about it. I didn’t mention it to Mom and Althea, not wanting to worry them.
“Good morning, all.”
Stella’s voice startled us. The three of us looked toward the door like our heads were on wires. Dressed in jeans and a pale pink polo shirt, Stella looked more tired than I felt. She held Beauty in her arms, but the cat jumped down and established herself on the wide windowsill where she could glare at the squirrels chasing each other around the old magnolia tree in the front. One of them scampered down the hammock’s line and Beauty growled.
“Stella, honey, are you okay?” Mom asked, bustling forward to hug the surprised manicurist.
“A little tired, Vi, but nothing serious.” Stella pulled away from Mom and looked at the three of us. “What’s up? You all look so … so worried.” A hint of unease crossed her face. “Did something happen?”
“It’s just that when the police said you weren’t home last night—” Mom started.
“The police?” Alarm rang in Stella’s voice. “The police were here?”
“Not here,” I said hastily. “At the Oglethorpe.” When she just stared at me, wide-eyed, I said, “Audrey Faye was murdered some time during the program. I found her.”
Stella’s hand went to her mouth, covering it. She said nothing. As we watched, she swayed and the color leached out of her skin. I’d heard of people turning white, but I’d never seen it happen. No spot of color remained in her cheeks. Her green eyes stood out like pools in the pallor of her face.
“She’s going to faint,” Althea said, springing forward. Ruthlessly, she pressed Stella’s head down between her knees. “Deep breaths,” Althea counseled. “In … out.”
After a moment, Stella struggled against Althea’s hand on her head. “I’m okay,” she said. “I just need to sit down.” With Althea’s hand at her elbow, she tottered to the love seat and sank onto it. “What happened?” she asked.
“Someone stabbed Audrey,” I said. I debated whether or not to tell her about the murder weapon but realized she’d find out sooner or later anyway. “With a nail file.”
“Oh my God.” Tears sprang to her eyes.
I was surprised. Sure, Audrey’s death was a shock, but it wasn’t a personal tragedy for Stella who hadn’t even known the woman.
“Here.” Mom thrust a mug of steaming chamomile tea at Stella, who took it automatically. “It’s always a shock when you hear someone you know has died unexpectedly.”
“When you said the police were looking for me, it’s because they think I did it, isn’t it?” Stella said, her gaze swiveling from Mom’s face to mine. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course they don’t,” I said. “But they need to question a lot of people. I’m sure they’re talking to all the contestants and the crew and anyone who might’ve been backstage last night. You’re just one on a long list.”
“What’ll happen to Jess if I’m arrested?” Stella asked, as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. Her hands trembled so hard that tea slopped over the rim of the mug and splotched her slacks. “Ow.” She set the cup on the end table.
Mom sat beside her and took her hand. “Stella, no one will think you had anything to do with Audrey’s death. The police want to talk to you, but they’re not going to arrest you. Your nail file was right there where anyone could pick it up, right?”
Stella nodded numbly.
“Agent Dillon will figure that out. It’s not like you had a reason to kill Audrey Faye. Why, you didn’t even know the woman.”
“The police might be slower than three-legged tortoises,” Althea put in, “but even they aren’t going to figure you for a random killer, running around murdering people you don’t even know.”
Stella cried harder. She said something, but I couldn’t understand her through the sobs.
I looked at Mom and Althea but they shrugged. “What?” I asked.
Stella raised her head. Tears ran down her face. Mascara streaked her cheeks and the tip of her nose glowed red. “They’re going to arrest me,” she said fatalistically. “Darryl and her … Audrey and Darryl … They were having an affair.”
WE GOT SO QUIET YOU COULD HAVE HEARD A FEATHER land on a down comforter. Then, the three of us tried to talk at once.
“Stella, honey, I’m so sorry,” Mom said.
“That bastard,” Althea said, pounding her fist against her thigh.
“How do you know?” I asked. Maybe she’d misinterpreted something, jumped to the wrong conclusion. I didn’t know Darryl all that well, but he’d always struck me as a solid guy. And he seemed to love Stella. They’d celebrated their nineteenth wedding anniversary in April and had spent a romantic weekend on Jekyll Island, leaving Jess with Stella’s mother. Stella glowed for the whole next week.
Stella gave Mom a wan smile and looked at me. “He told me.”
Oh. Not much chance she was mistaken then. “What did he say?”
Mom gave me her “mind your own business” glare. I pretended not to see it.
