The Brush Off (27 page)

I sucked in a deep breath and went for the details. “Took care of him?”

“Yes.” She was obviously proud of herself. “A, uh, friend, recommended that it might be a nice gesture to thank the paramedic with a monetary gift. Kind of like a tip.”

“A tip.”

“Well, maybe more than a tip, it was fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand dollars?”
I blurted, trying not to choke to death on my tongue.

“Oh, please don’t print that. You don’t think the man will get in trouble for accepting it, do you?”

“Not now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not after all this time.”

“Oh, good.”

“You don’t happen to remember his name, do you?”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know that? It doesn’t seem like something you’d put in the article.”

“I might want to find him and talk to him,” I clarified by the seat of my pants. “For the article.”

“My husband said we shouldn’t have anything else to do with him.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“What does your husband have to do with it?”

She realized her mistake too late. “He, uh, was the friend I was talking about. Mike helped me through that difficult time so well, that’s how we became so close and fell in love. Living through a hardship will do that, you know. Look at the movie
Titanic.”

Yeah, murdering your husband so you could marry your “friend” was real hardship, all right. This was the scenario beginning to form in my mind. I seriously doubted that Mike encouraged his “friend” Sarah to gift Ricardo with such a large sum out of the goodness of his heart. Ricardo knew something and promised to keep it a secret with a sudden influx of cash that he turned into an empire. It took me a moment to come to grips with the fact that my longtime mentor could be so calculating and amoral, but I’d always known Ricardo to be opportunistic. I just didn’t know it was to this degree.

A deadly degree, apparently.

Sarah was watching me suspiciously.

“Oh,
Titanic,
I just love that movie,” I lied. The guardedness in her face cleared somewhat, and she picked up the movie and went on about it ad nauseam.

I nodded at times I hoped were appropriate and thought more about what her revelations meant. My instincts told me Sarah was in the dark about any murder. Yeah, she married the old codger for money and might have been doing a “friend” for fun, but I thought Mike was behind any nefarious dealings. To give Mike the benefit of the doubt, I could say that maybe he and Sarah were just caught fooling around by Ricardo, and that’s what the hush money was for. But $50,000 was a lot of money in the eighties (heck, I thought it was a lot of money now), and why would Ricardo be dead twenty-five years later if the secret he was protecting wasn’t against any law but a biblical one?

The political race and the apparent coincidence that Van Dyke chose to run against Villita’s (Ricardo’s) son bugged me.

I looked at Cinderella on my wrist and exclaimed at the time. “I guess we’d better get back to the original reason for my visit.”

Sarah nodded, only slightly disappointed to be derailed from describing Leonardo di Caprio.

“Does anyone know your husband plans to run for office?”

“I don’t see what this has to do with—”

I held up a hand. “I just need to know how big a revelation this will be. The bigger the story, the better placement in the magazine.”

“Oh, of course,” Sarah agreed. “The only person who knows is the chairman of the county’s Republican Party.”

Whose wife is the friend of the friend of Mama Tru’s. The friend who gets her hair done by Ricardo and must have told Ricardo that Van Dyke planned to run against Jon Villita. What did Ricardo do with that information?

“It’ll be a big surprise, then.”

“Oh, yes!” she breathed.

“Señora!?” A maid called out to us from one of the thousand glass doors along the back side of the house.

“What is it? Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t to be disturbed?”

The maid looked secretly pleased to have pissed on her patron’s parade. She hid it well, though. “But, Señora, there is someone at the gate who says she is a reporter.”

Uh-oh.

Sarah looked at me and blinked. The liar in me kicked in just in time. “Maybe the media’s found out about Mike’s run. Do you think?”

“It certainly is possible.” She was already calculating the degree of attention the media would be paying her. She was bursting with excitement and hid it poorly with a big sigh. “I suppose we’re about to be mobbed with cameras and reporters and live TV vans. I must go and deal with this. Why don’t you go down and talk to my husband, and I will join you as soon as I can?”

“Good idea.”

“I can get Isadora”—she waved toward the maid—

“to take you down there.”

