The Doom Diva Mysteries Books 1

by Sherry M. Siska

  I pretended to be spellbound, trying as hard as I could not to let my eyes stray to Tim’s face. Five times, though, when I looked his way, he was peeking back at me.

  “So, Timmy,” Carole cooed at one point, “did you always want to be a police officer when you were growing up?”

  “Uh, sort of. I wanted to be a detective, you know, like the Hardy Boys. Marty and I, we were always making believe we were trying to solve a mystery. Marty has a great imagination. Anyway, this one time, we were out at her Grandma’s place and were fooling around, pretending like we were on a case and we were out in the woods, down by the creek. We were about, I don’t know, nine or ten, I think.”

  “Eleven,” I piped in. I couldn’t help myself. Tim always messes up stories. “Remember, you had a broken arm because you got that new bike for your birthday and wrecked it when we were going down Johnson’s Hill. I told you not to let go, but you were being all cocky, like usual.”

  Tim shot me the evil eye. “I wouldn’t have been going down the hill at all if you hadn’t forced me into it with that stupid bet about which one of us could run around the block faster. I’d have won if you hadn’t tripped me.”

  “What? No way. I did not trip you. I beat you fair and square. Dang, Tim, you always do that. You always make it sound like I was a total brat when I was a kid. Every story you tell, you make me out to be the bad guy.”

  “I do not! And you were a brat. Still are, actually.”

  “No, you’re the brat. A jerk, actually. What gives, anyway? You told me you were going over to Roanoke. You just showed up here to try and.…” Suddenly, I heard myself and remembered we weren’t alone. I felt like an idiot.

  Harry and Carole were both staring at us. I guess we’d gotten a bit loud, too, because so were several of the other patrons at the restaurant, including Mom and Dad’s next door neighbors.

  “So, financial planning,” Harry said to Carole. “Interesting. What made you decide to go that route instead of say, investment banking or accounting?”

  Tim and I sat there, furiously glaring at each other and shoveling in our food, while Carole and Harry had a very grown-up sounding conversation. It was, without a doubt, one of the most uncomfortable meals I’d ever sat through.

  When the waiter finally returned to our tables and asked if anyone was up for dessert, Tim and I both said, at the exact same time, “Heavens, no.”

  Carol and Harry, of course, said yes. Both ordered Tiramisu and coffee. Which meant another thirty minutes, minimum, of torture. I excused myself and headed off to the restroom, seeking a few minutes away from Awkwardville.

  Tim was leaning against the wall outside the ladies’ room when I came out, hands in pockets, studying an old photo of the Albertino family back when they were new to Glenvar and opened up their first restaurant.

  “Do you remember the first time we came here without our parents?” Tim asked. “It was eighth grade, right before the fall social. We thought we were hot stuff, getting all dressed up and having dinner at a fancy restaurant. That was before you and Ricky Ray made out in the tree house and ruined everything.”

  “Talk about ruining things! What are you doing here? I thought you said you were taking her over to Roanoke. Downtown restaurant, Mill Mountain Star, all that romantic crap.”

  “She asked if we could come here instead. Look, Marty, I’m sorry if it seems like I set out to wreck your date or something. I’ll be honest, I can’t stand that guy. He’s too cocky and way too controlling. But I wouldn’t stoop to sabotage.”

  He was right, of course.

  “I know. Neither would I. It’s just that I’m worried about you. It’s been a long time since you’ve had a girlfriend and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Marty, I’m not stupid. It’s only a date. And, based on our behavior, I doubt if either one of them will ever want to go out with the two of us again.”

  I chuckled. “Can’t say I blame them. We acted like a couple of idiots out there. Truce?”

  Tim held out his pinkie. I hooked mine around it and we each pulled back slightly. “Friends forever?” I said.

  “You got it.” He bent down and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Always and forever. Now, we better go back before they decide they like each other better than they like us.”

  Carole and Harry were still having that nice, quiet, adult conversation when we returned. When Tim sat back down, she smiled at him and suggested they go ahead and leave.

