The Brush Off (3 page)

Only half-naked now, I gently tugged open my closet door to consider my footwear. Or, rather, bootwear. I wear nothing but boots—unless I’m out walking the girls, that is. Then nearly three hundred pounds of dog requires some athletic shoe traction. All other times, though, I’m booted. I have forty-seven pairs of boots. My sister Pecan calls me Cowgirl Imelda. She ought to be more understanding, considering it’s partly her fault. As a child, I had to wear all the holey shoes and scuffed-up boots handed down from my four older siblings, two brothers and two sisters. I never owned a new pair of any footwear, which sparked in me a burning desire for a brand-new, shiny pair of boots—a desire that was not fulfilled until I left home at eighteen.

But that one pair was not enough. I’m sure I have an obsession that would qualify some enterprising psychologist for a million-dollar federal grant.

And I don’t care.

I must point out that San Antonio is not really a cowboy-boot-wearing town. Not like Houston and Dallas, that is, where every third person has on a Stetson and Justins or, depending on what part of town you’re in, Luccheses or Dan Posts. It’s not like that here—except in February, rodeo season, when every high-society babe pulls out her alligator pointy-toes—so my year-round boot fashion did sort of stand out.

I considered the carefully arranged (the only part of my life that was organized was my boot collection), custom-made three shelves of leather and various other animal and amphibian skins. What was appropriate for a crime scene? For mourning a friend? Plain, not lace-ups, as they might convey the wrong message. The black lizard pointy-toed gals with the silver trims beckoned, but I surely didn’t want the blowhard cop thinking I’d dressed up for him. Those indigo maroon kangaroo numbers called from the second story, but I ignored them. After all, why was I letting his fantasy-inspiring voice determine my choices when he probably had a doughnut overhang above his belt and considered his gun proof of some deeply hidden masculinity? He had been exceedingly polite when my misunderstanding had tested his patience, but that didn’t win many points with me.

I chose a somber pair of Justin Ropers and yanked them on.

The phone shrilled again. I stared at it; the dogs stared at me. I was expected down at Ricardo’s main salon on Broadway to talk to Officer Charming, “Asap,” he’d instructed into my stunned silence. I hate people who turn acronyms into words, as if I didn’t have enough reasons to dislike this guy, anyway. Calling with the news that Ricardo was dead and waking me up to do it were numbers one and two on the growing list.

Maybe the caller was he, saying I wasn’t required after all. They’d wanted me to arrive to give the positive ID. They knew who he was; Ricardo had been the object of media attention enough over the years for most of the city to know him on sight. But there were “procedures,” the copper had said, brooking no argument. There were a dozen people closer to Ricardo than I was, who saw him on a daily basis, who could give the ID, but that’s not a referral someone would thank me for later. I did have a business to worry about, after all, a business in which appearance and discretion were just about everything.

“Hello.” I picked up after the tenth ring, giving in to curiosity.

“Guess your back’s not any better this morning, huh?” Trudy surmised from my snarly tone.

“It’s not that,” I began as the tears resurfaced, my mood swinging from grumpy to grief-stricken in a second. “It’s that…”

“Now, Reyn, don’t be embarrassed about last night. I won’t tell a soul.”

Sure,
I thought,
you with the biggest mouth west of the Brazos River.
Then I felt immediately guilty that I’d harbor an ill thought about a friend lucky enough to still be living. “No, it’s not the Mario Hair Debacle. It’s something worse.”

“Worse? What could be worse? I spent another hour at home last night getting out all the tangles.”

“Oh, Trudy.” I tempered my tone. Now was not the time to lose my temper. When had getting angry with her ever worked? I considered the most delicate way to tell her. The silence stretched on.

“Spit it out, sister.” Trudy wasn’t big on patience, either.

Okay, she’d asked for it.

“Ricardo’s dead.”

A squeal and a thud were the only responses I got.

I
F
I
HADN’T RECOGNIZED THE SQUEAL ON THE OTHER
end of the line as Trudy’s standard prelude to a faint, I would’ve seriously wondered if another one of my friends had died while talking to me over the phone. As it was, I realized I hadn’t been considerate enough, hadn’t asked if she was sitting down before I blurted out the truth. I knew very well she was prone to fainting. I called her name a few times into the phone and then Mario’s name. I even yelled to her that I was wearing ugly, mismatched underwear, thinking that might drive straight to her subconscious and rile her up. No such luck. I reluctantly gave up. I had places to go, a dead friend to identify. I’d have to get back to Trudy later.

I pulled on a black sleeveless bodysuit and a long straight jeans skirt. With a whistle to the dogs, I ran down the stairs, accompanied by their tapping nails on the hardwood steps which made each descent sound like an indoor hailstorm. I opened the door, and they filed out in various stages of enthusiasm. I planted my right Justin below Beaujolais’s tail to push her out, slamming the door shut and flipping the dead bolt.

