Wave Good-Bye (22 page)

Shocked expressions all around changed to tentative, “Hmm. Maybe she’s okay.”

I smiled. “I’ll be by to say ‘hey’ to each of you. I’m looking forward to getting to know you. Now have a good day.”

“Moment of silence on Sunday?” Eve whispered in my ear after the group dispersed. “That was inspired.”

“Hey, this is the South.” I cupped my hand over my mouth and whispered, “We like our comforting traditions.”

With that, I straightened and caught Wynn’s eye. He held out his arms to me for a hug.

What could I do? I stepped into his embrace, all the time thinking what a lying sack of horse crap he was.

“You’re looking fantastic,” he said. I narrowly avoided a mouth-to-mouth kiss.

“I heard your good news. Congratulations,” I said, eager to put things on the right track. I was onto his tricks. His easy familiarity was the first step along the path to falling for Wynn.

He grinned. When that man smiled, tectonic plates shifted. I mean, he had this half grin that warmed the hardest hearts, unfortunately, because it often got him out of the trouble he had caused.

“You aren’t still mad at me, are you?” His smile was easy, uncomplicated.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I am. I think you are a low-down, no-account, sleezy SOB, but I think your wife is an angel. She deserves better, and I mean that.”

Eve’s eyes teared up. “Thanks, Grace Ann. That’s awfully kind of you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Hey,” said Wynn, “I know I need help. Didn’t I tell you I’d get it? Huh, Eve? Come on, Grace Ann. That was a long time ago. Can’t we be friends?”

As he tried to hug me, I moved away, but not before my elbow collided with the lump under his arm. “Whoa! When did you start carrying a gun?”

“Since we were in New York and some creep tried to rob us. He was after Eve’s ring,” Wynn said, with a nod to the five-carat sparkler on Eve’s finger. “I have to protect my wife.”

“Start by protecting her from your bad behavior, buster.”

“She’s right, Wynn. You’re the one who’s hurting me now.” she said, through clenched teeth.

“Ah, hon,” he whined.

Eve shook her head. “Let’s all go in the back. I get tired of providing free entertainment for my staff.”

Once we’d moved from salon floor to private area, Eve turned on Wynn, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. “Where were you?”

“Not my fault,” he muttered. “That guy from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation came by the hotel and hauled me in again, right after I dropped you off here. I was on the treadmill in the workout room when he flashed his badge. The guy next to me missed a step and went flying into the wall.”

Sinking down into a chair, Wynn groaned. “I thought I’d go nuts inside that police station. The walls closed in on me. I can’t stand being cooped up. I couldn’t stand being in the darn car! That Crown Vic he drives doesn’t have any handles in the back on the passenger doors.”

Eve said to me, “I told you he has claustrophobia. Can’t stand elevators.”

A memory surfaced of a visit we had made to a department store in Atlanta. Wynn insisted on taking the escalator even though our hands were full with packages.

“What did he ask you? Are you a suspect? You should have called me. I could still get Steven to fly down.” Eve rocked a bit unsteadily on her feet. I pulled up a chair behind her knees and guided her to a seated position. She turned her face to me and explained, “Steven Clifford is our corporate attorney.”

I remembered her telling me that earlier.

“I can’t tell what the dude was thinking.” Wynn flipped his palms up to his wife in a gesture of defeat. “The security cameras caught me cruising around the lot the night
Lisa died. He wants to know if there was anyone else on the premises.”

Of course there had been. I’d seen a light on through the back window, and a person hunched over a desk. The desk belonging to Carol Brockman, actually. Thinking back to that evening and quickly glancing around, I realized this desk was not in line of sight of the window.

“Was there anyone else here? Maybe that’s our killer,” Eve asked, in a breathless, hurried voice.

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

He shuffled his feet. “I don’t want—”

“Tell me! I’m tired of playing games with you. Were you meeting someone? Another woman? Here? Was it Paula Benson, the massage therapist Grace Ann sent home yesterday?”

Wynn pulled his chair closer to Eve’s, but he kept his gaze on the floor, purposely not meeting her eyes. “No, Paula wasn’t here, but she was supposed to meet me here. I was going to give her money.”

“What!” Eve’s hazel eyes flashed bright with anger.

“Calm down. I knew she and I had to break it off, and I was afraid she’d come back on us for, you know, harassment. Or something. So I asked her to meet me here. I was going to say good-bye and give her some money to make her life easier. That’s what we were doing yesterday in the massage room. Honest! I gave her two thousand dollars.”

Eve’s face turned alternately scarlet with rage and white with shock. Boy, was she mad. “Did it occur to you that giving an employee cash on the side might look incriminating? Did you talk to Steven Clifford first? We keep him on retainer. All you had to do was dial him up!”

“I didn’t want it to get back to you.”

“Everything gets back to me! That’s the nature of my job!”

“Well, this time I wanted to take care of it myself!” He sounded like an eleven-year-old boy who tried to make his own breakfast and left a trail of broken eggs in the kitchen.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “But did you meet her here? Paula Benson? I happen to know there was a person here inside the building shortly after you and Lisa fought. Was Paula here waiting for you?”

A puzzled expression preceded his slow reply. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I drove away because I was so mad at Lisa. But I was almost to the hotel when I remembered about Paula, and how she expected me, so I drove back here.”

“You told me you headed back because you wanted to make it clear to Lisa that it was over!” Eve put her fists on her hips.

