Wave Good-Bye (25 page)

“I’ve met almost all your staff,” I said, “except for Suzee Gaylord. Is she coming in later? I haven’t memorized the schedule yet.”

Eve shook her head. “I gave Suzee the day off. As you can imagine, she was very upset. I asked if she wanted to come back, but she told me she did. But I figured a vacation day with pay couldn’t hurt. She has a six-year-old, and I know her time with her daughter is precious. Let’s go in back.”

Once we were in the cozy niche that served as an office, Eve’s shoulders drooped. “Suzee is the one who found Lisa’s body.”

“You’re kidding!” I acted surprised. “Poor thing.”

“Yes. Suzee’s been angling for a promotion for six months, so she’s been coming in early and leaving late. That’s how she happened to get here before me or Carol—and how she happened to discover…the body.” Eve picked up a pen and doodled on a piece of scrap paper.

I waited.

After a bit, Eve started again. “Suzee and Lisa used to be good friends, but Lisa gradually started abusing the friendship by dumping all
her grunt work on Suzee. Suzee didn’t quit because she really needs this job.”

“Grunt work?”

“Dealing with angry customers. Handling scheduling problems. Taking inventory.”

“Are you suggesting that Suzee might have been involved in Lisa’s death?”

Eve quickly shook her head. “No. I mean, I don’t know! Suzee is totally devoted to our chain. She came to us as a single mom fresh out of beauty school with no experience, and now she has a well-paid career. I can’t imagine her ever doing anything that would reflect badly on Snippets. In fact, Suzee is the one who told me that she thought Lisa had stolen your customer list. She also told me that Lisa was purposefully undercutting your prices so she could run you out of business. Or at least that’s what Suzee suspected.”

“That’s true. I mean, everything we did, this salon offered for a lot less. We had customers who were furious with us. They thought we were gouging them.”

“That’s definitely not our corporate policy. Yes, we offer introductory rates on a client’s first cut or style, but we don’t try to drastically undercut our competition! That’s just stupid! There’s no point to it.”

I told her about Mrs. Everly, and how she’d accused my mother of ripping her off.

Eve tugged at her jacket. “Darn it! I trusted Lisa. Sure, I was pleased at the great numbers she turned in, but I never realized how much damage she was doing. Trust me, I’ll make sure that all my managers know that this is
not
how we do business.”

“I think that’s a good idea. She was on at least one loop where stylists ‘talked’ to each other. Who knows what she might have shared about her strategies.”

Then I stopped myself. I didn’t want to tell Eve that Lisa had gone on a loop to announce she was pregnant. Eve seemed more fragile as the day went on. I wasn’t sure if she
could take much more bad news. It was nearly four o’clock, and no amount of concealer could cover the dark shadows under her eyes. All day she’d been dealing with fallout from Lisa’s death. And, of course, she was worried about Wynn.

Eve sighed. “I sure hope she wasn’t bragging to outsiders about how she was undercutting local prices, but when I’m honest with myself, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

“I wouldn’t, either.”

Looking down at her wedding band, a gold circle of diamonds, Eve’s mouth trembled. “I told myself I didn’t like her because she was a flirt. If I didn’t like every woman that Wynn found attractive, I’d make myself miserable. And I didn’t want to be miserable. I wanted to be happily married. So I ignored my gut instincts when it came to Lisa. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”

“You had other things on your mind.”

“That’s not much of an excuse. If she hadn’t been killed, she might well have run your mother out of business!”

“Not to make you feel bad, but she almost did. Mom said that the mold inspection was the last straw.”

“That’s just plain wrong, Grace Ann. Papa would never agree to doing business like that. He remembers how hard it was for him to get started. I really need to apologize to your mother in person as soon as I can. When can I meet her? I’d like to see your shop from the inside, too. I’ve heard so much about it.”

I hesitated. “I’ll ask Mom if we can drop by tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Now, you’ve been here all day and you looked tired. When are you planning to leave?”

“I still have mountains of work to do.”

“Mom always says, ‘It will be here tomorrow.’ I think she’s right. You need to take care of your health, Eve. Especially under the circumstances.”

