Expresso Messo: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 6)

by Constance Barker

  He turned to the receptionist. “I will take care of Lily. Move my appointments around. The girls can handle some of them. For the others I’ll be late.”

  A twinge of guilt for making other customers wait was short lived. I was on a mission to find out information about Mildred. Investigating a disappearance took precedence over a retiree’s desire to wash that gray out of her hair.

  “Lily, take a seat at my station and I will be right with you.” He gestured to the first chair on the right.

  I walked over and climbed up on the seat. It faced a rather tall mirror. I looked past my reflection to see the rest of the salon behind me. How would I be able to keep track of all the conversations? I should have brought Jules with me. Between us we could have listened to everyone at least in snippets.

  Joseph stood behind me, the eagerness on his face endearing. “What are we doing today? A new cut? Color!”

  “I hate to disappoint but just a wash and a trim.”

  He actually pouted. “Lily, your hair needs much more than that.” He lifted a lock of my limp hair. “Actually we might require a defibrillator to shock some life back into this mane.”

  I scowled inwardly. “Okay, fine, you can style and blow dry it too. But no cutting. Just a trim.”

  He looked like a petulant child about to have a tantrum but he nodded. I sighed with relief that I wouldn’t walk out of the salon looking like a totally different person.

  “Even with this hair I’ll need to wash it first. Follow me to the sinks.”

  I walked over with him where Reva was finishing up. She smiled at me and kept following the woman doing her hair. I settled into the chair Reva had just vacated and Joseph put a towel over my head with part of it covering my neck. Then he wrapped a smock around me making sure it was over the towel. Once that was secure he helped me lean back in the chair and I tried to get into a position that didn’t hurt my neck. I remember now why I hated going to the salon. Those sinks were like torture to my neck. Ugh!

  He checked the temperature of the water and soaked my hair. The shampoo he pumped into his hands smelled like coconuts. He lathered my hair and I silently urged him to hurry. The longer he took here the more likely it was that people would leave and I needed to ask questions. Plus I could feel my neck stretching as he put pressure on my head as he washed. I had a feeling I’d look like a giraffe after he finally released me from this hellish wash station. At last he rinsed my hair, ran some conditioner through it, and rinsed again. He helped me sit up and a trickle of water slid down my cheek. He wiped it away with another towel as I rubbed my sore neck. As I stood I looked at the sink bowl and silently cursed my archenemy. Then I turned and followed Joseph to his station.

  “You’re sure you just want a trim? I could do some layers, try and give you some body.”

  “Maybe another time. A trim will be fine.”

  He hit a pump at the base with his foot and hiked the chair up even higher. He took the towel off my hair and starting combing it through.

  “So, Mildred loves your salon,” I said. How do you ease into a conversation with your hairdresser? I didn’t have a lot of time or experience with small talk at the salon.

  “She’s a peach.”

  “She is, isn’t she? Love her hair. It’s always so nice.”

  Joseph stopped combing and leaned in closer to my ear. “Red Dream number 402.”

  I gasped for effect. “No! Really? I had no idea.”

  “Yes. She likes people to think it’s natural but at the first sign of a gray hair she books an emergency touch up.”

  Reva was sitting beside me and nodded agreement. “I’ve been here when she’s had it done.”

  “I heard she was in here a little while ago,” I said. “Did she mention going anywhere? Any problems she was having?”

  Joseph went back to combing my hair. Then he pulled out a pair of scissors from a jar filled with a blue solution. He shook the scissors out and started trimming my ends.

  “Not that I recall. She was in here for a trim. Her coloring appointment isn’t for another few weeks.”

  “I tell you what,” Reva said. “I saw a message in the newspaper that could have been directed to her. The shark man one.”

  “I don’t think that was for her.” At least I hoped it wasn’t.

  “Well, it didn’t name names but from the sound of it she was meeting Harvey. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. He’s not steady with your aunt or anything.”

  Harvey and Hildie weren’t “dating” but they did spend a lot of time together. And I knew he wasn’t dating Mildred. The woman wasn’t his style. But rumors could do more harm than the truth. And the salon seemed to be gossip central. I wondered if it was like this all the time or just recently. Since the column came out.

  “There are other people using that column to help their infidelity.” She fanned herself with a salon brochure. “That is wrong on so many levels. The last one sounded like Penny Carver. Poor Bob.”

  Other patrons were leaning closer to hear what Reva was saying. More rumors would spread through town. I hoped most people weren’t taken in by the seeming illicitness of the messages. From the column you would think Sweet Home was Peyton Place.

  “There’s no proof that one was directed at her either,” I said.

  “Maybe not but if that column is going to be used to help people cheat, well, that’s just very concerning.”

