Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) (11 page)

Phyllis tried to talk to Talia while the young woman was working on her face, but Talia was close-mouthed and discouraged conversation, saying, “You need to be still while I’m spreading this cream on, Mrs. Newsom. We need a nice, even layer.”

“Of course,” Phyllis said, careful to barely move her lips as she spoke.

Pauline came in while the mask was hardening on Phyllis’s face. The salon owner emerged from a door in the rear of the room. Phyllis supposed she had either been back there in an office the whole time, or else she had just returned from somewhere and had come in through a rear door.

Pauline came over to her and said, “Mrs. Newsom! It’s good to see you again.” She smiled and patted Phyllis’s cape-covered shoulder. “No, no, don’t say anything. Wouldn’t want y’all to risk ruinin’ all of Talia’s good work. Just give me a thumbs-up if you’re bein’ treated right.”

Phyllis responded with the affirmative gesture.

“Good! If you have any problems, you just let me know, hear? We want all our clients at Paul’s Beauty Salon to leave happy.”

Unlike Shelly Dawson, Phyllis thought. The woman had been so upset that she’d wanted Roxanne fired, but that hadn’t happened. It was ’way too farfetched to think that Shelley might have nursed her anger for a week and then come back to take it out on Roxanne, wasn’t it?

Unfortunately, Phyllis knew that crazier things had happened. The very first case she’d solved had involved old grudges...

And just how angry had Pauline been at Roxanne over that flare-up, Phyllis wondered? She hadn’t fired Roxanne, but according to Desiree Chilton, Roxanne might not have acted very grateful for that reprieve. Roxanne’s attitude, on top of the other trouble, might have rubbed Pauline the wrong way...

Now she was just going around in circles, Phyllis told herself as she watched Pauline move along and talk to the other clients in the salon, laughing and complimenting and generally currying favor with them. She had seen bosses like that before, all sweetness and light when customers were around but the Dragon Lady when it was just the workers.

When Talia was finished, Phyllis suggested that she could use a manicure, too. She wanted to spend more time here, talk to more of the employees, although with Pauline around it was kind of doubtful how forthcoming they would be.

She would have even been willing to have a pedicure, although she didn’t like people messing with her feet. She was too ticklish for that to be comfortable.

“You’ll have to ask Pauline about that,” Talia said. “I think all of our nail people may be booked solid for the day, though.”

“It can’t hurt to ask,” Phyllis said. “And thank you for everything you did, Talia.” She regarded herself in the mirror. “Not bad for an old lady.”

Talia’s natural expression seemed to be a solemn one, but she smiled slightly at that.

“You look really good, Mrs. Newsom,” she said. “I hope you’ll come back.”

“I’m sure I will,” Phyllis said...although what she was really sure of was that when she saw the bill for everything, she was going to have a hard time keeping her jaw from dropping.

But it was only money, she told herself. That didn’t count for as much when it was stacked up against Danny Jackson’s life.

When Phyllis asked Pauline about a manicure and pedicure, the redhead smiled regretfully.

“I’m afraid we can’t accommodate you for that today, Phyllis. But I’m sure Aurora would be glad to check the schedule and make an appointment for you as soon as possible.”

“All right,” Phyllis said. Like she had thought about the original appointment, she could always cancel it later on. “And thank you for getting me in so quickly for this appointment.”

“We’re always happy to have new customers. Y’all come back any time.”

“I settle up with Aurora in front?”

“Yep.”

Pauline was obviously ready to move on. Phyllis had stretched this out as long as she could. There wasn’t anything else to be gained here, at least right now.

She opened one of the glass doors and stepped into the reception area. Sam must have seen her coming, because he was already on his feet, wearing a big grin on his face.

“Remember in those old cartoons how the wolf’s eyes would bug out a foot in front of his face whenever he saw a pretty girl?” Sam said. “Well, that’s sorta the way I feel right now.”