My new boss gave me a half smile. “Yes, you’re probably right. I’m not thinking straight. Time to call it a night. It’s pretty quiet here in the evenings. Taffy and Vinny can handle the traffic. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

It came as a surprise to me how protective of her I felt. Eve might be a seasoned businessperson, but she was also a surprisingly vulnerable young woman.

Chapter Forty-three

THE BUZZ OF MY NEW JOB WORE OFF FAST ONCE I started driving home. A light rain was falling. Rain that we desperately needed. Knowing the roads would be a bit slick, I slowed down. The journey gave me time to think about Marsh, and thinking about him led to feeling lonely. Also to feeling frustrated. Marsh needed to know what I’d learned about the conflicts in the salon. But how could I tell him? Especially now when I’d walked out on him?

Suzee Gaylord had reason to want to see Lisa dead. Carol Brockman might be the owner of the Toyota Camry I’d seen in the parking lot. According to Eve, Carol thought Lisa was stealing. If the accountant confronted the manager, perhaps that struggle led to Lisa’s murder.

Or was the contractor so frustrated with her that he did
her in? She’d bullied him into changing the plans for the salon. Perhaps he worried that Snippets would come after him and make him redo the place at his cost.

Pulling up to the curb in front of my apartment, I realized that to learn more, I really needed to talk with Wynn. Was there any clue that had been overlooked? What had Lisa said to him before he drove away? Did he know what she was planning to do next?

Did Marsh know that Lisa was pregnant? Was it possible that another man was involved? Someone local? That might have been the reason Lisa was killed.

I turned off the engine and sat for a second, gathering what was left of my energy. The rain was light but showed no signs of letting up. Fortunately, the apartment I rented from Genevieve Jones was thirty feet from the street. My little place had once been her garage, but Mrs. Jones had long ago converted it into a living space for her son, who had died of lung cancer at sixty. He had never married.

After hurrying along the sidewalk with my head down, I made it to my stoop before I noticed a yellow tag had been wrapped around my door handle. The soggy paper read: “Sorry we missed you! A gift for you from St. Elizabeth’s premier florist is waiting…” and in a loopy script:
See Mrs. Jones.
Thanks to the rain, the note nearly fell apart in my hands. Two minutes more, and I wouldn’t have been able to decipher the writing.

Mrs. Jones stepped out on her porch and waved to me, beckoning me to take the two-stepping-stone pathway from my front door to hers. “Saw you pull up! Got your flowers!” She shouted across the broad expanse of her piazza.

My landlady was a tall, cranelike woman with skin so translucent it reminded me of tissue paper. She was a busy volunteer who visited “old people” and shut-ins, with her weekly bridge games lending structure to her life. Once
I accompanied her to tai chi, where her agility and balance astonished me. As she moved into the pose mimicking a crane flapping its wings, I wondered if she might fly away. The pouf of her thinning, snow white hair as it formed a halo around her head heightened her resemblance to a crowned crane.

Ducking my head again, I jogged back out into the shower, but this time, I ran up the stairs leading to Mrs. Jones’s front door. She hugged me and pulled me inside.

“Aren’t they lovely?” Her housedress was nearly as faded as her blue eyes, but it was neatly pressed with starch. Her pearl clip-on earrings dangled along her scrawny neck. Mrs. Jones was a real pip with those blue eyes that danced with excitement. She pointed to a beautiful bouquet of long-stemmed roses taking pride of place on her mahogany dining room table. “I didn’t want them to go dry, so I watered them for you.”

She’d done more than water them; she’s soaked them good. The flowers were drenched, as was the card accompanying them. Her eyesight grew ever more dim with each day, and I worried that soon she’d run into a real problem getting around town in her huge, gold Impala.

“Come sit a spell, Grace. Here, take this towel and dry yourself off. I’ve got a fresh pitcher of sweet tea, and I want to show you what’ll surely be the last blossom on my gardenia this fall. See it? There out by the roses? Now I want to hear all about you being a person of interest. Gracious, I don’t know as I’ve ever met a person of interest before.”

