Deadly Dye and a Soy Chai: a Danger Cove Hair Salon Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 5) (5 page)

When I finally reached the landing, I headed down the hallway to the community room and peered inside. Except for the high ceilings and the large windows overlooking Main Street, the space looked something like a clothing sweatshop. It was arranged in an assembly line for various stages of the quilt-making process. Everywhere I looked, women were hard at work cutting, basting, sewing, and ironing. There were even a few men helping out, and an adorable labradoodle service dog was curled up on the floor.

"Aren't you the Conti girl?" a frail-looking, white-haired woman asked. She was seated at a table near the door, hand sewing binding to the back of a quilt.

"Yes, ma'am." I was tempted to clarify that my name was Cassidi, but I thought better of it. Judging from her gruff tone, the woman was nowhere near as docile as she looked.

"Nasty business at The Clip and Sip yesterday," she said, keeping her eyes focused on her stitching.

I opened my mouth to reply, but the word "nasty" threw me. I wasn't sure whether she was talking about what had happened with Margaret or with Sadie and Pearl.

"Don't just stand there, dear," a tall woman in her mid-sixties said as she approached with a spool of white thread. "Come in."

I stepped inside but stayed close to the door. Something about the white-haired one made me uneasy.

"I'm Emma Quinn, and this is my friend Dee Madison," she said, gesturing toward the older woman. "Are you a quilter, Cassidi?"

I blinked. I don't know why, but it still surprised me when townspeople knew my name. "Uh, no, ma'am. My mother and my grandmother quilt, but I don't sew."

She smiled and smoothed her dyed brown hair. "Well, if you'd like to learn, you've come to the right place. The people in this room have hundreds of years of combined experience, and Dee used to be a quilting teacher."

"Actually," I began, turning to face Dee, "I came to talk to Ms. Madison about Margaret Appleby."

Emma exchanged a look with Dee as she placed the spool in front of her.

"Have a seat," Dee said, her gaze still fixed on the quilt. "Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to Emma. She knew Margaret too."

I sat at the end of the table and angled a glance at Dee. From what I could tell, she was around the same age as Margaret. "How long did the two of you know Margaret?"

"About five years, I'd say," Emma replied as she removed several pins from a pincushion.

Dee jabbed her needle into the quilt. "I met her when she moved to Danger Cove some thirty years ago."

I leaned forward in my chair. "Wow, so you must have been pretty close."

"Can't say we were," Dee replied. "Margaret kept to herself."

"That's weird." I looked down at colorful strips of fabric that had been sewn together into binding. "Whenever she was at the salon, she was always chatting about her friends around town."

Emma stood over the table and began pinning a strip of binding to the edge of a sampler quilt. "What Dee means is that Margaret was private. Unlike the rest of us, she didn't talk about herself or her family at meetings."

Now that she mentioned it, I realized that I'd never heard Margaret share anything personal when she came into the salon—that is, apart from the jaw-dropper about her and my uncle. "But was Margaret still a guild member? I heard that she had to quit because of some sort of issue with Bertha Braun."

Dee grunted and grabbed a pair of scissors, and I scooted my chair back a few inches—just in case. "Bertha's the one we asked to leave. But Margaret quit around that same time because of her rheumatoid arthritis."

I nodded, remembering Margaret's deformed fingers on my arm.

"Margaret and Bertha butted heads like two bighorn sheep from the day they met," Dee continued as she clipped a few stray threads from the quilt.

Emma stood up and massaged her lower back. "Those two didn't see eye to eye on anything."

"I noticed," I said. "At the salon yesterday, things got ugly when Ms. Braun started bragging to Margaret about an upcoming date with some man."

Dee arched a white brow. "With Santiago Beltrán, I presume."

"How'd you know?" I asked.

Emma waved her hand in a shooing motion. "Oh, they'd been fighting over him for ages, the ninnies."

Dee gave me a steely stare. "Like your Uncle Vincent, Santiago's something of a local Lothario—but among the older crowd. He lives at the Coveside Retirement Resort."

My cheeks grew hot from embarrassment. If Margaret was any indication, Uncle Vinnie had been popular with the elderly ladies too. But I kept that little tidbit to myself. "Did Santiago have anything to do with Margaret leaving the guild?"

Emma removed a pin from between her lips and inserted it into the binding. "Indirectly. Bertha found out that Margaret was making him a quilt, and she pitched a fit."

"That's putting it mildly," Dee remarked. "What she said was that if Margaret so much as mailed him that quilt, she'd kill her."

