Wash, Rinse, Die: Cozy Mystery (The Teasen & Pleasen Hair Salon Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) Read online

  Apparently, bedding her male clients was more of a game for her than a serious passion. Despite everything, Dawn was the kind of person it’s hard not to like. She’s cheerful, but not perky, asks about people’s kids, remembers their names, and seems to care.

  “If she weren’t a serial bonker of married men, it would be easy to be friends with her,” Nellie noted.

  From our business perspective Dawn’s tendency to lead married men astray (or let them think they were leading her astray) wasn’t a problem. That Dawn came into the salon where Hildegarde Botowski was a regular, however, had explosive potential.

  I try to be kind when it comes to our clients, so let’s just say that Hildegarde was not a person who forgives and forgets soon, as Burl was learning. Although everyone was sure the affair was over, the consensus at the salon, among customers and staff alike, was that this was largely due to Burl preferring to keep all of his body parts intact and not out of some sense of loyalty to Hildegarde. She was nothing if not vigilant.

  To preserve peace, order, and our sanity, we try to schedule things so those two never share the same air in the Teasen and Pleasen Salon. That can be harder than it sounds. When people call in to make an appointment, whoever is available to answer the phone is supposed to check the book to make sure the stylist they want is available, and to make sure these two don’t occupy the same space at the same time.

  Dawn was coming in that morning and Nellie was prepared to color her hair. When I got back to the salon from delivering Sarah to school, Nellie was in a panic. “We have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Dawn just got here. She's in the back room.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I thought you liked her.”

  “I said I could like her if she was different from the way she is. Well, I admire her independence. I enjoy it when she’s around; I don’t exactly like her.” She threw up her hands. I noticed her face was pale. “But that’s not the point. I checked the messages and Hildegarde Botowski called to confirm she’s coming in for her ten o’clock appointment.”

  “I thought you had her tomorrow. This is Dawn's day.”

  “It is. Apparently Mrs. Botowski had a calendar malfunction. She thinks this is tomorrow.”

  “Call her and tell her about her mistake.”

  Nellie shook her head. “I tried and she didn't answer. She must be on her way.”

  I heard a guffaw and saw Mel Krisller, who owns the town's used car dealership stifling a laugh. He was getting a trim from Pete, my other hair stylist. I started to say something and he put up a hand. “I heard nothing. I'm not even here.”

  I gave Nellie the kind of confident look the owner of the place is supposed to have in times of crisis, the kind of reassuring look a doctor gives patients when the test results come back with bad news. That’s when they smile and say, “We can operate tomorrow and get you home by Wednesday.”

  So, as I dutifully gave Nellie my best imitation of that look, I added my prognosis, “No cause for alarm, but just to be sure, hide all the sharp instruments.”

  “Lucky for us we don’t have any chainsaws laying about.”

  On that happy note I filled two mugs with coffee and headed into the back room.

  ***

  Dawn was shuffling through a stack of my receipts and waiting for me. She looked up as I came in. “Morning, Savannah.”

  I handed her one of the mugs. “We have a small problem,” I told her.

  She fluffed her hair with her hand. “You don’t have my hair color on hand?”

  “Almost that bad, but not quite.”

  Just then the sound of Mrs. Botowski’s voice floated in from the other room. I saw Dawn’s ears perk up and then an evil, knowing grin spread over Dawn’s face. “Ah. You have us both booked into the salon at the same time.”

  “Actually we don't, but scheduling and reality are having synchronization problems today.”

  She was enjoying my predicament. “While the two of us facing off might be entertaining, your panic suggests that you accidentally or foolishly bet against me.”

  “Only if the fight goes the distance. Hildegarde has stamina.”

  She set her jaw. “It won’t. Besides, there is nothing to fight about any more. Burl is too chicken to move forward. He even fired me as his bookkeeper, figuring the old bat would never believe it was over if I was still coming to his store.”

  “Yet, despite that, Hildegarde is far from convinced. So as a matter of public safety, I’m asking you to let me sneak you out the back door and avoid having to find out how the contest might go.”