  “We can take the dessert back to my place and I’ll make us some coffee,” she said. “Tessa is doing a shoot tonight with A.J., so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

  Tim agreed and they stood to go.

  “Harry,” Carole said, “let me give you my card. Call me when you get back in town and we’ll make an appointment to discuss those investment opportunities.”

  She reached down in her bag and pulled out a fancy leather card holder, removed a card, and handed it to him. When she did, another card slipped out of the case and landed on the banquet seat next to me. She didn’t notice it and I didn’t point it out.

  After they left, I reached over and picked it up. Much to my surprise, it was not a card for her financial planning business, but one of the Model Magnifica cards. This time, though, on the back, was Carole’s name, a number, and the most surprising thing yet: the word “owner”. I’m not sure, but I think I said “Holy crap”. Although I might not have used those exact words.

  23

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk. It is much worse than I noticed,” Alejandro did the hand under chin, head twisting right and left thing again.

  Against my better judgment, I’d gone along with Charli’s harebrained idea that going to Chez Alejandro for a makeover would lead to more info on the modeling agency, which we both were now convinced was somehow connected to Sabrina’s murder.

  Which meant that Carole was somehow linked to it, too. Ever since I’d seen the card with her name listed as owner, I’d been dithering back and forth about whether or not to tell Tim.

  When I got to Charli’s after my date with Harry, Tim had already been in bed sound asleep. Or pretending to be. I wasn’t sure because we’d both had tons of practice pretending to be asleep when we were kids so we could sneak out and play flashlight tag. We both were really good at it.

  Sunday morning, he’d been gone when I got up and hadn’t been at church. That night, Tim had come in after I’d gone to bed and he hadn’t said two words to me when he’d followed me to the station Monday morning, his mission to make sure I was not ambushed.

  Carole had been dumfounded when we gave her Sabrina’s box.

  “I’m going to take it to my office and see if I can locate the Thomas family. If y’all find anything else related to this, call me immediately,” she said, leaving Charli and me to finish the rest of the work at the apartment.

  I’d actually hated handing over the box. I know it sounds strange, but I felt like I was somehow letting Sabrina down when I did so. I’d told Charli how I felt, and she’d said she understood.

  “It’s this thing with Carole being the owner of the modeling agency,” I said. “I didn’t trust her before, but that was all related to how she was coming on so strong with Tim. Now, I really think she’s somehow involved in the murder.”

  “That’s why we need to get inside that agency,” Charli said. “Which means you have to agree to the makeover.”

  “What if they screw up?” I asked. “I don’t want to look like some half-baked version of Giselle.”

  “Trust me,” Charli said. “These people are professionals. They know what they’re doing.”

  I wanted to trust her. I really and truly did. And I might have, if I hadn’t gotten stung yet again right on the nose by all three of the Hideous Harpies.

  On Monday, we arrived at the Salon exactly at two. It had been done up by the same person as the Model Magnfica offices, which made sense now that I knew about the Alejandro connection. The inside walls of the salon were s
tark white, like the studio, and the front room was dotted with the same uncomfortable black chairs.

  The ceiling was black with all of the pipes and innards showing. There were huge black and white abstract prints of what I supposed were women covering the walls. The stylists, receptionist, and shampoo girls all wore head to toe black. The only one exempt from the all black rule was evidently Alejandro himself. He was clad in a white jumpsuit that would have done Elvis proud.

  He gushed all over Charli, insisting that she was nearly perfect as she was, but finally, reluctantly, assigned her to Tessa for a trim and eyebrow wax. Me, he would take care of himself.

  We were each escorted back to private rooms. Charli was led into the “Noir” room. Mine was called the “ Excellence” suite. It was a stark white room with doors on two of the walls, opposite each other. There was a beautician’s chair, an ebony sink, and an assortment of combs, brushes, driers, irons, and razors. On the walls were shelves of make-up and nail polish. The most worrisome thing about the room was that there wasn’t a single mirror in evidence.

