Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [59]
“Why would I do such a thing??” She was good at mock indignation, I’ll give her that. But then, the whole performance had been top-notch, undone by only one little detail.
“I have no idea,” I said confidently. “But I can assure you that the police will find evidence on his body that connects you to the murder. You messed up and left something behind.”
With that, I grabbed her right hand and held it up to her face.
She wrenched away from me and tried to run, but both Ahmad and the uniformed officer grabbed an arm and snatched her back. She rained down curses on me as they cuffed her and led her away. Jennifer gave me a high-five and C.P. reached out and hugged me, squeezing Bouf between us. He promptly yelped and nipped me. Bouf, not C.P.
“Well, little sister,” U smiled, “that was quite a bit of investigative work. How did you figure it out?”
“I got suspicious when she mentioned the scissors,” I said. “How did she know that? Even if someone had said he had been stabbed, she wouldn’t necessarily know that it had happened with a pair of scissors. But the clincher was her nails.”
“Her nails?” U questioned.
“Yeah. Two of her tips were broken off. She probably snagged them in Miles’s sweater dragging his body into that box of hair. I thought I saw something stuck in the crochet. Her nails were her calling card and there is no way she’d be at a hair show with them looking a hot mess like that.”
Jennifer started giggling, C.P. guffawed, and U rolled her eyes. Bouf even gave a high-pitched bark of amusement.
“Well,” U said, “good thing you knew about the tape from the security cameras.”
“Umm, yeah,” I grinned sheepishly. “If that even exists. I was bluffing. It always works on the TV shows.”
My sister actually cracked a smile and said, “Okay. But next time, find a show with better dialogue. ‘The jig is up, girlfriend’ was a bit much, even for you.”
Before I could respond, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Olive, my vice-chair for publicity, wringing her hands and looking distraught.
“Jordan, you’ve got to come,” she said in a rush. “We have, um, a situation.”
“A situation other than a murder?”
“Yeah,” she said. “See, I was being proactive and I thought we should do something to take folks’ minds off this mess, so I made an executive decision. I mean, I couldn’t find you and you are always saying, ‘Be empowered,’ so I thought, ‘WWJD. What would Jordan do?’ People are here to have a good time as well as network and show off their skills, and I started thinking, We need to refocus here …”
“Olive.” I used all my will not to scream at her. “Please get to the point.”
“Well,” she said, “I sent out the specialty hair models.”
“So?” I actually thought it was a good idea. The local-themed ’dos included an Oriole and a black-eyed Susan. “It’s the crab,” she sighed.
“It went haywire.”
Someone had come up with the beyond-obvious idea to construct a huge steamed crab, orange-red as if it had just emerged from the pot. The “Crustacean Creation” was to be the pièce de résistance of all the hair art. I had vetoed the Old Bay seasoning glitter on the grounds that it would create a mess, but gave in on the rigging that allowed the small, black beady eyes and long claws to move. The stylist, who had majored in mechanical engineering before dropping out of Morgan State University, was to follow at a discreet distance and work the contraption using a wireless remote.
“Define haywire,” I said, feeling a massive headache starting behind my eyes.
“Just come see,” Olive said, as she grabbed my upper arm and led me forward.
Yet another crowd had gathered, this time around local newspaper photographer Sal Dorsey, one of the old-timers. Sal was tilted forward as if he were about to take a header into the floor, and his camera swung like a pendulum from his neck. His bald patch