Arriving back at the house, I found Chava in the kitchen.
“Oh good! You’re home,” she said, showing surprising enthusiasm given it wasn’t yet 10:00 in the morning. Chava was not a morning person. “Your note said you wouldn’t be home until later.”
“I decided to work from here,” I said as I plopped myself down at the table. “What are you making now?”
“Baked gruyere and sausage omelet,” she said with a pride I hadn’t heard in her voice since the card tricks she’d practiced on me when I was a child. I had a flashback to sitting in our living room in Spokane. I was eight or nine at the time. “Prestidigitation,” she’d said. “It’s all about misdirection. Keep your eyes on my hands, Edwina,” she instructed as she made my card rise magically through the deck.
Even when she was learning a new one, I rarely caught her making a mistake.
“That sounds delicious,” I said and let her serve me up a heaping plateful. Maybe having Chava in my house wouldn’t be so bad. We ate breakfast together in companionable silence, sharing the Bellingham Herald I’d brought home. Deirdre Fox’s murder was referenced, though neither her name nor picture appeared. Without any personal details to exploit, the paper had opted for a short article about a body being found. Mostly it stated the investigation was ongoing and cautioned about the dangers of illegally pulling copper wiring out of buildings, as it could cause death by electrocution.
I wondered if they hadn’t identified Deirdre because her next of kin hadn’t been located. The idea that Deirdre had no one to mourn her struck me as rather sad. I looked over at my mother and considered the impact on her, should I die a violent and senseless death.
The pancake makeup covering her bruise had begun to flake off and I could see lines around her eyes I’d never noticed before. The idea of my mother getting old had never hit me. Chava was just … Chava. I’d always assumed she looked her age, but realized she only looked her age now. Before, she’d always looked younger. And she was only sixteen years older than me.
“You know what I’d really like to do?” she asked, noticing me watching her.
“What’s that?” I asked, feeling generous in spite of myself.
“I’d like to cut your hair.”
Maybe not that generous.
“My hair is fine just the way it is.”
“Just a little shaping. You have such a pretty face.”
Chance might like a new look for me.
Where had that thought come from?
“As long as you don’t use any Aqua Net,” I said to combat my wandering mind. How bad could one little haircut be?
Twenty minutes later, I had my answer.
“I look like a hedgehog,” I groaned as I peered into the hand mirror my mother held out for me.
Perched on a chair in the middle of my living room, I sat with plastic covering my clothes. Chava had taken a large garbage bag and cut a hole in the top and two holes on the side for my arms. I wore it stuck over my head like a poncho. I thought wearing a garbage bag was bad, but looking in the mirror, I forgot about what she’d stuck me in as I inspected how my hair stuck out.
Chava promised to take off just a few inches, but ample clumps of hair were scattered all around me, making me question what “a few inches” meant to her.
“I barely took any off,” she protested, reaching her foot out to push the evidence to the contrary around behind me where I couldn’t see it. “And you do not look like a hedgehog.”
“I do. And you promised not to use hairspray.”
“I did not use hairspray. Gel is a completely different product. I think you look cute.”
Twisting around trying to see the back, I started to argue with her again.
“You’re going to strain your neck. Here,” Chava said as she pulled me up and led me into the bathroom. She pushed me down to sit on the edge of the sink and held the mirror up in front of me so I could see my own reflection.
I’d never seen the back of my neck before. It looked very bare. And pale. And vulnerable.
“What have I done?”
“Buck up, Edwina,” Chava said, trying to take the hand mirror away from me. “It’s not that bad.”
We struggled over the mirror for a while until I finally wrestled it back, away from her. Chava made a noise of disgust and left the room. I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror again.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this,” Chava called out from the living room. “It’s not as if you ever paid attention to your hair before. What do you care now?”
She had a point.
I also had to admit, the cut was kind of cute.
“Won’t I have to spend a lot of time making it look like this every day?” I said as I came back out and threw myself down on the sofa. I didn’t want to give up my temper tantrum quite so easily. It felt too good. I slid down inside the slippery garbage bag, the black plastic folding up around my ears.
