R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi (11 page)

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Chapter Eighteen:

Pearlie handed the breakfast dishes to the men and said,
“We’re going to the beauty parlor. See you in a few hours.”

In the Jeep, Pearlie gathered up her loose hair and inspected it. “I guess I better get a trim, too. Suddenly my ends are splitting.”

“Haven’t you noticed how quickly our towels dry? It’s really easy to get dehydrated here. Between the altitude and the dry air, the weather here is tough on everything.”

“Rattlers, coyotes, scorpions and dehydration—I guess there
ain’t no such thing as paradise, is there?”

“Tell that to all the snowbirds who flock to Arizona every winter so they don’t have to shovel snow.”

“We’re not staying long enough to find out if they have snow here, are we?”

“It’s still September, we have plenty of time to solve this case and clear
out before it gets cold.”

~~~~~~~~~~

At Darlene’s Cut and Curl, we were met by enthusiastic rock-n-roll and a petite redhead in bright yellow lipstick. She reached over and turned down the music. “Welcome to Cut and Curl,” she said. “I’m Suzi and this here’s Darlene.”

Darlene, a pretty, green-
eyed brunette attempted to match Suzi’s welcoming smile but her grasp the back of her salon chair couldn’t hide the slight tremor in her hands.

“Let’s sit you girls down and you can tell us all about it,” she said.

“You mean—my color?” I asked.

“That too,” she said, a little too quickly.

Pearlie squealed with laughter at some witty comment of Suzi’s, and soon the two were easily chitchatting.

Draped with a towel tucked around my neck, Darlene picked up a hank of my long hair and examined it. “Not bad. Someone’s given you a nice cut recently.”

“Yes,” I said, “for my wedding. And my great-aunt Mae gifted me some property nearby so we decided to visit Arizona.”

Darlene and I locked eyes in the mirror. “And you brought your cousin instead of your husband?”

Okay, so this wasn’t going exactly as planned, but I could turn it around.

“Well, of course my husband is here, but there’s supposed to be a gold mine on the property, so
Dad was all for a road trip. Unfortunately, the first time he went to look for it he fell into a mine pit.”

Darlene picked up a brush and went to work on my hair. “Oh dear. Was he hurt?’

“No, no. He’s fine. But there was another man at the bottom of the pit. I’m sure you’ve heard about it by now.”

Darlene laid the brush
down, and without a warning, gave the chair a whirl, jerked the lever on the backrest, and suddenly my carotid artery felt terribly exposed.

Why did I think I needed to come in here? Haircut, wasn’t it? Did we talk
about a haircut? No we did not.

“Your dad,” she said, lathering on some nice smelling shampoo. “That must’ve been terrible for him. Was—the man alive when he found him?”

“No,” I squeaked. “Dead. Sorry.”

She nodded, reached up to a shelf and I got a whiff of underarm odor. Did beauticians go
au naturel
in Wishbone, or was this a sudden case of nerves? Squirting some conditioner into her hand, she silently went to work on my scalp.

How was this supposed to be a fact-finding mission if she wouldn’t talk to me?

More laughter from Suzi’s side of the room. Pearlie certainly wasn’t having any problem in that department.

“I need to le
t that conditioner soak for a few minutes.” Darlene patted my shoulder and disappeared.

She spoke
to Suzi and the door to the shop opened and closed.

Taking her at her word, I closed my eyes and tried to relax.

Pearlie tapped my shoulder, her hair in alternate layers of foil. “What’d you say to her?” she whispered.

“Are they gone?”

“Yes, now talk.”

“I told her that it was my dad who found the body.” I whispered back, “I
dunno, Pearlie, I think I upset her.”

“Well, of course it upset her. The police chief was her husband.”

“Her husband! Wow, that sucks.”

“Are you kidding? We hit the jackpot
. Kinda makes me wonder ….”

When the bell jingled on the door, Pearlie scurried back to her chair, grabbed a magazine, and stuck her face in it.

