Sprayed Stiff (11 page)

“I checked you out by another source, or I wouldn’t have come.”

“Who was the other source?”

“Jon Villita.”

“How do you know Jon?”

The way she smiled, I decided I didn’t want to know how she knew Jon, my gentle friend. The thought of him knowing this tough cookie was scary.

“I have something on him, too,” Annette said with a cold smile, “something that, if you turn on me, I will make public.”

What could she have on Jon, a Boy Scout if I ever met one? I had a fertile imagination and I couldn’t conjure a single possibility, that’s how squeaky-clean this friend was. I guessed by checking me out with Jon and Charlotte, she’d determined that I was fiercely loyal. An Achilles’ heel I was proud of. An Achilles’ heel that had almost killed me once.

Before I could mull her threat any further, she got down to business. “So we understand each other?”

Annette apparently understood me better than I understood her, but I nodded. She began: “About a year ago, Mr. Barrister started to get what became a series of odd packages. In retrospect, they started coming after his first visit from a pair of men from south of the border—they were well dressed but low-class.”

“Trying to make themselves silk purses out of sow’s ears?” I asked.

Annette cocked her head at me. Oops, sometimes you couldn’t take the country out of the girl. Maybe she understood me less than she’d first thought.

“Anyway,” Annette continued, “despite their designer suits, these cats were dangerous. You could feel it when they walked into the room.”

“The kind that carry guns under their coats?”

Annette shook her head. “The kind who carry switchblades in their shoes.”

“I’ve only known one man like that. He was caught gutting small animals for fun.”

“Uh-huh. I think that was just a warm-up for these cats. Anyway, they arrived unannounced and met with Mr. Barrister, and he was a nervous wreck for a week after they’d gone. Then a couple of weeks later I go out to lunch and a package is outside the door to our office. It’s addressed to Mr. Barrister, but it hasn’t come through the mail system. With all the mail bombs. I thought I better not pick it up, even if he is only a tax lawyer. There’s not much people get more worked up about than money, which is what taxes are all about. I called him. He went ghosty white, picked up the package, and locked himself in his office without another word. I have to admit, I didn’t wait to see if it was a mail bomb or not, because I figured I’d hear it from the restaurant if it was.”

“That’s cold,” I couldn’t help saying. “You didn’t care if he got blown up?”

“I guess that’s the difference between me and you. You’d probably blow yourself up before you’d stand around and watch someone you know get rearranged, huh?” Her tone said I was an idiot.

“That’s true. I’m proud to be that way.”

That set Annette back a second or two. I’d bet she wasn’t used to people getting one up on her, especially idiots. She cleared her throat and continued, “When I got back from lunch, there was no sign of the package. We got a couple more visits from a pair of Mexican men, different ones, but the same in that they were dangerous and well dressed, and one spoke impeccable English, the other none. The packages would come a short time later. Same scenario, but twice Mr. Barrister called me to dispose of something in a garbage sack that felt like animal body parts. The last package I did see by accident, because I walked in when he was opening it….”

Annette paused and swallowed hard. Even the memory rattled her. That was saying something, as she was the most self-possessed woman I’d ever met. I gave her a minute to compose herself. She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “It was a photo of the Barrister family when the kids were in high school. The glass on the frame had been shattered, blood splattered over the photo.”

“Uh-oh, that sounds like a threat to me. Are you sure these Mexican guys were the ones who sent it?”

“Where and how they left it, the brown paper wrapping, even the writing was the same.”

“Did you tell Percy he ought to call the police then?”

“I did. He just shook his head, went into his bathroom, and vomited for about ten minutes, then told me to throw the thing away in a Dumpster on my way home, which is what I’d done with the other packages.”

“When did the bloody frame arrive?”

“Less than a week ago.”

“Where did you drop it?”

“At a strip mall across from the theaters along I-10. You know a lot of those places lock up their Dumpsters, so I had to wait until someone came out to dump something and went back in for more. That’s when I slipped the frame in there. It was the third Dumpster in the row.”

“So it sounds like these Mexican guys were the most likely suspects—either they were blackmailing Percy over some secret, or he was involved in some dealings with them that went sour.”

“Maybe.” She reviewed her perfect, unadorned nails.

“You don’t sound certain. You have a better suspect?”

“Well, I have to say that Mr. Barrister’s girlfriend—”

I slapped my hands down on the table in surprise. “Percy has a girlfriend?”

“He always has a girlfriend.”

The unibrow troll must have some major pheromones I didn’t detect. Or maybe a lot of women were in dire need of some free tax-law advice. Wouldn’t the old gals from the Junior League be surprised that Percy did more than look? “Any of his old girlfriends jealous of the new one?”

