They decided to visit Josephine’s digs, a pricey new town house at Evans Farm in McLean. Josephine beat them there, but she’d been chauffeured home in a screaming yellow ’Vette. Brooke took a circuitous route in the anonymous Acura to be sure they weren’t followed. “You may be taking this spy stuff a little too seriously, Brooke.”
“That may be true, Lacey, but you’ll notice my hair is still untouched.”
“You hate my hair.”
“I don’t hate it. It’s . . . nice.” Brooke parked where she had a view of the town house’s front door. The lights were on and a figure moved behind filmy white drapes. Twenty minutes later, a green Jeep with Colorado plates drove past and Lacey recognized the driver. That familiar sinking feeling hit her. Moments later Vic knocked on Josephine’s door.
“Wow, he’s a babe,” Brooke said. “Any idea who he is?”
Lacey bit her tongue. It was too complicated to explain.
“Just Stylettos’ new security guy.”
“He could keep me secure anytime.”
Josephine, lovely and freshly changed into sleek purple pants and a hot-pink sweater, opened the door. She smiled and kissed Vic on both cheeks, then drew him in and shut the door. Stella’s warning about Josephine’s man-eating ways came back to Lacey. “Let’s get out of here. I need a drink.”
“Okay, but just one.”
Lacey didn’t know yet what value this night’s surveillance had, but she knew one thing: She could never tell Vic.
Chapter 23
Like a penitent nun pondering her sins the next morning, Lacey decided to return Vic’s call from Friday. She hoped he wouldn’t be home so she could just leave a message on the machine; something like, “Hi, Vic. It’s Lacey. Got your message. Also got messages from Radford and some guy with a straight razor. Just thought you should know. Bye.” Nothing about Josephine’s rampage at Radford’s. Nothing about Vic’s nocturnal visit to Josephine’s.
It was ten o’clock Sunday morning, so if he had spent Saturday night with Josephine, as she assumed, he wouldn’t be home yet. The thought of Vic with the ex-Mrs. Radford made Lacey clench her teeth. However, it was more likely than imagining Vic Donovan in church, where Lacey had gone that morning, to an early Mass at nearby St. Mary’s to light a candle of thanks for letting her live. And another candle for letting her keep most of her hair, too. And a third to be prepared for any more surprises.
She dialed and heard him pick up the receiver and bark. “Yeah!” She was on the verge of hanging up. He barked again. “Talk to me, Lacey.”
“Damn it. You have Caller ID. Boy, that figures.”
“Of course I do.” Now he sounded exasperated. Lacey hated Caller ID. Most of her sources had caller identification. Even pizza-delivery joints had Caller ID, but
The Eye
was too cheap and she refused to have it at home.
“I’m just calling you back,” she said.
“You took your sweet time about it.”
“Me? You never got back to me about the photos. What’s the rush? You were out gallivanting with the remarkably well preserved Mrs. Radford all weekend.”
“We weren’t gallivanting. It was work.”
“I’m sure it was,” Lacey purred.
“Where did you get your information?”
“Stella is an equal-opportunity songbird,” she said. Vic emitted some guttural sound. “Besides, you only called me to yell at me.”
“And I’d throttle you over the phone if I could. Two women are dead and you invite some slasher to call anytime? Isn’t life dangerous enough?”
“Yeah, it’s dangerous enough!” On the verge of tears, Lacey gulped a breath of air. She was going to hang up on him.
Damn it, you are not going to make me cry.
“And what about the photos?”
“I’ve got them.”
“How do they look?”
Vic caught a note of desperation. “What aren’t you telling me, Lacey?”
Screw you!
“Lacey?”
“I was going to tell you that your pal Boyd Radford warned me not to write any more stories about Stylettos. He said there’d be hell to pay. He threatened me after work on Friday.” She rushed it out, then stopped. Damn if she was going to tell him about the incident at Dyke Marsh. There was a moment of dead air.
“We have to talk in person,” Vic said.
“Bring the photos.”
“I can’t. I left them with the blood-spatter guy.”
After wrangling about it, they compromised on lunch and a trip to a firing range for a self-defense lesson. That was Vic’s idea, or rather his demand, in exchange for his information.
