Deadly Dye and a Soy Chai: a Danger Cove Hair Salon Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 5) (8 page)

"This place looks even more like a friggin' gingerbread house than Amy's," Gia whispered as we crouched behind an ocean spray bush in back of Margaret's thatched Victorian cottage. "I wouldn't be surprised if the windowpanes were made of sugar."

"We can always go back to the car," I said, hoping she'd agree. I hadn't stopped shaking since we'd arrived, and it had nothing to do with the chilly night air.

"We came here for evidence, and we're not leaving until we get some. Now, wait here while I try to find a way inside."

"Gladly," I muttered. While Gia worked her way around the house, I tried to formulate a search strategy. The problem was that I had no idea what we were looking for. It was possible that Bertha had sent Margaret a threatening letter or something along those lines. But I didn't have the faintest idea what would tie her to my uncle. A betting ticket? Or a hotel receipt? I shivered—this time from disgust.

"Cass," Gia whisper-shouted.

I poked my face out of the bush. "What?"

She made an obscene Italian gesture that involved the crook of her elbow. "Come here, will ya?"

I came out from behind the bush and followed her around the side of the house.

Gia interlaced her gloved fingers and bent over. "Gimme your foot so I can hoist you up to the window."

"Why am I going in first?" I whisper-protested. "This was your idea."

"Because it's your salon and your skin we're trying to save."

I remembered Bertha's threat to make a skin quilt out of Margaret and stepped into Gia's hands.

After considerable grumbling, grunting, and groaning, she lifted me just enough so that I could open the window. Then I gripped the ledge and used my rusty monkey-bar muscles to pull my torso inside.

As I paused to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, Gia grabbed my legs and gave my backside a shove. I shot forward over a sink and landed hands and face first on a linoleum floor. I lay on my belly, fantasizing about pushing her off a cliff. "You do that again," I warned in a low voice, "and it's your skin you'll be needing to save."

"I thought you were stuck," she whisper-called from outside.

And I swear I heard her suppress a giggle.

I checked my wrists for fractures, lumbered to my feet, and pulled my phone from my back pocket. I tapped the flashlight icon and discovered that I was in the kitchen. After closing the window, I located the back door and then hesitated before unlocking it. What I really wanted was to leave Gia out back, but I decided that I needed her help even if she was a
stunad
(New Jersey Italian for "moron").

I opened the door, and she pranced in like everything was okay between us. I shined my light in her eyes, interrogation style. Because she'd been waiting for me in the car when we left the house, it was the first time I'd gotten a good look at her. And I wasn't prepared for what I saw. "
What
are you
wearing
?"

She looked down at her Catwoman suit. "It's my spying outfit."

There were a lot of questions I could ask, but I started with, "What's up with the cat ears and tail?"

"If someone sees me, they'll think I'm a cat."

I snorted. "A really, really big one."

She narrowed her eyes. "Are you calling me fat? Because I could totally be a panther."

I shined my light on the lower half of her body. "With opera gloves, a shiny gold belt, and black stiletto boots?"

"If I get caught, I want to look put together, all right?" Gia turned on her phone light and flashed it around the room. "Whoa! Look at that."

I started. "What is it?"

"Margaret had a blueberry theme in her kitchen. Go figure."

"Never mind that, Julie Newmar," I quipped, although I did think the blueberry thing was more than a little ironic. "I'll search the living room, and you search the bedroom, okay?"

"Purrfect," she replied as she pussyfooted through the adjoining living room and up the flight of stairs in the entryway.

Meanwhile, I surveyed the living room. It looked a lot like my German grandma's sitting room in Fredericksburg, except that there was no cuckoo clock. In its place, a grandfather clock towered over an extra-wide beige armchair and a matching ottoman. On one side of the chair was a basket full of knitting needles and yarn, and on the other a stack of newspapers and magazines. The item that caught my eye, however, was a built-in bookshelf that covered an entire wall. Books were the perfect hiding place for letters and other documents.

I don't know what I was expecting Margaret to read, maybe cozy mysteries or the usual classics like
Little Women
and
Gone with the Wind
. But as I scanned the titles on her shelf, I was more convinced than ever that she wasn't at all who she had seemed.
The Anarchist Cookbook
,
Lolita
,
American Psycho
,
The Satanic Verses
,
Slaughterhouse-Five
—it read like a catalogue of the world's most controversial novels.

