Nobody's Sorry You're Dead: A Hadley Pell Cozy Mystery (3 page)

L
ou Edna’s Beauty Boutique
was a staple on Main Street. Hairstyles came into fashion, and just as quickly went out, but Lou Edna had managed to keep the ladies of Hope Rock County coiffed in variations of the same number five washtub hairdo for years. It was the hair lacquer, as Hadley called Lou’s hair spray. That stuff had the holding force of concrete and was the foundation for those high-rise works of hair art that Lou Edna was famous for.

Lou Edna had to be a major stockholder in the Beautiful Doo Hairspray Company. She used enough of the stuff.

Lou Edna’s shop was a small, shotgun room that sported twin pink sinks. Standing elegantly before each basin was a pink leatherette chair, perfectly adjusted to raise and lower Lou Edna’s customers as smoothly as silk. Three massive pink ten-gallon hooded hair dryers, each with its own leatherette chair and matching leatherette foot stool, lined the opposite wall of the shop. From the middle of her empire, amid all the bottles of shampoos, conditioner, rinses, dyes, and cans of Beautiful Doo, Lou Edna held court.

Hadley had avoided Lou Edna’s for almost twelve months but that was long ago. Ancient history. It was the reason that today, among the women her age – brunettes, redheads, and blondes – Hadley Pell was about the only one left whose locks of thick, unruly tresses were battleship gray.

The color still rose in Hadley’s cheeks when anyone at the shop mentioned her fiasco.

Lou Edna was a bubbly, bee-hived beautician who always wore pink uniform dresses and thick-soled, pink shoes that perfectly matched her decor. The beautician thought fast on her feet, and she could talk the socks off any preacher. Her lips moved almost as quickly as the scissors that remained glued to her right hand during business hours. She was vivacious, loud, and very persuasive. She zeroed in on Hadley that day like a bull to a red flag.

“Hadley, honey, you’re going gray on me,” Lou Edna said as Hadley entered the shop.

“Oh, Lou Edna, I am not. That’s just the way the light is hitting my head. You know what I mean. Like when my cowlick curls a certain way at my crown, some folks swear I’m bald as a cue ball back there.”

Lou Edna twirled the shop chair.

“Have a seat, beautiful,” Lou Edna said, peeling the wrapper from a stick of gum and spearing it between her Passionately Pink lips.

“You know you would look plumb gorgeous as a blonde. You’ve got the cheekbones and the chin to pull it off. Not to mention those emerald eyes! You’d knock ‘em dead, and I’m not spittin’ cherry pits.”

Hadley’s black tresses had been evolving for some time. The single gray hairs had seemed to multiply magically overnight whenever she looked in the mirror. Oh well, she reasoned, gray hair complements the laugh lines around my eyes.

“A blonde!” Hadley said. “Which lunatic asylum let you out this morning?”

She noted that Lou Edna had been busy. Her pink tiled floor was covered with clumps of red, brown, blonde, orange, magenta, and black hair.

As the beautician grabbed the broom and dustpan resting in the corner next to the first pink station, she nodded to Hadley and said, “Aw, close your cattle gate, Hadley. I’m not kidding. Look at Marilyn. She was a platinum goddess!”

Lou Edna swept up a rainbow pile of hair from the salon floor.

“But, that’s not blonde,” Hadley protested. “That’s white. I’d look like a bed sheet!”

“You would not,” Lou Edna said. “I’ve got a special. I ended it yesterday, but for you, I’ll extend it and knock off eight dollars to boot! It’s a real deal. Come on. What do you say? How ‘bout this shade, Hadley? It’s softer. It goes peachy with your skin tone.”

“Still too light,” Hadley said.

“Well, how ‘bout this one?” Lou Edna asked. “Ain’t it swank? It’s called Maple Starlight.”

“Lou Edna,” Hadley said. “That’s beige! Whoever heard of beige hair? I’d look like my mop!”

“You would not,” Lou Edna said. “I swear Hadley. Don’t be so resistant to change! I feel like I’m talking to a stone wall. You are impossible. Relax. Live a little. How ‘bout this?”

Hadley felt like she was in the hardware store looking at paint swatches.

“That last one isn’t so bad,” Hadley murmured, more to herself than to Lou Edna.

But that was enough for the eager beautician. She whipped out her beautician’s cape and snapped it around Hadley’s neck.

“That one’s the charm!” Lou Edna said, twirling Hadley around in the pink chair.

