KillerHair
Chapter 7
Arguing with her stylist was only slightly less pointless than bashing her head against a wall, Lacey decided.
“Stella, I don’t like being told what to do. Do you get that? Do you understand?”
Stella was unperturbed. “I told you to get highlights and you did.”
“Highlights! Do I really have to point out that getting highlights and investigating murder are two different things?”
“The highlights look great, and now you’re investigating a murder.”
“If I’m going to look into Angie’s death, I’m doing it my way. As a reporter, not a detective. Anything I do has got to end up in a story I can sell my editor. Are we agreed?”
“Absolutely.”
Lacey had agreed to meet Stella for coffee Saturday morning. As usual, it was a matter of life and death. So Lacey had insisted on the Mud Hut, a shabby but sweet little coffee shop just off King Street in Old Town, full of writers tapping on lap-tops. She had a habit of popping in on Saturday mornings, and she acknowledged a few other people she recognized.
The Mud Hut’s shabbiness was refreshing. Old Town Alexandria generally is aggressively Colonial, heavy on Virginia’s Founding Fathers and all things George Washington. Many Old Town homes of distinction keep their front drapes open so people walking by may gaze in reverence at the genuine period furnishings and illuminated portraits of illustrious Colonial ancestors.
Stella might raise eyebrows in the snooty part of town, but here no one would look twice at her crew cut, double-digit earrings, and leather-lass look. Today she was wearing a purple leather halter dress that laced up her cleavage to a dramatic swelling, like a Valkyrie’s Wagnerian WunderBra. Stella paired it with a cropped black jacket with gold leather lightning bolts stitched on the back and down the sleeves.
Lacey was wearing high-waisted, loose-fitting khaki slacks with a light blue fitted blouse. Her clothes were comfortable and attractive, but lacked the one-two punch that Stella mastered.
“Where do you get your clothes?” Lacey asked.
Stella beamed down at her purple laced bust. “Great dress, huh? Picked it up at this leather shop in Georgetown. I’m kind of a regular, so they call me when they get something special in my size. You should come with me sometime.”
The brave, noble Stella of last night’s discussion with Vic was once again Lacey’s personal pain in the neck. Featuring Angie’s death in “Crimes of Fashion” was only the beginning of Stella’s plan. But Stella didn’t count on extra help, which appeared in the shape of Brooke Barton.
The blond intruder, looking fresh in jogging shorts and a hooded navy sweatshirt even though she’d been out on a run, padded into the shop and spotted Lacey. “Aha! I thought I’d catch you here,” she said.
Lacey was confused. “Did we have plans, Brooke?”
“No, it’s just that you’re a creature of habit and if it’s ten a.m. on a Saturday morning, you’re swilling down a mocha latte at the Mud Hut. So, catch me up.” She grabbed a chair and sat down.
Stella and Brooke eyed each other doubtfully. Lacey introduced them. “So you’re the famous Stella of the highlights. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Stella looked none too pleased, but Brooke ignored her. She got right to the point: conspiracy, as usual.
“Did Marcia Robinson show up at the funeral?” Lacey shook her head. “Too bad. Maybe it’s not true that murderers go to the funerals of their victims.”
Stella was horrified. “You think Marcia killed Angie?”
“My number-one suspect.”
“You are so wrong. Why would she kill Angie? She owed Angie for that miraculous makeover.”
“Who knows what terrible secrets about the Senate Small Business Committee Marcia may have spread? And to whom?”
“Brooke has a point,” Lacey interjected as Stella’s cleavage puffed up alarmingly. “Marcia is the subject of a congressional investigation.”
“You agree with her? You think Marcia offed Angie?”
“I didn’t say that. I said she has a point.”
“And Marcia had pornographic clips of some of the most unlikely people,” Brooke said. “Nobody even knows the whole list or how many. Maybe your Angela Woods was among them.”
Stella was finally stunned speechless. But she had nerves of steel. Her genius was that she could outwait anyone, just like a cat, and she was waiting for Brooke to leave. A silence descended on the table that Brooke finally broke. Glancing at her watch, she said to Lacey, “Look, I have to take a deposition this afternoon, so I should be going. Call me later. Be careful. There are serious nuts out there.” She looked at Stella. “I’d watch what Lacey tells you, Stella. It could be dangerous.” She was kidding, but Stella didn’t think it was funny. Brooke exited the Mud Hut, her blond braid bouncing as she jogged down the street.
