A Parfait Murder by Wendy Lyn Watson Page B

the sun’s harmful rays. My mom had moles whacked off every year, no big deal. Besides, Mike brought it up in the context of ‘our house is pretty tense these days.’ He didn’t seem particularly worried, so I didn’t think it was anything serious.”
    “Well, apparently it is.”
    Finn pulled two kaiser rolls from a bakery bag, plopped them on a couple of plates, and handed one to me. He squinted his eyes and tilted his head, skeptical. “I saw Dani at the fairgrounds the other night. She looked fine.”
    “She’s in chemo. She’s lost all her hair.”
    “Naw . . . she has hair down to her shoulder blades.” He reached around to tap his own back to demonstrate how long her hair was.
    “It’s a wig,” I insisted.
    “Really? Huh. Well, I’m telling you, Mike hasn’t said a word.” The microwave beeped and he clicked open the door to give the barbecue a stir. “But. . .”
    “But what?”
    He shrugged. “The other night when I was at the Parlay Inn asking around about Sonny and his friend, I was talking with Mike. I don’t even remember how it came up, but he started going on about Dani being all grown up, entering this pageant, looking at college, starting to spread her wings, and he. . . well, he teared up.”
    “You didn’t mention that before.”
    His eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t mention that I found a penny on the way into the bar, either. Or that I bought a new three-pack of boxers.”
    “Don’t be a smart aleck. Mike getting all choked up over his daughter is a whole different thing.”
    “I didn’t think it was particularly relevant. At the time, I figured he was just maudlin from too many gin and tonics, thinking about where the time went, how his gap-toothed little girl in pigtails could be a grown woman. In retrospect, he might have been upset because she’s sick. But I still don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
    I felt a pang of contrition. After all, Finn was doing a lot of legwork for me and Bree, and I did sound as if I was accusing him of incompetence. “Sorry. I don’t know if I would have thought anything of it before today, either.”
    The microwave dinged again, and I held out my plate so Finn could pile barbecue on my bun. We made our way over to the dinette table and set our plates on his mama’s burgundy quilted place mats.
    “Today, though, Karla Faye told me that Kristen was disqualifying Dani from the pageant.”
    Finn pointed at my head with his fork. “Your hair looks nice, by the way. Cutting a little shorter brings out your curls.”
    A wave of pleasure washed through me. I patted my hair self-consciously. “Thanks. She did a nice job.”
    He winked at me, and a wave of something a lot more wicked washed through me.
    “Oh, hush,” I muttered. “Eat.”
    He picked up his sandwich and took a healthy bite.
    “Why disqualify her?” he asked around a mouthful of barbecue.
    “Mmm. No one is really sure, but the speculation is that it might be against pageant rules to wear a wig. Anyway, I got to thinking. If my daughter was sick and maybe dying and she wanted to win a pageant and someone told her she couldn’t even compete, I’d be mighty angry.”
    Finn narrowed his eyes thoughtfully while he finished chewing. “Did Mike even know about the disqualification?”
    “Yep. I went out to the Lilting Bloom and talked to Cookie Milhone. She’s on the board of the League of Methodist Ladies with Eloise Carberry, and she’s on the judging panel for the Rodeo Queen Pageant.”
    Finn shook his head in mock hurt. “I thought you brought me flowers because you care. And now I find out it was just cover for your snooping.”
    I let my lips curl in a coy smile. “Poor baby. I’ll make it up to you.”
    “Tallulah Jones. You vixen.”
    We both busted up laughing.
    “The point I’m trying to make, if you’d keep your mind out of the gutter, is that Cookie Milhone got a call from Kristen about needing to get the judges together to talk about Dani. And