The beauty shop was packed. That meant, for this tiny two-chair shop, there was one person in Gloria’s chair and one other waiting. Irene had been more than willing to squeeze Mary in, provided she could come right away. Mary could and, at this hour, she wouldn’t be inconveniencing anyone. Irene and Gloria were the only stylists in the small shop. The two stylists and their two early clients gathered around Mary.
‘What happened to you?’ Gloria Hugger, blunt and to the point, stood in front of Mary, curling iron in one hand.
‘Were you really mugged?’ There was horror and Mary thought a little thrill in Alice Ives’s voice.
‘Is it true you found poor Evan?’ This from Leigh. She had on another workout pantsuit that had never visited a gym. Today she clutched something that looked like an old burlap sack. Mary didn’t have time to satisfy her curiosity.
‘Does Dan know who killed them?’ Irene asked.
‘If he does, he hasn’t told me.’
‘Are you all right?’ This time Mary only nodded, but Irene didn’t look convinced. She took her by the arm and guided Mary over to the empty chair in front of the basin. She carefully draped the protective cape around Mary’s shoulders, gently wound a cloth around her neck, tucked in the collar of her blouse, leaned her back in the chair and gasped. So did the other women who gathered around the shampoo chair.
‘What did he hit you with?’ Irene gently touched the blood-soaked bandage that hung entangled in Mary’s hair. ‘I’m going to have to get this off. It’s not doing you any good, anyway.’
‘No one hit me with anything. I fell off a box.’
That stopped Irene in mid-yank. ‘What were you doing on a box?’ She finished the yank. The bandage that had been stuck on nothing but Mary’s hair came away, but not without a sharp intake of breath from Mary.
‘Looking for Evan. His car was parked out the back but the shop wasn’t open. I was worried about him.’
‘Turns out you had something to be worried about.’ Irene ran her fingers gently through the hair around the stitches, pulling it this way and that, separating the blood-soaked strands. At least, Mary thought they were blood-soaked. She couldn’t see them. They might be stained with butadiene. They used that with a more-than-liberal hand.
‘Do I have any hair left there?’
‘Some. After they take the stitches out, I can sort of comb what’s left over this spot until it grows back. You’ll hardly notice it. Right now, I’m just going to rinse around it and get the worst of the sticky stuff out.’
Lovely warm water gently washed away dried blood and grime. It effectively shut out the questions from everyone else. Alice returned to her chair, where Gloria resumed twisting her wispy hair into little curlers before setting her under the dryer. Leigh picked up a magazine, featuring a beautiful woman with a haircut that was never meant to be worn by anyone who took care of children, cooked meals for a family or attempted sleep.
Mary’s eyes closed; the soothing warm water and Irene’s fingers gently running through her hair. The familiar voice barely penetrated but it made Mary open her eyes. It was the sight of Leigh, magazine abandoned, wrapped in what appeared to be a burlap sack that made her sit straight up. ‘What on earth is that?’
‘Mary, lean back. You’re dripping water all over. It’s just Leigh in her choir robe.’
‘It’s too long, isn’t it?’ Leigh turned around with a swish, but if she thought the robe would swish with her, she was mistaken. The brown material hung heavy and limp from her shoulders, held in place at the waist by a coarse rope. It looked much like the one Father D’Angelo wore, only he never wore high heels. Leigh pulled the hood of the robe up over her metallic gold curls and fluffed it out so it framed her face. She was right. The thing was too long and the hood was too big.
‘That’s a choir robe?’ Water dripped down the back of her neck, but she ignored it. Leigh looked ridiculous. She must have agreed with Mary because she squirmed inside the enveloping robe.
‘Yes. We had them made special for the Victorian extravaganza and the Christmas parade. We wore them for the first time when we followed the posada the other night. You must have seen us.’
If she had, she didn’t remember. If they all looked like Leigh, she was sure she would have. The only thing, other than murder, that stood out in her mind about the posada procession was the cow.
Leigh went on: ‘I had to wear high heels to keep this thing from dragging and almost killed myself. I can’t do that again for the Christmas parade and I don’t know what to do.’
‘Shorten it.’
Irene giggled, or at least Mary thought she did.
‘Oh, Mary. I couldn’t do that. I can’t sew a stitch.’ Leigh sounded distraught but maybe just a little smug as well. Surely she wasn’t proud of not being able to take up a hem? Well, maybe she was.
‘Get Bonnie to do it.’ Irene put her hand on Mary’s breast bone and lowered her back into place over the shampoo bowl. ‘She made it for you, didn’t she?’
‘She made half the robes in the choir and got rich doing it. Why, she charged fifty dollars a robe!’ Leigh sounded incensed, but Mary thought she wouldn’t have done it for that. Those hood things looked tricky.
Irene finished rinsing. She sat Mary up and wrapped her head in a towel. ‘I’d hardly say she got rich, but I’m sure she was glad for the extra money. It costs a small fortune to feed all those dogs and run that kennel building, especially as Todd’s business has fallen off.’
A start ran through Mary. She’d never thought about that but, of course, Irene was right. Keeping up kennels must be expensive. She’d heard Todd was having a hard time competing with the big box store that had recently moved into town. Several downtown merchants were. However, she hadn’t thought about it in conjunction with Bonnie’s kennels. So, Bonnie was drumming up business of a different kind. Good for her. ‘I didn’t know Bonnie could sew.’ She knew very little about Bonnie.
