by Dixie Cash
“Sit up straight, Etta Jo, so I can brush your hair,” Debbie Sue said. She glanced at Edwina and caught her holding back a grin.
“Hell, girl,” Edwina said to Etta Jo. “A blind man could see you’re right as rain.”
The sound of gravel crunching beneath tires produced a groan from Debbie Sue. “Ed, please look outside and tell me that’s not another walk-in. I’d rather see the devil himself walk in here than one more person who needs a hairdo.”
Edwina pushed herself up from her seat, walked to the front door and peered through the window in the Dutch door’s upper half. “Speaking of the devil, it’s Billy Don.”
Debbie Sue felt her scalp tingle. Fuck! As anxious as she was to hear what the sheriff had learned, she wished he hadn’t chosen this moment to show up. There was no way of knowing what he might report. And here she had the biggest gossip in Salt Lick in her styling chair.
Edwina, still at the door, called over her shoulder. “He’s got a couple of people in the backseat, a man and a woman. He’s opening the door and helping them out…. Shit, they’re handcuffed.”
“Handcuffed?” Etta Jo asked, big-eyed. “The storm surge could cause some minor flooding in low-lying areas.”
Working through a mild case of panic, Debbie Sue tried to remember shreds of crisis-management tips she had read in some of Buddy’s handbooks.
“Yep. Behind their backs,” Edwina declared. “They’ve got those plastic things on their wrists.”
Shooting a menacing look toward Edwina, Debbie Sue grabbed a can of hairspray and sprayed a thick haze around her customer’s head. “All finished, Etta Jo. You run on now. I need to talk to the sheriff.”
“You’re finished?” Etta Jo asked incredulously, staring at her image in the mirror and the halo of sausage curls all over her head. “Is this what I asked for? Better grab those umbrellas when you head out the door tomorrow morning.” She patted the ringlets that surrounded her pudgy face.
“You bet. You said curls.” Debbie Sue slid a hand under Etta Jo’s flabby elbow, helped her to her feet and ushered her to the door. “It’s the new look. Just grab one of those fashion magazines and take a gander. Everyone’s wearing this do in France. It’s called Nouveau Shirley Temple.”
“Sure thing, hon,” Edwina added. “I’m just sick I can’t wear it myself. My hair doesn’t have the right texture. But it looks terrific on you.”
Just as Etta Jo reached the door the sheriff and his captives lined up on the Styling Station’s concrete apron.
Debbie Sue stared at the couple Billy Don had handcuffed. They were senior citizens, probably in their seventies and obviously confused. The blue-haired woman wore a sweatshirt proclaiming to the world that she was the world’s best grandma and the bow-legged, bald man had on Nikes, walking shorts and a jacket over a T-shirt that proclaimed he was retired and loving it. From the bullets of anger shooting from his eyes, Debbie Sue could see he damn sure wasn’t loving it now. A sense of impending doom bloomed within her. As much as she might like to trust Billy Don, his history couldn’t be ignored. She closed her eyes in a silent prayer.
Edwina held the door for Etta Jo, who said, “You know, you girls really should take down your Christmas decorations. The season’s over now.”
“Oh, I don’t know, hon,” Edwina said. “I’ve been known to leave my Christmas tree up ’til Easter. Just change the colors of the lightbulbs and you’ve got an Easter tree.”
As Etta Jo passed through the doorway, Billy Don touched his hat to her. “Afternoon, Miz Carlson.”
Etta Jo eyed first the couple, then him suspiciously. “Nice to see you, sheriff. A wave of unseasonably warm wind is expected from the north today.”
“Well we could sure use it,” Billy Don replied.
As soon as Etta Jo seated herself in her car, the sheriff herded his prisoners into the Styling Station.
“Why are we in a damn beauty shop?” the small elderly man growled, looking around the room.
Debbie Sue bit down on her lower lip. The old guy wasn’t just bald on his head. He was completely hairless on his arms and legs. He reminded her of a Chihuahua. A clammy feeling washed over Debbie Sue. She felt helpless.
