Page 13

CHAPTER 13

I have to live with myself and so

I want to be fit for myself to know.

I want to be able as days go by,

always to look myself straight in the eye;

I don’t want to stand with the setting sun

and hate myself for the things I have done.

I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf

a lot of secrets about myself

and fool myself as I come and go

into thinking no one else will ever know

the kind of person I really am,

I don’t want to dress up myself in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect

I want to deserve all men’s respect;

but here in the struggle for fame and wealth

I want to be able to like myself.

I don’t want to look at myself and know

I am bluster and bluff and empty show.

I never can hide myself from me;

I see what others may never see;

I know what others may never know,

I never can fool myself and so,

whatever happens I want to be

self respecting and conscience free.

—Edgar Albert Guest, “Myself”

WHITNEY

By the middle of September in Nashville, the late summer temperatures had fallen to a pleasant seventy-four degrees. I could hardly wait for fall to arrive! Nevertheless, late one Tuesday afternoon, as I climbed out of my SUV in the parking lot of Main Stage Salon in the exclusive Hillwood Estates neighborhood, my body broke out in sweat. It was a cold sweat, though, caused by my fear of facing Terry Thorne. I swallowed hard. What the heck was I doing here, about to walk into a room where I’d be alone with a woman capable of extreme violence? It had been a really dumb idea.

I was about to turn around, climb back into my car, and abort this ill-advised mission, when the salon door opened and Terry—or should I say Marie St. Germaine?—stuck her head out.

Terry wore a black, skin-tight spandex minidress with red patent leather pumps and oversized gold hoop earrings. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her makeup heavy yet impeccable. She took obvious pride in her appearance. Though she had to be on the other side of menopause, she’d maintained a lean, girlish figure. “Britney?”

If Terry could hide her true identity behind a pseudonym, I figured I could, too. I’d made my appointment under the name Britney Glenn. It was close enough to my real name that I could easily remember it. I forced a smile to my lips, even though every other orifice of my body was puckered in terror. “That’s me!”

She waved me in. “Follow me.”

The only other car in the lot was a bright red Miata convertible, parked near the door. It had to belong to Terry. The interior of the salon was painted bright red, too. Black-and-white photographs hung on the walls, all of them featuring classic stars of the stage or silver screen. Audrey Hepburn in a black cocktail dress and long black gloves, a cigarette in a long holder held aloft in her fingers. Bernadette Peters in a sequined gown, her auburn hair hanging in corkscrew curls down to her shoulders. Marilyn Monroe in her classic white halter dress, grinning as she fought to keep her skirt in place against a rush of air whooshing up through the subway grate she stood over. Elizabeth Taylor. Lucille Ball.

A show tune played softly from a speaker in the corner, the upbeat “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway show Rent . I’d seen the show when a traveling production had come to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center years back. The show was very sad at times, but poignant. Like the old boarding school, the play gave me a glimpse into a bygone era, before HIV was treatable and was instead a likely death sentence. Thank goodness things had changed since then, thanks to advances in medical science. People might not have liked researchers tampering with DNA, but they were happy when scary diseases could be prevented, treated, or cured.

Up closer like this, I could tell she’d had some work done. Terry’s pouty lips were a little too full to be natural, hinting at collagen injections. While the skin on her neck had loosened, her cheeks were taut. She must have had a facelift. People in the beauty industry were expected not only to make their clients look attractive, but also to look good themselves, so I didn’t fault her for trying to maintain a stylish, youthful appearance.

A minute later, I was seated in an adjustable chair, staring at my reflection in a mirror surrounded by bright bare bulbs, the same kind I’d seen around the dressing tables backstage at the Ridgetop Prep auditorium. I’d dressed in a peasant blouse, jeans, and sandals today, looking nothing like my usual workday self. I’d tucked my large wrench into my purse in case I needed to defend myself. Unfortunately, Terry had taken my purse from me and hung it on a hook beside the mirror, just out of reach. I found myself wishing I’d watched a few karate movies before coming here today. Maybe I would’ve learned some self-defense moves.