  Alejandro plopped me down in the chair and draped a black covering over me. Then came the “tsk, tsk, tsk.” He snapped his fingers at a young girl standing nervously off to the side. I wondered if he’d given Giselle the finger snap idea or if she’d given it to him.

  He reeled off a string of numbers and nonsensical words and the young woman hurried out the back door to gather up what I supposed were the supplies required to “fix” me. While we waited, he ran his fingers through my hair and “tsk, tsk, tsked” some more. Then, he leaned the chair back so I was nearly horizontal, put one of those sleep-type masks over my eyes, and began what turned into a torturous hour and a half of face and hair ministrations. I tried to peek, but every time I reached toward the mask, he slapped my hand away.

  “I will return in thirty minutes,” he finally said, letting me pull the mask up. “Do not touch your hair. Do not touch your face. Do not leave this room. When I return, I will rinse, style, do make-up, and then we will go upstairs for test shots.”

  He minced back out the door he’d brought me through and slammed it shut behind him. I blinked and looked around, trying in vain to see what I looked like. I still had no idea how much he’d cut, but, frankly, based on how light my head felt, I was worried that I might actually be bald. The only good thing was that he had left me entirely alone in the room, which had that second door that I hoped would give me access to the modeling agency.

  I counted to ten, and gave it a try. The second piece of good luck happened when it opened. I peeked out and whispered, “yes”. There was a short hallway with three doors each opening into it from the same side as the door I was behind and, at the very end, a black spiral staircase heading up to the promised land.

  I took off down the hall, spun up the steps, and stepped into another hallway. This one, though, was in Model Magnifica’s lair.

  The first door was into the photography studio. The second opened into a lounge area, and the third into an office that obviously belonged to Carole. Jackpot!

  Charli was already inside, her hair covered by what appeared to be a shower cap. She was rummaging through a file cabinet. “Shh! I’ve only got a couple more minutes.”

  “Did you find anything yet?” I whispered.

  “Not much. I’ve only been in here about three minutes. I should have started with the desk, I suppose. How much time do you have?”

  “He’s coming back in thirty minutes, so I’m giving myself twenty.”

  She closed the file cabinet and wished me luck. “I’ll try and distract him. Get him to come in and talk to me about the photo shoot. Be careful.” She peeked out and dashed down the hall, leaving me alone in the office.

  Carole was not a neat freak or organized by any stretch of the imagination. Either that or someone else used the desk too. Stacks of contracts were mixed up with file folders full of photographs and requests for quotes. There were so many things piled up there was no way I’d be able to look through everything in the allotted time. I wished I hadn’t drowned my phone, or that I’d thought to borrow Charli’s so I could have snapped some pictures of what I found.

  I contemplated taking some of the more interesting files among them, but decided that was just downright wrong. Okay, so I was technically already committing a crime simply by being in the office, but by that point, after two years of torture and bad karma, I was getting to be an expert at denial and making excuses. Instead, I leafed through the documents, not really seeing anything too interesting.

  Some of the photos were of girls who looked to be underage, but they weren’t any worse than the ones of Tessa out in the display area. Underneath the pile, though, was a smoking gun, at least to me.

  Inside a plain file folder, was an accounting spreadsheet indicating that the sex site Charli and I had briefly glanced at was, indeed, owned by Model Magnifica. It was quite lucrative for the agency, earning thirty to forty thousand dollars a month. I studied the documents in the folder, trying to memorize as many details as possible.

  I kept checking my watch, and it alarmed me how very quickly the twenty minutes, flew by. Finally, reluctantly, I grabbed one of the photos of Tessa from inside the folder, another business card for the sex site, stuck them in my pocket, and skedaddled on out of there.

  I barely made it back down to my prison cell in the salon before my old pal, Alejandro, whom I now looked at with fresh, yet disgusted eyes, reappeared to wax my brows and do my makeup. An hour later, I was finally released from the torture chamber. Alejandro made me put on a robe with a hood to cover my hair, so it would be a surprise when he introduced the “new me”, then took my hand and led me to the front. The plan was to do the big reveal, then he and I would traipse upstairs for the test shots.