“They grew up on the same block over in Kingsland, so he’s known her forever. He said they ran into each other about three months back and, well … you know. One thing led to another. They’ve been seeing each other a couple of times a week. Darryl’s had a lot of time on his hands since they laid him off at the auto dealership up in Brunswick. He’s been really frustrated that he can’t find anything better than part-time work. You’d think with the economy being like it is, that people would need good mechanics to keep their old cars on the road so they don’t have to buy new ones. That’s what Darryl says. But it hasn’t worked out that way.”
“So what you’re trying to say is he had an affair because he’s feeling sorry for himself?” Althea asked bluntly. “Because he needs to get hi
s mojo back? Don’t tell me you’re buying that hog swill.”
Stella teared up again and Mom patted her hand.
“Why was he at the pageant last night?” I asked.
“He wanted to break it off,” she said. She groped for the tissue box on the end table and blew her nose. “That’s what he said. But when he got there, he realized it was bad timing, with all the people around and her so busy and me being there. He didn’t know I would be there. We haven’t talked much the last couple of weeks.” She sniffed.
“Was she married?” Althea asked.
Stella nodded. “Her husband’s name is Kevin. Darryl told me.”
Wow. For some reason, I hadn’t thought of Audrey as having a husband. “Does—did—she have children?”
Stella shook her head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t know them, you know. But Darryl told me her name, so when I found out that it was her that hired us for the pageant, I was torn. Part of me wanted to have it out with her, to ask her how she could do this to my family.” Stella’s voice rose and she clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap. “But the other part … Well, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die when I met her and saw how young and pretty she is. Was.”
“You’re welcome to stay here for a couple of days, if you need to get away, get some perspective,” Mom offered when Stella fell silent.
“That’s kind of you, Violetta,” Stella said, “but Jess and I have been at my mom’s.”
That explained why the police hadn’t found her at home. It didn’t explain Darryl’s absence, though. “What about Darryl?” I asked.
She gave me a puzzled look.
“Is he still at your house?”
“As far as I know,” she said. “Why?”
“The police may want to know where he was at going on eleven last night.”
After a hesitation so brief I wondered if I’d imagined it, she said, “He was with me.” Reaching for the mug, she took a sip of tea and kept her gaze on the liquid. “We were talking. You saw him at the pageant, right? Well, we drove around and talked.”
“For four hours?” I wrinkled my brow.
“We had a lot to talk about.” Her gaze fixed on Beauty, who was stalking the shadow of a leaf skipping across the wood floor as the breeze swayed the tree limbs outside the salon.
I didn’t doubt that, but I did doubt her story. I didn’t want to—I’d known Stella for almost fifteen years, ever since she came to work for my mom—but something about her airy tone and the way she wasn’t meeting our eyes made me wonder if she was telling the whole truth. I let it go, but part of me couldn’t help wondering who she was protecting—herself or Darryl?
Chapter Eight
MOM TOOK STELLA INTO THE KITCHEN AT THE BACK of the house for another cup of tea and a tête à tête, as my favorite author, Georgette Heyer, would have said. As best as I could gather, that meant a quiet one-on-one conversation. Left alone with Althea, I finished sweeping and got to work dusting the wooden blinds. Althea rearranged the display of skin-care products, Althea’s Organic Skin Solutions, moisturizers, masks, and cleansers from her family’s recipes that she’d used for years as an aesthetician but had only gotten around to packaging and marketing last month. Setting the last violet-capped bottle in place, she turned to me with her hands on her hips.
“I assume you’re going to nose around, find out who really killed this Faye woman?”
“It’s a police—”
“Fah. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, baby-girl. You know and I know that you could no more leave Stella swinging in the wind than you could design a rocket ship. What are we going to do first?”
“We?”
She looked down her nose at me and I caved. She was right: I had been thinking about doing a bit of investigating, not so much because I didn’t trust the GBI to find the killer but because of the rumors that would spread while they plodded through their procedures. If word got around that Stella was a murder suspect, people would remember that a long time past when the real killer was convicted and stowed in a jail cell.
“All right, all right. Since I’m working at the beauty pageant anyway, I thought I’d talk to some of the girls, find out if they saw anything. And I also want to follow up on some of the incidents Audrey talked about. Maybe her assistant, Jodi, knows more about that. If you get a chance, maybe after work, you could hook up with the protestors and find out what they’re all about.”
Althea didn’t respond and I turned to look at her. She looked uncharacteristically unsure of herself, pulling at a fraying thread on her cuff. “I don’t know if I can do that,” she said finally.
