Tressed to Kill (3 page)

Chapter Three

[Thursday]

“THEY SCRAPED BLOOD OUT FROM UNDER MY FINGERNAILS and put it in a little baggie,” Mom said, pouring our breakfast tea the next morning. After the coroner’s team had zipped Constance’s body into a bag and hefted her into a hearse, and a Detective Washington finally gave us permission to go home, I’d spent the night in my girlhood bedroom in Mom’s house, not wanting to leave her alone.
I choked on a mouthful of Earl Grey. “What? Why?”
Her shrug lifted the hem of her nightgown so her scuffed blue slippers showed. “Probably because they think I did it.”
“Did what?” But I knew.
“Killed Constance.”
“That’s absurd. You couldn’t have.” I poured some Cap’n Crunch into my bowl with hands that shook. In my apartment, I’d have breakfasted on microwave oatmeal sprinkled with berries and a handful of walnuts, but returning to my childhood home also meant adopting childhood habits. Especially comforting ones like sugary cereal. The cheery yellow kitchen with the brick wall and appliances from when I was a teenager felt like a cocoon. The oven dinged and Mom opened it, letting the delicious scent of cinnamon buns drift into the room.
“For later,” she said, divining my thoughts. “When the ladies get here. We’ll close the salon today, in Constance’s memory, but I know Althea and Stella will be here. And probably Rachel, too, when school lets out.” She settled into the ladder-back chair across from me with the pan of cinnamon buns in front of her and began to ice them with little swirls of her knife.
In the early days, after my dad died and she and Althea, also newly widowed, had turned their skills at hair cutting and facials into a business, she used to put out cinnamon buns or cookies or brownies for her customers. Back then, she did the cutting right here in the kitchen and I swept the clippings up in a little dust pan from the time I was five. Eventually, as word of her expertise grew, she turned the front of the old Victorian into a salon and quadrupled her business. The family—Mom, me, and my younger sister Alice Rose—had lived above the shop, falling asleep each night to the lingering odor of permanent solution.
I’d grown up loving the smells of the salon. Although I’d tried college—two years at the University of Georgia—I’d missed doing hair and left to attend beauty school. I’d worked for Vidal Sassoon in Atlanta after Hank finished with the police academy and we got married. Three years later, we got divorced. I stayed in Atlanta for another six months but felt lost and lonely on my own. Atlanta might be less than five hours away by car, but it felt like a separate universe. Now I was back and not too sure I fit in here anymore, either. Small-town life felt confining after almost four years in a metro area of five million. But it had its compensations . . . like homemade cinnamon rolls.
“Why’d you stop making goodies for the salon?” I asked, scooping up a blob of icing on my finger and licking it.
Mom shot me an incredulous look. “No time. It was one thing to do some baking when it was just a friend or two dropping by now and then for a trim and a little gossip. But now—”
“Now it’s a lot of friends dropping in for cuts and color and more gossip than you’d find in
People
magazine,” I finished for her.
“Now it’s a bona fide business,” she said with an emphatic nod. “No matter what Constance DuBois might think.”
The dead woman’s name hung in the air. “Maybe,” I said tentatively, “this cloud might have a silver lining. I mean, she probably didn’t have time to get in touch with the licensing board before—”
The back door, the one that led to the small yard and alley behind the house, burst open. “Violetta, did you hear what happened?”
Althea Jenkins stood on the threshold, brilliant poppy shirt tucked into matching broomstick skirt, vibrating with an air of uncharacteristic excitement. “Constance DuBois—”
“We found her,” I said before she could finish.
“You what?” She put a hand to her heart and looked from me to Mom.
We both nodded. “It was horrible,” Mom said. “The blood . . .” She poured Althea a cup of tea as her friend sank into a chair.
“We found her on our way home from the town hall meeting,” I said. A thought crossed my mind. “I didn’t see you there, Althea. I thought you were planning to go.”
“I wasn’t feeling well,” Althea said shortly. “Indigestion.” She blew on her tea, letting the fragrant steam drift into her face. “Tell me what happened.”
Mom and I took turns filling her in on the events from the meeting.
“I’m so very sorry, Vi,” she said when Mom’s voice trailed off describing how she tried to help Constance. “I can see that finding her was a real shock for you. But good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Althea!” My mom’s voice was shocked. “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“I never hesitated to say what I thought about Constance Wells DuBois when she was alive; I don’t know why I should stop now that she’s dead,” Althea said, a stubborn look on her face. Sunlight skimmed the prominent angles of her jaw and cheekbones, pooling her deep-set eyes in shadow.
