Lavender Lies

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Sheila laughed, but without humor. “Actually, I didn’t call about that,” she said. “Do you happen to know Iris Powell?”

  “Edgar Coleman’s secretary? I don’t know her, but I know who she is.” I paused. “Why are you asking?”

  “She’s more than his secretary,” Sheila said.

  “So I understand,” I said dryly.

  “I didn’t mean that, either. She was his office manager. She knows his business, inside out.”

  I wondered briefly whether Iris knew about the deal that Darla had made with Coleman. “How are you connected with Iris Powell?”

  “Paula, my administrative assistant, is Iris’s sister.”

  I remembered Paula. She had joined Sheila and me for lunch once or twice. “It’s a small world,” I said.

  “It’s a small town. Paula’s very worried about Iris.”

  “Worried?”

  “According to Paula, Iris has a pretty good idea who killed Coleman and why. She says Iris is afraid that she might be the killer’s next target. She wants us—you and me—to talk to her.”

  “You I understand, since you’re Paula’s boss and a cop—sort of. But why me?”

  “Paula says Iris needs to talk to a lawyer. You keep up your bar membership, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but that’s neither here nor there,” I said firmly. “Iris needs to talk to McQuaid.”

  “She has, already. But Paula says that Iris was afraid of telling him too much. She didn’t want him to guess how deeply she was involved with Coleman’s business. I got the impression that she has information about illegal activities, and she’s not sure what to do with it.”

  “Paula strikes me as the exaggerating sort,” I said. Actually, this was an understatement, for the time or two I had seen Paula, she had related a couple of sensational stories involving dramatic psychological crises that might have been drawn from All My Children. Her tale about Iris might have more to do with an overactive imagination than with the facts of the matter.

  “Paula’s inclined to blow things out of proportion,” Sheila admitted, “but I’ve got the feeling there’s something to this.” She paused. “I know you’re busy, China, but I think we ought to go see Iris. Paula could let her know we’re coming.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can you pick me up at the shop at eleven-thirty?” I stopped. “No, that won’t work. McQuaid and I are getting our license today, and I’ve got three or four other urgent things to do, starting with a hair cut.” The day was already so full, I wasn’t going to have time to breathe. “How about late afternoon? Want to pick me up, say, at four-thirty?” Laurel was closing today, so I could leave a little early.

  “I’ll ask Paula to set it up and leave a message at the shop to confirm.” Sheila paused, shifting gears. “Speaking of weddings, we really have to make some decisions about the music. What do you think of using ‘Greensleeves’ before the ceremony, and the old Dinah Shore song about lavender—” Lavender’s Blue.’ Then the Bridal Chorus for your entrance and the Wedding March afterward.”

  “I like greensleeves,” I said, and ‘Lavender’s Blue’ is perfect. But I wish we could think of something besides the traditional marches.”

  “Everybody expects them,” Sheila said. “That’s why they’re traditional.”

  “That’s why I’d rather have something else.” I thought for a moment. “For the recessional, how about ”Home With the Armadillos’?”

  Sheila groaned. “This is serious, China. The wedding is only three days away.”

  It was my turn to groan. “Okay, okay. Scratch ‘Armadillo.’ How about Beethoven’s Ode to Joy for the recessional?”

  “I guess that would work,” Sheila said, sounding doubtful but relieved. “That just leaves the bride’s entrance.”

  “ ‘At the Hop’?” I suggested. I glanced at my watch and stuck my feet into my leather sandals. “Oops, gotta go. I’m late for my hair appointment.”

  “Have fun,” Sheila said, sounding resentful. “I wish I didn’t have anything to do but loaf around getting beautiful.”

  “You’re already beautiful,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve got to work at it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  O! And I was a damsel so fair,

  But fairer I wished to appear.

  So I washed me in milk,

  and dressed me in silk,

  And put sweet thyme in my hair.

  Old Devonshire song

  The fair maid who, the first of May

  Goes to the fields at break of day

  And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree

  Will ever after handsome be.

