Polished Off

by Lila Dare

  It was peaceful here, not crowded and frenetic like the beachfront. Birdcalls and insect whirrings sounded over the gentle murmurings of the water. A pair of mallards dabbled by the bank. It was still brutally hot, even with the cool breath of the water, but giant old trees trailing Spanish moss cast a welcome shade.

  “The enemy?”

  “The beauty pageant. You help exploit those young girls, keep them enslaved to ideals of beauty and utility perpetuated by white males.” I couldn’t tell from her tone if she was buying into the protestors’ platform or making fun of it.

  “I don’t enslave anyone,” I objected. “I style hair.” Before she could expound on the slave theme, I added, “And you’re an aesthetician whose paycheck comes from facials and skin care products, so don’t be pointing any fingers.”

  She shrugged. “I know. And I enjoy it. And I like to think my clients feel better for my treatments. But I’ve got to admit that there’s something to what Kwasi says. What woman in her right mind parades around in public, wearing nothing but a skimpy bikini and high heels, looking like a … well, you know what she looks like. Not respectable.” She primmed her mouth. “No woman would do that of her own accord. They’re only doing it because that’s what the dominant culture tells her makes her valuable. Kwasi says that for women to become self-actualized, they have to see themselves as more than decorations.”

  Despite the pretentious academic-speak, that didn’t sound totally loony. Then I thought of Brooke using the pageant to earn money for vet school. She didn’t strike me as someone at the mercy of the “dominant culture.” I didn’t feel like debating, though, so I said, “I didn’t see Kwasi.”

  She shifted on the bench. “He was there earlier, but he had to go back to the college for a meeting. He says meetings are the worst part of being an academic.”

  I could believe that. I told her about talking to Sam Barnes and about the note Jodi found. “Have you talked to anyone in the protestor group who might feel strongly enough to sabotage the pageant?”

  Althea jutted her lower jaw forward. “They’re college kids, Grace Ann. Only nineteen or twenty. They’re protestors, not criminals. Kwasi teaches the ideals of civil protest in the tradition of Reverend King or Gandhi, not rioting or vandalism or anything.”

  News footage of abortion-clinic bombings and labanimal rescues played in my head. Waving posters and chanting slogans wasn’t enough for some protestors. I bent over to work a pebble out of my shoe. Straightening, I threw it toward the river and it disappeared with a little plip. “I’m worried about Stella,” I said. “Agent Dillon thinks Darryl might be implicated in Audrey’s murder somehow and I’m afraid she might do something stupid.”

  “He’s a cheating skunk,” Althea said. “Stella would do best to let him swing in the wind and reap the consequences of his actions.”

  Althea wasn’t much of one for second chances.

  “That said, he’s been a good daddy to Jessica, and Stella always did have a soft heart. You better find that girl and ride herd on her so she doesn’t do something really stupid like help him run off to Mexico.” Althea pushed to her feet and rotated her shoulders. “I’ll tell you what—protesting will get you in shape. Holding that placard up all morning sure did a number on my shoulder muscles. I’ll leave first.” Looking remarkably furtive—thank heavens there was no one in sight—she snuck back to the path and headed toward the marina.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I RETURNED TO VIOLETTA’S, THINKING MAYBE STELLA had gone back to the salon. Mom was doing highlights for an old customer and Beauty sat in the window, twitching her tail as she watched two squirrels chase each other around a tree, but Stella wasn’t there.

  “Seen Stella?” I asked Mom, slipping behind the counter to check the appointment book. A fairly light day. I didn’t need to feel too guilty about leaving Mom in the lurch.

  “Not since first thing this morning,” she said. She shot me a look over her glasses. “Why?”

  I hesitated, aware that her client was avidly soaking up every word. “No reason,” I said.

  Mom arched one brow, clearly aware there was more to it, but she let it go.

