“What I want to know is why Debbie was calling Jeffrey Andre repeatedly,” I said.
G glanced over his shoulder and pulled me aside. “I don’t know what this dead babe looked like, but some chick’s been here bugging Jeffrey. Every time she shows up, he goes all crazy, starts demanding valium and bottled water with lime. Don’t ever call him Jeff, by the way. He totally freaks.”
There were footsteps echoing across the hard oak floor. I didn’t want to get G in trouble, though I was dying to hear more.
“And I heard Jeffrey tell Paul—that’s his assistant guy—that this client dying at the HOB might bring us business. He’s offering HOB clients a ten percent discount on cuts, fifteen percent on cuts and color.”
I was appalled. That was outrageous. That was worse than dogs picking over road kill. Fifteen percent! “Why . . .”
All of a sudden, G’s eyes turned to saucers. He slinked away from me as if I was repellant. Jeffrey Andre was right behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I could smell him. He reeked of syrupy aftershave that reminded me, vaguely, of my high school math teacher Mr. Zelko.
“Isss dis a friend of yours, Gerald?”
Gerald? I let out a snigger. So that was his real name.
G darted me a nasty look.
“Mother of my ex-girlfriend.” He curled his lip. “Glad that’s behind me.”
I was tempted to kick him, the little brat.
“Ah, girlfriends. Not exaccctly one of my problems. May I halp you, Ms. . . . uh . . .”
“Yablonsky.” I spun around to face the mythic Jeffrey Andre, he who was enriching himself off Sandy’s misfortune.
Jeffrey Andre was shorter than I with long silver hair and a huge piece of bling in his left lobe. Like Paul, his assistant, and G, he wore all black, including an all-black suit that seemed too loose for him. His pants were baggy and made of a thin material that undulated as he stood, giving him the impression of being fluid.
“How nice to meet you, Ms. Yablonsky.” He shook my hand tightly and made killer eye contact. Was he trying to read my thoughts? Or was this a sophisticated European thing I’d somehow missed during my Two Guys Community College course: Making A Good First Impression with Excellent European Eye Contact and Firm Handshakes.
“I am sooo sorry to hear about what happened to you at the House of Beauty,” he said.
Okay. I hadn’t said anything to Paul about being at the House of Beauty when Debbie died. All I’d told him was that I was a reporter for the
News-Times
.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught G slipping behind a door to get rid of his foil.
“What may I do for you, Misss Yablonsky? I haff sent flowers, of course. And my condolencesss. I’m sure you will pass them on to the appropriate peoplesss.”
“Actually, I came here in my capacity as a newspaper reporter. I have only one question.”
“Of course. Anything!” Jeffrey threw up his arms, showing he had nothing up
his
sleeves.
“Why was Debbie Shatsky calling you repeatedly at your salon and your home minutes before she died?”
Jeffrey turned to Paul as if Paul could translate this. “Debbie?” he said. “I know no Debbie . . . uh . . . Shitsky, is it?”
“Shatsky. That is the name of the woman who died today in the House of Beauty. And you must know her because you called her, too. Your home number is on her cell.”
“I do not know what you are talking about. I’m so sorry. I would like to help, but I am afraid I cannot. Let’s see.” He undulated over to a laptop on the podium. “Here are all the appointments. Paul. See if you can find a Debbie Shitsky.”
“Shatsky.”
Jeffrey stood aside, hands clasped, waiting for Paul to do his thing on the laptop. I wondered if Jeffrey’s hands were so skilled at hairstyling that they could not be forced to perform menial labor, like typing on a keyboard. Maybe they were insured by Lloyds of London. Or maybe, like Debbie, he suffered from some rare allergy, in his case to letters on plastic.
“Nope,” Paul said, tapping the down arrow repeatedly. “No Shatsky or Shitsky.”
These boys were being difficult. “She might have used her previous name. Bender.”
At the mention of Bender, Jeffrey Andre’s insipid smile snapped into a tight line. Paul stopped tapping, his fingers petrified over the UP and DOWN keys.
“Did you say, Bender?” Jeffrey Andre’s accent, like G, had also disappeared. “As in Ern Bender?”
“You know him?”
