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back.”
    â€œGood. I . . . holy crap! ”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œGrant, I . . . wow! Damn! I’ve gotta wash my hair now! ”
    â€œWhat?”
    I hung up. My scalp was burning up. I’d never gone blond before, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to hurt. I tossed the phone on the couch, next to my laptop, and shuffled my way to the side of my bathtub, turned on the faucet, and knelt beside the tub, removing the skullcap and purging my head of toxic dye beneath the blessed running water. The initial coolness actually felt really great. I rinsed my hair thoroughly, reached blindly for my hanging towel, and wrapped my aching head in it.
    Maybe I should’ve just taken Crystal’s advice and paid for her hair services. And Grant didn’t deserve what I had dished out, either, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m still that much of a New Yorker: get out of my way, or I’ll elbow you.
    What I had to learn was that, in the process, I could also do serious damage to my elbows.

Chapter 5
    Happily, I went through a scarf phase in college.
    I had called Thom and had told her that we would be opening the next day, which she had already guessed, and that we’d regroup and reorganize for a catered affair on Sunday night. She didn’t ask me anything of a cautionary nature, like “Are you sure you’re up for this?” or “Can you really stand to be around all the committee members and rival restaurateurs?”
    Thom was a friend, and she was a pro. She said she’d alert the troops.
    I spent the rest of the day losing myself in some TCM movie with Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker and an army of ants eating up a plantation. Heston won. So did Burt Lancaster in a movie about an Indian raid. I also tried to deal with the bad dye job. I finally gave up and slept a whole four hours that night. Upon waking, I gave in to the reality that I would have to spend the day with a sexy burnt-orange, canary-yellow head, all of it neatly tucked under a strategically placed head scarf. Throw on my finest pair of gold hoops to distract, and voilà! It wouldn’t be so bad.
    I decided to forgo my Starbucks latte and brew my own coffee that morning instead of doing my usual stop. I wanted to limit public appearances as much as possible until this whole dead bread guy, crazy hair thing blew over.
    Which it would do, right? The thing would die down until they made an arrest.
    Or not.
    I parked my car as usual in the garage, reluctantly said hello to Randy, and as I rounded the corner of Union on foot, I was greeted by WSMV Channel 4 news setting up their camera equipment. It was too late to turn around and go through the back entrance. I had been spotted by the over-teased, big coral-lipped reporter Candy Sommerton. Sommerton clicked her too-high heels as fast as she could over to me, which looked a little tricky considering the tightness of her skirt and matching blazer, which strained to stay buttoned against her greatest asset. There was a rumor that she had actually been the test model for a 3-D newscast.
    â€œYou must be Gwen. I’m—”
    â€œI know who you are, but I really need to get in and open up.”
    â€œThis will just take a second. Dave, come over here. Let’s get a medium shot in front of the Murray’s sign. Or better yet, can we set up in the back, where the murder took place?”
    Murder.
    It sounded so horrible used in a sentence. I guess I hadn’t fully committed to the idea that Joe was murdered. Not that I believed his neck spontaneously combusted or anything, though I did feel like that was about to happen to me.
    I pushed my way past Lady Longlegs and her goon and reached in my bag to put my key in the front door—the key I forgot that I didn’t have. I rapped hard on the glass.
    â€œGwen, wait!” I heard more heel clicking. I wished I could’ve clicked mine and just disappeared.
    The latch turned,