“This attack is similar to two others we’re investigating. Exploring a possible connection.”
“This is a crazy one,” Parsons said. “Unique, as crimes go. Perp was cutting a client’s hair. Ms. Bea walked by, said something and our girl went nuts. Came at her with her shears.”
“What’d she say?” Micki asked.
“Apparently, something she says all the time. ‘It’s good to be a queen.’ I don’t know, seems pretty innocuous to me.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. One of the other stylists said it was part of her schtick. You know, since it was the Queen Bee Salon and she was the Bee. Beatrice LaTour.”
“It’s kind of cute,” Carmine said. “You know, the play on words.”
Parsons shrugged. “I think so, too. Apparently Ms. Schaefer had heard it once too often.”
“How’d Schaefer end up dead?”
He opened his notebook, skimmed his notes. “Half dozen witnesses said the same thing. LaTour fought, blood flew, and suddenly Schaefer was on her feet, running toward the spa area.”
“Nobody stepped in to help? Or tried to stop her?”
“It happened so fast, they said. Shampoo girl locked herself in the color closet and called 9-1-1.”
“Mind if we ask the witnesses a few questions?”
“I’m done for now, go ahead.”
Micki and Carmine made the rounds. Every witness gave pretty much the same version of events. A sudden explosion of violence that ended as suddenly as it had begun.
A short time later they sat in her car, engine running. Micki looked at Carmine. “What do you say we stop by the hospital, see if LaTour is up to answering a few questions?”
“Works for me.” He snapped his seat belt. “I could blow off Blackwood’s connection to two dead queens, but not a third. Not yet.”
“She’s involved somehow. I know it.”
“Mad Dog,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s you. Mad Dog Dare.”
She cocked an eyebrow, amused. “Don’t want to give pit bulls a bad name, is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“Great,” she muttered, and pulled away from the curb. The name was just awful enough to stick.
Chapter Seventeen
1:20 P.M.
The doctors had admitted Beatrice LaTour for observation, even though her wounds were mostly superficial. Her husband and grown children were clustered around her bed; the woman looked pretty beat up.
After introductions, Micki said, “Ms. LaTour, are you up to answering a few questions?”
Her eyes filled with tears, her chin trembled, but she said she was. Micki looked at her family. “I’ll need you folks to wait outside while we interview her.”
One of the young men began to protest; LaTour’s husband stepped in. “It’s okay. You kids go on.” He looked back at Micki, expression determined. “I’m staying.”
She didn’t blame him and agreed. As the door shut behind them, she turned back to Beatrice LaTour. “I understand Liz Schaefer’s attack was completely unprovoked.”
She nodded. Her husband caught her hand, curved his fingers around hers.
“Do you remember the last thing you said before the attack?”
“It’s good…to be—”
“A queen?”
“Yes,” she managed.
“Fine. Ms. LaTour, Beatrice, do you recognize the name Renee Blackwood? She’s a local psychiatrist?”
She indicated she did and Micki went on. “How do you know her?”
“A client,” she managed, voice thick, slurry.
“Whose client?”
Her chin wobbled some more. “Liz’s.”
“Liz Schaefer’s? The woman who attacked you?”
A look of horror sprang into her eyes. She seemed to press herself back, into the bedding.
“Liz Schaefer?” she asked again, as gently as she could.
“Yes.”
“Was Liz also a patient of Dr. Blackwood’s?”
She shook her head. “Not that I— I don’t think so.”
“Were they friends?”
She shook her head again. Micki looked at Carmine, frustrated. Working to hide her disappointment. She had needed Blackwood to be counseling Schaefer. It would’ve furthered the connection between the other cases and established means and opportunity.
They were so close.
But so damn far.
Angelo stepped in. “Can you think of any other way Liz might have been interacting with Renee Blackwood?”
For a moment, the woman stared blankly at him. Then she blinked. “There was something…”
She went silent. Micki realized she was holding her breath and released it.
“Ms. LaTour,” Angelo prodded gently.
“That’s right, she was helping Liz—”
“Helping her what?”
“Quit smoking.”
Chapter Eighteen
1:55 P.M.
“That’s it!” Micki exclaimed as they simultaneously slammed their car doors. “We’ve got the bitch.”
“Not so fast, Dare. So Blackwood was helping her quit smoking. It doesn’t prove—”