A Fashionable Murder by Valerie Wolzien Read Free Book Online Page A

as she was told, thinking about how her previous relationship with Betty had changed. In the past, Josie had always been in the dominant role: as older woman, as employer, as the one with the more stable lifestyle. Now Betty was in charge and Josie followed.
    Not that there was a lot of time to think about any of this. Betty was urging her out of her dressing cubicle before Josie had managed to figure out if it was possible to tie the robe about her in a manner that made her look a bit less like a chunky upright summer sausage. Betty, not surprisingly, looked elegant.
    As did everyone else, she realized, looking around. Everyone else seemed to have freshly washed hair. Everyone else was wearing more makeup than Josie even owned. No one else looked like a meat by-product.
    “. . . on the hanger . . . keep . . .”
    “Excuse me?” Josie discovered the woman who had given her the robe standing by her side, one hand extended.
    “She wants your hanger,” Betty explained, giving hers away. “Keep the coat check. And keep your purse,” she added as Josie started to drape the strap over the hanger.
    “Oh . . .” Josie fumbled around until she had followed Betty’s directions, smiling awkwardly at the woman trying to help her.
    “Have a nice time,” the coat check lady said with a big smile, grabbing the hanger when Josie had finally gotten everything in order.
    “Yes, I’ll try.” Josie followed Betty out to the main area of the salon.

SIX
    “AND WHAT ARE we going to do here?” Two elegantly shaped eyebrows disappeared beneath thick bangs. Ten polished fingertips lifted Josie’s mop of red hair off her neck and then allowed the tangled curls to flop back onto her shoulders. “Just a bit nineteen-eighties . . . perhaps you’re ready for a change? A more grown-up look?”
    Josie frowned at the woman in the mirror. Now she knew why she was in the robe. Dressed in street clothes, she could have stood up and marched right out the door.
    “We can, of course, just wash and trim. But you have such an abundance of hair; it’s a shame not to take advantage of it. Many of my clients would give almost anything for raw material like this.”
    Well, that was better. “I think . . . ,” Josie began.
    “Josie leads a very active life. She needs something easy to take care of.” Betty spoke up from the chair next to Josie’s.
    “Well, we can do that, of course.” Josie’s hairdresser, who had introduced herself as Mia, bit her bottom lip and frowned. “I think something slightly shorter. And perhaps some highlights around the face. Of course, nothing that looks artificial. Just a few streaks as though the light is falling naturally from above.”
    “I . . .”
    Betty spoke up before Josie could protest. “Excellent. And maybe three or four inches off.”
    “Three or four!”
    “Why don’t I start with the highlights and we can figure this out as we go along?” Mia suggested, raising her seductively calm voice above Josie’s protests. “I do see a lot of split ends. Certainly you want those removed?”
    “Excellent idea,” Betty agreed. “Now about those highlights: Do you think maybe more than one shade . . .”
    Josie looked in the mirror from her friend to her newly acquired hairdresser; they were speaking a language she didn’t understand.
    “Certainly, and we could add a glaze after the wash. It might tone down the color a bit as well as add some extra shine.”
    “But that wears off in time. I think of Josie as . . .”
    Josie relaxed, deciding there was no reason to think of herself—or for herself. She’d leave the decisions up to the pros. It was hair. Whatever was cut off would grow back. And there really wasn’t any way they could make the color more outrageous than her genes had previously determined. She sat back, watched the activity around her in the mirror-lined walls, and, surprisingly, began to relax. Pamela Peel was dead. There was nothing she could do about it. She would let the