“Well, that, too, but mainly, I had the money to give Paula. But she wasn’t here. The only car in the lot belonged to that other woman. What’s her name? The accountant.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

I ITCHED TO TELL ALL THIS TO MARSH AND LET HIM follow up. Last night I’d entered his personal cell phone number in my phone’s directory. When I had a break, I’d text message him and ask if we could talk.

Who are you fooling, Grace Ann? You’re hot on the guy!

So hot that I took a trip to the ladies’ room to splash cold water on my face.

While I was in the stall, two sets of shoes came into the stalls adjacent to mine.”What do you think of her?” said the female voice to my immediate left. Her English was slightly accented. Corina was the speaker; I was sure of it.

“Country hick. What can she know?” said the stall two over.

“Oh, Taffy, you slay me. What do you think Suzee’s
going to do when she hears about this? It should have been her job, you know. She was hoping for a promotion.”

A toilet flushed. I lost part of the next sentence, but Taffy responded with, “…she thought she was home free now that Lisa is gone.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not going to be happy when she sees that Miss Georgia Peach is now her boss. Is it true she had a fling with Wynn way back when? I mean, he sure made a big deal of how good she was. Too much, if you ask me,” said Corina.

Taffy laughed. “Bet she can’t do hair for love nor money.”

Another toilet flushed. “We’ll see,” said the other girl. “Let’s give her a chance.”

I gave them a few minutes to make an exit before I came out of my stall. Their conversation hadn’t surprised me. Of course they’d want to see whether I was any good. I would, too, if I worked here.

Then it dawned on me: Maybe Suzee bumped off Lisa. If Suzee was in line for Lisa’s job, why not hurry the process?

With shaking hands, I text messaged Marsh:
Could we meet for lunch? Interesting stuff to tell you about Lisa.

The phone vibrated with a response before I finished drying my hands.

Sure. Angelini’s at one?
said the text.

See you!
I messaged back.

All salons use a system of “ups,” which means that stylists take turns being assigned new customers who are walk-ins, that is, who don’t have an appointment with a regular hairdresser. As manager, my “up” would be the last on the list, because the goal was to build the business of the staff.

There are managers who see this rotating system of assignments as a great excuse to sit on their butts in the back room and eat donuts, or smoke cigarettes, or generally waste their time. Smart managers walk from chair to chair,
greeting the clients and being available for consults. That’s what I did.

“She wants her hair short,” said Taffy, as I approached her chair and her client, a middle-aged woman with a very, very long face and hair down to her waist. The hair, while long, did nothing for her. Nothing at all. The weight of the hair pulled down her features, making her look older than she probably was. A lot of people get so caught up in the long-hair-is-sexy mode of thinking that they don’t ask themselves, “Yes, but is long hair sexy on me?”

Taffy was obviously waiting for me to do something. I lifted the woman’s hair and tried a few rearrangements to get a sense of what might work for her. Taffy glowered at me. “We can’t cut more than two inches off a client’s hair without an approval form. The acting manager has to sign off.”

“I’ll be right back.” Taffy’s tone had embarrassed me and a scalding heat warmed my face. Although I knew there’d be a learning curve, I had hoped my staff would be gracious as I scaled that mountain.

In the back room, Eve was hunched over paperwork while Wynn played a game on the computer.

“Excuse me. We have a client with long hair. I was told we need an approval form.”

“Let me handle this,” said Wynn, opening the file cabinet, withdrawing a form, and leading the way to the floor.

“Hey, I’m Wynn Goodman.” He gave the woman a heart-stopping smile. “And you are?”

“Jeanette Ricker.”

“Glad to meet you, Jeanette. What lovely hair you have!”

The woman preened, running her fingers through her mane, flipping it, and giving him a coy expression. “I think it’s too long. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. It’s lovely. You’re so pretty that you could wear it short or long.” Wynn stepped behind the chair
and went through the same contortions I had with her hair. “But I think shoulder length would be more flattering. You could still put it in a ponytail, or updo, and it would still be totally hot…”

The woman in the chair melted. Wynn stroked her hair as if she were a prized mare. The gesture brought back memories.

I walked away, trying to compose myself. Now I knew about the approval form. I would still have to prove myself to these people. I just wasn’t sure how.

Chapter Thirty-eight

TAFFY SANDERS AND I STOOD OVER A SIX-YEAR-OLD who had butchered her hair. The small figure in the chair blinked sadly and said, “I was a-trying to be bootiful.”

Her mother said, “I’m so mad I could spit. How could she have done that? Mandy Sue, I’m going to paddle your fanny good when I get you home.”

I turned to the woman and smiled. “This happens every day of the year. Trust me. We can fix it. She’ll look fine, and I bet she’ll never do it again, will you, Mandy Sue?”

The tiny tot shook her head. “Never. Not ever.”

To Taffy I said, “I think if you part her hair on the other side, the longer hair will cover the nearly bald spot.”

“Great idea.” Taffy nodded. “Come on, young lady. Let’s
take you over to a sink so I can wash your hair. Which do you like best, strawberries or mango?”

“Berries.”

“Good. We have a shampoo that smells like fresh berries.”

I escorted her mother to the waiting area and showed her how to make herself a caramel latte. Once the mom had a copy of
Vogue
in one hand and the drink in the other, she settled down. “Kids are such a trial. Think twice before you have one!”