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

a place to stash it here.  If only I’d had my car.  I headed for my desk and opened the bottom drawer.  I had pushed some printer paper aside and was about to slide the belt in when the door opened.  I looked up, startled, to see Rose standing there.  She looked at the belt in my hand, and a scowl crossed her face.

“What are you doing with that?” she demanded, staring at the belt.

I took a deep breath and dropped the belt on the desk.

“Hello, Kara,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

There was a long, tense pause as we stared at each other.

“So you finally figured it out,” she said in a low growl.  “I have to give you credit.  I didn’t think you would.”

“It was the wig.  I finally realized you’re wearing a wig.”

She smiled.  “I paid a lot of money for this wig.  It looks natural.  It’s only temporary though.  I’m going to be leaving town when my own hair grows out.  Maybe sooner now.”

“It’s over,” I said.  “I texted Jimmy to check the body’s DNA against the black hairs in your brush at the house.”

“I still have time,” she said coolly.

“Did you kill Stephanie too?”

“I wasn’t going to jail again,” she said casually.  “Stephanie saw me with her credit card, and she said she was going to tell her husband.  I’d already ordered a TV on another customer’s card, so if the police checked they’d find out.  I knew Stephanie jogged every evening, and she just lived up the road from me.  So it was easy to run over her.  But I knew I’d be a suspect, and my car was damaged, so a change of identity was the best way out.”  She spoke easily and quickly, and I realized she was boasting.  She was probably happy she had someone to tell what a great plan she’d executed.

“So you killed Rose.”

“I told her to come to the salon so we could talk.  I stole a hammer from Loren’s barn and brought it with me.  I used my belt to strangle Rose, and then I gave her a hair job to look like me.  It took a while, and in the meantime I put on the wig and went out the front door and left in her car.  I drove it back and parked a couple of blocks away, then walked to the salon as myself.  That idiot Duggie was there wanting to sell me some stuff, but I told him I wasn’t interested.  I went back inside, finished the hair dye and cut and then bashed in her face with the hammer.  I drove to her house and became Rose.”

“Did you kill Hominy too?”

“In a manner of speaking.  She’d been wanting to get together to do some porch pirating like we used to do, and one night when I was drunk I told her about how cool it would be if I took on Rose’s identity.  I figured Hominy might remember that, so I got enough fentanyl together and gave it to her.  She managed to kill herself, which was what I figured she’d do.

“After I killed Rose I wanted to point the police toward Loren.  Since he was seeing Stephanie, it was perfect.  I kept trying to give you hints, but you were too dumb to pick up on them.”

“You mean the rat in the car?”

Kara nodded.  “That’s why I got the job here, so I could make you think Loren did it.  I didn’t think you and that stupid cop would ever get the message.  But now that the police arrested Loren you ruined it all by figuring it out.”

There was a moment of silence and then I heard a metallic click.  The overhead light gleamed on the knife in her hand.  Paul.

“I never go anywhere without my friend,” she crooned.  There was another click, and a second knife appeared in her other hand.  “All the better to cut you with, my dear,” she said with another smirk.

She started moving toward me and I backed up against the desk.  I had nowhere to run here, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to defend myself against two knives.

I’d read that overweight people have extra veins, so I figured I’d bleed a lot.  That wasn’t a pleasant prospect.  And that old regret surfaced, that I’d be a fat corpse at the funeral.  Maybe it would be a closed coffin.  I could only hope.  I wondered if Jimmy would be upset.  At least I’d have Thelma to light a candle for me or whatever it was ex-nuns did with candles.  If Darlene was involved, the funeral parlor would probably catch fire.

Kara was only about three feet away now, and I could tell that she was savoring this moment.  It was apparent that she enjoyed cutting people.  I swallowed and tried to think of something.

In one fast move she lunged at me, and I tried to dodge her.  She caught me on the arm, and I was shocked to see blood run down to my hand.  Kara laughed.

“I like it when I can do it slowly,” she said.  “it’s more fun.”  She held up the second knife.  “Let’s do this again.”

She was about to lunge again when the door burst open and banged into the wall.  She jerked around in time to see Darlene spill across the doorstep, a group of people behind her.  I don’t know if it was instinct or what, but Kara’s arm came up and she threw one of the knives at Darlene.

Normally when someone throws a knife if doesn’t get to its target or it gets there handle first and bounces off.  It’s not easy to hit someone with the blade of a knife.  But this was the unluckiest woman in the world.  The knife blade entered just below her