Read Online Murder on a Bad Hair Day by Anne George - Free Book Online Page A

give me a lift home.
    “Sure.” Her car was parked right at the front door of the hospital in a No Parking zone. “A perk,” she said, flashing those perfect teeth.
    I realized that this was my second “first” for the day. The ambulance and now the police car. We rode along with squawks which made no sense to me blaring from the radio. Bo Mitchell seemed able to interpret, though. A couple of times she flipped a button and talked back. A lot of ten-fours and ninety-eights. It sounded exactly like a television show.
    She turned to me. “Tell me about Claire Moon.”
    “Is your middle name Peep?”
    She laughed. “Can you believe my mama did that? It’s what everybody calls me, too, except down at the station. They said, ‘Hey, girl. What kind of an image you gonna give us? Your name is Bo. Period.’”
    She looked over at me. “When I came to your door what if I’d said, ‘I’m Bo Peep Mitchell’?”
    “I see what you mean.”
    “You’d have laughed like crazy.” She swung up the interstate. “Now, tell me about Claire.”
    I told her all I knew about Claire as a teenager and how I had seen her the night before for the first time in years. I told her about her showing up on the steps and the condition she was in, and that that was all I knew. I hadn’t even known where she lived or that she was widowed until she had answered the questions.
    “You know anything about Mercy Armistead?”
    “I never met her until last night. My sister had the invitation to the opening. Why?”
    “Just wondered.” Bo drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. It was too casual.
    “She had a heart attack, didn’t she?”
    “That’s what they say.”
    “But you’re not sure.”
    “Hey, Mrs. Hollowell, I’m no doctor.”
    I thought about Claire’s screaming “They got to Mercy!” and reminded Bo of it.
    “I remember,” she said.
    “You think there could be anything to it? I mean, a woman in her thirties with no history of heart disease falls over dead and someone tries to kill her assistant on the same night. What do you think?”
    “Don’t know.” We rode along the interstate for a mile or so in silence.
    “Hey, Mrs. Hollowell?”
    “Call me Patricia Anne.”
    “Patricia Anne, you want to get Claire some gowns? Her apartment’s just off the next exit.”
    I thought about the policemen there. “Is it okay?”
    “There’s something I’d like you to see.”
    “Why?”
    “See what you think of it.”
    I sighed. “Okay. But can you make personal phone calls on that thing?” I pointed to the squawking box. “My husband may have tried to call me.”
    “Here.” Bo Peep reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny cellular phone. “Use this.” The phone was the size of a small calculator and almost as light. I decided at that moment what I wanted Fred to give me for Christmas.
    He wasn’t in, but I was so enamored of the phone I called my own number to see if I had gotten any messages. The library had a book I’d reserved, Bonnie Blue wanted me to call her, and Mary Alice said not to worry about Christmas.
    “Everything okay?” Bo Mitchell said as I handed her the phone.
    “My sister said not to worry about Christmas.”
    “That’s nice.”
    “Not necessarily.”
    We had turned into an area of apartments that had been built right after World War II. Attractive and well constructed, when they went condo about ten years before, they were snapped up by people who appreciated the high ceilings, the molding, the arched alcoves. Since then, the prices have skyrocketed. I was startled when Bo stopped in front of a corner unit that had a view of the whole valley.
    “This is where Claire lives?” I asked.
    “Yep.”
    We got out and started toward the door, where we had to step over yellow crime scene tape.
    “These places are expensive,” I said.
    “Claire Moon owns it, too, lock, stock, and barrel.” Bo Peep Mitchell fumbled in her pocket, found a key, and opened the white door. She