“You look great, Mrs. Newsom,” Aurora said with what sounded like genuine friendliness. Sam must have thawed out her attitude, Phyllis thought. “Those highlights in your hair really work.”

“You’re workin’ it, all right,” Sam said.

“Hush,” Phyllis told him, but she smiled as she said it. She had left her purse with Sam. She got it now and took out her credit card.

Aurora announced the amount. Phyllis was braced for it and didn’t gulp. She handed over the card. Aurora ran it, printed out a slip for Phyllis to sign, and stapled the duplicate to the bill she also printed out. It was all done very efficiently.

“I was talking to Pauline about a manicure and pedicure,” Phyllis said as she handed back the pen and charge slip.

“Sure.” Aurora consulted the schedule on her monitor. “How about next Thursday at one?”

“All right,” Phyllis said, nodding.

Aurora wrote on an appointment card and handed it to her. “There you go,” the young woman said. “And you really do look nice.”

“Thank you,” Phyllis said. She smiled, then went out the front door while Sam held it open for her.

As they walked toward the pickup, Phyllis went on, “Now that we’re outside, you can tell me how it really looks. The hair is ridiculous on a woman my age, isn’t it?”

“Not hardly,” Sam said. “Every word I said in there was the truth. You look like a million bucks.”

“A million dollars isn’t worth what it once was.”

“It’s still a whole heap of money to me. And you’re worth more than that, as far as I’m concerned.”

Sam opened the pickup door for her, and then, when he had gone around and climbed behind the wheel, Phyllis said, “Looks aside, how did it go with Aurora?”

“Seems like a nice girl. A little on the dizzy side, maybe, but not too much. You were right about her not likin’ Roxanne, though. I wouldn’t say they were out-and-out enemies, but Aurora didn’t have much use for her, that’s for sure. Said she was stuck-up and that she was Pauline’s favorite. That rubbed Aurora the wrong way, seein’ as how Pauline’s her aunt.”

“She is?” Phyllis said. “I didn’t know that. Neither of them mentioned it the other day.” She paused and thought for a moment, then asked, “What about Danny? Did Aurora say anything about him?”

Sam started the pickup and backed out of the parking space. As he pulled forward, he said, “Accordin’ to Aurora, Danny was cute.”

“So she
did
like him.”

“That doesn’t mean she ever made a play for him and made Roxanne jealous.”

“But she might have.”

Sam frowned and said, “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t surprise me if she flirted some with him. And if he’d flirted back hard enough...” Sam took a hand off the wheel and wiggled it. “Maybe. You got to remember, I don’t know Danny at all. I don’t know how he would’ve reacted in a case like that. Could be he’s the one who made a pass at Aurora, if there was a pass.”

“I don’t suppose I really know him well enough to say for sure, either,” Phyllis mused. “I haven’t spend much time around him since he was in high school. Hardly any, in fact.”

“So we can’t rule out the idea that somethin’ was goin’ on between Danny and Aurora.”

“But we don’t have any evidence that it was, either.” Phyllis thought for a moment. “You said Roxanne was Pauline’s favorite?”

“Aurora seemed to think so, anyway.”

“Something happened a week or so before Roxanne was killed that makes me think the relationship may have changed,” Phyllis said. She told Sam about the complaint against Roxanne lodged by Shelley Dawson. “From what the stylist I was talking to told me, it turned into a huge uproar. The woman even threatened to sue the salon. That must have really upset Pauline. But Roxanne didn’t seem to care that much.”

“Now that goes right along with somethin’ else Aurora told me,” Sam said as he drove around a high, curving ramp that led onto Interstate 30. “She thought Roxanne had sorta lost interest in the salon, too. She’d started out workin’ hard, like she was ambitious and even had her eye on managin’ the place for Pauline someday, but then she got to where she was just markin’ time.”

“Courtney felt the same way about her. But what would make Roxanne act like that? And could it have anything to do with why she was killed?”