"Just goes to show you that you really can't judge a book by its cover," I muttered as I began flipping through the pages of
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
.

I must have gone through at least a hundred books when the grandfather clock struck nine and I practically jumped from my skin. I hadn't found anything—not a letter, a picture, or even a note scribbled in a margin. I was starting to think that this whole escapade had been futile, but I resolved to finish going through the books before I gave up.

I reached for
Mother Goose Tales
just as Puss in Boots sashayed down the stairs.

"That bedroom is like a hospital room," Gia began, stopping to lean over the railing, "and the bathroom is practically a pharmacy. You should see the pills in there, Cass. And I'm not kidding when I say that she could stock the laxatives aisle at Walgreens."

I put my hand on my hip. "Did you look in all the boxes and prescription bottles?"

"Every one."

"What about the top of the closet and under the bed?"

"I searched the whole upstairs, even her underwear drawer, and I'm not sure I'll ever live it down." She shook her head. "It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'granny panties.'"

At least there was no lingerie
. "Why don't you go start on the kitchen?"

"Sure." She stepped into the entryway and stopped dead in her tracks.

The back door was making a creaking sound.

Gia and I froze and exchanged a look. Someone was in the kitchen.

We ran to the dining room on the other side of the stairs. Gia hid beside a china cabinet, and I knelt behind the wide wooden base of the round table.

I looked back to make sure that Gia was out of sight. I couldn't see her, but her tail was sticking out.
That darn cat!

The footsteps became louder as the intruder walked from the kitchen to the living room. Then the person stopped in the area of the bookshelf. Next I heard the unmistakable sound of flipping pages and books hitting the hardwood floor.

Maybe I'd been on the right track after all.

I didn't need to look to know that Bertha was the intruder, but I did need to see anything that she might find.

I tucked my hair behind my ear and, at the speed of a snail, leaned to one side to peer around the pedestal base of the table.

And I almost fell over.

The intruder was Clyde Willard from Dr. Windom's office!

Stifling a scream, I ducked back behind the pedestal. Fear surged through my body like liquid ice. Clyde had narrow, shifty eyes, and his face had a weathered look to it—the kind that attested to a hard life and an even harder disposition. I was scared of Bertha, but I was terrified of Clyde, even though he did have one arm in a sling.

Even in the darkness, Clyde looked rough. He had an angry scowl on his face, and with every book he pulled from the shelf, his anger seemed to grow. He growled and grunted like a wild animal as he tore through pages and hurled books across the room.

The madder Clyde got, the more afraid I became. My breath was coming in bursts, a sign that a panic attack was looming, and the thudding sounds of the flying books weren't helping me any.

Leaning my forehead on the cold, wooden pedestal, I tried to calm myself. I couldn't fall apart, because Gia was depending on me. And despite the Catwoman getup she was wearing, she definitely didn't have nine lives.

The glare of a flashlight lit up the living room, and the house fell eerily silent.

Had Clyde found what he'd come for?

Logic dictated that I stay as still as a statue, but curiosity killed the cat—or the cat's sidekick, as it were. I had to know what he was looking at, and as I peeked around the pedestal, I hoped like heck that it wasn't me.

Clyde's head was bent over a book. The light from his flashlight illuminated his forearm, exposing purplish-brown spots, probably from the accident at the Pirate's Hook Marine Services.

I was trying to make out details of the cover when he threw the book in the direction of the kitchen.

"Where is it, Leona?" he yelled.

Leona?
For a moment, I wondered whether he was in the wrong house. But that couldn't be right, because he'd asked for Bertha by name at Dr. Windom's office, so I was all but certain that they were in this together. Leona was probably a third accomplice. But what was the "it" they were after? And why did Clyde think that he would find it on Margaret's bookshelf? It wasn't like she could have hidden her millions in a book. Maybe it was a key to a safe-deposit box?

The boom of the bookshelf slamming to the ground shook me from my thoughts.

Gia gasped, but Clyde didn't appear to notice. After overturning the shelf, he proceeded to destroy Margaret's living room. He overturned furniture, shattered lamps and knickknacks, and even pulled the pictures off the walls. When he was done, he glanced around the room as though surprised by his own actions. Then he ran his hand through his thinning hair and stepped into the entryway.

Cowering behind the pedestal, I held my breath and willed Gia to keep quiet. And I waited.

