Laura Lippman - Baltimore Noir

“We have information that you threatened Mr. Henry just a few hours ago,” U said calmly.

“Me?” C.P. asked incredulously. “Why in the world would I threaten Miles?”

“Remember, you said you would slit his throat if he kept coming over here stealing your hair spray,” piped up one of C.P.’s employees, a petite honey-colored woman with chunky fuschia highlights in her hair. C.P. shot her a venomous look over his shoulder.

“Figure of speech, Mona,” C.P. said, a little louder than necessary. “I am a nonviolent animal lover.” He patted Bouf for emphasis.

“We were also told that you changed clothes, Mr. Murray,” U further explained. “Now why would you do that?”

C.P. whipped around to face Mona. “You are deliberately trying to destroy me!” he screeched. “It’s because I wouldn’t give you last Friday off, isn’t it?”

“Calm down, Mr. Murray,” Ahmad intoned. “No one is accusing you of anything… yet.”

“Do you own a pair of ivory inlay scissors?” U asked, studying C.P.’s face closely.

“I do, and I can show them to you,” C.P. said quickly, walking over to his work station where he dug through his many supplies. “They were right here this morning. Mona! Did you steal my scissors? I swear, when this is over we are having a very long talk, you and I.”

At that moment, a uniformed officer with a name tag that read “A. Jenkins” escorted a visibly distraught Kylani over to where we were. “Detectives, this is the victim’s sister and she’s demanding to see the persons in charge of the investigation,” the officer said.

“Arrest this man!” Kylani screamed. “He killed my brother.”

C.P. paled and opened and shut his mouth so hard that I thought his teeth were going to shatter. He sputtered and managed to choke out, “I have no idea what she is talking about.”

“They argued this morning,” Kylani continued. She was actually wringing her hands, holding one fist tight inside the other. Given the length of her nails, it had to hurt, but she seemed too distraught to notice.

“I was standing right here when it happened. C.P. said Miles had stolen the last client he was ever going to take from him. He promised he would get even. I’ll never see my brother again!” she wailed, then collapsed against the police officer.

“Where’s the shirt you were wearing earlier, Mr. Murray?” my sister asked.

“I got some dye and perm on it so I asked my assistant to wash it with the last load of towels,” C.P. stammered. “She left an hour ago to go to the laundry. I swear to you, I would never hurt Miles. I was one of his mentors.”

“I think we should continue this discussion at the station,” U stated, all business.

“How could you, C.P.?” Kylani cried, as the officer propped her back up on her feet. “How could you stab my little brother with your special scissors after pretending all this time to be his friend?” She threw her hands up to her face and tilted backwards as if she were about to swoon again.

“U, wait,” I said. “Officer Jenkins, did you take Kylani to see her brother’s body?”

“No ma’am,” Jenkins replied. “The crime scene is still being processed.”

“Kylani,” I tried to boom in my most authoritative voice. “Give it up. Once the police review the security tapes, they will know that you killed Miles.”

Her head shot up and the tears magically disappeared. “Are you nuts?”

“The jig is up, girlfriend,” I said. “You stole C.P.’s scissors and stabbed your brother. Either you lured him to the storage area or he was already back there, but you shoved him in that box of hair and covered him up, probably because he was too heavy to drag someplace else and you couldn’t chance somebody seeing you.”

“Why would I do such a thing??” She was good at mock indignation, I’ll give her that. But then, the whole performance had been top-notch, undone by only one little detail.

“I have no idea,” I said confidently. “But I can assure you that the police will find evidence on his body that connects you to the murder. You messed up and left something behind.”

With that, I grabbed her right hand and held it up to her face.

She wrenched away from me and tried to run, but both Ahmad and the uniformed officer grabbed an arm and snatched her back. She rained down curses on me as they cuffed her and led her away. Jennifer gave me a high-five and C.P. reached out and hugged me, squeezing Bouf between us. He promptly yelped and nipped me. Bouf, not C.P.

“Well, little sister,” U smiled, “that was quite a bit of investigative work. How did you figure it out?”

“I got suspicious when she mentioned the scissors,” I said. “How did she know that? Even if someone had said he had been stabbed, she wouldn’t necessarily know that it had happened with a pair of scissors. But the clincher was her nails.”

“Her nails?” U questioned.

“Yeah. Two of her tips were broken off. She probably snagged them in Miles’s sweater dragging his body into that box of hair. I thought I saw something stuck in the crochet. Her nails were her calling card and there is no way she’d be at a hair show with them looking a hot mess like that.”

Jennifer started giggling, C.P. guffawed, and U rolled her eyes. Bouf even gave a high-pitched bark of amusement.

“Well,” U said, “good thing you knew about the tape from the security cameras.”

“Umm, yeah,” I grinned sheepishly. “If that even exists. I was bluffing. It always works on the TV shows.”

My sister actually cracked a smile and said, “Okay. But next time, find a show with better dialogue. ‘The jig is up, girlfriend’ was a bit much, even for you.”

Before I could respond, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Olive, my vice-chair for publicity, wringing her hands and looking distraught.

“Jordan, you’ve got to come,” she said in a rush. “We have, um, a situation.”

“A situation other than a murder?”

“Yeah,” she said. “See, I was being proactive and I thought we should do something to take folks’ minds off this mess, so I made an executive decision. I mean, I couldn’t find you and you are always saying, ‘Be empowered,’ so I thought, ‘WWJD. What would Jordan do?’ People are here to have a good time as well as network and show off their skills, and I started thinking, We need to refocus here …”

“Olive.” I used all my will not to scream at her. “Please get to the point.”

“Well,” she said, “I sent out the specialty hair models.”

“So?” I actually thought it was a good idea. The local-themed ’dos included an Oriole and a black-eyed Susan. “It’s the crab,” she sighed.

“It went haywire.”

Someone had come up with the beyond-obvious idea to construct a huge steamed crab, orange-red as if it had just emerged from the pot. The “Crustacean Creation” was to be the pièce de résistance of all the hair art. I had vetoed the Old Bay seasoning glitter on the grounds that it would create a mess, but gave in on the rigging that allowed the small, black beady eyes and long claws to move. The stylist, who had majored in mechanical engineering before dropping out of Morgan State University, was to follow at a discreet distance and work the contraption using a wireless remote.

“Define haywire, ” I said, feeling a massive headache starting behind my eyes.

“Just come see,” Olive said, as she grabbed my upper arm and led me forward.

Yet another crowd had gathered, this time around local newspaper photographer Sal Dorsey, one of the old-timers. Sal was tilted forward as if he were about to take a header into the floor, and his camera swung like a pendulum from his neck. His bald patch had reddened until it was almost the same color as the hair crab that had him in its grip. Yes, the only thing keeping Sal from sprawling face-forward was a giant claw, which was giving him a crustacean wedgie. Even as the stylist pushed multiple buttons, trying to loosen the hair crab’s grip, the model continued to smile robotically at Sal’s colleagues, who were busy snapping photos even as they shook with laughter.