Final Sentence (17 page)

I balked. “What about our new hire interviews?”

“Why do you think I asked your father to stop by? As a former FBI analyst, he’s an expert at separating the wheat from the chaff. At the very least, he can do background checks.”

“What?” my father said.

“You need a project, Cary. Leave, Jenna. Get the scoop.” Aunt Vera shooed me. “We’ve got this.”

“I promise I’ll be back in time to close so you can make your Coastal Concern meeting.”

Because of her deep spiritual bond with nature, Aunt Vera took an active part in ensuring our coasts remained pure and unsullied.

“However long it takes,” she said. “Too-ra-loo.”

Shoving my father’s discontent to the back of my mind, I hurried out of the shop wondering exactly how I was going to convince Gigi Goode to confide in me, her polar opposite, and whether I would have enough time to do so before Chie
f Pritchett hauled me in and threw away the key.

Chapter 11

L
IVING IN SAN
Francisco had made me forget how much fun Crystal Cove could be and how much people delighted in living there. I drank in the local flavor as I walked to the Permanent Wave Salon and Spa. Surfers with artistically painted surfboards propped on their shoulders paraded down the brick sidewalks. Families hoisted colorful kites or played Frisbee in the two postage-stamp-sized parks between shopping arcades. Tourists posed with the twin silver statues of dancing dolphins that stood at the intersection where the egress out of town met Buena Vista Boulevard, the main drag.

When I reached my destination, I halted. Perspiration broke out on my upper lip. I swiped it away with my pinky. Never once had I entered a hair salon nervous. I was not married to my hairstyle. I had worn it short, long, and in between. Though I had never colored my hair, during one rebellious moment in college, I had considered throwing in a punk pink stripe. So why was I anxious? Because I was going to outright lie.

Get a grip
, I urged myself.
You can do this.
I had battled onerous executives in sales meetings. I had gone head-to-head with obstinate clients. I could darned well tell a fib to a hairstylist. And truthfully, I did need a trim. I hadn’t let anyone touch my hair in over six months.

I approached a cheerful appointment clerk who sported the pink stripe I had considered in my youth. Glittery eyelids, fingernail polish, and a clingy one-piece jumpsuit matched the stripe. Beyond her, through a huge plate glass window, I caught sight of the ocean. White caps danced across the surface. A sailboat scudded through the water at a tilt.

“Help you?” the clerk said.

Faking wretchedness while plucking at my stick-straight black hair, I said, “Is Gigi Goode available for a quickie? My aunt recommends her highly. I need a trim something awful.”

“Let’s see.” The young woman clacked a key on her computer keyboard. “You’re in luck. She has a cancellation.” She perused the salon. “Hmm. She’s not at her station. Let me see if I can track her down and get the okay to book you. Have a seat by the aquarium. There are magazines. Want some cucumber water?”

I wrinkled my nose at the notion.

The clerk giggled. “It’s not really cucumber water. Cucumbers floating in the water flavor it. It’s good.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” Cucumbers and I weren’t the best of friends. Early in my marriage, I had attempted to make cold cucumber soup. To my horror, David turned out to be allergic to dill. The recipe had asked for two fresh tablespoons of the herb. David’s tongue swelled up, and he was sick all night. Needless to say, the event put me off cooking for a long, long time. Until now, actually.

The clerk left her post and scuttled in her superhigh heels, tight-kneed à la Bette Midler, to the right. “Gigi,” she called.

As I strolled toward the large fish tank, Gigi rushed from a room and ran headlong into the clerk. Gigi’s sheer size knocked the clerk backward into a chair on wheels.

“What?” Gigi’s blue-rimmed eyes flashed with annoyance. She jammed her hands into her apron pockets. “Well?”

The clerk regained her balance and whispered something to Gigi, who ogled me and nodded once.

Trying not to appear overly excited about scoring an appointment on such short notice, I studied the fish in the aquarium. Tetra swam in and out of a sunken ship and a grotto fit for Princess Ariel.

