“You don’t have no right to boss me around like that.”
“He’s tryin’ to help somebody, honey.” There was an odd sweetness to her tone, as if she’d spent years hoping that her little sister would change her ways.
Sister pointed to a row of chairs lined across the front window. “There’re some magazines there for you to read and you’re welcome to help yourself to the coffee. She should be done in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Thanks,” I said, surprised at her largesse.
“All she can give you is a few minutes, though, Mr. Conrad. We’re real busy today.”
Heather scowled at me every thirty seconds or so as she cut her customer’s hair. She seemed a lot more interested in me than her customer. This woman might end up with a very strange hairdo.
I tried reading an issue of Cosmopolitan, but I could only slog through a couple of the articles. Whatever happened to feminism? This was all man-pleasing stuff. I remembered reading my smart-ass uncle’s magazines when I was in my teens. When he’d been in his teens, National Lampoon was at its height. They did a parody issue of Cosmopolitan and one of the articles was titled “Ten Ways to Decorate Your Uterine Wall.” The magazine hadn’t changed much.
“Mr. Conrad.”
I’d switched to an elderly issue of Time and was engrossed in their predictions about the next election. Looked like Giuliani was a shoo-in for el presidente. I put the magazine down and looked up to see that Heather’s customer was finished and walking toward the cash register. Sister was letting me know that Heather was ready for me. Or had damned well better be.
“This is really bullshit.” As she spoke, Heather was sweeping up the floor around her chair. Sister ran a clean, tight shop. “The guy’s a jerk.” The ladies were getting a full measure of daytime drama right here in the beauty shop.
“You’re the jerk,” Sister said. “I told you not to get involved with that bastard.”
By now I was getting used to the idea that the argument was public business. This whole salon was sort of like one big family. The other kids obviously sided with Sister.
“Thanks,” I said as I walked past Sister toward a closed door in the back of the place. When I reached Heather’s chair I stopped. She glared at me and shook her head. Then she gave up and flounced to the door, opened it, and disappeared inside.
It was a storeroom and office combined. There was a desk, a table for a computer and printer, a noisy refrigerator, and boxes piled floor to ceiling. Heather sat behind the desk and lit a cigarette. So much for the No Smoking law.
“This is really bullshit.”
“You said that.”
“That Bobby’s an asshole. He came to the room three or four times. Craig always made me leave. I’d wait outside. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could hear their voices. Bobby was always yelling. My opinion is that he snuck in and killed him. I want to see that little prick go to prison.”
“And you told the police that?”
Exhaled ice-blue smoke. “Damn right, that’s what I told them.”
“Did anybody else ever visit Donovan while you were there? That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”
“Didn’t the police ask you the same question?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t tell them anything because it didn’t matter. Bobby killed him and that’s all there is to it.”
“So somebody else came there, too?”
Another ice-blue stream of smoke. “Bobby killed him. Two nights me ’n’ Craig were really getting along good, and then Bobby barges in and starts yelling and ruins the whole thing. Craig was in a shitty mood afterward. He gave me the black eye one of those nights. I blame Bobby for that. He had another fight with him the night before last.”
A knock on the door. Sister peeked in. “Just wanted to see how it’s going.”
“He’s tryin’ to tell me that Bobby didn’t kill Craig when I know damned well he did.”
Sister said, “She being any help?”
“Not really. She wants to see Bobby get charged with the murder whether he did it or not.” Heather watched me with the fleshy face of a bellicose infant. “I’m pretty sure somebody else came to see Donovan while she was there, but she won’t tell me who it was.”
“That true, Heather?”
“How the hell would I know who came to see him? I wasn’t there all the time.”
Sister frowned. “I’m sorry, Mr. Conrad. She’s got three more appointments back to back. Best I can do is give you a few more minutes.” She closed the door. I listened to her walk back up front.
“He was gonna marry me.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yeah, for your fucking information, I really did. He told me he’d come into a lot of money. A lot of money. He said he had these friends way down in Mexico, where the drug people would leave him alone. That’s where he was gonna take me — until Bobby killed him.”
Then she was up and charging around the side of the desk. She went right for the door. She had it open before I could stand up. “You heard my sister. We’re real busy. Now, you quit botherin’ me or I’m gonna call that detective, that colored one or whatever she is.”
“She’s Indian.”
“Well, I’m gonna call her and tell her you’re botherin’ me. I’ll bet she won’t like that at all.”
She walked out front. By the time I crossed the threshold, she was at her barber chair, feigning profound interest in her scissors.
I was on parade as I walked up to the cash register. As I passed Sister I said, “Thanks for trying to help.”
“She’s some piece of work, isn’t she?”
A couple of the customers laughed.
As I opened the front door, two women whispered behind me. I didn’t pick up on the words but I heard the giggles.
The motel had a central office and two wings that formed a V. After the Oklahoma City bombing we became aware of shadowy men who moved across the country staying in motels like this one, vague members of even vaguer groups that hated the government and hoped to destroy it. The feds began to miss the days when most of these people could be found in racist or seditionist compounds and were much easier to keep track of. Now they were scattered and impossible to track, much like the days before and during the Civil War when seditionists were hiding in the mazes of lodging houses in Washington, D.C., and other Northern cities.
Gwen had given me the room number. It was second from the end on the west half of the V. The newest car I could see was at least fifteen years old. A baby cried in one room, in another a TV preacher shouted Bible words, and in a third a woman wept. I knocked on Gwen’s door. She opened it immediately.
She wore another faded maternity top. This one was a kind of puce color. She’d put on makeup and combed her hair. The gamine face was somber. “He isn’t here, Mr. Conrad.”
I’d hoped to get something helpful from Heather before coming out here. Something that would help make my case when I talked to Bobby — but nothing.
“You know the police are looking for him. And there isn’t any time for this, Gwen. He’s in real trouble. Now let me in.”
“I told you, Mr. Conrad, he isn’t—”
“Gwen, listen. He’s inside and he’s in trouble. I’m trying to put this whole thing together. He can help me and maybe I can help him.”
“Oh, Mr. Conrad...”