“No, no need to take her from her work. I can find the tennis courts.” The hell I would. I was out of there. I had a feeling Mike Van Dyke knew exactly who I was and might make it a mission to see I never got out of there.

Sarah hustled off in her pencil-heeled sandals, and I looked for a way back to the driveway that would keep me hidden until she and the reporter got out of sight. I was picking my way through a patch of tropical bushes when a man with a machete jumped out from behind a hibiscus.

“Ack!” I screamed as my heinie got friendly with the pointed end of a bird-of-paradise leaf.

“I’m sorry.” The gardener I’d waved at earlier put down the machete and helped me out of the bird-of-paradise.

His face was weathered from being out in the sun for years, but it was warm and inviting.

“No, I should say I’m sorry, because I think I startled you earlier.”

“Oh, you did. We don’t get many folks up here who pay us any mind. Sometimes I go home wondering if I’m invisible.”

I shook my head. “Worked for the Van Dykes long?”

“Nearly thirty years. Mr. Johnstone was first class. Van Dyke, now, he’s been a Stalin since he moved from the cabana into the big house.”

“What do you mean?”

“He worked here, was one of my assistants.”

“He was? I heard Mr. Johnstone liked to use plants from his garden in his menus. Did Van Dyke happen to help compile the mixings for those gourmet desserts?”

The gardener wrinkled his already wrinkled brow. “You know, he did. He actually talked Mr. Johnstone into it.”

“Geranium isn’t poisonous, is it?”

“No, ma’am.” He warmed quickly to the subject of the garden. “You know, the only plant we had that was poisonous on the place back then was oleander. Another one of Mike’s projects. He talked Mr. Johnstone into planting a whole row of it along the back fence. Pretty blooms in the spring, but I’m not terribly fond of it myself. I’ve got grandkids. I know the sap of the leaves is bitter, and they wouldn’t eat much of it, but you don’t like to take chances with that kind of thing.”

“No, sir,” I agreed as my heart pounded in my chest.

“So the sap’s bitter, kind of like rotten lemons?”

“Yes, ma’am, just like that, but it would take more than a bite to kill you, and they say that the taste of the cardenolide glycoside toxin would stop anyone with sense, but…”He shrugged.

“Better safe than sorry,” I offered. He nodded. I held out my hand and thanked him for saving me from my leaf stabbing. He retrieved his machete and went back to work. I turned and had made my way through the grounds and almost to my truck, when I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. I knew without looking that I should hurry.

“You!”

It was the same greeting I got from Short, Hairy, and Menacing, but I didn’t think Van Dyke was going to be quite as nice as the Illusions manager had been. I ran, leaped across the massive porch, and made it to my truck just as the front door opened. Sarah and the real reporter walked onto the porch. Mike Van Dyke collided with the reporter as I zoomed down the driveway, trying not to go up on two wheels as I skidded around the ridiculous hairpin turns.

As soon as I was out of the gate, I dialed my cell phone. I blew out a breath and started to think about how far I’d misjudged Ricardo’s character. I didn’t have long to come to grips with it, since Gerald answered on the second ring. “Hi, Boss.”

“Don’t call me that, Gerald.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, resigned. “I knew you’d want someone else for the job eventually.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” I rolled my eyes skyward. “I mean, just don’t call me Boss. I can barely boss myself, much less anyone else.”

“Are you all right, Reyn?”

“I’m great. I just need some information from you about Ricardo. It goes back a ways.”

“I’ve got everything computerized, and here I sit. So go ahead and ask.”

“Can you find out how much money Ricardo used to set up his first salon?”

“Hold on,” Gerald said. I heard the computer keys tapping. “He set up an account in the Ricardo’s, Inc., name in 1979 with fifty thousand dollars.”

“Cash?”

“I don’t know, Reyn, that detail isn’t in here. But, you know, that would be a lot of cash for someone to have on hand. Unless an investor gave it to him that way, which would be a little fishy. I have to dig through some file boxes, but I’ll check for you. By the way, when you were at my house, do you remember seeing a set of keys to Ricardo’s house lying around anywhere?”