“They aren’t bitch-slapping each other in the lobby over his affections or anything like that. Frankly, if they won’t let go when he’s done with them, I think he threatens to send the IRS after them.”

One way to cut off an affair. “How chivalrous.”

She shrugged. And waited.

I had to nudge her again. “I’m sorry I interrupted. You were saying about his current girlfriend?”

“She may be the real deal. He’s been different with her. He’s really in love this time.”

“So maybe Percy took care of Wilma to clear the way for happily-ever-after for him and his sweetie.”

Annette shook her elegant head. “Mr. Barrister wouldn’t have done that. He was too afraid of Wilma and too used to having all her money. Tax law doesn’t necessarily pay well enough to keep up the standard of living that Wilma’s family inheritance did. I overheard him on the phone a couple of weeks ago, telling his girlfriend that if Wilma preceded him in death, all but an allowance for him and the children goes into a trust for future grandchildren.”

I’d bet Annette overheard a lot that went on in Percy’s life. Poor man had better nominate her for the scholarship, or else. “Kind of an odd conversation to have with a girlfriend. Although if she was considering killing Percy’s wife, I guess that would’ve thrown a damper on her plans instead of inciting them.”

“Not necessarily,” Annette argued. “She might have just wanted Wilma out of the way. And when you think about it, Mr. Barrister’s allowance and salary probably are enough for her, a working-class girl. The news said Wilma was shot and left in a degrading position. While it could’ve been Mr. Barrister’s Mexican visitors, I also think Shauna Rollins could’ve shot her with no compunction.”

“Where can I find her?”

“She’s got a converted cottage she uses as an office on North New Braunfels. From what I hear, she’s an expert of sorts, plans to start traveling all over the country.”

“Expert in what?”

“Makeup.”

B
Y THE TIME
A
NNETTE LEFT,
in her convincingly coldhearted way reminding me she knew where I lived, how much I loved my dogs, and who all my friends were, it was after midnight. I was itching to go see Shauna Rollins, but doubted that she’d be doing somebody’s makeup at the witching hour, unless it was another customer in Wilma’s state of unbeing. And if that was the case, I didn’t want to be walking in on the two of them.

Besides, when I sat down on the couch to plan my sleuthing around my next workday (hey, I had to make a living) and how I should diplomatically relay all the goodies I’d learned to Scythe, I zonked out. After all, I had been awake about forty hours straight. Even the leftover moo goo gai pan I’d taken out of the freezer to thaw couldn’t keep me awake.

I dreamed about mutilated animals with clown makeup, Lexa in Valentino in a Jag running the Junior League, and Scythe marrying Zena Zolliope. When I woke up surrounded by my dogs on the couch, I was humming a song that had something to do with an armadillo, a cowboy boot with a golden heel, and a palomino Appaloosa in a limo stocked with Perrier on their way to Bismarck. I was a little afraid that somebody had slipped something funny into the canapés I’d tasted at the Junior League function when I heard the second verse of the song and realized I wasn’t crazy or high—it was coming through the half-open window on the Ugartes’ side of my house. Rick Ugarte had evidently been up working all night, and this was the result. My neighbor was a songwriter, once of rock but now, thanks to my complaints, of country. He’d sold one about me and my mostly fictional shenanigans. Lyle Lovett was said to be interested in a couple of others, including this one. I’d bet money.

I threw a grumbling Beau off my legs and stretched. Her two daughters jumped up and licked me before running to the door to go out. In my bra and panties, I shuffled over and opened the door, then ground some Costa Rican coffee beans and set the pot to brew. I wandered back into the living room and swore. I’d shucked the designer raccoon wear before passing out, and Char had apparently slept on it, chewing a little on one cuff sometime during the night. I grimly examined the dog-slobbered fur and knew my first stop had to be the miracle-worker dry cleaner. I could guess how much outfits straight off Milan’s catwalk cost, and I’d have to sell my truck to replace this hideous thing.

What a great start to a Monday.

Sipping my coffee, I found the address of Shauna’s business, Makeup Magic with Shauna, in the yellow pages. Reviewing my appointments, I decided I could pay her a visit about ten that morning between a perm and a foil highlight. As for Scythe, I hadn’t quite decided how to tell him my treasure trove of information. Maybe Shauna would implicate herself or, better yet, confess, and I wouldn’t have to tap-dance around Annette’s involvement. He could pull out my toenails, and I wasn’t ratting her out. I’d decided that when she pulled out her key ring with a black and white rabbit’s foot. When I’d asked where she’d gotten it, she flashed this queer little smile that reminded me she’d disposed of Percy’s mutilated gift animals. Uh-oh. Maybe she was into recycling.