“All you have to do is rub some product in your hair and go. It’s the easiest cut in the world. The less you wash it the better it will look.”
I liked the sound of that.
“But I’ll have to maintain it,” I said, still convinced there had to be a downside.
“It will do you good to take care of something. If you can manage the haircut, maybe next month you can graduate up to a houseplant and some day actually own a pet.”
The ringing of my cellphone spared either of us any further confrontation over my hair. It was my office landlord. There’d been a gas leak and he needed to close the building for a few days to do repairs. I figured I could work in the library or a coffee shop if I needed to get away from Chava, and it wasn’t like I had a lot going on. With the heat shut off, I didn’t want to be there anyway. I said no problem, and reassured him I didn’t need to get anything out before the work started, as I had all my current projects on my laptop at home.
I didn’t want to tell my landlord there weren’t any current projects, save investigating Deirdre’s death. No one was paying me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get to the bottom of it.
No sooner had I hung up with my landlord than my cell rang again. The caller came up as “unidentified,” so I was surprised to hear Kendra’s voice on the line.
“Hey, Eddie, it’s me. I’m sorry about the way I left yesterday. I know I should have called back right away, but I’ve been really busy.” She sounded neither sorry nor particularly busy, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“That’s okay. Do you want to get a copy of the photos today?” I said, actually wanting to know if she had my money, but being oh so subtle about it.
“Can I come to your office now?” she said, almost answering my question.
“I can meet you anywhere.”
“Great. Your office, in an hour?”
“Anywhere else,” I said before explaining about the workers currently tearing gas pipes out of my walls or whatever it was they were doing.
“Oh.” Kendra sounded oddly disappointed.
“I can meet you somewhere closer to your house if you want. I have my laptop. I can burn you a CD.”
“Um … let me think.”
I figured she was trying to decide on a place to meet. I waited for a moment, but she remained silent.
“Really, Kendra, anywhere you want is fine. A coffee shop, a parking lot, it doesn’t matter. You bring me cash and I’ll bring you the CD.”
I do take checks, but she’d have to give me the check up front and I’d have to wait until it cleared to give her the CD. She’d also said she didn’t have access to a checking account. Maybe she wanted to buy my groceries on her card as a way to cover the bill and didn’t know how to bring it up.
“If you’re hesitating about how to pay me, we can work something out,” I said. “Is that the problem?”
Kendra started to cry again.
Crap. I didn’t deal with the crying well in person. Over the phone it was even worse.
“What’s going on, Kendra?”
“It’s …”—sob—“it’s …”—sob—“Matt.”
“What’s Matt? Did something happen?”
“I have another problem. Besides the …”—sob—“affair.”
Great.
“What’s that,” I asked, trying to channel my idea of a caring individual. I thought I faked it pretty well.
“I’m pregnant.”
How much did I really want to know about this? Was she now also worried about child support? And what did that have to do with paying me?
“Are you sure?” I said, “Maybe there’s been a mistake?” No doubt I sounded like a reluctant bridegroom being set up for a shotgun wedding, but I was vaguely horrified at the thought of a child being born into this situation.
“Of course I’m sure,” she said, a little harshly, I thought, given the circumstances. I chalked it up to hormones.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I only meant, I wondered if this was new information or you’ve known for some time,” I said, back-peddling from the slip up of vocalizing my honest reaction to her news.
Another pause on Kendra’s side of the conversation. Maybe she was looking for a little female solidarity. Perhaps I should recommend counseling.
“I’m scared,” Kendra said, her voice going even more little girl.
“I’m sure every woman feels that way when she’s faced with having a baby,” I said, trying to reassure her.
“No. Not that, I mean of Matt.”
“Do you think he’ll fight the divorce because of this?” I didn’t want to ask if they might be fighting about having or not having an abortion or some other complication I didn’t want to know about. Mostly I just wanted to get off this phone call.
