Tressed to Kill (19 page)

“Okay,” he said when I finished. “There’s a lot of moving parts here. You antagonized Del Richardson again, and probably Philip DuBois, and if this case is connected to Carl Rowan’s and William Jenkins’s disappearance, you may have made someone nervous by visiting the newspaper.”
“Who would know I went there?” I asked.
He shrugged. “In this town . . . potentially ninety percent of the population. This Adrienne McGowan might have talked to someone, or you could have been tailed—”
“You think someone’s following me?” The idea was preposterous. An owl hooted nearby. I shivered and wrapped my arms around my knees.
“It’s not likely, but you should be careful. Don’t go off somewhere on your own. Stay in a crowd. Stay alert and observe the people around you.”
“Oh,” I said, remembering, “you should know that Marty Shears located Mrs. Rowan and he’s gone to talk to her.”
I felt rather than saw Dillon stiffen beside me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure I trust Shears. He’s putting a lot more time and effort into this than the ‘story’ would seem to warrant. What’s his stake in this really?”
He sounded almost as if he were talking to himself, thinking things through out loud. “You sound like Vonda.”
“Give me Mrs. Rowan’s full name and I’ll check her out.”
“Her first name’s Martina,” I said, “but I don’t know her last name. Marty said she remarried and lives in Newark.” Saying the names together made something click. “Martin and Martina,” I said slowly. “You don’t suppose—”
“I’ll check on Shears, too,” Dillon said, not following up on my thought. Or maybe he was. “First thing tomorrow I’ll call the
Journal-Constitution
and see what they have to say about him. And I can call Newark and get a detective there to talk to the Rowan woman.”
He stood and reached down a hand to haul me to my feet. “I meant it when I said you and Mrs. Terhune should leave town for a while. You’ve poked a hornet’s nest—I wish I knew where, damn it—and I don’t want to see you get stung.”
I tried to read his face, but it was in shadow again. “You don’t think my mom killed Constance anymore, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “Despite the evidence against her, my instinct says she didn’t do it. Someone wants us to think she did, though, and that worries me.”
The relief that rushed through me made me sag. “Thanks. And thanks for coming out here tonight. I know it’s not really your job.”
I caught a glimmer of white teeth as he smiled. “Rescuing damsels in distress makes a nice change from investigating robbers or tracking down gangbangers.”
“I’m not a damsel in distress,” I protested, “and I rescued myself.”
“Well, maybe I wanted to assure myself you’re really okay,” he said.
Before I could think of an answer, he slid past me and strode toward his car.
The door behind me squeaked open, and I whirled. Mrs. Jones stood in the doorway, her hair frilling around her head and a turquoise silk robe belted at her waist. “Is he gone then, dear? My, he is a handsome one. Why don’t you come in and have another cup of tea and tell me all about it.”

Chapter Nineteen

[Friday]

I DIDN’T WANT TO TELL MOM ABOUT MY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS of the reptile kind, but I figured she’d hear it from someone else if I didn’t. The cops who’d shown up had probably told their wives and girlfriends, or Tyrone the snake wrangler might have mentioned it over morning coffee at his favorite diner, so I fessed up first thing to an audience that included Althea and Stella as well as my mother. We were all gathered in the empty salon, ostensibly to fill out the paperwork Barbara Mayhew had left and figure out how to reopen Violetta’s. Despite my making light of the fear that had immobilized me, and referring to the moccasin as “Sammy the Snake” to make it seem less threatening, Mom paled and Stella gasped when I got to the part about dropping my pillow on him. Althea murmured, “I’d bet on you against a herd of snakes, baby girl.”
I shot her a look, but she seemed to be serious. “Thanks,” I said. Who knew Althea thought I was brave or resourceful or whatever you’d need to be to vanquish a herd of snakes? Although I didn’t think a group of snakes was called a herd.
“Well, that’s the last straw,” Mom said.
