Эд Горман - Stranglehold

“He’s wanted for questioning.” The dark eyes seemed amused now. “Just because he was seen at Monica Davies’s room on the night of her murder and now we learn that he had several physical altercations with his father — why do you think I’ve convicted him already?”

I tried not to look surprised. I probably didn’t pull it off.

A woman in a white lab coat appeared in the doorway of Donovan’s room. “Detective Kapoor, would you come in here for a minute?”

“If you decide to be honest with me, Mr. Conrad, you can get hold of me day or night.”

With that she was gone. In another situation I would have stayed to admire the elegant way she walked back to the room. For now, curiosity triumphed over idle lust. I needed to find Heather, the beautician who’d been staying with Donovan.

Hair Fare was located in a strip mall between a video shop and a pawn shop. One step inside I knew that this wasn’t a place for men. Four women under hair dryers and four women in barber chairs gaped at me as if I were something rarely seen in this shop. The odors of the sprays and oils and lotions suffused my nostrils. I counted three Chicago Bears calendars and four Bears pennants.

The place was filled with posters and counter displays for hair products. At a line of sinks against the back wall a woman was getting her hair washed. The beauticians wore their own clothes, no kind of uniforms at all. The last of them to look up from cutting hair was Heather. When she saw me her body jerked, as if she was going to bolt. “Sorry,” said the older woman who was clearly Heather’s sister. “We just cut for women here. Cost Cutters is just two blocks down.”

“I’d like to see Heather when she’s free. My name’s Dev Conrad.”

“Oh, yeah?” She was chewing gum. At the mention of Heather, she cracked it. She was heavier than Heather and not as pretty. She wore something that resembled a bouffant hairstyle and was dyed an orangish red. In her Bears sweatshirt and jeans she looked ready for a tailgater. She angled her head back to Heather and said, “You hear, this guy wants to see you.”

“Well, I don’t want to see him.”

Sister smiled at me. The customers were intrigued by the potential for some nasty fun. “My sister’s got a bad disposition.”

“Really? I hardly noticed that.”

A number of the customers laughed.

“I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want to,” Heather said.

Sister said, “She drop you, did she? You’re better dressed than most of the bums she hangs out with. She should’ve hung on to you. She’s always trying to find a rich one. You look like you might get lucky someday.”

“I hope that’s coming up soon.”

She had an amazing female smile. “I didn’t mean to give you a bad time. It’s just that my little sister never stops getting into trouble.”

“I don’t want to talk to him and you can’t make me.”

“I think he’s cute,” said a woman in one of the barber’s chairs. Three or four others laughed.

I was in a world of women and I didn’t know the rules. Should I press the issue or just go away?

“I’m trying to help somebody who’s in trouble, Heather. I need to talk to you.”

“He’s talking about the kid that killed Craig,” Heather said from down the row, silver scissors poised to snip away at the garishly dyed red hair of her customer.

Sister said, “Didn’t surprise me when somebody killed him. Man who hits women has got it coming. My sister’s too dumb to understand that.”

A woman in one of the chairs said, “I told my husband if he ever lays a hand on me I’m gone for good and I’m taking the savings account with me.”

“I wish I could convince my next-door neighbor of that,” another woman said. “The son of a bitch she’s married to is always hittin’ her.”

“You a friend of this kid Heather is talking about?” Sister asked.

“He’s twenty. His wife is pregnant. He isn’t really a kid.”

“Heather likes ’em in their forties.” Sister smiled. “That’s why she thinks this guy is a kid.” She glanced back at Heather again. “You get done with Shirley’s hair there, you go in the back room and talk to this man.”

“You don’t have no right to boss me around like that.”

“He’s tryin’ to help somebody, honey.” There was an odd sweetness to her tone, as if she’d spent years hoping that her little sister would change her ways.

Sister pointed to a row of chairs lined across the front window. “There’re some magazines there for you to read and you’re welcome to help yourself to the coffee. She should be done in fifteen minutes or so.”

“Thanks,” I said, surprised at her largesse.

“All she can give you is a few minutes, though, Mr. Conrad. We’re real busy today.”

Heather scowled at me every thirty seconds or so as she cut her customer’s hair. She seemed a lot more interested in me than her customer. This woman might end up with a very strange hairdo.

I tried reading an issue of Cosmopolitan, but I could only slog through a couple of the articles. Whatever happened to feminism? This was all man-pleasing stuff. I remembered reading my smart-ass uncle’s magazines when I was in my teens. When he’d been in his teens, National Lampoon was at its height. They did a parody issue of Cosmopolitan and one of the articles was titled “Ten Ways to Decorate Your Uterine Wall.” The magazine hadn’t changed much.

“Mr. Conrad.”

I’d switched to an elderly issue of Time and was engrossed in their predictions about the next election. Looked like Giuliani was a shoo-in for el presidente. I put the magazine down and looked up to see that Heather’s customer was finished and walking toward the cash register. Sister was letting me know that Heather was ready for me. Or had damned well better be.

“This is really bullshit.” As she spoke, Heather was sweeping up the floor around her chair. Sister ran a clean, tight shop. “The guy’s a jerk.” The ladies were getting a full measure of daytime drama right here in the beauty shop.

“You’re the jerk,” Sister said. “I told you not to get involved with that bastard.”

By now I was getting used to the idea that the argument was public business. This whole salon was sort of like one big family. The other kids obviously sided with Sister.

“Thanks,” I said as I walked past Sister toward a closed door in the back of the place. When I reached Heather’s chair I stopped. She glared at me and shook her head. Then she gave up and flounced to the door, opened it, and disappeared inside.

It was a storeroom and office combined. There was a desk, a table for a computer and printer, a noisy refrigerator, and boxes piled floor to ceiling. Heather sat behind the desk and lit a cigarette. So much for the No Smoking law.

“This is really bullshit.”

“You said that.”

“That Bobby’s an asshole. He came to the room three or four times. Craig always made me leave. I’d wait outside. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could hear their voices. Bobby was always yelling. My opinion is that he snuck in and killed him. I want to see that little prick go to prison.”

“And you told the police that?”

Exhaled ice-blue smoke. “Damn right, that’s what I told them.”

“Did anybody else ever visit Donovan while you were there? That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”

“Didn’t the police ask you the same question?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“What did you tell them?”

“I didn’t tell them anything because it didn’t matter. Bobby killed him and that’s all there is to it.”