Lethal Bayou Beauty (2 page)

Ida Belle studied me for a moment. “I suppose that glued-on hair of yours wasn’t really due to a bleaching accident, was it?”

“No. I used to keep my hair about an inch long. It was easier that way given my line of work and the desert conditions.”

Ida Belle shook her head. “Do you even own a brush? Know how to use a curling iron or apply mascara?”

I stared. “I’m not even certain what one of those is.”

“This is not good,” Ida Belle repeated.

“She’ll just have to learn,” Gertie said. “We have a couple of days and the Internet is full of information.”

I shook my head. “You cannot make me a girlie girl in two days. Not to mention that I’d have to work with kids, something I have zero experience with. There are too many variables. It would be easier if I just killed her.”

Ida Belle nodded. “She’s right.”

Gertie looked upward as if awaiting help from God. “You can’t kill someone for being useless and annoying.”

“Hmmpf,” Ida Belle said. “Don’t tell me the thought never crossed your mind when you had her in English class.”

“Okay, maybe it did a time or two.”

Ida Belle raised her eyebrows.

“Fine!” Gertie threw up her hands. “The girl was Satan’s spawn and I’ve prayed every night since she left that she would be swallowed up in an earthquake if the thought of returning to Sinful ever crossed her mind. But none of that matters. What matters is that two days from now, Pansy will scrutinize Fortune worse than the IRS did Al Capone, and if we don’t get her up to speed, it will blow her cover.”

“Unfortunately, she’s right,” Ida Belle grumbled. “And I don’t think the Internet is going to be enough ammunition to fix this situation.”

“You have more ammunition than the Israeli government,” Gertie protested.

Ida Belle gave a long-suffering sigh. “
Knowledge
ammunition. You are I are not exactly fashion-forward. We wouldn’t understand the half of what we saw or read any more than Fortune would. What we need is a professional.”

Gertie frowned for a moment, then she brightened. “You’re thinking about Genesis.”

“Of course. Genesis is exactly what we need.”

“I don’t think even prayer is going to help this one,” I said, “and I really see no reason to go all the way back to Genesis just to come up empty.”

Gertie laughed. “Genesis Thibodeaux is a former Sinful resident who was only months away from SLS membership when she met Anton.”

“Sacrilege,” I said. “She ditched SLS membership for a man?”

“Not just any man,” Gertie said. “Anton is intelligent, breathtaking, and immensely charming.”

Ida Belle nodded. “So hot, he makes your eyes bleed. After the ladies met him, we couldn’t exactly fault her.”

“Too true,” Gertie agreed. “Why if I were twenty years younger—”

Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “You’d still be too damned old for him.”

“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it,” Gertie pouted. “Anyway, Genesis is the perfect solution. She owns her own beauty shop and also does all the costumes, hair, and makeup for a theater company in New Orleans.”

Ida Belle nodded. “If Genesis can’t help you, no one can.”

I took a big drink of coffee. I wasn’t nearly as confident as Gertie and Ida Belle, but I had to give it a try.
 

It seemed the only options were to start at the beginning with Genesis or end it all with Revelations.
 

Chapter Two

I cringed when we pulled up in front of the beauty shop. The storefront was painted fuchsia and purple and had giant yellow daisies scattered across the matching fuchsia awning.
 

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

“Don’t let the decor distract you,” Gertie said.

“I’d have to go blind for this not to distract me.”

“Got that right,” Ida Belle grumbled. “Makes my butt itch, it’s so loud.”

Gertie waved a hand at Ida Belle. “The previous shop owner painted it this way, but it’s sorta gained traction for being so loud and hideous. People will come into the shop simply because they want to see if anything odd is going on inside. Genesis gets a lot of new customers that way.”

Gertie pulled open the door and I followed them inside. The interior of the shop was in sharp contrast to the outside. The floors were stone tile, the walls a light tan with paintings of New Orleans landmarks hanging on the wall. Each beauty chair had its own little area complete with a wall of mirrors and a wet bar. A row of recliners lined the front of the shop. A set of bookcases at the front of the store contained a good collection of books and magazines along with DVDs and several DVD players.

Okay, so the inside wasn’t scary at all. In fact, I was seriously thinking about moving in for a day or two, when a door at the back of the shop swung open and a huge woman with more hair than any neck should be able to support came sauntering toward us.

Five-foot-three without the heels, two hundred forty pounds—twenty of which was the hair, high probability of type 2 diabetes.

She grinned at us and I studied her approach, amazed at how she kept all that weight centered on the six-inch, razor-thin heels she was wearing. I’d found that particular type of shoe handier for killing people than walking in, but apparently, Genesis didn’t share the same prejudices.
 

She gave Ida Belle and Gertie both a hug, which mostly consisted of smashing them into her quite generous chest, and then turned her attention to me. I cringed inwardly, certain she was about to pummel me with her breasts, but instead, she narrowed her eyes and scanned me head to toe. I got the impression she was taking a mental inventory of weaknesses, like I did everyone, but with a completely different list of requirements.

Finally, she looked back at Ida Belle and Gertie. “Not bad.”

Gertie beamed. “I told you.”

Genesis looked back at me and nodded. “I can work with this.”

“Her,” I inserted. “I’m not a ‘this.’ And what’s not bad? Does that mean it’s good? It doesn’t feel good.”

Genesis narrowed her eyes at me. “How is it exactly that someone who ran the pageant circuit got so far off-field from beauty?”

“We always figured her mother was an awful liar.” Ida Belle jumped in with the story she and Gertie had cooked up on the way to New Orleans. “Apparently, we were right.”

I nodded. “She spent a lot of time talking about what she wanted me to be, not what I was.”

