BM03 - Crazy Little Thing Called Dead by Kate George

the house and walked over to the foursome. The dog raised his head, barked once, loudly enough to make me jump and then set his head back down on the ground and let the toddler pull his ears.
    “Good dog,” I said. “Did you train him to lie down when his tail gets yanked on?” I held out my hand. “I’m Bree MacGowan; I’m a friend of Claire P—”
    “I know you. Claire talks about the crazy stuff you get up to. She said you might be over to see me.” She reached up and shook my hand.
    “Do you mind if we talk a bit?” I felt a little guilty about wanting to talk murder in front of children, but I doubted Lori got much time alone.
    “Sit down.” She patted the blanket. “I could use some adult company for a change. It’s nothing but babies twenty-four seven until my husband gets back from Afghanistan.” She looked over at me. “Murder in Planet Hair, huh? How weird is that?”
    “Well not in the salon exactly. The police say the body was dumped after the fact.” Lying was getting too easy, but I didn’t want to have to explain my assumptions due of lack of facts.
    “Strange place to leave a body. Oh jeez, the baby stinks!” She grabbed her baby by the leg and pulled her gently over. She stuck her hand in a big pink plastic tote and pulled out a cloth diaper and cover, and my suspicions of her innocence were fortified. Lori didn’t use disposable diapers. “Ew. I don’t care if she is mine; she stinks worse than any baby I’ve ever seen. Must take after her dad.” She grinned at me.
    “You use cloth diapers? Aren’t they a pain?” I asked.
    “I won’t use disposable diapers. I just don’t feel right about putting those chemicals on my baby’s skin. My mom is paying for the diaper service.” She fastened on a diaper cover and pulled a pair of tiny blue jeans up over the diaper. The soiled diaper went into in plastic bag. “It works out fine.”
    “What did you think when you heard there was a dead body in the salon?” I asked her. “Were you surprised?” I waited while she disengaged the toddler’s fist from the dog’s tail. The dog licked her face and then the baby’s. The baby squealed happily and grabbed the dog’s ears. The dog lowered his head patiently while Lori removed the tiny fingers from his ear.
    “Truthfully, I’m not that shocked.” Lori said. “I’ve heard that Ronnie Hart’s brother is mixed up with some pretty rough people.”
    “Do you know who?” I hadn’t even known Ronnie had a brother.
    “I probably shouldn’t say this, but my brother told my husband that he has a connection to the mob. People like that, who knows why they do what they do.” She captured the baby’s hands before he could latch onto the dog again.
    “The mob?” My heart pumped harder. “New York?”
    “New York. Come here, pumpkin.” She picked the baby up and let him balance his weight on his feet for a moment.
    “But why dump a body in Planet Hair?” I asked.
    Lori shrugged. “Because his sister has a key? Why does anyone do anything? I mean really, if you’re going to kill someone, then anything you do after that has got to be the result of an addled brain, don’t you think? How could you kill someone and not be addled?”
    She blew kisses onto his little neck and rolled back, lifting him into the air, making airplane noises. Her little girl wasted no time straddling her stomach and when Lori rolled back up she had both of them on her lap.
    “I never thought of it that way,” I said. “I always assume people have good reasons for doing what they do. It may not seem reasonable to me, but to them it’s the only thing to be done. How does your brother know Ronnie’s brother?”
    “My brother was in prison for a while. I guess you hear all sorts of things in there.”
    It seemed rude to ask what he was in jail for, although I was dying to know. We talked a while longer about things unrelated to the murder before I drove back across the hill, my mind in