The Brush Off (8 page)

“What is it you need done, Ms. Huyn?” I’d already calculated the time it would take me to wash, trim, and blow-dry her simple cut at thirty minutes.

“I need a style only,” she answered. “But an intricate one. I need it today, by three
P
.
M
. My stylist died without warning, and now I have no one to do my hair.”

Who besides Dr. Kevorkian’s patients have warning of their impending death? I know fatally ill people know to expect it, but certainly not the day, definitely not the hour. Besides, it wasn’t like Ricardo was ill; he was murdered! Because I couldn’t read her emotions very well, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps no one had told her.

“Ricardo was your stylist?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Educated guess. He was murdered this morning.”

“Inconvenient,” she acknowledged in a mildly irritated tone.

“Yeah, especially for Ricardo,” I couldn’t help saying as I carefully watched her inscrutable face. If Bettina was one of the select clients, she was a suspect—in my book, at least.

Sherlyn’s clomps forewarned her return to her post. She and Bettina Huyn glared at each other as Sherlyn flopped into the chair at her scarred, 1850s mahogany desk. I made two mental notes to talk to Sherlyn about her dress, or rather lack thereof, and about her altercation with Bettina, even though she was indeed proving to be less of a lady by the moment.

“So?” Bettina asked, her brutally plucked bird’s-wing eyebrows rising no more than a millimeter.

I couldn’t resist the chance to interrogate, even if it meant I’d miss lunch—leftover taco salad, to be exact. For someone who loves food (especially jalapeños) as much as I do, that’s one big sacrifice.

“I’ll work you in after my henna.” I paused to watch Bettina shoot a triumphant look at Sherlyn. So she wasn’t so centered that she was above flaunting her success at getting an appointment. Interesting. Sherlyn, for her part, proved more mature than I’d have expected. Instead of sticking out her tongue, she pretended not to notice Bettina’s arched brows, dropping her eyes to study a peeling nude on her thumbnail. I did note, however, her lower lip puffed out in a pout.

I spoke to Bettina before Sherlyn could open that mouth of hers. “Come on back and put on a smock while I rinse out a color.”

After the henna had departed (out the back door, preferring to brave the dogs rather than risking another conversation with Sherlyn), Bettina Huyn sat and pulled a photo out from under her smock, leaving me to wonder where she’d been keeping it. Gingerly, I took it from her upstretched hand.

It showed the most striking woman I’d ever seen, overtly sensual even through the two-dimensional print. Her makeup was dramatic, a perfect complement for the figure-hugging gold, silver, and bronze spandex sequined dress she wore, the entire package framed by her mountain of cascading blue-black curls in an erotic style that left me in awe of the hours of work put into it, as well as its knockout effect. Madonna and Cher stood behind the woman, who was the focus of the photo.

I smiled as I handed it back. “Incredible.”

“That’s it,” Bettina said, waving her hand at the photo in my hand. “That’s the magic Ricardo made for me.”

“This woman must be a star,” I mused, considering the company. “He gave you her style?”

“That is me,” she said with a smile that held secrets.

I did a double take then, seeing some similarity in the bone structure but none of the smoldering sensuality in the print that was very nearly smoking in my hand, not to mention none of the curves, decidedly missing from the woman in front of me. Maybe Ricardo was more talented with a brush than I’d thought. Bettina looked more Voguey vamp than his usual Pekinese.

“This is
you?
”

“Yes,” she answered, rose lips spreading in a full-blown smile. “A tuck here and some padding there can do wonders.”

Where she’d expertly padded prior to the photo was obvious, but I wondered what she’d need tucked. But that wasn’t my problem; the two hours it would take to do her hair was. I needed to get busy if I hoped to nose around in Ricardo’s life that afternoon.

“And you know Cher and Madonna?” Wow, I was getting kind of excited about the possibility of having a star-connected client.
People
magazine would be calling any day now.

“No.”

I looked again at the photo. They were pretty chummy, maybe not best friends, but certainly they’d been introduced before the flash. Bettina let me entertain a few more fame-and-fortune fantasies before she burst my bubble.

“I perform at Illusions,” Bettina answered as my mouth dropped open.

