Dead at Breakfast (22 page)

“No, I love the bread you make; I just like to eat the middles out.”

Sarah smiled. “Just like my daughter.”

“Oh! You have children?”

Sarah looked distracted for a moment, then said, “Just the one.”

Sensing something sensitive there, Hope changed the subject. “Is Mr. Niner in? I'd love to see Walter.”

“No, he's out in the stable.”

“Ah. I better wait till he's here, then.”

“Yes. Walter's an old grouch with strangers.”

Together they walked down the back stairs. “I was wondering,” said Hope, “how Walter and Grommet got along. If Walter flew over and perched on top of the snake cage, why wouldn't Grommet strike him?”

“Oh, Walter doesn't fly,” said Sarah. “Before Earl got him, some beast cut his flight feathers short to make him seem to be a young bird.”

“Why?”

“It's not legal to sell wild parrots. They were trying to make him look as if he wasn't middle-aged. The feathers grew back, but he still doesn't fly.”

“So Walter was caught in the wild?”

“We think so.”

“Poor creature. No wonder he's grumpy.”

“Yes. Will you be in for lunch? I'm making popovers for Maggie's birthday.”

“You are amazing to remember. She'll love that.” They parted at the kitchen door.

Hope was right about Maggie and the puzzle. When Hope found her, she had just succeeded in piecing together the poor soul swimming hopefully alongside the ship with his begging bowl. He was naked except for his hat.

“You are relentless with that thing,” said Hope.

“I can't help it. I can't resist making order out of chaos. But look at him. Who goes swimming with a hat on?”

“I would if I had one,” Hope said. “It's been a long time since I went more than a week without having my hair done. It feels as if it's going to crawl off and die.”

Come to think of it, Maggie observed, her friend was looking a little bedraggled. “Why don't we drive into Ainsley this afternoon, there must be a hair place there.”

“What a good idea!” That settled, Maggie told Hope about the note left by Albie Clark, and the heartless behavior of his children. Maybe he
was
capable of real cruelty, if they were that angry. Hope told Maggie about her encounter with Chef Sarah outside Earl's room.

“Well, that gives us plenty to think about,” Maggie said. And they went to the dining room to await the popovers.

If you want to know what's going on in a town, a great place to start is the hair parlor. Hope wondered why they hadn't thought of it before. They found Upper Cuts on State Street, just across from the courthouse, beside a diner called the Chowder Bowl. A large woman wearing a pink apron and holding a bowl of something with a powerful chemical smell stopped her work and came to greet them.

“I'm afraid we don't have appointments,” said Hope. “Is there any chance I could get a shampoo and set?”

“I got one of my best girls, just waiting for you. Pammie?” she called across to the sinks, where a slim woman with hair the color of a tangerine was leisurely sweeping up cuttings. Pammie stowed her broom and came to them, wiping her hands on her smock.

“You can take a wash and blow out, can't you?”

Pammie looked at her watch, which had a bright plastic band the same color as her hair, and agreed she could.

“And what can we do for you, hon?” asked the big woman, turning to Maggie. She looked at Maggie's no-fuss flurry of white hair and clearly thought, Not much.

“What about a manicure?” said Maggie.

“Dandy,” said the large woman, whom they would learn was a Mrs. Pease. “Choose your color and Tina will be right with you. Would you like her to set up her table beside your friend, so you can talk to each other?”

“That would be lovely,” said Maggie.

When she had Hope shampooed and draped in a pink plastic smock and towels, Pammie said, “And what brings you ladies to Vacationland this time of year?”

“My son lives in Bergen,” said Hope.

“You staying here in town?”

Where? Hope wondered. She'd seen a grim-looking cluster of pastel tourist cabins on the outskirts, but they looked closed for the season.

“No, we're over in Bergen at the inn.”

Pammie lowered her dryer and brush. “We heard everyone left after the fire. Were you there?”

Maggie looked up and caught Hope's eye.

“We were.”

“Terrible. We heard it's closing,” said Pammie, resuming her work.