She assumed it would be dirty at the range. She decided on khaki slacks and a safari jacket. The jungle motif prepared her mentally for battle and she was tired of her black burglar outfit. Vic picked her up at noon in the Jeep, and took one long, close look at her, which gave her goose bumps. His face darkened, but his voice was quiet.
“What happened to your hair, Lacey?”
“Don’t you like it?” He glared at her. “Stella shaped it up a little, that’s all. Friday night.”
“Stella wasn’t working Friday night.”
“My stylist makes house calls. I hear yours does too.”
Vic slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the curb. He turned off the engine and set the emergency brake.
“Damn it, Lacey. What happened?” She had never actually seen him really angry before. At least not with her. His eyes burned right through her. Notwithstanding being a journalist, lying effectively was not one of her skills, so she looked out the window.
“I was . . . He . . . There was an incident, in Dyke Marsh. With the Hair Ball. He took a little souvenir with him. . . .”
“He cut your hair?” She nodded. He reached over and touched it, sending chills through her. The moment passed quickly.
Donovan wanted everything: the time, the place, the name of the park policeman, the breed of mutt that interrupted the attack. The wind direction, the color of the mud. Then he wanted to hear it again. She also spilled the tale of the lock of hair and the terse message.
“And you didn’t tell me? Or the police?”
“The police couldn’t care less and you didn’t want to know. Remember? It was ‘suicide.’ ”
He lectured her on the dangers of inciting madmen to foolish actions. “I am not on trial here, Vic,” she said. Lacey refused to look at him and only afterwards wondered why she just stayed there and took it, why she didn’t get out of the blasted Jeep, slam the door, and walk out of his life. Probably because he would have hunted her down to finish his manly dissertation.
“It was a stupid-ass thing to do, Lacey.” Finally, after more insights on her foolish behavior, he turned the key.
“And I thought you didn’t care,” was all she could manage.
They drove in silence. She suspected that he couldn’t find words descriptive enough to explain just how pissed he was. His mouth was set in a tight line and he tuned the radio to a country station so they could fill the silence with songs about busted love, faithless women, and good old American trucks.
He took her to lunch at Anita’s, a Mexican restaurant not far from the firing range out in Fairfax County. Finally, it was his turn to talk. But none of it was for publication.
“Radford’s really rattled by these deaths, and someone broke into his house last night.”
Lacey almost choked on her enchiladas. “Really?”
“He doesn’t know what they’re after.
“Any suspects?”
He shrugged. “Radford’s been spooked lately. Told me he even changed the locks at his house. Should have let me do it. I’d have changed the alarm code too. Anyway, nothing seems to be missing. Whoever it was made a heck of a mess though.”
“I need to talk to him and clear this up. I will not be threatened.”
“I don’t think he was seriously threatening you.”
“You weren’t there. I’m going to talk with him. Soon.”
“Wait a minute.”
“I mean it, Vic.”
“In that case, I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“Maybe I don’t trust you.”
“Very funny.”
Vic didn’t linger over lunch. He insisted that she learn to shoot a gun in self-defense. She argued that she didn’t have a gun and if she did, she couldn’t take it into the District of Columbia, where handguns were outlawed, even though every other kid on the street carried one. If Lacey had possessed a gun, she couldn’t drag it along in her purse in Virginia because she didn’t have a concealed-weapons permit. He produced an application for one. In Virginia, he elaborated, the right to bear arms was considered one of the more important rights, and concealed-weapons permits were available to the average citizen with the proper training in firearms. He recommended it.
Vic didn’t need to point out that she had already been assaulted. But he did. The least she could do was protect herself in her own home. And though it was understood, he reminded her that the slimeball knew where to find her: He had followed her to Dyke Marsh.
Lacey asked about stun guns, but Vic sneered. Would she really want to let the killer get that close? She then suggested that a derringer would be small and handy, not to mention adorable.
“Only if you promise to wear it in your garter, Annie Oakley,” he said.
