Killer Hair (16 page)

“Everyone in the salon thinks Angie was killed, right? Except maybe Leonardo.”

Stella put a fresh load of towels in the washing machine and glanced out the door into the salon. She lowered her voice. “No one really buys suicide, except Ratboy. And who really knows what Leo thinks about anything?”

Stella picked up a pack of cigarettes from the debris on the table.

“I thought you were trying to quit.”

“Right, at least in front of witnesses.” She tossed the pack back on the table. “Anyway, after the funeral, Ratboy held a special salon meeting. He warned us not to talk about it or we could lose our jobs. He doesn’t want to spook the clients. We’ve already lost a couple who only wanted Angie and don’t think Leo is star enough for them. After all, Leo didn’t do Marcia.”

“What do you think?”

“I think everybody’s acting screwy, including me.” She gulped the rest of her Coke.

Lacey closed her eyes for a moment and stretched. She peered out the supply-room door. Across the salon the rhythm of a rapidly moving hand caught Lacey’s eye.

“What the hell is Leonardo doing to that woman?” she asked. The woman looked stricken while Leonardo created a surrealistic rat’s nest out of her hair.

Leonardo was flailing both arms like the conductor of a demented symphony. Instead of a baton, he wielded a comb in one hand, a straight razor in the other, which he slashed up and down with a great flourish, slicing off locks of hair as if they were strips of julienned carrots. Fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

Leonardo’s styling victim had plain brown hair, stick straight, medium length, somewhere between a Washington Bob and a Helmet Head. Leo obviously had a different look for her in mind. “It looks like wild animals chewed the ends off,” Lacey said.

“Leo’s in a bad mood,” Stella said. “Besides, it’ll grow. That’s our secret motto here at Stylettos. And don’t quote me.”

“Not so much on top,” the woman squeaked. Her French-manicured hands fluttered up ineffectually.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leonardo said. “Now it will have some style!”

“I just wanted a trim,” she wailed.

The woman was one of Leonardo’s regular customers who had made the mistake of going to another salon down the street for her last color and cut because Stylettos’ temperamental maestro couldn’t fit her in. “So she deserves to be tortured, according to Leo,” Stella said. Even after this atrocity, the woman would no doubt return. After all, it was the work of the great Leonardo.

“But that looks awful,” Lacey said.

“You want to be the one to tell him that?”

“Stella, look at him. He’s very scary with that razor.” She thought Angie’s final haircut slightly resembled the weasel-chewed look that Leonardo was bestowing on this woman. His hand sliced through the air again and again. If Leonardo could do this with plain fine hair, what could he do with two feet of soft blond waves? She began, then stopped, a mental scene of Leonardo with Angela. She could imagine it far too well.

With a flourish he set down his razor and squirted mousse into both hands. For a final indignity, he rubbed the woman’s hair so that the razored spikes stood at attention. She glanced up fearfully into the mirror and burst into tears. Everyone stopped talking, blow-dryers switched off, and clients and stylists alike stared.

“Stella, that man is never coming near my hair.”

“You don’t think Leo could have—” Stella managed to look shocked and offended at the same time.

“Was he really in Virginia Beach that day?”

“That’s what Jamie thinks. He called in sick, swore he had the flu. It was a really beautiful Saturday. And he likes the beach. He says he’d like to live there.”

“I want you to remember something the way I say it,” Lacey said. “I am just a reporter, not an investigator. I will ask a few questions about Angie. I’ll write a column. But simply asking questions could uncover things you don’t want known. Like why Angie was the only one here that night when there were supposed to be two of you.”

“You’re not going to write that, are you? I mean
someone
could get in trouble.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Stella.”

“But you believe she was murdered, don’t you?”

Lacey took a deep breath. “Yes, I believe someone murdered Angela Woods. But that doesn’t mean I can find the killer. If I write the column, however, people might get interested and force the cops to reopen the case.” Lacey picked up her bag and stood up to leave. “I’m going to have to talk to people, like Angie’s last customer, and I’ll have to know where Leonardo really was that night. It might even mean looking at Angie’s station at the warehouse.”

“But all the blood was cleaned up.”

“I need that number for the cleanup company.”

Stella leaned over the washer and examined a bulletin board covered with old notices and miscellaneous papers. She retrieved a card. “Here, I don’t plan on using it again. If I ever have to look at another dead body, it better be mine.”

Lacey glanced at the card: NOT-A-TRACE CRIME SCENE CLEANERS. “Who’s in charge of the warehouse?”

“Ratboy’s half-wit third cousin. But you know who’s in charge of security now. Your friend Vic. He could get you in.”

Vic. I was afraid of that.

On the way home, Lacey picked up the Z and depleted her bank account. Paul assured her the car had many miles to go before the junk gods would demand it back. It was the most rewarding moment of her day.

