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

“So it could have been kids.”

Jimmy agreed.  “And we don’t know what they took.  The place was a mess inside.  All the kind of stuff farmers keep and only use occasionally.  Some gardening tools, fertilizer, tomato cages.”

“Why would someone be after that?”

“No idea.  Pierce couldn’t figure out what was missing, which was understandable if you saw the place.”

We both went quiet, trying to figure out what someone would want in the shed.

“Maybe it had something to do with Pierce’s weed operation,” I said.  “He wouldn’t want to tell you if something that had to do with that was missing.”

“Maybe.  But I can’t think what it would be.”

I couldn’t either.

“We’ve checked the video from the bait shop across from the hair salon,” Jimmy said.  “Rose’s story checks out.  The video is dark and grainy, but you can see her leaving the front of the salon around seven, like she said.  A short time after that Kara comes out and smokes a cigarette.  So she was alive when Rose left.”

“So who went in after Rose left?”

“Good question.  Nothing on the video, and it looks like Kara was killed sometime around seven.  So it had to happen not too long after Rose left.”

“So maybe the killer was waiting until they saw her leave.”

“Could be.”  Jimmy sighed.  “And I have an assignment for you.  Rose has been reluctant to tell us anything very damning about her sister.  Probably protective of her.  But I’m wondering if Rose’s friends back where she’d been living would know anything.  She and her husband were living in Arnold, Missouri, a little town south of St. Louis.  The husband died last year.  Kara had lived there before she moved here.  Rose was involved in a church there, and they might know something.”

I didn’t tell Jimmy that Rose had told Thelma and me about Arnold.  “You’re telling me this to throw me off the case, aren’t you?” I asked.  “I’d rather talk to Jeffrey Connell.”

“Yeah, and I’d rather you go chase up information on Kara from a distance.  It’s safer.”

“Well, it would give me an excuse to get away for a day since Dad and Momo are coming.”

“Your dad’s sister Maureen?”

“The very one.”

“I remember her when I used to visit my grandmother.  She was always telling me to stand up straight and comb my hair.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t style your hair herself.  I was on the receiving end of her comb and it wasn’t any picnic.”

“She used to braid your hair, didn’t she?” he asked and grinned.

“I couldn’t blink my eyes for two weeks.  I looked like a zombie.  I don’t know how Eileen and I are going to survive Thanksgiving with her here.”  I gave him a sweet smile.  “You wouldn’t want to come for Thanksgiving dinner, would you?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Is there going to be pumpkin pie?”

“Of course.  And turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce.  Eileen is a good cook.”

“I don’t supposed there would be a cherry pie.”

“There might.  If someone played his cards right.”

“And what would that entail?”

I narrowed my eyes at him.  “You don’t mention to anyone that I got thrown out of a B and D club.”

“Too late.  I’m guessing that Leonard has told everyone at the station by now, and you know that Sonya will spread the word to everyone she knows.”

I clapped my hand over my eyes.  Sonya was the dispatcher, and she came from a big family, all gossipers.

“You’re just lucky Leonard didn’t take a picture on his phone,” Jimmy said.

I supposed I should be grateful for small blessings.

“I’d better go,” Jimmy said, standing and shrugging back into his jacket.  “Maybe you could let me know the next time you decide to do some undercover investigating.  I bet I could sell tickets.”

“I knew I should have kept that buggy whip,” I said.  “Well, thanks for the ride home.”

Jimmy came around the table and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.  “Lock the door after I’m gone,” he said in a mattter-of-fact tone, but I detected the worry underneath.  I nodded.

After he left and the door was locked I lifted a few free weights, then settled on the couch with Nancy to watch TV.  I opened another Diet Coke and thought about what David Henderson had said about Kara nearly beating Jeffrey Connell to death with a crop.  That would certainly give Connell reason to silence Kara or to get revenge by savagely beating her.  He sounded like the kind of person who could lose control and kill.

I was still thinking about who the murderer could be when I went to bed, but I figured it wouldn’t make for pleasant dreams.  So I thought about David Henderson instead and how he had yelped when I hit his ass with the buggy whip.  I went to sleep with a smile on my face, Nancy snoring beside me.

CHAPTER TEN

Saturday morning I opened a diet Coke and found some cheesecake in the freezer for a leisurely breakfast.  I thought about where to go next on the investigation into Kara’s murder, and I actually liked Jimmy’s idea of seeing what the people who knew her in Arnold might have to say.  But first I wanted to check out Stephanie Riley again.  It was the weekend, and surely she would be home by now.  Her husband too.

I fed Nancy, then got her out to potty.  Eileen’s car was gone, so she must have gone in to her gallery already.  I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out to my PT Cruiser.  I threw my purse on the passenger seat and started the engine.  Since Eileen and I live on a bluff, we have a steep driveway.  The first half is winding, but the