“Uh-oh, Gerald, you’re breaking up. I’ll call you back when I have a better signal.” I hung up. I kept an eye on the rearview mirror as I took an unusual route home. Celine Villita had threatened me, I was being followed, and Mike Van Dyke looked like he’d wanted to get his hands on me, and not for an autograph. For the first time since I’d started my crusade, I felt I was in too deep with no way out. That’s when I swallowed my pride and dialed a number I thought I’d never call.

T
HE CELL PHONE NUMBER SENT ME TO THE VOICE
mailbox. I dialed the office number.

“Scythe’s desk.” I’d know that gum smack anywhere.

“Crandall here.”

I greeted Crandall. “Scythe’s not around?”

“No, Sherlock, he’s not. What can I do for you?”

“He wasn’t by chance following me earlier, was he?”

“He has better things to do than babysit you, Sherlock.”

“Hey, Crandall, I’ve got a copy of the limited edition of Cher’s smash hits if you tell me where Scythe is.”

The long pause told me he was tempted. Finally, he smacked his gum. “No can do, Sherlock. You’ll have to wait to jump his bones.”

“That’s not what this is about!”

“Sure, then tell me what it’s about.”

I knew I should go ahead and lay out all I’d learned that morning to Crandall. After all, a cop was a cop. It wasn’t as if Scythe took me so seriously, but Crandall took me less so.

“Come on, you’re burning daylight,” he said.

I went through the autopsy result and being followed, my visit to the Van Dykes’ house. I told him I’d narrowed it down to Villita (rather, a hired hit man) or Van Dyke. He listened until I finished, then he laughed.

“You’re telling me you think a U.S. senator killed the Salon King to keep him from ratting out about whose DNA the kid carries because the son’s running for office and that might damage his campaign?”

“Or…it was Van Dyke,” I began.

“The lawnmower-turned-million-dollar-check-casher killed the Salon King to protect a secret that might be (a) that he and the wife were playing hide the salami decades ago or, worse, (b) that he killed the wife’s husband to get the moolah. Or both. The Salon King took money to keep his trap shut a long time ago but was about to renege on the deal. We don’t know why, but it could be because the rich ex-weed-puller is about to take on the Salon King’s secret son in said political race.”

“Right, sort of.” His sarcastic delivery made it sound far-fetched.

“And we have zero evidence of all this.”

“Well, you could probably get Sarah Johnstone Van Dyke to admit on tape that she gave Ricardo that money.”

“I hate to tell you this, Sherlock, but monetary gifts aren’t against the law.”

“But—”

“Sorry to say.” He paused to smack his gum. “I’m not buying this, but
As the World Turns
might, unless they’ve already used it as episode 454. The fact is, I think you’ve listened to the gossip of one too many bored housewives. That and all those hair chemicals you snort every day obviously form a potent combination.”

“Except—”

“Here’s some advice. Let us do the investigating. You go back to cutting hair. I hear you gave yourself a new ’do. Why not try another one if you’ve got some extra creative energy on your hands? I’ll tell Scythe you called. Try to stay out of trouble, would ya?”

He hung up in my ear just as I’d opened my mouth for my counterattack. Sure, he’d tell Scythe. And why did Scythe tell him about my new hairstyle? I could just see the two of them yukking it up. Muttering to myself, I threw my phone onto the passenger seat and checked the rearview mirror as I turned into the salon parking lot. I couldn’t see any dark sedans. Still, I leaped out of the truck and hustled to the salon door, wincing as I passed the dent on the panel, wincing again when I passed the bubble-gum blue Miata.

With the weekend approaching, the salon was buzzing with activity. Every stylist had a customer. Daisy Dawn had one set of nails in her chair and two waiting. I had appointments booked until six o’clock. I figured I was safe from bloodthirsty killers until evening. I didn’t think whoever was after me wanted to take on handfuls of women in perm curlers, foiled chemicals, and wet acrylics.

Or Mario.

The hero in question was regaling the lobby with the harrowing version of his narrow escape from death and how he saved me from certain doom. When I walked in, he nearly killed me with a bear hug.

“Where have you been? We’ve been so worried.”

