A Grave Issue Read online

  It didn’t feel all good, but I couldn’t say precisely why.

  * * *

  There were no bodies to pick up, no remains to be delivered, no visitations to schedule, no viewings to coordinate, and Kyle’s hearing wasn’t for a few hours. It happened that way sometimes. There’d be days we were slammed with two or three events going on in the same day and then stretches of time where nobody in the area seemed to be dying and needing our services.

  It had been hard on Dad not to be able to be predictable. He never knew when he’d be needed.

  Those quiet periods of time—like now—were great times to schedule dentist appointments, eye checks, and haircuts. It was also a great time to see if I could drum up some proof that Marie Ruiz might have had something to do with Alan’s murder. She knew her way around Kyle and Lola’s house. The gun cabinet wasn’t hidden. She would have seen it when she’d been there to trim Lola’s hair so she had the means. Figuring out her motive was my next step. She hated him, but why? I phoned Marie, who happened to have an opening. I checked in with Donna and then walked over to the Cut ’n’ Curl.

  I slid into the chair, and Marie snapped the purple apron around my neck. “So what are we going to do today?” She fluffed through my hair.

  “I’m not sure. I definitely need at least a trim. I’d like something easy.” I’d like to never look at another flat iron in my life.

  Marie cocked her head to one side as she lifted my hair off my shoulders. “How short do you want to go?”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I cared. “Whatever you think.”

  “You know, with some layers, you’d really release some of the natural wave.” She gave me a sly smile as if she was suggesting I do something illicit. “You could keep the length then.”

  Natural wave. It sounded appealing. “Sounds great.”

  She tilted me back so my head was in the sink and started washing my hair. “I’m so sorry about your dad.” She worked shampoo through my hair.

  I braced. Dad was still a hard topic for me to talk about. “Thanks.”

  She rinsed away the shampoo with warm water and started on the conditioner. “He was a good guy. I used to sit next to him at some of the VDBA meetings. He was such a great presence in the room. So kind. So reasonable. The whole town misses him.”

  I swallowed hard. I probably wouldn’t be the first person to cry while getting their hair washed at the salon, but it wasn’t really a club I wanted to join.

  “I still can’t believe he’s gone. I always thought he’d show back up,” she said.

  “Me too.” It was true. There was a part of me that still thought he was going to show up. I’d turn around and there he’d be, with that slightly crooked smile, his hair maybe a little longer than it should be. He’d muss my hair, a habit that made me insane from the time I was seven until now, when I would give anything to experience it again. He’d explain how he was swept out onto an island where he survived on berries until he could figure out how to get back to shore or had amnesia and had been working as a short-order cook in a small town or was adopted by a school of dolphins. Then my world would be right again. Because it was definitely not right now. Not even close.

  “He had such a great aura. You could see it glowing from across a room.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever seen my dad’s aura. It was good to know that someone had and thought it looked good. As much as I wanted to pursue the subject, I knew that I had a good segue into the topic I really needed to know about and decided to take it. “I guess you didn’t feel the same about Alan Brewer’s aura.”

  She stopped massaging my scalp for a second. “How did you know that?”

  I looked up again, wondering now how wise it was to bring these things up when I was in such a vulnerable position. “I saw you say good-bye to him at the cemetery.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t see you.”

  “I was standing in the shade over near the edge of the cemetery,” I said. “It probably looked like everyone was gone.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I would have spit on him like that if I’d known anyone was watching, even though he deserved it completely.” She went back to massaging my scalp. She made a noise in the back of her throat like she might have to spit. My eyes opened in alarm. I didn’t want her to hock a loogie in my hair. “Though maybe I would have. That son of a bitch can rot in hell for all I care. His aura was a murky, nasty mess.”

  “What did he do that was so bad?” I asked.

  She hesitated, then brought me back to a sitting position and wrapped a towel around my wet hair. “I’d own this shop right now if it wasn’t for Alan Brewer.”