“I see you know it.” Bettina laughed at least three octaves lower than she talked. Of course, that didn’t shock me as much as it might have before she’d mentioned her work at the city’s infamous drag queen club. A couple of boneheads on the city council had fought a well-publicized battle to close it down as “injurious” to the city’s reputation as a family tourist destination. All the hoopla had succeeded in doing was to make tourists aware of something that was, up until then, an underground transvestite club. From what I’d heard thanks to the publicity, they were packing it in. RuPaul had nothing on the performers at this northeast hot spot. I sneaked a more pointed peek at Bettina-whose-name-was-probably-Bert to try to see what I’d missed, but I couldn’t find anything masculine except perhaps in his/her hands. No matter how smooth, buffed, and nailenhanced, it was nearly impossible to turn a man’s hands into a woman’s. To think I was envying her for being so centered. She was centered, all right, straddling both sexes, so to speak.

I didn’t
want
to be that centered, thank you. Good thing I’d been so blasphemous earlier, or God might have been listening to my wishing. Yikes.

After one more glance at the photo in which I tried to hide my continued amazement, I passed it back to her and watched it disappear into an undergarment beneath a fold on her dress. I couldn’t help wondering if it was Hanes Her Way or His Way under there. Suddenly, my hand that had held the photo itched to be washed. I led Bettina to my wash basin, wishing the shampoo was antibacterial.

“Did Ricardo know about your, um…” I paused, searching for the politically correct term. “Career?”

“It’s not a career,” she corrected, and I expected her to brush it off as merely a job. Wrong again. Her lofty tone should’ve been a tipoff. “It’s a divine
calling
.”

“I’m glad you
heard
the ding-a-ling,” I said impatiently, coloring as I heard my unintentional play on words. I rushed to cover the silence. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“I can’t see what Ricardo knew or didn’t know, did or didn’t do, is any of your business.” Scythe had nothing on Bettina-Bert when it came to a poker face.

Refusing to be stonewalled by a wannabe woman who wore a fake brick house, I pulled her head back into the sink, poising the spray nozzle over her carefully made-up face, my finger on the trigger.

“Listen to me. You better answer or else.”

“S
TOP
!”

I turned toward the hysterical soprano voice, although it was entirely too familiar to me and not especially welcome at the moment. Trudy had an incredibly keen sense of timing, warned divinely to pay me a visit before I cemented my trip south after death. Trudy insists God still writes my misdeeds in pencil. I’m not so sure, and if he does, he goes through a lot of erasers. It’s great having such an optimistic friend, nevertheless.

Trudy, resplendent in a sleeveless fuchsia, lime, turquoise, and lemon floral rayon dress that ended with a ruffle at mid-thigh, looked no worse for wear after her morning over-the-phone faint, except for her menacing frown.

“What are you doing now?” she demanded, more exasperated than angry as she looked from Bettina to me to the spray nozzle in my hand. “This is not the best time to be threatening your customers, especially since you’re a murder suspect.”

“Murder suspect!” Bettina’s voice began alto and dropped to tenor. Trudy cocked her head to one side to study Bettina as Bettina studied me with decidedly more respect. Hey, maybe this bad rep would be worth something after all.

“Well, I wouldn’t really call myself a suspect,” I began mildly, moving my trigger finger on the nozzle and feeling a shot of juvenile satisfaction when Bettina jumped.

“Why not?” Trudy said. “The TV is.”

“The TV is what?”

“Calling you a suspect. Not by name, but everybody’s going to know it’s you. I was watching the noon news with that stylish Amethyst Andrews. I just love her. Guess what she had on today?”

I glared. Unfazed, she looked to Bettina for encouragement and got it.

“She is
tres chic
. I never miss the news to see what she’s wearing. Except today.” Bettina shot me a look out of the corner of her eye as if it were
my
fault she had missed seeing the insipid broadcaster’s fashion of the day. So much for my bad rep intimidating her.

“Well, maybe everyone will be so dazzled by Amethyst’s couture that they won’t remember I’m accused of killing a man,” I offered facetiously.

“Maybe.” Trudy nodded thoughtfully. “It was the most gorgeous dove-gray suit with a raw silk shell of baby pink and this scarf that—”

As Bettina oohed and aahed, I cleared my throat and brandished my water nozzle weapon. “Before I rack up another victim, maybe you’d better tell me what I’m accused of doing to the first one and why.”

They blinked at me as if I were a dense child. “You don’t need to get testy, Reyn,” Trudy huffed. “They showed some footage of Ricardo’s Broadway shop draped in all that awful yellow crime-scene tape. The reporter—I think it was that Phil Wimplepool—”

“The one with those hideous bow ties,” Bettina interjected before I moved the nozzle closer and he/she shut up.

Trudy nodded and leaned in to Bettina. Clearly, I was extraneous at this point. “He had the worst of his collection on today. Would you believe pond-scum green with chartreuse polka dots?”