After passing the refrigerator without a twinge, I stopped at my Bunn to grind some coffee beans and do the three-minute brew. I told myself it was to fortify me for the task that was to come, but the fact was, I was addicted. I can’t think of anything that would make me give up the first cup of coffee in the morning. Except maybe that vitamin salesman who’d moved in four doors down. Man-oh-man, did he have some sexual charisma. Of course, we were destined never to meet professionally, he was bald, and I wasn’t ever buying vitamins—waste of money if there ever was one. I really wasn’t the sort of cookie-baking neighbor who could just stop by with a plate hot out of the oven, so my only hope of meeting him was if one of my dogs left a calling card on his lawn, and that wasn’t the best of circumstances in which to start a romance.

With that downer adding to my depression, I climbed into my seven-year-old white Chevy crew-cab truck and made the five-minute drive to Ricardo’s main salon. The sight of the gold foil sign bearing his name didn’t make me want to cry as I’d anticipated; it made me numb. A uniformed policewoman—uh, police officer; my New Year’s resolution is to try to be more politically correct— stopped me as I turned into the parking lot.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. You can’t come in here today.”

“I’m Reyn Marten Sawyer. One of your detectives called and asked me to come to, uh, identify the…”I cleared my throat, only to have my voice sound more like fingernails on a chalkboard than it had before. “I…I was a friend of Ricardo’s,” I finished clumsily.

She glanced down at her notebook. “We were told to expect someone named Claude.”

“Very funny,” I muttered under my breath.

Her porcine eyes narrowed at me. She planed a pair of sturdy fists on equally sturdy hips clad in that ultra-flattering blue SAPD polyester. “Excuse me?”

I cleared my throat again. I was beginning to sound like I had a problem with hairballs. “Claude. That’s my nickname.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly disinterested, and waved me through. I saw her talking into her walkie-talkie as I pulled the truck forward.

Perversely, I was disappointed at her acceptance of my think-on-my-feet answer. I wanted to give my brain another test to distract me from what awaited behind the double smoked-glass doors of Ricardo’s Realm.

The parking lot was full of San Antonio police cars and dark Crown Victorias which either also belonged to police or were an odd coincidence among early-morning customers. I drove around for a minute before I settled on a space between two trees. Ricardo had taught me that anything associated with your name would reflect back on you, and his parking lot was a fine example. He’d planted expensive full-grown oaks and fragrant mountain laurels, and instead of putting in rows of parking spaces, he’d slipped them between trees at odd, aesthetically pleasing angles. It gave the impression of a trip to the park rather than a beauty salon. It also provided cover if you were leaving after just having your eyebrows and mustache waxed.

I got out of the truck and locked it. The police presence wouldn’t deter a car thief. The ones in San Antonio had no fear and weren’t subtle enough to recognize intimidation.

As I walked slowly to the salon, I looked at it as the police might. A four-thousand-square-foot box, all shiny gold metal and dark, tinted glass. Even the concrete outside the shop had been stained black. This was where I’d had my first job out of high school. I’d come from the country to the big city to go to college with a measly scholarship and no money. I’d gotten my cosmetology training back when I was still living in Dime Box, my hometown, but hadn’t had any experience beyond giving too-tight perms, pouring blue rinses, and teasing old ladies’ hair to twice the height of their heads. Ricardo was legendary even back in Dime Box. I knew he didn’t hire anyone with less than five years’ experience. Ten was the average. He was a perfectionist and a brutal taskmaster. Hairstylists were usually independent contractors, all working under the same roof, paying for rent and maybe pooling for a receptionist, but most had to pay for their own supplies and managed their own time. Not in Ricardo’s shops. His stylists were employees, and starters took pretty low pay for the honor. But I wasn’t easily intimidated. Gran always told me I had more guts than a sausage factory and just as much sense. Not a terribly flattering portrait, but those guts got me the job and out of Dime Box. Either that or the fact that Ricardo wanted in my pants. Either way, it paid for my business degree at Our Lady of the Lake University. And Ricardo got more than he bargained for businesswise…and less in the personal department. I think it was a fair trade.

The memories made me misty again.

Sucking in a deep breath, I yanked on the gold-plated door handle and nearly fell on my butt.

The heavy door suddenly swung out, and as I stumbled and fumbled to get my Justins under me, I looked up and saw a pair of jeans-clad thighs that made me feel suddenly and intensely feminine and vulnerable. I resisted the melting sensation south of my navel as inappropriate at a murder scene, but my lets still turned rubbery just when I needed them most. Grabbing the door handle for support, I straightened and felt my back tighten up. So much for the Ben Gay. I bit the inside of my cheek, finally regained my balance, and met the eyes that belonged to the thighs.

Arctic blue. I immediately thought of the ice packs in my freezer. Then I saw the burn behind the ice and revised it to dry ice. Icy and smoking at the same time. Those eyes and the sardonic turn of his lips—an intriguing mixture of thin upper and full lower—were just enough to immediately dissipate the mush in my gut and make my hackles rise. I just wished he could see them. Visible hackles were just one of many things I envied in my dogs.

“So, where’s Claude?”

Damn.

I’d found the prince of anti-charm who’d offered me the all-expenses-paid vacation behind bars.

