Chapter 17
Lacey packed light, but her overnight bag still weighed a ton. It could be balmy and pleasant, as forecast by D.C.’s renowned meteorologists; or as a certain psychic predicted, it could rain like Katzenjammers.
Whatever that means.
Lacey packed a heavy sweater, a warm hooded jacket, heavy gloves, and an umbrella. She also tossed in khaki shorts, boat-neck cotton tops, sunscreen, and a visor.
She left the light on and gave the apartment one last look before heading to the car. Her new Ella Fitzgerald tape of Cole Porter songs was waiting for the ride down. It was a dew-kissed Tuesday morning with the scent of cut grass. Her favorite emerald sweater and her most comfortable jeans were a talisman against Marie’s warnings.
Her key was in the car door. She heard someone behind her.
“Road trip, Lacey?”
Annoyed, she turned on him. “Are you some kind of vampire, Vic? Do you never sleep?” But this time there were no obvious signs that he had been up all night. He looked suspiciously fresh and showered. The Jeep was idling, blocking her in.
“I left a message on your machine yesterday,” he said.
“Yeah, so? It’s been nice seeing you, Vic, but I’ve got things to do, people to see.” She yanked open the door, wondering why he bothered her so much.
“That’s why I called. I thought we could take my Jeep.”
“Back up, cowboy. We?”
“You’re going to Virginia Beach. Coincidentally, so am I.”
“Coincidentally? You just happen to be going to Virginia Beach on a Tuesday? And I am the Queen of the May.”
“Business,” he said.
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“Radford’s down there at his beach house. Wants me to meet him. There’s no reason we can’t share the drive.”
She slammed the door and turned around. “It was Stella, wasn’t it? She knows all, she tells all.”
“She’s your friend.”
“That’s what you think. Stella is a barnacle I can’t scrape off! I only wish you’d had to beat the information out of her. Some friend, blabbing my business all over town.”
He chuckled. “Like a reporter?”
“And why do you care anyway?”
Now he laughed. It was too early in the morning for laughter: The sun was barely up; robins were gossiping. The road awaited. Lacey explained to Vic that she had things to do in Virginia Beach and for that she needed her own car. After all, he must have his own agenda as well.
“Thought I’d tag along with you, Lacey.”
“You won’t open doors for me, but I’m supposed to open doors for you?”
“I couldn’t let you in the warehouse. You know that.”
“Too bad. Gotta go. I’m staying over.”
“My bag is packed. I’m flexible.”
A brazen black squirrel stopped on the sidewalk and stared at them. “I don’t care what you do, Vic. Your bag is always packed. If we run into each other, maybe I’ll let you buy me dinner. But I’m driving my own car.”
Vic shrugged. “All right, already. I try to be friendly and see what I get. See you down there.” The squirrel scrambled up the oak tree for a better view. Vic roared off in the Jeep and squealed his tires around the corner.
Lacey threw her bag in the back of her car, climbed in, unlocked and removed the Club from the steering wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. Road ready as it allegedly was, the Z failed to turn over. It merely uttered a futile
click, click, click,
a dead giveaway that the solenoid on the starter was dead. She sighed deeply and rested her head on the steering wheel.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
She could call AAA. Or she could see if Paul at Asian Engines had a starter in stock. Lacey was a good customer, and she could plead an emergency. Surely, Paul would have mercy on her, but it would set her back at least an hour. Maybe three. Disappointment washed over her. She should have known the Z was running too perfectly.
But why today?
She groaned.
I love this car—I don’t think 198,000 miles is too much to ask.
She sat for a full five minutes in disgust. She didn’t even hear the Jeep pull up again.
Vic knocked on the window. She rolled it down.
“Thought you were right behind me, Lacey. You change your mind?”
“Got a spare starter?”
“Sorry. And just so you know, I did not sabotage your car. Maybe it’s depressed.” She said nothing. “The offer still stands. Come on. The Jeep is warmed up,” he said.
Lacey hated the Jeep. She glared at the gleaming hulk, uncharacteristically washed and waxed. The Jeep was only two years old. No doubt everything on it was in perfect working order. The thought made her growl audibly.
“Is that a yes?” Vic asked. “It’ll probably take you all day to get this thing fixed.”
