“Leonora’s brother. Half brother. That’s who killed her and the nail girl. George, would you be real nice and get me a Fresca and a slice of American cheese from the kitchen? Make it two slices, got the packet laid out on the counter along with a cute little cutting tool from The Sharper Image.”

Cardenas went to fill the order.

I pulled up a chair.

Mavis Wembley nibbled her cheese and swigged from the can of soda. Handing the empty to Cardenas, she wiped her mouth and looked out at her weedy plot with satisfaction. “I know the brother did it because Leonora confided in me a few weeks before that she was deathly afraid of him. They had different mothers but the same father and it was the father who had money and he died a few months before she confided in me that she was scared.”

I said, “Worried about an inheritance conflict?”

“Not worried, scared. That’s the word she used.”

“What’s the brother’s name?” said Cardenas.

“Don’t know, she never mentioned it, always referred to him as ‘my half brother.’ Emphasis on half. Making it clear there was no closeness there.”

I said, “How’d the topic come up?”

“She was color-rinsing me and kept dropping stuff, real butterfingered. Which wasn’t like Leonora, she’d always been a real coordinated girl. Magic hands, I used to call her. Sometimes she’d toss in a neck-and-scalp massage and that was better than… anyway, when she moved here from Frisco, all the gals were happy because of her skills. Before that we had Sarah Burkhardt who grew up here, borderline retarded if you ask me, taught herself from books, about as stylish as roadkill. We put up with her because she was all we had. Thank God she married a truck driver and moved away and we got Leonora. Who learned her trade in Frisco from a top homosexual stylist.”

“Magic hands,” I said, “but not that day.”

“Fumbly fingers. I asked her what was wrong. She said nothing. I said, Come on, don’t be holding back, there’s no one else here. Which there wasn’t. Just me and Leonora in the salon. She was good but there wasn’t that much call for her services, our local females believing they could do just as well with a box of Toni. If you saw them, you’d find that laughable.”

She asked Cardenas for another soda.

When he returned to the house, she said, “We’ll wait for George. So I don’t have to repeat myself.”

“Sure. I appreciate this.”

“So you think it’s a good clue — the brother?”

“Best we’ve got so far.”

Cardenas came back and popped the top.