I hadn’t completely disposed of the notion that she might be on Percy’s list of girlfriends and was setting me off on a wild-goose chase with the story about mean Mexicans and sexy Shauna. Frankly, ambitious Annette scared me a little, so I was hoping someone else would pan out as a murder suspect.

The doorbell rang me out of my reverie. I grabbed a gingham tablecloth out of the buffet drawer and wrapped it around me. As I passed the mirror, I saw my reflection and yipped out a short scream. My plastered-down flip-out do had, with eighty percent humidity, ten pounds of hairspray, and six hours on a couch pillow, morphed into something out of
Aliens Among Us.

The bell was ringing wildly, then something thumped against the door. It flew open and my new receptionist, Bettina Huyn, having shouldered open the door, stumbled into the foyer. The door latch hung at a funny angle. So much for the lock. I guess I’d have to get Bettina a key to my house as well as the salon if she insisted on doing any more Rambo imitations. “Are you okay, Reyn?” she asked in a deep baritone. “Why did you scr—” Then she saw me and, hand to chest, screamed before she could finish.

“What the hell happened to your hair, girlfriend?” Bettina moaned, having recovered her feminine alto. Bettina (aka Bert) was an attractive Korean undergoing a series of operations to change her into a woman. She worked as a dancer at a transvestite club at night and for me during the day. Trudy said she gave my salon’s name, Transformations, a new meaning. As a small-business owner, I had bad luck with receptionists—I hadn’t been able to keep one more than six months. My last one, Sherlyn Rocca, was getting close to setting a new record when I found her doing the nasty on the reception desk with the Redken supplier. That might not have been a firing offense, except that the Biolage supplier walked in on them and got jealous—it was apparently his “turn”—and knocked the Redken guy through the original front window of my historic residence, which cost a fortune to replace. It had pissed me off.

Bettina needed the money, so I was giving her a go. So far, so good, except for the days she didn’t wake up early enough to put her woman together and had to come as a man. Some of my clients thought I had two receptionists. Some thought they were brother and sister. Some just stayed confused.

“The line at Starbucks was ten miles long, so I came over to get a decent cup of java so I could function this morning. You know”—she paused—“gingham really isn’t your pattern.” Bettina eyed my makeshift shift, then reviewed the wreck of my living room, waving toward the suit on the couch. “What died?”

“A raccoon. I had to go to a Junior League party last night with Daffy, Trude, and Charlotte.”

“Hey, maybe those society girls are a lot more interesting than I gave them credit for, what with animal sacrifices, New Age hairdos, and gingham togas.”

“Very funny.” I rolled my eyes. “The corpse on the couch is part of Daffy’s million-dollar designer suit that Char got a bit too friendly with.”

Bettina scooped it up. “I’ve got a tailor who can do wonders. I’ll make it right.”

“Thank you. I owe you.”

“What you owe me for is not taking a blackmail photo of you right now, girlfriend.” She chuckled. “Wouldn’t Scythe pay the big bucks to see you this way!”

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned. I had enough trouble getting him to take me seriously.

“Nah, I like you owing me. I’ll take this over at my lunch hour.” With a wave, she vanished into the salon.

In the shower, I shampooed my hair fourteen times to clear it of the hairspray, then re-created my Meg Ryan messy with a sigh of relief. I’d tried for years to cover up my freckles, and at thirty gave up. Now I just wore the minimum of makeup. I dabbed on transparent foundation that I used just for the sunscreen value, and mascara, a must, because God shorted me on eyelashes. If you want proof that life is not fair, just look at my brothers, Dallas and Chevy. Their lashes are so long they brush their eyebrows. Grown women swoon when those boys blink. Without mascara, no one could tell if I blinked. They got the thick, black, naturally curly hair, too, the bastards. My sisters and I got the fine, straight, dirty-blond hair. I find being naturally blond terribly boring, so I dye it various colors. Right now I was going conservative.

I gave the girls their breakfast and let myself into the salon through the kitchen. A couple of the stylists who work with me were already on the brush. Enrique was rolling a blue-hair’s perm. Cameron was doing her weekly style on a local newscaster. Uh-oh. I’d forgotten Amethyst Andrews came in on Mondays. I tried to slink by. Too late.

“Reyn?” That fakey newscaster voice always sounded wrong coming out of anything but a TV. The bobbed brunette with the Pan-Cake makeup spread her rose-red lips in a semblance of a smile. “Reyn Mar-ten Sawyer. I need to talk to you.”

I’d refused to turn on the television or radio this morning because I really didn’t want to hear my name associated with another murder. Being mixed up in Ricardo’s was bad enough, although, ironically, it did increase my business. Life’s warped.

