Chapter 16
I tossed and turned all night. Ten or eleven years. That’s how long ago Miguel had dated Nessa Renchrik. I would have been twenty-six or so and living in Austin, married to Luke Holden. I had my own past, so why was Miguel’s past bothering me so much?
And more than that, why would York think he was involved in her death after so many years? It didn’t make any sense to me. I rolled over, sleep still eluding me, wishing Em and Billy were back from their honeymoon.
I was not single-minded like Captain York. Or at least my single-mindedness was only in proving Miguel’s innocence. I was still convinced of it. We’d only reunited recently, but still, it was like no time had passed. We were connected from our past, and had forged a new path together into our future. I trusted him, so yes, I knew he was not involved with Nessa Renchrik’s death in any way.
The only way to prove it was to find the actual guilty party. The next day and a half would be spent on the Spring Fling. That left just the morning to visit Nessa Renchrik’s hairdresser. I texted Candy to get the woman’s full name, but all she could provide was the place she worked. Soho Salon. I debated making a phone call to see if I could finagle who had styled Nessa’s hair from the receptionist, but in the end, I decided it was smarter to go in and ask in person. Nobody could hang up the phone on me that way.
Soho Salon was located just outside the historic district, so not too far from my house. Close enough to walk. I harnessed Agatha, locked the house, and headed off. Ten minutes later, I walked up the wooden ramp of the converted house and stood just inside the doorway. The reception area was the former living room of the home and was now a large open area. The reception station sat toward the latter half of the room. A table with a printer, lamp, and filing trays was against the back wall, turning the L-shaped desk into a U. Three ladder bookcases created a wall of shelving, which housed collections of hair products. The left side of the room had armchairs, a rack of handmade clothing made by a local designer, and a table adorned with handmade cards and jewelry.
The woman at the reception desk had long gray hair pulled into a side ponytail. She looked like she’d been beamed right out of the 1960s. “Can I help you, honey?”
“I hope so,” I said. I’d spent the short walk over planning my approach. “Nessa Renchrik is a client here—you might have heard what happened?”
The woman nodded solemnly. “Yes. Quite a surprise.”
Again with the odd response. “It is.” I moved in, Agatha trotting right along with me.
“Oh, would you look at him!”
“She’s a her, actually. Agatha.”
“As in Christie?”
I nodded.
“Oh, what a sweet face.”
I bent down and scratched Agatha’s head and said, “You are a sweet girl, aren’t you?” I looked back at the receptionist. “Is it okay . . . ?”
She stood and circled around the desk, coming over to me. “Absolutely. She’s precious.” She crouched down in front of Agatha but looked up at me. “May I?”
“Oh yeah, she’s friendly.” Except to the odd captain from the sheriff’s department.
A woman in a black apron came into the front area from the hallway to the right. “I’m going to grab some coffee, Sunny. If my nine o’clock arrives, tell her I’ll be right back.”
The receptionist nodded to the woman. “Will do, honey.” She cradled Agatha’s head, rubbing the sides of it with her thumbs. To me she said, “Now, what were you saying?”
“I’ve always loved Nessa’s hair. I need a cut, so I thought now would be a great time to finally use her hairdresser,” I said to Sunny.
She gave Agatha a final pet and stood back up. “Sure thing,” she said as she circled back around the big desk that served as reception and pulled up a calendar on the computer. “Oh. She came in early today for an appointment, but it was canceled,” Sunny said. “Depending on what you need done, she can probably fit you in.”
My brain whirled. A hair appointment was personal. I patted my mop of ginger curls. Did I need it styled? Highlighted? Chopped off? It was kind of a mess. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to a real hairdresser. Since I’d left Austin, I hadn’t taken the time to find one. I kept it pulled back in ponytail or up in a topknot if it got too unruly. Which, I admit, was a lot lately.
“I think I need a consult.”
