Murder On The Menu: The 1st Nikki Hunter Mystery (Nikki Hunter Mysteries) (17 page)

Chapter 24

I
had called Ralph Hearn’s office at 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon, and I tried again on Wednesday morning. Both times I got his voicemail. I didn’t bother leaving messages. He’d obviously made his decision. Although I hadn’t seen his jeep around, nor had I spotted anyone else following me.

True to my word I called Derrick Howard at InSight, then Kate Howard at home, and Charles Spencer at his office. I informed each of them that a PI from San Mateo had been following me, and I mentioned Hearn by name. I asked them each if they had hired him. Kate was stunned, Derrick was impatient, and Charles hung up on me. It didn’t matter. I’d done what I set out to do. I got Rod Howard’s answering machine and left him a detailed message about Hearn. I would tell Fred/Marc over dinner on Friday. I wanted to watch his reaction.

At 2:00, I drove to the Mane Line hair salon for my 2:30 appointment. I asked the receptionist, a teenager with spiky purple hair, to point Kurt out to me so I could watch him work.

At first glance he looked more like a beach bum than a hair stylist. If you got past the first impression, however, you might notice that he had a very good haircut. He was just over six feet tall, with a barrel chest and a beer gut. His hair was reddish brown and artfully layered. His complexion was ruddy and his nose showed signs of alcohol abuse. He had a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, both of which were starting to show some white, and he wore shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top. I started having second thoughts about letting him cut my hair. I wanted to look nice for my dinner with Detective Anderson.

I turned my attention to the woman seated at Kurt’s station. His hands guided the scissors deftly, almost gracefully, through her hair, and when he was finished she looked amazing. He’d given her a bi-level cut with the front short and coifed around her face, and the back long, ending in a point between her shoulder blades. He handed her a mirror and turned the chair so she could look at the back. The customer tossed her hair, checked both views in the mirror, and squealed with delight. She kissed Kurt on the cheek and gave him a cash tip before leaving.

Kurt stuffed the bill in his pocket and picked up his blow dryer to clean off the chair. He then swept up the hair on the floor and a moment later walked to the reception desk and said something to the purple-haired imp. She pointed at me and Kurt approached, smiling.

“Are you Nicoli?”

“Call me Nikki,” I said.

Kurt and I shook hands. His was warm, slightly damp, and callused. He escorted me to his station.

“What are we doing today?” he asked.

“It’s a graduated layer cut, but I think it needs to be cleaned up a little. What do you think?”

He looked at me in the mirror, inserted his fingers beneath my curls, and shook, then watched them settle back into place.

“I think you’d look great with a slightly shorter cut and some highlights.”

I can’t tell you how many hairdressers have said those very words to me, and my reaction is always the same. “I’m not interested in highlights and I like the length. In fact I’d rather you didn’t take more than half an inch off the bottom.”
Oops
. I’d forgotten I needed information from this guy.

“Okay,” he said, with a shrug. “Let’s get you shampooed.”

Kurt had wonderful hands. He not only shampooed and conditioned my hair, he massaged my scalp while he was doing it, and all of this without getting any water in my eyes or ears. I was considering changing hairdressers even before seeing what he did with the cut, or maybe I’d just come in for shampoos.

He wrapped a towel around my head and led me back to his station where he draped me in a vinyl cape. He ran a wide-toothed comb through my hair to get the tangles out, then picked up his blow dryer and attached a diffuser.

“I’m just going to dry it a little so I can watch what the curl does,” he said.

Most hairdressers cut curly hair the same way they cut straight hair. They make everything symmetrical, and when your hair dries and curls up, it looks uneven. Kurt knew what he was doing.

“How long have you been cutting hair?” I asked.

“Two years.”

My mouth dropped open.

“I know,” he said, “not very long. But I have a knack, and I learn fast.”

“What did you do before?”

“I was an electrician.”

I like to think nothing surprises me.

“What made you decide to become a hair stylist?”

“That’s a long story. Let’s just say I was ready for a change.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “When I called, I asked for the person who had been here the longest.” 