  Folk Saying

  Pecan Springs may not be much bigger than a peanut, but where essential services are concerned, we’ve got our bases covered. We have two banks, three Baptist churches, four barbecue joints, five auto dealerships, and more beauty shops than you can count. There’s the unisex shop in the mall, which is frequented by adolescents with green hair and rings in their noses, and a couple of dozen small shops in garages and rec rooms, where neighborhood women flock to trade gossip and get their hair shampooed and set while their preschoolers scribble in coloring books on the floor. And there is Bobby Rae’s House of Beauty.

  To appreciate Bobby Rae’s, you have to have lived in a small town at one time or another in your life—and you have to be a woman. Although Bobby Rae does the occasional man, her House of Beauty appeals mostly to the female of the species. From the pink plastic flamingo outside the door to the powder-pink decor inside, from the dotted swiss pink-ribbon-trimmed curtains to the bouquet of pink silk flowers on the magazine table, from the hair fashion photos on the wall to Nora’s Nail Fashions table in the corner, Bobby Rae caters to the small-town Aphrodite. A fly-specked sign on the wall promises that a trained beautician or spa specialist will cut, style, set, and blow dry your hair; bleach it, color it, correct it, curl it, or straighten it; color your eyelashes and your eyebrows; peel your face and wax your legs and painlessly relocate your “bikini line”; and cover your real nails with gel, acrylic, fiberglass, silk wrap, or just plain plastic. Or, if you prefer, you may purchase a Bountiful Beauty Package to pamper yourself or a friend: a Lady Executive Escape, a New Mom Morning, or a Bride and Groom Getaway. I was contemplating this information in some amazement when I was accosted by a sizable woman in pink jeans and a silky pink smock, a basket of sausage-sized foam curlers in one hand.

  “Mornin’, dear,” Bobby Rae said cheerily. “How can we do you today?”

  I looked up at the sign. “Bride and Groom Getaway? What’s that?”

  “It’s everything yer heart desires times two. Sauna, spa, a do for two—plus a catered lunch from Terri’s Takeout. Fancy sandwiches, salad, the works. When you get back from the Getaway, you’re ready for the weddin’.”

  “I’m afraid the groom would be too busy,” I said.

  “Yeah. Men.” With a look of infinite scorn, Bobby Rae squeezed behind the counter of the reception desk and put down her basket of foam sausages. “That’s whut they all say. Too busy. No time.” She snorted. “Skeered, that’s whut I say. ’Fraid their friends’ll say they’re sissies. But that’s okay, honey. You kin pay half and get the Bride’s Getaway.”

  Bobby Rae Ritter is of a generous girth, with Dolly Par-ton-sized breasts and arms like Troy Aikman. On her head she wears a pile of pink hair like a prodigious pouf of cotton candy, back-combed and teased and tousled and moussed, with pink tendrils curling festively around her cheerful, moon-shaped face. If there were a Texas Hall of Fame for Big Hair, Bobby Rae’s photograph would be in it, front and center with former Governor Ann and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Styles may come and go in Hollywood and New York, but Big Hair remains the grand Texas passion.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time,” I said.

  Bobby Rae smiled warmly at me. “It don’t take much time to get beautiful, hon. Listen, we’ll fix you up so gorgeous, he’ll think it’s Farrah he’s marryin’. Hair, nails,
facial, a wax job—” She opened the appointment book. “When’s the big day?”

  “Sunday,” I said. “But I’ve already got an eight-thirty with Billie Jean to get my hair cut.”

  “Why, that don’t make no nevermind,” Bobby Rae said comfortingly. “You can take your Getaway in little bites, ‘stead of all at once. Billie Jean can cut you today, I’ll color you tomorrow, and Nora’ll do your facial and your nails on Friday mornin’.” She took my right hand and examined my nails, a momentary look of consternation crossing her face. But she recovered herself quickly. “Maybe we better schedule them nails for Friday afternoon,” she said with genuine sympathy. “Might take a little longer than usual.” She glanced up at my face and her eyes fastened on my nose. “And maybe we oughta tack on an expert makeup session, just in case that face don’t fade fast enough. When’s the weddin’?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t want a Getaway,” I replied firmly. “I’ll just have to live with my face.”

  Bobby Rae gave me a long, pitying look. “Hate to see you anything but beautiful for your weddin’ day, sweetie,” she said, reluctantly abandoning me to my ugly fate. “But whutever you say.” She gestured. “Billie Jean was a little late this morning, but I think she’s here now. Through that pink door. She’ll do you in a hurry, if that’s whut you got your heart set on.”

