Deadly Blessings (8 page)

I fixed my gaze on him, hoping to make him
wither and leave. Didn’t work. He fidgeted in his seat. Belatedly,
I realized he was here because he wanted something.

“
Mr. Bassett told me you
had a file on that Millie girl who was murdered.”

“
Milla. Her name was
Milla.”

“
Yeah. Whatever. Can I have
it?”

Sometimes I wonder if aliens haven’t invaded
our planet after all. This Fenton sure qualified. What else could
explain the sort of mindset that allows a person to meet, insult
and then ask a favor of another—someone they’ve known for all of
twenty-four hours?

“
Tell you what, Fent,” I
said, getting extreme and perverse satisfaction from the cringe on
his face as I truncated his name, “I’ll make a copy for you in a
little bit. Let me just finish up here.”

“
I’ll wait.”

I shook my head.

His face started a shift from pale to red as
he spoke, “Listen, there’s no reason for you to be difficult about
this. I know it was your story, but you have to give me whatever
you’ve got. Otherwise Mr. Bassett is going to hear about it.”

I felt like we were two little kids fighting
over a toy, and Fenton was the whiny one ready to break into tears
and run to tell his mommy.

Giving a sigh, I shook my head again. “I’m
not being difficult.” Not much, at least. “Look around. I’ve got
lots of notes here. In lots of different places. It’s going to take
me a little bit to get it together. But I promise you’ll have it.
By this afternoon. Okay?”

Mollified, he nodded. “When you do, can we
sit down and go over it then? So you can bring me up to speed? Give
me an idea of how to go about putting the story together for the
scripter?”

“
Gabriela’s got three women
coming in to visit with me today for this other story. Don’t know
that I’ll have any free time.”

“
But I’m supposed to have
it done by the end of business tomorrow.”

Of course it had to be finished tomorrow.
But I didn’t see the reason for the whiny voice. This story was one
that would just about write itself. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” I
said.

“
Maybe not for you, but I
never …”

I waited, but he didn’t finish his
sentence.

“
You’ve never researched a
story before?”

Making an ‘Ugh, that smells’ face, he
shrugged. “I don’t think it’ll be all that tough.”

There was no more perfect response he could
have given to provide me reason to blow him off. In the interest of
fairness, and more importantly, to cover my ass so no one could
accuse me of sabotage, he’d get his folder. Yup. He would get every
single solitary fact about the case. All my suppositions,
conjecture, notes, and leads, however—the ones I’d tracked down
myself and had hoped to follow—those would stay with me.

“
Well, it’s good to see you
have the right attitude,” I said, with a beaming smile. “I’ll get
that information to you lickety-split.”

Jordan knocked at the doorframe. My ten
o’clock appointment, one of the hair fiasco women, stood next to
her, looking wealthy, polished and terrified at the same time.

I was thrilled to see her.

“
Duty calls,” I said,
gesturing toward them.

Looking painfully confused, Fenton stood up
and walked out without saying another word.

* * * * *

After cursory introductions, Wilda Lassiter
took a seat across from me.

“
That’s an interesting
first name,” I said, just to put her at ease, “Is it short for
anything?”

I’m no detective, though I’ve secretly
harbored the desire to be one for as long as I can remember.
Probably how I came to work in this particular field of research.
My job entails more than just fact-gathering and verification. I
have to decide which of the many people I meet are good candidates
for on-screen interviews, and who’s going to take a seat beneath
the glaring lights, get one look at the camera rolling, and freeze.
Conversely, I need to determine which of my interviewees are going
to see this as a shot at their fifteen minutes of fame and try to
upstage Gabriela. She hates when that happens.

As do I, actually. Ham interviews are
generally not audience-pleasers. But good-looking people who
genuinely break down during the telling of their tale of woe, are.
Wilda Lassiter, a dark blonde, dressed in at least five shades and
textures of pale brown, looked like a tall beige sparrow, moving
her head with nervous jerks as her bright dark eyes took in my
office, one portion at a time. I could tell she wasn’t actually
seeing anything. She was trying to look at ease. Failing miserably.
But she had the look of an onscreen winner.