“That’s me. It used to be Andrew, but he’s gone. All these other people are new.”

“Is Andrew the man who was killed?”

That went over like a lead balloon. Kurt turned off the blow dryer and set it down, then picked up his scissors.

“Yeah,” he said.

Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it, but I forged ahead.

“How long had he been here?”

“Nine years, but he’d been cutting hair for twenty.”

“Wow. He must have been good.”

“He was the best. He used to cut my hair.”

“What kind of a person was he?”

Kurt locked eyes with me in the mirror and all of a sudden I was afraid of what he might do with those scissors.

“Why all the questions?” he asked. “Are you a reporter?”

“No, I’m not a reporter.”

“Morbid curiosity?”

“I’m a private investigator.” I swiveled the chair around to face him and lowered my voice. “I’m looking into the Laura Howard murder and I think there may be a connection between Andrew’s death and hers. If I could find out more about Andrew, maybe I could put it together.”

“If there’s a connection why aren’t the police looking into it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they are.”

“What do you want to know?” He turned my chair back around and continued trimming my hair.

“I’m interested in the people Andrew was involved with during the last few months of his life.”

“Men or women?” he asked, watching my face.

“Both,” I said.

“Well, there was this one guy. I saw Andrew cut his hair a couple of times, and I think they were dating. I base that assumption on body language, and the fact that Andrew seemed flustered around him.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was tall and sharp-looking, but he seemed pretty full-of-himself. Very GQ.”

A perfect description of Fred.

“If I brought in some pictures do you think you could identify him?”

“Sure. It’s not the kind of face you forget.”

“Was he dating any women?” I asked.

“Not that I know of.”

After that we were silent until Kurt set down his scissors, added some hair gel, and scrunched up my curls. He handed me a mirror and spun the chair so I could look at the back.

“Wow. It looks great! Listen, the police would be really pissed-off if any of this leaked to the press.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Kurt.” I handed him a twenty.

He looked at the bill and said, “You pay at the front counter.”

“I know,” I said. “This is for you. Best haircut I’ve had in years. Can I come back tomorrow with the pictures?”

“Sure. I’ll be here at ten.”

He removed the vinyl cape and I went to pay the receptionist. My heart was pounding. I’d never felt this charged-up working on an investigation before. I had found a possible connection between the murders
and
I’d found a new hairdresser! I was having a very
good day.

I returned to the marina and took a quick shower on board the boat to get rid of the prickly little hairs that had fallen down my collar. I dressed in my regular uniform of shorts and a lightweight blouse, and trotted up the dock.

As soon as I unlocked the office I noticed my answering machine light was blinking. I pressed the play button and was glad to hear Detective Bill Anderson’s voice. The message was short, simply saying that we needed to talk before dinner. I hoped he wasn’t going to cancel.

I dialed his number and got voice-mail. I left a message, then booted up the computer and added the interview with Kurt to my file on Laura. I entered the haircut and tip on my expense spreadsheet. It was a legitimate expense. Once again I updated the flash drive I was carrying in my purse. Okay, so maybe I’m a little obsessive. Sue me.

I pulled Laura’s file folder out of my Pendaflex drawer and removed the picture of her with Fred Wulf in skydiving gear, the picture of Fred next to his Jaguar, and two of the pictures of Charles Spencer I’d copied from the yearbook. I placed them in an envelope, which I tucked into my bag.

Bill called me back at 4:30 and asked if he could stop by the office. There was something he wanted to talk to me about in person.

“Sure,” I said.

I hastily tidied up, which meant organizing the files on my desk into neat stacks and emptying the ashtray. I went into the bathroom and checked my image in the mirror, added lip gloss, and fluffed up my new haircut.

Bill was on my doorstep ten minutes later. He knocked before entering the office and closed the door behind him. His face looked grim.

“Hi,” I said, standing to greet him and taking in his solemn demeanor. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me what happened with Ralph Hearn.” Not even a hello.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Just tell me what happened.”

