Renee continued to chatter from the next room, but once Kate leaned back in the shampoo chair and Betty turned on the faucet, Kate couldn’t hear anything clearly. As the warm water sluiced over her scalp, her thoughts drifted to Mavis Bixby and the house next to the church. Paul had said that no one he’d talked to knew where the older woman had gone. Kate found that odd. Usually, in a small town, no one did anything of importance without the news burning up the phone lines.
Kate heard Renee’s piercing laugh in the other room, and it occurred to her that if she really wanted to know more about the missing Mavis, there was no better place to ask than the beauty shop. No person knew more about the comings and goings of Copper Mill’s citizens than Renee Lambert, especially since she and Mavis must have been roughly the same age.
Swathed in a black nylon cape, a towel wrapped around her head turban-style, and armed with a plan, Kate returned with Betty to the main part of the shop. She settled into the stylist’s chair, but instead of opening a magazine as she usually did, she turned to Renee.
“Have you heard that the house next to the church is for sale?”
Every head in the shop swiveled toward Kate with expressions of delight. At long last the preacher’s wife seemed inclined to chat. Kate rolled the magazine in her lap into a tight coil, aware that she was about to walk a very fine line.
“High time, I’d say.” Renee frowned. “No use letting a house sit empty. But I told Mavis that before she left.”
Kate’s pulse picked up, but she didn’t want to show too much interest. “Oh? You were friends with Mrs.Bixby?”
“Well . . .” Renee plucked at her black nylon cape.
Kate noted her reluctance with interest. Normally Renee was delighted to trumpet her knowledge and opinions like Joshua circling the city of Jericho.
“I wouldn’t say friends, exactly,” Renee said slowly, “but she would fill in at my bridge group sometimes.”
“How long has she been gone?” Kate carefully unrolled the fashion magazine and flipped open the first page in an effort to appear casual.
“A year. Perhaps a little more,” Renee answered and then winced when the stylist’s wayward comb scraped her scalp. “Ouch! Ronda, watch that.”
Kate glanced at Ronda, who was biting her lip to keep from making a retort. Kate suspected that trying to style Renee’s hair was like trying to back-comb a moving target.
“I wonder why her house wasn’t put on the market before now,” Kate said, flipping a few more pages of the magazine to emphasize her nonchalance. “Does anyone from Copper Mill keep in touch with her?”
Renee frowned, but this time the cause was Kate’s question, not Ronda’s wayward comb. “I don’t know why anyone would do so. She never really fit in here. In fact, I’m not sure she said good-bye to anyone. A moving van just pulled up one day, and the next, there was no sign of her. Very inconvenient for my bridge club. Good substitutes don’t grow on trees in Copper Mill.”
Kate frowned. “Are you saying she disappeared?”
“No, of course not.” Renee pursed her scarlet-coated lips, as if provoked with herself that she’d said too much. “This is Copper Mill, after all. We’re sensible folks.”
“Renee’s right about her never fitting in, though. Mavis wasn’t from around here,” Dot chimed in from the front of the shop.
“She had sort of a Yankee accent,” Martha offered helpfully.
Kate hid her smile behind the magazine. Copper Mill was the kind of place where you could live for forty years and still be considered a transplant.
“She had to ask me how to cook grits,” Dot added, lowering her voice as if she were speaking of a shameful family secret.
The rest of the women frowned. Not knowing how to cook the classic Southern food branded Mavis more clearly than any pattern of speech.
“So no one’s heard from her since she left?” Kate asked, trying to guide the conversation back to her original purpose.
Something bothered her, something that didn’t quite make sense. Paul said Kate was prone to see mysteries where none existed, but he also acknowledged that she seemed to have a knack for unraveling the puzzles in people’s lives.
Renee waved a hand in dismissal. “I haven’t heard anyone mention her. Of course, we can’t keep up with everyone who moves on.”
“I heard that she was in debt,” Dot said.
“I heard that she was sweet on Agnes Kelly’s husband,” Martha added with a knowing look.
