Contrive to Kill: A Valerie Urniak Mystery, #2

CHAPTER ONE

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I had rung for the elevator, using my left hand as I was wont to do these days, when my fiancé, John Wilson, stepped into view in the hallway.

There’s a call for you, Val, he said, loudly enough for me to hear him, but softly enough that he wouldn’t disturb the neighbors.

The contractor? I asked, starting back toward our apartment. The work was progressing steadily on my second hair salon, slated to open in a few weeks. Its future manager, my employee and friend, Claudia Williams, was supervising the remodeling of a former barbershop into a unisex hair salon. At times, however, because she was not quite recovered from the injuries she’d sustained when her boyfriend tried to kill her, she didn’t always make it to the salon early enough. When that happened, I ended up getting called if any questions came up.

It’s a woman, John said. Not Claudia, he added, as if anticipating my next question, and it’s not one of ‘The Bees’ either. I’d recognize their voices.

I know you would, honey, I said. I was at his side now, and put my hand – my left hand – on his chest and rose on tiptoe to kiss him. I hope it’s not a client calling here to cancel, instead of calling the shop.

My decidedly not a unisex salon was less than a quarter-block from our apartment. Some of the clientele had figured out that I’d moved close to my business. It was probably inevitable that someone would call me at home when there was no answer at the beauty shop.

It could be time to invest in an answering machine for the shop. I hadn’t done so yet because having my phone answered by a machine instead of a person might confuse some of my older clients. Some of them might have trouble hearing the message. After all, you couldn’t ask a machine to speak up. The other drawback was the machines I had seen so far were pretty bulky, as they required two cassette tapes, one for the outgoing message and one for the incoming message. I couldn’t imagine how I would fit something that size on the reception desk and have room for our also substantially sized appointment book.

I entered the apartment John and I had been sharing for almost three months. He’d moved in right after we got engaged, which happened not all that long after we’d met. But as he’d said when he’d proposed, sometimes you know when it’s right. He had spoken the truth about that, but I had nonetheless insisted on a long engagement.

I went into the study where our phone was, and picked up the receiver using my left hand so I could once again admire the way my diamond engagement ring sparkled. I thought I would never get tired of doing that.

This is Valerie, I said into the phone.

Val?

There was something vaguely familiar about the voice, but I couldn’t quite place it. She sounded too young to be one of the clients I’d be working on today, but it could be someone who had an appointment with one of ‘The Bees,’ as John had nicknamed my two stylists, Brenda and Beverly.

Yes.

Val—it’s Jill.

How did you get this number? I demanded sharply.

She gave a short laugh I remembered well, the one she used whenever she thought some question was too stupid to be believed. From Information, where else?

I’d been assigned a new phone number when I moved into this apartment, and I’d had the option to have the number unlisted. Why hadn’t I done that – or put the number in John’s name instead of mine? I reminded myself that we hadn’t been living together then. It was already hard to remember a time when he hadn’t been in my life.

What do you want, Jill? My tone was cold. I was already sorry I hadn’t hung up when she’d identified herself.

As Jill talked, I sank down into a chair. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. More than that, I couldn’t believe when I was hearing it.

"Why are you telling me this now? I asked when she’d finished. Shouldn’t you have made this call weeks ago?"

I didn’t have to call you at all, you know, she said defensively. They wouldn’t have wanted me to call you, you know that. But I found some of your stuff in the house, and I thought you might like to have it back. Maybe it will give you some of that—you know—closure. Isn’t that what they call it?

I rolled my eyes at her use of psychobabble, but agreed on a day and time to meet her before I hung up.

John came out of the bathroom, a towel slung low about his hips, droplets of water glistening on his shoulders. He’d been in the shower while I was on the phone.

Was it a client? he asked.

I shook my head. No. It was my sister.

He frowned as he moved toward me. I don’t think you’ve mentioned having a sister before.

I tried to smile but couldn’t. See why I said we need more time to get to know each other? Since the day we got engaged, he’d been pressing me to set a date for our wedding. I’d been holding fast to my belief that we should wait at least a year to get married. I’ve got to get to work.

Not so fast. He put a hand on my arm to stop me from racing out the door. You look upset, hon. What did she want?

I’ve got to get to work, I repeated.

Val—

I sighed. She called to tell me my parents are dead.

