Authors: Traci Andrighetti,Elizabeth Ashby
"What's this about a syringe wrapper and a Bible?" Zac asked from the doorway.
"Nothing," Gia intoned and waved him away.
Zac's face grew dark. "I'll go downstairs to wait for the police."
Gia nodded at him.
The disappointment in Zac's voice stayed with me after he'd left the room. But no one was more disappointed in me than me. What had I been thinking, trying to solve a murder investigation on my own? Thanks to my inexperience, we'd not only lost evidence tying the killer to Margaret's death, but now we would never know what the babies in that Bible had to do with the crime.
Gia pulled my hair onto my back. "What's on your mind?"
"Those babies listed in the Bible," I replied, resting my elbows on my knees. "And no matter how I look at it, I just keep coming back to the same thing."
"What's that?" She reached for a tube of raspberry lotion that had been knocked from the nightstand.
"They had to be babies that Margaret delivered."
"That makes sense to me," she said, smoothing lotion on her arms. "But how can we prove it now that we don't have their names?"
"I know!" I sat up. "We start by calling the Presley-Smith Memorial Hospitals in Gulfport and Jackson."
"What?" She tossed the tube back onto the floor. "Why would we do that?"
"Because we know that the syringe came from one of those places and because I found out from Zac that Clyde used to work in Gulfport."
"Whoa." She gripped her star-spangled thighs. "So, Clyde is the killer!"
I shook my head. "Not necessarily. But it's looking more and more like something happened down in Mississippi. And if we can trace Bertha or even Margaret to one of those hospitals, then we're on our way to finding out what that was."
"You know that Human Resources won't just give out information to anyone who calls. They'll probably ask for a signed release."
"You're industrious. You'll think of something."
"Me?" She put a hand to her W-emblazoned chest. "Why can't
you
call the hospitals?"
I stood up and looked out the window in front of my desk. "Because the police will be here any minute, and I'll be going down to the station with them. I think it's time to tell them about Clyde."
"Wait." She held up a hand. "You're not going to tell them about us breaking into Margaret's, are you? Because we'll get arrested." She gestured to her heroic form. "And you know that this isn't suited to life in the pen."
"Relax, Wonder Woman," I said, glowering at her from the corner of my eyes. "As much as I'd like to throw you under the bus sometimes—and by that I also mean under a large, oncoming vehicle—I have no plans to do so right now." I glanced around my disheveled room. "In fact, apart from asking them to send an officer to oversee the plumber tomorrow morning, I don't have the faintest idea what I'm going to say."
A police siren wailed in the distance.
But from the sound of things, I'd better think of something quick.
* * *
Detective Marshall shined the hanging metal lamp into my eyes. "Let's try this again," he said, his face so close that I could smell the doughnut burger that he'd just eaten for lunch. "Exactly how did you come into possession of the syringe wrapper?"
By this point I was so frustrated that I wanted to scream. "Like I said," I began, trying to control my temper, "I found it in the flowerbed outside the salon. Now can I please speak to Detective Ohlsen?"
He smirked and released the light. "Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you? Because you've pegged him for a sucker," he said, pulling up his pants. "For you he's just another man who you can twist around your finger."
I glanced at the time on my phone. I hadn't seen Detective Ohlsen since he'd driven me from the salon to the station four hours before, and I was getting worried that he wasn't coming back. Because judging from the way things were going, Detective Marshall was going to have me locked up
and
prosecuted within the hour.
"So now you're speechless, huh?" He snorted and pointed his finger at me. "Well, I know your type, all right. You're just like your uncle—always on the make." He placed his hands on the table and leaned toward me. "Tell me, did Vinnie tip you off to Margaret Appleby's money before his, uh, unfortunate demise? Or did you sniff out her dough all by your little lonesome?"
I squirmed in my seat. I'd been under the impression that the focus of the investigation had shifted from Lucy to Bertha, but it was starting to seem like it had actually shifted to me.
The door opened, and Detective Ohlsen appeared in the threshold. "I'll take it from here, Lester."
I breathed an audible sigh of relief.
Detective Marshall's ruddy complexion got even ruddier. Then he leveled a glare at me.
I was tempted to stick my tongue out at him, but I didn't dare. He'd slap me with an assault charge faster than you could say "freeze."
Detective Ohlsen cleared his throat, and Detective Marshall turned and stormed from the room like a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys.