She put the Club back on her steering wheel and locked it, retrieved her bag, slammed the door, and stomped over to the Jeep. “Thank you. You can drop me off at a car-rental place down there. I’ll drive a one-way back to National Airport. I don’t want to burden you.” She caught him grinning at her once again. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
“I’m not laughing
at
you, Lacey. I’m laughing
with
you.”
She smiled sweetly. “Someday I’ll be laughing with
you
.” Eventually, she calmed down, about the time he turned off the Beltway down I-95 South. He didn’t say a word while she seethed at her fate. Marie’s words came back: “Frustrating weekend. Go with the flow.”
Grrr!
Vic spoke as soon as he sensed she wouldn’t bite. “Not so bad, is it?” The Jeep was climate controlled and musically enhanced. “You’re really attached to that car, aren’t you?”
“I was looking forward to the drive. It was supposed to be road ready. Finally.” A bad mood descended, weighing down her shoulders.
“You need a new car, Lacey. You had that Z back in Sagebrush. You gonna keep it forever? Did it save Timmy from the well or something?” She growled again in response. “You’re a bear until you’ve had coffee, aren’t you?”
“I’m not the bear. I poke the bear.”
“Okay, bear hunter. How about some breakfast, then?”
An alluring aroma was coming from a large white paper bag. Vic indicated that she should open it. Lacey peeked. Fresh rolls, coffee, and orange juice.
He thought of everything. As usual.
Of course, she had planned to pick up something at Sutton Place, the gourmet grocery, on her way out of town. “You planned this,” she accused him.
“Just have to be prepared, that’s all. It’s a long drive.”
“Damn Boy Scout.”
Everyone says the drive to Virginia Beach is three and a half hours from Washington, D.C. Everyone lies, unless they drive ninety miles an hour without traffic and without troopers. It’s more like four and a half to five hours, but Vic split the difference and made it in a little over four. It’s too long to drive without talking.
“So, why Virginia Beach today?” Vic finally asked.
“Stella didn’t tell you? She must be falling down on the job, the tattletale.”
“She said you’d kill her.”
“Why exactly are
you
going there?”
Vic said he was going to look at potential Stylettos salon sites with an eye toward security, for Boyd Radford.
“More purloined shampoo?” she asked. It struck Lacey that Boyd was relying on Vic an awful lot and Vic could have gone to Virginia Beach anytime.
“Not so far as I know. I’m crazy enough to think you might be onto something. I’m also supposed to ride herd on you.”
“With what, your charm? My bad luck with cars?”
“Whatever it takes. Orders from Radford.”
“Ratboy’s a worm.”
“There goes that eyebrow rising again, Lacey. Tell me, is that an automatic response to me, or do you have conscious control over it?”
“I don’t need a baby-sitter, Victor Donovan.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I think if Radford’s that concerned about one insignificant fashion reporter, he’s got something to hide. And maybe I need to find out what that is.”
“That’s the Lacey Smithsonian I know. Always in the middle of things.”
“Not true.”
“Then you’ve changed. You were always in the middle of things in Sagebrush.”
“Shucks, cowboy, it was a small town. Besides, your buddies in the sheriff’s department used to tip me off. The same way your cops tattled on the deputies.”
He grimaced. “Doesn’t matter how you got there, you were always there.”
“What do you think is going on, Vic?”
“I’m not looking for drama, Lacey. I’ve had enough drama. I’m just trying to figure out how to do this job as well as my dad does it.”
The highway was monotonous, but it improved the closer they got to Virginia Beach. Spring was blossoming in the southern part of the state. The trees were filling in the landscape and petals perfumed the air. Lacey poked her nose out the window and inhaled deeply.
Vic exited the highway and headed down Atlantic Avenue near the beachfront. He parked at the city parking lot. Warm salt air greeted them as they emerged from the Jeep. Lacey stretched her legs and grabbed her backpack. “Okay. I’ll call a cab from the salon.” She reached for her overnight bag, but Vic assured her he would drop it off later. Lacey gave in; she didn’t feel like carrying it to lunch with Tammi.
The salon was a couple of blocks away, between Atlantic and Pacific. As they turned the corner she spotted the hot-pink awning emblazoned with Stylettos’ logo: a stylized pair of scissors striding in high heels.