“I’m afraid he might hurt me, hurt the baby.”
Now she brings up domestic violence? That was a new one. When I first met her she’d said he’d never shown any inclination toward that. Had she been lying then? Or was she lying now?
Not to mention the fact that none of this had anything to do with paying my bill.
And did that mean Matthew Hallings had a temper? Bad enough to kill his mistress in a fit of rage?
“Do you want to get together and talk?” I asked, thinking if we were face to face she might be more likely to pay me.
“Yes. But let’s wait until your office is available.”
“We can meet somewhere else private if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m sorry, Eddie. I have to go. Call me when your office is free.”
With that she hung up the phone.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked my cellphone, but it remained stubbornly silent.
The good news was Kendra appeared to be willing to pay me. The bad news was she apparently could only do so at my office.
I was starting to think I should just give the CD to her and be done with it, a little pro bono work so I didn’t get caught up with the latest aspect of this crazy-making situation. I’d bet she’d meet me anywhere if I offered up the CD for free.
But where did that leave me?
I decided I’d call her when my office was usable again and try one last time.
This whole situation was making me a little nuts, but I couldn’t quite let it go. What should I do next? I thought through my options and came up with something simple. Maybe there was a way I could find out why Chance had moved to Bellingham, which had been taking up a lot more of my attention than I wanted to admit, and I could gather a little more information on Deirdre’s death at the same time.
My best friend worked as support staff in Major Crimes, the unit Chance Parker hired into. This meant she was a civilian, not a police officer. Major Crimes worked on homicides not considered domestic. Bellingham only averaged one or two homicides a year, but the unit also investigated assaults, arson, and other felonies. With five full-time detectives, the unit stayed busy.
I rarely traded on our friendship to get information, but this situation felt like it warranted a phone call and I needed to talk to Izabelle anyway, so I decided to give it a try.
I pulled up her office number on my cell and pressed the little green call symbol.
Izabelle answered the phone, the southern drawl of Alabama still pronounced in her voice even after a decade in Washington State.
“Hey, Iz,” I replied.
“Eddie! Whach’yall doin’?” It had taken me a while to learn the difference between the singular “you all” and the plural “all you all.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said, Iz being one of the few people I’d previously regaled with stories of my mother.
“Try me, sister.” I always appreciated that Iz could embrace a too tall, white Jew from Spokane as a soul sister for a short black fireplug from Birmingham.
“Chava’s in town.”
“No shit, girl? Whooeeee! Do I get to meet the estimable Mama Schultz this trip? You know I want to get a gander at the woman who could produce a daughter like Eddie Shoes.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure how long she’ll be here. I’ll fill you in next week at the dojo.” Iz and I sparred together regularly at the local gym.
“Next week? What, you got a broken arm? You are supposed to be there tonight.”
“I’m going to have to cancel. Things got a little complicated with Chava’s unexpected arrival.”
And I wasn’t feeling quite myself.
“I hear that. Okay, no sweat. Next week it is.” I could hear Iz getting ready to hang up, thinking our call was over.
“I’ve actually got a question for you though.”
“Uh-oh. That sounds like business.”
“I hate to put you on the spot, but I’m wondering what you know about the investigation into the death of Deirdre Fox.”
A long pause made me wonder if I’d overstepped an invisible line, when I heard Iz’s voice drop down low.
“Are you asking me to fill you in because the detectives don’t want to?”
Basically, yes, but how else could I phrase it?
“I didn’t want to bother them,” I said.
“I’m not supposed to talk about a case, even with you,” she reminded me.
“I know. I just feel responsible. For Deirdre. I may have been the last person to see her alive.”
“Besides whoever killed her, you mean.”
I held my breath. Maybe Iz would fill in the silence.
I heard her cover the phone with one hand and exchange a few words with someone else before she came back on the line with me.
“Look, I can’t talk right now,” she said. “Meet me at two at our favorite spot.”
I agreed and hung up, wondering who might have been hanging around Iz’s desk to overhear our conversation.