  “How so?” This was getting good.

  She sighed. “Two years ago, Vanessa, the owner here, wanted to retire. Her feet are bad. Her back is bad. She was ready to rest. She wanted to sell it to me, but I didn’t have the cash. I went to the bank to see if I could get a small business loan.”

  It didn’t take an aura reader to see where this was going. “Alan wouldn’t give you the loan?”

  She led me over to the chair in front of the mirror. “Oh, he would have given it to me all right. He would have given it to me big time. In fact, I think he meant to give it to me right there on the desk. It was what I would have had to give in return that was the problem.”

  I sat down and became very still. “You don’t mean . . .”

  “Oh, I so do mean. You know he even drew the blinds in his office? Like I’d do it right there in the bank. With half the town outside cashing checks and making deposits.” She removed the towel and combed through my hair.

  “You’re kidding.” Thinking of Alan as a cheater wasn’t much of a stretch. After all, he’d cheated on Christine with Rosemarie. But shaking down people in the community for sexual favors? Right there in the bank? That reached a level of ick I hadn’t anticipated. No wonder Johanna looked a little nauseated as she’d sat at his desk. I hoped she’d sterilized it first.

  “Nope. Not kidding. Not one little bit.” She paused. “Here’s the thing that really gets me. He did it all like he expected it to work. Which tells me that it’s probably worked before. I wonder how many women have had to get down on their knees in that office to get a loan.”

  I thought about all the other honey blondes at the funeral who had opened new businesses in the past year. Trixie Warner, Ella Keller, and Mandy Smith all had opened brand-new businesses. I’d be willing to bet all of them had some pretty interesting terms on their loans. Would that give them motive? Probably not. I drummed my heels against the salon chair in frustration. They’d probably want to keep him alive so nobody would look too closely into those loans.

  The bell over the door tinkled, signaling an incoming customer. “Hold on a sec,” Marie said and stepped around to the front. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah,” a voice said. “Remember that serum you were telling me about the last time I was in? The one that would protect my hair from the flat iron?”

  “Sure. It’s right here. Did you decide to buy it?” Marie asked.

  “Yeah. I tried the drugstore ones, but they’re not as good, you know?” The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  “I do. I know it’s expensive, but you don’t use as much and it works so well. It’s really worth it. I mean, it’s your hair, right? It’s like the first thing that everyone sees.”

  “Totally. How much?”

  “Forty-two.”

  “Here you go. Oh, and do you have time for a mani-pedi?”

  “I’ve got someone in my chair right now. Come back in an hour?”

  “Great.”

  “See you then, Monique.”

  Marie returned to me. “So what are we going to do today?” she asked as she sat me up.

  “I’m thinking the layers sound good,” I said.

  “You got it. I think you’re going to love it. Those beachy waves are totally in right now. You should absolutely take advantage of it.”

 
; So Marie Ruiz had a good reason to hate Alan, and she had a bit of angry streak based on being willing to spit on someone’s grave. There was her motive. She’d been in Lola and Kyle’s house and knew where the gun was kept and probably knew Kyle’s clockwork schedule. There was means. Now, what about opportunity?

  “So where were you when you heard about Alan being shot?” I asked. “I figure it’s kind of like our generation of Verbenaites knowing where they were when they heard Kennedy was shot.”

  Marie frowned and thought for a moment, scissors momentarily paused above my head. I watched her eyes in the mirror. “You know, I think I was just finishing up over at the senior center. Or maybe it was when I was going home from the grocery store.” She shrugged and started snipping again. “Either way, I was in my car. You?”

  “When he was brought into the funeral home. What do you do at the senior center?” Maybe it would be something I could check on. See if she truly had an alibi.

  “This.” She gestured at herself and the scissors. “It’s hard for a lot of them to get to a salon so I go there once a week. Say, if you ever need help with people’s hair at Turner, you let me know, okay?”

  She finished the cut, blew out my hair, and then handed me the mirror. “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t even know my hair would do that!”