  Charli stood right inside the door, looking even more gorgeous than she normally looked. Tessa had gone further than a trim, giving Charli a really short pixie cut that suited her perfectly.

  My sister was beaming. “What do you think?”

  I told her how much I loved it.

  “I know. I never thought I’d have the guts to go short after that last disaster, but Tessa is an artist. She put in some low-lights too, so the color even looks better.”

  Alejandro interrupted and called for everyone to gather around for my big moment. He ordered me to turn around, helped me out of the robe, and said “ta-da!”. There was dead silence. Well, except for Charli’s gasp. Silly me, I actually took it as a sign that I looked good.

  Alejandro stared at me dumbfounded. “What is wrong with the color? And why is this happening?”

  I dashed over to a mirror and nearly fainted.

  I looked like I’d tried out for the lead role in a zombie flick, but lost out due to being too ugly. Only worse.

  My hair was hacked up in a way that suggested it may have been cut by little Jaelyn. There were streaks of greenish-black and orange and it was frizzed up as if I’d been zapped with about a million watts of electricity. My right eyebrow started itching and turning red underneath the heavy coat of base makeup. I’m not ashamed to admit that I burst into tears. Then, the eye liner and mascara Alejandro had caked on began to run.

  Charli put her arm around my waist and squeezed. “Oh, honey.” That’s all. Just, “Oh, oh, honey, sweetie, baby.”

  I stopped crying tears of despair and started in with tears of rage. “You sorry son of a.…” That was the kindest thing I called him. Alejandro stuttered and stammered and apologized. “Please, no, I’ll fix. I’ll fix it. I promise.”

  Charli practically had to drag me out of the salon, with him promising to fix things, and me still cursing and threatening to remove lots of his prized body parts.

  24

  When we got to her house, Charli helped me wipe off the makeup, but, evidently, I was allergic to it. Or to the wax he’d used on my brows. Or to the hair color. Or to all of it. My eyes were both swelled practically shut and little blisters covered my scalp. I took
a shower and toweled off my hair, but that made it even worse than it had been at the salon, if possible.

  Plus, I was breaking out in hives. Huge, angry welts began popping up on my stomach, moved to my arms, and eventually covered most of my body, including my face.

  Charli scooted into her kitchen and came back with a bottle of kid’s antihistamine medicine. She gave me an extra spoonful, and I popped one of my tiny white allergy pills as well.

  It didn’t take long for me to stop caring about my appearance. I dozed off on Jaelyn’s bed, until Tim and Dr. Unser came by to check on me. The good doctor prescribed an oatmeal bath, told me to take another dose of antihistamine, and to call him immediately if things got worse.

  Tim was sweet, bringing me a container of Dave’s potato soup and the fixings for a root beer float. He didn’t even tease me about my appearance.

  After they left, I fell into a deep sleep, barely waking up when John and the kids rolled in from their trip to Cincinnati. I groggily greeted them, noted their looks of horror at my appearance, downed another dose of the antihistamine, and slept until my my new phone, which Charli had bought me as a present to try and make me feel better, buzzed me awake at about ten. It was Harry.

  “I, uh, I need to talk to you. I’m back in Glenvar. Can you meet me at my house in about an hour? I know it’s going to be late, but it’s really important.”

  It was late and of course I was groggy from the medicine, but how could I turn him down? He’d obviously finished his game and somehow hitched a ride back to town a day early. Maybe he was getting sent back up to his old team for the playoffs. I didn’t want to miss what might be my last chance to see him for awhile.

  “Sure. Give me a buzz when you get there and I’ll walk over.”

  At about eleven, he sent me a text and I roused myself. My eyes were less swollen than they had previously been, but still gave me the appearance of someone on the losing end of a cage fight. Plus, the hives made me look like I had some sort of crazy disease.