As a homicide detective, John usually has control over his expressions, but when I looked at him, his shock and surprise were clearly written on his face. He was close to his own family, even to his younger brother who had married John’s former fiancée. What happened?

They were in an auto accident. It happened a few weeks ago.

And she’s telling you about it now? he asked, his tone incredulous.

That’s what I said. I had intended the statement to sound like a joke, but I couldn’t manage a light tone; it came out bitter. She said she wasn’t supposed to contact me because that’s how they wanted it. I told you how they’d disowned me after—

He wrapped me in his arms. I was tempted to pull off his towel so we’d end up back in the bedroom, but I knew our schedules wouldn’t allow that.

She’s clearing out their house because she’s selling it. She found some of my old things stored there. She called because she thought I might like to have them back.

Were you two close growing up? he asked, quickly followed by, Is she older than you or younger?

Younger, I said, by just a little over a year. And I thought we were close...

So after your parents disowned you and everything else happened, why didn’t the two of you stay in touch?

Because she married Roger Carter. Roger was my ex-husband, or that should be non-husband. We hadn’t simply divorced; our marriage had also been annulled by the Church. I kissed John’s stunned face. I’ve got to get to work now.

CHAPTER TWO

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I was late, but I was the boss, so my tardiness wouldn’t be a problem.

Except it was. When I walked into my shop, Beverly, my newest employee, was standing at her station, scissors in hand, ready to begin cutting a young woman’s nearly waist-length hair. The blade of her scissors was already beneath the hair at the nape of the girl’s neck.

Beverly, I said softly, so as not to startle her into taking an unintentional snip, I can see you’re busy, but I need to speak to you for a moment. This won’t take long. I used an apologetic tone as I directed those last words to the twenty-something girl in Beverly’s chair.

Beverly followed me into my hybrid office-supply closet-laundry room. She looked a little worried, and I thought that perhaps she should be.

Why does she want her hair cut? I asked Beverly without preamble.

She recently graduated from college. She’s going to start working in an office downtown, and wants to look more businesslike.

That was plausible, and I was relieved Beverly had found out that much. But I wanted to know more. How short does she want it?

She wants a cut like the girl on that TV show has, Beverly said. That comedy with the skinny blonde girl.

Since John had come into my life, my television watching was quite curtailed, although he had brought a color TV with him when he moved in with me. When we met, John had been surprised to discover that I had a black-and-white television in 1973. I had told him it worked so I’d seen no point in replacing it. Then my TV had been broken when my old apartment was vandalized. John had jokingly said when he proposed that marrying him meant I’d finally get a color TV.

I didn’t watch much TV these days, but I thought I knew who Beverly was talking about; I’d seen commercials for the show sometimes when John was watching sports. You mean that petite girl with a layered cut, very short and fluffy.

Beverly nodded eagerly. That’s the one. The actress is Sandy— She frowned before saying, Dugan? doubtfully. That’s not it. It’s Sandy Something—her last name will come to me in a minute, I’m sure.

I didn’t need to know her full name. My antennae were already up. I think I’d like to speak to your client before you do anything. Would you ask her to come in here?

Did I do something wrong? Beverly’s worried look was back.

I wouldn’t know until I talked to the girl, but the answer was probably yes. We’ll discuss it later, I said gently. Would you ask her to come in here now? I repeated.

What’s going on? the girl asked petulantly as she entered my office. All I want is to get my hair cut.

That’s what I want to talk to you about.

It was, as I’d suspected, a case of mixed motivation. Marissa was starting a new office job and did need a more polished look. But in addition to that, her boyfriend had dumped her over the weekend for a girl Marissa knew slightly. The new girlfriend had that actress’s haircut. Some young women thought they would be able to win back their boyfriend if they looked more like the girl who had replaced them. But that seldom proved to be true.

I eased her into a discussion about the texture of her hair, which was thick and wavy. She said it had a tendency to bush out during humid weather. She admitted that the last time she’d worn it short, at times her hair had looked like a dandelion gone to seed. In the end, we decided a shoulder length cut with slightly angled sides would give her both a change and the more professional look she wanted, yet it would be long enough to pull back and look neat and businesslike if rainy weather made her hair hard to control. We went back out to Beverly, and let her know the change in the style Marissa wanted. Before I left her in Beverly’s hands, I assured Marissa if she did change her mind and wanted the shorter cut in the next couple weeks, that haircut would be on the house.