  “It just needed to be cut in a way that releases the curl. You don’t even have to blow-dry it if you don’t want to. You can towel-dry it, rub in a little product, and go.” She twirled me around so I could see the back.

  I almost gasped. “You are a true artist.”

  She giggled. “I’ve always understood hair. It’s like it speaks to me.”

  I was really starting to hope that Marie Ruiz had nothing to do with Alan’s death. This was seriously the best haircut I’d had in years. Maybe ever. Maybe I could visit her in prison and she could cut my hair. They probably frowned on people bringing in scissors for inmates, though.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kyle’s arraignment was set for three PM. I got there a little early to make sure I had a good seat and to watch the crowd. For years, Pluma Vista had used the same beautiful art deco courthouse, but it had the same problems the police station did. Too much twenty-first-century technology to cram into a twentieth-century building. Two years ago, they’d opened the new courthouse. Outside, it was all glass and chrome. Inside, it was all fresh paint and carpeting just above industrial grade. The courtrooms were smaller than the old ones but better set up for modern trials, with AV outlets and computer hookups and all the bells and whistles anyone would want. There were three long benches for lookers-on. I took a spot near the end of the second row. At two forty-five, the assistant district attorney for Pluma Vista County, Tommy Lomax, strode in and took his place behind the desk on the right.

  He was exactly what I expected an assistant district attorney to be. White, young, male. A little soft in the middle from too many takeout lunches eaten at his desk. A very tiny bald spot that he might not even know about yet forming on the top of his head.

  Then Janet arrived. She had on a pantsuit with low heels and was wheeling a milk-crate-on-wheels kind of thing behind her. She saw me as she made her way to her table at the front of the courtroom. “Desiree, good. You’re here. That’s a lovely color on you,” she said, gesturing to my top. “And your hair looks amazing.”

  “Uh, thanks. Do you need any help?” I asked, gesturing at her box.

  She waved me away. “Oh, no. I’ve got this. Is Lola coming?”

  I nodded. “She should be here in a few minutes.”

  “Move into the front row, dear, and save her a spot, okay?” She patted my arm.

  I got up and moved, placing my purse next to me to take up space. The benches began to fill up. A murder in Pluma Vista County was big news. But a murder over a neighborhood dispute? It was the stuff that people who wrote hooks for television news broadcasts dreamed of. Is your neighbor plotting to kill you? How far would your neighbor go? Danger at home. Unsafe in the house. I knew I would have had a field day with it if I’d still been a working journalist and I didn’t know the people involved. I felt a little nudge of guilt. I’d had a field day with cases like these. I’d rarely given a second thought to what the people involved were actually going through.

  “Nice haircut.” Rafe slid into the seat next to me. “Hey, Desiree. Anything to say before the hearing begins?”

  “No comment.” I pushed my purse farther. “I’m saving this spot for someone.”

  “I don’t see a reserved sign.” He flashed that big, bright smile at me.

  “Move,” I said and turned back to face the front.

  “And if I say no?” he asked.

  “Want to see what happens if I tell the bailiff you’re bothering me?” I asked.

  We both looked over at the bailiff, who was about seventy years old and stood like he might have a bum knee. “I think I could take him.”

  I started to rise, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me back down.

  “Okay, okay. I’m moving.”

  Luckily, Lola showed up a few minutes later. She slid in next to me. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  I took her hand. It shook a little.

  Then they led in Kyle. Cuffed at the wrists and ankles, he shuffled to the table where Janet sat, file folders spread out before her. I was glad they’d let him change into street clothes. There were a few people outside dressed like zebras in black-and-white-striped jumpsuits. They looked like escapees from an old-timey cartoon about convicts. It couldn’t make a good impression if you had to go in front of a judge dressed like that.

  Lola gasped when she saw him and started to stand. The bailiff took one wonky step toward us, and I pulled Lola down beside me just like Rafe had done to me. “Stay cool,” I said.