“Figure out the first question and you might have the answer to the second,” Sam said.

••●••

Phyllis had been in the salon for quite a while, so once again they stopped for lunch on the way back to Weatherford. Even though they weren’t really hungry anymore, the aroma in the air when they got home and stepped into the kitchen was enough to make their mouths start to water.

“Lord have mercy,” Sam breathed. “That smells
good.”

“Oh, my, it does,” Phyllis agreed.

Carolyn came into the kitchen and said, “You’re back.” Then she stopped short and looked at Phyllis without saying anything.

When the suspense got to be too much, Phyllis said, “Well? What do you think?”

“It’s very nice,” Carolyn said, then added, “It might be a little bit
young
for you.”

“Nonsense,” Eve said as she walked into the kitchen, too. “It looks spectacular, dear. Why, it’s taken years off your look.”

“Better than years off your life,” Sam said. “What’s that I’m smellin’?”

Phyllis was grateful to him for changing the subject, although she knew he was genuinely curious about the source of that delicious aroma. She was, too.

“It’s a slab pie. A chocolate cherry slab pie to be precise.,” Carolyn explained. “This is the recipe I’m going to send in to the contest, if it turns out the way I hope.”

“I don’t have a clue what a slab pie is, but judgin’ by the smell, it’s gonna turn out mighty good,” Sam declared.

Phyllis was relieved to know what Carolyn’s contest recipe was at last. She didn’t want to step on her old friend’s toes with the idea she’d had. She said, “I’m sure it’ll be wonderful. I was thinking about doing my column for the issue when the contest results come out about fruit pies. I’ve had an idea for a berry pie in the back of my mind for a while now.”

“What sort of berries?” Sam asked.

“I was thinking maybe blackberries and blueberries.”

Carolyn frowned and said, “That sounds a little violent, don’t you think?”

“How can a pie be violent?” Eve asked.

“I mean, black and blue berries? Especially when you’re investigating a murder where someone was beaten to death?”

“That never occurred to me,” Phyllis said.

“I think it’s quite a stretch, myself,” Eve said. “Anyway, that issue of the magazine won’t come out for, what, three or four months? By then the murder will be long since solved and the real culprit will have been brought to justice.”

“We hope,” Phyllis said.

“I don’t think anyone doubts your abilities, dear.”

Maybe not, Phyllis thought, but having people depending on her when it was a matter of life and death was a considerable responsibility. A lot more important than pie recipes, that was for sure. Carolyn’s efforts had sparked her creativity, though, and after competing with Carolyn for so many years when it came to cooking, sometimes it was difficult for Phyllis to remember that those days were behind her now.

She turned to Carolyn and said, “I think the pie smells delicious, and I definitely want a sample when it’s done and has a chance to cool off.”

“Me, too,” Sam said. “Not too cool, though. It’s still got to be warm enough to melt the ice cream a little.”

“How can you judge a pie properly if you cover it with ice cream?” Carolyn asked.

“That’s the good thing about it. I’m not judgin’ it. I’m just eatin’ it.”

Something else had occurred to Phyllis during the drive back from Fort Worth, an angle she hadn’t explored yet on this case. More and more, people put their whole lives on display on social media, and once those posts were online, for the most part they stayed there forever. She wasn’t that familiar with some of the platforms, but she knew her way around Facebook and knew that it had become popular while Mike was in college. People in his generation still used it extensively.

That included Danny, of course, so after sitting down at the computer, she went to Facebook and searched for him.

Finding him took several minutes. There were a
lot
of Danny Jacksons. But his page hadn’t been deleted, and when she found it, Phyllis began scanning down through the posts.

The page wasn’t private, and the most recent post was a few days before Roxanne’s murder. Not surprisingly, the page hadn’t been updated since then. The posts were innocuous, though. Many of them were reposts of humorous memes. Danny had an interest in hot rods, since there were some videos of racing. The more personal posts were usually about places he and Roxanne had gone or things they had done together, often including smiling photographs of her. If there was any indication of trouble between the two of them, it wasn’t apparent to Phyllis.