  “If you see her, tell her that I—”

  The door swinging open to let in a wave of humidity stopped me. A man stood on the threshold, peering around uncertainly. In his early fifties, I guessed, he had thinning dishwater-colored hair slicked straight back, a la President Nixon, and a hint of jowls. A dime-sized mole marred his left temple. The crisp professionalism of a brown suit, white shirt, and shined loafers didn’t mesh with his tentative expression and the almost timid way he stepped into the salon. Of course, many men felt self-conscious walking into a beauty parlor.

  “I’m looking for Grace Terhune,” he said. His voice was deeper than I’d thought it would be.

  “That’s me,” I said, stepping forward with my hand out. His firm handshake made me reassess his seeming timidity. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m Kevin Faye,” he said.

  I suppressed my surprise. He was clearly fifteen or twenty years older than Audrey had been and a very ordinarylooking man.

  “Oh.” Mom’s client gasped. Her eyes rounded. “You poor man! I heard—”

  His gaze flicked over her and he cut her off. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Privately?” He stared into my face, his brown eyes searching mine, and I realized he was only two or three inches taller than I was.

  “Uh, sure,” I said. “Let’s go out on the veranda.” I could have taken him back to Mom’s air-conditioned kitchen, but I didn’t feel comfortable leading him into her sanctum. Whatever he wanted, I figured he could tell me on the veranda.

  He held the door for me as we exited and closed it firmly behind us. With a gesture, I invited him to take one of the Adirondack chairs that sat on either side of a plant stand we used as a table. Ignoring me, he walked to the rail and looked down into the yard as if studying the magnolia roots that broke through the grass in several places or contemplating how to get rid of the fire ant mound that had appeared after the last rain. His hands gripped the rail so his knuckles showed white. Without turning around, he said, “I understand you found her. Audrey. My wife.”

  “How did you—”

  He turned. “The police told me.” He hesitated. “I just want to know … did she … ? Was she suffering?” He blinked rapidly.

  A wave of compassion brought me to his side. With a hand on his arm, I guided him to a chair. He sat on the edge of it, leaning toward me with his elbows on his knees. “She was already dead,” I told him gently. “There was nothing I could do.”

  He raised his brows and the mole jumped. “Oh, I don’t blame you. I’m sure there was nothing—” He kneaded his lips together. “Was she at peace?”

  “I’m sure she was,” I lied. “I overheard the coroner say it looked like she died instantly, that she never felt a thing.” I figured a white lie in the name of kindness was okay.

  “Thank you,” he said. He sat up straighter and took a deep breath. “It’s been so horrible. You can’t imagine—”

  I didn’t even want to try.

  “If only I’d been there like I was supposed to be. She really wanted me to come to the pageant and I’d told her I’d meet her at the theater. But then a client called and insisted on seeing a house—”

  “You’re a Realtor?”

  He nodded and withdrew a card case from his pocket. He extracted a card and handed it to me with a gesture so automatic I knew he’d done it thousands of times before. “Broker and developer. With the economy like it’s been, I didn’t feel I could tell this client to pound sand, so I agreed to the showing. If only—”

  He choked to a stop and dropped his face into his hands.

  I felt both sorry for him and intensely uncomfortable. Part of me wanted to hug him and part of me was ill at ease with a stranger’s grief. I shifted from foot to foot and felt perspiration drip down my lower back.

  “Did she say anythin
g?” He raised his gaze hopefully to my face where I stood in front of him. “Did she leave a message for me?”

  I wished I could make up something to comfort him, but I couldn’t go that far. I couldn’t say Audrey had whispered, “Tell Kevin I love him,” with her dying breath. “No,” I said flatly.

  He went very still and then a breath leaked out of him, like air from a deflating balloon. He pushed against his thighs to heave himself to his feet.

  “Thank you for your time,” he said.

  “I’m very, very sorry for your loss. When is the funeral?”

  He grimaced. “I’m not sure. The police … Whenever they finish with her. With the body.”

  From the agonized look on his face, I knew he was imagining the autopsy and the other indignities the police were inflicting on his wife’s body. I winced inwardly, regretting bringing it up. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  He mustered a sad smile. “Me, too. Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes.” It didn’t seem like a strange question, not under the circumstances.