Bettina groaned. I think I growled.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Reyn. Wimplepool said while police refused to say how he was killed, the case had been classified a homicide. He described Ricardo as renowned for building a beauty salon empire in the city, but a man whose past remained shrouded in mystery and who had no known relatives. Investigators were interviewing his employees, and then he said detectives had brought another salon owner and former employee in for questioning.”

“Questioning?” I squawked, getting angrier with Scythe by the moment. “That
obnoxious
detective
asked
me to come down to
identify
Ricardo. I went willingly, as a favor to them.”

“I’m sure that’s true, Reyn,” Trudy said dismissively, “but that’s not what was said across the airwaves to hundreds of thousands of people. Of course, that was before it hit CNN, so I guess now we could say millions. Anyway, whatever Wimplepool said doesn’t matter. The video they ran showed you coming out the front doors, looking pretty shook up and kinda green. Did you throw up?”

Okay, I am internationally accused of murder, and my best friend only wants to know if I threw up when I saw the dead body. No, no sympathetic pats on the shoulder for me, no heartfelt hugs. Somehow, the fact that she expected me to lose my cookies pissed me off more than not being consoled. She wasn’t the only one today who thought I had a weak stomach.

“No, I did not throw up,” I answered with deliberate delivery. I sucked in a breath and tried to lighten the moment. “Don’t I get credit for my skin matching Wimplepool’s tie?”

Trudy folded her arms across her chest like I was the bad kid in class. I lost whatever remaining hold I had on my temper. “Come on, how should I have looked? Happy? Skipping down the steps humming a merry tune after seeing the bloody body of my friend and mentor?”

“You could’ve looked less like you were facing life behind bars,” Trudy advised.

“Gee, I’ll try to remember that the next time a friend of mine bites it.”

“Despite all that, it wouldn’t have looked quite so bad for you if it weren’t for the next thing.”

“It gets
worse?”

“Reporters caught an impossibly sexy detective leaving.” Trudy paused, distracted momentarily by her memory of Scythe. “He wasn’t classically handsome, you know. His features were a little too hard—his nose too Roman, his facial lines too deep, his eyes just too probing. But he was just so
male
. He positively radiated testosterone. It came right through the TV screen like raw heat. He’s a bit dangerous, I would say.”

I let her mind wander off into whatever fantasy she’d concocted. I couldn’t blame her, considering whom she was married to. But suddenly, her eyes lost their faraway look, and she resumed her story. “The reporters asked him if you had anything to do with Ricardo’s murder. He just looked at the camera like the cat who swallowed the canary and then said, in this toe-curling voice”—Trudy dropped her own to mimic Scythe—“ ‘No comment.’ Have you already pissed off the police, Reyn?”

Trudy said it like it was an expected activity—that’s me, always barfing and pissing people off. I bit the inside of my cheek and counted to ten before I answered. “What if the police pissed
me
off?”

“You’re too sensitive,” Trudy pointed out self-righteously. I would’ve thrown my hands up in the air, but that would’ve meant relinquishing my weapon, so I contented myself with tapping my left boot on the floor to a ten count.

Never one to let silence drag on longer than a full minute, Trudy finally broke it. “The TV never said how Ricardo died.”

“I’m sure the
TV
doesn’t know,” I answered snootily. I’m a stickler for grammar, but the real motivation for my deflection was also that I didn’t want to tell her in the presence of Bettina and all the other ears in the salon.

“Smarty pants,” Trudy mumbled, but blessedly got the message. “Another thing I was wondering was why the place was crawling with city cops when I thought the salon was in Alamo Heights.”

“Ricardo built that salon just outside the Alamo Heights city limits because he wanted to be in a school district that needed the revenue. He wanted to help kids who weren’t spoiled and didn’t live in half-million-dollar homes.” I hadn’t thought about that in years, but it had struck me odd at the time, because Ricardo was never one even to notice children, much less have a soft spot for them.

Bettina watched me closely. “You sure know a lot about Ricardo’s business.”

“Not as much as I want to know.” I pressed down on the trigger, letting a little water trickle onto his/her left cheek.

“Please don’t!” Panic shined in her obsidian eyes. “It takes me an hour and a half to get this makeup right.”

“Hon, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Trudy interjected, “with skin that beautiful, you don’t look like you
need
any makeup.”

“You’d be surprised,” I muttered snidely.

Bettina managed to glare at me and flash a radiant smile at Trudy in practically the same instant. I was impressed. He/she might have the woman thing down after all, I realized, as Bettina demurred prettily. “I have to be at work by four.”