By that time, my first client had arrived, and my day took off like a shot, client after client. I was glad, because it kept me too busy to think about anything else. Brenda hurried off at the end of the day because it was her bowling league night. Beverly and I went through our daily routine to put the shop back in order. While Beverly swept, and I picked up the used towels and wiped down our styling chairs, I reminded her of my shop’s philosophy, which wasn’t quite ‘the customer is always right.’ I’d learned long ago that a desire for a drastic hair change made during a time of emotional turmoil usually resulted in disaster. It was better to spend a little more time talking to the clients to determine the motivation behind their desire for the change than to give them what they thought they wanted without question and later be blamed for ruining their hair – or, with the more dramatic clients, their lives. When a client thinks you’ve done that, you wouldn’t see them again. But if they were persuaded to postpone the drastic shearing they thought they wanted, it wasn’t long before they realized what a huge mistake it would have been to make that kind of change. As a result, they tended to show a lot of loyalty to the hairdresser who kept them from months, if not years, of growing out an awful, unflattering hairstyle.

Beverly had previously worked at a salon that insisted on a high turnover of clients – a kind of hair mill to my way of thinking. She was still getting used to the slower, more customer-oriented philosophy of my shop, but I didn’t think that would be a long-term problem. She had already adjusted with ease to the other way in which I ran my shop differently than most. I treated my stylists as employees, paying them a salary rather than making them rent space from me in order to ply their trade.

When Brenda left, I locked the door behind her and headed to my office to wash a load of towels and go over the books.

The phone rang as I sat down at my desk. It was John.

I’m on a case. I don’t know how late I’ll be.

Okay. I’ll pick up some sandwiches. They’ll be in the fridge in case you don’t get to eat before you come home, and I’m already asleep when you get there. Want anything special?

You – and that ring you wear shows I’ve already got you.

My heart melted. Try not to be too late, I said before I hung up.

My ring. I held my left hand out before me. I wasn’t one who dreamt about getting an engagement ring. I had thought I would never, ever, marry again after my disastrous teenage marriage ended. Earlier in the year, when my stylist Brenda got engaged – at nineteen – I’d found it mildly amusing that she spent every spare moment polishing her tiny diamond.

Now that I had a ring of my own with a much more sizable diamond than Brenda’s – though I took care not to point that out – I was surprised to find myself doing everything I could with my left hand so I could see it sparkle and flash in the light. I wouldn’t have believed I’d be the type of woman who’d behave that way, but it turned out I was.

John had also proven that some other of my long-held beliefs about myself were erroneous.

The books worked out fine; the shop was showing a healthy income, which was good because when the new shop opened shortly, this shop might have to carry the new shop until it got itself established. I had optimistically, but unrealistically as it turned out, hoped to have the new shop open within a month of my decision to go ahead with it. I had forgotten how slow it could be getting building permits from the City of Chicago, and dealing with the S.B.A. to get loans for the remodeling that the former barbershop needed and for the equipment I’d have to buy. I’d also forgotten the possibility of delays due to backorders from the suppliers of that equipment. It turned out to take almost three times as long as I’d hoped, but the opening day was finally in sight.

This was the first day I could remember that Claudia hadn’t called to report some new crisis, either with the shop itself or with our equipment orders. I picked up the phone and dialed the new shop’s number.

Hair for One, Claudia answered.

What?!

Val? I was trying out a name. What do you think?

It’s awful, I said, laughing.

We’ve got to come up with something by the middle of next week, if the sign for the shop and all our business cards and ads are going to be ready in time.

I know, I know, I said. You make a list and I’ll make a list, and we’ll go over them together. We might find the same name on both lists. That was doubtful. We’d been disagreeing on names since I’d decided to go ahead with this enterprise. How did things go today?

Pretty good. All the plumbing’s in, and the painters are coming tomorrow. That shouldn’t take long, since the place isn’t that big. The rest of the equipment’s due next week, and I’ve got interviews lined up for stylists.

Are you sure this isn’t too much for you?

I told you, I’m fine. You know the cast is off already, but I have to wear the sling because of what he did to my shoulder. But I barely need any pancake on my face anymore. My freak show days are over.