“What did she ever do to you?” I asked, surprised by the venom in her voice.
A knock sounded at the door before she could answer. With the familiarity of long friendship, she rose to answer it.
“You ain’t welcome here, Hank Parker,” Althea said when she saw the figure standing in the doorway.
“Official business,” he said with a half smile, pushing open the screen door. “Morning, Grace,” he said, the smile growing broader as he took in the long red University of Georgia tee shirt I’d slept in and the tousled hair tumbling about my shoulders. I tried to tuck my bare legs under the chair.
The smile left me cold. Arctic. I could remember the time when it turned my insides to mush, but that was before I caught him with Melissa Littleton and realized she was one in a string. I wasn’t sure what I’d ever seen in Hank, beyond the smile and the hot bod, now sporting a small potbelly under the khaki of his uniform shirt. He’d been a lineman on the football team but a lazy student, and it had taken him several years of flipping burgers and selling vacuums after high school to find his niche as a cop. With my twenty-twenty hindsight, I saw his passion for the law had more to do with cop groupies and guns than with protecting the public. At the time, I thought it was noble. Was I an idiot, or what? Once he signed on with the Atlanta PD, we got married, and it was all downhill from there. Down a steep, icy hill on a toboggan with greased runners.
“What do you want?” I asked with as much dignity as possible, given my state of semi-dress.
“I could tell you what I really want if we were alone,” he said. He tucked his thumbs into his belt and slouched against the door jamb.
I flushed with fury and embarrassment.
“I won’t have that kind of talk in my kitchen,” Mom snapped. “You keep a respectful tongue in your head.”
“Yes’m,” he mumbled. His expression grew sullen. “I want my NASCAR memorabilia back, Grace.”
I avoided my mom’s gaze. When I’d caught Hank cheating, I’d boxed up his NASCAR stuff, his greatest treasures, and hidden them from him in a fit of anger and hurt. It wasn’t one of my finer moments. I hadn’t gotten around to giving them back before I left Atlanta, and they were stored in a closet upstairs. “Later, Hank,” I said. “It was a long night. Mom and I have stuff to do.”
“I’d say so,” he said meaningfully. “I’m here to escort you to the GBI. That’s the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”
He was still looking at my mom, a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.
“What?” all three of us chorused.
“You’re wanted for questioning pertaining to the murder of Constance DuBois. Come on now.” He straightened and let his hand rest suggestively by the handcuffs clipped to his utility belt. “You, too, Grace.”
“Not until we get dressed,” Mom said calmly, taking the air out of him. “You just run along and tell that nice Detective Washington we met last night we’ll be by in about an hour.”
“But—” Hank gaped at her.
Mom started up the staircase, and I quickly followed, holding the hem of the tee shirt down over my fanny. As we reached the second floor I heard Althea say, “If you so much as touch one of those cinnamon buns, I’ll have to cut your hand off.”
THE NIGHT’S STORM HAD WASHED THE SKY CLEAR OF pollen and haze, and the temperature and humidity both lingered at reasonable levels—under ninety. That would change as the day went on. Right now, though, it was refreshing, and I kept the window down as I drove Mom to the GBI office in Kingsland via State Road 42. St. Elizabeth inhabits a point on the southeast coast of Georgia, bounded by the Satilla River to the north and the Cumberland Sound to the east, a little closer to Jacksonville, Florida than Savannah. SR 42 is the umbilical cord tying us to I-95 and the rest of the Eastern seaboard. Once west of I-95, we quickly reached US 17 and turned south. I parked my aging Ford Fiesta in the lot fronting the GBI Region 14 building and got out to the smell of warm tarmac and newly mown grass.
Sternly clipped boxwoods of different heights stood out against the pinky tan brick of the single-story building, like felons assembled for a lineup. Long vertical windows brought to mind arrow slits as we headed up the short sidewalk. The grass on either side was a dusty moss color, rather than emerald, and I knew the GBI must be adhering to the watering restrictions imposed in the drought.
I felt a bit unnerved at the prospect of the coming interview, but I squared my shoulders and walked beside my mom to the simple gray door and opened it. A uniformed policeman—Officer Kent, according to his nametag—who looked young enough to still be memorizing the Pythagorean theorem or diagramming sentences, sat behind a long counter and phoned someone when we told him why we were there. “It’ll be a minute, ma’am, if you’d like to have a seat,” he said when he hung up. Jug ears stuck out from a head shaved to a quarter-inch of stubble, and he looked almost embarrassingly earnest.
