Free Stakeout (2013) by Parnell Hall Page A

eye-catcher between the eyes and the boobs.
    She slipped under the crime scene ribbon, looked in both directions, and came down the front path. If she hadn’t glanced around furtively I might have seen the manila envelope in her hand for what it was, a manila envelope, and not for something she had just pilfered from the crime scene.
    She hopped into a red Prius and took off.
    I followed at a discreet distance. At least that’s what I keep reading in detective stories. Actually, I’m not quite sure what a discreet distance is. I think it’s one where you don’t get spotted on the one hand, or lose the person on the other.
    I followed her about fifteen miles south to a beauty parlor in a strip mall. I wondered if she was getting a haircut. It occurred to me she could use it. I chided myself for the thought. I was trying not to stereotype the woman, but it was hard.
    It was harder when it turned out she was a hairdresser. I mean she not only looked like that, her job was making other people look like that.
    Perhaps I was misjudging her. The first woman she worked on didn’t have teased hair at all. She had a wavy shag sort of thing, and from what I could see the Jersey Girl was giving it a perfectly conservative trim.
    Watching the woman cut hair was not exactly the optimal outcome I’d hoped for when I’d seen her coming out of the dead guy’s house. I wondered if I should get a haircut. That seemed a poor option. There were four women working, so I’d have to do some pretty nimble-footed maneuvering to make sure I got her. And I wasn’t sure they cut men’s hair. There wasn’t a guy in the place. Breaking the gender barrier didn’t seem the best way of being inconspicuous.
    I thought of calling Alice and asking if she needed a haircut. I can’t begin to tell you all the reasons why that seemed like a poor idea. It occurred to me if I were a real detective I would have a female operative I’d call in for just these occasions. Of course, if I were a real detective I probably wouldn’t blunder into such awful scrapes.
    I thought of my old buddy, Fred Lazar, the guy who actually got me into the game. He’d have had a female operative, only he, like Sallingsworth, was retired.
    I’d have retired too, if I didn’t need the money. Not that I minded working, but being a fall guy was wearing me down.
    So what could I do now?
    Watching the Jersey Girl as she wielded her scissors, there was one thing that occurred to me.
    When she went through the beauty parlor door there was nothing in her hands.
    The Prius was parked out of sight from the beauty parlor window. At least out of sight from chair number three, which was where Jersey Girl was working. The hairdresser in the chair closest to the window could see it, but then it wasn’t her car.
    I strolled down the street, walked casually by the Prius. Wondered how to get in.
    A clothes hanger down the crack between the top of the window and the doorframe used to be an option, back in the days when door locks were round and had a little heads on them you could get under and pry up. Jersey Girl’s door locks were shiny as a baby’s bottom with nary a lip of any kind. So Car Thief Trick number 101 was out.
    A police slim jim might have worked, since that didn’t grab the knob but slid right into the mechanism of the lock. Only I didn’t have a slim jim on account of not happening to be on the police force.
    I wondered if MacAullif had one.
    I wasn’t standing there thinking all this, by the way, I had continued on up the street. It was taking me away from my objective, but I needed a plausible reason to turn around.
    No, you don’t, I told myself. If I wasn’t being followed, no one could possibly give a damn. If I was being followed, they were already on to me, so what if they saw me change direction?
    I turned around, walked back to the car, tried the passenger side door.
    It opened.
    No coat hangers, slim jims, car thieves, or police officers involved.
    I slid