Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries) Linda Ross (books for students to read TXT) 📖

few more of the cookies I’d used to pacify Jimmy, but I was feeling restless.   I brushed Nancy, and she fell asleep on the couch.  I picked up the paper and started reading again.

Hannibal is generally a quiet town.  It’s like someone’s grandmother, all quilts, doilies, lavender and elderberry wine, not looking for trouble.  Like any other town, we have drugs, but there are no rave parties and nobody gets arrested with a kilo of cocaine.  That’s big city stuff.

So I was surprised to see an overdose death on the second page.  It was a young woman who was found dead in her apartment the night before.  Her name was being withheld until her family could be notified.  Police said they found drug paraphernalia in the apartment, along with a wad of cash.  The drug hadn’t officially been identified yet, but it was suspected it was fentanyl.  Police were warning the public about the dangers of the drug.

I thought it might be something Lorenzo would be interested in, the drug death of a young woman, so I googled the apartment address and came up with a list of names of people who lived there.  I picked a woman’s name, Georgia Martinez, and looked up the number in the phone book.  A lot of people don’t have a landline anymore, but Georgia did.

I hadn’t practiced a cover story, so I winged it when she picked up.  She sounded older, so I told her I was calling on behalf of a local church, and we were worried because one of our parishioners was going to move into the apartment complex.  We’d just read about the drug death and worried it wasn’t a safe place for an older woman.

“Oh, it’s not that kind of place,” Georgia assured me.  “We never have any trouble.  I just can’t imagine that that girl was doing drugs like they say.  She seemed such a nice little thing.  I mean, we’ve had a few packages go missing, but I guess that happens everywhere now.”

“Did she live alone?” I asked.  “We worry about young people entertaining, if you know what I mean.”

“Hominy lived by herself, “Georgia assured me.  “I hardly ever saw anyone there.  She worked at one of the convenience stores, I think.”

I felt a chill run down my spine.  “I really appreciate your time,” I said automatically.  “I hope I can call again if I have any more questions.”

“Oh, of course, dear.  You tell your friend that this is a lovely place to live.”

As soon as I hung up I searched for my notes.  I was hoping I was wrong, but there it was.  Hominy. The woman Derek said had come to see Kara.  It had to be the same person.  It’s not exactly a common name.

It was too much of a coincidence.  First Kara was murdered, then this Hominy died of a drug overdose.  There had to be a connection.  I called Thelma, and as soon as she answered I said, “I think we’ve got a twist in Kara’s murder.”  I filled her in on the newspaper story and my call to Georgia in the apartment complex.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“I think there’s something really bad going on.”

“I agree.  But what do we do about it?”

“You could talk to Jimmy.”

“Are you kidding?  He’d just lecture me again.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Let’s get together at work tomorrow morning and figure something out.”  Then I smacked my head.  “Oh, crap!  I forgot.  Lorenzo wants me to do the winter horoscope tomorrow.  He left me a note.  It’s the one that covers three months instead of just a week.”

“Will that take long?”

“Probably not.  Let’s go to lunch together.  And don’t say anything to anyone about this.”

“Like my huge social circle?” Thelma asked dryly.

“Look, I don’t know how many nuns and priests you see on a regular basis.  For all I know, there could be a wild Bingo party at your apartment right now.”

“Very funny.  See you tomorrow.”  And she hung up.

CHAPTER FIVE

I guess I could have worked on the horoscope at home, but instead I spent the evening watching  a cooking show and eating popcorn and M&Ms.  I figure if my life is so boring that my only excitement is watching someone make an omelet on TV, I might as well make the best of it and go for a sugar and salt fix.

When I got to the office the next morning, a box of donuts in hand, Thelma was already there at her desk.  I offered her a donut, but she shook her head.  “I already had cereal.”

I took a chocolate-frosted long john with custard filling and got a Diet Coke from the machine.  I left the box of donuts on the counter near the door, which was akin to fishing.  The men nearly came running.  The women pretended they were looking for something and just happened to see the donuts.  They offered to split one with someone else, and of course they ended up coming back for another one.  For a small office, the box emptied in a hurry.  I saw Lorenzo grab two jelly donuts and disappear back into his office with a cup of coffee, like a giant groundhog wriggling back into his burrow.

Fortified, I started on the horoscope.  On a whim, I looked up Ralph “Greedy” McCready and discovered that his birthday was in August.  So Leo was in for a treat this winter.  I started with a festering rash in December, just in time for Christmas, and then I threw in a couple of broken bones in January and a bad case of food poisoning on Valentine’s Day.  I was starting to feel a lot better.

I moved on to Aquarius, my ex-husband’s sign, and gave him an STD for Christmas, always an appropriate gift, overdue bills in January and pink