Sprayed Stiff (7 page)

“It’s enough,” Scythe said more to himself than to me.

“Enough? You don’t want to hear any more?”

“No, go ahead. It’s just enough to motivate her to murder her overbearing mother.”

“Come on. Lexa wouldn’t murder anyone, especially her mom.” I employed my pop psychology. “They were too codependent.”

I expected an eye roll, but instead Scythe bought into my theory and turned it to his advantage. “Maybe Lexa finally was ready to be free. It’s probably a lot easier to pull a trigger to cut the cord than stretch it emotionally.”

Uh-oh. “Prove it.”

“That’s not my problem. It’s the district attorney’s.”

“You just used me to make your case against Lexa!”

“Get used to it. It’s what cops do. Plus, it’s better than trying to make a case against you, which would probably be a helluva lot easier.”

“Oh, yeah? What would my motive be? Maybe I thought by killing a famous society matron and doing her hair postmortem, I’d get some extra business from all those crime scene photos….”

“You
are
sick.”

“I’m ambitious. Others could testify to that. You might be able to sell that story. Okay, you come up with something more plausible.”

“Maybe you and Lexa are having an affair and you are taking revenge for your lover.”

I shook my head. “Weak. You guys all have those lesbian fantasies. It’s really sad. You think a woman cop would ever come up with that one out of the blue with no supporting evidence? No way. If you got a woman on the jury, that one would be toast.”

In the rearview mirror, I could see him grimace at the road.

“Have you arrested Lexa?”

“None of your business.”

“I guess it’s also none of my business that you let some hack chew on your hair the last time it needed a trim, huh?”

“Damn right,” he snapped. Then his gaze went reflexively to the rearview mirror for a quick check before he caught himself and stuck it back on the road. He ground his jaw and tried not to ask. A minute ticked by before his ego couldn’t stand it anymore. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing’s wrong with your hair.”

His shoulder muscles dropped as he relaxed.

“It’s your cut that’s embarrassing.”

Oops—those shoulder muscles rose, higher than before. It’s fun to mess with the mind of an egomaniac, which is, of course, most of the male species. They can’t help it, it’s testosterone induced.

Scythe held his tongue. He had impressive willpower. I goaded him more. “Number-two clipper cut on the sides, and long enough in back to maybe make a ponytail. I don’t know, maybe you want to look like a Bubba who lives in a trailer park and has a rifle rack on the rear window of his Ford. Hey, have you been working undercover?”

I really had to remember the guy was armed. Still, I knew that cut and who did it. I just wanted him to admit it. Just one more try.

“Or maybe you’re dating the girl who cut it. You know, when a man loves a woman…”

He shook his head, but didn’t open his mouth. We were between streetlights and I couldn’t read his expression in the reflection off the dash, so I didn’t know whether to push a little harder or drop the subject altogether. It was that touchy with Scythe. Not that I didn’t usually enjoy pissing him off, but his current state of mind might make the difference in the kind of jailer I got for the upcoming strip search.

I decided changing the subject would be the safest course of action.

“I took a couple of shots of Wilma—” He nearly ran off the road. Oops, leave it to me to pick the wrong word. “I mean, shots with a camera.” Scythe shook his head and got us back on track. I continued, “Anyway, I took the pictures for you guys before I fixed her hair. It was straight out like this.” I pulled my artfully messy locks out by their ends in a poor illustration. He cocked his left eyebrow. “Oh, well, you’ll see in the photos. I hid the camera back in the bookcase. Don’t tell Lexa I took them, she’ll freak out. Oh, also, I recognized the kind of hairspray the killer used—it’s Main Mane by Hair’s Breadth.”

He sat up straighter and shot me a glare through the rearview mirror. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I forgot. Apparently, being handcuffed and stuffed into the armpit of a suit of armor impairs my memory.”

Scythe grunted. “While you are in the remembering mode, why don’t you tell me what the Carricaleses told you before I noticed they’d arrived home?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

I watched his jaw flex. “Why not?”

“It really wouldn’t help you any. It was all a bunch of small talk. You know…‘Why are you here?’ ‘Oh I’m kind of locked into the situation, ha-ha-ha’…. That kind of thing.” The truth was, I didn’t know what to tell Scythe. He could use any of the “hims” and “hers” in the servants’ scenarios to make his case against Lexa. And while I thought
some
of the “hers” the Carricaleses mentioned might be her, I knew not
all
the “hers” were her. Got it? Until I understood more of what they meant, I wasn’t telling Scythe jack. Plus, there was the open gate thing. I wanted to make sure Lexa didn’t open it before I blabbed about it.

