I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the one person who might be able to give me some answers about the lipstick: Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux. Her salon was close to Northern Aggression, so I decided to visit her first and see what I could find out before I reported back to Jade.
Twenty minutes later, I steered up a driveway and squeezed my car in next to several others already parked. The front door was always open during business hours, so I let myself into the white plantation house and walked down the long hallway to the back of the structure, which opened into an old-fashioned beauty salon.
Cherry-red salon chairs were lined up in a row along one wall while stacks of glossy magazines and plastic pink tubs full of nail polish covered all the tables. A long counter ran along another wall, bristling with combs, curlers, scissors, styling irons, nail files, makeup brushes, and every other beauty tool known to womanhood. The air smelled of hair dye and other chemicals, although the harsh aroma was somewhat softened by the sweet vanilla that Jo-Jo infused into her homemade healing ointments, facial scrubs, and other beauty treatments.
Thursday was one of the salon’s busiest days, since everyone was getting their hair, nails, and faces done for the weekend. Every chair in the salon was full, with several women reading magazines and letting their hair slowly set under the industrial dryers.
I headed over to the far corner of the room, where a middle-aged dwarf with perfect white-blond curls was painting the nails of a little girl who looked to be about five. The girl had on a poofy pink princess dress, along with a slightly askew silver plastic tiara and sparkly pink ballet shoes, as though today was a special occasion. Her mother sat nearby, waving her own freshly painted nails back and forth in the air to help dry them.
Jo-Jo looked up at the sound of my footsteps. So did Rosco, her basset hound, who was comfortably ensconced in his white wicker basket in the corner.
Her face creased into a smile. “Gin! What brings you here today?”
“I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Of course,” Jo-Jo said. “Just give me a few minutes to finish up with this little birthday princess.”
She winked at the girl, who let out a pleased giggle. Jo-Jo bent over the girl’s nails again, and I sank onto one of the sofas to wait. I eyed a stack of magazines on the table at my elbow, but they all focused on beauty tips, fashion, and hairstyles. Not exactly my milieu, but I picked up one and flipped through it just to have something to do. Beside me, two women in their early twenties with pink curlers in their hair chatted back and forth as they waited for Jo-Jo to get back to them.
“I can’t believe that you talked me into competing in the Miss Ashland Pageant,” one of the girls, a pretty brunette, complained. “If I’d known it was going to be this much freaking work, I would have told you no.”
The other girl, an equally pretty redhead, rolled her eyes. “And I told you that it would be an easy way to get some scholarship money. So chillax already and enjoy being pampered.”
The brunette huffed, crossed her arms over her chest, and slouched a little lower in her chair. “Well, I still say that our hunting trip to Cloudburst Falls next weekend will be way more fun than this.”
I brought my magazine up to hide my grin. Beauty pageants one weekend, hunting the next. Ah, the wide and varied interests of Southern women.
I agreed with the brunette, though. Hunting was always much more fun. And I was going to bag a serial killer before all was said and done.
Jo-Jo finished up with the little girl and her mom, then checked and made sure that her other customers were okay by themselves for a few minutes. She crooked her finger at me, and we headed into the kitchen for some privacy. Rosco let out a loud woof, heaved himself to his feet, and followed us in hopes of scoring a doggy treat.
Jo-Jo went over to the fridge, pulled out a pitcher of sweet iced tea, and poured herself a tall glass. She offered me some, but I held up my hand, declining.
She took a long drink of her tea before setting it aside and staring at me with her clear, almost colorless eyes. “What’s up, darling? What can I help you with? Does it have something to do with that poor missing girl? Sophia told me all about it when she came home from the police station last night.”
“Yeah. I found something that I want you to take a look at.”
I filled her in on everything that had happened, including the mysterious shadow lurking behind the Dumpster and the obvious clue that he’d left behind. I placed the lipstick on the butcher-block table between us.
“I figured that if anyone knew about this kind of makeup, it would be you. Have you ever heard of Glo-Glo lipstick? Do you know where they might sell it in Ashland?”
“Sure, I’ve heard of it,” Jo-Jo replied. “It’s a makeup company out of Bigtime, New York. They make good products. Lots of bright, vibrant colors at reasonable prices.”
I tapped my finger on top of the lipstick. “All this gold doesn’t look very reasonable to me. But of course, I’m no expert, which is why I came to the best.”
Jo-Jo winked at me. “Well, you certainly did that.”
She picked up the tube and examined it from all angles before pulling off the cap and examining the lipstick. She even went so far as to sniff the lipstick itself. After several seconds, she set the open tube back down on the table and held up her finger.
“Give me one minute. I’ll be right back.”
Jo-Jo left the kitchen and headed back into the salon. The second she was gone, Rosco crept even closer to me. The basset hound plopped down on the floor at my feet, let out a plaintive whine, and stared up at me with his big brown eyes. And he kept right on whining and wagging his tail, slapping it up against the side of my boot.
“All right, all right,” I grumbled. “You win. You know a softhearted sucker when you see one, don’t you, boy?”
Rosco woofed his agreement.
I plucked the lid off a large blue and white container shaped like a dog bone. The bright color and fun style reminded me of that chocolate cake cookie jar that Elissa had given to Jade. And just like that, my light mood vanished. I grabbed a dog biscuit out of the container and tossed it down to Rosco to munch on.
“Here we go,” Jo-Jo said, coming back into the kitchen. “I thought that I’d seen that fancy gold tube before.”
She put an open catalog down on the table and tapped her finger on a product on one of the pages. “Heartbreaker lipstick. A special anniversary product from Glo-Glo. Apparently, it was the very first color the company ever produced. They’ve been selling it for years in regular, cheaper packaging, but for the anniversary, they decided to dress it up in that gold case. It’s a nice red, and I thought about ordering a few tubes to resell to my clients, but the price is a little too steep for my tastes.”