We all turned to look at her. Dressed in a pale green tee shirt with strawberries on it and matching cotton pants with a drawstring waist, she looked springlike and implacable. She adjusted her glasses and eyed each of us in turn. “I am not putting any of you at risk any longer. It was prideful of me to insist on staying in this house no matter what. Well, I won’t let whoever is doing these things hurt Grace or any of you. We’ll go stay with my sister Flora in Decatur for a few days. We can be packed and on the road by noon.”
When Mom spoke in that tone, there was no point in arguing with her. Althea opened her mouth but shut it again without saying anything. Stella said, “I think that’s wise, Violetta.”
“What about the Rothmere gala?” I asked. “We already bought the tickets and Stella worked so hard on the costumes. We could leave tomorrow morning, first thing.”
We all looked at each other. “Okay,” Mom conceded. “I guess one more day won’t hurt. But I want you to spend the night here, Grace Ann, where I can keep an eye on you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I made a joke out of it, but truth to tell, I wasn’t too comfortable with sleeping in my apartment tonight. I knew I’d lie awake listening for the rasp of scales on wood or the metallic ripping of a knife slicing through screen. That morning, I’d borrowed a hoe from Mrs. Jones’s garden shed to take with me when I picked up clothes, holding it awkwardly in the crook of one elbow while I grabbed my navy and white striped seersucker slacks from the closet and a white shirt with a ruffled neckline from a drawer.
“Let’s get back to business,” Althea said, pulling a spiral notebook from her flowered tote. “I talked with a very helpful young man at the Consumer Products Safety Office and did some research on the Internet yesterday about marketing organic cosmetics. It looks to me that as long as I give the customers a list of the ingredients in my masks and lotions, and mix up a fresh batch for each customer, like I do anyways, then the State Board won’t have anything to complain about.”
“That’s wonderful, Althea,” Mom said.
“Can you give me some highlights while we talk?” I asked her.
She gave me a surprised look, since I’d been refusing her offers to highlight my hair for months, but didn’t say anything. “Of course.”
Althea shot me a knowing look. “Uh-huh. Guess someone’s expecting to meet up with a special beau at the ball tonight.”
“Oh, hush,” Stella said.
My face warmed and I hid my reddened cheeks by sticking my head under the sink hose to dampen my hair. With the wet strands sticking to a smock, I sat at my mother’s station and smoothed the foils while she mixed up two colors of highlights.
“And,” Althea said, in the voice of one building to a climax, “I think we can package some of my recipes and sell them.”
“That’s a fine idea,” Mom said. “Why ever didn’t we think of that sooner?” She sectioned my hair with the pointy end of a comb.
“I was thinking little white pots or tubes with purple lids,” Althea said. “I’ve phoned a couple of companies that do that sort of thing and I’m going to talk to them next week. They have labs to help with the formulations and stabilizing the products.” She beamed and I could see her pride in her products and her excitement at the prospect of marketing them.
“And I talked to a lawyer about Beauty being at the shop,” Stella said. She looked like she hadn’t slept much the night before, with her skin duller than usual and a pimple forming on her chin. I wondered how badly she and Darryl needed the money she’d been making from Violetta’s. “She said that as long as we post a sign saying ‘Cat on Premises,’ or something similar, that everything’s okay. Of course,” she added, “I could leave Beauty at home, and we wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
“Absolutely not,” Mom said, tugging at my hair. “Beauty is the shop mascot.”
Stella sent her a grateful smile.
“And I guess I’ll enroll in beauty school,” Mom said with a wry smile, “and work on my cosmetology license.”
Althea snorted. “You could teach at a beauty school.”
I had an idea for how we might get Mom a license without her having to go back to school, but I wanted to run it by Mrs. Mayhew before I got everyone all spun up about it. I smiled as I listened to the women discuss their plans. It was amazing how in only twenty-four hours the mood had gone from depressed to purposeful. If Mom and Althea ran the country, I was pretty sure the government wouldn’t be bailing out failing businesses. They’d never asked for handouts, wouldn’t accept any if offered, and knew the power of hard work and a good attitude. I hoped I’d inherited half of Mom’s gumption.
Some time later, she carefully slid the foils out and rinsed my hair with warm water. She began to blow-dry it, and I watched my reflection anxiously, eager to see how the highlights turned out.
