Back home, Fitz dished up ice cream while I changed out of my uniform and showered. India’s light was still on, so we invited her over to join us. I’d never said anything to Fitz about what India had told me about her past. I figured if she wanted him to know, she’d tell him sometime. She was in good spirits tonight. She’d figured out a tricky point on the website, which was still cyberspace voodoo to me.
While eating the caramel pecan ice cream, we discussed the latest revelation from Culture Club Amy and whether we should report it to Detective Molino. We finally concluded that we should give Amy a chance to do it herself first, that it would carry more weight coming direct from her, and what we should do was find out if the McClays had ever returned home. I’d doubted earlier that their leaving right after Mary Beth’s murder was innocent coincidence, although I’d set that aside in my stronger suspicion of Slick Sloan’s guilt. But now, knowing that Anderson McClay had actually threatened Mary Beth, my original suspicions about him expanded, especially since he’d withdrawn from the commissioner’s race. Mary Beth’s interest in politics also suggested some personal connection with then candidate McClay. All of which led to a definite concern about Amy’s safety.
After dinner, I looked up the McClays’ number. While I was still trying to think of some way to open a conversation with them, Fitz, more comfortable with winging it than I was, dialed the number. Phreddie rumbled his disapproval at the action that disturbed his comfortable position draped around Fitz’s neck. Fitz listened a moment, then hung up.
“Answering machine.” He soothed Phreddie with a stroke along his back.
“Which may or may not mean they’re still out of town,” India said. “Maybe we need to talk to the daughter.”
India had managed to locate the daughter’s name on the internet, and I now found her in the phone book. I knew she wasn’t going to talk to me after that last conversation with her about the sunglasses left in the limo. Then, remembering Annabelle had said the daughter had a hair salon, sudden inspiration. “Who needs to get their hair styled?”
I looked between them. India’s blonde hair was tied up in a loose ponytail, as usual. I’d been trimming Fitz’s thinning gray hair for him lately, and it was in good shape now. His mustache came and went, according to his mood, and he trimmed it himself. They both looked blank at what they apparently considered my strange change of subject.
“You’re offering something new? Andi’s Limouzeen and Hairstyling Service?” Fitz inquired. “In all honesty, I don’t think it’ll fly.”
I made a face at him. “Don’t be too sure. You can promote almost anything on the Internet. But in this particular case, I’m referring to the fact that I think Anderson McClay’s daughter works in or owns a hair salon. One of us could make an appointment for a cut or style or something, and then see what information we could get out of her in a casual conversation.”
India pulled the ponytail out to the side of her head and scrunched her neck to look sideways at it. “I haven’t been to a beauty shop in five years.” Unsaid was the fact that she apparently saw no need to break that record now. “Connor always cut it for me with manicure scissors, and I’ve just kept doing that.”
A biker wielding manicure scissors. When India dumped her first husband’s brand of high living, which no doubt included hair styling at several hundred dollars per whack, she’d gone all the way. Though not even a ragged hairdo could take away the hint of elegance that clung to her like the beauty crowns she’d once worn.
I looked to Fitz, who shook his head. “I don’t go to any place that does hair styling instead of plain ol’ cutting. Besides, I like the barber I have.” He looked at me and winked.
Which left only one member of this trio. “I suppose I could have my Cinnamon Sunrise coloring professionally applied for a change. Or maybe I’ll go for a real change and become a platinum blonde.”
They both looked at me thoughtfully.
“Okay,” Fitz said.
India nodded. “Okay.”
Big help they were. Both of them knowing I’d made the statement facetiously and would no more become a platinum blonde than I’d use the limo for drag racing.
“That’s settled then,” Fitz said. “You’re our inside investigator.”
“Victim,” I muttered.
He ignored that. “Now all we have to do is find out which hair salon she’s in.”
We went through the listings in the yellow pages but didn’t find anything helpful. Some were identified by a person’s name: Beth’s Hair Magic. Sue’s Fashion Clips. But there was no Megan name listed. Others were totally unrevealing, with names such as Hair Extravaganza and Your Luminous Mane. We decided that next morning I’d start calling the shops. I’d ask for an appointment specifically with a Megan, and see if that turned up anything.