“Now, Phil,” the woman said, “remember your blood pressure. Let’s let this young man explain why he’s brought us here.” She looked around. “This is just a lovely shop. What a lovely Christmas tree.”
“Christmas is over,” the man named Phil snapped. “Cost me a damn fortune, too.”
By now, Debbie Sue’s earlier personal commitment to show respect for Billy Don and address him by his official title had fled like a spooked buzzard. “Billy Don, what in the hell—” She stopped herself. From somewhere she dredged up a phony smile. “Er, what is going on, Billy Don?”
Billy Don hitched up his utility belt. “These people were trying to escape. Leavin’ the campground when I drove up.”
“We weren’t leaving, you idiot,” the older man barked, twisting his wizend, hairless body and attempting to shoulder Billy Don in the chest. “I’ve told you a dozen times, we were arriving.” He thrust his face up close to Billy Don’s, his thick black-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Arriving!”
He turned to Debbie Sue as if seeking an ally, any ally. “We came from our kids’ house in Dallas. Drove all night. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
“We stopped to spend a day and get some rest,” the blue-haired lady said sweetly. “My husband finds the traffic very stressful.” She turned to him. “Now, Pookie, I can see where this young man could get confused. Sometimes even you can’t tell if we’re coming or going.”
“He’s the one who doesn’t know if he’s coming or going,” the man shouted. “Dumb-ass,” he mumbled under his breath. He thrust his chin toward Billy Don again. “I’ve got a lawyer. There’ll be a lawsuit. You can count on it.”
The sheriff cringed, raised his hands in front of his face and backed away.
“Uh, sir, ma’am,” Debbie Sue said, gesturing toward the dryer seats. “Would you like to sit down?”
The man tried to swing his arms from behind his back. “Get this plastic shit off my wrists.”
“If you folks will just have a seat, I’ll straighten this out,” Debbie Sue said. She clutched Billy Don’s arm and dragged him to the storeroom. Edwina joined them, fists planted on her hips.
“What reason do you have for arresting them?” Debbie Sue hissed.
“Ow. That hurts, Debbie Sue.” Billy Don yanked his arm from her grip. He began to rub his skin where her fingers had pinched. “They’re not under arrest. I brought ’em in for questionin’. I put them handcuffs on that ol’ man ’cause he put up a fight.”
“He can’t fight,” Edwina said. “He wouldn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“The li’l ol’ lady’s real nice,” Billy Don said. “She asked me to handcuff her, too, so he’d calm down. They seem real nice, been married for goin’ on—”
“Billy Don. Shut. Up,” Debbie Sue said. “Did you check with the office staff at the RV park and ask if they could corroborate those people’s story?”
Billy Don frowned. His upper lip twisted. “Do what?…You know, Debbie Sue, you remind me a lot of your husband. When he was the sheriff and I was his deputy, he was always throwin’ them big words around. I didn’t know what he was talkin’ ’bout half the time.”
“Back up the man’s story, Billy Don. Did the office people at the RV park back up his story? Did they say he had just arrived or not?”
“They said they didn’t have any records of them stayin’ there last night, but that didn’t fool me. That ol’ guy put up a fight for some reason.” Billy Don’s gray eyes narrowed. He tapped his right temple with his finger. “I’m thinkin’ it was out of guilt. Why else would he cause such a ruckus?”
“Because he’s innocent, you dumb shit,” Debbie Sue snapped.
Billy Don’s brow tented and his face took on a hangdog expression. “But y
ou said—”
“I’m sorry, Billy Don,” Debbie Sue said quickly. Almost as quickly as she had lost her cool, Debbie Sue calmed, telling herself Billy Don truly couldn’t help his mental deficiencies. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. You did what you thought was best. Let’s see if we can turn this around. Let’s start by getting those people out of here and back to their RV.” She turned to Edwina. “Ed, you can smooth a bumpy road with your gift of gab. Would you go talk to them? And please cut those plastic things off their wrists.”
Edwina unfolded her arms and nodded. “Sure thing.” She shot a malevolent look at the sheriff. “Did your mama drop you on your head when you were little?”
Debbie Sue glanced at Billy Don and saw his face contorted into a pained expression. “It’s all right, Billy Don. Don’t be upset.”