I, on the other hand, lay with my head soaking in conditioner, feeling like an idiot. Surely Darlene had been told how her husband was found, but talking to the daughter of the man who found him must be a shock. Still, hadn’t we made the appointment hoping for some gossip on the murders? But I also wondered why she would be here at her shop so soon after her husband’s murder, and what she might have in store for my hair.

Darlene put her hand on my shoulder. “How you doing,
hon?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Then let’s finish up.”

She rinsed and towel dried my hair, and without asking how I wanted it, proceeded to style it.

“Hair spray?” she asked, holding up a can.

“Uh, no thanks. I never use the stuff.”

She nodded, and started spraying and only stopped because the can finally fizzled and died. Waving away the noxious cloud, she turned me around to face the mirror.

I suppose if I had the right makeup, and wore something from the year nineteen sixty-five—maybe an Op-A
rt dress and go-go boots, I’d be ready for a photo shoot draped over a Corvette.

“You don’t like it,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

Not wanting to be the cause of making this poor woman any unhappier, I stuttered an excuse. “It-it’s just different, that’s all.”

She removed
the drape and lowered her wet lashes. “It’s on me, anyway.”

I looked at Pea
rlie, sitting under the dryer, her magazine in front of her face. Her shoulders were shaking with laughter, so no help there.

“No, no,” I said, pulling out my wallet. “You did a great job.”

Darlene stayed my hand. “Please, just hear me out, will you?”

I
waited, the wallet in my sweaty hands.

“The man in the mine pit, the one your dad found, was my husband.” Seeing I was going to apologize, she put up a hand, “No, that’s okay. There’s no way you could’ve known.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, now feeling like a jackass for coming here.

“
The Sheriff said my husband was the one who answered Bethany Coker’s distress call.”

I nodded. “I heard that too, but I don’t know much more than that.”

Her pretty green eyes misted with tears. “The real problem is that the sheriff is looking for likely suspects. And as always, they look real hard at the spouse first.”

“If it’s any consolation, they’re also looking at my dad and he never met the man before he landed in that pit.”

“Then you understand how I feel. My husband was supposed to be on his way to Wyoming for his annual fishing trip, but instead, he detoured for a 9-1-1 call and died a damn hero.”

“He has a police radio in his personal car?”

“It’s always on. He was all about duty, honor and all that crap. It’s the reason I fell in love with him, but it got him killed, too.”

“
So what can I do for you, Mrs …?”

“Call me Darlene. I need someone to find my husband’s killer.”

Seeing my confused expression, she grabbed my hand. “Suzi said you two girls are private investigators.”

“Well…
.” I didn’t know what to say.

She
tightened her grip. “Don’t you see? It’s divine providence that sent you here. I need someone besides the county sheriff’s department to help bring my husband’s killer to justice.”

.

Chapter Nineteen:

I got into the Jeep, looked in the
rearview mirror and groaned.

Pearlie snickered. “Love the new look. I think you’d fit right in at the Houston Women’s Club”

“Oh, stop,” I said, reaching for a hairbrush and digging a comb into the hairspray. “Nobody wears big hair anymore. Well maybe in Darlene’s church.” Satisfied that I’d calmed the tornado on my head, I added, “You realize she thinks she’s hired us to find her husband’s killer.”

“Yep. Suzi handed me an envelope full of cash.”

“She did what? Pearlie, I was just kidding. We couldn’t cash Mac Coker’s check if he gave us one, and we certainly couldn’t sign a contract with Darlene. We’re not legal!”

“Darlene doesn’t want a contract. She’s wants this deal kept on the Q-T. No one is to know that she’s hired a P.I. Which work
s just fine for us. As for the money, that’s for expenses. And we get hair-cuts and color for free for the rest of our lives. Ain’t that sweet? I’m hungry, where’re we gonna eat?”

We were working for haircuts.
Yessir, we were big time P.I.‘s all right.

“I saw a Mexican place on the way out of Wishbone,” Pearlie said. “Let’s eat
there.”

