Killer Hair (34 page)

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.”

Chapter 25

There was an air of anticipation about Boyd Radford’s memorial service. The little black dress was out in abundance on the sunny Tuesday morning at eleven a.m., creating a surrealistic cocktail-party atmosphere. Whether the stylists thought it was appropriate mourning attire or they simply were celebrating Radford’s demise, Lacey didn’t know, but she enjoyed the not-quite-Washington ambience.

It certainly felt like old home week at Evergreens Mortuary, the place of Lacey’s last sighting of Angela Woods a few short weeks before. Unlike Angela, Boyd Radford was not on display. His body had been released from the medical examiner’s office and cremated as soon as possible, per the request of his heirs. Approximately seven pounds of his lingering earthly remains occupied a plastic sack in an empty shampoo carton until Josephine could select a tasteful silver urn. For now, he resided in the trunk of his ex-Jaguar, next to his ex-golf clubs.

Many of the stylists were disappointed at this turn of events. They wanted to see him dead, or at least to witness the reassuring testimony of a coffin. Instead, the mourners were all handed a brochure titled
In Memoriam
featuring Radford’s last professional photograph, which unfortunately emphasized his rodentlike features, a tally of accomplishments, personal testimonials, and a listing of all twenty-five salons with phone numbers, presumably to keep on the refrigerator as a handy reference. Lacey was surprised it didn’t include a Stylettos magnet for the refrigerator door in the shape of the high-heeled scissors logo.

Lacey stood in the back of the chapel with Stella on one side and Michelle on the other. The wig felt like a hot bathing cap with hair. In her somber outfit of black beret, Stylettos smock, black skirt, tights, and sunglasses, she looked identical to at least half a dozen other stylists. Stella and Michelle shepherded Lacey like a lost lamb. Their cover story was that Stella’s new stylist, “Claudette,” had laryngitis and was under strict doctor’s orders not to speak. Every time they said it, “Claudette” rolled her eyes, which, of course, were covered.

No one questioned why “Claudette” wore sunglasses. Stella also wore shades and had encouraged others to wear them as a special sign of respect for Ratboy. “They’ll think we’ve been crying,” she explained. “With joy,” added Michelle, behind her Ray-Bans.

The widow Radford was so grief stricken she had to employ Vic Donovan as a bodyguard. At least until Boyd’s killer was caught. That’s what she told Donovan, and that’s what Donovan had told Lacey when he called Monday to reemphasize that she was not wanted, invited, or expected at the service.
When will he learn I cannot be ordered around?

As Vic escorted Josephine up the aisle, he stared at Lacey hard and long, making her nervous. He looked slightly puzzled and she was glad for the sunglasses. Vic shrugged as Josephine’s hand closed over his arm with a gentle squeeze of ownership. They took their seats in the front row.

The raven-haired mistress of Stylettos wore a plain black silk dress with a square neckline outlined in magenta piping. The matching princess coat had a band of magenta around the bottom of wide bell sleeves. Josephine also chose a close-fitting hat, worn on the crown of her head above the sleek black chignon. Large diamond earrings and the simple wedding band, retrieved from the bottom of her jewelry box for the occasion, were her only jewelry. She accessorized with black patent leather pumps. Josephine’s face bore no obvious signs of tears or lamentations, only a stately solemnity. She played the part of the bereaved widow so well that to mention the divorce would be gauche. Her demeanor suggested a queen in full command of the whole royal shebang.

“She really knows how to dress for a funeral,” Lacey admitted grudgingly.

“She’s been planning that outfit ever since the divorce,” Stella said. “Maybe since the wedding.”

On Josephine’s right arm she wore Donovan, the perfect accessory. The sorrow of losing her ex-husband evidently required the tall, handsome Vic to console her. Lacey felt a pang seeing them together.
The fox and the hound.

They made a stunning couple, and Vic even wore a beautifully tailored navy suit, a pale blue shirt, and a subdued striped tie. It was a look Lacey had never seen him in.

Nevertheless, Lacey had to appreciate Josephine’s knack for keeping Vic under her control. Other women might lack the financial upper hand, but Josephine was not embarrassed to use that strategy.
Shouldn’t take too long,
Lacey thought, and it made her sadder than she expected. Josephine was older than Vic, but still a striking woman. And for all his fine law-enforcement skills, he was a dope about the fairer sex. After all, he knew nothing when it came to Lacey.

She also spotted Tony Trujillo, who was representing
The Eye Street Observer.
He knew Lacey without a moment’s hesitation, smiled and gave her a thumbs-up sign. She looked away.

The crowd milled around for half an hour. Then the organist began playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which saved the day. People took seats and the program began. The head accountant for Stylettos, a small, wizened man in oversized spectacles with age spots on his bald head, opened the event with an account of Radford’s little-known charity work.

“Tax dodge,” Stella said.

Josephine apparently was too overwrought to address the multitudes of little people who kept the cash registers full. But Beau Radford was scheduled to speak. He stood to Josephine’s left, and he had also spruced up for the occasion, in an oversized black suit, which must have belonged to Boyd. The white shirt was likewise too large; the French cuffs, fastened with gaudy gold cuff links, fell to his knuckles. His only personal affectation was a blazing blue tie, featuring the cartoon emblem of Superman. He was still wearing the ponytail.

“His hair looks darker and thicker,” Lacey whispered.

“Yeah, he must be dyeing it. Thickens the hair shaft,” Stella said.

“Looks like he curled it.”

“Maybe Josephine permed it,” Michelle added.

Josephine fussed with Beau’s suit before he got up to speak. She glared at his tie. She whispered in French, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

Mild-mannered Beau informed the crowd he would be running the company, along with his mother, as stipulated by the will. He promised to make his old man proud. Beau quietly stepped away from the podium just as Leonardo flew into the hall, looking like a wild man. He was puffy faced, red eyed, and disheveled, his hair matted and sweaty. He had thrown on a dirty black trench coat over a black T-shirt and wrinkled black jeans. Stella shot him a dirty look as he threw himself down next to them.