“It was very upsetting, but really just the one wing was affected. Mostly it's water damage. As I understand it.”

“That Cherry Weaver?” said Pammie. “She used to work here.”

Their noises of genuine surprise encouraged Pammie. Hope and Maggie had definitely not known this piece of serendipity.

“She came here right out of high school. Mrs. Pease was training her. It was 2009, I think, CHARLOTTE! WAS IT 2009 CHERRY WEAVER CAME?” she called to the large woman above the noise of the dryers.

“July 2009,” Charlotte answered. This was not the first time this subject had come up in the last week.

“So you knew her?” Hope asked. “What was she like when she was here?”

Pammie rolled a thick lock of Hope's hair around her brush and gave it a good pull, then turned the dryer on it. “Dumb as a box of hammers,” said Pammie.

“Oh dear.”

“Well, but come on. You don't need too many brain cells to figure out you shouldn't set your boss's place on fire, right after he gives you the can. We got off easy here, I guess. CHARLOTTE—WE GOT OFF EASY HERE! RIGHT? SHE MIGHT HAVE BURNED YOU DOWN!”

Charlotte's mouth was full of bobby pins; she was giving the old lady in her chair a kind of pin curl set that hadn't been seen since the 1950s as far as Hope knew. Still, it was clear that she'd thought of that, that Cherry Weaver might have burned her whole salon right down and taken the whole block with it. She was nodding a world-weary agreement and so was the lady in her chair.

“Charlotte had to let her go. She kept talking to the tourists
about gun control. People from New York! Boston! What does she have between the ears?”

“You know what I think?” said Mrs. Pease, taking the bobby pins out of her mouth. “I think she has one of those complexes.”

“Really?” said Hope.

“Like you hear on
Oprah
. About her father. She couldn't get his attention if she set her own hair on fire right in front of him, but she kept trying.” Mrs. Pease put the pins back in her mouth, made another tight curl of blue hair with her fingers, then pinned it tight to the old pink scalp in front of her.

“He's a fireman,” said Pammie. “And a hunter. Charlotte went to high school with him. Gun nut, you'd probably say,” she said grinning, giving Hope's shoulder a nudge.

“Oh no,” said Hope. “I'm quite a good shot myself. My husband and I used to hunt ducks in Canada.”

This went over extremely well, and impressed even Maggie.

“So this idiot child, Cherry,” said Pammie. She now had Hope's hair smooth and dry, the way she normally wore it. Without stopping to ask, Pammie started to back-comb the hair the way you make beehive hairdos when the spring musical is
Grease
. Maggie waited for Hope to scream, but Hope didn't say a word.

“When she was brought in for questioning,” said Pammie, “she was in the bathroom, and of course someone has to be in there with her. She was crying, and saying she shouldn't have done it, and talking about how scared she was. It never even occurred to her she was talking to a policewoman!”

The lady with the pin curls was now across the room under a dryer, and Charlotte had come to join their conversation. “Carson Bailey says he's got guys in supermax whose cases weren't as tight as what they've got on Cherry.”

“Really?” asked Hope.

“He says so.”

“He says everything points one way. There aren't even any other suspects.”

“Charlotte cuts his hair,” said Pammie. “Carson Bailey.”

“Well, when he's in Ainsley. She had motive and opportunity, Cherry did, and the whole family's mean as skunks. She's started fires before.”

“And she's an idiot. Kind of kid who'd murder her parents and then want sympathy that she's an orphan.”

“She sets fires so she can see her father,” said Charlotte.

“She told her lawyer she did it,” said Pammie. “Her lawyer's an Indian.” She had finished her work with the ratting comb, and was now gassing Hope's head with hairspray. When she was satisfied she handed Hope a mirror and spun her chair around so she could see the back of her head.

“I was amazed you let her do that,” said Maggie once they were on the street.

“I got sort of fascinated,” said Hope. “How do I look?”

“I think your prom date's reaction will be shock and awe.”

Hope stopped walking and dug in her purse for her compact. She peered into its small round mirror. “You know, I
wanted
to have my hair done like this for my prom in 1964, but my mother wouldn't let me.”