Chapter 12

For the media stakeout on Tuesday, Lacey wore Aunt Mimi’s 1939 black dress with matching emerald and black bolero. Shades of Rita Hayworth. Feminine and strong, it suited Lacey perfectly. Besides, no one else in the Washington press corps had anything remotely like it.

The scene outside the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse bordered on farce. There were media crews reporting on Marcia Robinson and media crews reporting on the media crews reporting on Marcia Robinson. Every known network, including Fox, CNN, BBC and German television, had satellite vans blocking all parking along Constitution Avenue.

Over two hundred reporters, photographers, and technicians were stationed like occupying troops at all three public entrances to the building, as well as the parking lot.
Good thing no real news is happening,
Lacey thought. The network guys all had little tents set up to guard against nasty weather. Many had been covering the developing story for months. Lacey realized it wasn’t true that the broadcast media didn’t read. Boredom reduced them all to reading the newspapers to stave off the ennui.

The photographers, whether television cameramen or newspaper still photographers, observed their own dress code: jeans, athletic shoes, T-shirts or casual polo shirts, and windbreakers. The print reporters were rumpled, but all wore jackets, as they were required to wear in the congressional press galleries. One young woman had to be a television reporter, one of the ubiquitous horse-faced blondes who pass for attractive in Washington. She wore the mandatory Helmet Head hairdo and an indestructible polyester crepe suit in lilac, a popular color choice for ubiquitous blondes. A young Asian reporter was wearing a slightly longer Helmet Head and the same suit in red. There was also an attractive black television reporter for a third TV station, wearing another Helmet Head and a similar suit in larkspur blue. She ducked back into her tent. Lacey observed that the powdered and color-coordinated news anchors did not wait in the hot sun like a pack of salivating canines. That was for the lackeys.

It was the calm before the storm. Cameras were poised for that special moment—possibly twenty seconds—when Marcia would appear, emerge from the car, waltz up the steps, and disappear into the building. The rest of the day, lovely though it was, would be spent in mind-numbing suspended animation.

Lacey overheard a radio reporter phoning in his advance story. “Marcia Robinson is not expected to talk with reporters on her first day of testimony before the special prosecutor at the U.S. Courthouse.” Lacey heard him pause and splutter into the phone. “No, damn it, I don’t have anything else to say. There’s nobody out here to talk to. Maybe you can pull some wire copy. You want me to just make something up? I can do that.”

Draped with Nikons, Todd Hansen,
The Eye
’s photographer, accompanied Lacey. He was a sandy blond who would have looked at home building a log cabin in Maine, but somehow took a wrong turn and wound up in the District of Columbia. He was easygoing and very tall; his height, combined with an autofocus zoom lens, usually came up with just the right photos. Mr. Mellow never griped about assignments, which made him a favorite among the paper’s reporters.

Lacey handed him a two-way radio from the office. “Call me if you hear that she’s coming. There’s something I’ve got to check on.”

Todd assured her that was cool. He put on shades, slapped on some sunscreen, sat on a small fold-up stool he’d brought along, and retrieved a cup of coffee and
The New York Times.

An intern for
The Eye
was assigned the nasty, boring task of watching Marcia’s residence and calling as soon as the star witness left the building.
That’ll show her how glamorous the news business is,
Lacey thought. It was probably the kindest thing the paper could do for an intern, to discourage young humans from the bizarre life that is journalism in Washington. Across the street, Lacey felt no guilt as she strolled the quiet halls of the National Gallery of Art. The Renoirs were particularly lovely, the faces of children more delicately colored than the rugrats who were screaming behind her. One chubby little boy about four protested to his mother, “My feet are burning up and killing me! Why do we have to walk?”

As the noon hour neared without a Marcia alert, Lacey figured that Marcia would not arrive till after one. She made some calls and checked her voice mail. She was playing telephone tag with a busy woman named Ruby who had been in charge of the crime-scene cleanup at Stylettos. She left another message, and decided to lunch.

Lacey ordered a salad in the Garden Café and sat next to a fountain. But all good things come to an end. At twenty past one, the radio squawked. Marcia was on her way.

In the ladies’ room, Lacey smoothed her skirt, powdered her nose, reapplied her lipstick, and combed her hair. If she wound up on camera by accident she might as well look good. She returned to the sidewalk outside the courthouse.

A thrill shot through the crowd of reporters as a black limousine pulled up. Marcia emerged looking well rested, with a small serene smile that appeared to be glued on.
Maybe it’s Valium,
Lacey thought.
Or Prozac.
Marcia was dressed as prim as a pilgrim, in a black silk suit dress that skimmed her knees, accented with crisp white collar and cuffs. Pearls and plain black pumps completed the outfit.
Nice choice. Ten points. The only thing missing is the scarlet letter. Maybe “P” for pornographer?
Her hair was pulled into a shiny chignon at the back of her neck. Makeup understated. Lacey heard the
whir
of auto-wind cameras, and the reporters surged forward en masse toward poor Marcia.