I trickled water down her other cheek. Bettina’s newest best friend put her hand on my forearm. “Have a heart, Reyn.”

“I have no heart.” I sneered, increasing the water flow. “Only a burning desire to clear my name and avenge my mentor.”

Bettina bought my sorry Clint Eastwood imitation. “Okay, okay. You can come to work with me. We’ll ask around about what the other girls know about Ricardo. Some of them knew him better than I did. He only did my hair.”

Wow. What did he do with the other “girls,” then?
I wondered.

“Great!” Trudy trilled. “Where’s work? Where are we going?”

I smiled my own cat-who-got-the-canary smile. “You’ll see.”

While Bettina, her head sporting ten pounds of curlers, sat under the dryer reading Dr. Laura’s
The Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives,
Trudy and I made a list of motives Ricardo may have given someone to murder him. I don’t recommend this activity unless it’s absolutely necessary, because it inevitably leads to introspection, and you’re left pondering the reasons your friends and enemies have to murder
you
. I could concoct a long list without much thought. It leaves one feeling especially vulnerable.

“It’s well known Ricardo was a ladies’ man,” Trudy began, dipping her hand into the bottomless bag of trail mix I kept at my desk and munching thoughtfully. “Maybe it was a jealous husband.”

“Or a jealous lover.”

After pausing for a second with a cashew half past her lips, Trudy finally popped it in, chewed, and shook her head. “No, I don’t see that. Ricardo had a way of charming women no matter how mad they might be. It must’ve been a pheromone thing. Remember the time you told me about that high-society babe who came in to get her hair done for her daughter’s wedding, and Ricardo turned her hair pink? He couldn’t fix it, so he convinced her it was the “in” thing. As soon as she was out the door, he was calling the florist to make sure all the arrangements matched her hair, the photographer to make sure he had lights to play down the pink and the society columnist to ensure a positive spin on the press coverage.”

“I remember.” Ricardo’s secret of success, which he shared with me, was creating a labyrinth of favors owed him, carefully culled from select members in all facets of society and business. He knew gangbangers from the barrio and the head of the richest telecommunications company in the country. The key, though, according to Ricardo, was to make sure never to stay in the red too long when it came to favors, because the longer they remained unpaid, the bigger the payback.

Maybe he’d forgotten a favor. I shivered at the thought of the payback being his life.

“Somehow, I don’t think it was a crime of passion,” I said, my train of thought leading me to a conclusion I couldn’t substantiate beyond intuition. “The scene didn’t feel chaotic. It felt cold.”

“Hey, you never told me how he died.” Trudy dropped her voice to a whisper.

I pushed away from my desk to check Bettina’s curls, partly because I needed to make sure no one was eavesdropping and partly just to bug Trudy. I’m petty that way. Bettina was reading chapter three (“Stupid Devotion”) of Dr. Laura’s book. I was afraid to ask, so instead I lifted the dryer helmet. A trace of dampness lingered. Five minutes, and the curls would be cooked. Trudy and I didn’t have long to finish hashing this out.

Passing my chair, I reached into a cabinet for a notepad a client gave me one year for Christmas. It was neon orange with “Hairdressers Do It with Style” written diagonally across the upper left corner—not exactly the most subtle investigative accessory, but it would have to do. Seeing the clutter behind the door, I felt my throat swell with the memory of Ricardo’s disapproval only twenty-four hours before. Funny how death puts criticism in a different light. He cared. I should have appreciated it more at the time.

Returning to my desk, I whispered in Trudy’s ear, “The murderer stabbed him in the back with the pick attached to a metal round brush.”

Shock paralyzed her for a moment, but as soon as I saw her open her mouth, I clamped my hand over it, muffling her exclamation. “Muz if da bursh ee burd firmyu lisnit?”

It would’ve been
Was it the brush he borrowed from you last night?
at ten thousand decibels had I not been a quick draw with my silencing hand. With a nod in answer, her eyes begged me to let her loose. Mine warned back to shut up. She nodded. I let my hand drop, wiping her spit and lipstick on my black synthetic tunic.

“Holy water and horny toads, this isn’t good,” she couldn’t help interjecting. Trudy is fond of stating the obvious. “Do you have an alibi?”

“Chardonnay, Beaujolais, and Cabernet will vouch for me,” I said, avoiding mention that the only human who could swear I was home in bed was now dead. Trudy looked close enough to turning me in to the police even without that choice bit of knowledge.