Her pink shoe pumped wildly on the pedal as the chair rose in the air. She pulled a handle, letting the back of the chair down with a “whomp.” She eased Hadley’s head down into the sink.

Lou Edna set to work, donning her plastic gloves and smacking her gum in a syncopated rhythm all her own. She washed and rinsed and poured chemicals on Hadley’s tresses like a mad scientist.

“Lou Edna,” Hadley said, “are you sure about this? That smells like bleach. And it’s burning a little, Lou, kind of like a perm. Is that normal?”

“Oh, Hadley. Don’t be such a wuss. Your black hair will never take the blonde dye unless we bleach it, first.”

When it was all over, Hadley Pell was a blonde bombshell.

At least that’s what Hadley hoped her husband would say.

But Harry didn’t cotton to his wife’s newfangled color at all. So, like the good little wife, Hadley visited Lou Edna’s a couple of weeks later.

“Put it back the way it was, Lou Edna. Harry’s not fond of this color one bit.”

“You’re kidding,” Lou Edna said.

“No,” Hadley said. “I told him it was a softer version of Marilyn, but he said he would have married the real deal if he’d wanted a dumb blonde.”

Lou Edna frowned.

“Okay, Hadley. But I gotta warn you. I’d be afraid of over-processing. It’s really too soon to be messin’ with perfection, honey. I love the new you. I want you to know, I can’t guarantee the results.”

“I understand. I want to keep my husband, Lou Edna,” Hadley said, firmly. “Just do it.”

“Hmm,” Lou Edna murmured uncertainly.

When Hadley walked out of Lou Edna’s shop, a cackle of laughter followed her. She had the prettiest green hair you have ever seen. Hadley wore a wig or a baseball cap or a scarf to conceal her fern green locks for months until it grew out.

Just as green hair fades to gray, old wounds scar and heal.

Eventually, Hadley went back to Lou Edna’s. Today, she was glad she had. If anyone in Hope Rock County knew the latest about the Eustian Singlepenny affair, it would be Lou Edna. Not only did Lou Edna hear what every woman in the valley had to say about the goings on in their own households, as well as their neighbors, but Lou Edna had an ear in the Sheriff’s office.

Deputy Elwin Dollie.

And the deputy just happened to be sweet on Lou Edna.

Lou Edna’s effect on Elwin was a lot like Beautiful Doo after a wash and set. Lou Edna puckered her Passionately Pink lips and closed her heavily mascara-laden eyes, and Elwin was ready to be molded to Lou Edna’s wishes like a strand of hair to a hot curling iron.

The deputy would tell her the secrets of his immortal soul if Lou Edna asked him.

Hadley suspected Lou Edna’s impact on Elwin was something akin to hypnotism. She had seen a hypnotist once on late night television. Just a wink or a peck on the cheek or an afternoon phone call to whisper sweet nothings into Elwin’s flaming red ear, and Lou Edna had the answer to just about any question that was on her mind.

From Sheriff Bill’s mouth to Lou Edna’s ear via Elwin Dollie.

Never had there been a more beautifully manicured finger that directly monitored the pulse of whatever went on in Hope Rock County than Lou Edna’s. Of course, the hairdresser would never reveal her sources.

Hadley had stumbled onto the connection quite by accident. She decided to surprise Lou Edna at lunch one day, after the green in her hair had faded, just to prove to Lou Edna that she bore no hard feelings. She knew Lou Edna usually pulled down the pink shade on her door for an hour each afternoon, settling into one of the pink leatherette chairs with the latest National Investigator. NI was Lou Edna’s favorite gossip rags. And everyone knew the paper printed only the best and the latest dirt on celebrities and power figures that was fit to print – and unfit, too.

Her afternoon break was the hairdresser’s chance to catch up on the latest VIP scandals and other gossip outside the borders of Hope Rock County during an otherwise hectic day. Lou Edna had a compulsive weakness for gossip. Anybody who knew her knew that, and Hadley also recognized that Lou Edna had a weakness for homemade coconut custard cream puffs.

Hadley had been busy baking the creamy delights in her kitchen all morning. She piled a platter high with piping hot, golden-light, and airy coconut custard goodness to share with the beautician. As she carefully made her way down Main Street, balancing the dish in her hands, she saw a man in a suit walk into the Beauty Boutique. Must be a salesman, she thought and continued on her way.

Much to Hadley’s surprise, she discovered the man was Elwin Dollie.

Lou Edna had failed to close the shade properly. Hadley was able to peer into the beauty shop and just make out the two of them.