“Wow,” Stella breathed, “the golden highlights around your face make your skin glow.”
“And your eyes look greener,” Althea put in.
I’d effected transformations on my customers many times, but I hadn’t expected simple highlights to make such a change in my appearance. Strands of gold and wheat framed my face and caught the light. Even the natural light brown looked brighter and glossier somehow. My brows and eyelashes appeared darker and more dramatic against the lighter hair. I shook my head, making my hair dance. “I love it,” I told my mom. I turned to give her a hug. “I feel like a new woman.”
“You’re still my baby,” she said, hugging me back.
THE DAY PASSED MORE QUICKLY THAN I ANTICIPATED. Getting ready for the gala felt like a slumber party as we did each other’s hair and nails. Stella and Althea went to their homes to get dressed, and Mom and I went upstairs. My black, Civil War-era maid’s costume with white lace at the wrists and neckline was fitted through the bodice, emphasizing the bosom my ex-mother-in-law thought was inadequate and accentuating the curve of my waist before swelling out into a full skirt. In the interest of comfort, I skipped the pantaloons that were historically accurate and stuck with my Jockey hipsters. I tied a white apron around my waist and put a cap that wasn’t much more than a frill of lace on my head. Althea had pulled my newly highlighted hair back into a bun, calling attention to my cheekbones and the smooth line of my jaw. I applied makeup minimally, a little mascara and lip gloss, to stay almost historically accurate. Slipping on a pair of low-heeled black pumps that were not remotely correct for the period, but which my skirt hid, I glided downstairs to wait for Mom.
She came down ten minutes later, looking much as I did, except that her short, spiky hairdo and rimless glasses were too clearly twenty-first century. “I’m not wearing a wig and I’m not going to wander around blind as a bat,” she’d said when Stella did the costume fitting and mentioned the anachronism.
“Well, Scarlett O’Hara’s got nothing to fear from us,” I said, “but I think we make comely serving wenches.”
“I hope no one asks us to pass hors d’oeuvres,” Mom said, making a face at our reflections in the hall mirror. “I may be dressed like a servant, but I intend to have fun at this party.”
THAT FEAR PROVED GROUNDLESS WHEN WE ARRIVED at the mansion to find the staff, both male and female, wearing modern dinner jackets and pleated-front shirts with slacks. The grounds twinkled with fairy lights strung in the trees and shrubs. Light spilled from the windows of the house and the open front doors. An old-fashioned carriage drawn by four glossy horses stood in the circular drive as if Governor Brown and his wife, Georgia’s first family during the Civil War, had just alighted.
“That’s a nice touch,” I said to Mom as we passed the equipage with its smiling coachman holding the reins. A horse snorted and tossed his head as if agreeing with me.
“It is,” she said. “Lucy Mortimer’s always been a stickler for details.”
Lucy herself greeted us in the foyer. I almost didn’t recognize her. Gone were the dowdy shirtwaist and the boring skirt and blouse. Unlike my mom, she had ditched the tortoiseshell glasses. Maybe she was wearing contacts. A gorgeous maroon gown hugged her shoulders and showed a moderate amount of cleavage. Its full skirt belled over a hoop. Her brown hair was twisted up into a complicated mass of ringlets. A replica of a beautiful cameo hung on a black velvet choker at her neck. She looked like the portrait of Amelia Rothmere that hung behind her come to life.
“You look magnificent,” I told her.
“How kind of you to say so,” she said. “Thank you for coming this evening.”
Even her elocution had changed. I exchanged a look with Mom. It was almost creepy.
“Hi, Lucy,” Mom said. “It looks like you’ve done a great job with this party. I hope you’ve raised lots of money.”
Lucy waved a languid hand. “Oh, the servants did all the hard work. I just drew up the menus.”