  She sipped her coffee. “I won’t start anything.”

  “That may be, but…”

  “I don’t think she’d dare do anything here.”

  “That may be, but…”

  “But what?” I saw that she was looking at herself in the mirror.

  “I can’t afford the risk. If she flares up, my salon and customers could be collateral damage. You didn’t see her the day she almost dismembered Burl. Besides, your hair still looks nice. It will last until tomorrow. How about I rebook you for tomorrow? I'll give you a visit for free for the inconvenience?”

  She smiled, sensing that she had leverage. “The next two appointments.”

  “You are being unfairly opportunistic.”

  “Is it working?”

  I held out my hand. “Yes it is. Deal.”

  I think the barometric pressure in the room dropped as I closed the back door behind her. I took a deep breath and went into the salon. “Why, Mrs. Botowski, how are you today?”

  Nellie caught my all clear signal and flashed her relieved look, which involved letting her tongue loll out of her mouth. We always have each other’s backs.

  “I’m recovering,” Hildegard said. “It can be hard to understand how you didn’t see what was going on. I mean how is it that no one around here knew what a devil Annie Simmerson was? Or that Burl would be such a weak ass?”

  We all relaxed. Gossip central was back in action and we’d managed to avoid creating new subjects for conversation. As I walked over to my station I smiled at Hildegarde. “It all boggles the mind, Mrs. Botowski,” I said. “it really does.”

  · CHAPTER TWO

  While Nellie and I had been fretting about having Dawn and Hildegard occupying the same space at the same time, Betina and Pete were starting on their first clients. Betina, 20, is a stunning redhead who always cares about her looks. She’s been an apprentice with us for a couple of years now. Because she’s dramatically proportioned and has a charming manner, she’s very popular with the male customers. Although she’s vain about her appearance, she seems mostly unaware that everyone thinks she is stunning.

  Both our male and female clients love to hear her stories about her weekend dating activities. She is a bit of an adventuress and often goes to Stanleyville on the weekends, only she calls it Studlyville. Stanleyville has an oil refinery, so it’s a much bigger place than Knockemstiff and therefore has a better selection of eligible males as well as bars and theaters and things that a twenty-year old girl looks for in life.

  On Mondays, everyone comes in to hear about Betina’s weekends. Much to everyone’s disappointment this was Tuesday.

  Pete Dawson is our other stylist. Everyone likes Pete. He’s shy, always pleasant, and gay. Because of his shyness, Pete being gay, as Betina says, not unkindly, “remains theoretical.”

  So the gang was all here, and we were ramping up for the day. Betina was subdued.

  “Any plans for this weekend?” Pete asked her.

  “Not really,” she said.

  Pete loves to hear her stories as much as anyone. Maybe he imagines himself with the guys Betina talks about, but partly he likes her and enjoys hearing about her life.

  Right then one thing was more important to me than Betina’s weekend plans: coffee. I’d let the cup I’d started in the back room during the Dawn/Hildega
rd episode get cold. As I refilled my mug, the pink one with the stupid cat picture on it that Dolores Pettigrew gave me for no apparent reason, I watched Nellie set out her assortment of polish and magical elixirs she uses to put on, take off, and alter acrylic nails. The way she does it makes me think of operating rooms on television. When she was satisfied, she turned and looked in my direction. “Savannah, do you have plans after work?”

  “I can check with my social secretary if you like. I assume you have something in mind?”

  “It’s just that you look like someone who needs a beer after work.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. I could picture someone who’d had too many beers after work, but what would it look like to need one? Needy, I assumed. I hoped I didn’t look needy.

  “Are you thinking of a beer to drink and talk over, or the kind used to wash down a bacon cheeseburger?”