I flinched as though I were the one who'd been threatened. "Are you sure she used the word
kill
?"

"Not only that," Emma began, "she said that she was going to skin her like Buffalo Bill did to those women in
Silence of the Lambs
."

My jaw fell open, and I gripped the edges of my seat. "
Skin
her?"

"And make a quilt out of her," Dee added in a matter-of-fact tone.

Emma nodded. "Yes, because remember that Buffalo Bill was going to make a woman suit from the flesh of his victims."

I was speechless. Bertha was a bully, but I never dreamed she would make such a violent threat to anyone.

Dee snipped her sewing thread. "And old Bulldog could have done it too. Before she retired, she was a surgical nurse for Dr. Seth Windom, our resident orthopedist."

"But she didn't do it, Dee." Emma turned to me. "Surely you don't think Bertha had anything to do with Margaret's death? The paper suggested that she was poisoned with hair dye. How else would she turn as blue as Tide liquid detergent?"

"Not Tide," Dee barked. "Ty-D-Bol."

Emma pressed a hand to her forehead. "Oh, that's right."

Dee tossed the scissors on the table, and the clatter practically made me jump out of my skin—er, let's leave it at "jump." "Have you questioned that hairdresser of yours, Lucy O'Connell? After all, she was alone with Margaret while you and your step-cousin were out."

I looked at her open-mouthed. Was there anything this woman didn't know? "Honestly, Lucy is the last person I would suspect of something so terrible."

"Well then, you might want to keep this in mind," Dee began, pointing her needle at me. "You never really know people, not even the ones you're close to."

I leaned back a little, not so much from surprise but to get away from that needle. Dee had a point though. I'd misread Margaret Appleby, and I'd definitely underestimated my uncle. "I'll think about that, Ms. Madison. Now, I'd better get back to the salon. Thank you both for your time."

"You're welcome, dear," Emma said. "And if you ever want to take up quilting, you let us know."

I smiled and fled the room. I don't know what I wanted to escape more—Dee's seeming omniscience or the thought of learning to quilt with her.

Still, as I hurried down the stairs, Dee's last remark echoed through my mind. I just assumed that people around me were good, even if some of them were a little rough around the edges. But what did I really know about Bertha? Sure, she was notorious around town for her bad attitude. And she'd threatened Margaret twice, once really graphically. The question was, did that mean she'd murdered Margaret? And if so, how in the world had she done it?

A cold wind blew as I walked up Fletcher Way toward the salon. I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck and glanced at the sky. Black storm clouds were rolling in like harbingers of bad news.

"Super," I muttered as I quickened my pace and glanced at my watch. It was almost nine o'clock, which was when the salon normally opened. But not today. The police had asked that I leave the crime scene untouched until Saturday, and naturally, I obliged. It wasn't like we were going to lose any business.

My "Whip My Hair" ringtone sounded. I pulled my phone from my Kate Spade shoulder bag and saw Amy Spannagel on the display. I pressed Answer. "Hey. What'd you find out about the dye?"

"I have to make this quick," she whispered. "If Ben catches me making a personal call, he'll dock my pay again."

Head Librarian Ben Bardsley was the only person in Danger Cove who was more tight-fisted than Amy. "So, this has happened before?"

"Yeah, I was thirty seconds late coming back from your place after lunch yesterday. And this morning he's been threatening to charge me for sharpening the pencils."

"Wait. Aren't they supposed to be sharpened?"

"Of course," she replied as though I were the dullest pencil in the box. "But he claims that I sharpen them too often. Scout's honor though, Cass, I wait until the points are dull. I'm no lead waster."

I didn't doubt it for a second. Amy was the thriftiest person I knew, not to mention the only woman in Washington State who'd been a Boy Scout—until the organization found out she was a girl, that is. She sewed her own clothes and grew her own food. She even made her own kitchen knives.

"Anyway," she continued, "I couldn't find any scientific studies indicating that the ingestion of hair dye alters skin color, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. I did learn that swallowing hair dye can cause rashes, edema, puss-filled blisters, oozing lesions—"

My stomach began to churn. "Wow, we've been talking for almost a whole minute now," I interrupted. "You'd better get back to work."

"
Meine Güte
," she exclaimed. "See you at your place at five."

I hung up, wondering why Amy couldn't just say "my goodness" like other people and wishing that I didn't have to go out. But the Smugglers' Tavern was hosting a fundraiser for the Danger Cove Lighthouse, and as a local business owner, I was obligated to make an appearance—and a donation, which I didn't have. Plus, my absence could be interpreted as an indirect admission that the salon was culpable in Margaret's death, and I couldn't let that happen.

