Deadly Blessings (4 page)

I sighed. “Sure. C’mon in.”

Actually, me positioned behind my
organizationally challenged desk and she across from me, wasn’t a
bad setup at all. Half-turned toward the window, I could appear to
be paying attention and still watch the little boats go by on the
river in my peripheral vision. Leaning back, I watched Gabriela
talk without really hearing her. Until she added, “… which is
another reason why we think you’re the best one for this
story.”

“
Say that
again?”

She had the decency to shoot an embarrassed
smile. “Well, it isn’t as though you’re, you know, big into image
or anything. Not that that’s bad.” She tucked a perfect hair behind
a perfect ear with a perfectly manicured acrylic nail. I’d had fake
nails, once. Never again. Felt like I was typing with tiny shoes on
my fingers.

Still, I wasn’t clear on what she meant, so
I leaned forward, elbows on the desk. I thought if I arranged
myself into a listening position, maybe I could corral my wayward
thoughts into behaving. “We’re supposed to be doing an expose on
hair salons …” I affected a dramatic tone, “… and the devastating
effect mistakes can have on their clients.” She didn’t seem to
enjoy my humor. “Bass told me you had some acquaintances lined up
for me to interview. Women who had some really bad hair days.”

It was her turn to lean forward. Even though
my door was closed, she lowered her voice, like we were girlfriends
about to share some delicious secret. “Well, of course, that’s the
focus, but Mr. Bassett and I discussed this at length. We thought
it would be so much more exciting if you went undercover and
visited a few of these places, you know, to see how they
operate?”

I shook my head, “Bass wants me to go
‘undercover’?”

“
Well, it was my idea,
actually, but Bass loved it. Not just because you could get so much
more information that way, you know, that ‘in-depth’ stuff you’re
always so excited about, but because the station would be paying
for you to visit these salons, and …” she grinned one of those
cat-that-ate-the-canary smiles, “you’ll be getting all these free
makeovers at places. Maybe you’ll be able find a look that suits
you.”

Her triumphant smile attempted
guilelessness. Failed.

I hate the feeling of knowing that if you
just had a couple of extra seconds you could come back with a
perfect retort. I suspected that my mouth hung open. While I knew
it was trying to form those witty words, it was more likely looking
like I didn’t comprehend.

“
Here,” she thrust a paper
at me. A sheet of her personal stationery, heavyweight, cream
color, with her name in deep blue script centered at the top. I
remembered when she ordered it. When the first batch came in, she’d
stormed into Bass’s office waving a stack of them, screaming
something about having ordered “Midnight Blue” not “Navy
Blue.”

Whatever shade this was, it was wonderful. I
held it up to the light. Watermark and everything. Maybe I could
talk Bass into ordering me some of this stuff.

“
That’s a list of all the
salons I want you to visit.”

I did a quick count. “There
are
ten
places on
this list.”

“
And these,” she handed up
yet another personalized page, “are the people you need to
interview. It’s such a shame.” She shook her head, staring at the
paper till I took it, “So much suffering.”

I tried to detect humor in her delivery.
None whatsoever. This was the woman who sat at the anchor desk and
reported mass murderers, child molesters, and global terrorism.
Weekly. And her eyes were getting glassy over bad haircuts?

There had to be twenty names staring up at
me. She provided phone numbers, both home and cell for each, along
with e-mail addresses. I fought and won a small victory over my
emotions—restraining myself from rolling my eyes.

She was sitting on the edge of her chair.
Just itching for a fight; I could tell.

But then again, so was I.

The manila files in the center of my desk
were chock full of information on Milla Voight, Father de los
Santos, the priesthood, and Brazil. I placed the two sheets of
information from Gabriela with them, one atop the other, aligning
the papers’ corners with the tips of my fingers. Movements this
precise usually heralded an explosion on my part.

“
Tell you what,” I said
attempting a reasonable voice, but coming across more like I was
teaching English as a second language. “I’ll look over these lists
and pick out the ones that look the most promising,
okay?”

“
I worked hard getting that
information together.”