  Her smile was lopsided. It often is, as if each half of her face got one vote on whether or not to smile and then couldn’t agree on the result. “I was thinking of dinner. Unless you want to go to the Knockemback,” she said, meaning the Knockemback Tavern. No one eats at the tavern. They have food, but it’s the sort of thing they buy at the Marshé Grosri food mart and microwave when a customer foolishly orders it. Now we do that at the salon sometimes and it comes out fine, but at the tavern, not so much. Let’s just say that food and the Knockemback don’t mix well.

  The look on her face told me that the tavern hadn’t been part of her plans. I cupped my hand to my ear. “Cheeseburgers at the Bacon Up are calling my name.”

  Nellie cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and aimed in the general direction of the Bacon Up. “Hello hushpuppies,” she said. The Bacon Up, as you probably guessed, is a regular place for us to eat. Almost everyone I know goes there and I know almost everyone. It does a steady business partly because the town doesn’t have that many choices of eateries, and mostly because they put bacon on or in nearly everything. Including hush puppies. They fry them in beer too. When it comes to food, political correctness has a long way to go before it reaches Knockemstiff. Fads and trends don’t mean much. I don’t mean that we are unaware. No, you’ll often find people discussing the merits of various healthy diets. It’s just that in Knockemstiff, half the time we discuss nutrition over a greasy cheeseburger (with bacon). And a beer.

  “Okay, it’s a date.”

  With that momentous decision out of the way, we settled into a slow day at the office. After Hildegarde left, Tina, Mel Krisller’s wife, came in for an appointment with Pete. She always insists on having Pete do her hair, and once told me she loves his touch as much as his work. I wondered if maybe Mel didn’t touch her so much anymore and having Pete do her hair got her a lovely cut and a little male contact in a safe way. She knew that Pete’s caresses might feel loving but they were always just his gentle way. Maybe a lot of his women clients thought that way. Because it was Pete it didn’t feel threatening and they didn’t have to hide it from their husbands.

  The appointment book was empty for the next hour, so we were delighted when a stranger wandered in hoping to have her nails done. She was a slender girl in her early twenties maybe, who wore too much makeup, especially dark around the eyes. She wanted her acrylic nails redone, and for Nellie to pierce them with tiny fake diamonds.

  As Nellie worked on her nails, we learned that she was in town visiting a friend. “I drove in from Delhi. I was thinking about getting my hair colored while I’m here,” she said. “It would be a surprise for my boyfriend.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Nellie asked.

  “Color. Lot’s of bright colors. Highlights galore. I’d want orange and green and red and maybe purple.” The idea seemed to excite her.

  Nellie ran her fingers through the girl’s spiky hair, evaluating it. “That would be a surprise all right.”

  “He’ll love it. He’s taking me to a wild party next week and tons of outrageous colors would be perfect.”

  I wasn’t sure that Nellie had ever done orange and green and red and maybe purple on the same head, but she assured the girl that rainbows would blush when they saw her walk out of the salon with her new colors.

  “Fantastic,” the girl said. “Yeah. I can come in tomorrow morning.”

  “Sorry,” Nellie said, shaking her head. “I have a regular coming in for a dye job in the morning.” She looked over at me. “Dawn Devereaux called and asked for a ten o’clock.” Then she turned back to the girl. “Miss Devereaux’s hair takes a while to do properly, and we’ve already made her wait one day, so I can’t shift her, I’m afraid. How about in the afternoon? Around two?”

  The girl almost pouted. “No! I can’t do it then. Not possible. I have to leave after lunch tomorrow. I have to get back to Delhi.” She made a face. “If I don’t work for a few days I won’t get off so I can go to the party.”

  “My sincerest apologies,” Nellie said without sounding all that sincere. She doesn’t like doing the more outrageous styles or anything she thinks won’t look nice. She thinks it will reflect on her, make people think she has bad taste. It was a matter of her reputation.

  “I could do it if you wanted,” Betina said. “I’ve got the morning free, and I’d love a chance to do something like that.”

  Betina needed the practice dying, and she had always felt a little stifled by the more or less conventional look most of our small-town clients preferred. She was hoping for a chance to be creative, a little more Hollywood and a lot less Baton Rouge.