The clerk led me to the dressing room. “Grab a smock and come with me. We’ll get you shampooed.”

“No consultation first?”

“Gigi never consults until the hair is wet.”

Of course she didn’t. That way she ensured the client stuck around. In for a penny, in for a full haircut, I decided. I threw on a smock the color of the ocean and followed the clerk to the washbasins. She introduced me to a sweet Latina woman, who gave my hair a quick shampoo, added coconut-scented conditioner, rinsed, and led me to Gigi’s station. I sank back into the soft folds of the leather chair and scrutinized myself in the seashell-bordered mirror. People on the street stopped at the window and peered in at me. The impulse to gawp at them and gurgle like a fish swelled within, but I didn’t cave to the urge.

Gigi lumbered to me, pressed a pump that elevated the chair a foot, and assessed me via the mirror. “I know you. We met the other day at the trailer. You were searching for Desiree.”

“That’s right. I’m Jenna Hart. I own The Cookbook Nook.”

“It’s awful about Desiree,” she said. “The whole affair made me so upset. I left my kit with my best scissors in that trailer, can you believe it?”

That didn’t sound as if it were a major catastrophe. Nothing close to dying anyway.

“I’ve got to go back when I get a moment to breathe. And you . . .” Gigi ran her fingers through my hair. “She was a good friend, right?”

“Yes.”

With tremendous vigor, Gigi rubbed my scalp and my shoulders.

“Wow,” I said. “That feels great. I didn’t expect a head and neck massage.”

“Hair always looks better when the face is relaxed. You look tense and some of your hair is coming out in clumps. That’s caused by stress.”

It wasn’t easy moving to a new town. Opening a store. Finding a friend dead. And being suspected of murder.

“I’d like to apply some gold oil to your hair. Are you down with that?” Gigi didn’t wait for my response. She squirted liquid from a dark brown bottle into her palm and applied the oil, rubbing strands of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “You’re lucky. You have thick hair. It’s in pretty good condition overall.”

Minus the clumps.

“Desiree’s was better,” I said, trying to figure out how I could turn the conversation in the direction of Anton d’Stang. So far my effort sounded ham-fisted.

“Desiree spent thousands on her hair. That doesn’t mean hers was better than yours, but it was tended, shaped, and sculpted.”

Signifying mine wasn’t.

“Take a look at these styles.” Gigi pulled a hairstyle card with famous actresses as models from her cabinet. “I like this Jennifer Garner cut with slight layering, razor cut ends, swept bangs, and a curl on the end of the hair. It will suit your face. You’re pretty, and you’ve got her narrow chin and bright eyes.”

I happened to enjoy Jennifer Garner’s spunky work. Maybe I could channel her
Alias
television personae to help me find Desiree’s killer. “So how did you get the gig with Desiree?”

“Her regular stylist got the flu. Desiree sent Mackenzie—you know, her masseur—up here to find a local. That way she wouldn’t have to pay for another Winnebago.”

“Why didn’t she send Sabrina to hire you?”

“I think Sabrina was going through something at home. Boyfriend woes. Anyway,” Gigi continued, “Mackenzie passed by, saw me through the window, and appreciated my style. How could I say no to a couple of thousand, up front, for two days’ work? One thousand for a test style, which was a wash and blow dry. The second thousand for the event. I planned to add a few extra highlights. Nothing too dramatic. Desiree wanted to look good. Do you know they paid me, even though . . .” Gigi screwed up her mouth.

Even though Desiree died.

“Sorry for your loss.” Gigi combed out my hair, divided it into sections, and using jaw-of-death-shaped clips, secured each section to the top of my head. I stifled a laugh. I looked as if I were a warrior goddess. As Gigi smoothed out a section and snipped off the irregular ends, she said, “You’re pretty compliant.”

“Is that an insult?”

“No, a compliment.” She cut some more. “Desiree was . . . She could be . . . exacting.”

My aunt was right. Talking to a hairstylist was similar to talking to a bartender. We didn’t really make eye contact. We occasionally glanced at each other via the mirror. Chatting in that manner made the conversation less intense, more aloof. And yet private. No one in the shop seemed to be listening in.

