Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries) by Linda Ross (reading books for 7 year olds .TXT) 📗

Thelma and I made our way around back to the patio, which we’d pretty much skipped over on our last foray.  It was edged with boxwood shrubs in big planters, a few mums drying in smaller pots.  Wrought iron chairs sat around a metal table with a tile top.  The umbrella had apparently been put away for the winter.  It would be a nice place to sit and have a glass of wine.  There was a large fire pit in one corner and an iron sculpture of a bird taking flight.

“That’s nice,” Thelma said, indicating the bird.

“Umm-hmm.”  I was thinking about roasting marshmallows for s’mores over the fire pit.  I started to walk away, and then something occurred to me.  “An iron sculpture.  Remind you of anyone?”

“Loren Haskell,” Thelma said.  “He does iron work.  Didn’t he have sculptures like this in his barn?”

“So let’s just assume Stephanie was having an affair with him.”

“And he killed her?”

“Maybe she broke it off.  Or maybe it really was Kara who ran down Stephanie, and Loren found out.  Or maybe he saw it.  He doesn’t live very far.”

“So he killed Kara out of revenge?” Thelma asked.

“It makes sense, especially with the history between them.”

“Is there enough evidence to connect Kara to the hit and run?”

I ticked off what I knew on my fingers.  “It looks like Kara was still alive when Stephanie was run down, they had that brief argument just before Stephanie was killed, and there’s the damage to Kara’s car.”

“What about the damage to the tree at Kara’s house?” Thelma pointed out.

“Maybe she ran into the tree to cover up the fact that she’d hit Stephanie.”

“Makes sense.  So that leaves Loren as Kara’s killer.”

“We need to look around there again,” I said.

“No, we don’t.  We need to tell Jimmy and stay away from there.”

“I will, I will.  But I still want to have a look.”

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary,” Thelma groaned.

“Not right now.  Besides, he’s home.  I’d still like to talk to Jeffrey Connell to see if he knows anything.”

“You’re not going to dress up like a milkmaid again, are you?”

I punched her on the arm, and we headed back to the car.

We stopped by the office to let Lorenzo know where we were going.  He had a couple of small stories for each of us to write up later.  Mine was a cow with markings that spelled the dairy owner’s name, and Thelma’s was a five-year-old boy who could recite the Gettysburg address backwards.  Yeah, we couldn’t wait to dig into those stories.

Thelma had never heard of Jeffrey Connell’s car dealership, but I vaguely remembered some ads on TV.  It was a tiny farming town with a single grain elevator, and the car dealership was by far the biggest business.

We pulled into town less than half an hour later.  The car dealership was right on the highway, and we decided to see if Jeffrey was at work.

The lot was mostly trucks with a few SUVs sprinkled in, and I doubted that Jeffrey did a big business in a small town like this.  But trucks and SUVs would be the obvious choice in a farm area.

“Ready?” I asked Thelma as we got out of the car.

“We don’t have to pretend to be from the Church of the Divine Hairdo, do we?” she asked.

“No, I think we’ll go with the honest approach this time.”

There was a guy standing in the showroom, trying to pretend he hadn’t seen us drive up.  He had on an ill-fitting suit and shoes that had been polished so much that they were worn thin.  I knew he was itching to sell us something.  He probably didn’t sell a lot of vehicles here, and he wanted a commission.  I didn’t think he was Jeffrey Connell, because there was another guy sitting in an office off the showroom, hunched over a desk with a calculator in his hand.

“Are you ladies looking for anything in particular?” the guy asked, plastering a big smile on his face as he walked to meet us.  “We’ve got some zero financing specials going now, and I bet you’d look great in a pickup.”

“I don’t even look good in a Kia,” I told him.  “We’d like to talk to Jeffrey Connell.”

The guy’s face fell, and he cleared his throat.  “Well, he’s a little busy at the moment.”

“Just tell him it’s about Kara Koch.”

The color slowly drained from his face, and he cleared his throat again.  “Maybe you ought to speak to him yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the office.

As we headed toward the office he skittered off in the other direction.

“Touchy subject,” Thelma said in an undertone.

Jeffrey Connell was wearing a white dress shirt with a blue tie that had little lemons all over it.  Car salesman humor, I guess.  His hair was graying and thick, trimmed professionally.  At least it wasn’t styled by a dog groomer, like mine.

He looked up when we tapped on the door frame and for an instant I saw annoyance on his face.   But he quickly brought out the salesman’s smile.  “Can I help you?  Ron was just here if you’d like to look at some trucks.”

“Actually we’re here about Kara Koch,” I said.

Instantly his hand went to his neck, and then just as quickly he moved it away and gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk.  “Have a seat.”

We introduced ourselves, and he asked if we were with the police.

“No,” I said.  “We’re working on a newspaper story about the murder.  And we’re trying to get some background.”

He leaned back in his chair and tapped a finger on his desk.  “I’m not sure I want to talk about her.”

“I can understand,” I