Killer Sweet Tooth Read online

  “But what about Bunni?” I asked.

  “I don’t think too awful much is known about Bunni. You just see the name mentioned a few times in Nehemiah,” she said.

  I took a breath. “Not Bible Bunni, Dr. Bainsworth’s Bunni.”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s worked for Dr. Bainsworth since he opened the practice twelve years ago. She’s our go-to gal on this one,” Myra said.

  “Will she talk with us?” I asked.

  “Hard to say.” She raised her eyes tentatively. “I figure we ought to play it cool so as not to put her on her guard.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “Easy. She’s got an appointment to get her hair done at three today at Tanya’s.” Myra grinned. “And so do we.”

  My eyes bulged and I gulped. “I don’t want to change my hairstyle.” My left hand flew instinctively to my ponytail brushing against the back of my neck and shoulders. “I refuse to have my hair cut, dyed, permed, or teased to the point of tears.”

  “I know, sweetie. That’s why you and I are only getting a wash and style,” she said.

  “A . . . a wash and . . . and style?” I gulped again.

  “Yeah.” She did a wink-nod combo that was meant to reassure me. “You need a little pampering. We both do. It’ll make us feel better.”

  I simply stared at her.

  “Plus, we can feel out Bunni and see how willing she is to talk with us. Some of those secretaries take that confidentiality stuff way too seriously, you know,” Myra said. She grabbed her jacket. “It’s nearly twelve thirty and my soap is getting ready to come on, so I’ll let you get back to your work for now. Pick you up around two thirty!”

  After Myra left, I washed my hands and went back to work on the Cadillac. I tried not to wonder how much damage Tanya could do to my head with a mere wash and style. Surely she wouldn’t do anything I couldn’t come straight home and undo. Right?

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  BY THE time Myra had returned for me, I’d gotten quite a bit accomplished. I’d tinted some fondant silver and had made the “chrome” hubcaps, bumpers, and trim. Juanita’s sister’s cakes had been crumb coated and were in the refrigerator awaiting a second frosting. And, last but not least, Violet had called and said that although Angela hadn’t been available for lunch, she’d answer my questions at around four thirty that afternoon.

  I’d just finished cleaning up the kitchen when Myra tapped on the door. Other than dreading the hair appointment, I was happy about how my day was shaping up. I motioned Myra inside.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Let me grab a coat,” I said. I hurried to the bedroom and took out a navy peacoat to put on over my jeans and pink sweater. I thought for a second about opting for a hooded jacket in case I didn’t want to be seen with my head uncovered after the salon visit, but I decided to go with what I had on.

  I know you probably think I’m exaggerating and being awfully mean about Tanya’s Tremendous Tress-Taming Salon. But, trust me, you’d be nervous too. The salon has catered to the same clientele for decades. Even before Tanya took over the shop and changed its name, it was the only hair salon in Brea Ridge. Tanya’s patrons were pretty set in their ways, and they typically believed that hair should be large and immobile. If it could be used as a means of self-defense, then all the better. Tanya naturally had to defer to the wishes of her clientele.

  I still recall that about thirty years ago, Ray McGinley used to regale everyone at church picnics with the story of the time his wife Louisa was being chased by a vicious dog. Louisa ran under a maple tree, her stiff coif knocked a branch loose, and the tree limb—along with a fully inhabited wasp nest—was knocked onto the dog. Louisa vowed that the branch was already broken and that she’d only jarred it out of the tree, but even as a little girl I thought that was some pretty serious helmet head. I’ve had a phobia about that particular salon ever since.

  Yet, within minutes, Myra and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of Tanya’s Tremendous Tress-Taming Salon with its curlicue Ts and Ss. Myra flashed me another of her wink-nod combos before we went inside.

  The smells of perm solution, shampoo, and hair spray were punctuated by Tanya’s cheery “Hey, darlings! Be with you in a jiffy!” She stood behind a diminutive elderly lady with cottony white hair. One strand of the woman’s hair was standing straight up on her head . . . on its own. Tanya went back to teasing the strand of hair until it was even stiffer than before, and then she smoothed it over the rest of the fluffy mass. I nearly took off right then, but a desire to stay out of jail and not have Butter Huffington as my emergency dentist kept my feet glued to the salon’s linoleum. That or hair spray residue—I’m not entirely certain which was stronger.