There were a few pictures of the paint and body shop and Brian Flynn, Danny’s business partner. One of them showed the two men with their arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning proudly into the camera. Judging by the date, Phyllis figured that was when the shop had opened. Roxanne had probably taken the picture.

Phyllis studied Danny’s page for quite a while before admitting to herself that she wasn’t going to find anything worthwhile here. All it did was support Danny’s claim that he loved his wife and wouldn’t have hurt her.

Maybe there would be a different story on Roxanne’s page, if it was still there, Phyllis thought as she began to search for it.

Unfortunately, it appeared that Roxanne’s page had been deleted, if indeed she had had one. She was listed as his wife in his profile information, but it wasn't an active link. She wasn't tagged in any of Danny's posts that mentioned her or pictures that included her, so that was an indication she didn't have a page of her own. There were still people who weren’t on Facebook. Plenty in Phyllis’s generation, in fact, but some among younger folks, too.

She searched Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram for Roxanne Jackson and didn’t find anything, then it occurred to her that she didn’t know what Roxanne’s last name had been before she married Danny. Some women continued to use their maiden name, and that could be true on social media as well.

She would have to find out about that, but in the meantime she went back to Facebook and decided to look up some of the other people involved in the case. She started with Brian Flynn.

Again there were a number of people with that name, but within a few minutes Phyllis was able to find the right one and start backtracking through his posts. Brian had been pretty active on Facebook, reposting and sharing quite a few links to funny video clips and car-related topics. Like Danny, he had a clear fondness for hot rods and racing. Being a single man, however, Brian had posted numerous pictures of pretty girls, often scantily clad, draping themselves across the fenders of cars. Some were risque enough to make Phyllis blush.

She noticed a gap in the dates of the posts and realized that it had occurred right after Roxanne’s murder. That made sense. The wife of his best friend had been murdered, and that best friend had been arrested for the crime. That was enough to make anybody forget about Facebook for a few days.

Phyllis dug deeper and saw that Danny had liked and commented on a number of Brian’s posts. That wasn’t surprising, either. Danny had disappeared from Brian’s timeline after the murder, of course, since he was in jail.

Then a black-and-white photo caught Phyllis’s eye. Brian hadn’t posted it. Someone named Roger Terrill had, but evidently he was friends with Brian because Brian was tagged in the post, causing it show up on his timeline. Phyllis could tell right away that the photograph had been scanned from an old high school yearbook. It showed three football players, in uniform but with their helmets off, standing on the sidelines of a football field, each with his arm around a pretty cheerleader who snuggled against him. All six people in the photo were smiling with the cheerful confidence of youth.

Phyllis clicked on the picture to enlarge it and leaned forward to study it more intently. There was a caption under the photo identifying the teenagers in it. Phyllis didn’t need the caption to recognize Brian Flynn. The resemblance between the younger version of Brian and the way he looked now was unmistakable.

The girl he had his arm around looked familiar, too. Phyllis’s gaze dropped to the caption and she caught her breath.

“Whatcha doin’?” Sam asked from behind her.

She straightened in the chair in front of the desk where the computer and monitor sat. Her finger pointed at the photograph on the screen.

“That’s Brian Flynn when he was in high school,” Phyllis said. “And look who his girlfriend is.”

Sam bent down to peer over her shoulder. He said, “Is that...?”

“Her name in the caption is Roxanne Macrae,” Phyllis said. “But that’s her, no doubt about it. That’s Danny’s wife.”

••●••

Armed with Roxanne’s maiden name, Phyllis began searching again. She still didn’t find a Facebook page under that name, but she was able to determine that Roxanne Macrae had graduated from Western Hills High School the same year as Brian Flynn—which was also the same year Mike and Danny had graduated from Weatherford.

