“Hi, Mattie. You’re not getting your hair done, are you, because you don’t need to. It’s very pretty already.” His face takes on an “Aw, shucks” expression and he drops his gaze to the floor, where he starts drawing imaginary lines with the toe of his shoe.
“Thank you. But I’m just here to meet someone.”
He peers at me from beneath lowered lids and as soon as he sees that I’m watching him, his gaze falls again. “You are very pretty, Mattie,” he says in a low whisper. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No, I don’t. But I don’t want one right now,” I add quickly, lest Joey get the wrong idea. “I’m going through a divorce.”
“Oh. Okay,” he says. “Well…I gotta go. Bye.”
He turns and ducks as he goes through the door to keep from hitting his head. I note that the red cape is no longer showing and wonder if he’s taken it off or if it’s merely tucked away inside his outer clothing. As soon as he’s outside he begins to whistle and then he starts skipping. The incongruity of that huge hulk of human flesh skipping along like a child makes me smile.
“You ready?” asks a voice behind me. I turn and find Deborah standing there with her jacket on, her purse slung over one shoulder. I follow her through the salon to a back door, the stench of her perfume wafting along behind her, mixing with the acrid scent of permanent solution and hair bleach. By the time we reach the alley behind the store, my eyes are burning and I have an instant, throbbing headache.
“So you work for the medical examiner now, huh?” Deborah asks me once the door closes behind us.
“I do.” I show her my badge and she glances at it, clearly unimpressed.
“Interesting change of jobs. What made you decide to switch?” She is rummaging around in her purse and finally extracts a bent pack of cigarettes.
“You don’t want to know,” I tell her, knowing full well she does. “When was the last time you saw Karen Owenby?”
“Two weeks ago.” She pauses, shakes out a cigarette, and lights it. As she sucks in that first drag, she assumes a momentary expression of ecstasy. Then she starts talking with the exhale, adding smoke to the assault on my sinuses. “She came in for a color touch-up and trim. She was always good about that. Regular as clockwork. Never let her hair get shaggy or let her roots show to any degree.”
Chalk up another point for Karen.
“Did you know Karen was a natural blonde?” Deborah asks, sucking down another drag. “It’s rare for a blonde to want to go dark. Seems everyone wants to be blonde these days. Especially around here.”
I know what she means. The original settlers to this part of the country, assuming you ignored the Indians who had been here all along, were Scandinavian. Consequently, the ratio of blond-haired, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked people is high. I wonder if Karen’s dye job was part of her disguise.
“Did Karen talk much when she was here?” I ask. “Did she ever mention anything about work?”
“Sometimes. I know she was pretty excited about some sort of investment scheme she had going on at work with some of the surgeons.” She shrugs. “Mixing business with pleasure, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure she was sleeping with at least one of the doctors, because she told me. And I kind of think there may have been others.”
“Did she mention any names?”
Deborah drops her cigarette and grinds it into oblivion with her shoe. Then she gives me a long, assessing look. “Your husband is a doctor, isn’t he?”
“He was. I mean, he is. A doctor, that is. He won’t be my husband much longer.”
Deborah nods. “I see,” she says pointedly. She gives her watch a meaningful glance and says, “Anything else? I need to be somewhere by seven-thirty.”
I shake my head and thank her for her candor.
“I hope you catch the bastard who did this, Mattie,” she says. “Karen was a really good tipper.”
As I watch Deborah leave, I conjure up an image of a gravestone with SHE WAS A REALLY GOOD TIPPER engraved on the surface.
I walk around front to my car and am about to start it when I hear an odd chirping sound. I have no idea what it is at first, but after tilting my head this way and that, I finally determine the sound is coming from my purse and guess that it’s probably my new cell phone. I dig around until I find it, then fumble with it for several seconds in the dark as I try to figure out which button to push to answer it.
“Hello?” I say finally.
“Hey, Mattie.” It’s Izzy. “Where are you?”
I tell him. “I’m just getting ready to head home now. Why? Do we have a call?”
“No. But you need to call your sister right away.”
“Why? What’s wrong? Is she okay? Did something happen to the kids?”
“Don’t panic. Desi’s fine and so are the kids. But I’m not sure David is doing too well. Steve Hurley hauled him down to the station for questioning this afternoon and he’s still there. It must be serious because David called for Lucien. He says he needs a defense attorney right away.”
Chapter 15
A quick call to Desi gets me some details. She tells me that Hurley showed up at David’s house with a search warrant in hand and, after going through the place, he then invited David downtown for some questioning. David went along willingly and when Hurley asked for a blood sample, David went along with that, too.
“Lucien called just a bit ago with an update,” Desi tells me. “Among the stuff they seized during the search warrant were some hairs from David’s brush and some fibers from the living room carpet. Apparently they hope to match those up with stuff that was found on the dead woman’s body.”
I grimace, remembering my own thoughts about the trace evidence.
“It’s not looking very good for David right now,” Desi goes on. “Apparently when the detective asked him whether or not he’d seen or been with the victim on the night of the murder, David said no. But it turns out that the detective has evidence to the contrary.”
I wince.
“Lucien says he doesn’t think they have enough to hit David with a homicide charge yet, but if they want to play hardball, they could toss him in jail for a while on an obstruction-of-justice charge or something like that. He says the detective on the case is something of a hard ass.”
“So I’ve heard,” I tell her, thinking that the term “firm” fits Hurley’s ass better than “hard.”
“Are you going to go down there?” Desi asks.
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
I haven’t a clue and say as much before hanging up. Five minutes later I’m standing in the foyer of the police station. At the front desk, sitting behind a protective Plexiglas barrier, is Heidi Cronen, who has been the evening dispatcher for nigh onto twenty years. I know Heidi well, not only from my contact with the cops during my days working the ER, but also because Heidi has had several surgeries over the past four years in an effort to diagnose and treat her infertility.
Heidi’s face lights up when she sees me. “Mattie!” She hits the buzzer beneath her desk and waves me in through the door that leads to the inner sanctum. Once I’m inside, she stands and gives me a hug. “It’s been a long time,” she says, stepping back and smiling. “You look great!”
“Thanks. How’re things?”
She wags a hand back and forth. “Same old, same old. How are you doing? I was so sorry to hear about you and David.”
“I’m doing okay. It’s been rough at times, but I’m hanging in there.” Not wanting to dwell on the subject, I quickly change it. “I have a new job. I’m working at the ME’s office now, with Izzy.” I pull out my badge and flash it at her.