Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak

clicking through to the other call, which I blamed on my new—cheap—telephone, but it gave me a moment to make up questions about the upcoming Easter potluck. This gave Jacob an opportunity to bring up dead bodies and police investigations, if he were so inclined, but Jacob was worked up about the plethora of cakes and pies coming to the potluck and the paucity of vegetables, and I had to promise a three-bean salad just to get off the phone. At least I'd established myself as being alive and well.
    It was time to call P.B. I got through to the floor supervisor in the RT building, who told me my brother had gone to breakfast in the dining hall.
    â€œDining hall?” I said. “That's acres away. I thought he ate in his room.”
    â€œOh, not since he's off the crutches. I think he's missed his friends.”
    â€œWh—when did he get off his crutches?”
    â€œOh, just a day or two ago. We can't hardly keep up with him.”
    I hung up, stunned. Just because someone can walk doesn't mean he's a killer, I reminded myself. Most people walk. Until I talked to P.B., it was useless to speculate, but it was now imperative to find out who Doc suspected of this murder. When he showed up, I intended to squeeze it out of him. Somehow. Drugs, maybe.
    A large yellow something danced past the window and then danced back. I turned and recognized it as Fredreeq, in lemon yellow toreador pants and matching sweater set, waving her arms in excitement. “Robert Quarter,” she yelled through the glass. I gave her a “huh?” kind of shrug and she shrieked. With a beckoning gesture, she danced off once more, to Neat Nails Plus, the business adjoining mine.
    In addition to her hours at my shop, Fredreeq was a part-time facialist at Neat Nails Plus. On Saturdays she opened and closed as well, for the Seventh-Day Adventist owners. Curious, I locked up my place and went next door to find Fredreeq plugging in hot wax machines and other sinister appliances in cubicles surrounding a fruit-laden altar. The salon staff was mostly Vietnamese, and the decor, with its red walls, shrouded lamps, and posters of Southeast Asia, was a combination Buddhist temple, travel agency, and opium den. “Don't tell me you've never heard of Robert Quarter,” Fredreeq said and disappeared through a bead curtain doorway into the salon's back room.
    â€œI've never heard of Robert Quarter,” I called. “But if it's about a date—”
    â€œGirl, don't you read the trades?” she yelled. L.A.'s two show business newpapers,
Daily Variety
and the
Hollywood Reporter,
were read by everyone from pool cleaners to migrant farm workers.
    â€œTell me later. I have to go open up,” I said, then stopped. Near the door was a coffee table buried in strata of periodicals a full foot deep. I pushed aside beauty magazines and grabbed up every newspaper in sight. “Fredreeq, I'm borrowing a paper,” I called out, my arms full, and ran back to the shop.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    â€œ
M AY I HELP you?”
    My first customer of the day looked up, startled, then dropped his head, like someone caught in a criminal act. He was about sixteen, with dismal posture and bad skin, and he stood at the LoveLetters, Ltd. spinner, spinning it slowly. He would take twenty minutes to choose a card, six days to write in it, and if the object of his desire did not respond, he would consider suicide. Sometimes my heart so ached for my customers, I wondered if I was cut out for this business.
    I returned to the table in the northeast corner, covered with newspapers and the crumpled half page of the
L.A. Times
I'd grabbed from the Donut Stop the night before. The other half was with Doc—the more interesting half, presumably, as mine had Ralph's grocery store coupons on one side and lottery results and auction notices on the other. Mine also had no date or page number, so I was going through the pilfered papers a