Claudia’s nose had been broken so badly that it had been almost flattened, and she had sustained so many bruises from her near-fatal beating that she had referred to herself as a freak show for a while. I was glad to hear she no longer considered herself that. Surgery had restored her nose to normal, her bones had knit themselves back together, and her bruises were a shadow of what they had once been. I don’t want you overdoing it, I cautioned her.

What else have I got to do? she asked lightly. Val, the plumber wants to show me where the main shut-off valves are. Got to run.

I was seeing a different side of Claudia these days. In the three years she had worked for me, she was always man-crazy, flitting from boyfriend to boyfriend, always sure the current one was going to be Mr. Right. Her last boyfriend had definitely been Mr. Wrong: a murderer who had tried to kill her and then me. I got off scot-free compared to what Claudia had gone through.

After that experience, Claudia had decided to swear off men and concentrate on her career – which is hard to do when you’re a hair stylist and Mr. Wrong has left you with a broken arm, not to mention a broken nose and a few broken ribs. I had been toying with the idea of a second salon before the attempts on our lives. After that, I decided to go ahead with the idea, and put Claudia in charge of the renovation as soon as she recovered enough to handle it. She would be both a stylist and the manager at the new shop once it was open. She took to her new duties like a duck to water, and not once had I heard her planning her future with one of the carpenters or plumbers or other workmen she encountered on a daily basis.

I hoped this was a seminal change in her, and not a temporary change wrought by the trauma she’d gone through and the injuries she had received. I would hate to see this more sensible behavior disappear once she was completely healed.

I locked up the shop and headed down the street to the deli, feeling a little guilt. John hadn’t said he expected me to take on a traditional role and prepare our meals on a regular basis because we were living together. In fact, in the time that I’d known him, I’d only cooked something for him once. But I’d been raised in a traditional household, and sometimes couldn’t help but feel guilty that we relied more on restaurants and carryout places than we did on our own kitchen.

Gus, the deli owner, greeted me by name. I’d been a regular since opening my shop, and now that I lived less than a block away, my visits to the deli were more frequent. I ordered one sub for me, two for John, and threw in a container of tossed green salad. John was a carnivore, of that there was no doubt, and I worried about the long-term effect of his meat-heavy diet on his health. I might not be ready to marry him, but I wanted him around for a very long time.

Back at the apartment, I picked at my sandwich. After years of solitary meals, I had adjusted quickly and easily to having someone to eat with; I found that having to eat by myself did not whet my appetite.

Or perhaps, I admitted, that was not what had caused my loss of appetite. The cause could be my conversation this morning with my sister, along with the prospect of seeing her again. The last time I had seen her was almost seventeen years ago, when I’d walked in and found her in bed with my husband.

CHAPTER THREE

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Roger Carter had been my husband in the legal sense of the word; we had, after all, been married by our parish priest. Otherwise, the term was erroneous, as I had no affection for him and would have rejoiced had he fallen off the face of the earth. Some could have viewed us as high-school sweethearts, but that term, too, was incorrect. Had it not been for the fact that I, a bookworm and honor student, had decided to try out for cheerleader when my senior year was approaching and had made it onto the squad, Roger Carter might not have known I existed.

I was probably unknown to many of my classmates, too. But everyone in the school knew who Roger was, the star all-round athlete, the one everyone was sure would become a professional in whatever sport he decided to concentrate on. I was both dumbfounded and honored when he’d asked me to go out with him a month after our senior year started.

After a few dates, however, my girlfriends were more thrilled than I was about our dating. Roger was no scholar; there was little in his head other than sports, which, despite my becoming a cheerleader, bored me silly. His other interest was getting in my pants; every date ended with me fighting him off. I had decided the prospect of being named class couple in the yearbook was not worth it, and by Thanksgiving planned to break up with him. My new girlfriends on the cheerleading squad advised me to keep going out with him at least until the Valentine’s Day dance so I’d have a date for that. Against my better judgment, I listened to them.

After a party on New Year’s Eve, Roger raped me. He then came to my house while my family was out on New Year’s Day and repeated that assault multiple times.

