Three To Get Deadly

Spectacular was good, right? I held that thought through the rinse and the comb-out.

“This will be wonderful once you get used to it,” Mr. Alexander said from behind a cloud of hair spray.

I squinted into the mirror. My hair was orange. Okay, don’t panic. It was probably the lights. “It looks orange,” I told Mr. Alexander.

“California sun–kissed,” Mr. Alexander said.

I got out of the chair and took a closer look. “My hair is orange!” I shouted. “It’s freaking ORANGE!”

It was five when I left the mall. Today was Saturday, and my mother expected me for pot roast at six. “Pity roast” was a more accurate term. Unwed daughter, too pathetic to have a date on a Saturday night, is sucked in by four pounds of rolled rump.

I parked the Buick in front of the house and took a quick look at my hair in the rearview mirror. Not much showed in the dark. Mr. Alexander had assured me I looked fine. Everyone in the salon agreed. I looked fine, they all said. Someone suggested I might want to boost my makeup now that my hair had been “lifted.” I took that to mean I was pale in comparison to my neon hair.

My mother opened the door with a look of silent resignation.

My grandmother stood on tippytoes behind my mother, trying to get a better look. “Dang!” Grandma said. “You’ve got orange hair! And it looks like there’s more of it. Looks like one of them clown wigs. How’d you grow all that hair?”

I patted my head. “I meant to have some highlights put in, but the solution got left on too long, so my hair got a little frizzy.” And orange.

“I’ve got to try that,” Grandma said. “I wouldn’t mind having a big bush of orange hair. Brighten things up around here.” Grandma stuck her head out the front door and scanned the neighborhood. “Anybody with you? Any new boyfriends? I liked that last one. He was a real looker.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m alone today.”

“We could call him,” Grandma said. “We got an extra potato in the pot. It’s always nice to have a stud-muffin at the table.”

My father hunched in the hall, TV Guide dangling from his hand. “That’s disgusting,” he said. “Bad enough I have to hear crap like this on television, now I have to listen to some old bag talking about stud-muffins in my own home.”

Grandma narrowed her eyes and glared at my father. “Who you calling an old bag?”

“You!” my father said. “I’m calling you an old bag. You wouldn’t know what to do with a stud-muffin if you tripped over one.”

“I’m old, but I’m not dead,” Grandma said. “And I guess I’d know what to do with a stud-muffin. Maybe I need to go out and get one of my own.”

My father’s upper lip curled back. “Jesus,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll join one of those dating services,” Grandma said. “I might even get married again.”

My father perked up at this. He didn’t say anything, but his thoughts were transparent. Grandma Mazur remarried and out of his house. Was it possible? Was it too much to hope for?

I hung my coat in the hall closet and followed my mother into the kitchen. A bowl of rice pudding sat cooling on the kitchen table. The potatoes had already been mashed and were warming in a covered pot on the stove.

“I got a tip that Uncle Mo was seen coming out of the apartment building on Montgomery.”

My mother wiped her hands on her apron. “The one next to that Freedom Church?”

“Yeah. You know anyone who lives there?”

“No. Margaret Laskey looked at an apartment there once. She said it had no water pressure.”

“How about the church? You know anything about the church?”

“Only what I read in the papers.”

“I hear that Reverend Bill is a pip,” Grandma said. “They were talking about him in the beauty parlor the other day, and they said he made his church up. And then Louise Buzick said her son, Mickey, knew someone who went to that church once and said Reverend Bill was a real snake charmer.”

I thought “snake charmer” was a good description for Reverend Bill.

I felt antsy through dinner, not able to get Mo off my mind. I didn’t honestly think Stanley Larkin was the contact, but I did think Mo had been on Montgomery. I’d watched men his age go in and out of the mission and thought Mo would fit right in. Maybe Jackie didn’t see Mo coming out of the apartment building. Maybe Jackie saw Mo coming out of the mission. Maybe Mo was grabbing a free meal there once in a while.

Halfway through the rice pudding my impatience got the better of me, and I excused myself to check my answering machine.

The first message was from Morelli. He had something interesting to tell me and would stop by to see me later tonight. That was encouraging.

The second message was more mysterious. “Mo’s gonna be at the store tonight,” the message said. A girl’s voice. No name given. Didn’t sound like Gillian, but it could have been one of her friends. Or it could have been a snitch. I’d put out a lot of cards.

I called Ranger and left a message for an immediate callback.

“I have to go,” I told my mother.

“So soon? You just got here.”