“You’re a tall one, aren’t you?” Terry/Marie put her foot to the pedal and pumped it twice to lower me down to a level where she could easily work her magic on me. Eyeing my reflection, she cocked her head, tapping her lower lip with a sharp and shiny red acrylic nail that was as fake as her name. She circled me, examining me from all angles. I felt like a feline being judged at a cat show. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d reached down behind me to raise my tail.

Eventually, she stopped circling and met my gaze in the mirror. “I know you came for a facial, but you’re my last appointment of the day and I’m willing to stay late to get you fixed up right. Let’s address your hair, too, okay?”

She was upselling me, but who could blame her? She needed to make a living, just like everyone else, especially since she’d probably spent a fortune in legal fees defending herself from all the criminal charges she’d faced. Besides, I wasn’t sure a mere facial would take enough time for me to gain her trust and subtly interrogate her about the events at Ridgetop Prep. I agreed to the vague hair services, hoping they wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg— or my life . “Okay.”

She stepped behind me and reached around my neck with both hands as if to choke me. On reflex, I winced. She gave me an odd look as she began to fluff out the hair on each side of my face. “You need layers,” she said decisively. “Lowlights, too. They’ll give your hair more dimension.”

My regular stylist would be none too happy when she realized I’d seen another hairdresser, but how else could I have surreptitiously gotten close to Terry? I’d just have to beg for forgiveness and give her a big tip.

Terry squeezed a thick lock of hair between her hands, feeling it with her fingers. “Your hair is horribly dry. Let’s do a hydration treatment, too.”

I gave Terry a smile. “I trust your judgment.” Like hell, I do. The woman had attacked numerous students at Ridgetop, and at least two husbands. I glanced at her left hand. No ring. Looked like she might be on the outs with husband number three, as well.

She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a large magnifying glass, which she put to her eye, leaning in to examine my face up close and personal. She tsked. “Your skin has an extreme amount of sun damage.”

I wasn’t surprised. Much of my work took me outside, and I wasn’t faithful about applying sunscreen.

“Fortunately, I’ve got the perfect cream for you.” She reached over to a shelf full of products and retrieved a small pink jar. She plunked it into a small white gift bag before turning back to me. “All right. Let’s get to work.”

Unlike most beauticians, who were outgoing people persons, Terry made no small talk as she selected bottles of hair color and developer from her cabinets and mixed up a color concoction in a small bowl. She asked me no questions, evidently having zero interest in getting to know this new client of hers. She did sing softly along with the show tunes, however, just under her breath, her voice barely audible. I had to admit it was a beautiful voice. But is it the voice of a fallen angel?

She placed the bowl, an applicator, and a box of hair foil atop the counter. Her implements in place, she went to work on me, separating sections of hair with a comb, placing a square of foil beneath the section, and applying the color mix.

I attempted to engage her. “How long have you been doing hair?”

“A while,” was all she said.

That’s a vague answer. “You own the salon, right? It must be nice to be your own boss.”

She shrugged. “It has its ups and downs.” She elaborated on neither the ups nor the downs.

“Where’d you go to beauty school?” I suspected she might have attended in Los Angeles, after losing her role on Sock Hop. I was hoping the question would segue into a discussion of her acting career, which I could then naturally turn into a discussion of her earlier years at Ridgetop Prep, and see how she reacted. My hopes were dashed by her response.

“I earned my cosmetology license here in Nashville,” she said, using the comb to tease out another section of my hair.

Dang. How else can I direct this conversation to her time at the boarding school? “Did you always like doing hair and makeup?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I was never much good at it,” I said. “The other girls in high school would give me tips, though.”

Another mm-hmm, this one softer than the last.

“If you’ve been doing hair a while and you went to beauty school here, you must have attended high school in Nashville, too, then, right?”