Kate winced, sorry she was stirring the pot of gossip. But the more the ladies talked, the more her concern for the missing Mavis Bixby grew. While she hadn’t been well known, she had been enough a part of the community to play in Renee’s bridge group. And Kate would have expected the people of the town to be more concerned about the unusual manner of her departure.
“Does anyone know how to contact her?” Kate asked.
“She might have left a forwarding address at the post office,” Betty suggested helpfully, apparently delighted that Kate, at long last, had decided to join in the fun of some harmless beauty shop tales.
“Maybe the real estate agent would know,” Ronda offered, giving Renee’s coiffure a final gloss of hair spray.
“Why are you so interested in Mavis Bixby?” Renee asked, her small brown eyes now focused on Kate with laserlike intensity.
“Oh, no reason.” Kate flipped another page of the magazine. “I guess the church will be getting new neighbors. I was just curious.”
“You know what they say about curiosity,” Renee warned. “It didn’t do much for the cat.”
Kate swallowed the first retort that sprang to her lips and forced a smile. “Or Adam and Eve, for that matter,” she added in what she hoped was a lighthearted tone.
She stole a glance at Renee. That little warning bell in her head was ringing, the one that told her when something wasn’t quite right. Kate suspected that Renee Lambert might not be telling everything she knew. Maybe there was more to Mavis Bixby’s departure than met the eye.
The snip of Betty’s scissors brought Kate out of her reverie.
“Is that too much?” Betty asked, and Kate looked at the two-inch lock of hair that had fallen to her lap.
“No, no. That’s fine,” she said, though her jaw tightened. That would teach her to pay more attention to beauty shop tales than to Betty’s scissors.
Chapter Two
By the time Betty had finished cutting and styling Kate’s rather shorter hairdo, Kate knew she couldn’t leave the matter of Mavis Bixby unresolved. Renee’s rare circumspection had piqued Kate’s curiosity, and since it was almost lunchtime, she decided to pay a call on the second biggest—but most beloved—gossip in Copper Mill.
“Kate!” LuAnne Matthew’s greeting was filled with her usual warmth when Kate stepped inside the Country Diner.
The smell of grilling onions wafted from the kitchen, and even though it was early, the blue vinyl booths were starting to fill with people. Kate crossed to the long counter and perched on one of the stools as LuAnne flipped over a coffee mug and poured Kate a cup.
“Hello, LuAnne. It’s good to see you.”
“Where’s the preacher today?”
LuAnne’s flaming hair was as red as Renee Lambert’s was blond. She was a heavyset woman with a ruddy complexion and an inherently cheerful disposition to match her hair, and Kate had taken an instant liking to her the first time she and Paul met her.
“Paul’s busy with chili cook-off preparations,” Kate said with a laugh. “He’s got his sights set on one of those blue ribbons.”
“What fellow in this town doesn’t?” LuAnne reached in the pocket of her apron and drew out two small containers of creamer, which she placed on the counter in front of Kate. “I wish the menfolk in this town spent this much time in the kitchen year-round.”
Evidently Kate wasn’t the first woman in Copper Mill to entertain that thought.
“Amen!” Loretta Sweet, the owner of the diner, appeared in
the service window that led into the kitchen. “Then maybe I could get out from behind this grill.” She slid a plate of food onto the ledge and hit the top of a small bell, which rang out with a familiar ping. “Order up.”
LuAnne rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why she thinks she needs that bell. I’m the only waitress in the place.”
“I think it’s Loretta’s version of Pavlovian conditioning,” Kate answered.
“Pav-what-ian what?”
“Oh, that man with the dogs,” Kate said with a laugh. “The one who rang a bell every time he fed them so that before long, all he had to do was ring the bell, and the dogs started to salivate.”
LuAnne burst out laughing. “I think you’re right. Who knew Loretta was acquainted with that Mr. Pavlov?” She pulled her order pad out of her pocket. “So what will you have?”
Kate smiled sheepishly. “Grilled cheese with bacon.” She usually tried to eat healthy food, but she also liked to indulge herself once in a while, and since Paul wasn’t around, she wouldn’t tempt him as well. She always felt guilty eating fatty foods in front of him, but today she planned to indulge in the salty, satisfying treat.