“You know, just because a football player has his arm around a cheerleader in a yearbook picture doesn’t mean they’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” Sam pointed out. “Pictures like that are staged all the time.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Phyllis said. “But look at the caption:
Lovebirds
. The conclusion is pretty inescapable. Even if the picture
was
just staged for the yearbook, though, that doesn’t change the fact that Brian knew Roxanne from high school. In fact...” The wheels in Phyllis’s brain were starting to revolve faster now. “When we were talking to Brian, he referred to Roxanne as ‘Roxie’. That implies a certain degree of familiarity, doesn’t it? I don’t recall Danny referring to her that way, or anyone else we’ve talked to about this case.”

“Danny didn’t use that name while you were talkin’ to him in jail,” Sam said. “He might’ve around friends, though, like Brian.”

Phyllis nodded. “That’s true. You know what we’re going to have to do.”

“Ask him?”

“That’s right.”

“Before you do that...if you’re right and the two of ’em dated in high school, it doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with what happened to Roxanne.”

Phyllis knew Sam was playing devil’s advocate now, and she was grateful for that. Any theory she might form had to be tested over and over again, until there was no doubt in her mind that it was correct.

“The whole thing could be a coincidence,” Sam went on. “Maybe Brian and Roxanne dated in high school, and then didn’t see each other for years, until Danny married her and introduced her to Brian like the two of ’em had never met before. I can sure see why both of ’em would keep quiet about that and not say anything to Danny, especially if things were serious between ’em back in the day.”

“You mean if they slept together.”

“That could be a mite uncomfortable,” Sam said. “For all three of them.”

Phyllis sat back in the chair, her excitement ebbing a little. She had thought she was on to something, but Sam could be right. The whole thing could amount to an embarrassing coincidence, nothing more.

“You’re right, but it still won’t hurt anything to find out for certain about the Roxie business.”

“It sure won’t,” Sam said.

Phyllis took out her phone and called Jimmy D’Angelo. She couldn’t just call the jail in Fort Worth and ask Danny a question, but as his lawyer, D’Angelo might be able to.

When the attorney came on the phone, he said, “I’m glad you called, Phyllis. I was just wondering how you and Sam were coming along with the investigation.”

“We’ve come across several things that
might
be related to Roxanne’s murder, but nothing that we can prove had anything to do with it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I just got word that Danny’s going to be transferred to Huntsville next Tuesday.”

“That’s less than a week from now,” Phyllis said. She felt the pressure increasing, like a vise tightening. It had to be a lot worse than that for Danny.

“He’s been lucky it hasn’t happened before now,” D’Angelo said. “So if you’re going to come up with anything...”

“You don’t have to tell me. It needs to be soon. Actually, I called because there’s something you might be able to help out on. Can you get Danny on the phone?”

“Sure I can. I’m his lawyer. It might take a little while, but I can do it. Do you need me to ask him something?”

“Yes,” Phyllis said. “Ask him if he ever called his wife Roxie.”

D’Angelo was silent for a moment, then said, “You mean, like a pet name for her or something like that?”

“Exactly.”

“And this is important to the case?”

“It could be.”

D’Angelo hesitated again, but only for a second. “All right. I’m curious, but I won’t ask you to explain right now. I’ll just take your word for it. You want me to call you back as soon as I find out anything?”

“That would be fine.”

“Okay. You’ll hear from me later this afternoon, I hope. Or possibly in the morning. But as soon as I know anything, you will, too.”

“Thank you, Mr. D’Angelo.”

“Not a problem. In the meantime...”

“I’ll keep looking,” Phyllis promised.

“That’s what I like to hear. So long.”

Phyllis broke the connection and looked again at the yearbook picture of Brian Flynn and Roxanne Macrae. Their smiles were big and genuine, she thought, the smiles of two people in love.

Just like Roxanne and Danny had looked in their pictures.

Was one of those things a lie...and had it led to murder?