  Tanya then hurried over to us, teasing comb still in hand. She waved it at us like it was a long, skinny derringer. “Myra, Peggy Sue will be doing your hair, and Sienna will be doing yours, Daphne. Sienna is new, so just tell her exactly what you want.”

  “Okay,” I said, not sure whether Sienna being new was a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, she’d likely just got out of cosmetology school, which meant she hadn’t had time to hone her teasing and big-haired-old-lady styling skills. On the other hand, she’d likely just got out of cosmetology school and hadn’t had time to hone any other skills either.

  Sienna stepped out from behind a shampoo station and motioned me over. “Hi,” she said, her gum a-snapping. “I’m Sienna.” She reminded me of Abby from NCIS: Goth, dark hair, dark clothes, dark-rimmed eyes, and dark lipstick. And yet, cute. For her, it all worked. Like Abby from NCIS. Her own hair had been pulled into a ponytail like mine. Suddenly I felt that everything might be okay with this visit. I thought I might leave looking like Joan Jett but certainly not like one of the Golden Girls.

  “Let’s get you shampooed,” Sienna said.

  I slipped off my coat and put it and my purse on a nearby chair. I sat down in the shampoo chair and leaned my head back into the sink. Sienna took the elastic band from my hair and handed it to me. She turned on the water. The blast of warm water on my scalp was nice, and when Sienna massaged shampoo and conditioner into my hair, I have to admit, it was relaxing.

  In the chair next to mine, Myra was talking just as fast as Peggy Sue was shampooing. “I know she was nervous about coming in. She’s the type of person who hates to try anything new, you know. But I said, ‘Daphne, you and I need some pampering.’ And we do too. By the way, is Bunni Wilson here yet?”

  “Not yet,” Peggy Sue answered. “But she’s usually ten or fifteen minutes late for her appointments. Why?”

  “Oh, just curious,” Myra said. “Tanya said Bunni has a standing Tuesday afternoon appointment, and I wanted to ask her what she thinks happened to Dr. Bainsworth.”

  “Wasn’t that just awful?” Peggy Sue asked. “And I heard you and Daphne were the ones who found him.”

  “We were,” Myra said. “It was a terrible ordeal. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Dr. Bainsworth. Can you?”

  As Peggy Sue was answering Myra, Sienna posed the same question to me about the dentist’s demise.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Do you have any theories?”

  “I do,” she said dramatically. “See, I think one of his patients was a werewolf—you know, like in that movie The Werewolf? And that night, he broke into Dr. Bainsworth’s office to steal something—you know, like maybe nitrous oxide so he could get woozy and forget his obsession. And then the dentist came in and caught him by surprise, and so he had to devour him.”

  “But Dr. Bainsworth wasn’t devoured,” I said.

  “Right, because someone scared the werewolf away.” Sienna smiled triumphantly.

  “You might be on to something,” I said. I didn’t believe her werewolf theory, but what if someone had come into Dr. Bainsworth’s office to steal something? I’d been going on the belief that someone had tracked him to the office with the intention of killing him. But if murder was the inten
t, someone could have just as easily killed him in his home or somewhere else. Why follow him to a public place in order to kill him? “Seriously, Sienna, you might be on the right track.”

  Ten minutes later, Myra and I were sitting one seat apart getting our hair done. The seat between us was empty. Peggy Sue sported a fairly large bob sprayed into submission by some type of hair spray that even at a distance was making my nose itch. Pictures of children of various ages were taped to either side of her mirror, and she had a princess crown perpetual calendar on the counter of her workstation.

  Sienna had little skulls with pink bows on their heads attached to the top corners of her mirror. On her counter was a white teddy bear in a black leather vest and a framed photo of her and a guy with heavily tattooed arms standing outside what looked like a concert venue.

  “So, what’re we doing?” Sienna asked me.

  “I’m thinking just your most basic blow-dry and comb-out,” I said. “Nothing fancy.”