The two women in the love seat whom I didn’t know nodded, eyes wide. Sherlyn had her thousand-pound shoes kicked off and was reviewing her pedicure.

Strangers were terrified for me. Employees could care less. How heartwarming. I turned back to Mario. “I took the long way home to make sure I wasn’t being followed.”

“Oh. It seemed like forever. I was about to come looking for you again.”

Darn. Lost opportunity.

“Thanks anyway. I’m home now to stay.” I left him to finish his tale.

One of the women sighed. “I think you look just like George Clooney. You know, he was on Regis this morning.”

I paused a step. Who was the hero now?

All my appointments wanted to talk about Ricardo. If they hadn’t seen the snippets of the funeral on television, then they’d heard about it and thought I was brave. I wasn’t sure if the bravery was for wearing the fuchsia spandex in public or for my challenge to uncover his secrets. Maybe a little of both.

I was blowing dry my last appointment—a point-cut wedge I’d dyed a lovely shade of R-3—when the phone rang. I’d sent Sherlyn home already when the salon cleared out, and Mario had gone into my house to make himself a snack. Scythe had never called, and I was tempted just to let the damn thing go to the answering machine. In the ensuing hours since my chat with Crandall, I’d decided that I shouldn’t share my theory with Scythe after all. It did sound ridiculous. Mike Van Dyke probably recognized me from TV and newspapers and hadn’t wanted a rabble rouser poking around his precious tropical garden. The car following me was probably just a heavy for Villita, there to tell me to lay off the little woman so she didn’t cry and run her mascara. He was probably the same guy who’d broken into my house and was likely behind bars right now, caught by the cop who’d been tailing us.

“Transformations, more than meets the eye.”

Traffic noise blared into the phone. “Reyn? This is Mama Tru. Is Mario there?”

I sucked in a breath to answer, but she went on before I could. “My Trans Am is broken down here on Loop 410 and Nacogdoches and—”
Honk!

“Mama Tru?” I yelled.

“Asshole!” she screamed. “Not you, Reyn dear. I’m sorry.”

“Mama Tru, you just sit tight, you hear? I’m sending Mario to get you right now.”

“No, no. I know he has to protect you from getting killed—”
Zoom. Beep.

“It sounds like you’re in more danger of that than I am, Mama.” Mario walked down the hall, half a sandwich with what looked like olives and portabello mushrooms hanging out of his mouth. “He’s on his way.”

I filled Mario in and shoved him, protesting, out the salon door, down the steps, and into the Miata. “Trudy and I will be back in a little while,” he said out the window. “She’s probably almost done at her job. Once I get Mama taken care of—”

“Don’t worry about anything, Mario. Look.” I pointed at the front of the house, where I could see a marked police car. I waved at the officer, who looked bored out of his gourd. He waved back. “I’ve already got company.”

“Okay.” Mario didn’t look too sure, but he drove off anyway.

I headed back to the salon, turned off all the fans, lights, and one curling iron (I’d have to talk to Enrique about that tomorrow). I set the alarm and went into my house. I wondered with a tinge of pique how Scythe had made out that day. I’d bet anything he’d gone through the list I’d given him, probably found the likely suspect and put him behind bars already. I probably was off in soap opera land, and they’d have a good laugh over me. Meanwhile, I was still having trouble reconciling the friend I knew with the man I’d come to know with my digging. I guess Scythe was right when he told me to leave well enough alone. I hated that.

The girls were crying outside. I let them inside and almost immediately heard a distant boom. They ran to the right side of the house. I followed, and we saw a plume of smoke coming from down the street, out of sight.

“Geez, if it’s not one thing, it’s forty,” I muttered amid the barking. Then I realized I sounded just like my mother and gave myself a mental slap.

I hurried to the front window. The cop car was gone. I thought he might be on top of things, but just in case, I thought I ought to call 911. I picked up the phone. It was dead. Maybe someone had hit a telephone pole. Did they still use poles, or did they bury everything underground? I guess I should be more on top of advances in general technology instead of just in hairstyling tools.

Where was my cell phone?

I remembered throwing it onto the passenger seat. Maybe Scythe had tried to call me on it. I forgave him. Sort of.