  “I try to. I used to.”

  Before I could answer—he seemed to want a response—the salon door swung open with a tinkle and Mom’s client, hair shining, crossed the veranda toward us with click-clicks from her kitten heels. Without another word, Kevin Faye trotted down the stairs.

  “Well!” the client said, fists planted on her hips. “You’d think the man didn’t want any condolences.”

  “Imagine that,” I murmured, slipping back into the salon.

  “THAT POOR, POOR MAN,” MOM SAID WHEN I TOLD HER what Kevin Faye had wanted. “At least I didn’t have to worry about what your daddy’s last moments were like. He died right here in this house—reminded me to fertilize the azaleas and just slipped away. It was March fifth, a beautiful spring day with the sun shining like it would banish night forever and so many of our friends praying for us right here in this room.” She looked around the salon that used to be the home’s front parlor. Glancing out the window, she added, “That magnolia was only half as tall as it is now.”

  I’d heard the story so many times it was almost as though I remembered it, although I’d been only five when he died.

  Audrey’s death definitely wasn’t that peaceful. “The killer and Audrey must have been fighting before she died, wouldn’t you think?” I asked, trying to envision the scene in the small dressing room. “I mean, how likely is it that someone would walk in, snatch up Stella’s file, and stab Audrey in the neck without some sort of argument?”

  “Probably so,” Mom agreed. She scooped up a handful of towels and soiled smocks to pop in the washer. “I just hope the folks that run the Ghost Tour don’t fix on the idea of adding the theater to their shtick. It’s one thing to tell tourists stories about a Civil War belle who pines away when her beau dies at Fort Delaware and slaves who died of yellow fever, but it’s quite another to capitalize on a hideous crime.”

  “Agreed.” Pushing away from the counter, I looked around for my purse. “I’m going to find Stella.”

  “Bring her back here when you do,” Mom said. “She shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. Oh, I know she’s got Jess, but a woman needs her woman friends in time of trouble.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  STELLA AND DARRYL’S RANCH HOUSE WAS A SINGLE story, three-bedroom home with a red brick front. Its blocky design, small windows, and cement stoop suggested it was built in the seventies. Large sago palms sprawled on either side of the driveway and a live oak shaded the detached garage. A mockingbird squabbled with house finches and sparrows at a tray-style bird feeder positioned in the middle of the crabgrass-and dandelion-strewn yard. The house looked gloomy and empty, with darkened windows and no flutter of curtains or music from the oldies station Stella liked. Leaving my car at the curb, I walked up the pebbled sidewalk to the concrete stoop and rang the doorbell.

  Just when I was wondering if Stella might be at her mom’s house, the door swung open. Stella stood there, her eyes puffy and red.

  “Still no word from Darryl?” I asked, giving her a hug.

  She shook her head and invited me in with a gesture. “Nothing. I’m so worried about him, Grace. I’ve called and called but he doesn’t call back. I suppose he could be camping out somewhere without cell service, but when he’s on a hunting trip, he usually makes a point of stopping into a town every other day or so to give me a call.”

  “You think he’s camping?” I followed Stella into the front room, a cheerful space with moss green walls and plaid upholstery on an overstuffed love seat and sofa combo. Stella was crafty and had cross-stitched the red accent pillows and made the dried flower and shell arrangements decorating the walls. She sat so she could look out the window and I got the feeling she’d been there since leaving the marina, watching for Darryl to pull into the driveway. I stood by the window and fiddled with the wand that opened and closed the blinds. The scent of ammonia stung my nostrils; Stella must have cleaned the windows while she kept her vigil.

  “He likes to get up into the mountains when he’s got stuff to think about,” Stella answered. “And he did take the camper. His Chevy’s in the garage so he must’ve come back last night after dropping me at Mom’s and gotten the camper.”

  I remembered they had one of those pop-up campers that sits on a pickup bed. It was usually parked beside the garage.

  “So you’ve known all along where he went?” I asked, disturbed by her lying to me and the police.

