Front Page Teaser

When Liz walked into his shop, he had two clients’ coiffures well under control.

“Just sit here for a few minutes, Miss Monroe,” he said to an elderly woman whose head was covered with old-fashioned rollers. Leading her to a seat under a hair dryer, he inquired, “Or may I call you Marilyn?”

“You can call me Norma Jean,” the woman replied, smiling broadly. “I reserve that name for my intimates.”

“I’m honored, Norma Jean,” the hairdresser said, bowing slightly. “OK, buddy,” he said, changing tone as he spoke to a mailman who had apparently shown up for a haircut during a lunch break. “Do you think the Celtics have a chance in hell of winning tonight?” he asked, as he fitted a plastic sheet around the mailman’s neck. “Do you have an appointment?” he said, turning to Liz. “I’m not sure if I have time to take a walk-in at the moment.”

“Actually, I’m here in response to your call to the Beantown Banner.” Liz held out her hand. “Liz Higgins” she said.

“Paddy McCuddy. I had to change the name for the shop. McCuddy’s Hair Design might make it in Dublin but it doesn’t cut it in this suburb.”

“Shame about that mother running out on her kid,” the mailman offered.

“What makes you think she ran out on her family?” Liz asked.

“They’re on my route. A mailman sees more than most people think.”

“Like what?”

“Well, there’s the deliveries we make, for one thing. There’s one household on my route keeps receiving pink envelopes. I’m not surprised to see the house went up for sale recently. They’re up to their ears in debt.”

“What about the Johanssons? Anything unusual there?”

“You bet. Lots of letters from the Middle East. All for the missus. She’s been receiving them for years. And he receives all kinds of insects. I don’t deliver them. UPS does. But I see them sitting on the stoop. Trusting household. Has a little card on the mailbox that says, ‘If we’re not home, please leave deliveries.’”

“What are the bugs for?” Paddy asked.

“Guy’s an eco-nut. I guess he releases them into the garden to eat other bugs. Seems like a waste to me. You open a box of ladybugs and who’s gonna tell ’em you paid for them so they better stay in your yard?”

“You got a point there,” Paddy agreed.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said “Miss Monroe.” “We need people like that to keep down the use of pesticides. Let some of the ladybugs fly into my garden anytime. They bring good luck, you know.”

“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children will burn,” the hairdresser said as he turned on the electric razor to trim the mailman’s neck hair.

“Name’s Len Fenster,” the mailman said loudly over the razor’s buzz.

“May I quote you about the Johanssons?” Liz asked.

“Yeah, sure. Don’t quote me on the dunning slips, though, will ya?”

“No problem.”

“That’s it, buddy,” Paddy said.

“What do I owe ya?”

“The usual.”

Paddy turned to his curler-covered customer and told her, “You need another ten, fifteen minutes, Norma Jean.” He turned the drier to high.

Over its airy hum, Liz asked him, “Have you spoken to anybody else about what you saw at the Johanssons’ house?”

“Sure. My wife. She’s the one who told me to call the Banner after they found blood in the house.”

“How about the World?”

“That rag! Nah.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this exclusive.”

“No problem. It was weird, though, to see two guys on the Johanssons’ doorstep on the day in question,” the hairdresser said, sounding like he fancied himself to be an actor in a TV-courtroom drama.

“Why?”

“They just didn’t fit in.”

“In what regard?”

“Well, they were Arabs, for one thing.”

“Surely some people of Middle Eastern extraction live in Newton.”

“Sure they do. I have one or two families who bring their kids for haircuts in my shop. But they live here. They don’t drive up to houses in big, jazzy cars without license plates and then stand around at people’s doors.”

“Are you saying there was no license plate on the car they arrived in?”

“That’s right. They drove up in a Crown Victoria with no plates. They looked pretty put out when nobody answered the door, I can tell you.”

“What do you mean by ‘put out’?”

“They were talking to each other a mile a minute. I couldn’t understand a word that they said. It must have been Arabic they were speaking. They were shaking their heads and talking away. Finally, they got in their car and drove off.”

“If you hadn’t heard about the apparent crime scene at the Johanssons’, do you think you would have thought their behavior was significant?”

“I think so. Like I said, they were out of place.”

Liz left the hairdresser and drove straight to the Johanssons’ street. She wasn’t keen on running herself but she knew enough joggers to be aware that exercise nuts are creatures of habit. Chances were good that one or more of the two o’clock joggers would pass by at the same time today.

It was 1:50 when Liz introduced herself to the first jogger on Fenwick Street.

“I would have been passing by then,” said a woman dressed in Olympic-quality running gear, “but I’d stopped to see the events on the City Hall Common. It was hilarious, I tell you! Until the little girl ran into the scene. Hey, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

Liz interviewed six more runners before a pair of women had information to add.

“No plates on the car? I didn’t notice that,” the taller of the two said.

“But it would make sense!” her running partner exclaimed. “They probably forgot to put dealer plates on the car when they took it out.”

“Dealer plates?”

“Yeah, it was Sam Maksoud and his son at the Johansson house. I know them because I bought my car from them.”

“‘We always go the extra mile,’” the two women said in unison.

“Not us as runners,” the tall gal laughed in response to the puzzled look on Liz’s face. “The Maksouds. That’s the dealership’s motto.”

“Is that the dealership on Needham Street?” Liz inquired.

After the joggers nodded confirmation, Liz drove her Tracer straight to it.

“Yeah, I remember the lady,” Sam Maksoud said, waving Liz into a chair in his glassed-in office with a view of the car showroom. “After the deal I gave to her, I’ll never forget her!”

“I’ve heard you’re doing some great price cutting for end of the season sales,” Liz said, remembering Tom Horton’s tip.

“That is true, but in Mrs. Johansson’s case it was a different story.”

“I’d love to hear it.”

“You have met the lady, yes?”

Liz nodded.

“An attractive lady, with the berry-blonde hair. I would never have imagined she would know the niceties of our language, our Arabic ways. Nor did I think such a polite lady had it in her to bargain like that. She so charmed me that I took some big dollars off the price of her car.”

“How did she do that?”