“Thank you kindly,” I said as I took the cold glass from her gnarled hands. I am nothing if not polite, because every Southern girl has manners drummed into her from birth onward.

I’d taken just one sip when she said, “So they’re trying to blame you for the death of that awful Lisa Butterworth.”

“You knew her?” I shouldn’t be surprised. Mrs. Jones gets around, and St. Elizabeth isn’t a big town. My drinking glass clinked as I set it down on her glass-topped side table. One day I’d have to remember to buy her coasters, because the muggy weather caused terrible condensation. You could easily ruin a fine antique with a wet glass, and Mrs. Jones had a house full of them.

“Carol Brockman is my niece. Twice removed,” she said with a knowing grin. “I’ve heard all about that terrible young woman.”

In the South, familial relationships are sacred. It’s common to ask, “Who’s his people?” the way a dog breeder might ask about a purebred’s lineage. The complicated intertwining leads to odd and strained explanations. “Once removed,” “twice removed,” “on my daddy’s side,” “by marriage,” “and by blood” are everyday parlance. It’s confusing, so I ignore it. Mrs. Jones was simply telling me that she and Carol Brockman were distant relatives, not kissing kin.

“That so?”

“Sure you don’t want a couple of shortbread cookies to go with that sweet tea? I buy boxes of them every year from the Girl Scouts.” This was a bribe. I could hear the rest of the story only if I agreed to refreshments.

“You know, I think I will.”

From her kitchen, she brought an eggshell-thin plate of fine china that was loaded down with more cookies than I could eat in a year. First she handed me a damask napkin to put in my lap. “Yes, indeedie-do. Carol was fit to be tied. She sees all the receipts. That girl was trying to pull a fast one on the company. See she wanted to recoup the money they spent for that big fish tank. Guess how much it cost. Just guess.”

I named a figure.

Mrs. Jones chuckled and hiked her thumb toward her ceiling. My eyes followed the gesture and noticed cobwebs hanging from the light fixture.

I raised the figure.

Mrs. Jones hiked her thumb again.

Surely that tank hadn’t cost more than a month of my salary? Well, it did. At least that’s what my landlady said.

“Lisa thought it was a big waste of money. Carol caught her monkeying around with the different chemicals. Don’t you know all those fish up and died? Carol came in one morning and they were all floating belly up. Lisa was happy as a pig in mud,” she said as she shook her head so the crown of hair floated around her face.

“Really? But now the salon is left with a big empty space in the middle.”

“Don’t you know it?” said Mrs. Jones with a nod. “Carol got me an invitation to the grand opening. That was some party, I tell you. I remember precisely how big that tank was, and how much space it took up. You see, that Lisa Butterworth wanted a big empty space. Yes, it’s true. She was fixing to put in a display rack for more product. Originally, she had called Mrs. Sebastiani, I mean, Mrs. Goodman, and told her what she wanted to do, but Mrs. Goodman had a fit. She was not happy. They got to hollering at each other over the phone. Carol heard ever’ bit of it.”

So Eve and Lisa had fought. Interesting.

“But they calmed down, right?”

Mrs. Jones smiled, those bright eyes of her lively with mischief. “No, they did not. Lisa hung up on her boss. Eve called back and spoke to Carol. Carol told her about the missing money.”

“Missing money?”

“Lisa was skimming a little off the top, don’t you know? Every bill that came in from a supplier, Lisa added a bit
and handed it to Carol. Most bookkeepers wouldn’t get wise to that, but Carol started double-checking the paper invoices against the order books. That’s how she noticed the discrepancy. She’s a smart one, our Carol.”

“What did Eve—Mrs. Goodman—say when she learned about Lisa stealing from her?”

Mrs. Jones shrugged. “She told Carol to keep track of the dollar amount. See, when it reaches a certain amount, it goes from a misdemeanor to a felony. Mrs. Goodman told Carol, ‘I’m going to make sure Lisa never, ever pulls a stunt like this again. Believe me, she’ll wish she was never born!’”