“
I’m sure you did. And I
appreciate it.” I detected a slight relaxation on her part as I
lied, easily. “Let me spend some time doing research before I come
up with our guests, okay? You know this will take time and we’re
not going to be able to broadcast interviews with this many women,
or salons. Not in one show.”

I knew what she was going to say, so I
interrupted, “And I don’t think Bass is going to be up for a
two-parter.”

Nose-scrunch again, but she smiled this
time, uncrossing her legs and standing up. “Okay, I know you
usually do a pretty good job, but I thought you might like just a
teensy bit of help. Especially since you lost that big story.”

This time I did roll my eyes.

“
Too bad, but isn’t it kind
of ironic?” Gabriela said.

I never would have imagined Gabriela using
“ironic” in a sentence. “How so?”

“
Well that girl who got
murdered was a hair washer at a salon. Not one of these, of
course,” she said as she tapped the paper in front of me. “But this
new story is about disasters at hair salons. I’d have to say that
hers was probably one of the worst disasters of all.”

Worst doesn’t begin to describe it, I
thought, as she left.

I looked at the list of salons she’d given
me. Murdered Milla Voight’s salon hadn’t made this cut. But that
didn’t mean I couldn’t start my hair investigation there.

Chapter Three

I stood outside the Hair to Dye For salon at
ten-thirty Tuesday morning. Just a few blocks off the intersection
of Chicago Avenue and Rush Street, it was considered near-north
rather than downtown. The hand-lettered, “Mowimy Po Polsku” sign in
the window was unusual. I found it odd that they would advertise
speaking Polish in such an urban and trendy area. I was also
surprised by the salon’s nondescript presence on the bustling
street.

I mean, I heard of hiding your light under a
bushel basket, but this was ridiculous. I passed it twice before
the process of elimination of addresses left me no other option.
Not that it was shabby. On the contrary, it was a gem, a converted
two-story brownstone, with potted geraniums atop the wide concrete
arms of the cement stairs. The two floors above sported window
boxes efflorescent with colorful trailing petunias despite it being
October. As much as I enjoyed the color and brightness of the
flowering display, part of me longed for the cool crispness of
fall. The way things were going, however, we’d probably skip it
altogether and head right into the bite of winter.

What had once been the garden apartment, set
below sidewalk level and protected by black wrought-iron fencing,
was now the salon. There was no sign on the street to direct
pedestrian attention downward. Maybe they got enough business that
they didn’t need people to notice them. For my own sake, I hoped
so. I was about to put my hair in their hands.

I noticed a gate in the wrought-iron. Its
squeak made me wince. Narrow, stone encrusted steps led downward
into the garden of the apartment. Really, it was no more than a
small patch of lawn. Ten-by-ten at best.

As I approached the picture window front of
the salon, I was struck by the image of mannequins coming suddenly
to life. The staff, all young, all attractive in a Barbie doll way,
their skin clear, their hair perfect, their bodies curvy but slim,
had been virtually immobile until they spotted me. Like one of
those old-fashioned boxes with figures inside. Put in a quarter and
watch them move.

The image wasn’t contradicted, even as I
pulled open the glass door to ringing chimes—one of those bell-sets
they hang on the opening mechanism. I would have expected something
more state-of-the art. But it gave the place charm.

As peroxide and hairspray smells swirled up
to meet me, I noticed that the girls’ movements were off. Like I
was hearing music in my head, and they were struggling to keep with
the beat. One had been sweeping, two others leafing through
magazines. Another behind a high counter, about to scratch her
head. Or so it seemed. They all had stopped, and now that they
moved, they looked at me. If I read their expressions right, they
were surprised, and curious. Like clinker notes clumsily hit in the
middle of a familiar song, something was not right; I couldn’t put
my finger on it.

A young woman with chunked magenta streaks
in her long blond hair, smiled at me as I rested my elbows atop the
counter between us. “I have an appointment,” I said, giving her my
name.

“
Yes, I have it here.”
While her English was clear, she spoke with an accent that could
have either been Polish or Czech. Her bright blue eyes looked up at
me with a quizzical look. “You are Alex?”