  “How is Derrick?” I asked pointedly. “Everything okay at the cafe?”

  Reva blushed and cowered into her chair. “Fine. He’s fine. Creating a new dish for the menu.”

  “That you’re supervising I assume?”

  “Yes, I am. Very carefully.”

  I thought I had nipped the gossip in the bud but another woman decided to take over where Reva left off. The lady beside Reva was a petite woman with silver hair and twinkling eyes. “I heard Toe is going to ask Martha White out for Valentine’s Day.”

  Joseph stopped trimming my hair to run a comb through it again and check the evenness of the ends. “I think one of the kids from the high school wrote that one near the bottom of the page. Looking for love on the wrong side of town.”

  Jules thought the column would be a bit of fun leading up to the holiday with people able to reveal their feelings without the risk of being rejected. While it sounded like some people were using it for just that, someone else was using it to get the town up in arms. Probably for their own entertainment. I hated to admit it but I thought her column had been tampered with and I had a pretty good idea who was behind it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  With my hair trimmed and blow dried, not cut as Joseph tried to convince me one last time before letting me out of his chair, I hurried back to the Coffee Cabana. I had to admit he’d worked miracles on my locks. They were a little bouncier and the ends had a slight curl to them. It wouldn’t last. It never did.

  An idea started to form in my head about what to do for Valentine’s Day. I would need a lot of help but I knew Jules would step up. The problem might be Reva. Even with everything else I had in mind in place I couldn’t pull it off without Reva’s help. I would have to talk to Jules after work then head to the cafe.

  I pushed the door open and my aunts rushed to greet me before the door closed.

  “Your hair looks lovely,” Hildie said.

  “You should put a weekly visit to the salon in your budget,” Essie said.

  “Thanks, Hildie. That’s not happening, Essie.”

  The Cabana had a few customers seated at the tables. A local couple by the window sitting under a cupid. A local business owner by the door sipping on a latte. An empty plate with crumbs on it and a foil wrapper telling me he’d purchased something from the Valentine’s Day menu.

  “What did you find out?” Essie asked.

  She started walking back to the counter so we could talk in relative privacy. I followed her and Hildie joined us.

  “Not much.”

  Before I could fi
ll them in on anything the door swung open and Jules rushed in.

  “I was watching for you. Nice hair.”

  I touched the smooth locks and smiled. “Thanks. You want the scoop too I’m assuming.”

  “Of course. I’ve been dying to find out what’s going on. And to get another coffee. I’m going to be bold and try the raspberry latte this time.”

  I went about making her drink. Essie pulled out the cookies and chocolates to accompany it. While I was frothing milk I filled them in on everything I found out which wasn’t much. No one had remembered Mildred mentioning anything about going anywhere. That left the possibility that she was taken more likely. But I still had no idea who would want to take her. To what end? It’s not like she was swimming in money. No one had called for a ransom.

  “So we’re definitely thinking kidnapped then?” Jules asked.

  “I suppose she could have gone away but the way those ladies gossip I can’t imagine her being there and not saying anything to anyone about leaving,” I said.

  “True. And if Joseph does her hair he has a way of listening that would make her want to tell him. Most of the senior ladies have a little crush on him,” Hildie said.

  I wondered if Hildie was one of them but immediately dismissed it. Though they weren’t officially a couple she only had eyes for Harvey.

  “She has an appointment for her color in a few weeks but she did go in for a trim. Is that something you would do if you were getting ready to go away?”

  “Maybe,” Hildie said. “But when asked if she had anything planned I can’t see Mildred lying. So assuming he did ask and she said no she wasn’t expecting to be away now.”

  “How do you know he asked that?” I asked.

  “He always does. Gets the conversation going and he likes to live vicariously through his customers,” Jules said.

  “I knew that color was fake,” Essie said.

  I grinned despite the situation. Essie would use any ammunition she could against the woman. Dying your hair wasn’t a crime. She did it herself and had been upset when the newspaper, before Jules took it over, had implied she got her hair out of a bottle.

  I zipped my lips though and continued. “Which leaves us back at square one. Still no idea if she’s in trouble.”

  “If she was going somewhere I think she would tell the ladies at the salon,” Jules said. “She’d want them to know something exciting was happening in her life.”

  “I agree. There was something else though. Reva was upset by the direction of the secret admirer column. It worries her that it appears to be a place for potential cheaters to find dates.”

  Jules cringed. “I didn’t read them that way but I guess you could take it like that. I don’t want people using the column for cheating.”

  I handed Jules her drink and put the treats in a bag. “I don’t think they are. With the way that salon was in a frenzy of gossip I have a feeling your column is being tampered with. And everyone in Sweet Home appears to be fair game.”