"Would you like something to drink?" Detective Ohlsen asked as he placed his coffee cup and a folder on the table.
If anything, I wanted something to eat. I'd been in this interrogation room for so long that my Dutch Baby had grown up and left home. "No thank you, Detective. What I'd really like is to know whether or not I'm under arrest."
He took a seat in the folding chair and pulled a pair of bifocals and a pen from his shirt pocket. "That depends." He slipped on his glasses and began writing on a sheet of paper inside the folder. "If I decide that you interfered with the investigation, yes. Otherwise, I'll see to it that you're released."
I began fiddling with a ring on my finger. "I already told you that I meant to give you the syringe wrapper, but it was stolen before I could."
"And I told you that if you hadn't waited to call the manufacturer, you wouldn't be sitting here right now."
"But I wanted to be sure that the wrapper was pertinent to the case."
He stopped writing and stared at me over the rim of his bifocals. "That's for us to investigate, young lady."
"Yessir, Detective." I mustered all the sincerity I could manage and added, "I'm really sorry that I didn't turn it in as soon as I found it. I mean, I know it will be harder to catch the killer without it."
He removed his glasses and laid them on the table. "In most cases, a stunt like the one you pulled could allow a killer to go free."
I hung my head. He was right, and I felt terrible about it. The last thing I wanted was for someone like Bertha or Clyde to be on the loose.
"But fortunately for you," he continued, closing the folder, "we don't need that wrapper."
My head snapped up. "You don't?"
He shook his head. "We located the syringes in question this morning."
I couldn't have been more stunned than if he'd hit me upside the head with Gia's baseball bat. "So—"
"So," he interrupted, "we caught the killer." He slipped his pen and his glasses back into his pocket. "I just arrested your employee Lucy O'Connell for the murders of Margaret Appleby and Seth Windom."
"But…how can that be?" I would have expected this decision from Detective Marshall but not Detective Ohlsen. "Lucy's innocent. You have to know that."
Detective Ohlsen looked down at the table and toyed with his bifocals. "I don't like it any more than you do, Miss Conti. But the evidence points to Miss O'Connell."
"What about Clyde?" I asked, hoping to convince him to reconsider his position. "I told you that he worked in Gulfport at around the same time that the syringe might have been shipped there."
"There are two issues with that sentence." He held up his index finger. "First, 'at around the same time.' And second," he said as his middle finger shot up, "'might have been.'" He put his hands flat on the table, as though bracing for a storm. "Now, you and I both know that a whole lot of people have worked in Gulfport at one time or another, and from the sound of things, there was never any proof that the syringe made it there or to Jackson, for that matter."
When he put it that way, my theory did sound weak. But I refused to believe that Lucy had committed these crimes. "Can you at least tell me where the syringes were found?"
He gave a slow, distracted nod, like someone recalling an unpleasant memory. "They were buried beneath Miss O'Connell's bedroom window."
My mind flashed to the prescription pad I'd found planted in my trash, but I knew better than to mention that not-so-insignificant detail to Detective Ohlsen. "That doesn't mean anything," I said. "Anyone could have buried them there. Like Clyde. I heard that he's been seen peeping into women's windows."
Detective Ohlsen's brow knotted. "You be careful, young lady." He pointed his bifocals at me. "You're accusing Mr. Willard of some serious infractions that you don't have a shred of evidence to back up."
I looked at my lap. He was right—I couldn't prove the voyeurism accusations any more than I could the syringe connection. I wished that I could come clean about seeing Clyde in Margaret's house, but if Detective Ohlsen knew the full extent of my investigation, he'd lock me up for sure. And I couldn't let that happen, because Lucy needed me now more than ever. The only thing I could do was to try to plant a seed of doubt in his mind about her guilt. "Are you positive that the syringes are associated with the murders?"
"Both of them contained trace amounts of a blue substance," he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
I leaned forward in my chair, anxious to find out whether I'd been right about the murder weapon. "Was it the hair dye?"
His jaw tensed, as though it regretted what he was about to say. "Actually, the lab identified the substance as Barbicide."
I did my best to look surprised, which wasn't hard, considering that I hadn't really been expecting to be right. "Well, this changes things, doesn't it?" I asked with a Gia-style gesture. "I mean, hair dye is used in salons, but Barbicide is used in lots of other businesses, like spas and even hospitals."