  She smiled and snapped her gum. “Gotcha.” She grabbed the blow-dryer and a thick-barreled round brush.

  At that moment, Myra gave the most exaggerated throat clearing I’d ever heard. I glanced over, and she jerked her head in the direction of the door—no easy task with Peggy Sue’s comb buried in her hair. I saw that a middle-aged, square-shaped woman with a lacquered light-brown bouffant had walked into the salon. Myra placed her front teeth over her bottom lip and twitched her nose before rolling her eyes toward the door.

  Did she think her ahem! hadn’t been enough to clue me in that the lady was Bunni Wilson? Still, I nodded, afraid Myra might get up and begin hopping around.

  “Hi, Bunni!” Tanya called. “Go on over to the shampoo chair, and I’ll be there as soon as I finish up with Rosa.”

  Bunni strolled over to the shampoo area and picked up a tabloid magazine.

  Sienna had my hair almost dry by the time Tanya brought Bunni over to occupy the chair between Myra and me. As Sienna turned off the hair dryer, I asked, “Did you see on TV where that actor was caught cheating on his wife? She appeared to be heartbroken.” I was hoping this would give us a segue into Dr. Bainsworth cheating on his wife.

  “I know,” Sienna said. “And the wife was so much prettier than that sleazy record producer.”

  “She wasn’t the producer,” Tanya chimed in. “The record company belonged to her husband. He was the producer.”

  “Then what does that make her?” Peggy Sue asked.

  Everyone else—Myra included, to my surprise—averted her eyes and let that question hang.

  “I don’t know what makes men behave that way,” Myra said. “It’s not just a Hollywood or big-city problem either. Why, I heard our very own Dr. Bainsworth—rest his soul—cheated on his wife, Angela.”

  Myra was at the top of her sleuthing game today.

  “I heard that myself,” Tanya said. “And I heard that because Dr. Bainsworth had been caught cheating, Angela was able to wipe him out financially.”

  “She did wipe him out,” Bunni said softly. “It’s true that he and one of the hygienists had taken to meeting in Bristol or Kingsport now and then for drinks or for dinner, but the poor man had no one else. I’d have helped him work out his problems, of course, but he refused to burden me with them.” She shook her head sadly. “He needed someone to talk to, that’s all.”

  “Couldn’t he talk to his wife?” Myra asked.

  Bunni scoffed. “His wife was the reason he needed someone to talk with. According to Jill, the hygienist, Angela was dreadfully mean to Dr. Bainsworth.”

  “In what way?” Peggy Sue asked.

  “She spent money faster than he could bring it home,” Bunni said. “She seldom cooked for him, and she wasted the majority of her time at the country club. Jill said Dr. Bains-worth was afraid Angela was the one having an affair.”

  “Well, it’s good Dr. Bainsworth had Jill there to help him pick up the pieces after his divorce, right?” I asked. “Didn’t she leave her husband for Dr. Bainsworth?”

  “She did,” Bunni said, “because she completely misunderstood the nature of their relationship. She wanted more than friendship, and Dr. Bainsworth didn’t.”

  “How did Jill get such a wrong idea?” Myra asked.

  “She was delusional.” Bunni nodded. “That’s why Dr. Bainsworth had to let her go.”

  “He broke her heart and then he fired her?” Sienna asked incredulously. “How cold was that?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Bunni said heatedly. “It wasn’t Dr. Bainsworth’s fault that Jill mistook his attention for something more than friendship. Jill had mental problems.”

  “Poor Jill,” Tanya said as she combed through Bunni’s wet hair. “It’s a shame that her mistake cost her everything.”

  “It was a sad situation.” Bunni looked down at her clasped hands. “At least Dr. Bainsworth was good enough to give her some severance pay and a letter of recommendation.” She dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye. “He was a kind, kind man.”

  And this woman called Jill delusional?

  Peggy Sue finished with Myra. Her hair wasn’t too big or too stiff. It looked pretty much like it usually did. Maybe there was hope for me after all.

  Sienna finished with my hair and turned the chair to face the mirror. I didn’t look like Joan Jett or any of the Golden Girls.