‘She made a bunch of the robes. We’d been talking about what we could do that would be different for the posada and the parade. She suggested we dress sort of medieval and brought in hers to show us. They looked about right and they weren’t that expensive, so we voted to go with it, especially when Bonnie said she’d make one for anyone who wanted her to, but it’d be fifty dollars and we would buy the material. Cheap at the price, in my opinion. She did mine.’ Irene threw a look at Leigh that said plainly she thought Bonnie had treated them fairly.
‘Do you think she’ll charge me to take up the hem?’
Leigh eyed Mary as if she might ask her to do it. A retired home economics teacher should have no trouble putting up a hem and certainly had a sewing machine. Mary silently vowed this was one time she wasn’t volunteering. She didn’t mind helping. She went out of her way to help organizations and people, but she didn’t care one bit for being taken advantage of, and that’s just what Leigh had in mind.
‘Call Bonnie and ask her.’ Irene looked at Leigh, then down at her shoes and sighed. ‘You’d better do it soon. That parade is coming up and you’ll kill yourself in those things.’ She stood in front of Mary, blow dryer in her hand, studying Mary’s hair. ‘I won’t be able to do a very good job with this. I’m afraid of hurting your stitches.’
‘They’re already hurt. Do what you can.’
‘I think we need to put a bandage of some kind back on.’ Irene walked closer and examined Mary’s head again. ‘I’ve got a first-aid kit in the back. I’ll go see what I can find.’
She laid her dryer on the stand and left.
Leigh moved in closer. ‘Do you think I should ask Bonnie to take up the hem?’
‘She made it. I’m sure she’ll take it up.’
‘Yes, but will she charge me?’
‘Leigh, I don’t know.’ She paused as she looked at her. ‘It seems a little big everywhere.’
Leigh looked down at herself and ran her hands down the sides of the garment. ‘My James has mentioned he might like to join. He’s in the choir at school. I thought I’d get it a little big so he could wear it too. That way I wouldn’t have to pay for two of them.’ She pulled the material out around her hips. There was quite a lot of it. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have had it made so … big.’
Mary stared at her. ‘How are you going to work that if you’re both still in the choir?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Leigh looked a little taken back.
‘How long have you been a member?’ Mary put her hand up to her head and gingerly touched the shaved spot. It felt bigger than she’d thought. Drat. How long would it take for her hair to grow back?
‘Not too long. I joined about the time John Lavorino left. Too bad. Everyone said he was one of the best tenors they’d had in years. Dog people certainly do get upset.’
Mary abandoned the problem of her hair, or lack of it, to give Leigh her full attention. She’d forgotten John was in the choir. She listened to them on Sundays, sometimes with appreciation, sometimes with a cringe, but she’d paid little attention to who was involved. ‘When did he quit? Before or after you all ordered your robes?’
Her tone must have sounded a bit sharp because Leigh took a step backward and opened her eyes wide. ‘Why, let me see, it must have been after. I remember thinking there went one hundred perfectly good dollars down the drain. It’s not like we can wear these things for anything other than choir, and not very often then.’ She stopped and the expression on her face changed. ‘Why?’
‘Was Glen a member as well? I don’t remember that.’
‘Probably because they buried him in the back row. Glen can’t carry a tune in a bucket.’
Ignoring the cliché, Mary tried to remember who else was in the choir. She saw them every Sunday. Why was nothing coming? Bonnie played the piano for them, and she remembered Naomi … Naomi. ‘Is Bill Bliss …’
‘Of course not. Can you imagine that stuck-up man wearing a robe like this? Parading through the streets, following some woman on a donkey, singing “We Three Kings”? Hummp. Mr Bliss thinks he’s the king and we’re the servants. He wouldn’t stoop so low as to mingle among us.’
Mary briefly wondered what Bill had done to engender so much dislike from Leigh, but her mind was going in a different direction and she pushed Bill aside. A mental picture of the choir was starting to form. ‘Luke. From the library Luke. He’s in the choir, isn’t he?’
‘He is. Nice boy.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Can’t help thinking of him as a boy, but he’s a man now.’
‘And Todd? Todd Blankenship? Bonnie’s husband? Is he in the choir?’ This came out a little faint. Mary felt a little faint. It seemed there were medieval robes everywhere.
‘Mary, why all this interest in the choir? If you want a list of the members, ask Bonnie. Actually, ask Misha Turner. She’s the adult choir director. Or, if you want to get the contract to make the next robes, well, I’m not sure Bonnie …’
Mary didn’t let her finish. ‘I have no interest in making anything. No. I only wondered … such an interesting idea … it seemed there are a lot of new people in the choir …’
Leigh still stared at her, almost willing her to say more.
Saved by Irene. ‘Found this gauze and tape. Let me put this bandage on before I try to fix your hair.’
Mary watched Leigh out of the corner of her eye while Irene tried to make the bandage stick. She seemed undecided whether she should continue to question Mary or not. However, she wasn’t going to get the chance. Irene was asking the questions: exactly how had Mary fallen, what made her think Evan might be in trouble and did she have any idea why Cliff was in the manger, let alone at St Theresa’s. Mary had no answers. Leigh listened intently for a few minutes then gathered up her robe and, wobbling a little on her high heels, left. Was she going to call Bonnie? She thought about all the choir robes. Too many robes. Too many people connected to these terrible events seemed to have one. It must all mean something, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what.