As I crossed the lawn of The Clip and Sip, a breeze blew a Styrofoam cup from the porch. Thanks to the activity from last night, the grass was trampled, and litter was scattered across the property. Extracting a tissue from my purse, I bent down to retrieve the cup, some paper, and several cigarette butts. Then I headed around the left side of the building, and I removed a piece of plastic from the flower garden. It was a syringe wrapper, which I hoped had come from the EMTs. The last thing I needed on top of everything else was people shooting up at the salon.

I unlocked the back door and stuffed the items into the overflowing trash bin. As usual, Gia had neglected to empty it into the Dumpster in the parking lot out back. I sighed and headed for the stairs.

Glass shattered in the salon.

I stopped cold. Was that the killer returning for some sort of evidence? Or had I been watching too many reruns of
Murder, She Wrote
? To be on the safe side, I crept toward the back door.

The sound of a woman's sobs filled the break room.

Killers don't cry. I turned and peered into the salon.

Lucy was standing at her station, staring at a broken picture frame on the ground. "It's a sign, isn't it?"

"What?" I asked as I rushed to her side.

She squatted and brushed shards of glass from the picture. "Sven and I had this made the day he proposed."

"Oh, Lucy," I said, crouching beside her. "Everything is going to be okay."

"I'm scared, Cassidi." A tear rolled down her cheek. "I can tell that the police think I had something to do with Margaret's death."

"Well, you're innocent." I put my hand on her arm. "I'm going to help you prove that."

Her eyes lit up, but then she frowned and looked at the picture. "There's something you should know."

The back door slammed, and Gia clomped into the room in combat boots, a red spandex crop top, and low-rise camouflage pants.

I couldn't tell whether she was trying to blend in or stand out. "That's a lot of belly you're baring, soldier."

"Never mind me, wise guy." She crossed her arms. "Why are you two doing squats in the middle of the crime scene?"

I rose to my feet. "Um, obviously we're not working out. Lucy dropped her engagement photo."

"
Marone
," Gia exclaimed, using the Jersey variant of "Madonna." She pointed at Lucy. "You've got the
maliocch'
."

I shot her a shut-your-mouth look. "There's no such thing as the 'evil eye.'"

"Even you can't deny that bad things are happening to her, Cassidi."

"She's right," Lucy said. "I'm supposed to be getting married, but instead I could be going to prison."

Gia snorted. "If that's all you're worried about, then I have some good news for you—marriage and prison are the same thing."

I put my hand on Gia's back and pushed her toward the break room. "Why don't you go make Lucy a nice cup of chamomile tea?"

"If you ask me," she grumbled, "what the girl needs is a shot of lime vodka."

In Gia's world, there was an appropriate flavor of vodka for every occasion. "Well, I didn't ask you."

She flipped her hair and marched into the break room.

I turned toward Lucy. "What did you want to tell me?"

"It was nothing," she said, grabbing a broom.

I gestured toward the broken frame. "Leave that. We shouldn't do any sweeping without police permission."

"Okay." She leaned the broom against the wall. "You know, I think I'm going to go home and lie down."

"That's a good idea. Do you still want to come to the fundraiser tonight? It may do you good to get out."

"Maybe," she said, running a hand through her red locks. "I'll see how I feel later."

I gave her a hug. "Try not to worry."

She nodded and headed for the break room.

I turned and stared at Lucy's station. I hated to see her so scared, but I couldn't blame her. I was scared too, and I had an airtight alibi. Still, I couldn't help but think about what Dee had said. Truth be told, I didn't know Lucy all that well. And it seemed like she'd wanted to confess something to me before. But what?

Gia stomped into the salon. "Who's gonna drink that tea I'm making?"

"I will." With her around, I could use a calming beverage. "I wish you hadn't come in when you did. Lucy was about to tell me something important."

She rolled her eyes. "What? The Swedish meatball said he'd still marry her if she went to jail?"

"His name is Sven Mattsun," I replied. "And it wasn't about him."

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you think it had something to do with Miss Appleby?"

"I think so, but I can't imagine what."

Gia slipped her hands into her front pockets. "Actually, I've been thinking about something she said last night when she called 9-1-1."

"What?" I asked as I again surveyed the contents of Lucy's counter.

"Don't you think it's kind of weird that she told the 9-1-1 operator that there'd been 'an accident'?"