“She could use a haircut,” Stella said.
“What, are you offering?”
“No, I’d give her to Leo.” Stella wore an evil grin. “Okay, now that Snooty Two Shoes is gone, we can talk about your investigation. And Angie was no porno pinup. Trust me. She was pure, in a nice way.”
Lacey had decided to write something about the young stylist and her tragic death. More troubling was Stella’s insistence that she also play gumshoe. As glamorous as it sounded and even with the interesting wardrobe challenges that it might present, the idea was absurd. She was a reporter. In any event, it would mean running down inevitable blind alleys and risking Vic’s derision. Vic again. Her mind kept drifting back to him. I have no idea how I feel about Vic, she realized. People did not pop in and out of Lacey’s life. When they were out, they stayed out.
“I’ll write a column, Stella, but what have I got to say? That the corpse had a really bad hair day? That a dead hair day means murder?”
Lacey retrieved two Advils from her bag to quell the pounding in her head. It wasn’t fair. She’d had only a couple of beers last night. She hadn’t slept well. She was alternately angry at Vic for being high-handed, showing up on her doorstep and merely assuming she would be home alone on a Friday night; and confused, remembering that long-ago New Year’s Eve kiss.
“Okay, Stella, let’s suppose we play detective. I just want to know one thing. What happened to her hair?”
“The hair? What hair?”
“Angie’s. What happened to the hair?”
“The hair?” A smoky Southern voice with a distinctive cadence interrupted them. “The hair is gone. Long gone. It was long, wasn’t it?”
Impressive purple talons scooted a shockingly pink flyer in front of Lacey. She could read PSYCHIC over the large imposing Eye of Horus. It seemed to be her logo.
“Hey, y’all. I don’t mean to interrupt, but I read cards, palms, faces, whatever y’all got. I’m Marie Largesse. Just opened up a little shop around the corner. The Little Shop of Horus. We sell crystals, oils, books on meditation. Tarot.”
“Clever name,” Lacey said. “What did you say about hair?”
“Hair? Oh, it just popped out. I don’t know. I’ve lost it now. Maybe I meant hers,” she said, smiling at Stella. “Gone, right?”
The large woman had sailed into the coffee shop as if she were the Queen Mary, creating invisible waves as she floated by. A black sundress that dipped low in the back exposed her shoulders and her arms, which were as round and white as birch logs. It also revealed a flock of tattoos, including two great eyes, one on each shoulder blade: the Eyes of Horus, the all-seeing, the eye of the mind, from Egyptian mythology. Over one arm, the woman had flung a black shawl with pink and crimson roses embroidered on it. She looked like a plump gypsy matriarch. Bountiful, not fat.
Stella wanted to know more; her own psychic had been falling down on the job. Lacey was polite. She took Marie’s card and gave her one of her own.
“You’re the one. Of course, ‘Crimes of Fashion.’ I read it all the time. I’m thinking about that column on nuances. It had a psychic strain to it, I thought.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Stella said. “Nuances.”
“Could be. I’m feeling a lot of vibes in here,” Marie declared. “Y’all feel them too?”
Lacey looked at Stella, one hundred and ten pounds of quivering vibrations. “Oh yes, I can feel them,” Lacey said.
“Y’all should really focus on your spiritual plane,” Marie said to Lacey. Stella lifted her eyebrows and nodded.
“I am curious about the Eyes of Horus,” Lacey said.
Marie beamed. “I thought y’all’d never ask.”
“Watching your back, I bet,” Stella said.
“Exactly, sugar. Some psychics receive impressions in their chest or their stomach or the head, in the third eye. With me it’s always been the shoulders. Don’t ask me why. Just vibrations hitting me in the shoulder blades, first the right, then the left. Like someone tapping my shoulder to get my attention. The Eyes of Horus are always watching for incoming pulsations.”
Marie made her way to the counter and ordered a large latte and a gooey chocolate brownie. She was an impressive work in progress on her way to becoming the Illustrated Woman. A story behind every little picture.