“In the area,” she said.

“Which one?” I asked. “Maybe you and my mother were classmates.”

She went stock-still and glared at me in the mirror, apparently insulted by my insinuation that she was old enough to be my mother, despite the fact that it was one-hundred-percent true.

I backpedaled a little. “I mean, she was probably years ahead of you, but you might have gone to the same school.”

“I doubt it,” was all she said.

“Where did you go?” I asked outright.

She turned her head and coughed, avoiding the question. She raised an acrylic-tipped finger. “Excuse me just a moment.” She stepped away and retrieved a bottled water from her mini fridge, unscrewing the top and taking a half dozen dainty sips.

If she thinks that’s going to deter me, she’s wrong.

Without answering my question, she set the water bottle aside and returned to my hair. She spoke now, probably more to steer the conversation away from herself than any real interest in me. “Tell me about you, ” she said, her enhanced lips forming a smile her eyes didn’t duplicate. “What do you do for a living?”

I’d heard that, when lying, it was best to come up with something as close to the truth as possible, as it was more likely to ring true. “I run a pet-care business.” I cleaned litter boxes, and fed and watered the cats every day, so it wasn’t much of a stretch, except the three cats I cared for had never seen fit to pay me for my services.

“Pet care?” Terry’s upper lip quirked. “I’ve never been much of an animal person.”

I hadn’t been fond of her before, but now I really didn’t like her. “But they’re such good company,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do without my cat Sawdust.”

“Sawdust?” She crinkled her nose. “Where’d you come up with a name like that?”

Oops. I’d slipped. I’d given my sweet little boy that name because the color of his fur matched the color of the wood shavings I produced in my job as a carpenter. I came up with another quick lie. “He was already named when I adopted him at the shelter.”

Her cell phone rang from the pocket of her smock. Brandishing the comb in one hand, she pulled out her phone with the other and took a look at the screen. “I have to take this.” She tapped the screen with her thumb to accept the call, and put the phone to her ear, giving the caller a flirtatious greeting stretched out into two syllables: “He-ey.”

Using her shoulder to hold the phone to her ear, she engaged in a lengthy conversation with what had to be a potential new romantic interest. Meanwhile, she managed to finish applying the lowlights to my hair. Continuing the conversation, she moved on to my facial, using a textured wipe to cleanse my face before applying copious gobs of lime-green goo to my cheeks, nose, chin, and forehead. She rinsed her hands in the sink, dried them on a towel, then took hold of the phone with her hand again. Turning the mouthpiece up, she whispered, “I’m going to step outside while your treatments process.” She set an old-fashioned plastic kitchen timer for twenty minutes, turned, and walked out the door.

Argh!

I sat and wallowed in frustration, seaweed, and hair color chemicals for several minutes, until over the speaker came the plucky song “All That Jazz” from the show Chicago . I fluttered jazz hands in the chair, lifting my feet from the metal footrest and kicking them right and left in a poor imitation of a can-can. “Memory” from Cats played next, and I amused myself by imagining Sawdust crooning the show tune in the moonlight. The song was followed by “The Phantom of the Opera” by the show of the same name.

With each passing minute, the sun outside moved lower in the sky, my exasperation grew, and the goop on my face became drier and tighter and itchier. I wriggled my nose to try to loosen the tension, and cracks formed on the surface of the cream. How long is she going to be on that darn phone?! And how much is all of this going to cost me?

Finally, after what felt like forever, the timer gave off a decisive ding. Terry wasn’t in the salon to hear it, of course. She was out front yakking away on her phone. I eased out of the chair and went to the glass front door. The sky was pinkish gray, sunset coming much earlier now that the autumn equinox was less than a week away. I rapped on the glass to get her attention. On hearing the noise, her head snapped my way, her lips pursed in annoyance.

“The timer dinged!” I called.

She turned her back to me while she ended the call, then whipped back around, shoved her phone into the pocket of her apron, and came inside. “Back in the chair,” she ordered. “Let’s get that cream off.”

