Color Me Dead (The Teasen and Pleasen Hair Salon Mystery Series Book 4)
Page 17
“When did you get so smart?”
She shrugged. “An hour ago. Some fella sold me a handful of smart pills.”
I looked at her. “Are you sure they weren’t suppositories?”
“Now who is being clever? By the way, did you hear about Manus?”
“What about him?”
“Well, not only did Pete get him a lifeline for his finances, but Dave the Dwarf offered him a job.”
“A job?”
“I heard him tell Manus that the two of them needed to stick to what they were good at. He hired Manus as a stylist at his salon. The business is dead and no one seemed interested in the commercial potential of the ICS.”
“So all is well…”
“…that cuts well.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We got back to Knockemstiff in the early evening, around dusk. It had been quite the weekend, and once I had picked up Sarah Jameson and Finn and gotten them home, naturally she wanted to hear it all. I wanted to hear about her weekend, but telling the story of someone I knew getting murdered seemed to take precedence.
Finn wanted dinner—we all did. So I opened a can of dog food, and then Sarah and I opted to make a nice dinner with a real salad, and then we settled in with a glass of lemonade (Sarah) and wine (me), to eat and talk.
Naturally she had more questions than I had answers. Once we finished with my story, I found her rather cryptic about her own activities. Paula’s warning about when the girls were teens rose up like a specter. “You hinted about some project you were embarking on with Ginny,” I reminded her.
She thought about it for a moment. “Oh, that. It didn’t work.”
“What was it?”
“Well, since it didn’t work, it wasn’t anything at all.”
That was all I would get.
After dinner we sat down to watch an old movie. Sarah was sweet and my life was comfortable. I loved it the way it was, yet I wanted other things. With my thoughts churning, and Sarah’s head against me, I fell asleep. I woke in the night to find I was covered with a blanket. Sarah was in bed—in her pajamas. Her clothes were neatly put away. I went into the kitchen and saw that she’d done the dishes.
I went into my room and found a note on my nightstand. “Yes, I brushed my teeth,” it said. “I love you. Sarah.”
I felt tears welling up as I went to bed and fell fast asleep again.
# # #
The next morning after breakfast, Finn and I walked Sarah to school. Getting back in the routine felt wonderful. In some ways it felt as if I’d been gone a year, and in others, as if I’d just had a strange dream.
When I got to the salon I found the voice mail on the phone filled to overflowing. People had left messages of congratulations to Pete, welcome backs, and one or two people wanted to change their appointments. I braced myself for a chaotic, busy day. Actually that would be good. It would force us back to a semblance of normal.
Nellie came in looking relieved but a little dazed. An odd smile sat on her face, slightly skewed. “Are you okay?” I asked her as we set things up to get ready to open.
“I’m not quite sure,” she said. “Did we actually come home yesterday? You were driving. Did you take a detour through the Twilight Zone?”
“Not on purpose. What’s going on?”
She shook her head. “What’s going on is anyone’s guess, but when I got home I walked into a spotless house.”
“What?” That was astonishing.
She raised a hand “Honest Injun! What a shocker. I had prepared myself for every possibility except that one. Imagine the look on my face when I walked into a house that was mopped and vacuumed, the dishes and clothes washed, the beds made… I’ve never seen the place so clean, not even when I’ve cleaned it myself.”
“And they did it themselves?”
“It seems, as far as they’ve disclosed so far, Rudy arranged it. I’m not sure what that actually means, but if they brought in a cleaning squad, who cares?”
“Did they say what was going on? Is someone going to jail or something?”
“Apparently this came about because during one of my phone calls I mentioned that job offer in Atlanta. I was tickled by it.”
“As you should be.”
“It seems Rudy got scared that I was falling for the city life and might actually consider going there.” She grabbed me by the arm. “You won’t tell, will you?”
“Of course not.”
“Good, because I know this won’t last, but I intend to milk it for everything it’s worth. Aubrey is making dinner tonight. He watched some cooking videos and he and Norris are going to fix a roast.”
“Are you sure Rudy didn’t swap your kids with some others while we were gone?”
“I don’t think so. If I get any suspicions that he did, I'll be sure to keep that to myself.”
Pete came in the door accompanied by a swarm of well wishers. “They all want me to cut their hair,” he said, looking almost pained.
“The price of fame, Pete,” Nellie said. “Either grin and bear it, or head for the hills.”
He winked. “I think I like it here fine.”
Betina was last to arrive, coming in with pastries from Parmbets’. “You remembered,” I said thankfully.
“Another day in Knockemstiff,” she said.
“Are you going to do it, Betina,” Ellen Hart, our mayor asked as she came in the door. My guess was that she timed her entrance so that she’d be the one to ask her.
“What, exactly, Ellen?”
“Become a model?”
The question flattered her. “Well, so far, they’ve asked me to go talk to them and see what it’s all about and I’ve agreed. I’m going in a couple of weeks.”
“You have to give it a try,” Nadine Hines said as she bullied her way into Pete’s chair with the excuse that she needed to go first so that she could get to her critical position as Police Chief Tanner’s assistant. “You’d never forgive yourself if you didn’t try.”
“It’s a lot to think about,” Betina said. “And it would mean leaving Knockemstiff.”
“That would be our loss,” I told her, “but Nadine is right. You owe it to yourself.”
She gave me a pleased smile. “Then you wouldn’t be upset if I left.”
“We’ll all miss you if you go, but I don’t think anyone in town would be pleased if you didn’t follow your heart.”
She smiled wistfully. “Poul said he’d be there,” she said.
“That means she’s going,” Nellie said. “Go for it girl.”
As people crowded around, I turned to Nellie. “Sometimes you feel like a mother bird pushing the babies out of the nest, and it is a scary feeling.”
She smiled and patted my shoulder. “And sometimes the babies surprise you and clean the house while you’re gone.”
“Sometimes they do.”
Watching Betina, all I could do was hope for the best for her and brace myself for another change.
Change was coming. I could feel it.
Nellie took my arm. “When things seem to be going in ways you never expected, all a body can do is buckle down and hold on tight. When the ride is over it’s time to take stock.”
“That sounds familiar,” I said.
“It ought to. That’s what your daddy told me when he found out that Rudy had knocked me up. I never forgot it. He was right—that’s all you can do.”
I looked at the appointment book. We had people coming in left and right and no one was in the book yet except for the regulars. “I suppose in the meantime we need to cut some hair and do some nails.”
“You are going to have to learn the cut Pete won with,” she said. She pointed to Pete’s chair where he was working on Ellen Hart, our mayor. “If even Ellen is jumping on the bandwagon, getting that cut, hairstyles in Knockemstiff aren’t going to be as conservative as they used to be.”
“All I wanted to do was treat everyone to a special weekend in the city.”
Nellie grinned. “And you did. But remember that all Rudy wanted to do was treat Django to some dog food. You never expect a bear to show up. And maybe you should.”
Nellie was starting to sound far too much like my daddy.
THE END
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