“Maybe she’d be good for a column,” Lacey said.
“You already have something to write about.” Stella swirled the coffee in her cup. “This coffee tastes kind of like a rubber retread that you see on the highway.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I usually get a Coke. You know, ‘Coking and smoking.’ ” That was what stylists called break time, though it sounded sinister and illegal to Lacey.
“You’re trying to quit anyway,” Lacey said.
“Listen, about Angie, I don’t even know where to start. Stella, are you listening to me?”
Stella was ogling a guy who had just ambled in the door. He was Stella’s type all right: long blond curls, five-day beard, motorcycle jacket and helmet, about thirty, on the thin side. A beautiful Cupid gone bad. He had a slow lazy smile that he directed past Lacey to Stella, who sent back a suggestive smile of her own and a wink.
“You’ll think of something, Lacey. You’re basically a good, decent human being,” Stella said. “In spite of yourself.”
Lacey jerked the table and slopped her coffee onto the marble top. “I am not. I need to be left alone.”
“You don’t mean that.” Stella stood. “You want a refill?” She followed the silent mating call of the bad-boy blond to the counter. “I bet he’s got a nice bike.”
“You’re only interested in his pistons.”
“You see right through me, Lacey. You’d make a great detective.”
A few minutes later, Stella came back with a bagel and refills. She announced that she and one Bobby Saratoga, he of the motorcycle, would be meeting the following day to take in a bluegrass concert at Glen Echo Park. Lacey was dumbfounded. Damn those Pentagon pheromone jammers, she thought.
“How do you do that? My God.” Lacey could see that Stella, punk goddess that she was, had a kind of elfin charm, the crew cut notwithstanding. And her collection of leather bustiers reeled men in like fish waiting to be hooked.
“Easy, Lacey. I leave my signals on. I don’t turn everything off like you do. You just need a wake-up call. Besides, how often do you see a guy like that up at the Circle?”
Dupont Circle’s large and visible gay population was not the best place for a woman to look for an eligible man. Even Stella could experience the Washington man shortage. But Stella was taking matters into her own hands. Or her cleavage.
Stella poured three packets of sugar into her coffee, tasted it, and put in two more. “So tell me, since we’re talking men, are you going to sleep with that guy? Or have you already?”
“What guy? Who are you talking about?” Lacey’s voice rose and several writers turned around to stare.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about. Mr. Curly-Lashes-and-Cute-Buns at the funeral reception.”
“Not a chance. We drive each other nuts. Besides, I barely know him.”
“That’s not what he said. I gather you two have, like, a history.” Stella clicked her fingernails on the table.
“Don’t be silly, Stella.”
“You are going to sleep with him.”
“Shows what you know. What did he say about me?”
“Just that you’re old friends.”
“Don’t believe anything he says. The snake.” The Advil had not yet kicked in. She dropped her aching head to the table. Marie stopped on her way out the door and tapped Lacey on the shoulder. She lifted her head blearily.
“Come see me at The Little Shop of Horus. I’ll give y’all the special introductory offer. And Lacey, about that dark-haired man. He really is attracted to you.”
Lacey spilled her coffee again. “What man?” Good heavens, is Vic written all over me?
“With the green eyes.” Marie winked and continued to hand out cards to other coffee drinkers on her way out.
Stella sat there like the cat who swallowed the canary, cage and all. “You are going to sleep with him! All right!”
“Shut up, Stella.”
A familiar gleam lit Stella’s narrowed eyes. “You know, Lacey. You’re pretty particular about that hair of yours. Where do you think you could ever find another stylist who can make it do every perfect little thing that you want?”
“Blackmail will not work on me, Stella.”
“It’s not blackmail; it’s hairmail. It always works.” Stella dangled a key ring in front of Lacey. “And I know where you can start on Angie. At her apartment. I told her mom I’d go over.”
“Her apartment?” Lacey softened. “You can’t face it by yourself, can you?”
“It’s really hard. Kind of spooky, you know. Now that she’s dead and all.” Stella’s eyes suddenly glittered with tears.
Please don’t cry. If you cry, I’ll cry. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go alone.” Lacey grabbed Angie’s keys. “Lead the way, oh Leather Lass.”
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