“Okay. I called and made an appointment with Hearn right after you left on Monday. I gave him a fake name and told him I wanted my husband followed, you know, to make sure he’d be there. Then I showed up for the appointment at three. It took him a second, but he recognized me. He asked what I was doing there, said he was expecting a client. I told him I was his three o’clock and eventually he invited me back to his private office.

“I asked him who had hired him. He refused to say, of course. I said if he didn’t tell me, I’d inform everyone involved in the case that I’d spotted him on Sunday night, and I threatened to go to the media about the attempted mugging.” I blushed at the memory. “Now tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Did you leave a message on his answering machine yesterday morning?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes, I did. He never got back to me. How did you know about that?”

“What did you mean when you said he had until noon or you’d make good on your threat?”

“Just what I told you. That if he wouldn’t say who’d hired him, I’d tell everyone involved in the case that I’d spotted him following me. Has Hearn filed a complaint against me or something?”

“He’s dead, Nikki.”

The impact of his words knocked the wind out of me and I sank into my chair. “Oh, fuck.”

“His body was found this morning. His landlord went in to collect the rent. The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department listened to your voicemail message. I heard about it through the grapevine and gave them a call.”

“What are you telling me? He had a heart attack or something?”

Hearn had looked like he had high blood pressure.
Please let it be natural causes.

“He was murdered.”

I felt a chill run the length of my body. “How?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. This is serious, Nikki. You left the man a threatening message and within twenty-four hours he was dead.”

“You don’t think I’m a suspect do you? I told you what my message was about.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s not my case. But I want you to tell me everything you did after you made that call, right up to this morning around eight.”

My mouth dropped open. Then I sucked it up, lit a cigarette, and said, “Fine.” I quickly ran through the last two days in my head before continuing. “After I left the message for Hearn I was here typing reports and invoices and paying bills. I walked to the mail box across the street. I walked back here and straightened up the office, made some coffee, and updated the flash drive with the Laura Howard file on it. Then I reread the file one more time and decided I needed to talk to friends of Barbara Herbert and Andrew McConnell.

“I found some newspaper articles about their murders. I made an appointment with a hairdresser named Kurt at the Main Line where McConnell worked, and then I drove to the Library. I spoke with a couple of employees, and took one of them to lunch. Her name was Betsy. Her lunch break wasn’t until three so I spent some time at the Barnes and Noble while I was waiting. I was there from about two until a little before three. Then I picked Betsy up at the library and we had lunch at Max’s. She told me Barbara had been seeing someone, but she couldn’t really describe him. After lunch I drove her back to work, gave her a business card, and asked her to call if she thought of anything else I should know.

“When I got back here I called Hearn’s office again, and got his voicemail again. I didn’t leave a message. I did a couple of bar and restaurant surveys last night, and was home in bed by ten.

“This morning I called Hearn again, got the voicemail again, and didn’t leave a message. I decided he was a lost cause, so I made good on my promise and called Derrick and Kate Howard, and Charles Spencer, and left a message for Rod Howard. I was going to talk to Fred Wulf about it in person on Friday. We’re having dinner.

“At about two I drove to the Mane Line hair salon. At approximately two-thirty I got this beautiful haircut and had a conversation with the hairdresser, Kurt, who was a friend of McConnell’s. Turns out he’d been dating someone who sounds a lot like Fred Wulf, so I asked if I could bring him some photos to look at. I have pictures of Charles and Fred both, and I was hoping he could ID the guy McConnell was seeing.

“When I left the salon I came back here and took a shower. Then I opened the office and got your message. Now tell me how the fuck he was killed.”

Bill squinted at me for a minute, probably assessing my stability before making his decision.

“With a garrote made of heavy-test fish wire and a pair of home-made grips. There was a taser burn on his neck. Time of death hasn’t been established yet.”

I put my head between my knees and tried to breathe. Bill came over to the desk and laid his hand on my back.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know yet.” I stayed down.

“Sorry to be so blunt.”

“It’s okay. Just give me a minute.”