“Oh, I’m not upset. I’m just tryin’ to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“If Mama dropped me on my head.”
Before that discussion could go forward, Billy Don’s cell phone bleated. He answered and a series of “uh-huhs” followed. He clapped the phone shut and looked at Debbie Sue. “Lord, Jerry Gilmore’s horses are out of the fence and on the highway. He needs me to help him.”
“You can’t go help with horses,” Debbie Sue said, incredulous. “You’ve got to—”
“I gotta help him, Debbie Sue,” Billy Don said urgently, backing toward the doorway. “With all this traffic on the road, Jerry’s scared they’ll get run over.” He turned and hotfooted from the storeroom and out of the salon quick as lightning.
Edwina gasped. “Well if that doesn’t beat all. I swear to God, I might talk Vic into running for sheriff yet.”
“Fuck,” Debbie Sue said. “Every time I think I can cut Billy Don some slack, he does something that proves he’s damn near worthless.
“Ed, when you take those people back to the RV park, see if you can calm that ol’ guy down. Lord, he’s threatening to sue someone.”
“You got it,” Edwina said and started toward the door.
“Oh, and Ed, since you’re out, can you pick up lunch? A hamburger’s great with me.”
“Can do.”
Debbie Sue followed Edwina from the storeroom, watching her in awe. In a matter of a minute or two, she somehow squeezed out of the man that he had retired after forty years with the Ford Motor Company. His wife, Madge, had been a stay-at-home mom. Never worked a day in her life, he bragged proudly. He admitted he’d had a lifelong love affair with automobiles, in particular the 1968 Mustang. Debbie Sue’s jaw dropped.
Edwina led the couple through the salon’s back entrance to where her vintage 1968 Mustang sat. The old man transformed before their eyes. He became young again. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Let’s take ’er for a spin out to the Cactus Patch,” Edwina said, handing him the keys.
A feeling of relief washed over Debbie Sue. Lord, Edwina could be a hostage negotiator.
chapter five
After Edwina left with Phil and Madge, Debbie Sue locked the front door and keyed in Buddy’s cell phone number. When he picked up, she said, “Hi, sugarfoot.” She could hear the hum of his car’s engine in the background. “Where are you?”
“Just south of Saragosa,” he answered in his sexy deep voice.
She loved his voice. It reminded her of a soft rumble. Damn, she missed him. “You be careful out there, you hear?”
He chuckled. “You be careful. Don’t get trampled by overzealous Elvis fans. Why did you have to leave home so early this morning?”
She had known that question was coming, and along with everything else she had been thinking about all morning, she had debated if she should tell him about the problem at Hogg’s. He dealt with serious lawbreakers—deadly serious—and she disliked troubling him with the mundane melodrama of life in Salt Lick. Especially when she believed she could handle the problems herself. And just like that she decided not to distract him from his work. They talked of other things, bid each other good-bye and she started missing him all over again the minute they disconnected.
She began cleaning and straightening. She was sweeping hair cuttings and sand into a dustpan when Edwina returned with a big aromatic Sonic sack. She gasped. “Ed, you bought lunch at Sonic? Why didn’t you go to Hogg’s?”
“I wanted to try Sonic,” Edwina said. “Don’t tell anybody. Besides, Sonic’s cheaper than Hogg’s.”
“Ed, this whole Elvis Presley shindig is to help Hogg’s compete against Sonic. It doesn’t help matters if you and I don’t show our loyalty to Judd.”
“So? Didn’t I have breakfast at Hogg’s?”
“We had half a dozen free doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. That isn’t exactly breakfast, and giving away food doesn’t do much for Judd, either.”
Debbie Sue carried her broom to the storeroom and stowed it away. When she returned, Edwina had unpacked the lunch and laid Debbie Sue’s order on her workstation counter. They both sat down in their styling chairs and dug in.
“So what happened with Phil and Madge?” Debbie Sue asked.
“Aw, they’re okay. He had fun driving my car. He’s calmed down.”
“You know something, Ed? I was thinking while I was cleaning up. No way in hell is Billy Don gonna be any help at all in this investigation. He’s apt to cause more problems than he solves.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Edwina said.
