Murder On The Menu: The 1st Nikki Hunter Mystery (Nikki Hunter Mysteries)

by Nancy Skopin

  She said, “That would be Kurt.”

  Kurt had an opening the next day at 2:30.

  I locked up the office and drove to the Library. When I entered the lobby there were two employees assisting customers who were checking out books, and a third behind a small metal desk. I approached the one at the desk, an Asian male in his late twenties with thick glasses and shoulder length hair.

  He smiled and said, “May I help you?”

  “My name is Nicoli Hunter. I’m a private investigator looking into a murder that took place here in Redwood City. Did you know Barbara Herbert?”

  His face froze. “How do I know you’re not another reporter?”

  I handed him my PI license and he took a moment to examine it, then returned it to me and said, “What do you want to know?”

  “Did she work up front here with you?”

  “No, Barbara worked the reference desk.” He nodded toward the back of the library.

  “Were you close?”

  “Not really. We were friendly, but we didn’t see each other socially.”

  “What hours did she work?”

  “Twelve to nine. Same as me.”

  “Were you aware of anyone special she was dating, or any close friends she might have had?”

  “You know, the police already asked us all these questions. I didn’t see her with anyone, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t dating, it just means I don’t know. She and Betsy were pretty close. Betsy’s in reference too.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I handed him a business card, asking him to call if he thought of anything that might help. He glanced at the card and tucked it in his shirt pocket.

  I walked back to the reference desk and found two women seated at computer terminals. Both were occupied at the moment. I waited in line and observed them as they worked. One was slender, Caucasian, and in her late forties, with graying mousy-brown hair cut in a pageboy. She wore rimless glasses and was dressed like a Laura Ashley catalog model. The other was in her twenties, heavy set, possibly Samoan or Hawaiian, with a vast quantity of wavy black hair. She wore a white blouse tucked into a royal blue skirt. I was betting the older woman was Betsy. They both finished with the people they were assisting and looked up at me. I approached the older of the two.

  “Are you Betsy?” I asked.

  She smiled and pointed to the other woman, who said, “I’m Betsy. Can I help you?”

  So I was wrong. I’m a PI, not a psychic.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name is Nicoli Hunter.” I shook her hand. It was soft and her grip was gentle. She had puppy dog eyes and a sweet smile. “I’m a private investigator,” I continued. “I understand you and Barbara were friends. I was hoping we could talk.”

  The smile disappeared and her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Can I take you to lunch, or meet you outside when you get off work tonight?”

  “I go to lunch at three,” she sniffled.

  I asked her where she’d like to eat and she said, “Max’s.” It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet-style restaurant on El Camino with a world-class salad bar.

  I said I’d be back at 3:00, thanked Betsy, and shook her hand again, which was now slightly damp.

  I drove over to Max’s and paid for two meals and beverages in advance, so Betsy and I wouldn’t have to waste time standing in line. I pocketed the receipts and spent the next hour browsing the mystery section at Barnes & Noble.

  At 2:50 I drove back to the library. I waited in the lobby, not wanting Betsy to feel rushed. At 2:58 I saw her go into the ladies’ restroom. A few minutes later she joined me in the lobby. We walked to my car and made the drive to Max’s in awkward silence.

  Once we had piled our plates with food and were seated, I let her take a few bites before asking my first question.

  “Did you and Barbara spend a lot of time together?”

  “You mean outside of work?” she mumbled, her mouth full. I nodded. “I wouldn’t say a lot. But some. We were friends, even though we were totally different.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, Barb was kind of eccentric, but she was secretive about it. She didn’t think people would accept her if they knew what she was really like. The funny thing is, everybody could see right through her, and we all liked her anyway.”

  “Eccentric in what way?”

  “Well, I guess she wouldn’t mind me telling you under the circumstances. Barb had an active fantasy life. She lived in books a lot of the time. Loved romance novels and murder mysteries. Sometimes she would pretend she was a character from one of the books she was reading. She’d change her hair and the way she dressed to look like the character.”

  “How long had you known her?” I asked.

  “Three years. Since I started working at the library.”

  “Betsy, I need to know who Barbara was dating. I know this is difficult for you, but the thing is, I’m sorry, but the thing is she had sex right before she was killed.” Betsy’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “Her companion used a condom,” I continued, “and the police think it might have been someone she knew. There was no evidence to indicate the gender of her partner, so it actually could have been a man or a woman.”

  I waited for her reaction. She took a bite of macaroni salad, chewed slowly, swallowed, and said, “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the police came and questioned all of us. I think she was seeing someone. I only saw her with him once and she didn’t talk to me about him, which made me a little suspicious. Barb was circumspect about her fantasy life, but if she had a date she’d get so excited she’d tell me every detail about the guy. She didn’t go out very often.”

  “Can you describe the man you saw her with?”

  “Not really. The only thing I remember is that he was tall and good-looking.”