I sat down and she used a warm, wet washcloth to remove the dried cream from my face. As long as I’d been forced to sit unattended, I had begun to wonder whether I’d ever see my face again. I eyed myself in the mirror. The seaweed had worked its magic. My skin looked moist and shiny, like the face of a dewy mermaid.

Terry grabbed a towel from a shelf and angled her head to indicate the wash basin. “Come on over to the sink.”

I went over and sat down with my back to the sink. She quickly pulled the foils from my hair and tossed them into a trash can. She directed me to lean back. I settled my neck into the groove on the sink’s edge, and she used the sprayer to wet my hair. After applying a shampoo that smelled like orange blossoms, she scrubbed my hair hard, her acrylic fingernails raking my scalp. Ouch! She repeated the process, then rinsed my hair before applying the conditioning treatment. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! She was as sadistic as she was stylish.

She set the timer again and left me lying there for ten minutes while the treatment did its best to work its way into my stubborn strands and hydrate my hair. Meanwhile, she perched atop a rolling stool and amused herself by watching TikTok videos. When the timer dinged this time, she gave my hair a final rinse, wrapped it in a towel, and sat me upright. I followed her back to her chair.

As she combed my hair out, I gestured around to the photos on the wall. “You’re a movie buff, huh?”

“Little bit.” She yanked on a tangle of her own creation, nearly pulling a chunk of my hair out of my scalp.

“How did you come up with the name for your salon?” I said, attempting to segue into her TV career, however short lived, then circle back to Ridgetop.

She shrugged. “The main stage is where the major players perform. That’s the type of clients I usually handle. Important people. Famous people.”

I was tempted to say Sorry you got stuck with a common laborer like me today, but I knew it would be the wrong thing to do. Still, I felt insulted. My money was as green as any celebrity’s. Instead, I leaned into her desire to rub elbows with the rich and famous. “Do you do hair for any of the singers who live in town?”

Her lips spread in a sly grin. “I’d love to tell you who, but it’s confidential. I can’t have fans mobbing my clients at my shop.”

I had no plans to mob anyone, and I had to wonder if she was lying just to sound big and impressive. “I bet it’s fun to get someone ready for a show. You ever do that? Apply their makeup and do their hair for a performance?”

She eyed me intently in the mirror, the grin gone. “Like I said, it’s confidential.”

Two can play this game. “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to be pushy. It’s just really interesting is all. I’ve pet sat for a few celebrities. They’ve been some of my best clients.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Who?”

“Like you, I can’t give their names.” Hah! “Can’t tell you their pets’ names or their breeds, either. Nothing that would identify them.”

Her eyes flashed, and I realized I’d been stupid to antagonize her, both because it could be dangerous and because she might clam up even more.

Now that she had my hair combed out, she used big plastic clips to section it off. “That hydrating treatment worked wonders. You should get one every month so you don’t end up looking like the dust bunny you resembled when you walked in here.”

People generally used flattery to try to get what they wanted. Terry was instead using insults. I supposed it made sense, given that she sold services intended to make a person more attractive. If I thought I was attractive enough already, I’d be less likely to fall for her sales pitches. “I just might do that,” I said.

She reached over to her countertop and retrieved a pair of shears that had been soaking in a glass jar filled with assorted scissors, combs, and a blue disinfecting liquid. After drying the shears on a towel like a butcher wiping a knife, she began to trim the ends of my hair. Snip-snip.

I squinted at her in the mirror. “Ever since I walked in that door, I’ve had this feeling that I recognize you from somewhere.”

She snipped another section. “Can’t imagine where that might be.”

Oh, I bet you can. “Your voice sounds really familiar, too, like I’ve heard it many times before. Maybe on television? Did you used to be a weather girl or something like that?”

“Nope.” Snip.