Seconds passed, but they seemed like hours. Finally, I heard the sound of Clyde's footsteps. He was climbing the stairs.

I let out a long, slow exhale. Then I sprung into action. I reached behind me and pulled Gia's tail.

A cat ear appeared from behind the cabinet, followed by an eye.

I put my finger to my lips and motioned for her to follow me.

For once in her life, she kept her mouth shut and did as I suggested. Maybe the cat got her tongue.

We tiptoed through the entryway and into the dismantled living room. As I made my way around the ottoman, which was now lying on its side, I caught the hem of my pants on a nail. Frantic, I reached down to free myself and saw that the bottom of the ottoman was covered with a thin sheet of craft plywood, rather than the usual fabric. And it was detaching from the base.

A crash came from upstairs as Clyde began wreaking his room-wrecking havoc, and I jumped so high that I freed my pant leg.

Come on
, Gia mouthed from the kitchen doorway.

I motioned for her to go ahead. Then, emboldened by the noise from upstairs, I peeled back the plywood, and a Bible tumbled out.

Could this be what Clyde was looking for? It didn't seem likely. Then again, my grandmother wrote important family information in her Bible. Maybe Margaret had done the same. But why would she feel the need to hide something like that? More importantly, why would Clyde want to find it?

The sounds from upstairs stopped, and the house went silent.

I scooped up the Bible and heard Clyde's footsteps cross the second floor toward the stairs. As I rushed toward the kitchen, I saw that Gia had exited through the window, probably to avoid making the door squeak. Channeling her Catwoman costume, I took a catlike leap, landed on all fours on the countertop, and sprung outside. When I dropped to the ground below, Gia pounced and pulled me up by the wrist.

And we ran like cats out of hell.

*   *   *

When Amy came to unlock the library door at eight o'clock sharp and saw me standing on the other side, her quasi unibrow almost split apart in surprise.

Okay, so I wasn't exactly a frequent visitor, especially not first thing on a Saturday morning.

She turned the key in the lock and threw open the door. "Look what the cat dragged in."

You don't know the half of it
, I thought, still ruing my decision to let Gia talk me into going to Margaret's house. "I was hoping to get your help with something. Is now a good time? Or is Ben around?"

"He's here, but he's in the office with Betty Snodgrass from the Danger Cove Rose Society," Amy whispered, depositing a massive set of keys into her skirt pocket. "Now that she's president, she's trying to root out all the books in our catalogue that promote native-only plants as a water-conservation method. She claims that they discriminate against people who plant nonnative species of roses and other flowers."

"Wow," I said as I slipped out of my red pea coat. "That's taking it kind of far."

"I know." Her face blossomed into a smile. "She's a real thorn in Ben's side," she joked, elbowing me in the ribs. "Get it, Cass?"

"Yeah, I got it, all right." I frowned and rubbed
my
side. "Speaking of pains," I began, with emphasis, "I've been up all night trying to decipher some notes I came across."

She pushed the book cart away from the overnight return slot and headed for the information desk. "That reminds me, how did you do on that quiz?"

"I should get the results today," I said, following her to the counter. I plucked a red thread from my short black skirt and added, "But I wasn't talking about accounting notes."

She reached into the bottom of the cart for returned books. "Did you enroll in another class?"

I hesitated. Amy was scrupulously honest, so I wasn't sure how she was going to take the news of my cat caper with Gia. "Actually, I was reading Margaret's Bible."

She tucked some books under her arm and reached back into the cart. "How did you get her Bible?"

"Uh, I found it." That was the truth, after all.

"Where was it?" she asked, rising from the cart with a load of books. "Under the hair dryers?"

I scrunched up my face and tried to look as repentant as I felt. "It was in her house."

Amy dropped the books onto the counter. "You broke into her house and stole her Bible?" She put her hands on her hips. "Well, if you had to steal a book, I'm glad you took that one, because it sounds like you need a refresher on the Ten Commandments."

I put my coat and tote bag next to the pile of books and looked her straight in the eye. "You know that I would never do anything like that under normal circumstances. But Gia and I were looking for evidence tying Margaret to Bertha or my uncle."

"I should have known Gia was behind this." She picked up a scan gun and ran it over a book barcode. "She's always coming up with some wacky scheme or other."

I couldn't argue with her there, but I was obliged to defend my cat-suited cousin. "She was just trying to help me, and I think we found something important. The bad thing is that while we were there, this man broke in, and he might've seen me when I was leaving."

