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

“Agreed.  But we can’t forget about the women either.  We can forget Hominy since she’s dead.  But there’s Stephanie Riley who had some kind of disagreement with Kara and has now disappeared.  And of course Rose.”

“I don’t know what motive Rose would have.”

“Maybe she and Kara had a falling out over a man.”

“I guess that’s possible.”

“Why don’t we do one of the guys on the list tomorrow?  Then maybe we can try Stephanie Riley again.”

“Good idea.  And of course there’s David.”

Thelma rolled her eyes.  “I can’t believe you’re going to go through with that party.”

“Who knows?  I might find out something.”

“Like what it’s like to be chained in a basement?”

I ignored that.  “We’ve got that carpet cleaner too.  Maybe we could take care of them with a phone call.”

Thelma agreed and looked up their number.  She turned on the charm, and when she hung up she shook her head.  “I talked to the guy who did the cleaning, and he remembered it because he had to clean blood off the bedroom carpet.  He was really scared by the whole experience.  He said Kara told him her boyfriend had cut himself shaving.”

“I just bet he did,” I muttered.  We decided to cross the carpet cleaner off the list.

The next morning Lorenzo decided he wanted a special holiday horoscope for Thanksgiving the following week, so I had to come up with that.  Lorenzo seemed to be really enjoying the horoscope.  Naturally Aquarius was going to have a miserable Thanksgiving.  The turkey would be frozen and a fight would break out at the table.  On reflection, it sounded more like the Thanksgiving I was anticipating.  Momo and Dad had told Eileen they would be arriving Sunday, so tensions would be running high by the time Thursday rolled around.

Thelma finished up a story on a cat that looked like Jesus (Don’t ask), and then we headed out to see Loren Haskell.  He lived outside of town on the north side, off of Highway 61.  The turnoff was by a pond where a couple of Canadian geese were swimming around.  We could see a barn at the end of the gravel lane, and before that was a small bungalow with white siding.  Behind the barn we could see the tops of trees evenly spaced.  Some kind of orchard.

The wide door to the barn was open, and we could hear loud hammering.  As we got out of the car, a big guy wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and a huge apron came out of the barn.  His hair was shaggy and black, and he sported a couple days’ growth of black stubble.  His arm muscles were big and hard, his waist trim.  Actually, he was pretty sexy looking, and if I’d been twenty years younger. . . .  Who was I kidding?  He never would have given me a second look even twenty years ago.

“Are you Loren Haskell?” I asked him.

“I am,” he said.  “Are you here about the fence?”

“No,” I said.  “Sorry.  We’re from The Spyglass.  This is Thelma, and I’m Aretha.  We wondered if you would talk to us about Kara Koch.”

Loren sighed and wiped his hands on the apron.  “Not much to tell.  Like I told the police, we split up about a month ago.  She was psycho.  A real nut case.”

“So we’ve heard.  Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill her?”

Loren gave a short laugh.  “Probably anybody who knew her for any length of time.  She was kind of hard on boyfriends.”

“We heard about the cutting,” Thelma said.  “Did she do that with you?”

Loren pushed up his sleeve to show a long scar running down his forearm.  “That was after I told her I didn’t want her making little cuts on my hands anymore.  I need my hands to do my work.  She got pissed and went for me with the knife.  I got my hand out of the way, but she caught my arm.  That was the end of it.  I threw her out and told her to stay away from me or else.”

“Or else?” I asked.

“Or else I was going to call the police and charge her with assault.  I haven’t seen her since.  Although she did pay a visit when I wasn’t here.”  He turned toward the barn.  “Here, I’ll show you.”

We went inside with him and saw that he had a regular blacksmith set-up.   I think I read once it’s called a smithy.  There was some kind of forge and a bunch of coal piled in the corner.  Several sizes of tongs rested against a shelf partway up a wall.  And there was the anvil sitting on lots of concrete blocks, big hammers lying on another shelf nearby.  Several iron works sat around.  Some of it was wall art, including a lovely delicate vine with leaves and flowers.  There were several four-foot high sculptures of birds taking flight.

“This is nice,” I said, gesturing around.

“Thanks.  I do the local fairs and some of the other ones in the region.  And commissions.  I’ve got someone wanting a gate.”

“You’ve got a beautiful place to work.”

“It used to be,” he said, leading us to a side wall.  “This is her handiwork.”  Burned into the wood in huge letters it read DIE YOU PIG.

“Wow,” I said.  “She was sure big into destroying property.  Not to mention mutilating people.”

Loren’s voice was deadly calm when he said, “And apparently she did it to the wrong person.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Loren was that wrong person.  The look in his dark eyes was unreadable, but it wasn’t pleasant.  A blacksmith didn’t seem like a good choice of people to cross.

On the way back we swung by Stephanie Riley’s house, but it still looked deserted.

CHAPTER NINE

I was even less enthused about