Liar. As she went to remove one of the clips, I sat bolt upright, as if having an epiphany. “I remember where I know you from! You were on the old TV show called Sock Hop . You played that cute neighbor girl that Skippy had a crush on.” I snapped my fingers three times as if I couldn’t remember the character’s name. Then I pointed a finger at her. “Irene!”

She didn’t confirm my conclusion, nor did she deny it. Her eyes flashed again, but she simply kept working. My goodness, she’s a tough nut to crack!

I gushed effusively, hoping to earn some points with her. “I loved Irene! She was so sweet and peppy. You did a great job playing her.”

Still, Terry refused to engage. “I need you to look down so I can get to the back.” Before I had a chance to turn my face downward, she put a hand to the back of my skull and pushed my head into position with much more force than necessary.

As I stared down at my lap, I continued the conversation. “My mother watched Sock Hop back when it originally aired. She introduced me to it, and I’ve watched reruns of it since I was little. I’ve probably seen every episode twenty times or more. But your screen name wasn’t Marie St. Germaine. It was Terry something or other, right?” I snapped my fingers again. “Terry Thorne. That’s it! I remember being so excited as a little girl when I learned you were from Nashville. I thought maybe one day I could grow up to be famous like you. Didn’t I read somewhere that you attended Ridgetop Preparatory Academy? The place where the headmaster and his wife were shot?”

Saying so much when I was looking down at my lap, unable to see her face and gauge her reaction, was a stupid move. I’d taken things too far too quickly without realizing it. Before I knew what was happening, she’d yanked my head back by the hair and had the open scissors at my throat, one of the points pressing into my carotid artery.

Her face hovered over mine and she stared me down, her eyes and tone so cold I felt flash frozen on the spot. “Who are you really?” she demanded. “And why are you bringing all of this up?”

As I sat there, trying not to wet myself in terror, the song “For Good” from the Broadway show Wicked cued up on her speaker. Unlike the witch in the play, Terry Thorne had obviously not been changed for the better.

Though I was petrified, I’d be damned if I was going to show it. I counted to three to steel myself. One. Two. Three. In a split second, I reached up with my right hand, put my palm on the side of the scissor blades, and shoved them away from my neck, simultaneously jerking my head away to the left, yanking my hair out of her grip. I was on my feet in a split second with the jar of disinfecting scissors and combs in my hand, ready to throw the blue liquid and implements in her face.

“Put the scissors down! Now!” I ordered. “And take three steps back!”

She tossed her head, playing coy, but placed them on the counter. She crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t take a single step backward. “You want to come clean?”

She was still within easy grabbing distance of the scissors. I raised the jar of disinfectant in my hand. “Do you ? I told you to take three steps back.”

She took only two, and they were baby steps. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming into my salon and interrogating me like I’m some sort of common criminal.”

She was a criminal, a twice convicted felon, in fact, but probably not a common one. It was uncommon for wives to go on trial for attacking their husbands.

I didn’t give her my name, but I offered some information. “The Ridgetop Prep property is being refurbished for a retirement community. I heard about Dr. and Mrs. Finster’s deaths, that the case was never officially closed. I got curious. Your name came up as a potential suspect.”

“How, exactly, did my name come up?”

No way would I put Carole Tiller Brown at risk by telling Terry where I’d first learned she was violent and volatile. “I was cleaning out the headmaster’s office. I got nosy and read the student discipline files. Yours was a doozy.”

She rolled her eyes. “The other girls started things. They were jealous of me.” Forty years later, and she was still using the same lame excuse. “I have more talent in my little finger than they had in their entire bodies.” As if to prove her point, she raised a pinky in the air between us. The way she wielded the pinky, it might as well have been her middle finger.

“Maybe,” I said, tossing her a bone. “But sneaking into the Finsters’ home? That was quite a feat.”

The woman had the nerve to bark a laugh. “It sure as hell was! You should’ve seen Mrs. Finster’s face when she saw me in her kitchen. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.” She broke down, laughing so hard she had to hold her belly.