“Mexican? You are feeling frisky today, aren’t you?” I asked, feeling decidedly grumpy. “This close to the border you’re just
beggin’ for Tijuana two-step.”

“We need to make a plan before we get home.”

“You mean, get our stories straight, don’t you?” I asked.

“You’re right, and that may take a while. We better get take-out for the guys,” she said. “Men behave better on a full stomach.”

“Oh, all right.” I looked at my watch. “It’s eleven a.m. If we don’t take too long,” I said, and pulled onto Highway 92.

In my rear view mirror was a white Prius, and in front, was a white Ford
F350 with dualies and a fake bull sack attached to the chrome hitch.

“I guess
Karen was right about white trucks,” I said.

“
Whad’ya mean?”

“Deputy Dumb-Ass was annoyed because Dad’s only description of the killer’s vehicle was that it was white. Evidently, white and faded are the state colors for Arizona.”

“It was a truck, right?”

“
And too far away to tell what make or model. White trucks aside,” I said, “we need to talk about Darlene.”

“Yeah? What about her
?”

“
We can’t have two clients for the same case. We’re supposed to be working for Bethany’s father, remember?”

Pearlie shrugged and looked out the window at the passing scenery.

“And I’m really annoyed that you sat there with your face in a magazine while Darlene poured her heart out to a perfect stranger. I’m uncomfortable making promises we may not be able to keep.”

“Forget about that for a minute. What’d she tell you about her husband? Word for word, if you
can?”

I struggled to get my temper under control. My cousin was again overlooking the little details that could get us in trouble, or killed.

“Oh come on, Lalla. She wasn’t going to talk to us unless we agreed to work for her.”

She had me there. I told her what Darlene said about her husband insisting on being first responder to any crime scene.

Pearlie snorted. “Gotta wonder about a man who can’t live without a police radio in his personal vehicle. The hero type, huh? How romantic. Except guys like that are all about their job, and no romance at all. What else?”

“If he was on his way out of town for his annual fishing trip, then why was he wearing a sports coat and dress slacks?”

“What? When did she tell you that?” Pearlie asked.

“Dad told us.
Sorry. He was in that pit with the police chief, remember? He also said the man had on too much aftershave.”

“Okay, but you forgot to mention what he was wearing.”

“Slipped my mind, okay?” I said.

“Is there anything else you forgot to tell me?”

“I can’t think of anything,” I said, through clenched teeth.

“I’ll let it go for now,” she said. “If you can get over working both sides of this case. So his fishing tr
ip had nothing to do with trout. Do you think she suspected?”

“She sounded more heart-broken than angry, but surely they handed over his personal effects. His dress slacks and shirt would be her first clue there was something wrong.”

“Yeah, she knew.”

Pearlie held onto the notion that all men were cheaters. Of course
, she’d had some experience to back up that theory, too. Come to think of it so did I, but those memories receded with every year I spent with Caleb.

“If he was on his way to see a girlfriend, he missed his chance when he took that 9-1-1 call,” I said.

I wheeled into a gravel parking lot next to the Mexican café and noted several more white trucks, one looked like the truck I’d followed out of town, but it didn’t have a silly fake bull sack hanging from the hitch.

“Any place with this many cars must be good,” Pearlie said, hopping out of the Jeep and striding for the door of the cafe.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lunch dispensed with, we gathered up our take-out bags and left.

Getting into the Jeep, I glanced up at the sky. The clear blue dome over our heads should have been heartening, but all I could think of was my dad watching the same sky while stranded in the bottom of a mine pit. And then there was the possibility that the killer might have lined up my father as his next victim.

Pearlie pointed to the levers next to the
steering column. “What’re those for?”

“
They activate the lockers. You use the locker to shift the four-wheel drive into the slowest gear so the tires don’t slip.”

