Wave Good-Bye (32 page)

“Good for you,” I said sincerely.

“Yeah, well, good news if she makes it out of jail.”

“I’m sure she will,” I said.

“I hope so, but she had plenty of reason to be mad at Lisa.” Suzee cut her lettuce into smaller pieces and doused it with dressing.

“Were you two friends? You and Lisa?” I figured I had nothing to lose.

“I thought we were, until I realized she was dumping all her grunt work on me. As time went on, she got more and more nasty. I don’t care for bullies, and she certainly was one. Carol and I have known each other for years. I’m the one who recommended her for this job. I hated seeing how Lisa browbeat Carol. I mean, Carol’s got her issues, who doesn’t? But she’s a hard worker and she’s eager to please. Lisa rode Carol like she was a brand-new sled at Christmas.”

“What do you think happened? Could Eve really have killed Lisa?” Mom asked. “I bet finding Lisa was a nightmare.”

Suzee pushed her salad to one side. “You better believe it. I’ve been coming in at eight after I drop my daughter, China, off at school before anyone else is here to get my station ready for the workday. I have to pick her up promptly at five at aftercare or they charge me a bundle. The back door was unlocked, which was my first clue there was a problem. I shouldn’t have walked in, but my first thought was that we’d been robbed, so I raced from the back room
to the front. At first glance, I thought I was dreaming. I mean, it looked like one of those Weeki Wachee mermaid shows they do down in Florida. Her hair was streaming, covering her face. Then I realized it was Lisa and I saw how the step stool was knocked on its side. The light fixture from the hood was under water, too. I knew she was dead. I mean, you could tell.”

“Child, I am so, so sorry.” My mother reached across the table and took Suzee’s hand, which caused the other woman to offer a weak smile of appreciation.

“Who do you think did it?” I asked.

“Beats me. I’m glad I was at a preschool meeting so I have an alibi. Forty parents and two teachers were there with me.”

One more person off my list.

“I’ve seen women act like Lisa because they misunderstood what it means to be in charge. Is that possible? Sometimes women think they should act like men, and they totally overshoot the mark.” Behind her rimless glasses, Mom’s periwinkle eyes perked up with a possible reason for Lisa’s bad behavior. Mom was like that; she always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Suzee shook her head. “No, I think it had to do with her living at home. Her parents didn’t have any respect for what she did. What we do. Lisa could never live up to her sister. Bit by bit, it ate away at her. Turned her mean.”

“Tell me about Vinny,” Mom said. “I haven’t had the chance to talk to him yet. Isn’t he the only man in the salon?”

Suzee played with a carrot coin before popping it into her mouth. “I don’t know how else to put it, but Vinny bats for the other team, you know? Moved here from Atlanta after a bunch of creeps beat the crud out of him. Making him cry was Lisa’s idea of a good time.”

“Could Vinny have snapped?” I wondered out loud.

“He lives within walking distance of the salon. I suppose he could have come back by that night. There wouldn’t have been a car in the lot to give him away. But I believe he had a date for homecoming.”

“What about Wynn?” Mom chewed a piece of ice from her drink. “We heard he planned to break up with Lisa. Is it possible they got into a fight?”

Suzee lifted an eyebrow at me. “I heard a rumor that you once dated him. Is that true?”

This was the way of conversation. You exchanged information in a barter system. If I ignored Suzee’s question, she’d quit talking, and I owed it to her to be forthcoming. Especially when she’d been so generous in sharing.

“Yes, I did. I was young and stupid, and he betrayed my trust.”

“So you’ve got a grudge against him?” Suzee’s eyes brightened with interest.

“I don’t have any use for him.”

“Could he have done it?” Mom asked me.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but here’s the thing: Wynn doesn’t know when to shut up. If he killed Lisa, I think he would have confessed already.” I sipped my tea. “But then again, he is claustrophobic. Maybe the fear of being locked up has made him careful. What do you think, Suzee?”

