Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

you.”
    “How?” I asked.
    “I’ll put in a call to Neil’s lawyer. Neil’s responsible for this under the terms of your divorce. Good old Lucas Harmon will have to force Neil to part with some of his stash.”
    “Again. How ?” The only thing my ex-husband was better at than hiding his cash was holding on to it.
    “I know Lucas.”
    Big deal. Everyone in the county knew Neil’s lawyer. Lucas Harmon wasn’t as scary as Lucinda, but he was a scoundrel and was very successful. His clothes cost a small fortune. The guy always looked tan, even in the dead of winter. He lived, conveniently, in the same waterfront condo complex as Neil and his bimbo business partner, Theda Oates. It was a wealthy building. The Town Crier ’s executive editor, Ken Rhodes, also lived there, though how a newspaper editor could afford such extravagant digs, I couldn’t say. Apparently the rich had their secrets, and the mysterious Ken Rhodes had more than his share of them.

3
    It was too hot inside my house for coffee, but I made a pot anyway. The kids were still at school, poor things, in classrooms that I felt certain were nearly as sweltering as conditions were at home. Lucinda Maynard had assured me my air conditioner would be fixed, so at least we were due to get some relief.
    “I guess you didn’t get your hair straightened after all,” my mother said, standing outside my patio door. She had come through the backyard shortcut that linked our two properties and slid the screen open.
    “Obviously, Ma. I feel like Shirley Temple. I guess you heard about Dizzie.” I poured two cups of coffee and looked around for something to eat. There was fruit in a bowl on the kitchen table, but I wasn’t that desperate yet.
    “Everyone heard about Dizzie. It’s a shame. She was awfully young. Screwy, but funny. I guess they’ll close down the salon now. Without Dizzie, it really isn’t worth going there. Kate said you tried CPR.”
    “What little CPR I could remember. What else did Kate say?” I asked.
    “Just that Dizzie died.”
    “Did she mention the circumstances?”
    My mother nodded and took a sip of coffee. “Your sister told me a little about it. She said Ron was interested in the pictures she took on her cell phone, particularly the water on the floor and on the chair next to the one you girls found Dizzie kneeling on.”
    At the time, I didn’t notice the water on the chair, but I remembered slipping on the wet floor. If Dizzie had hit her head and fell headfirst into the filled sink, some of the water could have splashed out onto the tiles. I tried to recall if Dizzie’s arms were wet, too. I was certain her arms were outside the sink—not that it mattered. She could have splashed her arms when her head hit the water.
    “Mom, did Kate say if anything else was wet in the shop?”
    “As a matter of fact, she said the cabinets were wet and there were big puddles beneath the sinks. She got a shot of the cabinets before you yanked Dizzie out of the water.”
    I had a feeling the entire area where Dizzie drowned, not to mention Dizzie herself, was saturated. I thought that would probably be the result of Dizzie thrashing about—which meant Dizzie was most likely fighting off an assailant and did not have a stroke or an accident.
    “I think she was killed, Mom,” I said.
    “I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised,” my mother agreed.
    Ordinarily, my mother’s comment would have been absurd. Tranquil Harbor wasn’t exactly the crime capital of the East Coast, yet lately things had gotten a little funky in our small New Jersey shore community. A murder wasn’t exactly out of the question.
    “Well, expect someone else to get killed if Lucinda Maynard can’t get Neil to cough up the money to fix the air unit,” I said. “I can’t tell you what it’s like sleeping upstairs with hot air coming out of the vents.”
    “Your dad and I can lend you the money to get it fixed,” my mother offered.
    “Thanks anyway, but I