I reminded myself I wasn’t supposed to like him. It was really too bad. On the phone, he’d had a natural tendency toward arrogant smart-ass. In person, he looked like he could make a woman undress just by thinking about it. My gaze flicked across his broad chest and flat abdomen. He’d never downed a doughnut in his life. It would’ve made things a helluva lot easier if he’d had a Krispy Kreme addiction.

Not that someone upstairs planned to make my life anything but more difficult over the next few days.

Steeling myself against my raging hormones, I refused to acknowledge the knowing look in those dry-ice eyes and stared right back. “Oh, Claude. He couldn’t make it.”

“That’s a shame. I was looking forward to meeting him.”

“Sorry I can’t say the same for him.”

We played another game of stare-down chicken. I’m happy to say that he looked away first. I’m sorry to say that he looked away to give me a toe-to-top eyeball appraisal.

“You don’t match your voice. At all.” The rumble in his voice hid any connotations that may have helped me figure out whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He did. Match his voice, that is. I wasn’t about to give him a compliment, though. In fact, I’d finally noticed something on him that was less than perfect—his hairstyle. The hair itself was pretty awesome—a thick, rich blond with a rusty undertone that might have been the inspiration for a chemical color we use called Sahara Sunset. His wasn’t colored; I could see it beginning to gray rather attractively at the temples and wave around the ends because it was too long. Now, if I had graying, overgrown hair, it would look frumpy; on him, it was just sexy. Go figure. I couldn’t tell whether it was an overgrown version of the trendy ultra-short cut with a front flip, which would tell me he was confident and egotistical, or a poorly done medium-length cut, which connoted an intelligent conservative who tended to be narrow-minded. Hmmm. Was he a salon man too busy to get a trim or a cheapskate too confident to worry about style?

Usually, I can read people’s hair a lot easier than this. I think pheromones were muddling my brain.

“No,” he said, clearly baiting me. “I was expecting someone quite different.”

I itched to ask, but I knew he wanted me to, so I didn’t scratch. Instead, I fell back on propriety, holding out my hand. “I’m Reyn Marten Sawyer. And you are?”

As he took my hand in his, his brows quirked up, and I could see I’d surprised him. I guessed he was accustomed to using his sex appeal to control all his conversations with women. Ha. Gotcha.

The silence stretched on for a moment before he finally closed his fingers around mine. “Jackson Scythe, ma’am. Thank you for coming so quickly.” His grip was strong and confident and held my hand a second too long, which also made it arrogant.

I let him hold on that extra second, which made me a pushover. So much for the gotcha.

“Hey, Lieutenant, that your wit?” called a voice from inside the salon. “Get her in here so we can bag this guy.”

Jackson Scythe let go of my hand and splayed his tan, long-fingered, ultra-masculine hand—which felt good and looked even better—on the door, opening it wider to allow my entry. As I took a tentative step forward, letting my imagination wander to ways he might use those hands, he passed me a brown paper bag he’d had tucked into the back waistband of his jeans. It was warm.

“What’s this?”

“Barf bag.”

I tried to hand it back to him. “No, really, you’re not all that bad.”

That earned a double quirk of the eyebrows and I could’ve sworn a twitch in a smile muscle or two. But he wouldn’t let me score the last point. “You ever seen a dead body?”

“No,” I admitted with an instant rock dropping into my stomach and the realization that the verbal sparring and my naughty daydreams had only delayed the inevitable.

“Then you better keep it.”

He walked into the room, letting the door go, and it was either follow or get spanked by a hundred pounds of glass. The activity level inside the salon was reminiscent of Ricardo’s busiest days. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes again as I saw the action was of uniformed cops milling officiously, plainclothes detectives searching through supply trays, and technicians spreading fingerprint dust over all the gold chrome and glass. A jar of dust spilled out onto the polished black marble floor. I didn’t see a body.

”Over here,” Scythe called from the doorwary to Ricardo’s office. As I walked slowly to where he stood, I drew in my mind’s eye the room as I remembered it. Rectangular, probably a thousand square feet, it took up nearly a quarter of the salon. It was a cold, sleek, high-fashion, soulless room that reflected more of his “image” than of the real Ricardo. It had floor-to-ceiling glass on the outside wall, floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the remaining walls. The gleaming black marble floors looked slick and seamless enough to be a venue for the Olympic figure-skating team. His gold chrome (at least, I thought it was chrome; knowing Ricardo, it could’ve been gold plate) and black leather styling chair, for the exclusive styling seminars he held there, stood alone against one marbleized wall. His gold chrome and glass-topped desk, Scandinavian-style sling leather chair, and several sleek black leather love seats took up the opposite wall. He had a telephone on a black chrome and glass table in each of the four corners of the room and one isolated in the middle of the room. I never had figured that out. I wondered now which phone he’d used to talk to me.

I was about to find out.

Scythe stepped back as I approached. The morning light through the smoky glass turned the whole room an odd, otherworldly, metallic silver, and there in the middle of the floor was Ricardo, sprawled facedown, telephone receiver in hand, with a very familiar brush sticking out of the middle of his back.