At the time, I hadn't paid much attention to what Lucy was saying. But now that Gia mentioned it, "accident" did seem like an odd word to use. "She was probably just guessing about what had happened. I mean, none of us could've anticipated a possible murder."

"But if I were guessing, I would've said that Miss Appleby had stopped breathing. After all, she was as old as Methuselah and as blue as a bottle of blue Curaçao."

The teapot began to whistle, to my relief.

"That thing's obnoxious," Gia exclaimed as she tramped into the break room.

I put my hands on my hips and thought about how I had to yell at Lucy to get her to realize that Margaret was blue. Clearly, she'd been too shocked to process everything that was happening.

But how
did
Margaret turn blue?

I stood behind Lucy's salon chair and mentally retraced her steps. She said that she'd used all the dye on Margaret's hair before putting her under the dryer. Then she must've taken the bowl and brush to the sink on her way outside to talk to Sven, because they weren't at her station when she came running back inside. So, if Margaret had swallowed dye, it would have had to happen after Lucy went out back. But that wasn't possible, because we didn't have any more blue dye in the salon.

The only other possibility I could think of was that the killer had brought dye into the salon and forced Margaret to drink it while Lucy was outside. Since she was arguing with Sven, she wouldn't have heard the commotion.

But why
blue
dye? Was it simply to frame Lucy? Or was there some significance to the color?

"Your Majesty," Gia announced as she placed a teacup and saucer on Lucy's station.

That's when I noticed it, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place.

"I have a doctor's appointment to get to," I said, hurrying toward the break room. "I'll be back in time to get ready for the lighthouse fundraiser."

"What about the tea?" she called.

"You drink it." I grabbed my bag from the table. "It works wonders for sallow skin."

"
Disgraziade
!" she yelled as I ran out the door.

I smiled at the "disgrace" insult and tapped a number on my phone before jumping into the Ferrari, which, incidentally, is a pretty awesome feeling. The call went straight to voice mail. "Amy, forget the hair dye," I gushed as I started the engine. "I need you to find everything you can on Barbicide."

*   *   *

The exam room door opened, and a heavyset male with snow-white hair entered holding a file. "Hello. I'm Dr. Windom."

"Thanks for working me in to see you today," I said, pulling the patient gown over my thighs.

"Don't thank me. Thank my receptionist," he said thoughtfully as he took a seat on a stool and began to scan my patient intake forms.

From what I could tell, Seth Windom was in his late seventies, if not even older, so I was kind of surprised that he was still practicing medicine.

"The problem is your left knee, correct?"

"Mm-hm," I replied with a twinge of guilt. It was true that I had a trick knee, but at the moment, this was just the trick part without the knee.

"All right, then," he began, tossing my file onto the counter. "Let's take a look." He rolled his stool to the examining table and pressed the fleshy areas around my knee.

I estimated that I had about two minutes before he realized that I wasn't injured, but I couldn't figure out how to bring up Bertha.

"No sign of swelling," he observed as he reached for a rubber hammer. "Let's test your reflexes."

He tapped my knee, and my foot kicked forward like a traitor.

Dr. Windom placed his hands on his thighs and pursed his lips. "I don't see any indication of a dislocation or a sprain. What were you doing when you reinjured it?"

This was my chance. "Well, as you may have read in the paper this morning, something awful happened at my salon last night. We found one of our clients, Margaret Appleby, unconscious, and I tweaked my knee trying to administer aid."

He nodded and looked down. "She was a longtime patient of mine. I just saw her a few weeks ago."

Now this was news. If Margaret was seeing an orthopedist, maybe she
had
been ill. But I had to find out whether it was terminal. "The whole thing was such a shock," I said. "I mean, she seemed to be in excellent health for a woman her age."

"It is a shame." He checked a box on my diagnosis form. "I'd expected her to make it to a hundred."

Bingo. If Dr. Windom thought she was good for another twenty years, then I could probably rule out an illness-related suicide.

"Speaking of health," he began, looking at me over his bifocals, "I think you're just experiencing some normal aches and pains. But if you'd like, I could have one of my technicians x-ray your ACL."

I wasn't sure whether my insurance would cover the full cost of an X-ray, but I needed to buy more time. "That would be great."

"Fine. Just give me a minute to write up the order."

While he filled out the paperwork, I looked at the pale-blue of my gown and thought of Margaret. "You know, I'm kind of surprised that Margaret was a patient here."

"Oh? Why's that?" he asked without looking up from the forms.