Read Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) for Free Online Page B

now.”
    “You didn’t know she’d stopped on account of you writin’ for the magazine.”
    “That’s just it. I should have known.”
    “Well, it’s settled now,” Sam said. “How do you reckon we ought to start on the other chore that we’re lookin’ at?”
    Phyllis knew he was talking about investigating Roxanne Jackson’s murder. She thought about it for a moment and then said, “I want to take a look at the crime scene.”
    ••●••
    Paul’s Beauty Salon, located on Camp Bowie Boulevard in west Fort Worth, was about a thirty-minute drive away from Phyllis’s house in Weatherford, and a significant part of that time was spent navigating through the traffic that clogged South Main Street where it crossed Interstate 20. Phyllis remembered quite well when there hadn’t been anything past Tin Top Road except a pleasant drive through the country to Granbury, but huge shopping centers and tons of traffic were part of the price of progress, she supposed.
    Although sometimes she wondered if maybe that price was a little too high.
    But by two o’clock in the afternoon, she and Sam were on Camp Bowie, this time in Sam’s pickup with him at the wheel, as they looked for the beauty salon where Roxanne Jackson had been killed. Phyllis had looked up the address before they left and programmed it into the GPS app on her phone, even though Sam had assured her he could find the place. He really was a bit of a “livin’, breathin’ GPS”, as he sometimes claimed, but he wasn’t infallible.
    Camp Bowie Boulevard was named for the Army camp established on the west side of Fort Worth during World War I, Phyllis knew. It had been a sprawling base covering much of the area where the Botanic Gardens were now located, and its establishment had sparked a housing boom that had extended the town for miles in that direction. A lot of wealthy people had flocked to the area, and many of those old-money families still lived on the west side. The boulevard wasn’t as ritzy as it once had been—nowhere was, Phyllis thought—but there were still quite a few stretches of high-end establishments that catered to the wealthy.
    Paul’s Beauty Salon was located in one of those shopping centers, although it was in its own brick building at one end of the center. The nearest business was an expensive dress shop, flanked on the other side by a jewelry store. All the businesses shared the same parking lot, and there were quite a few cars in it this afternoon, mostly luxury sedans but also a few crossovers and SUVs.
    “We didn’t think this through,” Sam said as he pulled into the parking lot. “This ol’ pickup of mine is gonna stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. We should’ve brought your car.”
    “That’s all right. I don’t much like driving in a lot of traffic anymore. If people want to be snooty and look down their noses at your pickup, let them go ahead and do it. It doesn’t mean anything to me except that they’re stuck-up, and that’s their problem.”
    “That’s sorta the way I feel about it,” Sam said with a smile. He parked between a Lexus and a Cadillac Escalade. “Do you want me to come in with you or stay out here?”
    Phyllis thought about it for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you stay out here, if you don’t mind? I’m going to try to get an appointment to have my hair done, so right now all I’ll be doing is glancing around the place, just to get it in my head so I can see if everything matches up with the transcript we read.”
    “Fine with me. I’ll have a look around the shoppin’ center, see if there’s anything that strikes me as funny.”
    Phyllis nodded and said, “That’s a good idea. We’ll meet back here.”
    “This isn’t the sort of place where you can just walk in and they’ll take care of you right away, though, is it?”
    “I doubt it. But I’ll see how long it’ll be before I can make an appointment.”
    “And while they’re doin’ your hair, you can