  I gave Nellie a look. As friends who have grown up together and worked together for years, we’ve developed a whole catalog of looks. This one said, “Why not let Betina get some practice?” I followed it with the “If she messes it up, who will know?” look.

  “Fine,” Nellie said. She held the girl’s hand up to check her manicure under the daylight bulb in her task light. “If you’re good with Betina doing it, and you understand that she is still learning.”

  “Cool,” the girl said. “We can experiment.”

  “Yeah,” Nellie said. “Do that very thing.”

  “I’ll come in about ten,” she said.

  I went over to put it in the book. “What name do I put down?”

  “Calvin Coolidge,” she said. “When he doesn’t show I’ll take his appointment.”

  That wasn’t the silliest thing someone had ever done, so I dutifully noted that the late president had an appointment at ten.

  Later on, Mrs. Lejeune came by, dropping Sarah off from school. Mrs. Lejeune lives down the street from the salon, and her son Bobby (Robert Gaddis Lejeune, when she is in earshot) goes to school with Sarah. Sarah walks home with them.

  “Toadstools,” Mrs. Lejeune said.

  “Aardvarks,” Nellie muttered under her breath just loud enough to hear. I knew she was tormenting Mrs. Lejeune.

  “What about them?” I asked Mrs. Lejeune. “What about toadstools?” I made it a point to pretend to care. This, I’ve explained to Nellie, is why I own Teasen and Pleasen and she just works there. Nellie always says it’s more because my ex-husband agreed to set me up in business in return for me not asking for alimony. Which is literally correct, okay, and I am also right, I point out to her when I have the opportunity.

  “Mrs. Lacey has toadstools in the school.”

  “I believe, Mrs. Lejeune,” Sarah said, “that they are neither toads nor stools. They are mushrooms.”

  “Why do you have mushrooms in class?” I asked Sarah.

  “We are studying the anatomy of mushrooms.”

  “You can have the ones growing in my bathroom,” Betina said. “I’d donate them. Just come and get them.”

  “We grew our own,” Sarah said firmly.

  Betina sighed, clearly disappointed at the lost opportunity. “That’s too bad. There are a lot over the tub.”

  Now I was actually curious — about the school project, not Betina’s bathroom growths. “What sort of project is this?”


  “It’s a combination of art and plant anatomy. First we studied the names of the parts. Then, today, we cut the top off the mushrooms — that’s called the cap — and put them on paper. You put the gills facing the paper and let it sit for a while and it makes patterns with the spores.”

  “Gills?” Nellie asked. “Fishy mushrooms?”

  Sarah glanced at her. I could see she was about to explain that mushrooms have gills, but she saw that Nellie was just being silly and ignored her.

  Pete had wandered over from his station to get the scoop on toadstools and mushrooms. Or possibly to hear more about Betina’s bathroom. “What do you do with them then, Sarah? After the spores make a pattern.”

  She gave him a steady look. “Today we picked the biggest ones and cut them and put them on paper. You need to leave them overnight.” She put her hands on her hips and sighed dramatically. “I can’t know what else we will do with them until the project is over, can I?”

  Pete turned away to hide his grin. “I suppose not.”

  Grownups aren’t really supposed to feel admonished every time they talk to a grade schooler, but like I said, Sarah is not your average kid.

  “Children shouldn’t play with disgusting things like toadstools,” Mrs. Lejeune said. “They might be poisonous.”

  So are some attitudes. I didn't say that out loud, but I did give Nellie a look that said “I did not say ‘Some attitudes are poisonous,’ and that’s why I’m the owner and you just work here.” Nellie studiously adjusted her task light during this look, which made me sure the look had been received.

  In a small town — and probably everywhere else, let’s face it — it’s often better to bite your tongue and live to fight another day. Besides, everyone else was already thinking what I was thinking anyway. After Mrs. Lejeune left, I knew Betina would make some crack about Mrs. Lejeune needing elective surgery to remove whatever was stuck up her posterior. I hoped she’d wait until Sarah left to say it.