  “Did you notice his hair color? If he had a beard or a mustache? Height? Weight? Anything?” I was desperate for something that would identify one of my suspects.

  “I don’t remember if he had a beard, but I don’t think so. It was dark when I saw him. He met her after work one night, but he didn’t come inside. He was waiting in the parking lot. I was walking out to my car and I saw them talking. I waved, but Barb didn’t see me. Then they got into their cars and she followed him out of the lot. I asked her about it the next day and she said it was no big deal, just a date. She seemed kind of embarrassed.”

  “Do you think you would recognize him if you saw a picture?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It was pretty dark.”

  “What was he driving?”

  “I was afraid you were going to ask me that. I don’t notice cars and I had no reason to pay special attention. All I can tell you is that it looked expensive and it was a light color.”

  Derrick drove a black BMW. I’d seen Charles driving a white Taurus wagon, but there was probably something else in his garage. Fred Wulf drove a silver blue Jaguar XJS. I’d have to ask him if he spent much time at the library.

  “What else can you tell me about Barbara?”

  “She was a great person. Very open-minded. She didn’t judge people, if you know what I mean. And she was shy, especially with men. She didn’t have much of a life really. She liked working at the library because it gave her more time to read than a conventional job would. She loved to read. I think she found the adventure she was looking for in books because she was afraid to look for it in real life.”

  Betsy paused to eat.

  I considered what I knew about Laura, automatically comparing it to what she was telling me about Barbara. Laura certainly couldn’t be called shy, but the part about looking for adventure fit. I remembered the romance novel on her bedside table – something else they had in common.

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sp; Betsy and I finished our lunch and I drove her back to the library. She accepted one of my business cards and said she would call if she thought of anything else.

  I checked my watch, and realized I had time to do some of the work I’d been putting off since taking the Howard case. I stopped by the office and opened the Excel workbook where I keep my master schedule, made a list of the customers I’d been neglecting, stuffed some survey forms into my purse, and left the office.

  Most of my work involves bar and restaurant surveillance. The owners of these establishments pay me to observe how their employees perform when they don’t know they’re being watched. I drink and dine at their expense, and report in obsessive detail on everything that happens from the moment I enter until I leave. I evaluate customer service, attitude, and quality of cuisine, and I watch for till-tapping and other types of theft. Occasionally I install covert security cameras, viewing the discs in my office after hours.

  I sit in on termination interviews when someone has been caught stealing and needs to be let go with as little fuss as possible. I’m there to convince them that they’re lucky the police haven’t been called, although it’s rare for an employer to file charges. Time is money, and the general consensus is that it isn’t worth the trouble. Catching dirt-bag chefs in the act of pilfering seafood is not what I envisioned when I got my PI license, but it pays the bills.

  There are seven restaurants and eleven nightclubs in the San Francisco Bay Area for which I provide ‘shopping’ services on a regular basis. Many of them expect biweekly reports and I’d been too busy to take care of them since accepting the Howard case.

  I’d planned to cover at least three establishments that night, but by the time I’d finished the first dinner survey I was exhausted. I managed a half-assed bar survey in downtown Palo Alto, and decided to call it a night.

  Chapter 24

  I had called Ralph Hearn’s office at 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon, and I tried again on Wednesday morning. Both times I got his voicemail. I didn’t bother leaving messages. He’d obviously made his decision. Although I hadn’t seen his jeep around, nor had I spotted anyone else following me.

  True to my word I called Derrick Howard at InSight, then Kate Howard at home, and Charles Spencer at his office. I informed each of them that a PI from San Mateo had been following me, and I mentioned Hearn by name. I asked them each if they had hired him. Kate was stunned, Derrick was impatient, and Charles hung up on me. It didn’t matter. I’d done what I set out to do. I got Rod Howard’s answering machine and left him a detailed message about Hearn. I would tell Fred/Marc over dinner on Friday. I wanted to watch his reaction.

  At 2:00, I drove to the Mane Line hair salon for my 2:30 appointment. I asked the receptionist, a teenager with spiky purple hair, to point Kurt out to me so I could watch him work.

  At first glance he looked more like a beach bum than a hair stylist. If you got past the first impression, however, you might notice that he had a very good haircut. He was just over six feet tall, with a barrel chest and a beer gut. His hair was reddish brown and artfully layered. His complexion was ruddy and his nose showed signs of alcohol abuse. He had a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, both of which were starting to show some white, and he wore shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top. I started having second thoughts about letting him cut my hair. I wanted to look nice for my dinner with Detective Anderson.

  I turned my attention to the woman seated at Kurt’s station. His hands guided the scissors deftly, almost gracefully, through her hair, and when he was finished she looked amazing. He’d given her a bi-level cut with the front short and coifed around her face, and the back long, ending in a point between her shoulder blades. He handed her a mirror and turned the chair so she could look at the back. The customer tossed her hair, checked both views in the mirror, and squealed with delight. She kissed Kurt on the cheek and gave him a cash tip before leaving.