“Sure looks different out of uniform,” Hadley thought.

But even more shocking was when Elwin Dollie bent over and kissed Lou Edna right on the lips!

Hadley almost dropped her platter of puffs on the street. She knew Elwin, a confirmed bachelor, had taken care of his invalid mother until she quietly passed on in her sleep. Hadley had never thought of Elwin Dollie as the romantic type. In fact, he had seemed painfully timid around women.

Lou Edna must have used some kind of magic to break through Elwin’s incredible shyness. Hadley wondered if the beautician knew some ancient secret when it came to handling men. Hadn’t Lou Edna been married and divorced and married and widowed and almost married more times than decency allowed?

Or maybe she really did use hypnotism on Elwin, with a dash of clairvoyance thrown in for good measure! Hadley always wondered how Lou Edna seemed to know what was going on in their community before everyone else did. And now, she knew.

“Maybe she’s psychic or something,” Hadley told Maury once after Lou Edna revealed a particularly juicy bit of news hours before anyone else had a clue.

Of course, she wasn’t psychic. Neither was she a magician. If Lou Edna had been, Hadley would never have wound up looking like an avocado.

Here was one hairdresser whose nose was in everyone else’s business. And she had one whopper of a whopping secret! Who could have guessed!

Well, Hadley reasoned, Lou Edna wasn’t the only one in town who could keep mum about a juicy bit of confidential, classified, top-secret information. If Bill ever found out one of his deputies was secretly courting the town gossip, it would not be because he’d heard it from his sister-in-law, Hadley Pell.

Hadley turned around and proceeded across the street, balancing her platter like a high-wire walker in the circus. Maybe Bill would like a surprise delivery of golden coconut cream puffs, she thought.

True to her word, Hadley never let on to Lou Edna, Elwin Dollie, or anyone else for that matter, what she’d accidentally witnessed that day at the boutique. However, whenever there was some burning question or wild hair that needed attention, Hadley had no qualms about picking Lou Edna’s brain to get the latest scoop. And Lou Edna never once let Hadley down.

Lou Edna had been the first to kindly enlighten Hadley as to the reason for Mavis Peabody’s sudden unexpected divorce after twenty years of marriage. Seems Mavis came home early from work one day to find her husband having sex with his mother in the bathtub. Not a pretty picture and quite a shock.

Eddy Mae Sarrel ran off with the Winchester boy. Her father had taken after the couple with a shotgun. When he caught up with the pair, he presented the gun to them as a wedding present, on the condition they get married before Eddy Mae dropped the baby she was carrying.

Already nine months pregnant, they did not have much time to waste. They immediately found a justice of the peace, and Eddy Mae’s water broke at the beginning of the ceremony. The justice talked fast, and Eddy Mae grimaced and groaned and held on tight. The baby was born just before the last ‘I do’ was spoken.

It had been rumored that Marsden Wilshere was selling his daughters for drug money. His wife left him and took the girls with her. She remarried and later on both girls got pregnant by their stepfather, a local minister at the Church of Feel Good Everybody.

Just like the old Hollywood gossip columnists, Lou Edna could be counted on to fill you in to the latest, the greatest, and the not so good. If a tale was lurid and sensational, Hadley could always count on her beautician to have the dirt before anyone else got wind of the scandal. Her sources were reliable. Her sense of timing was infallible.

Before Hadley could get the seat of her pink leatherette chair warm, she asked Lou Edna, “What’s the deal with Eustian Singlepenny?”

T
he gentle slopes
of the Appalachians are worn and timeless, as old as the Earth itself. Seasons come and go in a slow march, one day blending into the next, as the twilight of yesterday bows to the sunrise of tomorrow. Wooded forests nap in winter, only to awaken at the first blush of spring. Life is slow and easy. A smoky, blue haze blankets the ridges like a soft Southern comforter.

It is the land of moonshiners and rugged individualists.

The Blue Ridge.

The community of Hope Rock was located smack-dab in the middle of Hope Rock County. Residents of the tiny village proudly pointed to the fact that they held the distinction of living in the county seat.

Now, if anyone had taken the time to research this boast, or even to ask a few of the life-long residents about it, he would have discovered that Hope Rock was about the only dot on the map in Hope Rock County large enough to call itself that.