Jeffrey stared at me dully. This was not the meaningful French eye contact of minutes before. He was not connecting. He was remembering. Recalling.
He was seething.
“Let me give you a piece of advice,” he said. “Sometimes it is best to let sleeping dogs lie, you know? As my grandmother in the old country used to say, the more you stir the shit, the more it smells.”
Okay, that was the grossest line ever. I hate that line. What kind of grandmother talks about stirring shit?
“Are you telling me to stop asking questions?”
Jeffrey ran his finger under his lip, thinking. “What I am telling you is that you are a little hairdresser who works for a little newspaper in a little town. I have been around the world. I have lived in Paris, Milan, London and New York, though actually in Montclair, New Jersey, but close enough.”
Paul put a hand on his shoulder, encouragingly because Jeffrey was getting quite agitated, perspiring and confessing about Jersey and all.
“I have learned from being worldly that sometimes the truth one finds is not always the truth, you know?”
“No.” That made no sense whatsoever, in fact.
“Of course not. You are American. You can see only black and white. You cannot see all the other colors in between.”
That was completely untrue. Yes, I wore a lot of black and white, but also, pink, purple, hot red and the occasional silver sequins. I could see them just fine.
“So my advice to you is to leave this be,” he said firmly. “What has happened was for the best. You do not understand that now, perhaps. You may not understand it soon. But someday you will come to accept that what I have said is right and that is what you Americans love—to be right.”
“I’m not going to quit here,” I warned him, ignoring his anti-American prejudice. “I have no intention of backing down just because you’ve told me to.” I did not add that coming from a Frenchman, his threats sounded more like menu recitations than scary intimidations.
He stepped closer. His pores were very large, too large for a man in the business of beautifying skin. “Drop this investigation for your own safety, Miss Yablonsky. I don’t know how I can be more clear. No one wants there to be, how you say”—he glanced at the ceiling—“more killings.”
Then he abruptly clapped his hands three times, a signal to Paul, who snapped to his side.
“This interview is being concluded. I am bored with you now.” And he and Paul undulated away, like snakes.
It was definitely time to meet this dreaded Ern Bender.
Chapter Six
T
he Christmas tree lot at the corner of Broad and Union was the sorriest Christmas tree lot ever. It was creepier than Jeffrey Andre’s penetrating eye contact and about as depressing as Sandy’s coffee-stained dingy yellow sweats. My first instinct was to get the heck out of there.
So was my second instinct. In fact, all my instincts were screaming at me to turn around or, at least, wait until daylight to hunt down Ern Bender. Although it was only four thirty, it was already dark, aside from the string of broken multicolored lights that illuminated the lot. And it was cold.
I positioned the Camaro in the driveway of a neighboring pizza joint, which had been closed years ago for health issues. Snow was falling. Not real snow. Flurries. This was the kind of evening meant to be spent inside eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, maybe writing a few Christmas cards and wrapping presents.
This was not the kind of evening to be out picking up a Christmas tree or hunting down a paroled drug-pushing pharmacist.
The commuter traffic was heavy but no one seemed interested in stopping by CHRISTMAS TREES—CHEEP! Then again, it was kind of difficult to read the misspelled sign, seeing as it was one side of a cardboard box propped up against a telephone pole.
I’d never questioned before how the enterprising arborist claimed Christmas tree lots. I mean, one day the abandoned lot is home to used Chevys or outdoor-grilled barbeque. The next day it’s sporting Christmas trees. How does that happen?
And in this day and age of high unemployment, in a town where laid-off steelworkers roamed the streets and packed the unemployment offices hungrier than the undead in search of flesh, who in his right mind would hire a felonious pharmacist to sell trees?
I got my answer as soon as I stepped out of the car, heard the bell ringing and saw the lanky elf in a red suit and white beard waving at cars, hoping to solicit their Christmas tree business.
Ern Bender: Anorexic Santa Claus.
“Christmas trees,” he droned, clanging the bell in a funereal rhythm. “Ho . . . ho . . . ho. Christmas trees. Cheap.”
A few cars honked. Most sped up. No one stopped.
Somewhere a boom box blared Bing Crosby, in case the scene of an emaciated Santa on parole hocking trees at a used car lot wasn’t depressing enough. I pulled my faux rabbit fur coat tighter and bent my head to the biting wind. I remembered that I hadn’t bought a tree yet. If I were a nice person, I would buy one from Ern.