“Did Desiree come here?” I asked.

“Oh, no. I only did her hair in the trailer.” Gigi released one of the sections of hair from its jaw-of-death clip. Hair tumbled to my shoulder. “She could be mean.”

“Desiree?”

“She said rude things.”

I flashed on Katie’s comment about Desiree ranting at others on her staff.

“She told me I was heavy. I should consider losing weight.”

Desiree was nothing if not direct. I recalled a time in college when she reduced a girl to tears. She told her that the outfit she bought on a trip to Germany made her look like a two-ton Heidi. I remembered another time when she told me that my art was banal and I needed to dig deeper if I wanted to wow the world. At my insistence, we didn’t speak for two months. In the end, I forgave her. Everybody did.

“But the money was good,” Gigi continued, “and I still have college bills to pay off. Everyone can eat humble pie to pay off a debt, right?”

“Where did you go to college?”

Gigi circled to face me and pulled on the front-most locks of hair. “I went to art school. I wanted to become a watercolor artist. I enjoy painting flowers and birds.” As she continued to shape my hair, she contrasted the styles of Georgia O’Keeffe and John James Audubon. “I was all over the map with my art, never settling on one style. Do you know Andrew Wyeth’s work?”

“I do.”

“Have you ever seen
The Fallen Tree
?” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Every time I look at that picture, my heart breaks.”

“My personal favorite of his is
Wind from the Sea
. The movement of the breeze through those sheer curtains. Exquisite realism.”

Gigi’s face lit up. “Are you an artist, too?”

“I am. I paint dancing girls and I do some sculpting.”

“The only thing I can sculpt is hair.”

Using a makeup brush, Gigi swept the snipped hair off my face, and then she hoisted a Super Solano. The drone of the hair dryer made conversation difficult, and we fell into silence. I stewed about how to raise the subject of Anton d’Stang but couldn’t find an opening.

When Gigi finished drying my bangs, she said, as if we had never stopped talking, “It’s hard for artists to make a buck.” She swept my bangs to the side. “Doing hair feels as if I’m cheating, know what I mean? It’s so easy for me.”

“There are plenty of people who can’t do what you do. You’re well respected”—I almost cheered as I saw my opening—“not to mention popular. In fact, I heard there was a guy the other day who came in for a style and ended up asking you out for a date.”

Gigi lasered a look toward the clerk at the front desk.

“She didn’t blab,” I said, sotto voce, girl-to-girl. “The guy told me.”

“Which guy?”

“Anton d’Stang, the restaurateur.”

Gigi’s face soured. “We went out once.” She tugged on the tips of my bangs. Hard.
Ouch
. “Just once.”

“Not all dates are ideal.”

“He’s a lot older than me.”

“But very handsome. I can see how you’d be attracted. You were, weren’t you?”

“Want spray?” She lifted a metallic silver can.

“No, thanks.” I licked my lips. “Um, Anton said you spent time together the night Desiree died.”

If eyes could shoot flames, Gigi would have ignited my hair with her fiery glance. “I think we’re done. Take a peek.” She shoved a hand mirror at me and spun the chair so fast my head flopped. “Happy?”

What could I say, that I wanted her to redo my hair? I might end up with a mullet. I wasn’t willing to risk it.

• • •

GIVEN MY NEW
hairstyle, I had to admit that when I headed back to The Cookbook Nook, I clipped along the sidewalk with a different attitude, sort of cocky and ready to take on any adversary. In my mind, I did a couple of boxing motions. Right uppercut, left hook, one-two-jab-jab-jab. My imaginary foe plunged to the mat.

As I reached the Fisherman’s Village parking lot, I drew up short and stared at Sabrina, who stood with J.P. by the entrance to the office Winnebago. Sabrina was clad in her typical black sheath, her dark hair tied in a severe knot. The two faced each other, his hands holding her upper arms, her head tilted forward. The pose looked supportive, not threatening. How I wished I had learned more about yesterday’s argument.