KillerHair
Chapter 24
When three people you know turn up dead in a short period of time, others are bound to notice. Even reporters.
Someone had fashioned a large warning sign above Lacey’s desk. Bright orange letters outlined in black declared: WARNING: FASHION MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. Sitting in the Death Chair was a skull wearing a beret with a rhinestone clip and the legend THIS BEAT KILLED ME! YOU MAY BE NEXT! -MARIAH.
Felicity popped up in an oversized red plaid jumper, a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar, knee socks, and loafers. It was a cute outfit for a second-grader. She giggled at Lacey.
“When you walk by, Lacey, bodies fall.”
If looks could kill . . . “Well, step right up. Who’s next?”
“You’re so funny, Lacey. We all thought it was just awful about the attack, the haircut, and all, but your hair is so cute now,” she gushed. “I like it so much better this way.”
Trujillo must have spilled his guts. He even told them about her hair. Lacey knew coming into the office would be tough, and there was nothing she could do but take it. To fortify herself, she wore a sapphire-blue suit that had been a favorite of Mimi’s. The jacket had full shoulders and a nipped-in waist with pearl buttons. The slim-fitting skirt reached just below the knees and featured side kick pleats. She’d pulled her hair back with tortoiseshell combs. The total look had an early Brenda Starr/Lois Lane don’t-mess-with-me effect. She hoped.
“You could be some kind of walking occupational hazard,” Felicity pointed out. “A carrier, you know? Like Typhoid Mary.”
“Oh, Felicity, you witty thing.” Lacey wished she felt a little more dangerous, to give her courage. Her comrades in the newsroom all wanted journalism’s five Ws: who, what, where, when, and why. And they wanted them “now, now, now.” She shouldn’t begrudge them their curiosity. But she did.
She glared at Trujillo across the room. He squirmed. “I had nothing to do with the decorating, Lacey, I swear.” He had, however, already written the story on Radford’s homicide, as well as one on her attack in Dyke Marsh. Thankfully, the story on her haircut was tucked inside the news section at the bottom of the page, next to a tire ad.
“What’s this?” she asked, holding up the Radford story.
“I grabbed some background from your columns and the story on the Dupont Circle and Virginia Beach deaths, to make the connection to Radford. Two dead women. Their boss winds up dead. Coincidence? I credit you in the third ’graph.”
“Thanks, Tony.” She knew she wouldn’t have been allowed to write about Radford’s death and get it into print. It was Trujillo’s beat, but it still rankled. She went looking for her editor.
“Mac, you gotta take me off this fashion beat. It’s bad luck. Did you see my desk? Even the reporters think I’m a public menace.”
“Nice try, Smithsonian,” Mac said. She noticed he wasn’t even wearing anything funny today. He looked pretty good. Dark blue slacks, white shirt, muted tie. His wife must have dressed him. Mac invited Lacey and Trujillo into his office. He refrained from making cracks about her bangs. Trujillo looked uncommonly solemn, dressed ominously in black T-shirt, black leather jacket, black jeans, black boots.
Mac shut the door. Now what did I do? Lacey thought. Am I being fired? “Sit down, Lacey.” It was an order, but she remained standing. “First of all, I want you to know that The Eye Street Observer asks a lot of its reporters, but it does not ask them to risk their lives for a story.”
Unless it’s a really big story, Lacey thought.
“If you were expecting trouble you should have told someone, me or Tony,” Mac said. He drummed a pencil on his desk.
Lacey shrugged. “How could I anticipate an ambush on the bike path? The only threats came here at the paper.”
“Threats? As in threats plural?”
“The hair and the letter, you know.” She hadn’t told him about the Radford threat, which happened after work on Friday. Now it seemed pointless to mention it. Suspicion clouded his face, but he let it go.
“After the guy attacked you, why didn’t you call me first thing?”
“Trujillo had the story in hand. Hell, he knew about it almost before I did.”
“I’m not talking about the story, damn it! Did it never cross your mind that I might care whether one of my reporters lives or dies?”
It never had crossed her mind. She was a reporter, he was an editor, and never the twain shall meet.
“No,” she said. He rubbed the back of his neck and glared at her. She wondered what his angle was on this. “I guess it would be embarrassing to lose another fashion reporter, after Mariah. But you could always take a hook and grab one off the street.”
Mac growled and smacked his fist on the desk. “That’s not funny, Smithsonian. I am very concerned about this! About you! Two women die. You are attacked. Then this Radford character gets himself killed in his own office. Somewhere in the mix is a missing videotape and a federal witness. The police are saying he may have interrupted a burglary, but we all know that’s a lot of coincidence for a lousy hair salon.”
“But not for Washington,” Lacey said. “And what burglary?” She had seen only the headline. Vic hadn’t mentioned a burglary. But of course, Josephine had been there, so who really knew? Mac shoved over a copy of the latest edition.
“There’s something else you should know,” Mac said. “We got the DNA results back. Tony tells me the lab broke its own speed record for him. It’s a match.” Mac fingered a piece of paper. He slid it to Lacey.