“Sure.” He knew I was lying by omission, but didn’t call me on it. Not yet. “You knew this servant couple? Or was it like our friend Tanno and you’d just met?”

“I’d met Maria once when she brought Lexa to a hair appointment months ago. I’d never met her husband.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Look, I am not a friend of the family. I am Lexa’s friend. I was Wilma’s enemy.” Oops, that was a bad word choice. Again.

“Really?”

“Well, she thought of me that way. Once she came and tried to talk me out of doing Lexa’s hair. It was more a control thing than anything about me. I knew that.”

“So, how does her brother feel about you?”

Was he still stuck on that? Geez. I was tempted to tell him about some wild sex orgy we’d shared, but I doubted I could do it without spoiling the fib by bursting into gales of laughter, so I fell back on the truth.

“Hairdressers aren’t the focus of long-distance family conversations, so I doubt the guy knows about me and I wouldn’t know him if I fell over him. From what I’m told by Lexa, he’s gay. He lives his own life in Houston with a devoted partner and has as little as possible to do with his parents. He’s friendly but not close. Lexa respects him for that, envies him for it, too.”

“What about Mr. Barrister?”

“What about him? Lexa never says much about him except to mention his lifelong disappointment that she won’t be a lawyer or marry one. I’ve only seen him once before tonight, and that was at a charity function a date dragged me to.”

From my rearview mirror perspective, I watched Scythe’s eyebrows shoot up. I wasn’t going to tell him that had been my last date and it had been a year ago. Let him think it had happened last week.

“You might be interested in my opinion, as a beauty professional, of the way the victim was arranged. I think it shows a great deal of hostility, and the killer was making a statement about appearances.”

“You might be interested in my opinion, as a law enforcement professional, of the way you were found in the presence of the victim, carrying what might prove to be the murder weapon, all on the pretense of helping a friend.”

I was ticked off he was ignoring my evaluation of the situation. After all, I knew a helluva lot more about the aesthetic industry than he did. We exited the freeway, and I could see the high-rise that was the Bexar County Jail about two blocks away. “And your opinion is?” I finally asked frostily.

His voice was hot and tight when he finally spoke. “Reyn, you need to learn to say no. If you’d said no when Lexa called and asked for help, then you wouldn’t be in trouble. I wouldn’t be forced to take you to jail.”

“Good advice. I’ll start practicing saying no to you.”

The way his neck stiffened, I knew I’d hit home.

D
ON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU
that going to jail is no big deal. Every emotion imaginable mixes thick in the stale air of the bullpen that is the Bexar County receiving room. Cops laugh with each other over their children’s latest escapades as they register the effects of a one-legged Vietnam vet booked for vagrancy. Street-walkers hike up their spandex skirts to show they have nothing on underneath to the officer taking down their vital information. A deputy sheriff flirts with a rookie SAPD officer. A detective argues with a social worker as they fingerprint a sobbing teenage mother arrested for letting her boyfriend drown her baby. A man arrested for five rape/robberies stares at a lovely heiress kleptomaniac shoplifter, planning his sixth. A Boy Scout troop leader falsely accused of fondling a charge stares hopelessly into space. A goth freak details his latest cult animal killing to his benchmate, who looks ready to vomit.

This or another version of it happens every minute in the room where Scythe led me. I knew he’d taken me to jail to teach me a lesson. Emotionally, I learned it in the first thirty seconds. Intellectually, though, I refused to let it change my future course of action. I’m hardheaded that way. I hate to be intimidated.

The strip-search officer was kind, which made it marginally less humiliating. I hated Scythe about that moment, but no more than I hated myself for answering my damned phone at nearly midnight and for not being able to say no. But what if I hadn’t? Lexa would be getting searched now, and she’d be having a harder time handling it than I was.

The fingerprint ink was cold. When I fought off a shiver, someone asked, “Do you need a blanket?”

I didn’t think the processing cops were usually so solicitous of their charges. I slid a glance at Scythe, who was talking to another detective as they leaned against the wall. I wondered what he’d said in undertones to the cop in charge when we’d walked into the bullpen. Scythe was ignoring me now, but a couple of times I’d caught him shooting me a glance, flexing his jaw, and balling his fist in the pocket of his jeans. Guilty? I was getting the impression this was harder on him than it was on me.

Good.

Finally, the woman officer who’d been processing me turned to Scythe and said, “I’m taking her to get her picture taken.”

“Don’t let that dumb hairdo break the camera,” he quipped.

She stared at him, aghast. “What are you talking about? Her hair is awesome. Meg Ryan messy is the best. And the color, that amber brown, is so rich. Look at all the cool highlights, a little blond, a little auburn…”

“Thanks,” I told her. “Now, about
his
hair…”

“Oooh, girlfriend. Trailer park trash.”