“Sure thing, honey. Lemme go talk to her.” Sunny disappeared down the hallway the other stylist had come from. Agatha lay down by the front desk as if she were the salon mascot. I left her to her slumber and went to look at the cards featuring photographs of places in Santa Sofia created by a local artist, then moved on to the handmade candles. Patchouli was one of the most heavily used scents, but there was also lavender, papyrus, and evergreen.
“Hi,” someone said behind me. “Sunny said you need a consult?”
I spun around. The woman before me had short blond hair and a headband with a little bow. She looked like a pixie. My gaze traveled down. A very pregnant pixie. She wore overalls embroidered with flowers that stretched over her round belly. Goodness, she was adorable.
And young. I placed her in her early twenties.
Once again, I patted my hair. “I think I do?”
“I had a cancellation, so if you want, we can talk about it.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “I’m Ivy.”
“Oh my God, I love your name! I’m Gretchen.” She clapped her hands together. “So nice to meet you.”
I immediately recognized that Gretchen was the type of person to speak in exclamation points. I’d never met Nessa Renchrik in person, but I suspected she was not an exclamation point kind of woman. The two women seemed like they’d be complete opposites. It made me wonder why Nessa wouldn’t have just found someone else. “Nice to meet you, too. Can I bring my dog back?” I nodded to Agatha, still asleep.
“Leave her with me,” Sunny said. “I’ll take good care of her.”
I hesitated, but Agatha was completely comfortable, and I hated to rouse her. “If you’re sure . . . ?”
Sunny fluttered her hand in front of her. “You go on. Me and Agatha, we’ll be just fine.”
Gretchen waddled as she led me down the hallway, past a washing station on the right, a bathroom and cutting stations of the left, and through an open area with chairs fixed with helmet hair dryers. Her station was in the very back of the salon. A window overlooked a grassy area, the sidewalk, and the street beyond. Sheer panels fluttered from the fresh air. I removed the hairband that kept my hair in a topknot as I sat in the salon chair. Gretchen stood behind me and ran her hands through my hair, tugging gently on the knots my curls tended to form. She looked at my reflection in the mirror in front of us, which served as a divider separating her space from the hairdresser behind it, her smile stretching across her face. Her hands were clasped and resting on her bulging stomach. “You have beautiful hair. Absolutely gorgeous!”
“Oh.” I felt myself blush. “Thanks.”
She bent her head to examine the ends. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Ivy.”
“Well, I’ve always debated cutting it short, but I think it might just stick straight out to the sides if—”
Her hands fisted around locks of my hair. “You cannot cut it! You can’t. People would kill for hair like yours.”
Not that that was a good reason to keep it long if I didn’t want to, but I smiled, flattered. No one had ever been so enthusiastic about my untamed mop. “Oh. Well. It was just a thought. I haven’t had it short in a long time—”
“With good reason! It’s perfect as it is.”
I pressed my lips together for a moment processing the compliment. “A trim, then?”
Gretchen grabbed a white towel from a stack on the shelf behind her. She wrapped it around my shoulders and secured it with a metal clip. “Perfect. You don’t need anything more than that.” She pointed to the low shelf on the table in front of me. “You can leave your purse there. Let’s go wash and condition; then we’ll clean up the ends.”
Okay, so it was happening now. I felt nervous but followed her. At the washing station, I sat in one of the black reclining chairs. Gretchen used a lever to raise the footrest and I leaned back, my neck supported by the horseshoe cutout of the sink behind me.
“I’m so glad I came in,” I said.
“Me, too!” She sprayed warm water over my head, taking care not to spatter it on my face. “Are you a local?”
I closed my eyes as she guided the water to moisten every strand of my hair. “I am. Born and raised, although I was living in Texas for a long time. I came back here pretty recently.”
“Well, I’m glad you came in! I love meeting new people. I’m kinda new here, too. I came to Santa Sofia about three years go.”
“What brought you here?”