  You may be wondering why a City Council member is cutting hair in the back room of Bobby Rae’s House of Beauty, so I’d better explain. Last year, an unusual event took place in Pecan Springs. For the first time in recorded history, voters rebelled against the conservative Old Guard who have dominated local politics since the railroad came to town. In one massive heave-ho, the citizens tossed out four conservative incumbents who were up for reelection and elected Phyllis Garza, Darla McDaniels, Winnie Hatcher, and Billie Jean Jones, each of whom reports, more or less, to a particular segment of the Pecan Springs voting population. Phyllis was elected by the Hispanic community, Darla by the small business lobby, Winnie by the local Greens, and Billie Jean by her customers. When Billie Jean decided to run for election, she simply added a thirty-second political commercial to the usual shampoo-and-snip. She cuts a lot of hair, and her margin of victory was bigger than anybody else’s. The power of beauty is not to be taken lightly.

  Unlike Bobby Rae, Billie Jean is not a walking advertisement for her art. She is twiggy and sallow-faced and her hair is an ordinary light brown, about the color of mine. This morning, she was wearing a wrinkled white T-shirt, sneakers without socks, and baggy green pants that tied around the waist, like men’s pajama bottoms. She is nervous by nature, and being late this morning seemed to make her more so than usual. She gave me a small smile. “What’re we doin’ for you today, China?”

  “Shampoo and cut,” I said. “I’m getting married on Sunday.”

  “I heard. You’re braver’n me. I wouldn’t marry a cop, no matter how many times he got down on his knees to beg.” She lifted a handful of my hair. “Pretty dry. And maybe you oughta do something about that gray streak. Let me fix that up for you, it’ll take off prob’ly five years.”

  “He’s only a temporary cop,” I said. “When you guys get around to hiring a chief, he can quit.” I hesitated, tempted. “Do you really think it would take off five years?” I asked.

  “Easy,” Billie Jean said. “Maybe ten. We could do it temporary. By the time it washes out, you’ll know whether you want to do it permanent.” Now that she was into the swing of things, she sounded less tense. “I could lighten you up, oh, three-four shades. Look real nice.”

  My usual hair-care regimen is homemade and simple. I concoct my own herbal castile shampoo with aloe, camomile, and lemon juice, and occasionally I beat up an egg yolk and rub it in after a shampoo. When my hair is really dry, almond oil is good, which usually takes care of dandruff as well. If not, I massage in mint vinegar three or four times a week until it clears up. But I hadn’t had time this summer to do more than grab a bottle of shampoo at the grocery store, and my hair was looking dark and dry.

  So the Aphrodite in me agreed to a lightening and conditioning, while my cynical self went along, bemused, to see what would happen. The whole affair took less than an hour and when it was over, the gray was gone and what was left was a head of very light brown hair with fetching gold highlights. It wasn’t five years and it wasn’t Big Hair, but I wouldn’t throw a stick at it.

  And in the process, I heard an interesting story. At first, Billie Jean held her lips pressed tight and it wasn’t as easy as I’d expected to get her to talk. Once we got on the subject of Edgar Coleman, though, she seemed almost eager, as if she had a story to tell and had just been waiting for the right person to tell it to. Billie Jean had been cutting Coleman for three or four years—one of the few males she did—but she hadn’t realized just how much he thought of her until a couple of weeks ago, when he asked her how come she didn’t have her own shop.

  “What did you tell him?” I asked. By this time, she was blow-drying me, and I was watching her face in the pink-framed mirror. Her lips weren’t pressed tight anymore, but there was a scowl on her face.

  “I said I sure as shit aimed to, the minute I scraped together enough to pay for equipment. He said that was extremely coincidental, because just the day before he’d had to take over one of the clip joints in a strip mall he owned.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. “That is a coincidence.”

  She ruffled my top hair with her fingers and waved the dryer across it fast. “You damn betcha. He said he’d let me have the place, which still has all the equipment and the sign and everything. In fact, he’d make it real easy for me, like he’d just forget about the first six lease payments, which would let me get my feet on the ground before I had to make rent.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “You must have been tempted.”