“On its way,” LuAnne said, ripping the order off the pad and turning around to attach it to the little wheel on the window counter before giving it a spin with a flick of her wrist.
“Now,” she said as she turned back toward Kate, “why are you really here?”
Kate laughed. “Am I so transparent?”
“Absolutely,” LuAnne said. “But that’s why I like you.”
Her words warmed Kate’s heart. LuAnne might like to gossip, but she was also a good judge of character, and so Kate was flattered.
“LuAnne, what do you know about a woman named Mavis Bixby?”
LuAnne’s eyebrows shot up. “Why are you askin’?”
“Her house is for sale. The one on the corner of Mountain Laurel and Smoky Mountain, between the parsonage and the church.”
“Mavis moved away before you came to Copper Mill,” LuAnne said, picking up a cloth from behind the counter and proceeding to polish the Formica top with vigor. “No mystery there.”
Kate frowned. First Renee and now LuAnne. What was it about Mavis that made two normally chatty women less than forthcoming?
“No one seems to know where she went,” Kate said before taking a sip of her coffee. “That seems unusual in a small town.”
LuAnne rubbed at a particularly stubborn spot on the counter, not meeting Kate’s eyes. “Mavis never really did fit in here,” she said, echoing what the women in the beauty shop had told Kate. “She kept to herself mostly.”
“Yet people knew her.”
“Well, she wasn’t unfriendly. Just private.”
“Did you know her?”
LuAnne frowned. “She came into the diner some.”
“Any idea where she might have gone?”
Behind LuAnne, Loretta pinged the little bell. “Order up.”
LuAnne rolled her eyes and then turned to retrieve Kate’s grilled cheese. She slid it across the counter, and it came to a stop right in front of Kate.
“Mavis mentioned once she had a son somewhere, but I never met him. At least, I don’t think I did.”
“You don’t think you did?”
LuAnne’s strange answer to a rather simple question made the hairs on the back of Kate’s neck dance.
“Well . . .” LuAnne glanced over her shoulder at Loretta and then leaned closer to Kate. “A fellow came into the diner once. Leather jacket. Lots of earrings. Pierced nose. He seemed to know a lot about her, but he never said who he was exactly. Pretty scary character, and I guess it made me wonder whether Mavis left town to avoid this fellow.”
Kate took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. She swallowed and then sipped her coffee. “What would make a mother run away from her own child?”
She couldn’t imagine any circumstance where she’d hide from any of her three children.
“I can think of a lot of reasons a parent might want to avoid a child,” LuAnne answered. “Gambling. Drugs. That young man got pretty upset with me when I couldn’t tell him anything about where Mavis had gone.”
“Was he violent?”
LuAnne thought about Kate’s question for a moment. “Not violent, exactly, but he seemed to have a lot of pent-up anger. Stomped out of here and headed for the Mercantile when I couldn’t tell him anything. I told Skip Spencer about him when he came in later,” she added. “He wanted to put out an APB on the guy. The sheriff wouldn’t do it, though. Said there wasn’t ‘probable cause,’ or something like that.”
Kate nodded. Skip Spencer was an overeager deputy to Alan Roberts, the local sheriff. While Skip’s heart was always in the right place, he often wound up several steps ahead of himself—and the law. Skip worked out of Copper Mill, and Kate sometimes wondered if the sheriff set him up here, instead of at the county courthouse in Pine Ridge, just to keep Skip out of his hair.
The bell behind LuAnne dinged again. “Order up,” Loretta called. “C’mon, LuAnne. Less chatting, more waitressing.”
Kate and LuAnne exchanged a smile.
“Just promise me, Kate,” LuAnne said before moving away to tend to the other customers, “that you won’t let your nose for a good mystery get you into trouble. That fellow didn’t seem like anyone to mess around with.”
“I’m just being the minister’s wife,” Kate said, dabbing her lips with a paper napkin. “Trying to look out after everyone.”
“Sure. But don’t forget to take care of yourself too.”