She smiled, a little dreamily. “We lived in Kalamazoo. Long way from here, but my dad brought me a few times when I was really little. I fell in love with this town then and always knew I’d come back.”
That I understood. “I couldn’t wait to get away when I was younger. Sometimes you can’t appreciate what you have until you leave it behind.”
“Isn’t that the truth?! That is a great piece of wisdom, Ivy! I’m going to remember that.”
“I never knew this salon was here. I live in the historic district. I walked here this morning, in fact. I don’t know how I missed this place.”
“You discovered it now, that’s what matters, right?” Gretchen pumped a dollop of shampoo into one hand, rubbed it together with her other hand, and began sudsing my head.
The head massage during a shampoo was, in my opinion, the best part of a salon appointment. I was after information about Nessa Renchrik, but Gretchen’s magic fingers almost made me forget.
Almost, but not quite.
“That’s right. I’m here now.” I sighed, contentedly. Gretchen was a master shampooer, her fingertips, then her fingernails, moving along my scalp. I enjoyed it for a few minutes before I said, “Nessa Renchrik came to you, didn’t she?”
Her fingers slowed for a beat, the pressure lessening before she caught herself and amped up again. “Yes. She did. Did you know her?”
Her voice had lost the built-in enthusiasm it had held a moment ago. No exclamation points. I needed to reassure her, so I didn’t lose her. “No. No. We have a mutual friend, that’s all. I told her I was looking for someone to do my hair. She mentioned you.”
Gretchen’s hands relaxed back into their movements, but she didn’t say anything more about Nessa. I tried again. “Really tragic about her death.”
“Mmm. Yeah,” she said as she finished the shampoo, rinsing it out with warm water before working in conditioner. “We’ll let it sit for a few minutes,” she said.
“How did you meet Nessa?” I asked, trying again.
Gretchen leaned her back against the wall and folded her arms over her baby bulge. “I remember that day like it was yesterday!”
I exhaled. The exclamation points were back. “Oh really. Why?”
“Rachel—that’s her daughter—called to schedule the appointment. She wanted an updo for homecoming. The nanny brought her. Carmen. But she couldn’t stay, so Mrs. Renchrik picked her up. She was not happy about it, either, let me tell you. I felt bad for Rachel. Mrs. Renchrik wasn’t the type to yell, but she always had a way of making you feel pretty bad.”
“Mmm.”
“Carmen was a saint. And now Fernanda.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it.”
“But Nessa started coming to you, so she liked you?”
Gretchen pushed off the wall and came back to the washbasin. She ran the water until it was warm, then rinsed the conditioner from my hair. “I wouldn’t say that. Honestly, I don’t think she really liked anyone. Definitely not me!”
“But my friend Candy, she said Nessa came to you for a couple of years. Why would she keep coming to you if she didn’t like you?”
She hesitated before saying, “To be honest, I don’t really know. She never seemed to like what I did to her hair and she always left me the crappiest tips.”
I looked up at her from my reclined position. Was she holding something back? “Why did you keep taking her appointments?”
Gretchen patted her swollen belly. “I can’t be choosy right now, you know?” She squeezed the excess water from my hair, wound it up in a towel, and led me back to her cutting station. “Look, she didn’t like her own family. That first homecoming updo I did for Rachel, it looked good. I mean, it looked gooood! But Mrs. Renchrik hated it. She said it make Rachel look like fifteen going on twenty-three.” She laughed. “Twenty-three like me! And Carmen. Poor thing. I got to know her pretty well. She always brought Rachel. Mrs. Renchrik never did. She only picked her up that once. Carmen did everything for Mrs. Renchrik, only to be deported. Mrs. Renchrik didn’t lift a finger to help Carmen. Oh man, Rachel was so upset when Carmen left. So sad.”