“Well, okay,” I said, puzzled. “Maybe you could talk—”
“It’s because of Kwasi.”
“Your boyfriend? You don’t think he’d like you hanging out with the protestors? They don’t seem violent or anything.”
“Of course he’s not violent,” she snapped.
“He’s not—” I stopped. Dr. Yarrow was Kwasi. Her boyfriend was the protestors’ ringleader. No wonder she’d gotten all stiff and huffy and run off immediately after the protestors invaded the pageant. I wondered if she’d known he’d be there. It didn’t seem like it. I couldn’t think what to say so I blurted the first thing that came to mind. Always a mistake. “I didn’t think he’d be so young.”
Her brown eyes darkened as she glared at me. “I’m too old for him, is that what you’re saying?”
“No,” I said. “I just didn’t know—” I stopped before I could say something else stupid. The age difference had startled me, although he was probably only six or eight years younger than Althea. A moment’s reflection told me my reaction was hypocritical; if he were older than Althea I wouldn’t have blinked an eye. “He seems very … committed to his cause,” I offered.
Althea’s glare faded. “He’s a passionate man,” she agreed. A slight smile played around her lips and I got the feeling she was referring to more than his political opinions. I knew perfectly well that being sixtyish and unmarried did not mean a woman was celibate in this day and age, but in all the years I’d known Althea, I’d never gotten the feeling she was looking for more than casual friendship from the men she occasionally went out with. Maybe there was more to Dr. Kwasi Yarrow than met the eye.
“It’s helpful that you know him,” I said. “You can just ask him if he or any of his students saw something suspicious.”
Althea twisted her mouth to the side. “I could do that, I suppose. Maybe I could even join them for a few hours. I’ve never had much use for beauty pageants. I could make a poster. How about ‘Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly is ugly to the bone’ ?”
“Sounds good,” I said, relieved that she didn’t seem so touchy now.
Althea gathered up her purse, intent on buying some poster board and markers before the salon’s first customer was due. On her way out, she bumped into Rachel coming through the door, munching on an apple. Althea congratulated the girl on her performance and bustled down the stairs to her aged Ford LTD, anklet tinkling.
“I’m here for my makeover,” Rachel said, spreading her arms like an actress embracing her public. She spoiled the effect by giggling. She sat at my station, pushing off with her foot to spin the chair a lot faster than the manufacturer ever intended.
“Just let me get Mom and Stella,” I said.
She nodded, arcing the apple core toward the trash can twelve feet away. When I returned with Stella and Mom, Rachel was sitting in the chair, smock around her neck.
“It’s weird to be a client,” she said as I shampooed her hair quickly and squeezed the water out with a towel.
“Okay, no looking until I’m done,” I said when she was back in my chair. I swiveled it so she faced away from the mirror.
“Just like on What Not to Wear,” she said. “You’re not going to make me look too mainstream, are you? I mean, like, I don’t want to be boring.”
“You could never be boring,” Mom reassured her.
“Voilá,” I said, spinning the chair so she could view herself.
Mom and Stella applauded as Rachel turned her head from right to left to examine the cut. “It’s, like, really cool,” she said. “Not stodgy and dull.”
I kept my mouth shut, but I wondered if her amazement meant she thought most of the cuts I did were boring. I tried to give customers what they wanted and sometimes that meant conservative or even out of date. I had to admit that my St. Elizabeth’s customers were not, overall, as daring as my Atlanta customers had been. At Vidal Sassoon, I’d counted models and young junior league types intent on one-upping each other among my clients and they’d kept me on my styling toes.
“It suits you,” Mom said. “Good work, Grace.”
“Now, let me at her,” Stella said, bumping me aside with her hip. “We’ve got to do something about those nails.”
Rachel held out her hands, wiggling fingers with short nails still showing traces of black polish. “I guess black is out?” she said.
“Definitely,” said Stella, taking one of the girl’s hands. “I’m thinking coral with your skin tone.”
The phone rang as Stella was finishing up the second coat of polish. Mom answered it. “It’s for you, Stella. The police.” She held the phone out.
Stella took it as gingerly as if it were a scorpion. Her end of the conversation was monosyllabic, and when she hung up, deep grooves bracketed her mouth. “They want to talk to me. Now.”
“I’ll drive you,” I offered with a glance at my watch. We were due at the theater by ten to prep the contestants for the swimsuit competition. It was only eight now. If Agent Dillon kept it reasonably brief, we could be back from Kingsland in time to beautify the girls.