Jane Darrowfield had her hands in the dirt in her garden, but she kept a watchful eye on the door to her office. The discrete notice on her website read, “Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody. Drop-in hours, every Friday, 10:00 a.m. to noon.”

Sure enough, ten minutes later a familiar figure made her way down the flagstone path along the side Jane’s house in Cambridge, MA that led to the door of the old back porch that had been converted to her office. Jane straightened up, involuntarily emitting a little groan.

“There you are!” Mil Foster called. “Your yard always looks so lovely.” Mil’s property backed on to Jane’s garden. They’d always had a cordial though not particularly intimate relationship.

When they were settled in Jane’s office, she offered Mil tea.

“No thanks. I only have a minute. I’m due at the school in half an hour.” Mil volunteered at the local school during lunchtime.

“What can I do for you, Mil?”

Mil hesitated, as if considering her words. Finally she said, “I need to change hairdressers.”

“Your hair looks lovely.” Mil’s wavy hair had a bounce and shine to it. Its auburn color was no more natural than Jane’s honey-blond, but at their age, one did what one could.

“Yes, that’s the point. This wasn’t done by my regular hairdresser. She was sick last week.”

Jane waited. There had to be more to the story. “And the problem is. . .?” she finally prompted.

“The woman who did do my hair works in the same salon.”

Light began to dawn. “I see,” Jane said.

“The woman I want to switch to and my regular hairdresser are bitter rivals.”

“I see.”

“And they are sisters. Jenn and Jean. They own the salon.”
“Hmm,” Jane said.

“I’m afraid to tell them I want to switch,” Mil continued. “Will you do it for me? That way, you never have to see them again and maybe they won’t blame me so much.”

“Do you want to switch from Jean to Jenn or from Jenn to Jean?” Jane asked.

“From Jean to Jenn,” Mil answered. “Will you please tell them? Jean is mean.”

Jane got the particulars from Mil and they agreed on a fee, roughly equivalent to one cut’n’curl. That afternoon Jane dropped in at the salon. She’d thought about the subterfuge of making an appointment and having her hair done. Visiting the salon undercover, so to speak. But the idea of giving hard news while stuck in a chair with chemicals on her head didn’t sound like a good one. And, the very idea made her feel unfaithful to her own Hugo.

Both chairs in the shop were occupied when Jane entered, not surprising on a Friday. The two women who stood behind the chairs did indeed look like sisters. In the big salon mirror Jane could see the same sharp noses and hooded brown eyes, though like Jack Spratt and his wife, one was fat and one lean. From the back they formed the number 10. They both had bright red hair worn in identical, elaborate up-dos. Jane wondered if they had done each other’s hair as an expression of sisterly love—or hatred.

“No walk-ins on Fridays,” one of them said.

How direct New Englanders were. In other part of the country, the statement might have been preceded by a “Sorry,” and concluded with a “hon.” Jane rather approved of the straightforwardness of her fellow Bay Staters and matched it with her own. “I’m here on behalf of Mil Foster,” she said.

That got their attention.

“She wants to switch her regular weekly appointment from Jean to Jenn.” Jane looked from one sister to the other, hoping she did it in the right order. The women in the chairs were openly listening.

“You’re poaching my clients!” the skinny one, obviously Jean, shouted.

“I never!” her sister responded. “If you hadn’t been fake sick last week, I never would have done Mil’s hair in the first place.”

“Fake sick!” Jean shouted back. “You know how I suffer with my sciatica.”

Jane cleared her throat. “I know this is awkward, but if you make Mil feel uncomfortable, she will probably leave the salon. Since you co-own it, both of you will suffer. I suggest that when Mil calls to book her next appointment, you make her feel like the valued customer she is.”

Jean stared at her feet. “Okay,” she mumbled. Then looking at her sister she said,”But if you steal another customer. . .”

“Okay,” Jenn agreed. “We’ll do our best.”

A month later, Mil called over the back fence, “Yoo-hoo, Jane!”

Jane looked up from pulling weeds. “Hello, Mil. Your hair looks lovely.”

“Thank you. There was a lot of sighing from the next chair during my first two appointments, but I am happy to report things have settled down and I’m getting so many compliments I’m floating on air. It does a body good at our age.”

Jane smiled. “Yes, indeed it does.”

You can read more about Jane in Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody, the first book in the NEW “Jane Darrowfield” cozy mystery series, released June 25, 2019.

Jane Darrowfield is a year into her retirement, and she’s already traveled and planted a garden. She’s organized her photos, her recipes, and her spices. The statistics suggest she has at least a few more decades ahead of her, so she better find something to do . . .

After Jane helps a friend with a sticky personal problem, word starts to spread around her bridge club—and then around all of West Cambridge, Massachusetts—that she’s the go-to girl for situations that need discreet fixing. Soon she has her first paid assignment—the director of a 55-and-over condo community needs her to de-escalate hostilities among the residents. As Jane discovers after moving in for her undercover assignment, the mature set can be as immature as any high schoolers, and war is breaking out between cliques.

It seems she might make some progress—until one of the aging “popular kids” is bludgeoned to death with a golf club. And though the automatic sprinklers have washed away much of the evidence, Jane’s on course to find out whodunit . . .

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About the author
Barbara Ross is the author of seven Maine Clambake Mysteries. The eighth, Sealed Off, will be released in December 2019. Barbara’s novellas are included in the anthologies Eggnog Murder, Yule Log Murder, and Haunted House Murder. A new mystery, Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busbody, was released in June 2019.

To learn more about Barbara, visit her website at maineclambakemysteries.com.

All comments are welcomed.