I thought about this as Gretchen finished towel drying my hair, then combed through it until it was tangle-free. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but my estimation of Nessa lowered even more than it had already been. Estranged from her own family. More enemies than friends. Even if she’d had a part in it, she hadn’t even pretended to help her children’s nanny when she’d been picked up for deportation. I knew for a fact that Nessa Renchrik and I would never have been friends.
Gretchen got to work, talking all the while. She’d completely warmed up to the subject and didn’t need any other prompting from me. “Sometimes I wonder if Carmen is better off now. I mean she didn’t want to go back to Mexico, I’m sure. She was here for a long time. You know, she practically raised Rachel and her little brother. That’s what Rachel told me, anyway. And then she was just gone. Can you imagine? She was just ripped from the life she’d made here. At least she didn’t have to deal with Mrs. Renchrik anymore. That’s the silver lining, I guess, if there is one.”
“How long had she worked for the Renchriks?” I asked.
“Oh wow. Since before Tate was born, I think. A long time.”
Candy had said Tate was in fifth grade. That made him around ten years old. If Carmen had been with the family since before the boy was born, that was a long, long time. Gretchen was right. To be ripped from the family you’d worked for for so long would be heartbreaking. My thoughts drifted to Sylvia. She’d been torn from her own family, her job, the country she’d been raised in and called home. I sighed. There had to be a better way.
The hairdresser with the station beyond the mirror appeared out of nowhere with a client. Her chipper voice carried over to us.
“Hey, Ali!” Gretchen called.
Ali poked her head around the mirror and waved. She was tall and rail thin. Half her hair was shorn close to her scalp, but the other half, which started at a side part, was dyed pink and hung artfully down one side of her face, falling loosely over one eye. “Heya, Gretchen. How’s little G doing?”
Gretchen laughed, glanced at me, and pointed to her belly. “That’s what we call the baby. I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Little G. That’s for ‘the Gymnast,’ not for ‘Gretchen,’ ” Ali said to me with a wink. “That baby does somersaults like you wouldn’t believe.”
Gretchen patted her belly. “Needless to say, I don’t sleep much. But I don’t mind!” She looked at Ali. “Full day for you?”
“Nope. Leaving at three today. Rendezvous with my baby daddy.”
In the mirror’s reflection, Gretchen’s eyebrows arched. “Really? I thought he was out of the picture.”
“He wants to be, but I’m not going to let him off the hook that easy. I got in touch with him.” To me, she said, “He didn’t want to have anything to do with us, but it’s his kid, too, right?”
“Right,” I said, loving the camaraderie here.
Gretchen clapped, bouncing on her tiptoes. “You go, Ali. You got this.”
Ali winked at us both before ducking back behind the mirror and returning to her client.
Gretchen leaned down, her voice low. “No secrets in a hair salon.”
“I guess not,” I said with a laugh, hoping that would work in my favor.
A moment later, Gretchen began cutting my hair, combing through long strands, pulling the curls straight, then using her sharp scissors to trim the ends. Next, she angled her scissors down to thin each section.
Gretchen was very train-of-thought, talking about whatever came to mind. I sat back and listened, waiting for an opportunity to ask another question about Nessa. The pregnant hairdresser was the furthest thing from a murderer I could imagine, but it was possible she could shed some light on Nessa’s life. Anything that could help direct me to the truth. She started talking about children, her pregnancy, and her boyfriend, who wasn’t very interested in the baby they were having, then moved on to her apartment and the obnoxiously loud neighbors they had living over them. “They don’t walk. They clomp.” She dropped the strand of my hair she’d been ready to slide her scissors through and proceeded to stomp in a circle around me. “I mean, I don’t sleep as it is, but how am I supposed to get any with them pounding on my ceiling like that all the time?”
That would be tough. I felt for her. “Have you talked to them about it?”
“Yes! I’ve tried. Hasn’t done one bit of good. I have to say, I ask every one of my clients about this dilemma thinking that maybe someone will have a brilliant idea.” She frowned.
“No?” I asked.
“No.”