“How are you, Amethyst?” I’d found in my brief dealings with the on-air talent that shifting the focus back on them was sometimes an effective distraction technique.

“Fabulous! Thanksforasking! Ratingsareup, you know.”

She talked that way, running four and five words together to sound like one. I don’t think she ever took a breath.

“We are now number one at six. Our consultant says it’s the new set and our new investigative segment that he recommended but I think it’s that viewers are tuning in to see the rapport between me and Mark. We’ve developed a trust with the viewership and something strong like that takes time to develop, longer than one rating period. Don’t you agree?” I would’ve liked to see Amethyst in a conversation with Charlotte. They’d probably talk right over one another like my mother’s sisters.

“Oh, yes.” I nodded sagely. “Without a doubt.”

Bettina stuck her head around the corner and called down the hall, “Your eight o’clock is in the chair, Reyn.”

That wo-man was getting a raise.

“Oops, gotta go, Amethyst. Talk to you later.”

Poor Amethyst’s face clouded as she realized that her ego had eaten up her opportunity to get the scoop on Wilma’s murder. “Can I call you later, Reyn?”

“Anytime.”
Call all you want, I won’t answer.

Jessica Szabo sat in my chair studying a chemistry textbook. She was a hardworking, hard-partying college student who was going to make a great physician someday. She’d been accepted into medical school and was just trying to tie up her hours as an undergrad. Jess always asked for the style worn by the girlfriend of her favorite member of the group Limp Bizkit. Since he always had a different girlfriend, we were always changing her hair. Today she presented a photo from the Internet—I recognized the color as RubyRedSlipper and the cut as a graduated buzz. There was no use trying to talk Jess out of it. I’d tried that before. Instead, I got to work mixing the color.

“What did the on-air-head want?”

I smiled at her pun and whispered back, “I never let her get to it, but I’m guessing she wanted to ask me about Wilma Barrister’s murder.”

“Probably.”

“Was my name mentioned in the news this morning?”

She nodded. “They had a view of this grim-looking house and a Terrell Hills cop car out front. They just said she’d croaked, likely from a gunshot wound, and that you were a friend of the family and among those brought in for questioning.”

Hmm. Could’ve been worse and could’ve been better. I didn’t know whether to thank Scythe for masking the arrest or holler at him for getting my name involved. Oh, well, I guessed I’d gotten myself involved, so I couldn’t expect miracles.

I was thankful Jess was my appointment this morning. She was not a gossip, too busy with her own life to want to dig around in other people’s, unlike most of my clients. I worked in silence while she went over chemical formulas. As I began to rinse out her color, she asked, “How’s Alexandra holding up?”

“You know Lexa?”

“Vaguely.” Jess shrugged. “She was three years ahead of me at Alamo Heights. I hadn’t seen her in years, and met up with her backstage at a Limp Bizkit concert a few months ago. We talked for a few minutes.”

“Was she there with a bunch of scuzzbags?”

“No, she was there by herself.”

“She went by herself to a concert?” It sounded odd.

“Well, she wasn’t there for Bizkit. She said she was there for one of the bands that opened for them. She was pretty cozy with the bassist, little skinny guy—real polite, though, with old-world manners you usually don’t find at one of those things, believe me.”

Lexa had done a lot of things to bother her mother, like hang with creeps and listen to headbanger music, but I’d never known her to date any of the pals she picked up. Frankly, I think the idea scared her, like getting romantically involved would be getting in over her head. My heart was pounding at the possibility of another break in the case. One minute I’d had no suspects; now I had at least three. I swallowed and tried to resist hyperventilating. “So they were going out, you think? Lexa and this guy.”

“The vibes were definitely there.”

“Do you remember his name? Or the name of his band?”

She shook her head, and I nearly drowned her with the spray nozzle I’d forgotten to move away from her rotating head. After we’d dried her off, she continued, “I don’t think she ever said his name. And the name of the band escapes me, too. I’m sorry, when I’m around my man I just lose my mind. The name of her boyfriend’s band was something gruesome, though—had to do with death.”

Swell. I wanted to make sure it was the same guy the Carricaleses had seen. “Dark-haired, pale, thin guy in all black?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Well, that was definitive. I gave her a thumbnail sketch of Lexa’s general mental state and she only half-listened, with one eye on her book. After I’d shaved her temples one last time and was sweeping her newly red hair off the floor, Jess turned to me as she shinnied into her ripped jean jacket and said, “Oh, yeah, I remember that the band was a regular at Bangers, a club on Sixth Street in Austin.”

Now, with that, I could go somewhere. Bangers, here I come. But first, a makeover from a potential murderess.