“Now you can cross it off your bucket list.”

“I'll say,” said Hope, putting away the compact. “But I wanted to hear what she'd say, didn't you?”

“I did. What did you think?”

“I was appalled.”

“Yes. No other suspects? They're not even looking for other explanations?”

“I think it's time to call my old friend, the reporter.”

“Has he ever seen your hair like that?”

“Nobody has. But it will make him feel young.”

“Do you think he'd come up here?”

“He lost his wife last year. Now he doesn't know what to do with himself.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Maggie, stopping in front of Mr. Paperback. “Look, today's papers.” They went in and bought the
Boston Globe
and the
New York Times,
and all the Artemis tribute magazines that had been rushed into print in the last week.

All the magazines wrote up the fire at the Oquossoc Mountain Inn. They reported that a suspect was in custody and two ran interviews with a self-important Carson Bailey pretending to be modest about how quickly they had solved the case. Hope and Maggie sat silently in the library after dinner, reading each article as if studying for an exam. There were pictures of Alexander in his young manhood. Pictures of him and Lisa, posing in evening dress with beakers of wine in their hands, at a gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Accounts of Alexander's business career, how he'd started as an immigrant carpenter and ended as a megarich developer of shopping malls and suburban office parks. They showed pictures of the funeral cortege arriving at Forest Lawn after the Staples Center. Someone had gotten a shot with a telephoto lens of Lisa being helped into the chapel by her son, her face completely hidden by a veil that concealed her like a burka. She was wearing high heels in spite of the fact that her right ankle was taped and looked like a football. Glory was right behind her, flanked by Sophie and Ada. The girls looked terrible.

A reporter for one of the Artemis Tribute magazines did a piece on her school days, how she'd attended the elite Harvard-Westlake School until sixth grade, when she transferred to Uplands, a school known for accommodating professional children. They'd gotten a
copy of the yearbook for the year her class “graduated.” In Artemis's case that was a term of art; she had evidently been tutored on the set while she was working more than she'd attended in person. But she had been enough of a presence to leave a record of personality and friendships. Her name was given as Jenny Antippas. Under her picture, along with favorite sayings (
Wait a hot minute . . . blue M&M's . . . rockin' the Cartier!!)
were her nicknames:
Artemis
,
Goddess
, and
JennyKookla
.

“Look at this,” said Maggie. She put the page in front of Hope.

“Cute picture,” said Hope. “How do you think they got the yearbook?”

“Bought it from one of her classmates. What do you make of this, though?” she said, tapping the page.

“JennyKookla. Kookla? Kukla, like
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
?”

“Maybe. Some kind of pet name. Does anyone that age even know about
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
?”

“They're show business kids, they might. Does
kukla
mean something? We should Google it.”

Maggie took out her phone and looked at the screen. “One bar.”

“Sometimes you can get two if you're closer to the antenna,” said Hope.

“Is Mr. Gurrell still here? His computer is hardwired to it.” The Internet signal, they now knew, came to the hotel from a transmitter on a hill four miles away, and was a line-of-sight connection, meaning that if fog or heavy rain or anything else obscured the view, the signal blinked out. Out was its condition more often than not, because some trees had grown up since it was installed, whose topmost branches flickered in the way of the signal in any kind of wind. The trees were on someone else's land and the owner declined to remove them. The hardwired computer worked better than the hotel wi-fi, which shouldn't have been true, but was. Places this far
from town were supposed to get DSL lines sometime soon, but if you called the phone company to learn when, they would generally admit that it would be around the next ice age.

Mr. Gurrell's door was locked.

“That's frustrating,” said Maggie.

“What was Kukla?” Hope asked. “A snake?”

“No that was Ollie. He was a one-toothed dragon. Kukla had the big red clown nose and angry eyebrows.”

“Strange nickname for someone you liked.”

“Let's go see if housekeeping will let us in.”

The door to the housekeeping office was open, but no one was there and the drawer where the skeleton keys were kept was locked.