1 Depth of Field (7 page)

“Maybe on my computer.”

“Okay, we’ll take a look later.” He eyed me. “You don’t go there without my accompanying you. Got it?”

“What would it matter if you’re the only one with the key, sheriff?”

He was not amused with my sass, and I returned to my seat to continue looking through photos. Although I had physicals of virtually everyone in town—most indistinguishable among festival crowds—we found nothing significant, and I was disappointed I couldn’t be of more help.

“Well, it was a long shot,” Spencer assured me. “I still have some questioning to do and motives to establish.”

“Like who?”

“Thank you for your help.” I sighed, realizing he didn’t intend to share what he knew right now.

“You know, we could exchange information.” I waited, hoping he would take the bait.

“If there’s something you want to share…”

I folded my arms across my chest and sat back in my seat. “Oh no, buddy, this works both ways.”

Spencer stood up and stretched long arms over head. I became aware of him on a level that had little to do with him being a man and everything to do with him being a cop. I didn’t know him well enough to tease about his job. The weapon strapped to his side seemed larger than life at that moment and very threatening. His next words confirmed my trepidation.

“The difference is if I keep what I know from you, I’m doing my job. If you keep what you know from me, it’s obstruction of justice. Now, is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

I shivered but stiffened my spine and stood up. “No, sheriff. Have a nice day.”

As I started for the door, he called after me. I had reached the exit with my hand on the knob when he stopped me. “I apologize,” he said.

I glanced up at him, questioning.

“It’s wrong to encourage you one minute and use my badge to hold you off the next.”

The small sound I made was one of agreement, but I wasn’t ready to forgive him.

“It’s both unprofessional and, well, the actions of an ass. I don’t want to be that kind of man.”

I grinned at this admission. He was forgiven. “So long as you know.”

He smirked.

We agreed that Spencer would call me when he was ready to visit my shop together and that he would not keep me waiting long. I had to be satisfied with that much, but I made a decision then and there. Spencer needed to impress his boss, the mayor, since he was so new on the job. I had needs, too, and they included eating and paying my bills. He would get more than my help looking through photos. I would find out as much as I could about who killed Alvin Aston and put this matter to rest.

Chapter Seven

My investigation began in what I felt was the most logical place—the hair salon. Not only was Louisa’s shop right next door to mine. She and the two women who rented booths from her also worked long hours, sometimes late into the evening. The problem with this plan though was that Louisa did nothing that didn’t benefit her. She didn’t give anyone who she considered to be the little guy even an ounce of consideration. I had seen that for myself at the Hole when she dismissed me from the table she had occupied with her friends Susan and Pattie.

What I determined to do about this dilemma was to visit the salon on the pretext of needing to cover my roots. I believed it was a foolproof plan. Rather than call, I drove to Louisa’s and parked in her lot. The space allocated for customers outside the salon was triple that of what I had available at the photo studio. A neon sign was illuminated with Style With Louisa despite the sun having not descended yet in the sky. I stepped through the glass door and was immediately assaulted by the scent of chemicals and hair products. Louisa or perhaps one of her contract stylists had tried to minimize the impact of the chemicals by adding scented candles to the mix. I liked the scent of the lavender and frankincense, but it didn’t lessen the shock at all.

The salon consisted of three stations for styling hair, three industrial dryers, a massage chair with tub attached to the bottom for pedicures, and a sink for washes. Along the walls were racks holding hair products and nail polishes, and near the door, a simple counter behind which a receptionist spoke on the phone. When I stepped inside, she offered me a smile and waved me forward. I took a moment to adjust both to the scent and the explosion of lilac on the walls, the smocks the ladies wore, and the capes draped over the customers. Even the flowers in the vase on the reception counter’s edge were lilacs. I was surprised Louisa herself didn’t wear the color or that her hair wasn’t dyed in a shade of purple.

“Makayla?” the receptionist called after she hung up the phone.

I stepped forward, smiling. Over the last three months, it disconcerted me less and less when strangers knew my name. This woman was not the receptionist from the last time I had been inside the salon.

“Hello,” I said, “um…”

“I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “I’m—”

“I’ll take it from here.” Louisa swept over, blocking my view of the receptionist “What can I do for you, Makayla?”

Irritated at her rudeness, I swallowed and forced my smile to remain in place. With any luck, Louisa didn’t have Spencer’s knack for reading me, and she would believe my lie. “I was thinking I’d like to cover my roots and hoped you would have some time on your schedule.”

Her gaze skittered up toward my hair, and she frowned. Self-conscious, I raised a hand to it and fluffed the curls a bit. Having a simplistic style that came from being more interested in studying others, I didn’t have a solid routine. In fact, I colored my hair infrequently, so if my story depended on the two-inch roots for believability, well I was a shoe-in.