I grinned. Scythe rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, shook his head, waved at the buddy he’d been talking with, and stalked off. I did notice him looking at his hair in the glass as he passed through the door.

As soon as I sobered up, I felt alone.

I smiled when the flash went off anyway. My mother taught us always to smile for a camera, because you never knew where the picture might end up. I might be wrong, but back in the seventies, I don’t think she was being prescient about the Internet and digital imagery. Still, that was today’s reality, so if my face was going to end up on some porn site on Pamela Anderson’s body, I might as well look happy about it.

For all the apparent chaos, they were pretty darned organized at the jail, so I didn’t wait long to be arraigned. I wasn’t sure what charge I was being held on. The fact was, it could be a host of them. Scythe had promised to call my next-door neighbor Tessa Ugarte, who was an attorney, to help me through the process. I wondered what the hell was taking her so long to get there. I mean, I knew it was early (or late, considering your point of view)—almost six o’clock in the morning—but still. After all, I did feed their cat, Merlin, when they went out of town.

Time to return the favor.

Scythe had been MIA since before my photo session. I really hated to miss him, but, damn it, I did. Of course, I was sitting in night court between a twitching, sweaty crack addict going into DTs and a chanting street preacher wearing nothing but a grimy gunnysack that read
IDAHO GOLD POTATOES
, so I probably would be missing Jack the Ripper as long as he wore antiperspirant and real trousers and could carry on a semblance of a two-way conversation.

The bailiff called my name and I was led to the judge’s bench. Still no Tessa. The damned cat could starve the next time they flew to Cozumel.

I kind of missed the beginning as I was plotting how pissed-off to be at Tessa, but I did hear: “Reyn Marten Sawyer. You are being released.” The gavel went down. The bailiff tried to shoo me out the door. I ignored him and stood stubbornly in front of the bench.

“Why?”

“What?” The judge looked up from the next file on his desk.

“Why are you letting me go?”

“Not enough evidence to hold you over for arraignment. You are free to go. This arrest will be expunged from your record.”

“But how come?”

“Miss Sawyer.” He sighed heavily, reminding me of Scythe. I have a way of rubbing the justice system the wrong way. “I have never in a decade of sitting on the bench had anyone argue with me over being released.”

“I just want to know if someone pulled some strings—”

“I don’t know and, furthermore, who cares? You are free to go. If you argue with me any more, I will hold you in contempt of court for your stupidity and then you really will be arraigned!”

I hate to lose an argument and I especially don’t like being threatened, but it occurred to me that now was probably not a good time to stand on principle. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

The bailiff shook his head as he led me out the courtroom door. He stopped dead in his tracks in the hallway, and I bumped into his back. I don’t think he even noticed because all he could see was Trudy. In his defense, her knockout body in an orange and white polka-dotted mini-suit cut down to here and up to there and over-the-knee white patent-leather boots would’ve stopped the President on his way to pick up the red phone. She’s a tall, lithe redheaded beauty who would make my more athletically built freckled self feel like a troll if I thought a lot about it. Which I don’t. Not unless I’m prepared to have a whole carton of Häagen-Dazs that day. Today I wasn’t. I had way too much on my mind to feel sorry for being shorted in the looks department. I eyed her boots. It was only early April. “Did I miss Easter?”

“Whoever said white was only a spring and summer color was a close-minded fool.” Trudy was never a slave to fashion rules. And anyone who ever saw her forgave her.

The judge bellowed for the smitten bailiff. Trudy waved at him as he left, and I thought he might faint with pleasure. “What are you doing here?” I asked. I was glad to see her, but this was no coincidence. As an interior designer, Trudy hung out at antique auctions, fabric stores, and chandelier bonanzas, not the jailhouse.

“Jackson called me.”

“Did he, now?” I shoved my hands on my hips. “What did he say?”

“He told me to get here as fast as I could to take you home once the court released you.”

“So he knew the judge was going to release me?”

Trudy nodded. “I got the impression he arranged it.”

“So I was right. It was all an idiotic stunt. I’m going to kill him!”

The hallway full of arrestees went silent. A jail officer in the corner straightened to attention, hand on gun butt.

Trudy threw an absent smile at the sudden audience and waved off the stunned silence. “Oh, it’s just a lover’s spat. Her boyfriend’s a cop. Jackson Scythe. That’s who she wants to kill.” She giggled.

“Really?” The jail officer took a step forward, not giggling.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I argued—the wrong point, of course.

“But I bet you’re gonna kill him anyway?” the jailer inquired.

“Of course she is.” Trudy added helpfully, “She’ll try to, anyway. Likely with torture involving his genitals.”