  Kurt stuffed the bill in his pocket and picked up his blow dryer to clean off the chair. He then swept up the hair on the floor and a moment later walked to the reception desk and said something to the purple-haired imp. She pointed at me and Kurt approached, smiling.

  “Are you Nicoli?”

  “Call me Nikki,” I said.

  Kurt and I shook hands. His was warm, slightly damp, and callused. He escorted me to his station.

  “What are we doing today?” he asked.

  “It’s a graduated layer cut, but I think it needs to be cleaned up a little. What do you think?”

  He looked at me in the mirror, inserted his fingers beneath my curls, and shook, then watched them settle back into place.

  “I think you’d look great with a slightly shorter cut and some highlights.”

  I can’t tell you how many hairdressers have said those very words to me, and my reaction is always the same. “I’m not interested in highlights and I like the length. In fact I’d rather you didn’t take more than half an inch off the bottom.” Oops. I’d forgotten I needed information from this guy.

  “Okay,” he said, with a shrug. “Let’s get you shampooed.”

  Kurt had wonderful hands. He not only shampooed and conditioned my hair, he massaged my scalp while he was doing it, and all of this without getting any water in my eyes or ears. I was considering changing hairdressers even before seeing what he did with the cut, or maybe I’d just come in for shampoos.

  He wrapped a towel around my head and led me back to his station where he draped me in a vinyl cape. He ran a wide-toothed comb through my hair to get the tangles out, then picked up his blow dryer and attached a diffuser.

  “I’m just going to dry it a little so I can watch what the curl does,” he said.

  Most hairdressers cut curly hair the same way they cut straight hair. They make everything symmetrical, and when your hair dries and curls up, it looks uneven. Kurt knew what he was doing.

  “How long have you been cutting hair?” I asked.

  “Two years.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “I know,” he said, “not very long. But I have a knack, and I learn fast.”

  “What did you do before?”

  “I was an electrician.”

  I like to think nothing surprises me.

  “What made you decide to become a hair stylist?”

  “That’s a long story. Let’s just say I was ready for a change.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “When I called, I asked for the person who had been here the longest.”

  “That’s me. It used to be Andrew, but he’s gone. All these other people are new.”

  “Is Andrew the man who was killed?”

  That went over like a lead balloon. Kurt turned off the blow dryer and set it down, then picked up his scissors.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it, but I forged ahead.

  “How long had he been here?”

  “Nine years, but he’d been cutting hair for twenty.”

  “Wow. He must have been good.”

  “He was the best. He used to cut my hair.”

  “What kind of a person was he?”

  Kurt locked eyes with me in the mirror and all of a sudden I was afraid of what he might do with those scissors.

  “Why all the questions?” he asked. “Are you a reporter?”

  “No, I’m not a reporter.”

  “Morbid curiosity?”

  “I’m a private investigator.” I swiveled the chair around to face him and lowered my voice. “I’m looking into the Laura Howard murder and I think there may be a connection between Andrew’s death and hers. If I could find out more about Andrew, maybe I could put it together.”

  “If there’s a connection why aren’t the police looking into it?”

  “I don’t kno
w. Maybe they are.”

  “What do you want to know?” He turned my chair back around and continued trimming my hair.

  “I’m interested in the people Andrew was involved with during the last few months of his life.”

  “Men or women?” he asked, watching my face.

  “Both,” I said.

  “Well, there was this one guy. I saw Andrew cut his hair a couple of times, and I think they were dating. I base that assumption on body language, and the fact that Andrew seemed flustered around him.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was tall and sharp-looking, but he seemed pretty full-of-himself. Very GQ.”

  A perfect description of Fred.

  “If I brought in some pictures do you think you could identify him?”

  “Sure. It’s not the kind of face you forget.”

  “Was he dating any women?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  After that we were silent until Kurt set down his scissors, added some hair gel, and scrunched up my curls. He handed me a mirror and spun the chair so I could look at the back.

  “Wow. It looks great! Listen, the police would be really pissed-off if any of this leaked to the press.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, Kurt.” I handed him a twenty.

  He looked at the bill and said, “You pay at the front counter.”

  “I know,” I said. “This is for you. Best haircut I’ve had in years. Can I come back tomorrow with the pictures?”

  “Sure. I’ll be here at ten.”

  He removed the vinyl cape and I went to pay the receptionist. My heart was pounding. I’d never felt this charged-up working on an investigation before. I had found a possible connection between the murders and I’d found a new hairdresser! I was having a very good day.

  I returned to the marina and took a quick shower on board the boat to get rid of the prickly little hairs that had fallen down my collar. I dressed in my regular uniform of shorts and a lightweight blouse, and trotted up the dock.