By “servants” I assumed she meant maintenance personnel and gardeners. Personally, I thought she was getting a bit too much into character. I nudged Mom, and we joined the throng of people headed for the ballroom. The women had gone to town with elaborate gowns in jewel tones of sapphire, emerald, and ruby. Fringe and lace draped bosoms and flirted at hems and cuffs. One woman’s wig looked more Marie Antoinette-ish than Scarlett O’Hara-ish, but it didn’t spoil the overall effect. Many of the “belles” had trouble maneuvering their hoops, and we had to stop for more than one traffic jam in the wide hallway. The men, not to be outdone, looked dashing in their Confederate soldier uniforms, pirate costumes, and riverboat gambler attire. I saw one man who looked more like he belonged at the court of Charles the First than in Civil War Georgia, and another who wore a modern tux, but most of them had made an effort. I paused at the door to the ballroom when we reached it and looked around, but I didn’t see either Marty Shears or Special Agent Dillon. Of course, the latter had never mentioned that he was coming, so maybe he wasn’t here. I ignored the small jab of disappointment that thought gave me.
Music swelled from the ballroom, almost drowned by the chatter of two hundred or so guests. I was relieved to recognize a Madonna track; at least the organizers had had enough sense not to inflict Civil War-era music and dances on us. My Virginia reel and quadrille were a little rusty. Servers moved around the room with trays of food, and a bartender mixed up martinis and margaritas at a station near the terrace doors. Mom and I drifted in that direction and ordered glasses of wine when our turn came.
“Do you see Stella or Althea?” Mom asked, craning her neck to try and see over the crowd.
My greater height gave me an advantage, but I didn’t see them, either. Very few of the women were wearing black, so it would be easy to spot them when they arrived. I spied Vonda, beautiful in a yellow silk ball gown copied from one that had been in her family for generations. The original was on display at the Smithsonian. Vonda waved a mittened hand when she saw me and started working her way through the crowd.
“You look very . . . subservient,” she said after hugging me. “
Love
your hair. Hi, Violetta.”
She and Mom exchanged greetings and Mom wandered off, saying something about finding Althea.
“And you look very
Gone with the Wind
,” I returned. “Where’s your Rhett?”
“Ricky’s back at the house with RJ,” she said. “The reunion family is still there. But they leave tomorrow morning, and Ricky and I are having a date night tomorrow night.” Her eyes sparkled.
“It’s about time,” I said, happy for her. She and Ricky belonged together, and I was pleased that they were patching things up.
A Confederate officer I didn’t recognize, sword clanking in a scabbard at his side, strolled up and offered his hand to Vonda. “Dance with me, pretty lady? I’m off to war tomorrow and would like to take the memory of your pretty face with me.”
“La, sir, you flatter me,” she said, batting her lashes. Waggling her fingers to me, she headed toward the dance floor, where the women’s hoopskirts looked incongruous swaying to the beat of “Play That Funky Music,” like a mass of colorful jellyfish bells tossed by the surf.
Scanning the room, I saw many people I recognized, including salon clients, people from church, and Mayor Faricy with his wife. Simone DuBois—no, Simone Hutchinson—and her new husband stood in the doorway. She wore an elaborate green ball gown and had her dark hair styled in ringlets that caressed her cheeks. Greg was a dashing carpetbagger complete with a Clark Gable mustache. Susan DuBois strolled over to greet them, but I didn’t see Philip. I spotted Mom, Althea, and Stella in line at the bar on the far side of the room. As I watched, the fire chief—What was his name? Roger something?—joined their little group. My mom smiled at him, and I raised my brows. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen that particular smile. Hm, maybe Walter had some competition for my mother’s favor. I looked around but didn’t see Walter Highsmith. Vonda waved to me from the dance floor, and I waved back. Dancing beside her was Amber from the restaurant, laughing into the face of a bearded pirate. Marty Shears still wasn’t here. I wondered if he’d been detained in New Jersey.
A hand on my shoulder made me turn. A lawman straight out of the 1800s, complete with gold star pinned to his vest, stood smiling at me. He looked dashing and a bit dangerous, and my breaths came a little faster as the surging crowd bumped him closer to me.
“Marshal Dillon, I presume?” I asked.
“You didn’t really think you were the first one to come up with that, did you?” Special Agent Dillon returned. “Would you care to stroll on the terrace? It’s damned hot in here.”