“We all know he carries a gun,” said Suzee. “If he wanted to do her in, why didn’t he promise Lisa a romantic drive, take her out to the inlet, shoot her, and toss her into the ocean? No one would ever have found her body. Plus, there wouldn’t have been any mess.”

“Wow. You’ve really give this some thought!” I said.

She grinned. “I read a lot of murder mysteries. I find it relaxing.”

Chapter Fifty-five

I TIMED MY NEXT BREAK TO COINCIDE WITH VINNY’S. After he walked to the back of the shop, I carefully folded my work apron and followed him. While he searched inside the refrigerator, I took my time examining the offerings in the small vending machine. The choices included colas, fruit juices, healthy protein bars, pretzels, and trail mix. Inserting a dollar bill and a quarter in the vending machine, I watched a bag of pretzels hit the retrieval bin. I still had a bit of sweet tea in my plastic cup from McDonald’s, so after he sat down, I got my drink from the fridge.

“How’s it going?” I said to Vinny as I took the chair across the table from him. He poured a tall glass of green liquid into an insulated cup. “Better yet, what’s that?”

“I’m doing a twenty-four-day cleansing fast. It’s supposed to clean the toxins out of your body, rejuvenate all the old cells, and rid you of poisons.”

“Yeah, but can it make you grow hair?” I asked.

“Make me grow hair?” Vinny was puzzled.

“Kidding, just kidding. When I was a kid and I wouldn’t eat my peas, my grandmother used to say they’d make my hair grow. Of course, living in a salon, I wanted pretty hair.”

Finally, a smile. “My new boyfriend is a health-food nut. He’s been after me to change my diet. Says it will keep me healthy and build muscle.”

“It’s nice to have someone who cares about you,” I said. “How long have you two been dating?”

“A couple of months.”

“I heard you two went to the homecoming game. I can’t believe I missed it! The first time the Sabertooths won in ten years, and I decided not to go. I guess that last touchdown was a doozy.”

“We didn’t stay for the whole game.”

“No?” Tingles ran up my spine. If he didn’t stay, he could have come by the salon.

With a sigh, he said, “A couple of jocks saw Timmy take my hand. One of them pointed at us, the others turned around. It was clear there was going to be trouble.”

“I am so sorry to hear that. I guess St. Elizabeth isn’t as evolved as I was hoping it would be.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve talked with Eve. She’s going to see about transferring me to a salon in Miami. If she gets out of jail, that is.”

“I’m sure she will. Was Lisa in favor of letting you move on?”

He set down his drink clumsily and a bit of green liquid
splashed on the tabletop. I jumped up, grabbed a paper towel, and handed it to him.

“Lisa Butterworth. May she rot in hell.”

“Whoa! That’s a pretty potent curse.” I walked back to the sink, wet a paper towel, and handed it over so he could properly wipe the table clean.

“I’m not usually like that, but she made my life miserable.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Maybe she hated gays. It got so bad that I had to go get a prescription for Xanax. I couldn’t function otherwise. I was having anxiety attacks here at work. When she found out, she stole an entire bottle of them from me.”

“I am sincerely sorry,” I said. “No one has a right to treat another person that way. I can see how that might make someone snap.”

“Yeah.” He kicked at the table leg. Because he was wearing a pair of black Converse All Stars, it didn’t make any noise.

“I’ve been told that Lisa’s death could very well have been an accident. The person who smacked her in the head probably didn’t realize she wasn’t going to climb out of the fish tank.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Being nice to me so I’ll confess?” He jumped up. “Well, I didn’t do it! I swear to you, I didn’t!”

“Calm down,” I said, gesturing with both hands that he should lower his voice.

“Is someone saying I did?” He looked terrified.

“No. No one has said any such thing,” I said. “And I’m not accusing you. I’m simply trying to figure out what happened. I hate the fact that Eve is in jail.”

Finally, he sat back down. For a while, he said nothing
as he fingered the seam on his black jeans. “I’m sorry she’s in jail, but it might be for the best even if I don’t get to go to Miami.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m pretty sure she did it.”

