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TRACKING DOWN MARY Nixon’s cronies wasn’t nearly as easy as finding Jimmy Vargas. Neither of them would answer their cell phones or their front doors. Since I had no idea what they looked like, I couldn’t cruise through town hoping I’d run into them. Despite Astoria being a small city of less than ten thousand, the odds were not in my favor.
Google to the rescue. A quick Internet search revealed not only Darla Manes’s Facebook page (and, therefore, plenty of photos of both her and Lisa Cutty), but also that she owned an events company called The Mane Event. Yeah, punny. She appeared to run said company out of her house, which did me no good, but I also discovered that Lisa owned a beauty salon called A Cut Above. What was with these people and their clever names?
I also learned something else extremely interesting. Something I couldn’t believe the cops hadn’t figured out already. I definitely needed to talk to Lisa...and quick.
A Cut Above was mere blocks from Jimmy’s marijuana dispensary, so I chose to walk instead of drive. Why waste gas? Plus the sun was out, finally, and I figured I’d take advantage of it.
The salon smelled of herbal shampoo and peroxide. The top-forty played over the stereo system, and women of various ages chatted away at a dull roar while sleek-looking stylists did weird things with aluminum foil.
“Do you have an appointment?” A girl with spiky, black hair eyed me from behind the front desk. She was wearing blue glitter eyeshadow. Hadn’t that stuff gone out of vogue in the eighties?
“No. I’m here to see Lisa Cutty.”
The girl frowned and chewed furiously at a wad of pink gum. “She’s sorta in a meeting.”
“That’s fine. I’ll wait.”
The girl shrugged as if to say “suit yourself” and stabbed a finger in the general direction of a row of comfy chairs in relaxed neutral shades. In fact, the entire salon was beiges, browns, and creams. A bit rustic but with a slight industrial twist. Very chic.
“Want coffee? Tea? A mimosa?” She recited the list like she was reading off a teleprompter.
“No thanks. I’m fine.”
She shrugged again and went back to snapping her gum. I was pretty sure she was playing some kind of game on her phone. Around me, activity continued unabated as women were cut, washed, dyed, dried, and generally spruced up. Which reminded me that it was past time to dye my own hair. I’d caught a few strands of silver peeping out from the chocolate locks just this morning. Frankly, I was far too young to be going gray. Age gracefully, my backside.
After about fifteen minutes, a woman finally appeared from the back room. She was bleach blond, fake-tanned, and sporting far too much gold jewelry. Her white shirt was pristine, which made me suspect voodoo. Seriously, every time I wore white, I ended up with spaghetti sauce or something down the front. She strode over to me with purpose and thrust out her hand.
“Lisa Cutty. You’re here to see me?”
She had a firm grip and shook with vigor. “Viola Roberts. Yes. I’m helping with the Nixon murder investigation.” I kept my voice low, figuring she wouldn’t want a lot of gossip flying around.
“Oh, really?” She didn’t bother to lower her own voice. “How interesting. Are you a private investigator?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it? How he was murdered like that. Not that he didn’t deserve it, mind you—The Louse—but I hate seeing Mary so upset. What can I do?”
“According to Mary, she was with you and your mutual friend Darla Manes on the night August Nixon was murdered, watching a movie at the cinema.”
She crossed her arms and gave me a toothy smile. “That’s correct.”
“Interesting. Then how do you explain this?” I showed her the screen of my smartphone.
Her face blanked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“This is a picture of you and Darla at karaoke night.”
“So? We go to karaoke a lot. It’s fun. You should try it.” She rubbed her chin. Was that a nervous twitch? Or did she have an itch? I was going with twitch.
“Except this post is time-stamped and dated. Not to mention geotagged, thanks to social media.”
“Again, what of it?”
I gave her a hard look. “This proves that you and Darla weren’t at the movies at all the night August died. You were at karaoke. And Mary Nixon is nowhere to be seen.”
––––––––
“LISTEN, DETECTIVE, I’m telling you, Mary Nixon does not have an alibi. This photo proves she lied.” I practically had to chase Bat down the hall as his stride picked up pace.
I’d tracked him down to the police station and showed him my evidence. The idiot still hadn’t been convinced.
“That doesn’t mean anything, Viola. So she lied about her alibi. That’s bad, and I’ll check into it, but it doesn’t mean she killed her husband.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. One of the most likely suspects just had her alibi busted to little bits. She lied. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It means she lied. There are a lot of reasons she could have lied about her alibi.”
“Yeah, like killing her husband.”
“Give me a break. Portia’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon. It doesn’t get more cut-and-dried than that.” He stopped in front of a row of file cabinets and yanked open a drawer. “Listen, I’m incredibly busy. I don’t have time for this.”
I practically screamed in frustration. Why was he being so pig-headed? “At least check it out. Find out what her real alibi is. If she even has one.”
He sighed. “Of course I will. I told you I would. I do know how to do my job.”
“What about the photo?”
“Email it to me along with the link. Let me look into this.”
“Yeah, because you’ve done a stellar job so far,” I muttered under my breath.
“Excuse me?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing. Have a lovely day, Detective. I’ll send that photo right away.” And with that, I swanned out of the police station in high drama.
I was beyond annoyed. Bat wasn’t taking this seriously. He was so convinced Portia was guilty he refused to listen to reason. Well, if he wouldn’t confront Mary Nixon about her lies, I would.
Better yet...
I had an idea. I tapped out a text and looked it over:
I’ve found proof of who killed your husband. Meet me tonight. 8pm at the museum.
Perfect. I pressed “send,” and the text winged its way to Mary Nixon. I imagined Mary reading the text, and I grinned to myself as I walked down the street to my car.
Time to catch a killer.