Startled by the question, she shot her
attention my way and gave a small smile. “My grandmother’s name was
Wilda. It’s odd, I know, but no matter where I am, I’m always the
only one.”

Wilda looked to me like a woman who didn’t
like to waste time. The prim way she held her French-manicured
hands atop her Chanel purse (I can recognize Chanel, even if I
can’t afford it), and her slightly forward lean, made me jump right
in. “Gabriela told me that you had some problems with a salon?”

“
I’ll say.”

She didn’t expand immediately, but I took it
more as a chance to gather her thoughts than an unwillingness to
talk. Rather than press, I waited. She studied her hands as they
crossed and recrossed themselves atop her purse, then gave a tiny
shake of her blond head.

She didn’t let me down.

“
It was the worst
experience of my life,” she said with emotion. Her eyes widened and
she pointed her index finger upward. I could see it tremble, even
as her face maintained calm. “My regular designer, Bethany, was off
on maternity leave. I swear, she picked the worst possible time to
take off. I had three formal dinners coming up. Three! And every
single one of them was key. I couldn’t afford to miss
them.”

I glanced at my notes. “Did these have to do
with your line of work?”

Her face conveyed the message that I’d asked
a stupid question. I get used to that with interviewees sometimes.
In this case, I hoped it meant she was becoming a bit more at ease.
“No, of course not. I don’t have a job.” I’d never heard “job” come
out in two syllables before. “I’m on the board of several
philanthropic organizations. And it was Christmastime, just when we
all have our end-of-the- year banquets.”

I started to worry that her story wasn’t
going to play well with our viewers. “Okay, so tell me about your
hair experience.”

“
Well.” She tugged at her
short brown skirt and shifted her weight from one cheek to the
other as she settled herself to talk. “Do you have anything to
drink? Bottled water, perhaps?”

She was definitely more at ease now.

“
Of course. Sorry, I wasn’t
thinking,” I said as I hit the intercom button on my phone and
asked Jordan if she could oblige.

“
As I was
saying … Bethany was off, gone for at least three months, and I was
more than a little skittish about trusting my hair to someone else.
I’d been with Bethany for about five years, and she
knew
my hair. Knew it
like she knew her own. And when you find a designer like that, it’s
like finding gold. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

I felt her glance take in my straight,
though recently highlighted tresses.

I didn’t want to go
down
that
road,
so I just nodded. “So, what happened?”

“
They assigned me to
Antonio.” The way she said his name made me want to laugh. She
rolled her eyes in sync with the syllables as she drew them out,
long and melodiously. “Highly recommended. Their top designer. Some
stylist. He was an ass. A pompous ass.”

I had another appointment at ten-thirty. I
knew I should push Wilda to get to the nitty gritty, but she’d
warmed to the subject and I get so much more information when a
subject tells me their story in their own way.

“
First off, he gives a
look, like I’m the bride of Frankenstein, or something. And he
tells me my color is all wrong for my face. That Bethany was a nice
girl but she didn’t have an eye for color. That if I followed his
advice, I’d look ten years younger.

“
I didn’t like the way he
talked about Bethany, but he told me that he’d just come from a
seminar that introduced him to all new procedures, things that
other salons wouldn’t hear about for six months. Things that
Bethany might have learned if she hadn’t left to have a baby. He
convinced me to trust him. He said I wouldn’t recognize myself when
he was finished.” She made a noise then, that in a woman less
cultured-looking, I’d have to call a grunt. “He was right about
that.”

Jordan came in with two bottles of Crystal
Spring water and two glasses. Wilda and I both thanked her as she
left and opened our drinks simultaneously. I drank mine from the
bottle. Wilda used the glass.