Kate nodded in agreement, but she also knew that LuAnne’s story of the rough-looking young man would only add to her curiosity. Surely poor Mavis Bixby deserved more than Copper Mill’s simple dismissal of her abrupt disappearance.
By the time Kate finished her sandwich and the last of her coffee, she’d come to a decision—one she didn’t share with LuAnne when she waved a cheery good-bye and set off in pursuit of a mystery.
KATE APPROACHED THE FRONT of the Mercantile with more caution than she’d exhibited that morning. She kept a smile on her face and a keen eye on the row of older gentlemen seated on the benches in front of the plate-glass window. She felt exactly like Paul would probably feel if he had to enter Betty’s Beauty Parlor.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” She hitched her purse strap a little higher on her shoulder as if girding for battle. “How is everyone today?”
She couldn’t have asked a question better designed to ensure a lengthy response. For a good ten minutes, she was treated to a recital of complaints about blood pressure, bunions, and bursitis.
“One of your chess pies would sure help,” Clifton Beasley, the ringleader of the rocking-chair set, said as he rubbed his aching shoulder.
Clifton was somewhere on the far side of eighty, with a shock of white hair and an ever-present pair of gray coveralls. He wore a heavy quilted hunting vest, the color of a traffic cone, over his coveralls.
“I’m not sure my pie can cure bursitis.” Kate couldn’t keep from smiling at the teasing light in the older man’s fading eyes.
“Well, it couldn’t hurt to try,” he laughingly replied.
At that moment the door to the Mercantile opened, and Sam Gorman stuck out his head. “Fellows, let Mrs.Hanlon come in my store and spend some of her husband’s hard-earned money. You’ve talked her ear off long enough.”
The men protested and sputtered, and Sam waved Kate inside. She ducked into the store.
“Thanks, Sam. But I didn’t need rescuing. At least not yet.”
He harrumphed. “Old geezers.” But Kate heard the fondness beneath the words. “I’m switching the coffee to decaf tomorrow. They’ve got way too much energy, and they spend it all harassing my customers.”
“Oh, they mean well.” Kate followed him across the store.
“Well, they may just ‘mean’ me right out of business. Ever since that SuperMart opened in Pine Ridge, I’ve had to work extra har
d to keep my customers.”
“Well, you won’t have to work hard to keep me, Sam. Gauntlet out front or not.”
His face split into a warm smile, and the lines of stress and worry around his mouth and eyes eased. “Thanks, Kate. I appreciate your loyalty. Now, what can I do for you today?”
“I need half a gallon of skim milk and some Hershey’s cocoa powder, Sam.”
“Making hot chocolate for the preacher, are you?” He headed for the refrigerated case where the dairy products resided. “Might need some marshmallows too.”
“Not hot chocolate, no. It’s for something else.” Kate didn’t like being evasive, but it was for a good reason.
Sam snagged the milk from the case, and Kate followed him down the baking aisle, past shelves of cake mixes, brownie mixes, flour, and sugar. “Secret recipe for brownies or chocolate cake, huh?”
“Something like that.”
Sam picked out a can of cocoa powder, and they walked between the tall, crowded shelves to the front of the store.
“Sam, can I ask you something?” Kate was careful to keep her tone light.
“My best customer can ask me anything,” he replied with a grin as he rang up her purchase.
The Mercantile might have a wonderfully old-fashioned feel, but Sam’s computerized cash register would fit right in at the Super Mart in Pine Ridge.
“It’s about a young man who came into your store awhile back. He was wearing a leather jacket and had a lot of piercings.”
Sam worked in the store most days, but he had some teenagers who worked the register part-time, so even if the pierced man had come in, Sam might not have seen him.
Sam’s thick fingers paused over the keys of the cash register.
From looking at his work-roughened hands, Kate would never have guessed what a talented organist he was, but those hands produced beautiful melodies from the organ each Sunday at Faith Briar Church.
“Leather jacket, you say?” he asked lightly, but his nonchalance didn’t fool Kate.
“He might have been asking about a woman named Mavis Bixby.” Sam frowned. “Doesn’t sound like the sort of character you’d want to get mixed up with.”
Beauty Shop Tales Page 2