“Trina, I don’t care what you had to drink.”
“I’m getting the picture.” Her eyes flashed open. “You want the picture, I need to get it first. So it was a smoothie. A banana-almond smoothie. We make killers. And he comes up, real polite. ‘Excuse me, Miss,’ like that. He noticed I was in charge, and since he’d had to wait awhile he’d noticed, too, how skilled I was.”
She smiled to herself. “So I didn’t tell him to flip, that I was on a break. He wanted to know how to arrange an at-home appointment. Not for him, though, not for him, wait a minute.”
Frowning, she picked up her wine, sipped again while Eve struggled not to just leap up and pound the rest of the details out of her.
“His wife? Yeah, yeah, yeah, at-home for his wife. She wasn’t well, and how he thought it would make her feel better to have her hair done, maybe a facial, a mani, pedi, like that. A package treatment.”
“Trina—”
“Wait a damn minute. Let me get a fix on it. I’m telling him how we arrange this, the fees, and so on, and he’s wondering if I’d consider doing this on my day off. So I wouldn’t have to rush back to work, but could give his wife as much time as she wanted. Whenever it suited me. He even showed me a picture of the wife. He’d be happy to pay whatever I think appropriate.”
“Did he give you an address?”
“You keep interrupting.” Obviously annoyed, Trina opened her eyes again. “No. I said how I’d need to check my book. So I did, taking my time, thinking it over. Even the older guys can be stringing you, you know? I was booked up for a while. I think I gave him a couple possible dates. A couple of weeks down the road. He said he’d check the dates out with his wife’s nurse, see which she thought would work best. He asked if I had a card, so he could contact me. I gave him one. And that was it.”
“He didn’t get back to you?”
“Nope. I thought maybe I saw him about a week later. Somewhere. Where was it? Oh, yeah, in this bar where I was having drinks with this guy I was thinking of doing. But I figured, nah. Not the kind of joint you see a suit with a sick wife.”
“He give you a name?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember. If I can pin down the mani he got, we’d have it on the books. First name anyhow. Is this the guy?”
Don’t rush it, Eve thought. Dot the i’s. “What color was your hair?”
“You gotta be kidding. It was, like, a month ago. Yeah, a month, like the first Saturday in February, because I remember thinking if we did business like that through the month, I was going to ask for a raise. We did, I did. And hey, thanks again,” she said to Roarke.
“Caramel Mocha,” Mavis murmured. “With Starfish highlights.”
“Yeah?” Trina turned to her. “You sure?”
“You did me Starfish with Candyland tips.” Mavis’s hand trembled a little as she reached for her glass. “I’ve got a memory for this stuff. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I think I feel a little sick.”
“You? I’m the one he was planning to torture and kill. I think I feel…” Trina pressed a hand to her belly, then squinted out of slitted eyes. “Pissed. That’s what I feel. That son of a bitch. Sick wife? Pay me whatever. He was going to kill me.” She picked up her wine, guzzled it. “Why didn’t he?”
“You changed it.” Mavis took slow, deep breaths. “You didn’t stick with that shade even a week. You went straight to Wild Raven with Snow Cap streaks.”
“Just back up,” Eve demanded. “This mocha bit? Does that translate to brunette?”
“On a basic level,” Trina confirmed. “Of course, the way I work it’s way beyond anything basic.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Yeah, yeah, I think. But he was wearing a hair enhancer.”
“Meaning wig?”
“A good one, too, but you’re talking to the expert. Hey, hey, that’s why I didn’t think it was him in the bar. He wasn’t. I mean he was, the hair enhancer wasn’t. At least not the same one. I didn’t get a close or long enough look to tell if it was hair or enhancer.”
“I want you to describe him. I want you to give me every detail you can remember about him. Appearance, voice, body type, gestures, any distinguishing marks. Everything. Tomorrow morning, you’ll work with a police artist.”
“Really? No shit? I’m like an eyewitness. Frosty.”
“Let’s take this up to my office. Think. Get him in your head.”
She pulled out her ’link. “Peabody. I need you to contact Yancy. I want him ready to work with a witness tomorrow. Seven sharp.”