  “I suspected as much. I found this in the trash this morning.” She pulled out a note on notebook paper from her pocket.

  She handed it over and I scanned the missive. I recognized the scrawl as something Moira and Trevor were writing yesterday. Not the page that had notes scribbled out though. It was hard to read but there were a few references to people in town, and the wrong side of town. I wondered how many of these pages of messages they had. How many fake secret admirer notes did they intend to print in the paper? A few, dozens?

  I hated to rat them out but Jules needed to know who was behind it if she didn’t know already. If she suspected someone of tampering she must have an idea as to whom. “I saw Moira and Trevor writing on note paper like that.”

  “I thought it was her. She was too eager to help me pick the messages and then take the layout to be printed. I was sure some of the messages weren’t ones I’d picked.”

  “Why would they do that though?” Hildie asked.

  “Who knows with teenagers,” Jules said. “There were only one or two I didn’t recognize the first day of the column but I chalked it up to being busy and tired. The second day there were a few more and even I couldn’t be that forgetful.”

  “If it wasn’t the column it would be something else behind the gossip at the salon,” I said. “I had no idea that went on there. It’s like a gossip beehive.”

  I could picture it on the small screen with all the drama and sordid story lines. We’d had our fair share of drama. Murders, cheating. It was no wonder the women flock to the salon. What better way to keep up on everyone’s comings and goings and get dolled up at the same time.

  Gossip isn’t my thing. If it kept others entertained and didn’t hurt anyone I had no problem with it. But it can and does hurt some. And others are up in arms over perceived infidelities especially after the Carl Jeffries fiasco. Even the tiniest piece of gossip could get blown out of proportion. Once the damage is done it’s hard to change things. People would see you as the new image that had been planted in their head by someone wanting to have a little fun.

  “Jules, I hate to suggest it but maybe you should stop the column for now.”

  Jules nodded. “I was thinking that too. I don’t want anyone to get hurt by anything in my paper.”

  So far I didn’t think anyone had suffered from anything printed in the column. Yet. There was no telling what would happen in the next few days especially if gossip spread outside of the salon.

  “I’ll talk to Moira about it when I see her.”

  “Good idea. I had no idea the salon would be a hotbed of gossip but at least it helped figure out what’s going on with your column.”

  “It is where most of the women in town hang out,” Hildie said. “It’s not just for Joseph. Though he helps.”

  “He’s the worst gossip of all,” I said. “He knew things about everyone in town.”

  I hated to think what was said about me there. Not that it mattered. I had no secrets and my life was pretty normal. Sure, I’d looked into a few mysteries in town and I was engaged to a police officer but that’s as far as the excitement went. I was a normal business owner trying to be successful while keeping my customers full of caffeine.

  “He is the person to go to if you want to find out something about anyone.”

  We moved from the counter to a table. The couple finished their drinks and left. The other customers still lingered. But that was okay. We’d keep it quiet.

  “Which is circumstantial proof that Mildred was kidnapped,” I said.

  “How do you come to that conclusion?” Hildie asked. “Is that like the new math? There is no connection so there’s a connection.”

  “If he knows almost everything, and women spill their guts to him while in his chair Mildred had nothing to spill. No plans. Nothing exciting going on. So why isn’t she here?”

  “That’s a good question,” Jules said getting up. She grabbed her coffee and her bag of cookies and truffles. “I have to get back but let me know if you figure anything out.”

  She dashed out the door. I hoped she wasn’t too hard on Moira. I wondered what was up with people in town lately. Derrick spiking the syrup. Moira making up things to put in a column. She had her reasons I’m sure I just doubted they would be valid ones.

  I got up and retrieved a cloth to wipe down the table the couple had left. I picked up the plate and mugs, gave the surface of the table a good scrub then brought the dishes behind the counter to put them in the dishwasher. With thoughts of Mildred plaguing me I knew it would be a long afternoon.

  Hours later Moira and Trevor came into the Cabana. They were hunched together talking softly to each other and laughing. They sat at the same table as they had the day before and Moira pulled out a notebook. Trevor came to the counter to order.

  “Hi, Trevor. What will it be today?”

  I was surprised they’d come in again. If it was gossip they were after they would get a lot more if Moira got her hair done and lis
tened to everything going on around her. Of course that was all gossip Moira had started. What would they talk about at the salon without the kindling of her made up stories?

  “Red velvet hot chocolate today.”

  “Sure. Whipped cream on both, sprinkles on one?”

  Trevor smiled, surprise lighting his eyes that I remembered. It was what good business owners did. Get to know their customers. I tried to remember the favorite drink of every regular who came into my coffee shop.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  He handed over some money as I rang it up. I handed him change and nodded my head toward the table. “I’ll bring it over when it’s ready if you want to sit down.”