Bye Bye Bones (A CASSIDY CLARK NOVEL Book 1) (13 page)

“Fair question. Because, for now, we are the village. It’s territorial, not that we all aren’t after the same goal. Manning is pissed off at our lack of performance, mad as hell about my shenanigans with the Marks guy at the cabin, and I know he knows I’m still working the Marks case.”

“What do you have? For us?”

“A familiar name. A flashing epiphany moment.”

Schlep feigned a faint, then put his elbows on the table and stared at me with sparkles in his azure eyes.

“What kind of safe zone have you established for our perp?” I asked.

“I’m sorry. They’re broad. Triangulations are almost impossible because we have to include all of metropolitan Tucson.

“More than geography, the connections might be of importance. The hairdresser. We could place her with the socialite, even though she wasn’t the vic’s stylist.”

“Exactly. I’m looking at any and all connections.
Cosas Buenas
. Remember, we looked for a list of clients that went there?”

“Yes, and it wasn’t a good list. Lots of cash patrons. Snowbirds with no client records,” Schlep said.

“Did you know that the salon has a private room for spa parties?”
For the first time, ever, confusion registered across Schlep’s face.”

“Never mind. I’m a woman and I didn’t know it. We need to revitalize that list with the names of any women attending private parties there.”

“Why would the salon have their names?”

“Because they have the most reputable salon in all of Tucson, and they’re business-minded. They’ll have made an effort to get names.”

“You want me to get the names of every person that has attended every private function at that salon?”

I shrugged and sunk my head down into my shoulders, and grinned. That turtle thing. “In, let’s say, the last two years. Carson can help.”

“I take that as an affirmative. We’re on it.”
“Just one thing,” I added.

“What?”

“They have six salons in the area. Start with the salon on the northwest side. That’s where the stylist works and our socialite frequented.”

“I’ll give Carson those closer to the eastside.”

“Why?”

“It’s where she lives.”

“It’s where you live, too.”

“I don’t want her to feel pressured to go out. She has those little rug rats, you know.”

I admired Carson. She was remarkable. On her own, with three small children, and managing to be a great employee and keep a smile on her face.

I wasn’t so sure I admired myself. My career was great. My personal life sucked. What I wanted most always seemed to be one step ahead of me, always turning around to pull at my heartstrings. Mom was gone and I couldn’t call her up in heaven, as hard as I tried, just to tell her about what I’d fucked up that day. I guess I had the wrong number. My failed marriage was just that. A failure. And I wanted those crazy and wild rug rats messing up my house, my yard, and my life.

“You needed a new woman in your life. What’s her name?” Jessica asked.

“Really, a new puppy?”

“No. A new woman. I was so worried about leaving her at your house. My neighbor could only watch her for so long.”

“She’s a beauty, Jessica. Just like you. I love her already.”

“So, what’s her name?”

“What do you like?” he asked.

“She’s your dog, but I guess I like Marlo. Or Antoinette.”

Jaxon laughed. “Seriously? I guess I need to think about it.

“Okay. You had a Gecko. A desert name. Let’s brainstorm desert names.”

“
She was drunk!”

“
I heard someone slipped her a roofie.”

“
Maybe she has that disease that Annette Funicello had. You know, she acts all drunk.”

“
MS. The poor woman has MS.”

“
I saw her drinking wine at lunch. Drunk!”

“Close down your laptop,” Jaxon said. “We have better things to do. I’d like to introduce you to Lizzie. As in lizard. Gecko’s counterpart.”

“I’m so happy to meet you, Lizzie. I hope you can like me in spite of the press.

“Oh. I am the press.”

“I’m working this list Schlep gave me. I have some concerns, Cassidy.”

“I wanted you two to work as a team. The vans?”

“I’ve milked that list. I have it down to about four hundred. From the thousands, that’s pretty good, but this is about the salons.”

I was not good at managing. Never was, and here I had my own company of six people. Me, Schlep, now Carson and three surveillance guys.

“Work with Schlep, Carson. Please.”

“You don’t understand. He’s asked me to check into the
Cosas Buenas
salons on the east side. I understand the business, from the owners down to a struggling nail tech. All the inner workings. I know the private rooms. And I believe our best lead will come from the northwest. I think you’ve already told Schlep as much.”

“I don’t see this as an issue. Follow your instincts. I believe in those feeling, call it from your gut, or a woman’s intuition. Put your talents to the highest and best use. I’ll send you anything you want.”

“Thanks. I have everything I want, now, including your support.”

“You go, girl. But I’m going with you. We can call it a business expense. Anything else?”

“I’m worried about how Shepard Brown might take my invasiveness, after he told me to look at the eastside.”

“Call him Schlep. He likes it. He deserves the name. He wears it like a badge of honor. We both tried to keep you on the east side near your home and your kids. And we all know that his mind functions on a higher plane than we will ever understand. At the same time, we get hunches. He doesn’t. He operates from his cerebral va-va-voom state.”

“Schlep is kind of doting on me. Anyway to have him knock it off?”

“How do you mean?”

“Today I received ten boxes of disposable diapers, and a toy for my two-year old. No acknowledgment. No note.”

“It would be the kind of thing Schlep does best, when he’s not memorizing the encyclopedia of words that have yet to be invented. He has a good heart. Accept it. He didn’t leave you a note on purpose. Unacknowledged, which is what he wants.”

“Okay. I’m still working the white van list, and the salon list, right?” Carson asked.