This was not what I wanted to hear. “What? Eve? Why?”

He glanced around and leaned in to talk quietly. “The Blockbuster Express machine is outside that convenience store down the street. Timmy and I decided to watch a movie. You know, to get our minds off being harassed.”

“Walk-Inn Foods,” I supplied. “That’s where the Blockbuster Express machine is.”

“Right. But first, Timmy and I drove here. I’d left a jar of this stuff in the fridge. Mixing it up is a pain, and it doesn’t stay good for long. So while Timmy sat in the car, I slipped in through the back door, expecting to see Carol because I recognized her Camry. Instead, I heard Eve confronting Lisa.”

“What did she say?”

“She told Lisa that she had enough evidence to send her to jail for a felony. Lisa laughed. She said if she wanted to steal from Snippets, she wouldn’t have taken such a paltry amount. ‘The real problem here is that your husband is in love with me and I’m going to have his baby,’ she said. Then I heard them screaming at each other, calling each other names, and I left.”

I chewed thoughtfully on a pretzel. “I would have left, too.”

Vinny pushed his chair aside. Carrying the empty container to the sink, he rinsed it carefully, squirted in a bit of dishwashing liquid, sloshed that around, and rinsed his glass jar again. “Lisa wasn’t stealing from the shop. I know who was taking the money.”

“Who?”

“Taffy.”

“And you know this how?” My sweet tea cup was empty, so I put it in the recycling.

Vinny had dried his container and tucked it under his arm. He turned to me, a look of defeat coming over his entire person. “It’s a bad habit she has. On her way to work, she stops by that Chevron station with those slot machines? The ones that give you a credit card if you win? If she loses money, she takes some from the till to tide her over. She’s convinced that one day she’ll win big.”

“How do you know this?”

“Before Timmy and I got a place together, I lived outside of town, not far from Taffy, so we’d carpool. At first, she was really sneaky about what she was doing, but later, she trusted me. Now I wish I’d told Eve, because keeping Taffy’s secret might have gotten Lisa killed.”

When we went back to the salon floor, the crowd had thinned out. Many of our walk-in customers had children to pick up after school, others simply didn’t feel like waiting any longer. My mother looked tired but happy.

“Mom, I can take it from here. You can call it a day. How long is Stella staying?”

“She has to pick up Jess after soccer in an hour.”

“Are you okay?” I said.

“Never better. I really enjoyed myself. This salon is so nice. So modern!” She gave me a hug and fairly skipped out the front door. Humming to myself, I trimmed a customer’s bangs.

All the while, I was turning what I’d learned over and over in my head. Did someone in the salon kill Lisa Butterworth? Was it Eve? Was there a struggle that escalated?

The person with the most to gain was Suzee Gaylord. But Suzee said she had an alibi. Marsh would have checked on that.

Could it have been Vinny? No. He, too, had someone who could vouch for him.

Carol? But Eve had dropped her off at home. How did she get here? How far away did she live? And what was her motive?

The contractor, Roy Jasper, also had a great alibi. Or did he?

I dialed Vonda’s number. “Hey, you. Got a question.”

“Shoot,” she said.

We were like that. We’d fuss at each other one day and forget it the next. Our friendship was stronger than any disagreement. Besides, she’d gotten bent out of shape because she loves me—and I would have been just as upset if she’d put herself in jeopardy.

“Do you remember the name of the football player who made the block so the Sabertooths’ quarterback could score with the winning touchdown?”

“Of course I do. What’s it worth to you?”

“Movie, next Friday, I treat.”

“The new Quentin Tarantino flick?”

I laughed. She knew how much I hated violent films. “You drive a hard bargain, but you’re on.”

“Troy Jasper. Squatty kid, built like a spark plug. His dad’s a builder or something like that.”

“Thanks, Vonda”—I hesitated—“and thanks for being my pal.”

“Best friends forever. Love ya!” And she hung up.

Could Wynn have done it? Maybe he had learned to keep his mouth shut. Or maybe fear of being locked up had caused him to wise up.