  “I’m trying.” She slipped a tissue out of her bag and dabbed at her eyes.

  Kyle sat down at the table, and they uncuffed him. He turned to see Lola and gave her a little wave, which started a fresh round of shaking from her. Then the bailiff was doing the “Hear ye, hear ye” thing, and we all stood for the judge, who waved at us all to sit.

  The bailiff read out the case number, and the judge looked over the files in front of him. “Ms. Provost, how does your client plead?”

  Janet stood. “My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor. In fact, I think you’ll find in front of you a brief asking for the charges to be dismissed.”

  ADA Lomax rolled his eyes. “Seriously? On what grounds?”

  “On the grounds that you have no evidence connecting my client to the murder, and do not take that tone with me, young man.” Janet shook a finger at him. “I know your mother.”

  ADA Lomax turned very red. “Excuse me?”

  “Yes. I used to play mah-jongg with her on Thursday nights. I know how proud she is of you and how much she’d hate to hear that you’d been disrespectful,” Janet said.

  The judge tapped his gavel. “That’s enough, you two. Mr. Lomax, do you have anything?”

  Lomax glanced down at the legal pad in front of him. “We have the gun that was used to kill Mr. Brewer. The gun belonged to Mr. Hansen.”

  “A gun that could have been stolen from the home anytime in the two weeks before the murder,” Janet chimed in. “It’s a gun, but it’s hardly smoking.”

  Judge Gunderson bit back a smile. “Yet it does seem to tie your client to the incident enough to warrant going forward with the trial.”

  “If you say so,” Janet said. She paused, head cocked to one side. “May I approach the bench, Judge Gunderson?”

  “Of course.” He beckoned to her. Lomax started toward the bench too. Janet turned to him. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Excuse me, but if you’re saying something to the judge, then I get to hear it.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I’m telling you it has nothing to do with you.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” he snapped.

&nb
sp; Janet went the rest of the way to the bench and whispered something very quietly.

  The judge’s hand flew to his face. “Did I get it?” he asked, his voice low.

  “A little lower,” Janet said.

  He moved his hand lower and wiped away what had been a nearly invisible smudge. “Thank you. I wonder how many people saw that there and let me walk around like that.”

  Janet shrugged. “There are all kinds of friends in the world.” She tossed a look at Lomax and returned to our table.

  “Shall we discuss bail?” Judge Gunderson asked.

  Lomax stayed standing. “The people ask for one million dollars in bail.”

  Janet made a noise in the back of her throat like she might need to spit. “That’s ridiculous, Your Honor. Mr. Hansen is an upstanding member of our community with no record. His wife is a teacher, and he runs a consulting business from their home. They hardly have the wherewithal to make that kind of bail.”

  Lomax turned to her. “Does he have a passport?”

  “I don’t know,” she snapped back. “What difference would that make?”

  “This is a first-degree murder charge. He wouldn’t be the first person accused of a crime of this magnitude to make a run for it.” Lomax rested one hip against his table. He clearly felt like he was getting the best of this argument.

  Janet threw her hands in the air. “So take his passport, if he even has one. He’s not going anywhere. He’s staying right here and clearing his name. In case you forgot, we pled not guilty. We meant not guilty.”

  Lomax turned to Judge Gunderson. “Judge, this is grandstanding, pure and simple.”

  Janet clutched her hand to her chest. “I’m grandstanding? I’m not the one asking a self-employed man with property and ties in the area to cough up a million dollars so he doesn’t flee from a charge of which he is entirely and completely innocent.”

  The judge banged his gavel. “Enough, you two. Save the theatrics for the trial.” He rubbed at the spot where the smudge had been. “Bail is set at two thousand dollars.” He banged his gavel and stood. Everyone in the courtroom leapt to their feet.

  As he left, Janet waved. “Bye, Judge Gunderson. Say hello to your grandmother for me. Tell her we miss her at water aerobics.”