Hope Rock boasted a Main Street that curved to the left after you passed the stoplight at the hardware store and the Pixie-Squares Supermarket. There was a bank, a couple of lawyers’ offices, the courthouse, the sheriff’s office, a small jail, and a scattering of churches. Most of the locals of Hope Rock simply referred to the place as Hope Rock County, rather than the redundant and rather confusing, Hope Rock in Hope Rock County.

Not that it mattered much.

Dirt and gravel roads branched off Main Street and carried you up the slopes to the orchards and farms above the valley. The area was full of rushing streams and good black dirt that had nourished life for untold centuries.

Hadley's house was perched on a hillside at the far end of Main Street with a glorious view of the town below. If so inclined, she could sit on her slice of front yard in her metal glider swing or faded lawn chair and watch the comings and goings of the town's folk. Not that there was that much to see on any given day.

People, in general, tended to stick to their routines and were about as predictable as the gong on the courthouse clock that signaled the noonday lunch hour. School kids lingered around the schoolhouse and played dodge ball and tag on the playground. Folks milled about Main Street or shopped for groceries at Pixie-Squares.

But on warm sunny days, when the housework was finished and she had a few minutes with nothing to do, Hadley would don her wide-brimmed straw sun hat, sunblock, and sunglasses, and go sit outside.

“What’s going on with our neighbors, Nosy Nell,” Maury would often say, dropping by for a surprise visit and catching Hadley in her metal lawn glider.

“Sit down beside me, little sister, and see.”

“Look, Hadley,” Maury said. “They’re washing the fire truck.”

“Tad lives at that fire station,” said Hadley.

“Mmm,” said Maury. “I ran into Beulah yesterday at Pixies. She had on the ugliest yellow dress I ever saw. Of course, I couldn’t tell her it looked hideous. I told her it was cute. I hated to lie, but I had to, Hadley. I couldn’t hurt her feelings.”

“Remember that horrid dress and shoes you made me wear at your wedding?” Hadley asked.

“Oh, Hadley. The color wasn’t that bad,” Maury said.

“Wasn’t that bad!” Hadley said. “Are you kidding? Pineapple meringue! Do you remember? You went bananas over it the second the salesman said those two words. I looked like a yellow school bus, Maury. A bright, big, yellow bus! You even made Mother buy the matching shoes for me!”

“I just wanted you to look nice on my wedding day, Hadley. You were my maid of honor. If I’d left it up to you, you’d have shown up in overhauls and bare feet.”

“Oh, I would not,” Hadley said. “And those two old biddies from Mother’s side of the family. Goading me because I was the oldest, and my little sister was getting married first.”

“You were atrocious.”

“Yeah, I was, wasn’t I?” Hadley said.

* * *

T
he wedding was
to be a grand affair, at least by Hope Rock County standards. The church was decked out with rainbow ribbons and fishing float lures that cascaded from every window in a riot of color. The warm glow of dozens of candles bathed the church in golden light. Friends, family, and casual acquaintances had been summoned to the social event of the year.

The engagement announcement was heralded on the pages of the Hope Rock County Gazette in a full-page spread. The bride to gone to Richmond for professional photo shots. Hadley would not have recognized her own baby sister if her name had not been plastered in two-inch letters under the image.

There were the dresses, the cake, the rehearsals, the flowers, the caterers, the menus, the unending shopping, the decisions to do this or to cut back on that, fittings, a crisis here and there, and on and on and on. In Hadley’s mind, it was a race to see if she would live to see the wedding plans completed of if she would die of old age.

The day of the grand celebration finally arrived. The months of endless planning and preparation were complete. The amount of pomp and pageantry was astounding. Hadley had never seen anything like it. Her father had spared no expense.

Hadley remarked that she wouldn’t be surprised to see the happy couple motor off into the sunset as the grand marshals of a ticker tape parade to celebrate their union. Maybe they had hired a magic carpet to sweep them off into wedded bliss. Maybe NASA was going to draw hearts in the sky with their initials in them. With a wedding like this, anything was possible.

Hadley hoped the grand ceremony would not be a letdown for her baby sister when the reality of married life set in. Maury had always loved being the center of attention. And Hadley thought that was fine.

She was satisfied to melt into the background and let Maury bask in the glow of her own wedding day. Maybe there would be a little left after it was all over. Pocket change for the blue plate special. Maybe her parents wouldn’t be too broke after footing the bill for all this fluff and ceremony.

Hadley stood at the entrance of the church waiting for the wedding to begin. She watched through the open door as two blue-haired, elegantly dressed ladies climbed the steps in tandem. As they reached the church vestibule, Hadley greeted them, thanking them for coming to the wedding.