I nodded, wondering if this girl had known
Milla Voight. Even though I was off the story, her murder was still
fresh in the newspapers, and I wanted to see if there was anything
I could learn. Milla had been employed here from the time she’d
arrived from Poland till the time of her death. Surely she’d made a
friend or two along the way. With any luck I’d get a little more
information about the girl whom I hadn’t had the chance to
know.

The shop consisted of two aisles, a front
reception area where I stood, and a back place which, when I craned
my neck a bit, I could tell housed three washing sinks. The aisle
to my right was lined with dryers, the one to my left—seven
stations with those cool chairs that spin, raise, and lower with
the touch of a foot.

There were a couple of other clients, one of
them sat at a station deep to my left. Her white hair was being set
in scratchy-looking rollers, kept in place with long pink plastic
pins that had gone out of use in the seventies.

Even as the counter girl walked me over to
the white vinyl and chrome chairs lining the window, I knew that
this was a silly venture on my part. What was I going to do? Find
some key piece of information and hand it over to this new guy
Fenton? Not a chance on that.

But what other options did I have? In my
personal fantasy, I would walk in with some great human interest
angle on the story of Milla’s murder and demand that Bass return
the story to me. Once he saw the in-depth investigation I’d done,
he’d have no choice but to give in, and I’d be looking at a shot at
the coveted Davis award.

The girl handed me one of those oversized
hardbound books. Not a lot of pages, but every single one had some
gorgeous model looking impossibly fabulous in a wacky hair
style—the kind that if I wore them, would make small children
shriek with laughter and think I was about to make a little doggie
for them out of balloons.

I sighed; the magenta-streaked blonde said,
“You like it?”

I had turned to a page featuring a stunning
redhead with hair piled up on her head, a lot like the style
mom-types wore in the fifties for a night on the town. This
redhead, whose photograph was so close up that her pores should
have come up the size of dimes, had the most flawless complexion
I’d ever seen. The hairstyle was awful, but on her it looked
great.

“
Yeah,” I said, with a
laugh, “if I looked like her, I suppose I would.” The girl grinned,
which I took for comprehension and a sharing of the joke, but when
she returned to the phone, she spoke only Polish.

Little did she know, with my dark hair and
freckles, that I could understand every word, as she discussed
schedule conflicts and trading days off.

Most of the girls were pretty, all with that
indefinable quality that let me know that they were foreign, even
before they opened their mouths to speak in heavily accented
English. I found it interesting that there was this cache of Polish
folk in this snazzy area, and they were making a go of it.
According to the information I’d gleaned, the Hair to Dye For Salon
had been in business under the same owner for the past seven
years.

At a movement to my immediate left, I looked
up. A slim, dark-haired girl stood, her head half-bowed. Wearing
fashionable too-short black flare pants and a tight black silky
shirt that exposed her navel, she was one of those “goth” types
that I thought had gone out of style in the last decade. No
apparent piercings other than her ears, but the dark lipstick did
nothing for her pale face.

She lifted her right hand in a way that let
me know she wanted me to follow her. No smile, not a word. She was
a few inches shorter than my five-foot six, which made her pretty
tiny. The hair, a page-boy in a deep maroon, was obviously
dyed.

“
Hi,” I said, “are you my
stylist?”

She turned and shrugged in a way that let me
know she not only didn’t understand English, but that she was not
about to start a conversation. This was one shy chick.

I was about to try again when, with another
little hand movement, she gestured me into a chair by the wash
sinks. And then she was gone.

I’m hair-challenged. Always have been. My
idea of accoutrement is a rubber band. I like my hair pulled off my
face, out of my way. For a while, in my early twenties, I went
through this period of hair-worry, investing in hot rollers, two
different barrel-size curling irons, and a whole battery of goop to
make my hair look natural. I gave up when it took me longer to
“style” in the morning than it did for me to commute. Plus the fact
that any wind, any rain … heck, even the thought of rain, made my
locks go straight and lifeless.