She whistled. “So it was Angela Woods’ hair.” Of course it was Angie’s. Duh. It seemed like she’d had no rest at all since Friday. The weekend had been packed: an assault, a makeover, Radford’s death, and a lecture and a lesson at the gun range. Several lessons, Lacey reflected. But this would be one hell of a front-page story over the byline Lacey Smithsonian.
“That’s what they say.”
Lacey sank down into a chair. “Stupid. Sending the hair. Doesn’t this guy even watch TV?”
“The cops will say it doesn’t prove anything, in and of itself,” Tony said. “And it doesn’t. It could be years old. No way to trace the jerk who sent it.”
“Of course we’ll inform the Metropolitan P.D. what we’ve got. Courtesy call,” Mac said. “They’ll thank us and pay no more attention to it. The police response, or lack thereof, ought to be played high in the story. We’ll box it on the front page.”
“What about the FBI?” Lacey asked.
Mac snorted. “Let them call us.” The magnitude of the story was beginning to dawn on her. There was a moment of silence.
Lacey stood up. “Well, thanks for the information, guys. I’ve got work to do.” Her mind was racing, starting with the calls she needed to make. “What’s my deadline on this one?”
Mac cleared his throat. “Not your deadline. This one is Tony’s. You’ve got fashion, Lacey, not cops and robbers. Not murders.” Tony looked away when she glanced at him. This was exactly what she had been afraid of. They were going to pull the rug out from under her. The rats, she thought. I already paid the price of admission on this story. “And if anything further develops on the hair killer, or Boyd Radford, Tony gets it. He’s the police reporter, after all.”
“That’s completely unfair, Mac. I’m the one who got the death threat! I should get the story,” Lacey protested. “I’m the one who got the hair.”
“Yes, you’re the one who got the death threat!” Mac seemed ready to jump over the desk at her. “That’s why you’re off the story. I want you out of the line of fire.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am a reporter.”
“Sing me no sad songs, Smithsonian. Life is unfair. I mean it. Stick to fashion and stay out of trouble.”
“Boyd Radford’s memorial service is tomorrow. I have to be there.” Stella had already called her with a full report to go with her breakfast.
Mac was adamant. “Cool your jets. It’s Tony’s.”
“But I know all the players. The stylists trust me. I can put things together.” With a little help, a lot of luck, and maybe divine revelation.
“Then tell Tony all about it,” Mac said. She shot poisonous looks at each man. “Take it easy, Lacey. You’re probably in shock or something. Just write your column, something funny, something light.” Something light. As if she could whip up humor like a soufflé, light, frothy, insubstantial. Is that still what you think of me?
She glared at him. “It’ll be about Big Head Ted, the senior senator from Massachusetts,” Lacey said, seizing on one of her most reliable whipping boys. “You might not know it, but Kennedy’s tailor must be the cleverest man in Washington and he deserves some credit. For anyone to get that fat head of Ted’s to look human is some kind of miracle.” Slamming the venerable senator was a sure way to get Mac to spark and Lacey was spoiling for a fight. “If Ted rummaged his suits off the rack at Men’s Wearhouse, he’d look just like Bob’s Big Boy. With white hair.”
Mac loved the Kennedys the way he loved his old corduroy jackets. No matter how frayed around the edges, no matter what dirt was lurking deep in the pockets, he believed that they were always right. He didn’t think there was anything funny about either. Often he would let Lacey rant on, but he drew the line at her making sport of the Kennedys.
“Good Lord, Lacey, haven’t the poor Kennedys suffered enough?”
“I’m being unfair. Ted Kennedy’s tailor deserves a Nobel prize. Anybody who can hide Teddy’s tubby torso should tackle the national debt.”
“Leave poor Teddy alone. I’m talking about that sizzle-city charity thing on Wednesday. I’ve had several calls about it. That’s right up your alley.” What Mac neglected to mention was that the calls were futile requests that The Eye Street Observer send anyone but “that Smithsonian woman” who wrote “Crimes of Fashion.” Mac didn’t care. “You’re pissed off. Good. Take it out on them. Give ’em hell.”
Lacey stomped back to her desk in a black cloud. Making things worse was a phone message from Vic informing her she was explicitly banned from Radford’s service. But he was wrong. This was one service she would attend, one way or another. Being banned from an event made her feel like a real Washington reporter. And better yet to get kicked out.
The last thing she wanted to think about was the stupid fashion show. She’d been dreading it for weeks, ever since Polly Parsons began badgering her to write about the Stylettos angle. She had been writing about little else but Stylettos since mid April, almost three weeks before. And now I’ve lost the one story I’ve sunk my teeth into—and I hope the bastard needs a tetanus shot.
The charity fashion show was being billed as “Capital Style-Sizzle in the City.” People should know better than to use a word that rhymes with fizzle and drizzle. Stylettos was still on board to provide hairstyling, but Polly Parsons had mysteriously stopped talking to Lacey and apparently had dropped “Crimes of Fashion” from her mailing list.
