Free Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery by Elaine Viets Page A

dresses?”
    “Blue is a better color for me,” he said.
    “They’ll never find the killer now,” Helen said.”Every other woman at that wedding wore a blue dress.”
    “But I’m the one who ran,” Miguel Angel said.
    Helen noticed that Phoebe was hanging on to their words. Miguel Angel noticed that, too.
    “Back to work, everyone,” he said. “We’ve wasted enough time to day. Helen, sweep the floor around my chair, will you?”
    “Sure.” Helen picked up a broom.
    “Carolina is here,”Ana Luisa said.”And after her, there’s Ursula.”
    Carolina wanted color, a cut and a blow-dry. Her skeletal arms were freckled with liver spots. Helen figured the woman was close to seventy, but Carolina had convinced herself that she looked forty. She wore her blond hair draped over one eye, like a forties movie star.
    Phoebe handed Miguel Angel squares of foil while he painted high lights into Carolina’s thinning hair.When he finished, Phoebe plugged in a color-processing dryer, which had two heated wings, like a me chanical butterfly.The heat sped up the color process. Miguel Angel set the timer, and promised to be back in twenty minutes.
    Meanwhile, he turned his attention to Ursula, a large woman with shoe-polish-black hair.
    Miguel Angel mixed her color and covered the skunk stripe of white roots with a brush. Ursula insisted that her hair be dyed flat black. Miguel Angel tactfully suggested that she lighten her hair or add some highlights, but Ursula refused.
    “I was born with raven hair and that’s the color I’ll keep,” she said, shutting down all discussion. No one told her the raven had long ago turned into a common crow.
    Ursula and Miguel Angel debated the merits of trimming her bangs.
    The timer dinged.That was Phoebe’s signal to wash Carolina’s hair. She led the woman to a sink and carefully pulled out the foils. Then Phoebe held up a peach bottle and said, “We have a special shampoo for thin, older hair.”
    The woman twitched as if she’d been stung. Helen thought Caro lina was angry, and Phoebe was so clueless she didn’t know she’d in sulted a customer.
    Phoebe wrapped a dark towel around the neck of Carolina’s cape and adjusted the height of the sink. She gently rinsed Carolina’s hair.”Is that water too hot?” she asked.
    “No, I like it hot,” Carolina said.
    “Do the Hustle,” an ancient disco tune, played on the sound track. The woman tapped her foot.
    “Is this the music you liked when you were young?” Phoebe asked.
    Carolina shot straight up.”When I was what?” She tore off her cape, threw the towel on the floor and marched over to Miguel Angel.”That id iot insulted me. I’m not paying three hundred dollars to be told I’m old.”
    “Carolina, please wait,” Miguel Angel said.
    “Why? So you can insult me again? Do I look stupid enough to have danced to disco?”
    Carolina marched out of the salon, wet head held high.
    “Do you know what happened?” he asked Helen.
    “Yes,” she said, and told him what Phoebe had said.
    “That moron,” Miguel Angel said.”I’ve wanted Phoebe out of here. Now I will get my wish.”
    He took Phoebe aside and fired her. She ran for the door, weeping.
    “You’ve ruined my life. I’ll make you sorry,” Phoebe cried.”I’ll make you both regret this.”

P hoebe flounced out, slamming the salon door behind her.”Do
    the Hustle,” the disco tune that got Miguel Angel’s useless as
    sistant fired, faded away in a flurry of silly squeaks.
    Helen and Ana Luisa stared at each other.The silence was deafening, but the two women didn’t dare break it.Ana Luisa raised one perfectly waxed eyebrow.
    “I should have fired her weeks ago,” Miguel Angel said.”God knows how much business she’s cost me with her stupid remarks.”
    Helen was relieved that Phoebe was gone, but she was worried by her threat. Now the bitter assistant knew that Miguel Angel had es caped the police by dressing as a woman—wearing the same