But something was wrong. A crowd was jamming the sidewalk. Police cars and an ambulance were blocking the flow of traffic on the street. Two uniformed officers were turning people away from the salon door.
Dread filled the pit of her stomach as she hurried forward. Vic put a restraining hand over her arm. “God, Vic. What the hell—” His hand tightened.
They arrived on the sidewalk as the front door swung open and a gurney was wheeled out. On it, strapped in and zipped up, was a body bag. Two women followed the emergency medical technicians to the ambulance, clutching each other, streaks of tears on their faces. Both wore the distinctive black polished cotton Stylettos smock with large patch pockets and Chinese collar. The blonde in a short skirt wore her hair in an “Aries,” a haircut designed to look like a ram’s head, parted in the middle with long “horns” sweeping back around her ears and up beneath her chin. The back was razored short. Lacey had watched Stella cut one. The brunette wore a short urchin cut and a sundress under her smock.
She overheard one of the women whisper “Suicide.”
Lacey froze. “Suicide? Oh my God. Who?”
A uniformed cop pushed past her, his voice efficient. “Excuse me, ma’am.” He moved into the salon carrying crime-scene tape.
“We don’t know what it is, but suicide and homicide are treated the same until a determination is made,” Vic reminded Lacey. “We just need to stay out of their way.”
It occurred to Lacey that this wasn’t the first time she and Vic had stood by the crime tape at a murder scene—not that there had been many murders in Sagebrush. The difference in Sagebrush was that they were on opposite sides of the tape. There had been one murder in particular, she remembered, a woman’s body dumped off the highway, strangled, with no witnesses, no suspects, no real evidence. She felt bad now that she’d needled Vic for not solving it. She knew he had sweated bullets and blood over it.
Vic could tell Lacey wanted to talk with the police. He steered her away from the police tape. “No sense in getting in their way and pissing them off. I know someone on the force.” He would. Vic was one of those guys who seemed to know someone wherever he went. “Let me make a call and see if we can talk with the detective later.”
Lacey approached the weeping stylists, both in their late twenties. She explained who she was and that she had come to talk with Tammi White, hoping against hope that the manager was still in the salon with the cops and that the body in the bag was merely a victim of a bad perm and a heart attack. But Lacey hadn’t seen anyone in the crowd with long, curly black hair.
“You’re ‘Crimes of Fashion’?” The ram’s-head blonde turned out to be named Heidi. “Man. Tammi was so excited to see you, but you can’t talk to her now. She’s in there. . . .” She motioned to the ambulance.
“She’s dead!” The brunette, Nan, blurted out, her eyes wet beneath fringed bangs. “God, I’ve never known any dead people before.” Her voice broke.
The two stylists hugged, sobbing, and Lacey helplessly stood by. Guilt seemed to slap her in the face. She could hardly breathe. Had something she said or wrote initiated a chain of events that ended in a woman’s death?
Heidi’s eyes squeezed out more tears as she related that she and Tammi, her manager, had closed the salon the night before, and she had come into the salon this morning and found Tammi dead. Heidi saw the message in blood on the mirror:
That’s All, Folks.
All the blood was a shock. To Lacey it sounded just like Angie’s death—slit wrists, the straight razor, the bloody message. It had the same gruesome flippancy as Angie’s alleged farewell:
So Long.
“Did you see her hair?” Lacey asked. “Tammi said she had long black hair.”
“The hair? Oh my God!” Nan shrieked. “It was hacked off. I didn’t even recognize her at first.” The young manager was slumped over her station and her hair was cut off, savagely, very short. “She wore it braided yesterday with a red ribbon wound through it. I remember ’cause we always remember hair and Angie showed her that style. Angie loved hair ribbons.”
Stella had said Angie wore her hair braided with a blue ribbon the day she was killed.
“Where was the hair?” Lacey asked.
Now that Lacey brought it up, Heidi couldn’t remember seeing the hair. It wasn’t on the floor. “I don’t know. Shampoo girls always sweep up the hair, we don’t even think about it.”
“It doesn’t make any sense, killing herself. I mean she was totally juiced that you were coming,” Nan added. “Tammi had all the news stories about Marcia and Angie. She even came in here once for a condition.”