The pleading phone calls had come from various underlings of Beth Ann Woodward, the chairman of the Capital Style show. She was determined that nothing would mar her charity event, her moment in the sun, including negative publicity about some insignificant suicidal stylists and now the demise of Stylettos’ sleazy owner. It was even stickier because Mrs. Woodward was a friends with Josephine Radford, who seemed to have friends everywhere.
Lacey was familiar with Beth Ann Woodward. She was one of those Washington blondes that people insist on calling beautiful. Many of them marry well, to senators or even secretaries of state. Without the puffy blond helmet hair, the Chanel suits and St. John’s knits, Beth Ann could have doubled as a Cabbage Patch doll.
But Beth Ann Woodward was nobody’s fool. Only that morning, she had picked up her gold-and-white French-style phone and dialed Lacey’s editor herself. The underlings hadn’t gotten the job done. She was charming and solicitous and earnest. Her special request was that The Observer send some other reporter, any other reporter, to the fashion show. Someone more sympathetic. This tickled Mac’s funny bone. He imagined sending Trujillo, or one of the sports writers, or one of the prima donnas on the Hill beat, to slap out some haute couture copy. Perhaps Felicity Pickles could critique the hors d’oeuvres.
“It’s a charity benefit, Mr. Jones. Mac,” the chairwoman pleaded. “You could be charitable, too.”
Mac laughed. There’s no charity for the rich—everyone knows that—especially from the Fourth Estate, the self-appointed champion of the common man.
Mac told Beth Ann she was free to ban Smithsonian from the fashion show, in which case Lacey would be free to write about being barred by the Washington cave dwellers and would undoubtedly savage the show anyway. Beth Ann backed off gracefully.
“Never pick a fight with folks who buy paper by the ton and ink by the barrel,” he muttered to himself. It was his favorite saying. He had it framed on the wall.
“But, Lacey, there are strict orders from Josephine. About you and the memorial service. She’d skin me alive!”
“I have to be there, Stella.” Lacey cupped the phone closer.
“Lacey, I’m on really thin ice here.”
“The killer is on the move. He got Angie. He got Tammi. He got Ratboy. He almost got me. You could be next.”
“But that’s no fair. I got short hair!”
“Ratboy had a bald spot. Didn’t save him.” Lacey paused for effect. “Look. No one will even know I’m there—with your help, of course. You’re such a magician, Stella.”
“What are you suggesting?” Stella stopped cracking her gum.
“Your big chance to really make me over.” Lacey hung up, satisfied. The sky, like Mac’s face, looked threatening. Mac was a veritable storm center. He was bawling out Peter Johnson for something or other. Lacey grabbed her dark green raincoat and black-watch-plaid umbrella and waited for her moment.
Playing peacemaker, Felicity offered Mac and Peter double-chocolate-chip cookies from an enormous platter she had brought from home. Mac took three, tasted one, and grabbed another. Felicity was so pleased, she took another one for herself. Mac’s head turned as Lacey strode swiftly across the office. But she was gone before he could swallow his cookie.
Lacey dodged the smokers littering up the building’s entry and tried to hold her breath through Cancer Alley. Passing through this toxic corridor was a group of children from the day-care center next door. Twelve toddlers hung on to two ropes with both hands, walking in a straight line guided by three adult women. One curly-haired lad was screaming in indignation. She didn’t blame the little guy. Lacey imagined a headline: “I Was a Prisoner on a Baby Chain Gang!”
An hour later, Lacey gazed in the mirror at a woman in a short chestnut-brown wig, looking a lot like Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. The new dark red lipstick and sultry eye makeup gave her a distinctly foreign flavor. She also talked Stella into giving her a black Stylettos smock. She added a beret and sunglasses. Not bad, she thought.
“My own mother wouldn’t know me. Not that she does anyway.”
“I wouldn’t know you myself. We could cut your hair that way. I like it. Very rich-girl-on-the-run, you know?” Mondays were slow, the salon was empty, and Stella and Michelle, who aided and abetted the makeover, were alone until one.
“No cutting! I’m very nervous about the whole concept of cutting right now.”
“Showing up at the funeral like this could be risky. What if Josephine figures out it’s you?”
“Stella, there’ll be at least a hundred stylists from all over the company there,” Michelle pointed out. “And Josephine doesn’t waste her time looking at other women. She’s what they call a man’s woman.”
“Yeah, she’s a Vic Donovan kind of woman.”
Lacey refused to take the bait. “I’ve been thrown out of better places than this. Goes with the territory.”
“Well, don’t say nothing while you’re there. I can’t disguise your voice. And promise to tell me everything, Lacey, all the clues, when you figure it out. You really think the Hair Ball will be there, don’t you?”
Stella was so hopeful, Lacey didn’t have the heart to express her deep, depressing doubts.
“Stella, you told me yourself that killers always go to funerals. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“As long as we don’t get dead.”
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