By Valentine’s Day, I was married to Roger. I’d become pregnant as a result of being raped. My parents forced the marriage on us, which was the norm for that kind of situation at that time. Even now, in 1973, as liberal as the times were, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn parents still tried to force a pregnant teenaged daughter into marriage. Of course, with the advent of The Pill and drugstores selling male contraception openly on their shelves, there were probably fewer teen pregnancies and forced marriages these days. At least I hoped that was the case.

I had been raised Catholic, so had believed our marriage meant I was stuck with Roger for life. But our baby, a little girl I’d named Eleanor, died of crib death when she was six weeks old. A few weeks after that, when I’d come home from the night school course I was taking at a junior college, I walked in to find Roger in bed with a woman.

I didn’t recognize her at first. In fact, I barely knew what they were doing. Roger had done nothing but rape me during our marriage. The neighborhood doctor I went to for my prenatal care had been appalled at the amount of internal damage I had as a result of Roger’s assaults. Dr. Harris ordered him to cease relations with me during the course of my pregnancy. After I delivered, I’d had an emergency hysterectomy to prevent me from bleeding to death. Because of the childbirth and the surgery, Roger and I had not resumed relations, and I’d been living in dread of the day that we did.

I stood in the doorway watching as a slender young woman with hair down to the middle of her back straddled the man who was legally my husband and moved against him with undulations I didn’t know human bodies were capable of achieving. Roger’s hands were on her breasts, and from his mouth came words of endearment, encouragement, and groans of pleasure, not the venom he spat at me as he pounded mercilessly into my body. As I watched, he grabbed her hips and held her in place as he thrust against her. She arched her back, her cries mixing with his before she collapsed on him. As she moved to his side, she shook back her hair, and I saw her face for the first time.

She didn’t act startled or guilty when she saw that I’d been watching them from the doorway. Instead, she raised up on one elbow and looked at me defiantly. I told you I wanted him, my sister Jill said.

That was true. She’d said that to me when I’d told her Roger and I were through after the rape, before I knew I was pregnant. But I hadn’t told her why I didn’t want to see him anymore; I didn’t want anyone, including my sister, to know I’d been raped. Jill thought me a fool to let such a good catch get away. That was when she told me that she would do anything to get him herself. I tried to warn her away from him, but she wouldn’t listen to me.

A smug expression overlaid the defiance on her face. And you saw that he wants me, too.

How— My voice came out as a croak. I cleared my throat and tried again. How long has this been going on?

Jill cast a glance at Roger, who was lying there looking unconcerned by the situation. Her hair had tumbled forward, and she shook it back once again to get her hair away from her face. Or possibly, she’d done that to make sure I saw that her breasts were much fuller than mine, as if she thought I wasn’t already aware of that. It started right after you moved into this place.

I was stunned. We had moved into this apartment, above the beauty shop where I worked, within a month after our forced marriage. Their relationship had been going on all this time, and I’d had no idea? Suddenly I remembered the many times I came home from working late to find Jill in the apartment with Roger. But I had not suspected a thing.

Why aren’t you pregnant? At the moment, that was what seemed most unfair to me. Why had I become pregnant immediately when she hadn’t?

Jill smiled, a smile I recognized. It meant I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear. But I am. We just found out. We were celebrating. I guess that’s why we lost track of the time.

I didn’t buy that last part for a moment. I knew my sister enough to know she had orchestrated this evening with this result in mind. Having me find out they were involved wasn’t all that she’d wanted; she’d wanted me to find out about them in this way.

I’ve talked to Father Pete. Roger finally spoke up. He said we can get an annulment since you’re sterile, and the baby’s dead. I’ve told him to get it started. But it turns out, that takes a while. I talked to a lawyer too. We can get a civil divorce now, and a Church annulment when they’re finally ready.

Good. If Roger thought those words and his actions to end our marriage were going to hurt me, he was sadly mistaken. The sooner I’m done with you – with both of you – the better.

I went to the closet and snatched some clothes off hangers, went to a dresser drawer and scooped up some more, making sure I included the outfit Eleanor had worn home from the hospital. I took the small framed photo of my daughter, the sole picture we had of her, from the nightstand. Something fluttered to the floor when I picked up the frame, a business card. I picked it up and kept it in my hand as I carried my things through the apartment to the kitchen. We didn’t have any luggage and we didn’t have any boxes either, so brown paper grocery bags would have to do. I filled two bags, all I could easily carry, and left