Curl Up and Dye - Liliana Hart Page 0,3

the van and the third row. There was a man sitting in the back seat, his head lolled to one side and his face waxy and pale with death. He also appeared to be naked. Hank felt the blood drain out of his face and he looked between his sisters and the body they’d been transporting.

“Somebody had better start explaining right now,” he said.

“Hey, you’re the big-shot detective,” Hazel said. “Doesn’t seem so hard to figure out to me. I’m more concerned about the fella I shot. That seems like something that would come with a lot of paperwork.”

“You were in a shoot-out?” Agatha asked, pulling out her phone.

Hank examined the big swollen purple patch of traumatized skin around Hazel’s right eye. It had blistered into hues of blue and green over the course of their conversation.

“Enough of this,” Hank demanded. “Start talking or I’m hauling you all down to the sheriff’s office. How’d you get that black eye?”

“It’s his fault,” Hazel said, pointing to the dead guy.

“Are you telling me that’s a real person in your van? An actual dead man?”

They looked at him like he was the one who’d lost his mind. “Of course it’s a real dead person,” Patsy said. “He fell right out of the hearse.”

“Oh God,” he heard Agatha say.

Brenda and Gayle had gotten back in the van and pulled the dead man out onto the lawn. “I’m not riding with him over to the hotel,” Brenda said.

“Are you telling me this man fell out of a hearse, and instead of stopping and calling the police, you picked him up and put him in your van?”

“We had to,” Betty said defensively. “Those men were shooting at us. If Hazel hadn’t shot back we’d probably all be dead.”

The others were nodding in agreement.

“It all happened very fast,” Brenda said.

“Wow,” Heather said. “Some family, Hank.”

“Heather,” Agatha said. “Not now.”

“Heather,” Hank said. “You leave now unless you want to become part of another murder investigation. Agatha, call 911 and get Coil here ASAP. And you five start talking, and you’d better be telling the truth or I’m going to arrest you all.”

“We did not raise you to behave this way, Hank Davidson,” Gayle said. “It is clear to me this woman has been a bad influence on you.”

“That’s my cue to go,” Heather said, and trotted back to her car as fast as her spiked heels would carry her.

Hank was glad Agatha had moved away from the group so she could make phone calls. His head pounded, from the heat and the chaos, and he walked away from the circle of women and went to stand over the body. He could deal with the dead. It was the living who were the problem.

“Umm…Hank,” his neighbor from across the street said. “Maybe you could drape this over the…umm…you know.” She swallowed and tried not to look at the corpse in his yard. “There’s kids on this street.”

“I’m sorry about this,” he said, taking the sheet from her.

“You definitely made the neighborhood more interesting since you moved here,” she said. Hank didn’t even know what her name was, but clearly she knew him. “Most exciting thing that ever happened before you was forty years ago when Wally Tabor fell off his roof and broke his neck dressed like Santa. Congratulations on the wedding, by the way. We’re real excited about it.”

Hank wondered who else was coming to their wedding. Probably the whole town. “Thanks,” he said. “And thanks for the sheet. I’ll get it back to you.”

Her eyes got big and she pursed her lips. “You can keep it, honey.”

“Right,” Hank said, and went to cover the body.

Spots danced in front of his eyes and the heat from the sun was oppressive. It rose from the ground in waves and pressed from above like a laser. He’d lived in Texas two years, and he still wasn’t used to the heat. They were still having snow in Philadelphia.

“You don’t look so good,” Agatha said, coming up next to him. “Why don’t you go inside with your sisters and I’ll wait out here for Coil to arrive. He’s on the way now.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“I’m sorry I pressed about having your family here,” she said. “I never want to hurt you or put more stress on you than you already carry. I didn’t realize.”

“I should have told you why things were so bad in the first place,” he said. “You only knew what I told you. And maybe it’s not such a bad