How can she be so cold and callous? Does she have no heart? From what I’d just witnessed, I had little doubt that Terry could have put an end to the Finsters’ lives. But whether she had actually done it was another question entirely. I decided to be blunt. “You killed them, didn’t you? Got a hold of Dr. Finster’s gun and shot them both.”

Evidently, I was a comedian but didn’t know it. Terry doubled over now, having to brace herself against the chair to keep from falling over in laughter. “No,” she managed between fits of giggles. “I didn’t kill them. But it’s a hoot that you think so!”

She thinks it’s funny that other people consider her capable of a double murder? Terry really did have some screws loose. She was on some sort of sick, twisted power trip.

Keeping a close eye on her lest she go for her scissors, I backed up and snatched my purse from the hook, sticking a hand inside to feel for the wrench. When I pulled it out, she had the nerve to laugh again.

“What are you going to do?” she cried, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Tighten my bolts?” She performed an odd robot dance, as if she were a mechanical toy.

Ignoring her antics, I asked, “Why should I believe that you didn’t kill the Finsters?”

She drummed her pointy red fingertips on the chairback. “Because if I had killed them, I wouldn’t have done it so quickly. I’d have made them suffer.”

Her lips curled up in a grin so evil it wouldn’t have surprised me to see devil horns erupt from her forehead. I had the urge to form a cross with my wrench and a nearby curling iron, hold it out in front of me, and attempt to banish this woman back to hell.

Her grin dissipated as she stood up straight, once again the cool and calculated woman who’d let me into her salon. “I had no reason to kill the Finsters. They couldn’t get rid of me, so I had no need to get rid of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“My parents had the board of trustees in their pocket. Enough of them, anyway. I could have gotten away with murder at Ridgetop Prep if I wanted to. But did I actually kill anyone?” She let the question hang in the air for a beat before adding, “No. I didn’t.”

As dangerous and despicable as she seemed, my gut told me she was speaking the truth. She hadn’t killed Irving and Rosie Finster. Whether she might hurt or kill me for accusing her of murder was another matter, however.

“I believe you,” I said. “I’m going now.” I began to back toward the door, keeping an eye on her all the while.

“Like hell you are!” she bellowed, hands moving to her hips. “I’m not about to let you stiff me! You owe me four hundred and sixty dollars for the lowlights, conditioning treatment, facial, and haircut.”

Holy crap, she charged a lot! “You didn’t even finish the haircut!”

Her lips curled up even more and amusement danced in her eyes. “Then we both agree that I’m not done with you.”

Is she threatening me?

She jerked her head to indicate her chair. “Take a seat and I’ll finish.”

No way would I let this woman go at me with a sharp blade again. “No, thanks.”

It was a good thing I’d withdrawn five hundred dollars at the ATM on my way to the salon so that I had enough cash to pay her. I counted out the cash so she could see it and placed it at the front of a rack of hairstyle magazines where she could retrieve it once I’d gone.

“No tip?” she scoffed. “What a cheapskate.”

“If you wanted a gratuity,” I replied, “you shouldn’t have put your scissors to my throat.”

As I backed out the door, she reached into the gift bag and removed the pink jar of face cream she’d packed up for me earlier. “You’ll get wrinkles soon if you don’t take precautions. Take this, on the house.”

Rather than gently tossing the heavy glass jar to me, she hurled it at my face. Thank goodness my reflexes were fast enough that I was able to throw up my arm to deflect it. The jar bounced off my forearm with such intense force I feared it might have fractured a bone. I wouldn’t give Terry the pleasure of seeing me in agony, though. I maintained a calm expression as I crouched, snatched the jar from the floor, and shoved it into my open purse.

I turned and rushed to my SUV.

Terry came to the door behind me. “You could have at least said ‘thank you’!” she hollered.

I floored the gas pedal and got out of there as fast as I could, leaving an irate hairdresser and burnt rubber in my wake.