“Were you upset?”
“Not particularly.”
“Meaning you no longer cared for him either?”
“Meaning I also get bored easily.”
Uh-huh, I thought. I said, “Do you know who he began seeing after he ended things with you?”
“Who he began seeing before he ended things with me, you mean.”
“Do you know the woman’s name?”
“I didn’t at the time,” she said.
“But you do now?”
She hesitated. Then she said, “A beauty parlor is a great place for gossip. You’d be amazed at the things a person can find out here.”
“I can imagine.”
“No you can’t. Not really. The damnedest secrets come out, no matter how well hidden they’re intended to be.”
“Was Randall’s new affair a secret?”
“Yes. A big one.”
“Why?”
Again she hesitated, as if weighing things in her mind. One shoulder lifted and fell in a delicate shrug and she said, “He made a mistake. He decided to start playing in his own backyard.”
“I’m not sure I understand that, Miss Belson.”
“You’re a detective. You ought to be able to figure it out.”
“A married woman? The wife of someone he knew?”
She didn’t say anything. But there was a malicious little glint in her eyes.
“The wife of one of his business partners?” I asked.
“Only one of his business partners is married,” she said.
“Frank O’Daniel’s wife?”
“Little Helen,” La Belson said. The malice was in her voice now.
“You know her, then?”
“Helen? Oh yes, she used to be one of my customers.”
“Used to be?”
“She decided to try another salon in town. About six weeks ago, as a matter of fact.”
“Because she’d started an affair with Randall?”
The delicate shrug again. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Cute stuff-playing games, telling me what I wanted to know without actually saying it. Maybe. It could be a lie, too; for all I knew she had something against Helen O‘Daniel and wanted to do her dirt. That might explain the coyness: if she didn’t come right out and accuse Mrs. O’Daniel of anything illicit, she couldn’t get herself sued for slander.
On the other hand, it might be the truth. Not that an affair between Randall and Mrs. O’Daniel had to mean anything sinister. I just didn’t know enough yet about the principals involved to form much of an opinion either way.
I tried prying more information out of La Belson, but she wasn’t about to give me more than she already had. I asked her a few other questions, also without finding out anything new, and got up to leave.
She said, “All these questions-you don’t honestly believe Munroe’s death was anything but an accident, do you?”
“I’ve got an open mind. What’s your opinion, Miss Belson?”
“Munroe was a careless man. With women, with everything else in his life. Including flammable materials around his house.” Another shrug. “Accidents happen,” she said.
“So do murders,” I said.
I left her and managed to run the gauntlet of hair dryers and fat women without disgracing myself. Along with the receptionist, Miss Adley, there were only two customers waiting out front now. I went straight on out, minding my own business, and just as I was shutting the door behind me I heard Miss Adley say in a stage whisper, “Cops. They’re all assholes.”
Penny’s for Beauty was quite a place. And what made it so special was the beautiful people who worked there.
The address I had for the Northern Development offices turned out to be a stone-and-brick commercial building on Yuba and California streets, not far from the mall. The directory in the lobby sent me up to
the second floor, where I found a pebbled-glass door with some fancy gilt lettering on it that said:
NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
“GROWTH + EXPANSION = PROSPERITY”
Munroe Randall, President
M.J. Treacle,
Vice President
F.L. O’Daniel,
Vice President
Very impressive. And what was on the other side of the door was impressive, too-a nice front for a company wobbling on the edge of Chapter Eleven. The anteroom was about twenty feet square, paneled in blond wood and outfitted with chrome-pipe furniture covered in some kind of black-and-white cloth. Behind a desk directly opposite was a slender woman in her thirties; but she wasn’t sitting down, she was standing up near one of two unmarked doors in a pose that suggested she’d been eavesdropping on what was going on behind it. Which was an argument between two men, apparently, because both voices were raised and had an angry buzz to them, like disturbed bees. What they were saying to each other wasn’t quite distinguishable.
The woman turned away from the door, but not as if it mattered much to her that I’d caught her with her ears flapping. She had tawny hair cut short, brown eyes, the kind of nose that is called patrician, a nice body encased in a green shift, and a secretarial air of cool efficiency. One of those little metal-and-wood nameplates on her desk identified her as Shirley Irwin.
She said, “Yes, may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mr. O’Daniel.”
“Have you an appointment?”
“More or less. He’s expecting me.”
“Your name, please?”
I told her my name. She recognized it, but it didn’t impress her much; I didn’t impress her much either. The only thing about me that interested her seemed to be my mustache. At least, that was what her gaze kept fastening on.
“Mr. O’Daniel is in conference at the moment,” she said. “Will you wait?”
“Some conference,” I said, smiling.
“I beg your pardon?”
“All that shouting.” I realized I was stroking the mustache and quit that; but Miss Irwin kept right on staring at it. The voices in the other room seemed to be getting louder and angrier.
“Will you wait, sir?”
“Sure. But would you mind letting Mr. O’Daniel know I’m here?”
“Mr. O’Daniel asked that he not be disturbed.”
“I see. It makes me look like Groucho Marx, right?”
“What?”
“The mustache. Groucho Marx.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You keep staring at it. It’s not that bad, is it?”
“I couldn’t care less about your facial hair,” she said in a voice you could have used to chill beer.
I caught myself starting to stroke it again-and one of the men behind the door said distinctly, “I don’t have to take that kind of crap from you! By God, I don’t!”
