Free divorced divas 02 - crimped to death by tonya kappes

shoulders. “You are a genius!”
    I grabbed my bag and left Marlene in charge of the shop. She’d be fine and she could certainly handle the bride’s first appointment since it was only a fact gathering session on what Autumn had in mind and the colors.
    It didn’t take me long to drive over to Dr. Russell’s. The lot was empty. The brown, square, brick, stand-alone boring building had minimal landscape with the small bushes going around the entire office. There were two long and wide windows on each side of the door with the old metal horizontal blinds that had yellowed over the years from the sun.
    I pushed the door open and immediately the sterile stale smell of rubber and band-aids made my stomach curl. The old wood paneling hung from the waiting room walls. Carol’s sliding glass window was cracked. There was a clipboard teetering off the edge where clients checked in.
    Ahem . I cleared my throat when I didn’t see Carol behind the glass. I took the pen that was tied to the clip on the clipboard with a string of yarn and wrote my name down on the page that had the date printed very large on the top.
    I flipped through the week’s worth of pages. I inwardly groaned when I saw Charlie’s name. She’d been here a couple of days ago. But the most disturbing thing was not seeing a lot of names on each page. I was used to signing the paper and seeing members of the community on there.
    I put the board back on the edge and took a seat in one of the old plastic vinyl chairs that had cracks in all of them. I picked the one with the fewest cracks and didn’t expose the padding underneath.
    “Hi, Holly.” Carol flung the window open and grabbed the clipboard. “Anything change on your insurance?” she asked and crossed off my name.
    “All the same.” I smiled and picked up an Oprah magazine from two years ago. I put it back when I realized I looked at it the last time I was here.
    Ginger’s description of Henry Frisk’s dental office played in my head. I’d kill to have a Keurig cup of coffee right now. There definitely wasn’t a complimentary Keurig machine in Kevin’s office, and I would bet the same grey plastic pod dental chairs were in the back too.
    “How has business been?” I asked Carol, trying to get some information out of her.
    “Meh,” she curled her nose. “It had slowed down a lot since Henry Frisk opened a couple months ago. But since the,” she ran her finger along her neck, “clients have called to schedule.”
    “Yeah, that was terrible.” I let out a long sigh and eyed her reaction.
    “It was. I have been looking over my back and catching myself checking the locks on my windows and doors at home several times before I go to bed.” She shook her head. Her lips dipped. “I just don’t know why someone would go around killing someone. Dr. Frisk always seemed nice when he stopped by.”
    “He would come by here?” I asked.
    That seemed odd. Why would Henry want to come see his competition? There were plenty of teeth to clean and dentures to fix from all the good citizens of Swanee to go around.
    “Between me and you.” Carol stood up. She glanced behind her as if she was checking to see if the coast was clear. “I don’t think he and Dr. Russell liked each other. Dr. Frisk came in before he opened his shop and told Dr. Russell out of courtesy that he was going to open an office. I didn’t see a problem with it, but Dr. Russell was spitting mad all day after that.”
    “What did he say about it?” I stood up and walked over.
    “He didn’t say anything.” Her eyes grew as big as the sun. “He slammed his door, cussed, threw things and made clients bleed.”
    “Bleed?” My heart pumped. I held my hand to my chest hoping that blood wasn’t going to come out of my gums after this cleaning.
    “Clients called to tell me he had done a deep cleaning and made them bleed more than normal.” She rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t tell them he was mad and was probably taking it