  The phone rang, and Tanya picked the cordless up off her workstation. I was guessing it was Priscilla Presley circa 1960 calling to say she wanted her hair back.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  I ASKED MYRA if she’d mind dropping me off at Violet’s office since Vi and I were to meet Angela at four thirty.

  “No, I don’t mind. That won’t be a bit of trouble,” she said.

  “I wish I had time to go home and wash my hair,” I said glumly, “but I’m cutting it close as it is.”

  “Wash your hair?” Myra asked. “You just had your hair washed. And it looks great.”

  I shot her a glance before pulling down the sun visor and peering at my hair in the vanity mirror. “Well, I’ll give Sienna credit. She didn’t tease my hair. She completely outraged it. It’s incensed. It wants to march on Capitol Hill in support of hair rights.”

  “I’ve never known you to be so dramatic,” Myra said. “Your hair is fine. It’s your brain I’m worried about. Why in the world did you go along with Sienna’s crazy werewolf theory? Are you seriously contemplating the fact that one of our Elvises might be a werewolf?”

  “Of course not. When I said she might be on to something, I was talking about her theory that the killer was in Dr. Bainsworth’s office when the dentist arrived that night,” I said.

  “You mean, he could’ve been there robbing the place and didn’t go to the office with the intention of killing Dr. Bains-worth?” she asked.

  “It’s possible.” I flipped the sun visor back up. “If you think about it, it’s much more plausible. If the killer had been out to get Dr. Bainsworth, there are much more convenient places to kill him than in his office.”

  “But if the killer was after something in Dr. Bainsworth’s office,” Myra said, “he might’ve only killed Dr. Bainsworth because he got caught.”

  “Right.”

  Myra pulled into the Armstrong Realty parking lot. “What we need to know now is what is—or was—in that office that’s so all-fired important.”

  “Let’s hope Angela knows—and that she’ll tell me,” I said.

  I was walking up the steps to Violet’s office when she stepped out the door.

  “I’ll lock up and then—”

  She stopped. Just like that, with her key in midair and her mouth hanging open, eyes as wide as cupcake tops.

  I plucked the key from her hand and locked the door. “You wouldn’t happen to have a hat I could borrow, would you?”

  Violet shook her perfectly adorable blond curls. “No, but I wish I did. What . . . ? Who did this to you?”

  “Sienna at Tanya’s place. Myr
a and I went there to talk with Bunni Wilson, who worked for Dr. Bainsworth.”

  She tentatively raised her hand to my hair. “It feels like fiberglass insulation,” she whispered. “Honest to goodness, it does. Jason had insulation of this exact consistency blown into our attic last year.”

  “I know, Vi. It’s hideous. But it’ll wash out. Right? No real harm done?”

  “Sure.” She nodded slowly. “Of course it will.”

  “You can tell Angela I’m stressed about the investigation if that’ll suffice as an explanation for my hair being an equivalent to Edvard Munch’s The Scream,” I said.

  “No, I’m afraid that wouldn’t work. I think the little guy in that painting is bald. This is more like an Einstein sort of thing. Want me to casually mention to her that you’re a genius?” She brightened. “Hey, I could say you’re a genius in the kitchen.”

  I sighed. “No, I just want to go on to her house and get this over with.”

  We got into Violet’s silver Volvo. She looked over at me. “It’s not that bad once you get used to it. You . . . it took me by surprise when I first saw you. That’s all.”

  “That was very convincing, Vi. Now drive.”

  She started the engine. “Did you learn anything valuable from the woman who worked for Dr. Bainsworth?”

  “Besides the fact that she believed the dentist hung the moon and stars?” I asked. “Not much. I did get the first name of the hygienist who left her husband for Dr. Bainsworth, though. It was Jill.”

  “I’m certain Angela can supply you with Jill’s last name, and maybe her address. I believe she was named as a third-party defendant in the Bainsworths’ divorce. And if it was me, I’d be more than happy to point the police in the direction of the woman who destroyed my marriage.”

  “Jill didn’t do it alone . . . unless you buy Bunni’s story of Jill misunderstanding her relationship with the dentist,” I said.