Red Man Down(81)

On the phone, Sarah had persuaded her to come to South Stone early in the morning before the shop opened. ‘And don’t tell anybody where you’re going. Not even a whisper, you understand?’ Sarah said. ‘Extremely important!’ She was less concerned for the investigation now than for the welfare of the shop owner.

Lois was devastated when she learned that the sale would not go through.

‘I’ve made all my plans,’ she wailed. ‘I was going to move back home!’ She grew fixated on the notion that someone might expect her to repay some of the money. ‘It’s all I have to retire on,’ she said, and then realized, with a fresh gush of tears, that she would not be retiring any time soon.

Sarah said she wasn’t going to be the one who decided anything about the money, and promised to let her know where to go to talk about that. ‘But tell me,’ she said, getting that warm feeling around her solar plexus that signaled a strong hunch growing, ‘that nice haircut Angela got in your shop just before she died – did you do that one yourself?’

‘Yes. Because she asked me to,’ Lois said, preening a little. ‘She said she’d been told I was the best haircutter in town. She paid extra to have me do it after hours, too. Said she couldn’t get away from the store during our regular hours, and she needed to spruce up to be in a wedding. She certainly did need a haircut – she was a mess before.’

Ollie had found the appointment noted in Angela’s diary, along with the ironic comment, ‘The ad says, “Do your head a favor, take it to Desert Cuts.”. So I did. Very satisfactory!’

Angela’s diary had disposed of the pedophilia charge succinctly, too. She wrote, ‘I always knew beyond question that Ed hadn’t been abused sexually – he was a wonderful lover, thought sex was terrific – used to say I was the best treat he ever had. And he adored his uncle. He could be a headache, but whatever that Scout’s mother had wrong in her life had nothing to do with Frank.’

Sure she was asking the right question, Sarah said, ‘Did you tell her you were selling the shop?’

‘Didn’t have to – somehow, she knew all about it,’ Lois said. ‘She asked me what I was going to do after Cecelia took over the shop, and I told her I was moving back home. I’d promised Cecelia I wouldn’t tell anybody till the deal was complete, but when Angela asked me like that, I was so happy I just told her all about my plans. Oh, dear, you don’t think— I mean, I didn’t think it was so surprising that a member of the family would know what Cecelia was doing. Do you suppose I—’ Thinking she might be put in the wrong for talking out of turn, she began to cry again. All in all, it was a damp morning at headquarters. It took a lot of time, but eventually Sarah assured her she was not at fault. Lois did a hasty repair of her makeup and went back to her shop.

They had found all the money Cecelia had stashed around her house – easily enough to cover what Joey had withdrawn the day he died. Oscar and Jason had gone to the house yesterday with a subpoena while Cecelia was working, and found it. ‘It was mostly in those pots by the front door, where I said we should look first,’ Oscar said. ‘In cans for that fancy Brazilian coffee she liked.’

Even better than the money, from Sarah’s point of view, was Angela’s purse, which they found, carefully oiled and nested in an old towel, in a bottom drawer. ‘She just couldn’t resist it,’ Oscar crowed. ‘Women and purses, isn’t it amazing?’ They’d put it all back where they found it and swore they left no tracks – they didn’t want her to bolt – but the knowledge that the money and the purse were there put an edge on the day.

‘When I saw that she had put plants in those pots,’ Oscar said, ‘but in smaller pots that she hung inside with hooks – that’s when I knew.’

They went in the shop to get her, Wednesday morning, carrying the warrant for her arrest. She was working with a customer, halfway through a haircut; she looked up when the bell sounded on the door and smiled when she saw Oscar. Her smile grew more tentative when Sarah walked in behind him. And when she spotted the backup car that the rules called for, parking at the curb with two patrolmen inside, she knew she was cooked. She laid down the comb she was holding and asked him, quietly, ‘Did it have to be you, Oscar?’

‘I came to make sure it went as easy as possible for you, Cecelia. If you will step outside with me we will read you your rights out there before we put the cuffs on.’

She tossed her great mane of hair, sniffed once and took off the apricot-colored smock, that matched the towels and hairbrush handles in the place. Looking in the mirror, she pushed her hair around a little and wet her lips. Then she picked up the hair dryer she’d been working with and hit Oscar a solid whack in the gut that bent him double, threw the dryer in Sarah’s face and bolted for the door.