I told the girls to stay—which I doubt they heard, they were baying so loudly—then, grabbing the keys out of my purse, I went out the kitchen door. I retrieved the phone, saw I’d missed four calls, and entered my voice mailbox. Another boom echoed from down the street. I walked around the house to see if I could discern more before I called 911. Plus, I was selfish enough to want to hear my messages first. Scythe was the first call. “I don’t know where you are, but get home so I can get a guy on you. I’ll be there to talk to you as soon as I can.”

Hmm.
Sounded like he might be taking me seriously after all.

Or just wanted me to stay out of his way. A more likely scenario.

I’d reached the front porch, when I looked up and caught sight of a pair of male legs behind the gardenia bush next to the steps.

“Well, well, what took you so long?” I asked, hanging up the phone.

“I had to wait until everyone left, stupid bitch. I’ve been out here all afternoon.”

I was just registering the fact that this wasn’t Scythe’s baritone—it wasn’t a baritone at all but a weedy tenor—when he leaped forward and put a vise grip on my upper arm. If I hadn’t been so busy assuming it was my friendly nemesis, the too-tan legs with knees too knobby to be Scythe’s (remember, I’d felt those knees) would’ve been a dead giveaway. Bad play on words, I thought, since dead is probably just how this guy wanted me. The girls were going nuts inside, banging their noses against the window. I heard sirens down the street. Oh, if only one of the police cars or fire engines passed by my house, maybe I could get someone’s attention. I struggled, kicking out and bucking with my body. He knocked the car keys and cell phone out of my hand; they both skidded across the porch and off into the flower bed. He wrapped his arms around me, and I saw he was wearing tennis whites and snowy Reboks.

Uh-oh.
Maybe I shook the Van Dykes’ tree a little too hard.

“Damn, damn, damn.”

“Shut up,” he hissed, slapping a piece of duct tape over my mouth. Shoot, he’d taken away my best weapon.

Some petunias started singing the
William Tell
Overture. Now I could tell where my phone was, if I could just get this cretin off me. I kicked him in the crotch, and his grip loosened for an instant. I dove for the petunias, hanging my torso off the end of the porch. He grabbed my feet and sat on them. I searched the flowers, beheading them with abandon. The phone, with my superior luck, had stopped ringing. I felt eyes on me and looked deeper into the bushes to Rick and Laurel’s white cat, Merlin. I wondered why she wasn’t heading for the hills with all this noise, and then I remembered she was deaf. I was trying to send her a Dr. Doolittle message to run for help, when my fingers touched something metal, small, and cylindrical. Not the phone. I lifted it up and saw the can of pepper spray that I’d lost out of my purse when Jolie ran into me the morning Ricardo died.

Van Dyke was dragging me toward the front door. I drew my hands up at my chest to hide the can. We’d reached the front door, with me still facedown on the porch. I could feel him grab the back of my shirt, lifting me up. His arm was wrapped around my waist; his other hand reached up to grab my hands. I shoved them down. Up. Down.

“This isn’t a Laurel and Hardy movie.” He swore and grabbed my hair instead and pulled hard.
Ouch.

“Open the door,” he ordered. I don’t know what he’d planned to do about the dogs that were ready to rip him limb from limb, but that wasn’t my problem. He wouldn’t get that far. I put my finger on the trigger of the pepper spray and twisted the doorknob with my other hand, opening the door just as I aimed behind me and sprayed.

“Aaaaaa!” Van Dyke let me go and fell back as I slipped through the door, shut it, and threw the dead bolt.

The girls were drowning me in dog spit. I ripped the duct tape off my face, taking some skin with it. Worse than ouch. I don’t know which of us was swearing more, me or Van Dyke. I peeked. He was writhing on the edge of the porch, trying to get his skinny tanned legs back under him, tears streaming down the right side of his face. It looked like I’d only gotten him in one eye.

Where was Scythe when you needed him?

I heard the
William Tell
Overture outside again. Damn.

I wondered if I could make it to the back of the house and jump into my truck before he got to me. The keys! They were in the petunias, too. Where was that extra set I had? Why wasn’t I more organized?