Mom settled onto one of a rank of molded blue chairs, her purse on her lap, and pulled out the knitting that accompanied her everywhere. I elected to stand and let my eyes flit from the dusty corn plant in the corner to the photograph of the governor grinning from the wall. I wasn’t going to vote for him next time around; he was too cozy with developers for my taste. Just as I was eyeing an ancient
Field & Stream
, the door beside the counter opened and a man stood on the threshold. He was six feet tall, I’d guess, and fortyish, with a nose that had been broken at least once. He wore a navy blazer over a white shirt and charcoal slacks, not a uniform, but every inch of him shouted “cop” or maybe “soldier.” From the steely eyes that seemed to miss nothing to the trim waist and close-cropped hair going gray at the temples, he crackled with energy and alertness. My gaze fell on Officer Kent behind the desk, and I caught him looking at the newcomer with something akin to hero worship.
“Mrs. Terhune?” the man said, looking at Mom. His voice was a surprise, deep and crisp without a hint of a drawl. He wasn’t from south of the Mason-Dixon, that was for sure. I wondered how he’d ended up in Georgia.
“Where’s Detective Washington?” Mom asked, stowing her knitting.
“I’m Special Agent Dillon,” he said. “The St. Elizabeth Police Department asked us to take over the DuBois case.”
“Do you go by Marshal?” I asked with the hint of a smile.
His gaze flicked to me, and he didn’t deign to answer. I got the feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d heard a Marshal Dillon joke. Officer Kent at the desk glared at me, as if I were making fun of his hero. He was probably too young for
Gunsmoke
.
I moved to join my mom and the detective, but he stopped me with a glance. “I’ll be back for you in a while, Miss Terhune. I hope you don’t mind waiting.” His tone said he didn’t give a flip if I minded or not. And he ushered Mom through the door, which closed with a definitive snick of the lock.
Well! I’d assumed we’d be interviewed together, but apparently Special Agent Dillon didn’t want to give us a chance to sync up our stories. Although we’d had all night to do that, if we’d had a mind to. I circled the small waiting area twice, then asked Officer Kent if there was some place to get a cup of tea. He accepted a dollar bill from me and returned with vending machine mystery liquid that was, at least, hot. I sipped at it and settled down with the
Field & Stream
, preferring it to the most recent issue of
Chopper Underground
, which was my only other reading choice.
I knew a lot more about backyard butchering than I was ever likely to put to use by the time Special Agent Dillon appeared with Mom. She didn’t look like he’d been pulling out her fingernails or blinding her with klieg lights. In fact, they seemed to be on good terms. She was offering to email him her recipe for barbecue rub, and he was saying he might stop in some time for a haircut.
“It’s about time for a trim,” he added, running a hand across the top of his head.
“Anytime,” Mom beamed.
I snorted softly. The man’s hair would meet Marine standards; if he showed up at Violetta’s it would be only to glean more information about Constance DuBois’s murder. I’d have to warn Mom to be careful around him.
He turned to me, and the smile died out of his eyes. And they weren’t really steel colored, I noted. More a navy blue with a darker rim. Striking.
“Okay, Miss Terhune. Let’s chat.” At least he held the door open for me.
“I’m going to run down to the Perk-Up for a cup of coffee,” my mom called as the door closed. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Now why hadn’t I thought of that?
Expecting a dingy interrogation room complete with table bolted to the floor and one-way mirror, I was surprised when he led me to an office. A comfortable office with sunlight streaming through a large window, a coffee pot emitting a tempting odor from a credenza behind the desk, and a triptych of photos featuring a woman in jodhpurs putting a handsome black horse over a series of jumps in an arena.
“Your wife?” I asked with a nod at the photos.
“My horse,” he replied. He settled himself in the desk chair, and I sank into one of two ladder-back chairs that faced the desk. At least it was padded, unlike the unyielding molded plastic in the reception room.
“Let’s get right to the point, Miss Terhune,” Dillon said, resting his forearms on the desk and leaning toward me. “I think you or your mother—and right now I’m leaning toward you because I liked your mother—stabbed Mrs. DuBois last night to keep her from shutting down your beauty shop.”