“
Gabriela said that you
took to wearing hats. Is that right?”

“
Wouldn’t you? He learned
some new procedure all right. But he learned it wrong. He used the
wrong chemical on my hair. When the girl rinsed me off, I knew
something was wrong. She tried to keep me seated, but I ran to the
mirror. My hair was blue. Bright blue. Like a Popsicle.”

My eyes widened and I tried to picture Wilda
sporting wet blue hair, staring furiously into a mirror.

“
But that wasn’t the worst
of it. Antonio tried to get me to believe that this was simply step
one, and that everything was going according to plan. I knew
better, I could tell by the look on his face that he’d screwed up
and was just too afraid to say so. But what was I going to do? I
couldn’t very well go home looking like that.”

“
What did you
do?”

“
I
demanded to talk to the manager. She came out, and was less than
sympathetic I might add, as though things like this happen all the
time. And she tells Antonio that he better fix it or he’s out on
his ass. I swear, that’s exactly what she said. She whispered it
but I heard every word. And this Antonio winks at her and makes
like he’s sorry, but he talked to her real close and says something
about
her
ass and I caught him rubbing her butt. Like I wouldn’t see
that!”

“
Did he fix it? Your hair,
I mean.”

“
I didn’t want Antonio to
touch me again, but he insisted. Told me I was overreacting and
that everything would be fine after another twenty-five minute
processing. I was blue, you know? What else could I do? And none of
the other stylists there wanted anything to do with me at that
point.”

Wilda took another long drink of her water
before continuing.

“
So, I’m a little worked
up, to say the least, but Antonio assures me that I’ll be back to a
real color in no time. So I wait. And I have this cream all over my
head, and it’s wrapped in a plastic bag. I’m under the dryer now
because he says that will make the natural blonde take better. This
time, when they go to rinse me out, I’m watching the eyes of the
girl real close, and I’m telling you there’s nothing so ...
frightening as seeing a person’s reaction when something horrible
is happening. Especially when that horrible thing’s happening to
you.

“
My heart about stopped
beating, I think. And she calls over Antonio, except her voice is
almost screaming. I grabbed my hair and I … I felt my scalp. My
scalp! I shouldn’t have been able to feel that! And little bunches
of hair, like lumps. I ran over to the mirror— “ Wilda interrupted
herself then. She was reliving it as she spoke. Her face suffused
with pain and the tears poured freely down her face. “My hair was
gone. Almost all of it. There were only some patches left. Like …
like … one of those Japanese trees. Chunks of blue hair stuck out,
but otherwise my head was completely bald.”

* * * * *

I was beginning to think there might be more
to Gabriela’s story than I originally assumed, as I logged my
impressions in my trusty handheld voice recorder. Wilda’s attempts
to sue the salon had netted her hours of anguish from continuances,
and though the case was still pending, she had clearly lost her
steam. Her hair had grown out and her attorney warned her
repeatedly that costs were mounting and there was no guarantee
she’d win. She stormed out of the salon that day without paying.
While that move was completely understandable, she had no receipt
and Antonio conveniently didn’t remember the incident.

She left several pictures with me. I knew
they’d make effective close-ups with her retelling the tale in a
voice-over. I hoped this William was a decent scriptwriter. The
blue tufts of hair sticking out all over her bald head were truly
pitiful. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Prickles of inspiration started moving
forward in my brain. I could work with this. And I had contestant
number two due here in a few minutes.

In the meantime I remembered I needed to
call my Uncle Moose. I was moving out of Dan’s on Saturday and
could use some able-bodied help.

Aunt Lena answered on the second ring and we
exchanged quick pleasantries. Uncle Moose was out, playing cards
with his buddies down at the gym. A former semi-professional
wrestler, Uncle Joe had taken on the name Moose way back in his
heyday, before I was born, when he’d held the title of North
American Wrestling Federation Champion, which was a Very Big Deal
on the South Side of Chicago.