  “Extremely.” She flipped a brush through my hair, fluffing it out on the sides. Most of the time it just lies flat. I had to admit that fluffy was an improvement. “I’m damned sick of Bobby Rae and her Pepto-Bismol pink. Oh, it might be all right if a person only had to put up with it for a couple of hours every month or so. But it’s pretty friggin’ miserable to look at eight hours a day five days a week. I’ve got so that pink turns my stomach. You damned betcha it was tempting.”

  I looked up and caught her eye in the mirror. “So when’s the grand opening?”

  “Ha,” she said bitterly.

  “Ha?”

  She made a face at me in the mirror, cupping her hands around the sides of my head to shape it. “Yeah, ha. Turns out Coleman wasn’t setting me up in a shop because he liked the way I cut hair, oh no. There were strings tied all over that nifty little present he was holding out. To get those six free months, all I had to do was vote yes on the Blessing Ranch annexation when it came up for a final vote. Hair spray?” Without waiting for my No! she picked up a can and began to spray my hair in short bursts. “Coleman was there when we voted the first time, you see, and he heard me say yes.” She considered my head critically, patted it here and there, and sprayed again. “He was buying insurance. He figured if I got that shop space, I’d vote yes again.” Disgustedly, she thumped the can down and whipped off my pink plastic cape. “Trouble was, Coleman didn’t know me. I am an ethical person. I told him he could take that shop and shove it, and I was gonna vote no.”

  “I guess I don’t understand,” I said. “You voted for the annexation once, so you must have thought it was a good idea.”

  “Well, sure.” She shook out the cape with a snap. “I got a couple customers live out there that need water. They told me their problem and asked could I help, and I said yes, because I felt like they had a valid point. I do what I can for the folks who voted for me.” She curled her lip scornfully. “Some sucker tries to buy my vote, though, he’s got trouble. Big time.” She inspected my neck. “Sit back down there and let me run the clippers.”

  “So you told off Edgar Coleman, and then what?” I asked, while she was buzzing u
p and down my neck.

  “Then nothing. He said he was gonna try to change my mind and I said good luck, sarcastic, you know. So he walked outta here mad, and a coupla days later, somebody blew him away.” She took up a brush and whisked my neck. “So. Do you like it?”

  I stared at the blond stranger in the mirror. “Wow,” I said.

  “Color turned out just right,” she said, pleased. “Five years. I was right, huh?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I lied. I stood up and reached for my purse, then paused. “Any idea who might have killed Coleman?”

  She scrunched up her mouth and pulled down her brows. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” she said slowly. “If I’d been the type to get pissed off, I sure as hell would’ve been mad at that sonofabitch for trying to bribe me. But ‘spose he made a offer to a person who was the type. Or ’spose he had something he could hold over that person, and wanted to trade. He’d be quiet, if the person would vote his way. But you couldn’t trust Coleman any farther than you could see him, so the person killed him. Something like that happened on Murder She Wrote not too long ago.” She reached for a broom and began to energetically sweep up drifts of my hair. “Good thing I’m not the type. Matter of fact, I was down in San Antonio when it happened, takin’ care of my granddaughter while my girl had herself another baby.” She looked up with a grin. “She got a boy this time. I’m takin’ the next couple of days off to help her out.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Let me know when you open your new shop. What are you going to call it?”

  She had obviously given the matter some thought. “The Best Little Hair House in Texas,” she said with satisfaction, putting the broom away. “That oughta get some attention.”

  Edgar and Letty Coleman lived in Mesquite Meadows, Pecan Springs’s newest upscale neighborhood. The houses are all custom-built on open, three-acre lots that are short on trees but long on limestone rock and wildflowers. In the spring, the curving streets are bordered with bluebonnets and paintbrush; in summer, the blues and reds give way to glowing sweeps of goldenrod and coreopsis and brown-eyed Susans. By autumn, the flame-leaf sumac are heavy with the fruit that the raccoons find so tasty and the yaupon holly is already studded with its bright red berries, tart enough that the robins and cedar waxwings leave them until last, after they’ve eaten all the juniper berries. Some years, they don’t get around to them at all, and you find November’s berries still clinging to the branches in July.