I hoped Megan wasn’t at Your Luminous Mane. I’m a little wary of any place that looks on my hair as a mane. Although I’ve heard that some stuff made for washing horse’s manes and tails is actually an excellent shampoo for human hair too.
“We’re making progress,” Fitz said when I closed the phone book. “You’ll find out if the McClays are back in town—”
The obvious problem suddenly hit me. “But she’ll recognize my name! She hung up on me on the phone when I started asking too many questions.”
“Obviously, you don’t tell her you’re from Andi’s Limouzeen Service, as you did on the phone, and you certainly don’t arrive in the limo.” Fitz said. “You give your name as Andalusia McConnell. She’ll never make the connection.”
“But if she does, I may come out with green hair. Or no hair at all!”
Fitz patted my hand. “I’ll love you anyway.”
I looked at him. This was the first time that big, four-letter word had jumped up between us. Sometimes the I miss you we always said sounded a little like a substitute version of I love you. But this statement of Fitz’s had the actual Word in it. Then I decided I was making a big deal about nothing. Given the context, this was just a flip slip of the tongue. I was undecided if I was relieved or disappointed with that conclusion.
Right now, a clunky silence followed the statement. India glanced curiously between us. Fitz, maybe thinking he’d stuck his foot in his mouth, segued smoothly into sleuthing plans.
“So, Andi finds out if the McClays are back in town. And maybe you can casually bring up Mary Beth’s murder as a news event, and see what kind of reaction you get out of the daughter. We’re making progress,” he repeated.
“And maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree again,” I said, unexpectedly feeling an avalanche of gloom rather than encouragement. “Maybe we’re not even in the right forest.”
“Let’s see, are those similes or metaphors?” Fitz asked. “I can never keep them straight.”
India pounced on my meaning instead. “You’re saying the killer could be someone way outside people we’re suspicious of?”
“Exactly. For example, Mary Beth’s cousin told me that down in California, ‘Trafalgar’ advised a woman with cancer to try alternative cures, and she died. Suppose her husband or kids blamed Mary Beth for her death and came up here to wreak vengeance? Or maybe Sloan Delaney’s current wife heard about her husband’s towel-snapping relationship with Mary Beth, and decided to get rid of her? Or maybe someone she’s already scammed on an investment scheme did her in? There could be any number of people we know nothing about who wanted her dead.”
I was still considering the unknown possibilities when Fitz got up to refill our new coffee mugs. He changed the subject with a bit of news. “Matt has a date tomorrow night. He’s taking a woman who works at the library out to dinner.”
“Hey, that’s great! Did he meet her there at the library?” I asked.
“Well, actually, I set it up,” Fitz admitted. “I was talking to her at the library, and she seemed nice. So I got them together.”
“I hope it works out.”
“They have a lot in common. About the same age, and they both read a lot. So, how’s things at church?”
Fitz’s foray into matchmaking for Matt had lifted my spirits briefly, but the question he asked brought me down again. “I’ve had a couple of prayer chain calls. A woman in the choir has just learned she has breast cancer. I passed the request along the chain.”
I didn’t add that it was Janice Morgan who’d called. And that she’d included an added tidbit that we should pray for Nicole and Mike Nestleton, an active church couple she’d heard were on the verge of divorce.
“And you prayed for the woman with breast cancer?” India asked. A skeptical note in her voice suggested that was probably as effective as dropping a bottled note into Vigland Bay and hoping a cure would wash in with the next tide.
“Of course.” I looked between them, exasperated with their doubts, but exasperated with myself too. I was thinking now that I should have taken a solid stand and told Janice I’d happily pray for people who needed prayer, but I didn’t really want her gossipy speculations. “I know you two probably don’t think prayer makes any difference, but I do.”
At least I thought I believed that. Although I had to admit, I could think of a lot of prayers that never seemed to be answered. But then I sometimes thought it was a miracle any prayers were ever answered, considering how minuscule we were in the immensity of the universe God had created.