The jailer took another step forward. I finally heard our conversation from his perspective. Uh-oh. I put a hand up. “It’s not what it sounds like. I’m just joking.” I patted Trudy’s arm, a little too hard. She winced. Okay, maybe I whacked her. “She’s just joking. It’s all a joke. Ha-ha.”

Trudy finally caught on and added a weak he-he to my ha-ha.

The jailer was suddenly in front of us, not sharing our chortling. He pulled out a notebook, pen poised. “What’s your name?”

Double uh-oh. “Zena Zolliope,” I said quickly, pulling Trudy past him and down the hall before he could finish spelling Scythe’s hairdresser’s first name.

“Reyn,” Trudy admonished as we made our way through the parking lot to her bubble-gum-blue Miata, “you really need to learn to curb that temper of yours or you’ll end up in jail for good.”

“Trude, you really need to learn to turn on that brain of yours or you’ll help me get there. What’s with the genital and boyfriend comments?”

“Well, you could’ve come up with a better assumed name. Zena Zolliope.” She gave her giggle-snort. “Who’d ever believe that was someone’s real name?”

“It
is
a real name. It’s the woman who got her hands on Scythe’s hair and Lord only knows what else.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but I think I failed. I think I might have sounded a tad bit jealous.

“Neon newts and kinky kangaroos, no kidding?” Trudy giggled. She snorted. She stopped in her tracks and looked at me. “He
told
you that?”

“No, of course he didn’t tell me. I recognized the cut.”

“You can’t do that,” Trudy scoffed, blowing the whole idea off with a wave and a flutter of her peachy perfect fingernails.

“Hairdressers have signatures just like you interior designers do. Don’t tell me you can’t place who designed what room.”

She acknowledged that with a nod and deactivated her car alarm. It beeped back at her. “I can.”

“There you go. I was assigned Zena as my partner at the last two hairstyling workshops. She is stuck on this goofy cut for guys who have natural wave in their hair. No matter how many cuts she was shown, by how many experts, from ’Om to Paul Sasson’s clinician, her attempts always ended up the same—looking like Scythe’s does now.”

“Still, that doesn’t prove—”

“And,” I interrupted, “five feet of her five-foot-ten is legs. Her sheet of honey-blond highlight-foiled hair reaches her size two hips. She favors three-inch-long crimson fingernails and four-inch strappy gold sandals. Her head would float away if not attached to her neck.”

“That would be the clincher.” Trudy nodded. “I guess you’re right.” Over the course of the last murder we’d been unwittingly mixed up in, Trudy had seen the various women Scythe dated. They pretty much could be summed up thus. Around the cop shop, his women were called “Flavor of the Week.” “Flavor of the Day” might be more accurate, but nobody asked me.

We lapsed into silence as we sank into the miniature seats of her sports car, and she buzzed out of the parking lot. The horizon showed the promise of dawn as Trudy drove past the ragtag group of mostly Hispanic men, many of them from Mexico, on the corner waiting to be hired as day labor on various construction jobs around town. As we angled onto the interstate, Trudy pursed her glitter-peach–glossed lips and threw me a sidelong look.

“I can’t believe you lied to me. I should’ve let you catch the bus home.”

She was so steamed that the bus was sounding pretty damned good about now. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, you promised me less than eight hours ago that you wouldn’t get involved in another murder.”

“I can’t help it that someone offed Wilma. I can’t help it that Lexa called me.”

“You can help what your answer might be.”

Was this a recurring theme or what? It was beginning to piss me off.

“I didn’t know that Wilma was dead when Lexa called, Trude.”

“That’s what Jackson said.”

“ ‘That’s what Jackson said,’ ” I mocked in a nasal tone as she exited the freeway. “If you know the whole story, why are we discussing it?”

“We aren’t
discussing
it. I am giving you a piece of my mind.”

“You don’t have enough to spare,” I muttered. “And I don’t like it that you’re doing whatever Scythe tells you to.”

“Hey, that’s not fair.” She braked too hard at a stop sign. “I don’t need Scythe to tell me that you ought to mind your own business and stop nosing around in other people’s problems.”

“This is more than a problem, Trude. This is a murder.”

“All the more reason to keep out of it.”

“Well, it’s too late now. I’m in it, and nosing around is the only way I’m going to get out.”

“Rabbits’ rumps and possums’ pissers, Reyn!” Trude nearly missed my driveway and had to do a one-eighty to miss an oncoming car. I was waiting for what came next with a certain trepidation, since the only time Trude used body parts in her colorful expressions was when she was royally ticked off. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that by letting you go, you
are
off the hook? Duh! Do some cuts and colors today, talk about the latest hot affairs in high society, and stay out of the Barrister business.”