Amy stopped scanning. "Do you know who he was?"

I nodded. "His name is Clyde Willard."

"Oh no!" She dropped the scanner. "You'd better hope he didn't see you."

My mouth went dry. "Why? Do you know him?"

"Yes, and he's a real
tunichtgut
," she replied as though that were self-explanatory.

"I heard
gut
in there," I said in a hopeful tone. "That's
good,
right?"

"Not in this case. It means that he's a ne'er-do-well." She checked in another book. "Clyde came in here looking for odd jobs once, and Ben turned him down because some of the library patrons said that he had a habit of borrowing things he didn't return."

"That doesn't sound
so
bad," I said.

Amy pursed her lips and pointed the scan gun at me. "Not after you break into a house and steal a Bible, it doesn't. But some of our female patrons claim that he's also a peeping Tom, and that's definitely not
gut
."

The thought of Clyde staring into my window made my skin crawl. I shuddered and changed the subject. "By the way, do you have any patrons named Leona? Or do you know anyone in Danger Cove by that name?"

"That doesn't ring a bell, but I'll check." She put the scanner on the counter and began typing into the computer. "There's no Leona in our database, and I couldn't find one on whitepages.com, either."

"That's interesting, because I heard Clyde refer to a Leona last night. Do you think it's Margaret's middle name?"

Amy typed "Appleby" into the library database. "According to her registration information, it's Mae."

"Huh. I guess this Leona could be from out of town." As soon as I'd said it, a thought occurred to me. I pulled Margaret's Bible from my tote bag and opened the cover. "And maybe she has something to do with this."

Amy took the book and began to browse the handwritten notes on the inside flap. "It's a list of babies and their birth dates."

"Thirty of them, to be exact. And since they were all born between 1980 and 1985, and they all have different last names, they can't possibly be Margaret's relatives."

"And they were all named 'Baby,' like Jennifer Grey in
Dirty Dancing
," she said, running her finger down the list. "I guess that was a popular name in the eighties."

I rolled my eyes. "No, it's what they do in hospitals. They call a newborn 'Baby Smith' or 'Baby Jones.' Which makes me wonder if maybe Margaret helped deliver those babies. Do you know what she did for a living before she retired?"

"As far as I know, she hasn't worked since I've been here." She sat on the tall stool behind the computer. "But I doubt that she was a doctor, because she never used the title. And if she was a nurse, you'd think that she would've delivered more than thirty babies."

"Unless she lived in a really small town," I said, thinking of Fredericksburg. "Or if she was a midwife."

"This might not have anything to do with birthing babies. Maybe she was a pastor, and these were babies she baptized."

I leaned my forearms on the counter. "Whatever this list is, I think it has something to do with her death."

Amy furrowed her brow. "Why?"

"Because Margaret had it hidden in an ottoman and because Clyde was searching through all of her books."

She scanned the surnames. "But the name Willard isn't on this list."

"Neither is the name Braun, but that doesn't mean anything."

"So, you think Clyde and Bertha are both involved in Margaret's murder?"

"It sure looks that way to me, but I don't know how I could prove it." I drummed my fingernails on the countertop as I tried to think of my next investigative move. Then I bolted upright. "Wait a second!"

She pushed up her glasses. "For what?"

"Nothing, it's just an expression. I was thinking of Zac Taylor."

Her jaw dropped. "You think
he's
in on this too?"

I sighed. "Just listen, okay?

She made a lip-zipping gesture and put her hands in her lap.

"When I was at Dr. Windom's office, Clyde said he'd hurt his arm at the Pirate's Hook Marine Services. So, Zac must know him."

"And I'm sure he would be more than happy to help you." She grinned and gave a saucy wink.

I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms. "Now that you put it that way," I said, casting her a sideways look, "I'm not sure I want to talk to him."

Amy stood up. "I don't understand what your problem is with Zac. He's smart, he's a hard worker, and he's hotter than a plate of
senfrostbraten
."

I didn't know what that was, but the word
frost
reminded me of the bleached blondes I'd seen surrounding him at Smuggler's Tavern. "He just seems like a player, and I don't want to get involved with a guy like that."

"If you mean that he's a womanizer, I've never seen any evidence of that."

I gave an incredulous laugh. "Not even you could have missed the crowd of female admirers gathered around him at the bar last night."