"True," he said. "But Barbicide was in plain sight on three of the stations at The Clip and Sip, so we have no reason to believe that the Barbicide used in the homicides came from an outside source."
"Okay," I said with a nod. "Let's say the Barbicide
did
come from my salon, which it probably did. Then tell me what motive would Lucy have had to kill my Uncle Vinnie?"
A wrinkle appeared on Detective Ohlsen's brow. "I'm not sure I follow you. We have no evidence to indicate that Vinnie's death is related to Margaret's."
"Maybe not. But you have to admit that it's awfully coincidental that two people were murdered in the same hair salon."
There was a knock at the door, and a fiftyish-looking officer with a Magnum PI mustache peered into the room. "Can I see you for a moment, Bud?"
"Sure." Detective Ohlsen rose to his feet. "You stay put, Miss Conti."
I watched him leave with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. At this point, I'd run out of ways to try to poke holes into Detective Ohlsen's case against Lucy. And since he didn't believe that Clyde was involved, my only option was to find some way to connect Bertha to the crimes. But first, I wanted to talk to Lucy.
Detective Ohlsen returned, his expression drawn.
"Can I see Lucy?" I blurted out, sensing that all was not well with my friend.
He shook his head. "I'm afraid that's not possible," he replied, reaching for the file. "I've just learned that she's been taken to urgent care."
* * *
Gia placed the salon phone receiver on the cradle and returned to her station. "Lucy was having chest pains, but her mom said it was just stress."
"I can imagine, with the charges she's facing," I said as I straightened the overturned shampoos surrounding the sink at my station. "We have to do something to help her. Otherwise, they're going to try her for two counts of murder. Maybe three if they can tie Uncle Vinnie's death into this awful mess."
"And all because of that
mamaluke
, Detective Marshall," Gia said as she knelt to retrieve her makeup brushes from the floor.
Amy stopped sweeping and rested both hands on the broom handle. "He's descended from the Turkish Mamelukes? I thought
Marshall
was Frankish."
"I don't know what
mamaluke
means in Turkey," Gia began with a brow raise, "but where I come from, it means
fool
." She gave Amy a pointed look.
"Actually, Detective Marshall didn't arrest her," I said, lining up the conditioners. "It was Detective Ohlsen."
"What?" Gia threw a batch of brushes into a drawer for emphasis. "I thought he was the good one."
"He is the good one," I replied. "He let me go today when he should've thrown the book at me." I glanced at the undisturbed jar of Barbicide on Lucy's station. "And besides, he didn't seem happy about arresting Lucy. The problem is that the evidence implicates her."
"Then it sounds like you need to find new evidence," Amy said, sweeping the shards of a jar of molding wax into a pile.
"Easier said than done." I pulled an intact tube of Dye Hard Hair Color Styling Gel from beneath my chair and threw it in the trash. It was red, not blue. But still. "That reminds me, Gia, did you call the hospitals?"
"Their HR offices are closed on Sundays." She inserted a tube of lipstick into a display case. "I'll do it first thing tomorrow."
"With any luck, they'll be able to help us trace Bertha and Margaret to Mississippi." I sat in my salon chair. "If not, I don't know what we're going to do."
Amy emptied her dustpan. "Why don't you talk to Santiago Beltrán?"
Gia looked at Amy like she'd never seen her before. "That's a good idea, Cass. He might be able to tell you whether Bertha's ever lived in Gulfport or Jackson."
"Come to think of it," I said tilting my head, "I know where to find him too. Dee Madison mentioned that he lives at the Cliffside Retirement Resort."
"Resort?" Gia snorted. "Who do they think they're kidding?"
"The elderly," Amy replied as serious as a pacemaker.
A knocking sound came from the entrance.
Gia turned toward the salon door. "It's a couple of older ladies. Hopefully, they're here to update their hairstyles."
"I'll go see what they want," I said, pushing myself from the chair.
As I made my way to the lobby, the sixty-something women—one with a bouffant bob, the other with a fifties flip—cheered me on with encouraging smiles.
"Pardon us for intruding," bouffant bob said the second I opened the door. "I'm Eve Hazlitt, and this is Loretta Tupper." She gestured toward fifties flip. "We know you're not usually open on Sundays, but our husbands surprised us with tickets to see a play in Seattle at seven o'clock tonight, so we were hoping you'd accept two walk-ins."
I hated to let them see the salon in its current state, but I couldn't refuse the business. "That should give me plenty of time to style your hair."
