And Hope to Dye: Mystery Book Club Cozy Mystery Series, #1

By Britt Malka

Megan Davis, a small-town hairdresser, loves jogging in the nearby park in the morning and solving murder mysteries in her "Mystery Book Club" in the evening.

On her morning run, she bumps into one of her customers at the park. Megan is surprised to see the elderly blue-haired lady out this early.

But when she greets the woman, surprise turns into shock.

Not only is the woman dead. Her face is covered in blue dye.

Hair dye.

Scroll up to read And Hope to Dye today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Britt Malka
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393731924

Book preview

AND HOPE TO DYE

Britt Malka

Also by Britt Malka

A Model for Murder

Amber Alert

Chapter One

Breathtaking!

Megan Davis had stopped near the row of benches at the northern end of the mini-park. It was no bigger than a large garden, placed here in the middle of the town, with a few magnolia trees and redbuds at the entrance, an asphalted path all the way around, and wooden benches every five or ten steps.

The middle of the park consisted of a low-cut lawn and a fountain empty of water a big part of the year. Right now the basin was filled, but the gardener hadn’t turn on the sprinklers yet.

From where she stood she had a view over the deep blue sea and the sun that was rising in the east, dying the sky in pink, red, and golden colors. She loved this view.

She took a quick break here every morning at around 6 am. She told herself it was to stretch her muscles and catch her breath again after having run from home, through the empty streets, and to the park. But in reality, it was just as much to just experience every new morning in its fullest.

A light breeze reached her and cooled down her sweaty body. The breeze carried a wonderful smell of sea and salt water with it. This time of the morning it was still mostly quiet with only the perpetual buzzing sounds from cranes down the harbor to disturb the silence.

She loved to start her days like this. And today had been perfect. She’d pampered herself with a complete new set of jogging clothes, and they had made her run this morning perfect. She wore white sneakers with short white socks, white shorts, and a pink tank-top with a new sports bra under. She loved how it kept her girls in place without scratching or snaring her chest. It made her feel free to run like the wind.

She ran her fingers through her shoulder-length, brown hair, her natural color that she had spiced up with a few indigo streaks that matched her blue eyes.

The Velcro that held her shorts pocket closed made a screeching sound as she tore the pocket open and pulled out her smart phone to check the time. Six fifteen. Time to continue. She’d started the coffeemaker before she left home, and she looked forward to enjoying a fresh cup of the bitter brew accompanied with a bowl of the salad of hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers that waited for her in her fridge.

She put her phone back and closed the pocket and started to run. When she rounded the corner, another bench became visible, and on it sat one of her customers.

Megan would recognize the broad back and blue hair anywhere.

Mrs. Mary Ivanov sailed into Megan’s hair salon every Thursday at 3 PM like clockwork. Once a month, she would have her short, curly hair dyed blue, and the other Thursdays, she would get her hair washed and set. She insisted on having her hair dried with curlers in the old-fashioned way.

The first years she came to the salon, her husband, a Russian immigrant, delivered her and fetched her again. Megan had seen him wither from week to week until his way too untimely death, the only way he could escape from his wife’s perpetual anger and disgust.

He had an immense collection of rare vodka, and he died without discovering that the content of the bottles was little by little exchanged with water, as his wife drank her way through the liquid.

Mrs. Ivanov’s taste for vodka had left her with a bloated pink skin and red streaks in her eyes.

Megan couldn’t stand her, and the last thing she wanted this morning was to chat with this arrogant woman about the weather and the lazy youth of this country, Mrs. Ivanov’s two favorite topics. But she couldn’t turn around and run the other way around, because Mrs. Ivanov had surely heard her arrive. And she was a customer, after all.