The firing range was located in a large, nondescript warehouse complex in the suburban wilds of Fairfax County. It featured a store in front that sold guns and ammo and various accessories. The pleasant aroma of gunpowder perfumed the air, smelling like fireworks, she thought. They signed releases, paid for their time and an extra box of .38 wadcutter target cartridges, and stopped at the door to the indoor target range.
Vic opened his black leather bag and pulled out ear and eye protectors. They weren’t allowed on the range without them. Vic had an extra set for Lacey.
“Two of everything, huh? So how many other women do you take out to the range, Vic?”
“Just be good and put them on, Lacey.”
Vic was serious. She wondered briefly if he might actually care about her. More likely, he simply didn’t trust her not to jump in front of the killer, hollering “Murder me!” They put on their protective gear and passed through to the range. She found the sound deafening even with the ear protectors on, so she added a pair of soft foam plugs, also courtesy of Vic, underneath the earmuffs.
Vic had explained over lunch the essential points of handgun etiquette, which she was already fuzzy about. He reviewed them. They started with a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, a diminutive Model 60. Lacey was relieved: Revolvers looked more like real guns to her. She was less fond of automatics. He showed her how to open the cylinder, load the cartridges, and click it shut. The abstractions of firearms protocol were coming into focus.
“Treat every gun as loaded. Know your target. Know what’s behind it. Know what you’ll hit if you miss or shoot through it. Don’t point a gun at anything you’re not willing to kill. Keep your finger off the trigger till you’re ready to shoot.” Vic made her repeat it like a mantra.
Her biggest fear was that she would embarrass herself in front of him. After all, she had a history. He clipped a target to a wire and sent it down the lane about seven yards, a “social distance,” he called it. She aimed at the silhouette of a man with a red dot in the center of his head and one in the middle of his chest. She prayed she wouldn’t hit the floor, the ceiling or her foot. Or Vic.
Well . . .
He put his arms around her shoulders, cradling her arms and hands around the gun to demonstrate the proper isosceles triangle position. Their earmuffs bumped. Lacey concentrated, lined up the sights, focused on the upper red dot, held her breath, and squeezed the trigger. The recoil startled her, jerking her hands and arms up and back.
Nobody ever has recoil on television!
“How’d I do?” She had to shout.
“You pierced his ear.”
“All right!” She had hit the target and almost hit Mr. Red Dot’s head. By the end of the .38 session, they’d shot up all the wadcutters and she was clustering her shots more or less where she intended. Lacey had decoratively pierced various sensitive body parts on Mr. Red Dot.
They advanced to shooting with his customized Colt .45 semiautomatic, which practically knocked her on her butt at first. It had serious recoil, but it was smooth and consistent. Finally Vic brought out his 9mm Glock. She didn’t like its grim black plastic looks. But she could shoot with it.
“Damn, Lacey. I think you’ve got a knack for this kind of thing,” Vic said. “You’ve got good rhythm and you don’t flinch. What do you think?”
“I think if the guy with the red dot on his head comes after me, he’s a dead man. Problem is, what if he’s not wearing the red dot?”
He handed her the .38 Smith & Wesson and watched her clean it, reload it, and unload it to demonstrate her new knowledge. He gave her the gun and carrying case despite her protests. It was hers on loan for as long as she wanted it.
Afterwards, they stopped for chili at Hard Times Café in Old Town. They both ordered the Texas with everything and a couple of Lone Star beers. Marty Robbins was on the jukebox singing about El Paso and Vic was reading the label on the Lone Star.
“What’s on your mind, Vic?”
“I think you ought to try to stay out of trouble.”
“You’re still mad about the column.”
“It was a cheap stunt and dangerous, to boot,” he said.
“Angie is dead. Tammi is dead. Radford warns me not to write any more columns about them, after which I get attacked. Am I not supposed to tell the world there’s a killer out there?”
“Excuse me, folks. Anything else?” The waitress flashed a friendly smile at the handsome Donovan, who asked for the check. “Be right back with that for you, sir.” She was obviously a pro, unfazed by talk of killers over chili.
“I give up. How are we supposed to push this investigation further?” Lacey asked.
“Do you want to push it till you’re dead too?”