Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries) by Linda Ross (pdf to ebook reader txt) 📕

We all agreed that I could do that, so then it was on to Walmart.  The blouse that Avery and Thelma picked out for me was a white lacy thing with long sleeves and flared cuffs.  Thelma came up with a flouncy calico skirt, and we were done.  I had on ankle boots since we’d had a light rain overnight, and the pavement was wet.  Thelma and Avery decided I should keep the boots with the outfit and had me try on everything together.

I stared in the mirror and then sat down in the dressing room.  No way was I going out in public looking like this.

“Come on,” Avery called.  “Let’s see how it looks.”

“No way,” I said.  “I’m not going to wear this.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Thelma said, pushing her way into the dressing room.  I was sorry I’d neglected to lock the door.  She took one look and chuckled.

“I look like a demented milk maid from the Swiss Alps!” I cried.

“It’s not that bad,” Thelma said soothingly.

“I’m getting a hot flash,” I complained.

“Get changed back, and let’s buy it,” Thelma said.  “Whatever you wear to that party isn’t going to matter anyway.  I just need to know what you have on when I identify the body.”

“I’m not going to die chained up in somebody’s basement,” I snapped.  “Now leave so I can get out of this.”

Avery went on his way back home, and Thelma and I headed to the office.  Joan Larkin was sitting at my desk, looking forlorn.

“What’s happened?” I asked, dropping my shopping bags and sitting down in the empty chair next to her.  Thelma hovered nearby.

“It’s Stewart,” she whimpered.  “He’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” I asked, afraid that, being a Type A personality, he’d died of a heart attack.

“Disappeared.  I let him out in the back yard last night before we went to bed, and he never came back in.  I’ve looked all over, and I can’t find him.”  She was near tears.

“Okay, let me go back to your house with you and look around.”  I popped my head into Lorenzo’s office, told him where I was going, and we left.

Joan’s neighborhood was quiet except for the TV playing in her neighbor’s house.  I walked through the gate and around back with her and surveyed the yard.  It was small and tidy with little pockets of flowerbeds, now brown and dormant.  There was one large tree in the back yard, and its dead leaves were strewn all over.  The wooden fence met the ground all the way around with no holes or trenches for Stewart to escape.  And no wildlife could get in unless it could climb a fence.  Not that any wildlife I knew would want to tangle with Stewart.

“Is that the only gate?” I asked, pointing to the way we’d come.

“There’s another one on the other side.”

I walked around the back of the house to the other gate and looked around.  There seemed to be a trail through the leaves, like something had been dragged.  I didn’t want to alarm Joan, so I didn’t say anything.

“What rooms are on this side of the house?” I asked.

“Just the spare bedroom.  I don’t really use it except to store things.  I let Stewart out from the kitchen in the back.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Well, he always barks and growls when he’s out.  Sometimes people go by walking their dogs and he stands at the gate and barks.  I heard him barking, but I just thought somebody was going by.  Then I didn’t hear anything, and I figured he was doing his business.  He’s quite the pooper, you know.  You’d think he was a boxer at the amount of poop he leaves.  He does eat a lot of popcorn.  He loves popcorn.  And hot dogs.”

She went through a list of Stewart’s menu preferences and bathroom habits, and I let her ramble.  I knew she was worried, and I was too.  It looked like someone had dragged Stewart out through that gate.  How they accomplished that I didn’t know.  Given Stewart’s disposition, I was hoping they took him alive.

“Who knew about you winning the money with Stewart’s help?” I asked.

“Just about everybody on the street and probably most of the store clerks.  Mrs. Mallory two houses down comes over for coffee a couple of times a week, and she knew.  She probably told everyone else.”

That left a whole world of suspects.

“Do you want me to leave the fact that Stewart’s missing out of the story?” I asked.

Joan shook her head.  “Maybe somebody will know where he is.  I really miss the way he growled in his sleep.  It was so soothing.”

Okay.  I left Joan with a promise that the story would run on Monday and that I would keep an eye out for Stewart in the meantime.  I had a feeling that if Stewart was out there somewhere he was making someone’s life miserable.  The only motivation I could see to snatch him was jealousy.  Joan had won a lot of money because of Stewart, and some people couldn’t handle that.  Maybe they were hoping for a reward for returning him.

When I got back to the office Lorenzo wanted to know where Thelma and I were on the murder story.  We filled him in, and he decided we didn’t have enough to do another story at the moment, but we should keep interviewing people.

I put some ice in my World’s Best Bowler mug and poured in some Diet Coke.  Then Thelma and I went over what we had.

“We’ve got three more guys on the list,” I said, “but I think we can cross off Derek.  We already talked to him, and the way he folded when you told him who you are I don’t think he has the DNA to be a