“How long were you planning on waiting?” Louisa snapped. “You can’t depend on the length and thickness for everything.”

“Thanks,” I said, choosing to take her words as a compliment that I had a good head of hair despite my neglect. She narrowed her eyes at me. I flashed a higher wattage grin.

“Hm, well, you’re kind of an emergency case from the look of it.” She ran fingers through my hair, tugging locks out to study them. “You need a trim!”

“Can you fit me in?” I asked hopefully. Now that I was here, I realized she might schedule me for two weeks from now, and how would that help the case?

“You’re in luck.” She spun on her heel and pointed to station three where one chair sat empty. “We just had a cancellation.”

I thanked her as I headed to the chair. Familiar faces and smiles greeted me as I made my way. Two of the ladies from Talia’s group sat beneath dryers, and Allie Kate occupied the chair next to mine. Her locks were being tamed by a curling iron while she sat shoulders hunched and fingers gripping the chair. When I raised my eyebrows in question, she offered a hesitant smile. “I’ve been burned one too many times.”

The stylist grunted.

“Not by you, sweetheart, of course,” Allie Kate rushed to say. “I’m not very good at doing my own hair, but I try my best. This was a special treat I had already set up.”

I wondered at her choice of phrasing. “What do you mean ‘already’?”

A fleeting glance toward Louisa. “I mean before Alvin passed.”

Allie Kate wanted to be considerate of Louisa’s feelings. Even I would have—not that I’m the insensitive type—but I mean Louisa had sobbed uncontrollably when she saw Alvin dead on my studio floor. Anyone who didn’t know before a couple days ago that she loved Alvin knew now. Recalling this, I wondered how I would ever broach the subject.

“I was so sorry to find…learn about his death,” I bumbled. Okay, I’m not as sensitive as I’d like to believe.

“Don’t be silly, Makayla. Call it what it was—murder.” Edna Butler stuck her head out from beneath the dryer. I was beginning to think all the elderly ladies of Briney Creek, and Ollie, weren’t human. How had she heard our conversation with the dryer blasting all around her head?

“Back under there,” Louisa ordered, and Edna ducked beneath the dryer’s cover. This time, I noticed she kept an ear pressed below the transparent dome and dismissed my suspicions in that area. Louisa strode away from the general vicinity to speak to the receptionist. I watched as she gave orders in a low voice with a terse expression on her face. The receptionist, whose name I hadn’t caught before Louisa interrupted us, appeared to brace against Louisa’s harsh tone of speech. Her attitude might be why the previous woman had left, that or Louisa had fired her. As the two continued to talk, I turned my attention back to the group of ladies nearer to me.

Allie Kate pressed a hand to her chest, and her eyes were full of unshed tears. The woman who looked to be in her mid-forties seemed genuinely sad, but not heartbroken like Louisa. “Everyone loved Alvin. He was my friend, and it’s a great loss.”

Her friend, she’d said. I recalled the picture Spencer and I had found earlier and wished I could get to the digital version sooner. I had manipulated the printout using my favorite software, but I didn’t recall how the original appeared. I desperately wanted to find out and complained in silence for having to wait on the authorities, Spencer in particular.

“Not everybody.” Edna cackled. “He liked the ladies though.”

My interest perked up as my stylist began pulling a comb through my hair. “I had heard something like that. I know how quickly things can go downhill when a woman opens her heart to the wrong man.”

“Did you fall in love with a cheater?” Edna asked.

“Edna!” Allie Kate chastised her.

“What?” Edna asked, wide-eyed. Once again the dryer had been forgotten. “Makayla is a beautiful woman, and there’s a little bit of an innocence to her. It stands to reason some snake in the grass tried to jump out at her.”

I laughed at the expression and warmed to the older woman. Her tone had remained conversational and not confrontational or bitter in any way. Her forthrightness was her nature, but the compliment showed she wasn’t unkind.

“Thank you, Edna, but I don’t have a lot of experience with cheaters.”

“With men?” she pushed.

“With
cheaters
,” I emphasized. Next thing you know I would be labeled as the thirty-four year old town virgin, and that just wasn’t the case. Yes, my relationships in the past had been few, but the few hadn’t ended because of unfaithfulness. Incompatibility more like. I sighed and thought about renewing my plan to set up an online dating profile. Then I recalled the murder. And Spencer. I would wait a little longer.

Edna reached across the narrow space that separated us and patted my hand. “Don’t worry, dear. You’ll find someone.”

