Creation in Death (In Death #25)(54)

After giving the blanket one last fiddle, Mavis stood. “You should eat in the dining room like we did. There’s a nice fire in there, too. You’ll relax more. You guys really do look wrung. We won’t stay long.”

“We’re taking an hour down.” Now that all danger of being expected to hold the baby had passed, Eve moved back to Roarke. “Let’s go eat.”

They settled in the dining room where the fire roared and a dozen candles were lit. To give Summerset his due, he’d managed quick and tasty. There were thin slices of roast chicken in some sort of fragrant sauce, fancy potatoes, and something that might have been squash but was prepared so it wasn’t really objectionable.

He served Trina a glass of wine, and Mavis something rose-colored and frothy with a plate of thin cookies and fancy chocolates.

“I come around here too often, I’ll be back to belly weight.” Mavis picked up a chocolate. “Nursing makes me nearly as hungry as pregnancy did.”

“No breast milk at the table,” Eve warned her. “So to speak.”

“I sort of carry it everywhere.” But Mavis grinned. “You can talk about the case. You’re going to think about it anyway. We heard about it on screen. I remember when this guy was around before. I was on the grift then. All the girls on the street were scared all the time.”

“You were too young for him then.”

“Maybe, but it was scary. Trina and I both went way far from brunette last night during our hair party. Just, you know, in case.”

Eve eyed Mavis’s silver and blue streaks, then Trina’s flame red tower of curls. “Yeah, you’re not his type.”

“Glad to hear. How’s it going, anyway? Everything’s dire on screen.”

“We’ve got some buttons to push.”

“I was doing hair at Channel Seventy-five yesterday.” Trina studied the cookies narrowly, picked one. “On-air reporter was trying to make my celeb, you know? Spouting and such. He gave her some gory on the case to impress her, and said the police were stymied.”

“Reporters are mostly ass**les.”

“Lot of them say the same about cops.” Trina smiled. “I think it’s pretty much fifty-fifty. Anyway, it was the buzz in the salon yesterday, and we had the chairs full of women ditching their brunette.”

Eve forked up some chicken. “You’re still working the salon route?” she considered. “I thought you were on Nadine’s show, and working private.”

“You get private through the salon if you know how to play it. Plus, Roarke set me up pretty.”

“To what?”

“Trina manages the salon section of Bliss, the downtown spa,” Roarke explained. “An excellent choice on my part.”

“You got that.” Trina toasted him. “Business is up seven percent since I took over.”

“Your operators take private?” Eve asked her.

“It’s against policy.” Trina wiggled her dramatic eyebrows at Roarke as she sipped her wine. “Private means they don’t come in, the salon and spa don’t get the business. And they don’t drop impulse dough. But let’s get real. A customer asks—they’re called consultants, by the way—to do a house gig, they’re not going to say no unless they don’t want the job.”

“I’m looking for a man about seventy, short, pudgy.”

“We get that type, sure. Policy is to tactfully steer the pudge part into our spa or the body sculpting section. Barring, we talk up the fitness centers, and—”

“I’m talking specifically,” Eve interrupted. “A man of that basic type coming in, feeling out one of the consultants for a private. Within the last, let’s say, two months.”

“Lotta room, Dallas,” Trina said. “We get a lot of traffic, and being manager, most of the consultants aren’t going to mention a private to me, unless it’s sanctioned.”

“Sanctioned how?”

“Like we send teams or a solo in for special occasions, and the salon takes the big cut.”

“Long shot,” Eve muttered.

“But come to think of it, I had somebody like that. I guess.”

Eve set down her fork. “You guess or you had one?”

“Look, like I said, we get a lot of traffic. People tap me for private most every day. What’s the big…Oh, hey, hey!” Her wine sloshed toward the rim as she hastily set the glass down. “Is this the guy? Is this the f**king guy? Holy shit storm.”

“Just tell me what you remember.”

“Okay, Jesus, let me clear the decks.” Trina closed her eyes, sucked air through her nose several times. “This guy…walk-in. Manicure, I’m thinking. Don’t remember who had him. I’m thinking it was a Saturday afternoon, and we’re busting on Saturday afternoons. He waited a long time for the nail job, wandered over into the retail section. I think. I was busy. I just remember catching sight of him a few times. Then I took my break, went into the bar for a smoothie. Maybe a fizzy. No, it was a smoothie.”

“Trina, I don’t care what you had to drink.”

“I’m getting the picture.” Her eyes flashed open. “You want the picture, I need to get it first. So it was a smoothie. A banana-almond smoothie. We make killers. And he comes up, real polite. ‘Excuse me, Miss,’ like that. He noticed I was in charge, and since he’d had to wait awhile he’d noticed, too, how skilled I was.”