“Oh yeah? Then let’s give it a try,” she pointed to a side road
snaking uphill.

“Red Mountain Road?
” I said, reading the sign. “This is our road. It looks like one big circle.”

“A short cut home? Perfect.”

I figured if we ran out of pavement the Jeep could handle it, and throwing up a cloud of dust behind us, sped past a solitary mailbox and narrow lane ending in a lonely rooftop.

Shifting down into
four wheel drive low, we started climbing. Cresting the hill, I slowed and stopped on the bluff. Stretched out below us, afternoon light glinted off rooftops and skipped across the green of the San Pedro River to nudge up against the Huachuca Mountains.

“For being out in
nowheresville, there sure are a lot of houses,” Pearlie said.

“Sierra Vista has a population of forty-five thousand, and that’s not counting the snowbirds that
start trickling in about this time of year. They have a shopping mall, too, but it’s nothing like Tucson.”

“What do folks here do for work?”

“There’s Fort Huachuca and the border patrol. Are you looking for a job?”

“I’m going back to Modesto to look for an office to rent for our P.I. business.”

“About that Pearlie, I don’t think—”

She swatted away my objections. “You got your plate full right now, what with your dad being under a microscope with the local gendarmes and all. Let’s find a killer, and if you still want to back out, I’ll quit trying to convince you to come with me.”

“Deal,” I said, and put the Jeep in gear.

A
big white truck, its heavy chrome grill glinting like sharp teeth, roared up the hill and headed straight at us.

I gasped and looked for a way to move out of his way.

He must’ve seen us, we weren’t that hard to miss, but instead of slowing, he gunned his engine.

Hoping to avoid a collision, I did what came naturally—I twisted the wheel to the right. The big truck passed so close I felt the paint wh
isper off the side of the Jeep.

Unfortunately, the passenger side wheels slipped off the edge of the road and the Jeep was now listing precariously.

Pearlie squealed and yelled, “What the hell’re you doing? Get this damn thing back onto the road, now!”

“Okay, don’t yell,” I said, and yanked the wheel to the left.

The wheel spun but the Jeep didn’t move.

“Use that locker thingy!”

I looked at the switch. Good idea, except I had no idea how it worked. I flipped the switch, but when nothing happened, I said, “It won’t work.”

I was
now sorry I’d dismissed Dad’s offer to teach me how to use his new gadget.

I gunned the engine again.
Instead of moving back up onto the road, now two wheels hung over the edge spiting dust. This is what lockers were for, if only I knew how to use them.

Jam
ming the gas pedal to the floor only caused more wheel spinning and suddenly all I could see was a cloud of dust covering the windshield. Stifling a groan of self-pity, I hit the gas again, willing us to back up onto the road. Fat lot of good that did. I had absolutely no traction.

Then I felt the uphill side of the jeep start to come loose.

“No, no!” I yelled, and cranking the wheel over, I gunned the motor in a futile attempt to change the laws of gravity.

The Jeep’s wheel spun out of my hands, and Pearlie started screaming, “Make it stop!”

I felt the uphill side of the Jeep lift off and as if the vehicle had a mind of its own, we started to lean over.

The Jeep groaned, metal on metal as if it was gnashing its teeth.

I gasped in shock and yelled for Pearlie to keep her hands close to her body and, oh crap … “Hang on! We’re going to roll!”

In another second, we became air-borne.

We had on our safety belts, but that didn’t do anything for the take-out bags, the contents becoming wet, soggy projectiles slapping us in the face.

We jerked upright from the first roll,
rocked once. Twice. Done, I hoped.

I wiped a tortilla off my forehead, thinking we were finished, bu
t then I heard the painful sound of the uphill tires as they came lose and momentum once again took over.

W
e went over again, banging into rocks, crashing through a bush as we rolled.

Pearlie was screaming and cursing. Our lungs were clogged with dust and yet, we continued to scream
.

A
ll I could think of was how I wished I had never heard of Arizona.