“Edna Butler,” Louisa bellowed from across the room, “if you don’t stay under that dryer, I’m going to charge you twice because I’ll have to do your hair over again! You are not advertising my business looking like an old mop doll!”

“Well,” Edna exclaimed, but she ducked into the dryer. She folded her hands into her lap, lower lip poked out a bit, and cheeks hot pink. I felt sorry for the poor woman and annoyed at Louisa for being so hard on her. Surely there were other salons in town. I hadn’t explored far out of my own route. Louisa couldn’t possibly be servicing more than say five thousand or so women in town.

“It’s the way she carries herself,” Allie Kate said, “and her friends.”

I blinked. Had I spoken out loud?

Allie Kate grinned. She lowered her voice, but I was pretty sure her stylist and mine could still hear her. Neither woman seemed to care. Maybe they didn’t particularly like Louisa with the airs she put on.

“Her family was one of the founding families that started the town,” Allie Kate explained. “Hers and Susan’s. I guess you can say they’re like small town royalty.”

I studied Allie Kate’s face to see if she was joking. She wasn’t.

“Everyone sort of defers to them as upper crust. Louisa projects it more than anyone.”

“She owns a salon. Surely, that’s as common as a photographer.” I kept the mental comparisons to a minimum and refused to voice any further opinions on that.

“We take our original families seriously.”

“And Alvin?” I asked. “Was he royalty?”

“No,” she said, and I couldn’t tell what she thought of the question or his status. “But he was accepted like royalty.”

“Because he married Susan?” I thought about what I had learned previously. “No, she was disowned. Was it because she married him, a man from a lower class?”

This time, Allie Kate did register surprise. “No, when Susan married Alvin, he was already accepted. He had a bachelor’s degree with a major in finance. If he had wanted to, he probably could have been bank manager. He could have gone anywhere, but he loved Briney Creek. His status was on par, maybe higher than Susan’s. Alvin was a successful businessman and a good person.”

“I understand he wasn’t faithful to Susan,” I blurted out.

Allie Kate frowned. “They had an arrangement, but that’s all I’ll say on the matter. I won’t speak ill of the dead or my friend.”

“I understand,” I said and asked the question I needed to. “I was wondering, since the salon is right next door to my shop, if anyone heard anything. Or saw anything?”

I looked at each of the stylists in turn, but they shook their heads. Not that I expected anything. The walls between each shop were not so thin that noise passed through. If Alvin had struggled with someone, it might take a pretty loud thump against the wall to call attention above the dryers.

Since I wanted to be thorough, I asked Louisa if she’d heard or seen anything when my hair was done and I was on the way out. Her expression would have withered me on the spot had she had the power.

“The police already questioned me about that. Why are
you
asking?”

I couldn’t help shooting back, “
You
accused
me
of committing murder. I’m just trying to help—”

“Help yourself to the new sheriff?”

My mouth fell open. I decided then and there, I could get nothing out of Louisa. Her excessive anger was the way she dealt with her grief after the tears, but I needed to get away from its poison. I thanked her again and left the shop. I would not return. My hair did look fabulous, and I touched it with ginger fingers. Even if I was ecstatically happy with the results, I would find another salon or drive outside Briney Creek when I was ready to spoil myself again.

Out on the front walk, I met Edna waiting by the curb. The elderly lady, who was I’d guess somewhere between seventy and eighty, tottered a bit on her feet. I rushed over to her to offer my arm. “Edna, what are you still doing out here?”

She smiled and gratefully took my arm, leaning heavily. “I waited for you, dear.”

I had the feeling she wanted to talk, and I wouldn’t stop her. There was knowledge to be learned from the older generation, and since I had never known my grandparents on either side of my family, I didn’t mind chatting with Edna.

“Would you like a ride home?” I offered.

She waved gnarled fingers. “No, I like to walk as much as I can. If I keep still, these old bones might petrify.”

I chuckled.

“Besides”—her spindly shoulders shook, and she glanced up into the sky—“the season is already changing. Before you know it, the chill will set in. I want to enjoy these last warms days while I can.”

From my research, I found that North Carolina did get cold in the winter but nothing approaching the iciness that blew through New York. I was looking forward to my first winter farther south. A hot cup of cocoa and a nice someone special wouldn’t be bad either. Visions of Spencer popped into my head, and I dismissed them. I had to remind myself that he was fresh from an unwanted divorce.
Better choices, Makayla Rose.

“Makayla,” Edna said, removing my thoughts from my lack of a love life. “I’ll be happy to tell you whatever you want to know about the residents of Briney Creek. We’re a pretty close knit bunch, nosy, but nice.”