“These are our only two less-than-viable leads. Work them. Sometimes these can turn out to be the good ones.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. You’re letting me go back on the air tomorrow. I know there are ramifications.”

“Tell me about all those that you perceive.”

Jessica pulled out two printed pages of all of the comments posted to her social page.

“I’ve seen these.”

“My doctor suggested I go to the police and file a report. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to do what you need to do. It’s a double-edged sword, and you know that. The station has no official comment.”

“And you, personally?”

“I think you’re in a pickle, quite frankly. If it were me, I’d want to nail the sunovabitch that gifted you that drug.”

From the hall, he watched her open the card. He knew how to play the nice game. He knew how to hide his grinding teeth.

Scores fumbled inside the silk lining of his trousers and pulled out the vibrating phone.

He said, “I told you I would take care of it, but my prices are going up. Don’t call me here again.”

The hustle and bustle of the popular salon veiled itself in an atmosphere of light lavender aromatherapy and soft instrumental music that would be soothing to even the best of the young rocker chicks. The individual stations were flooded with appropriate task lighting, but the reception light resembled the magical glow of twilight after a Tucson sunset.

Carson’s treatments would take longer, so I scheduled my hair first, with a long wait in the reception area, and then address my nails.

My stars. I hadn’t had a pedicure in years and my fingernails looked appropriate for any normal six-year old. Maybe that’s why I scheduled those for last.

A masseuse entered through a glass door and whispered out for Carson Greer. Carson gave me a knowing glance rimmed with confidence. She wore her head high as she followed her therapist, and for the first time I noticed, even with her butch-type haircut, she was a knockout.

Massage and facial therapists are trained to speak only when necessary. Carson had her work cut out for her. Hair stylists and nail artists loved to gab. I prepared myself to chat and listen as the perky young woman with platinum hair called me to her station.

Perfect. I seemed to be invisible to my hairdresser as she and the stylist next to her voraciously rambled out a stream of consciousness between them.

Gossip. Bad husbands and worse boyfriends. Back-stabbing girlfriends. Restaurant, music, and movie critiques.

“How late did you end up stuck here last night with the bitch?” My hairdresser asked the woman next to her.

“To call her a bitch is very generous. Two and one-half hours for a simple haircut, and the woman gave me a damn five dollar tip. I swear I’m going to tell the front desk not to schedule her with me again.”

“Don’t let them book her with me. Dragon lady on steroids. With all that money she gives you a five? How did a woman like her even make money?”

“She didn’t earn a dirty dime. Little
Lordess
Fauntleroy inherited her daddy’s chain of pool stores.”

The blow dryer began blasting and that was the last of the conversation. I had nothing new. I already knew that the
she
was Sandra, and Sandra was a bitch and a cheap heiress.

The nail treatments proved to be truly horrendous. My face reddened to crimson as I was told I was a very bad girl with my home beauty care. It dawned on me I had heard the same scolding from my dentist, my doctor, my lawyer, my accountant, and any Indian Chief that cared for me. It had probably been over a year that I had seen any of them.

Carson returned to the lobby like a relaxed beyond-al-dente noodle. She had nothing concrete—just a feeling. The same feeling that consumed me.

We were on to something and we had nothing.

“When are you going to ramp up your information to the public that we may have a serial rapist, kidnapper, or worse? They need more.”

“Not yet. I have pressure to keep it under wraps.”

“You promised me. Don’t tell me you’re talking about our dutiful presiding mayor?”

“That’s part of it. And by the way, he seems to know your name. Something about a case you have with Sandra Vickery, who is a personal friend of the mayor’s. He asked me, ever so politely, to ask you to back off.”

“You know that’s why I left the department. I can follow the big rules, and I do, but it’s not in my DNA to stomach the little ones—and for me that includes all politics.”

“Think about this, Cassidy. You have a loose connection between three of the missing women. We go public, and we’ll scare the guy, or guys, off. And going behind my back, to the press? We have too much history. I should think you would respect some of my decisions.

“Look what the press is doing with the FBI. High-profile case, high-profile special agents, and the news broadcasts are massacring the blue suits. Do you want to tag along?”

“The women of Tucson have a right to know.”

“They do. All of these cases have been mentioned in the news. It’s not my fault no one has connected the dots.”

“Good point. You get my respect. For now.”

“I want you, Jess,” Jaxon said after a few laps and a few romps.

“I always want you,” she teased as she collected water into the hollow of the pool noodle and blew it out on him like a water gun.

He shook off the water, then took her by the arm.

“You don’t get it. I want you, alive. You and Lizzie.”

“Lizzie?”

Call her. She already knows her name.

They did it in unison, and the vivacious puppy came running.

“See. It’s all good,” Jessica said.

Jaxon slid on to the top stair of the pool, lifting his feet and finding comfort as the sun reflected each and every droplet of water falling back into the pool.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I know you have. I think you should go to the police,” he said.

“Why? I think my viewers are steadfast and on my side. My station manager is okay. And if things get bad, I can always fall back on the hospital records.”

“Someone meant you real harm. That’s clear, and it scares me.”

“That someone being your ex-wife?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. The point is we don’t know.”

Jessica got out of the water and dropped into the nearby chaise. She pulled her straw hat down her face.

“You’re right. I’ll go to the police. File a useless report. And then we’ll get your private detective who is already following Sandra on the job. I have to wonder if she escaped the radar, once again. Maybe she got into my home with that poison.