She went back to my hair, finishing up the last of the trim. “Ivy! It’s done. I’m going to use a diffuser to keep your curls—”
“Ivy?” a voice called. “Ivy, is that you?”
I knew that voice. “Mrs. Branford?” I said, raising my voice above Ali’s from the next station and the din of hair dryers, chatter, and other salon noises that permeated the air.
“Let me help you,” a woman said with a slight accent, but Mrs. Branford’s voice said, “I’m perfectly fine, Yasamin, but thank you.” I could picture Mrs. Branford waving Yasamin, who I assumed was her hairdresser, away. A moment later, Mrs. Branford appeared from around the corner. Her thin white hair was wound around small curlers lined up in neat rows on her head. Her lime-green velour lounge suit was half-hidden under a navy styling cape. Her pristine white shoes practically glowed. “Ivy Culpepper. Speak of the devil.”
My smile faltered. Mrs. Branford did not speak randomly. “Speak of the devil” meant she’d been discussing something related to me, presumably with Yasamin. Gretchen had just said there were no secrets in a salon. I hoped Mrs. Branford wasn’t spilling any of mine. “Oh?”
Mrs. Branford smiled, her lips thin but amused. “Yasamin is a former student.”
“Who isn’t?” I said with a laugh. To Yasamin, I said, “Nice to meet you.”
Yasamin pulled a chair forward for Mrs. Branford and guided her into it. “You are at the bread shop,” she said. “And a little detective, too, right?”
Her accent, heavy with stressed vowels, was from somewhere in the Middle Eastern region. Persian would be my guess. Iranian. The skin of her forehead was pulled taut and had a sheen to it. I couldn’t detect a single smile line at her eyes. Botox, I thought. Her dark hair had a burgundy wash over it. I placed her somewhere in her fifties, but I couldn’t pinpoint early, middle, or late. She came across as hip and younger than she was.
“That’s mostly right,” I said.
“And important to the sheriff, this lady says.” She grinned at Mrs. Branford “This one is your biggest fan. I have heard so much about you. So much.”
I shot Mrs. Branford a look, but she just bent her head forward slightly and patted her curlers. “Yasamin, how you do go on,” she said, but to me, she added, “You are too modest, my dear.”
Gretchen’s eyes popped wide. She stood back, her hands once again clasped over her round belly. “You’re a detective?”
I fluttered my hands. “No, no, I’m not. I’m a photographer and I work at the bread shop. That’s it.”
“Pshaw,” Mrs. Branford said, a proud grin on her face. “You have helped the sheriff time and time again.”
“Only because she’s my friend,” I said slowly, hoping Mrs. Branford would get the hint to stop.
I hoped in vain. Gretchen picked up the conversation. She was no fool and put two and two together in no time flat. “Oh wow! You’re trying to figure out who killed Nessa Renchrik, aren’t you?” Her voice seemed to bellow throughout the salon.
Ali poked her head around the mirror wall again and looked at her friend. “That crazy bit—” She stopped herself just in time. “I mean, that woman was horrible to you. And you, of all people—”
Ali broke off when she looked at Gretchen and saw her eyes turning glassy.
It was true. You should be kind to your hairdresser. They kind of hold your life in their hands—at least until a bad haircut grows out.
“How was she horrible to you, dear?” Mrs. Branford asked. Her voice was sweet, but I knew she was gathering information. She knew I was worried about Captain York’s laser focus on Miguel and she was on a mission to help me get to the truth.
Gretchen blinked away her tears and gave a little shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell them,” Ali urged.
Gretchen just shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what she was like to me. She thought she was a good mother, but she wasn’t. I thought she wanted me to help her understand Rachel. She’d talk a lot about her, you know? Like she was trying to prove she knew her daughter. That she loved her. How can you just ignore your own child?” She swallowed and swiped at her eyes. “Some people aren’t meant to be mothers,” she said, gently circling her hand over her belly, “but I’ll be there for Rachel.”