  “But I don’t know! Why do you think I’m so worried? Look.” She held up her hands to show me fingernails, usually manicured to hand-model standards, now bitten to the quick. “He could be anywhere—the mountains, North Carolina, Florida, wherever.”

  Maybe she was more worried about Darryl’s involvement with Audrey than about his whereabouts. “Does he have a place he likes to camp?”

  “There’s a spot in the Osceola National Forest,” she admitted. “I thought about driving down there to find him. He took me there once and I think I could find it. Probably. But it’s—what?—four hours from here, eight hours round-trip? I was thinking that if I left tonight, I could be home before Jess wakes up.”

  “Why don’t you tell the police,” I suggested, “and let them check it out? I’m sure they could call the Florida police and have them send an officer or ranger around to the campsite.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said, anger and fear tightening the skin around her eyes. “What if—”

  I didn’t get to hear what she would have said because at that moment a dark blue sedan and two marked police cars pulled to the curb and Stella broke off. “Something’s happened to Darryl,” she whispered.

  Agent Dillon stepped from the car, his expression grim, and conferred with the uniformed officers clustered in the street. One of them was Hank. Great. Stella’s hand groped for mine and I gave it a squeeze. Her fingers were icy. We both watched through the window as Hank and another officer headed toward the garage and the others started up the sidewalk.

  “I’m sure it’s just routine,” I said. I mentally slapped myself for stupidity. What could be routine about having your husband disappear the night his mistress is murdered and then having a herd of police show up on your doorstep? “Why don’t you get some hot tea?” I suggested to Stella. “I’ll let them in.” And let Agent Dillon have a piece of my mind for harassing my friend.

  “No, I’ve got to deal with it,” she said. Squaring her shoulders, she walked briskly down the hall and yanked open the front door just as the doorbell bing-bonged. The officer who rang stepped back with a startled expression, bumping into Officer Qualls who had been at the theater with Hank. Agent Dillon stood a half step behind them and I got a good look at his strong profile, the slightly off-kilter nose—old sports injury? perp resisting arrest? fall from a horse?—and the square chin as he stared toward the garage.

  “Tell me,” Stella said without preamble. “It’s Darryl, isn’t it? Is he—”

  Dillon fol
lowed her line of thought without difficulty. “We don’t have any news about your husband, Mrs. Michaelson. As far as we know he’s fine.” He gentled her with his voice and I smiled at him, pleased he could allay her worst fear.

  Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank God.”

  “What we do have is a search warrant.” He produced a business-sized envelope and tried to hand it to Stella.

  She stood with her arms at her sides, an uncomprehending look on her face. She glanced down at the envelope Dillon was holding out. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a search warrant, Mrs. Michaelson,” Dillon said again. “A judge has given us permission to search your home for items related to the death of Audrey Faye.”

  “What items?” I asked. “You already have the murder weapon.”

  “Clothing,” he said. Handing me the envelope, he motioned to the officers, who pushed past us and into the hallway.

  “But you can’t—” Stella said, reaching out a hand as if to grab Officer Qualls’s sleeve.

  Flipping through the warrant, I noted the judge’s signature on the last page. I wasn’t a lawyer or even a cop, but being married to one had taught me a few things about due process and suchlike, even more than I’d learned watching Law & Order. The original was still my favorite. “They can,” I told Stella, putting a hand on her arm. “But you don’t have to watch. C’mon in the kitchen.”

  “But I want to wa—Hey! That’s my daughter’s room. You can’t go in there.” She pulled away from me to confront Officer Qualls.

  The dark-eyed cop was several inches shorter than Stella, but she didn’t quail when Stella stepped in front of her. “I have to, ma’am,” she said politely. “It’s my job.”

  Stella whirled to jab an accusing glare at Dillon. “Surely you don’t suspect a twelve-year-old of having anything to do with that woman’s death, do you?”

  Agent Dillon took her by the elbow and gently guided her back to the foyer, nodding at Officer Qualls to resume her search. “Of course not,” he said. “Why don’t you wait outside with Miss Terhune? We won’t be long.”