Or not.
“Mr. Bender?” I said.
A car zipped by, splashing me with December grime. Ern continued ringing, oblivious. He sported the hollow cheeks and sallow complexion of a person who doesn’t take those admonitions to eat five vegetables a day seriously. A fake beard did little to hide the tattoo on his neck. If I had a little kid, I’d no more let him sit on Ern’s lap than let him play blindman’s buff with the Crips.
“Mr. Bender!” I yelled.
You’d think he’d be thrilled to see a customer so entranced by his bell skills that she’d rushed right up to introduce herself. But Ern was far from thrilled.
Ern was drunk. Or, at least, that’s the way he smelled.
He drove his thumb over his shoulder. “Get your tree back there. I don’t sell ’em. I bring ’em in.”
I covered my nose to dilute the whiskey fumes wafting my way. “I don’t want a tree. I need to talk to you, Mr. Bender. About Debbie.”
He didn’t miss a beat with the bell, not a ding or a dong. “I don’t know a Debbie.”
“Yes, you do. Debbie your wife.”
“Ex.”
“Okay, ex.”
“Ho . . . ho . . . ho.” He rang the bell. “Christmas trees. Get your Christmas trees. Cheap.”
Another car swerved and splashed frigid black water onto my leopard-print tights, making my legs officially soaked with black muck. Cripes. The Mahoken Sewage Council was a trip to Disneyworld compared to this. I vowed that if I stuck with Ern for ten more minutes, I could treat myself to a long, hot bubble bath tonight along with a juicy Nancy Martin Blackbird Sisters mystery and a cup of hot chocolate.
Sidestepping another splashing car, I hollered, “Mr. Bender, I believe your wife has been murdered.”
Finally, the ringing stopped. Ern tossed the bell aside so that it landed in the gutter with one last clang, and swaying slightly, he regarded me with rheumy eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Bubbles Yablonsky. I’m a”—I thought twice about introducing myself as a reporter—“I’m a hairdresser down at the House of Beauty. I was there when your former wife had an allergic reaction and died.”
Ern reached into his pocket and pulled out a small dark brown bottle. It looked more like cough syrup than liquor, probably an addiction leftover from his pharmacist days. “They told me it was an accident.”
“Who?”
“Cops.” He took a quick swig, closed his eyes and savored before recapping the bottle. “They didn’t say nothing about a murder.”
“Yes, well.” I wasn’t about to launch into a dissertation on the qualifications of Lehigh’s finest. (It was the
Keystone
State, after all.) “I have a different opinion. I think she was intentionally, well, poisoned, for lack of a better word.”
He pondered this. “Was it strychnine? Is that what they used?”
“No,” I said, thinking,
What the hell was he talking about?
“Not strychnine.”
“ ’Cause that’s an awful death. Thirty minutes of muscle convulsions, painful muscle convulsions. Off. On. Off. On. Until the heart gives up. Instant rigor mortis, though, so that’s helpful. If you need to dispose of a body, that is.”
“Right.” I moved a few steps away, extending my escape hatch. “Actually, it was more along the lines of latex. She had a pretty severe allergy, I guess.” I narrowed my eyes. “Were you aware of that?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Claimed she couldn’t clean a house because she’d have to wear rubber gloves. Wouldn’t use a diaphragm, either.” He shook his head sloppily. “I never believed it. Not for a minute.”
“Maybe you should have. She died a few minutes after latex glue was applied to her scalp.”
Ern shrugged. “Yeah? What were her last words?”
I hesitated. What an odd question.
“I . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember.”What had been her last words, anyway? “I think she said she felt as if something bad was going to happen.”
“No kidding.” He looked off, toward the string of red brake lights on Union. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or surprised or sad. “That might have been a reaction to the latex. You feel as if something bad is about to happen.”
I would remember to write this down.
“Then again, she was probably thinking, Shit, I’ve been murdered. Not like she wasn’t concerned. Debbie was paranoid—that’s for sure.”
All my senses were on edge. “Oh?”
“Though, the way I look at it, it was just a matter of time before someone got to her. Lord knows she deserved it.”