Gertie added her two cents: “We just never realized how true that liar thing was until Sandy-Sue arrived and we got to know the real person, but we’d appreciate it if you keep all that on the down-low. We don’t want to lose our edge against the GWs.”

“Of course.” Genesis blanched. “Sandy-Sue? She saddled you with Sandy-Sue?”

“Yes, but everyone calls me Fortune.”

Genesis nodded. “I like Fortune. I can work with Fortune.”

“Then you’d better hop to it,” Ida Belle said, “because you’ve got a lot of work to do.”

I couldn’t even work up a decent glare. Ida Belle was right.

###

Ten hours later, I slumped in the back of Gertie’s ancient Cadillac, desperately wishing for a strong drink or death—maybe both, but in that order. I’d had more useless information thrown at me that afternoon than any one person should have to absorb in a lifetime. Lip gloss, eye pencils, eyelash glue, and an array of hair implements ran through my mind like a horror movie. Military weaponry was so much easier than this.

I closed my eyes, praying I could clear my mind enough to nap on the way home, when Ida Belle yelled over the seat.

“Wake up! We have work to do.”

I opened one eye. “I’ve been working all day. I’ve conquered entire dictatorships with less effort.”

“I’m not going to disagree with the sentiment,” Ida Belle agreed, “as I’ve gone through an entire roll of Tums listening to that mess, but Gertie’s been busy while you were being fluffed to death.”

I felt a sliver of fear run through me. “Busy with what?”

Ida Belle held a handful of photos over the seat. “Making flash cards. We can work on your vocabulary on the way home.”
 

She held up a photo of something long, thin, and metal that looked like a medieval torture weapon. “What’s this?”

“Branding iron.”

Ida Belle drew the card closer to her face, apparently reading something on the back. “Close. It’s a clipless curling iron. How the hell do you hold your hair in that?”

“I have no earthly idea.”

“Oh, I remember now,” Ida Belle said. “You wear that Michael Jackson glove.”

Gertie frowned. “I don’t remember Michael Jackson being mentioned.”

I closed my eyes again. It was going to be a very long ride home.

###

“This is not good,” Ida Belle grumbled as we approached my house.
 

“You’re going to wear out that expression.” I didn’t even bother to rise from my prone position on the backseat. “I don’t care what it is. Just kill me and shove me in the bayou. No matter what, death will be easier.”

“I hate to agree with her,” Gertie said, “but in this case, she’s probably right.”

Since Gertie rarely agreed that death was the best alternative, I pushed up on one elbow and peered over the back seat as Gertie slowed to a crawl. “What is it?”

“Celia and Pansy just pulled into your driveway,” Gertie said.

Ida Belle glared at Gertie. “Why is Pansy here already? I thought you said we had a couple of days.”

Gertie looked as stressed as I felt. “We’ve got to move forward with bugging their meeting room. Our intel is getting sketchy.”

I groaned. “Well, drive away or something. They can’t see me back here, so it’s not like they’ll know I’m avoiding them.”

“Yes, they will,” Gertie said. “Francine knows we all went to Genesis’ shop today. I picked her up some conditioner.”

“Great,” Ida Belle grumbled. “Ten minutes after we left town, everyone who ate at Francine’s Café knew, then they went home and told everyone who didn’t eat at Francine’s Café.”

I shook my head, still marveling at small-town happenings. “A trip to the hairdresser is big news? Really?”

“Word of the beauty pageant has probably made it around Sinful by now,” Gertie explained. “Everyone will be wondering what we’re going to do to counter Pansy’s involvement. You’re the natural choice, so yes, a trip to the hairdresser is big news.”

“You people really need to get some hobbies.”

“The murder investigation didn’t help,” Gertie added. “Especially since Ida Belle and I kinda pulled you into the middle of it. The spotlight was already on us. Now, it’s just worse with the whole beauty pageant thing.”

“Then let’s get it over with,” I said and pushed myself completely upright as Gertie pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

I recognized Celia immediately from the banana pudding race last Sunday, but wouldn’t have pegged the woman standing beside her as her daughter by looks alone.

Five-foot-ten, thin but no muscle tone, the expected fake boobs, enough hair for five women.

Seriously, there must have been ten pounds of massive blond curls piled on top of her head. Between the hair and the enormous breasts, I was surprised she could stand without tilting forward. Maybe she had a little more muscle tone than I’d originally thought—at least in her neck and shoulders.
 

Celia stood right next to her, a short, dark-haired, flat-chested woman who didn’t seem to share a single attractive feature with her daughter. Maybe Pansy was adopted. As we got out of the car and approached them, Pansy looked me up and down, then smirked. That expression exactly matched the one her mother had been wearing since we pulled in the drive. Definitely related.

“Gertie, Ida Belle,” Celia nodded as we approached. “I heard you were off in New Orleans for a day of beauty. I guess that didn’t include the two of you.”

“Beauty goes much deeper than skin,” Ida Belle said, “but then, you wouldn’t know that.”

I shook my head. “Do you people actually listen in church or just go there so that you have the right to eat lunch at Francine’s?”
 

“I listen in church,” Gertie said, “and I still have my manners.” She waved a hand at Pansy. “This is Pansy Arceneaux. Pansy, this is Sandy-Sue Morrow, but everyone calls her Fortune.”

I took a step forward and stuck my hand out, anxious to get it over with. “Nice to meet you.”

Pansy stared down at my hand as if it were a snake. I looked down, wondering what the problem was. All those horrible fake nails I’d pulled off when I’d arrived in Sinful were back in place, no thanks to Genesis, and were painted Sunshine Tangerine. I understood if
I
grimaced while looking at my hands, but didn’t see what Pansy had a problem with.

“Ladies don’t shake hands,” she said finally.
 

“I’m sorry,” I said as I drew my hand back. “No one told me you were a lady.”