Read Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery Online

Authors: Elaine Viets

Tags: #Cozy Mysteries

Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery (13 page)

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“How do you do that?” Helen said.”My wrists would hurt.”

“Practice,” Miguel Angel said.”You need strong hands for this job.”

Cecilia’s hair color was a rich brown, and thanks to Miguel’s sham poo and styling potions, it was shiny. Helen noticed that Cecilia’s hair was thick on the right side, but so thin on the left that her ear showed. Miguel Angel opened a drawer and brought out a fall of brown human hair. He held it against Cecilia’s own hair.

“Too dark.”

Miguel Angel rummaged in the drawer for a lighter shade and held it up again.

“Perfect match,” Cecilia said.

“Still not right,” Miguel Angel said, though the hair looked okay to Helen.

He pulled out a third fall.”Perfect.”

He used the combs in the fall to hold it in place, then accepted the hairpins Phoebe handed him. She passed them gingerly, as if Miguel might bite.

Miguel brushed some of Cecilia’s own hair over the fall, fluffed and sprayed it, then said,”There.What do you think?”

“I look ten years younger.” Cecilia smiled for the first time since she’d entered the salon.

Helen handed Cecilia her blouse on a hanger, and she changed in the dressing room. Ana Luisa gave Cecilia the bill. Helen noticed that Miguel Angel had given her a price break on the makeup lesson and the fall. Cecilia tipped him fifty dollars.

Cecilia left the salon, wearing her black blouse and jeans. Her limp disappeared. Her walk was a confident strut, and she turned heads up and down Las Olas.

“Bravo,” Helen said.”But you shaved some money off her bill.”

“She really can’t afford to come here, but she is a nice person,” Miguel Angel said.”I cried when I thought she was going to die.”

“You old softie,” Helen said.There it was again: Despite the salon’s hard, chic exterior, Miguel Angel could be unexpectedly kind. He closed his salon case and handed it to Helen to put away.

“Not everything is about money,” Miguel Angel said. “I can afford to indulge myself sometimes.”

“So you’re a fairy godmother?” Helen asked.

“Let’s not talk about sex, please,” he said, and laughed.

“Is Cecilia’s husband as big a jerk as he sounds?”

“No. He’s a good man, but he doesn’t understand how he hurts her when he talks about her appearance. Cecilia is getting older, and she’s trying to look good for him, but it’s hard.”

Helen heard Ana Luisa shout,”Miguel! Quick! The wedding mur der is on the noon news.”

Helen and Miguel had carefully avoided the subject all day, as if talking about King’s death would make the cops materialize in the salon. Now Helen, Miguel Angel and Phoebe crowded into the back prep area, where there was a tiny television.The story was headlined A King Is Dead.

Helen saw shots of King’s palace, a clip from the wedding video, and footage of the hospital where he was pronounced dead. There was also an interview with a police spokesman who said King’s death was murder.

“The autopsy shows that the victim was alive when he went into the water,” the police spokesman said, “and injuries indicate that he struggled to get out of the pool.The victim was a strong individual, but he was in an intoxicated state, which impaired his ability to fight for his life. The victim drowned in his pool.The coroner has ruled Mr. King Oden’s death a homicide.”

A reporter interviewed a woman identified as Death Wedding Guest. “I saw the groom—the dead King—arguing with a woman in a blue dress by the pool.The woman wore high-heeled sandals and had blond hair.”

Helen groaned. “Miguel Angel, why did you pick blue? Didn’t the bride have any black dresses?”

“Blue is a better color for me,” he said.

“They’ll never find the killer now,” Helen said.”Every other woman at that wedding wore a blue dress.”

“But I’m the one who ran,” Miguel Angel said.

Helen noticed that Phoebe was hanging on to their words. Miguel Angel noticed that, too.

“Back to work, everyone,” he said. “We’ve wasted enough time to day. Helen, sweep the floor around my chair, will you?”

“Sure.” Helen picked up a broom.

“Carolina is here,”Ana Luisa said.”And after her, there’s Ursula.”

Carolina wanted color, a cut and a blow-dry. Her skeletal arms were freckled with liver spots. Helen figured the woman was close to seventy, but Carolina had convinced herself that she looked forty. She wore her blond hair draped over one eye, like a forties movie star.

Phoebe handed Miguel Angel squares of foil while he painted high lights into Carolina’s thinning hair.When he finished, Phoebe plugged in a color-processing dryer, which had two heated wings, like a me chanical butterfly.The heat sped up the color process. Miguel Angel set the timer, and promised to be back in twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, he turned his attention to Ursula, a large woman with shoe-polish-black hair.

Miguel Angel mixed her color and covered the skunk stripe of white roots with a brush. Ursula insisted that her hair be dyed flat black. Miguel Angel tactfully suggested that she lighten her hair or add some highlights, but Ursula refused.

“I was born with raven hair and that’s the color I’ll keep,” she said, shutting down all discussion. No one told her the raven had long ago turned into a common crow.

Ursula and Miguel Angel debated the merits of trimming her bangs.

The timer dinged.That was Phoebe’s signal to wash Carolina’s hair. She led the woman to a sink and carefully pulled out the foils. Then Phoebe held up a peach bottle and said, “We have a special shampoo for thin, older hair.”

The woman twitched as if she’d been stung. Helen thought Caro lina was angry, and Phoebe was so clueless she didn’t know she’d in sulted a customer.

Phoebe wrapped a dark towel around the neck of Carolina’s cape and adjusted the height of the sink. She gently rinsed Carolina’s hair.”Is that water too hot?” she asked.

“No, I like it hot,” Carolina said.

“Do the Hustle,” an ancient disco tune, played on the sound track. The woman tapped her foot.

“Is this the music you liked when you were young?” Phoebe asked.

Carolina shot straight up.”When I was what?” She tore off her cape, threw the towel on the floor and marched over to Miguel Angel.”That id iot insulted me. I’m not paying three hundred dollars to be told I’m old.”

“Carolina, please wait,” Miguel Angel said.

“Why? So you can insult me again? Do I look stupid enough to have danced to disco?”

Carolina marched out of the salon, wet head held high.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked Helen.

“Yes,” she said, and told him what Phoebe had said.

“That moron,” Miguel Angel said.”I’ve wanted Phoebe out of here. Now I will get my wish.”

He took Phoebe aside and fired her. She ran for the door, weeping.

“You’ve ruined my life. I’ll make you sorry,” Phoebe cried.”I’ll make you both regret this.”