Murder on Location by Howard Engel

Author:Howard Engel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143167556
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP (CANADA)

THIRTEEN

By two o’clock I had parked outside the chain-link fence of a school yard a few blocks from Centre Street. It was deserted except for a red cap stuck in the fence. The abandoned ice slide was grey and lonesome. So were the covered drinking fountain, the brick wall and the sky. I lit a cigarette and opened the car window to let the smoke escape. A huge icicle hung from the eaves of the school where it made an angle with the street. The cold hand of mid-winter was on the small of my back. In the glove compartment I found my Alekhine. I tried to remember when I played my last chess game. I flipped through the pages, not really taking anything in. Chess seemed a million miles away, where it was possible to build a strong centre and advance with more than hope.

I hardly knew Hayes. I’d just met him, only had one drunken conversation with him. There are probably lots of people more worthy of being alive than Hayes. Looking at Anton’s sign I thought Martha Tracy had had the only useful idea in the whole case. Instead of waiting for Billie at the beauty parlour, I should be phoning her husband. That’s what he’s paying for. So, what’s the big idea of me sitting here worrying about a murder that has nothing to do with Billie Mason. Nobody killed Hayes because of Billie. Billie couldn’t leave Hayes fast enough. The Hayes problem was some other can of trash, not the one I’d been paid to pick through. I put My Best Games of Chess back where I found it in the glove compartment.

Across the street and around the corner, a woman with blue hair under a kerchief was entering Anton’s Salon. If the mink coat she was wearing was completely paid for, she could afford to have the hairdresser come to her. The large plate-glass window was steamed up and a couple of pictures showing hairstyles cut from Vogue and other fashion magazines were curling at the edges from the humidity. I couldn’t make out more than rose and green shapes through the dripping glass, so I went in. An old-fashioned bell, like in a country general store, jangled as I closed the door behind me. It was now 2:30 P.M.

The shop was a long rectangle on two levels decorated with weathered barn siding. A horse collar, a kerosene lantern, and a few other rustic touches completed the decor. Four women and two men in green coveralls were cutting a swath through twice that many women, who were draped in rose-coloured wrap-arounds. A lean young man with a comb in his breast-pocket looked up from cutting or perming—I didn’t want to look too close—and came over wearing an easy smile.

“Are you lost? I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“I’d like a word with one of your customers, please. Miss Mason?” I smiled. He didn’t stop smiling. He didn’t twitch a muscle, but the impulse behind his expression died.

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