There were still a few businesses open in Calburn. There was a building that looked as though it had been converted from two; one side was a post office, the other a diner. There was an antiques store, but the things she could see behind the dirty glass were more old than antique. There was a feed store that said it carried hardware as well, and a grocery store. Outside it was a bin full of tired-looking vegetables. Bailey thought that she and Matt were going to have to have a talk about where she bought groceries.
There was a dry-goods store that rented videos and sold ice cream. And at the end of the street was Opal’s Beauty Salon.
Bailey didn’t hesitate as she pulled into the empty parking place in front of the salon. She knew that if she was going to get information, this was where to begin.
When she opened the door, a bell tinkled, but the teenage girl sitting in the chair and eating a candy bar didn’t look up from her movie magazine. She had three-inch-long white-blonde hair with black roots, all of it sectioned off into tiny tufts that were fastened with various-colored ties. Her eyes were heavily lined in black. Even though it was a warm day, she had on a sweater big enough to cover a baby hippo, and tight black toreador pants.
“Yeah?” she said, turning her head vaguely in the direction of the door, but not looking at Bailey. “You want somethin’?”
“I was wondering if—” Bailey hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe she didn’t want this young woman to touch her hair.
“Carla!” came a voice from the back. “See who that is.”
“Yeah, Ma,” came the tired-sounding voice of the girl sitting in the chair. “In a minute.”
Bailey started to say that she’d changed her mind, but suddenly a woman stepped out from behind the curtained doorway, then stood in frozen silence as she gaped at Bailey.
“You’re her,” the woman said at last.
For one horrible moment, Bailey feared that the woman was going to say that she was Lillian Manville, wife of the billionaire.
“You’re the widow that got the old Hanley place, aren’t you? And Matt Longacre is going to move in with you today, isn’t he?”
Smiling, Bailey nodded. She’d been right: if she wanted to know what was going on in Calburn, she’d come to the right place.
“Get up!” the woman hissed at the girl in the chair, who was now staring at Bailey as though she had just stepped off a spaceship. The woman had to push the girl’s shoulder hard before she vacated the chair. “Go to the store and get her somethin’ to drink,” she said to the girl. “A Dr Pepper.” She looked back at Bailey. “You want color? A perm? Or maybe you want highlights? Or a cut? I’m Opal, by the way.”
“No, really,” Bailey said. “I just wanted to—” Ask some questions, she started to say, but the two of them were staring at her so hard that she couldn’t bear to disappoint them. “I just need a wash and blow-dry,” she heard herself say, and the next moment the woman took over. She took Bailey’s arm and almost pulled her into the chair, while her daughter came alive enough to scurry out the front door in search of the nearest Dr
Pepper.
As Bailey left the hairdresser, she kept her back straight, and when she got into her car, she waved at Opal and Carla, who were watching her through the window.
With a smile plastered on her face, Bailey drove out of Calburn, but the minute she was on the outskirts, she stopped under some trees and turned off her car. Digging in her handbag, she pulled out her big hairbrush, then got out to stand in the shade and brush her hair. The woman must have used half a can of mousse on her hair! Then she’d lacquered it down with spray that Opal said was guaranteed not to let her hair move even in a windstorm.
For a moment, Bailey leaned back against the trunk of a tree and closed her eyes. The hour-long ordeal had been exhausting! She’d been quizzed about her marriage, her husband, and her childhood. It had taken all Bailey’s energy to lie without seeming to lie, to give answers while giving no answers.
Since Opal talked nonstop, she didn’t seem to notice that Bailey wasn’t really saying much at all. But her daughter Carla, sitting in the second chair, now and then gave Bailey a sideways look, as though to say that she knew she was being evasive.
It had taken all the cunning that Bailey possessed to get Opal to give information rather than try to extract it. Since Bailey couldn’t tell Opal anything that she didn’t want all of Calburn to know, she had to be subtle as well as pushy as a Sherman tank. “I’m just so interested in Calburn,” Bailey said, trying to sound young and innocent. Carla had given her one of her disbelieving sideways looks.
“Not much to know,” Opal had said as she wrapped Bailey’s hair around a little brush roller.
Bailey tried not to think about Shirley Temple. “I’m sure the history of the town is fascinating.”
Opal had stopped rolling and stared hard at Bailey in the mirror. “You’re not here about the Golden Six, are you?” There was hostility in her voice, and anger on her face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bailey said honestly, and she was glad that she wasn’t asking about whatever it was that made Opal look like that. On the other hand, she couldn’t resist asking, “What’s the Golden Six?”
“Calburn’s claim to fame, that’s what,” Opal said, then told Carla to hush up when her daughter snorted in derision.
“Now tell me more about your husband that died,” Opal said as she picked up an even smaller roller and pulled Bailey’s hair so tightly around it that her eyes began to water.
It was while Bailey was under the hair dryer that Carla walked past her and dropped a folded piece of paper on top of her magazine. Without thinking, Bailey hid the note and later slipped it into her pants pocket.
So now, Bailey removed the paper and looked at it. “Violet Honeycutt knows all about Calburn” was written on the paper. “Yellow house at the end of Red River Road.” Below that was a little map, showing that Red River Road was very near where she was now.
Bailey gave her hair another brush, then went back to her car, smiling. For all that Carla’s manner and looks were off-putting, Bailey rather liked the girl.