“This business with Phil and Madge just confirms what I said earlier. The Domestic Equalizers are gonna have to be the ones to find those shoes and the thief that took them.”
“As well as the guy who really owns them,” Edwina added, thoughtfully, a French fry suspended in the air.
Debbie Sue looked down at her hamburger. She had scarcely noticed she had eaten half of it. “I don’t care if they are cheaper, these burgers aren’t as good as Hogg’s,” she groused.
Just then, the phone warbled.
“I’ll get it,” Edwina said. She laid her burger aside and walked to the payout desk.
“Don’t take any emergencies, Ed,” Debbie Sue told her. “Remember, we’re closed.”
The lanky brunette took a seat on the chair behind the desk and answered. After a few seconds, she said into the receiver, “The Fort Worth Star-Telegram? No shit.”
Debbie Sue felt a renewed panic. The Fort Worth newspaper couldn’t possibly know about the theft of the shoes, could it?
“Well, bless your heart,” Edwina said. “You’ve had quite a day, haven’t you, hon?…Well, don’t you worry. We’re not open, but we’ll probably be here ’til around six.”
After getting up at 5 A.M., Debbie Sue had no intention of being here until six, especially with the shop closed. Besides the shoe investigation, she had a horse and two dogs to feed. She glared at Edwina.
Her partner gave her a quick glance, then returned her attention to the phone. “Well, maybe not that late tonight,” she said into the receiver. “Today’s been a rough day…. Uh-huh…uh-huh…. That’s a nice hotel. Good thing you’ve got reservations…. Okay, we open no later than nine every morning but Sunday. And we do take walk-ins…. Alrighty then, hon, we’ll see you sometime tomorrow. You drive careful coming down here from Odessa.”
“What was that all about,” Debbie Sue asked as Edwina replaced the receiver in its cradle.
Edwina came back to her workstation and began opening miniature packets of ketchup and squeezing the contents onto her French fries. “You know, the world just keeps getting smaller and smaller. In fact, it’s shrinking so much, I swear I’m gonna wake up one morning and find it stepped on and smushed to smithereens by some ass with a big foot.”
Debbie Sue frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?” She popped a French fry into her mouth.
“That was a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Remember a year ago—no, more like two—when I went to that family reunion in Waco?”
Her mouth full, Debbie Sue held up her hand displaying f
our fingers. She gulped down the bite she had been chewing. “It was four years ago, Ed. Four. Buddy and I had just gotten back together and I decided, thank God, not to go with you.”
“Okay, four. Remember me telling you about that comical kid that wanted to be a reporter? I can’t recall now who he was kin to or why he was there, but I do remember he worked for the Star-Telegram. He was funny enough to be a comedian and he wrote obituaries. How weird is that?”
“Not as weird as some of the other stuff that happened that day,” Debbie Sue said around munching on a bite of burger. A faraway look passed through Edwina’s eyes and Debbie Sue wondered what off-the-wall part of Edwina’s crazy family’s annual gathering she might be remembering.
“You know,” Edwina said, picking up her hamburger. “Vic called that reunion a clusterfuck. But I think he secretly had the best time he’s had in years.”
“Clusterfuck pretty much sums it up,” Debbie Sue said. “I think a riot squad with a SWAT team surrounding the park qualifies. Buddy nearly had a stroke when he found out how close I came to being there.”
Edwina shook her head. “Buddy shouldn’t get so uptight about things that just happen.”
To Debbie Sue’s amazement, Edwina had passed right over the remark about the riot squad as if what had occurred at her family reunion was okay. As if a feud between exes over custody of a mixed-breed dog wasn’t unusual. As if the whole affair escalating into a hostage crisis and gunfire and bringing out a SWAT team was perfectly normal.
“Ed, he’s a Texas Ranger, forgodsake. He doesn’t want his wife hanging out somewhere that calls for a riot squad.”
“No? But I suppose he wants her standing on a sixth-floor ledge outside a New York City hotel room.”
“Ed. We do not discuss that, remember? You could get me divorced again.”