"Oh, we're not here for our hair," Loretta said, fluffing her flip. "We need our faces done."
Gia arrived at the door so quickly that I would've sworn she'd flown in on Amy's broom.
"We saw what you did with Bertha Braun's makeup," Loretta continued as wide-eyed as Betty Boop, "and it was exactly what we're looking for."
Gia shot me a triumphant look and then flashed an Academy Award winner's smile. "That was me," she gushed. "And thank you."
"Since we're going to see
Wicked
, we want that same witchy look," Eve said as innocent as her Garden of Eden namesake.
I saw Gia's triumphant look and raised her a righteous one. "Most definitely."
Loretta flipped her flip. "With my fair coloring, I'm more Glinda. But with Eve's dark hair and olive skin, she's obviously Elphaba."
"I agree completely," I said, tickled pink. "And you've come to the right place because my cousin can work magic with green."
Gia cast me a look as black as a cauldron. "Would you ladies please follow me?"
I stepped aside to allow the women to enter.
"And Cassidi," Gia began in a Wicked-Witch-of-the-West tone, "could you get to work straightening up the lobby? This mess is a hazard for our clients."
I deserved that. But it so was worth it.
Amy entered the lobby. "What should I do next?"
"I've got this," I said, looking around at the disarray. "Why don't you see what you can do with the break room?"
"
Wunderbar
," Amy said, and then she skipped to the back of the salon.
I rolled my eyes and my sleeves and set about salvaging salon products.
I'd put a grand total of one item on the shelf when my phone began to vibrate. I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the display, but I didn't recognize the number. "Hello?"
"Hi, Cassidi. It's Zac."
"Oh," I exclaimed, not so much because I was surprised that he'd called but because I was surprised that my heart had skipped a beat.
"I was calling to find out whether you'd made it back from the police station." He paused. "And to ask if you wanted me to stay there tonight."
So, we have breakfast together, and then this? Maybe I wasn't wrong about him being a player.
"I'm sorry," I said with an icy edge. "What did you just say?"
He cleared his throat. "I meant that I'd sleep in The Clip and Sip. You know, to keep an eye on things."
Either Zac didn't know that Lucy had been arrested, or he didn't think that she was the killer. Whatever the reason, I was touched by his offer—now that I knew he wasn't up to no good, of course. "I appreciate the thought, but we'll be all right. I mean, whoever ransacked the place got what they came for. And besides, Gia does have her Wonder Woman superpowers."
He gave an I'm-glad-we're-good-again chuckle. "Don't forget the bat."
"How could I?" I giggled at the memory of Zac with his hands up. "So you see—we're well protected."
He was silent for a moment. "Well," he began in a low voice, "if you change your mind, you know I'll be there."
My heart swelled. "Thank you. I—"
A woman gave a throaty laugh on the other end of the line. "Oh, Zac. That's adorable!"
And then my heart shriveled—to two sizes too small. "—won't be needing your services."
"Cassidi, wait—"
I closed the call and turned off my phone. It was the next best thing to slamming down the receiver. Was Zac Taylor ever without a woman?
I picked up a package of hair extensions and was tempted to strangle someone with it. But I knew that I needed to get a grip and get back to work. After all, it wasn't my business that Zac spent his free time with. I just wished he wouldn't call me when he was with the woman—or women.
The jerk.
With a sigh, I tossed the extensions into the trash and began restocking the display case.
"Did you hear about Verna's granddaughter, Nancy?" the voice of Eve asked.
I looked into the salon and saw Eve sitting in the empty salon chair next to Gia's station, where Gia was applying a shimmering blue shadow to Loretta's eyes.
"Isn't she the one who's adopting the baby from overseas?" Loretta asked, careful to move only her mouth.
Eve looked into the mirror and gave a bump to her bob. "Not anymore she's not."
Gia turned and looked at Eve. "What happened?"
I quickly placed a tube of hair fattener on the top shelf so that Gia wouldn't notice me eavesdropping. I knew it was impolite, but I was drawn to the conversation for reasons I couldn't explain.
"The country banned international adoptions," Eve replied. "But only after Nancy and her husband had already met the little girl."
Loretta gasped without moving a facial muscle. "Why would they do something awful like that when those poor children need loving homes?"
Eve shrugged and opened a hair magazine. "Apparently, some of the agencies operating in the area are illegally buying babies and then adopting them to US couples."