“You let your baby sister get hitched before you,” one of her mother’s distant relatives said. “No man’s gonna wanna bride smarter than he is. It don’t take much
knollitch
to know that. Ain’t you afraid all that book learning will turn you into an old maid, Hadley Jane?”

“Nah,” Hadley said. “I hadn’t thought about it much, but if I had, I reckon my answer would go something like this:

A mister-less spinster’s better than a miserable missus, I guess. It all depends on the kind of mister that the missus picked from all the rest. If the missus of the mister went away upon a quest, and the mister did not miss her that is sad. You must attest. How surprised the missus of the mister must have been to see her mister list her not as his dear bride but as his wanderlusting guest.”

Hadley gave the lady a great big, innocent smile. The lady smiled slightly and turned away.

“What did she say?” asked another of her mother’s friends when they had walked out of hearing distance.

“I have no idea. I lost her after that first ‘nah.’”

“Me too,” said the second lady. “But I thought it was me.”

“Nah,” said the second lady.

Hadley knew it was a wicked way to answer the woman, but she couldn’t help herself. What difference did it make if her younger sister married first? Maybe, it was those tight high heels Maury forced her to wear that had put Hadley in such a wicked mood.

Or the color.

Pineapple meringue, the salesman had called it.

Just plain, old yellow, Hadley brooded.

But Maury had gone wild and had to have the dress and matching shoes. Maury’s shoes were white, of course. Not these yellow squash that covered Hadley’s feet. Hadley looked revolting in yellow. And the tiny heels on those yellow gourds! Didn’t Maury know that these pineapple meringue instruments of torture were pinching her feet like a vise?

Still, she felt a twinge of guilt. Pinched toes or not, she had been disrespectful to her elders. It was typical. Wasn’t Mother always saying that it was her eldest child she worried about?
Impulsive. Prone to open mouth before brain kicks in.
That’s how her father described her.

But when her brain finally kicked in, Hadley always felt the pinpricks of her conscience needling her to try to make amends. Perhaps, she’d say a few extra prayers for those two old ladies in penance before she fell asleep tonight. Or better yet, maybe they’d say a few kind words for her. But Hadley doubted it.

Hadley was pulling double duty at the wedding. She was maid of honor and server of the cake in the lodge where Bill and Maury’s reception was being held. She decided that when these two ladies made their way through Maury’s reception line, they would have extra large slices of Maury’s wedding cake. The icing alone was sweet enough to cause honey to drip from your lips.

On second thought, maybe she should scrape off the icing from the whole cake and eat it. That much honey dripping might gum up her lips enough to keep her out of trouble for the rest of Maury’s big day.

* * *

T
hey were laughing
.

“Look at us. Sitting here like two fat Buddhas minding everybody else’s business but our own,” Maury said.

“I always wanted to move away from here,” Hadley said, softly.

“I remember,” said Maury. “You had the hives to leave. Just burning to make your mark anywhere but here. Couldn’t wait to brush the dust of this small place off your shoes.”

Maury was quiet for a moment.

“Are you sorry you didn’t, Hadley?”

* * *

E
ight weeks
, forty-seven hours, and twenty-three minutes until graduation. She’d have her college degree in her hand, and then? Maybe south to Charlotte or east to Richmond. Who knew? The world was her oyster, and Hadley was biting at the bit to tackle it head on.

There was only one fly that had landed on the oyster of her big plans, and his name was Harry Pell. A country boy, the lure of city life appealed to Harry about as much as an offer to dig out the Suez Canal with a teaspoon. Harry worked part-time in the office of the city manager for the college town where they both presently lived. He’d told Hadley to meet him in the park for lunch.

“I’ve got a job offer, Hadley,” Harry said.

“You’ll never guess where?” Harry said.

“New York City,” Hadley said.

“No, Hadley. Hope Rock!” Harry said.

The timing of Harry’s new job offer coincided suspiciously with Hadley’s college graduation and her imminent belly-whop into the big-city sea of life. Hadley could not help but suspect her father, one of the two lawyers in Hope Rock County and a prominent member of the mountain community, had called in some favors and pulled several strings. That would explain the sudden dire and immediate need for an accountant to oversee the county's municipal purse strings.

“What are you talking about, Harry?” Hadley asked. “Our little hole on the side of the mountain has never needed an accountant. As far as I know, Alice Beasley, the town’s secretary, has always handled whatever came up.”