Hostile Makeover (41 page)

The nine millimeter dropped from Lacey’s now stiff and very cold fingers, and she kicked it across the floor, out of anyone’s immediate reach. She took a few steps back, away from him, and felt the cold cement-block wall of the warehouse at her back. Penfield was staggering. Rose gave him another firm whack with the club, lower down, just at kidney level. He yowled in pain.

Penfield pivoted toward Rose and tore the nine iron from her hands with a low growl. He turned back and staggered toward Lacey, grinning maniacally, his breath ragged, the bent golf club waving menacingly in his hands. Cherise was clapping while jumping in place, counting out half-remembered moves from her old Geronimo High routine. As she had once promised Lacey, it was coming back to her.

“Gimme a G,” Lacey yelled. “Gimme an E! Gimme an R! Gimme an O!” Cherise was back in the cheer zone now, but there were too many letters left. Penfield rocked woozily on his heels; he lifted the club. Lacey cut to the chase. “What’s that spell? Geronimo! What’s that spell?”

“Geronimo!”
Cherise shouted with all her might. Penfield spun around to look at her. He leaned forward and shook his head to clear it. At the same moment Cherise delivered her stunning high kick to his jaw. Lacey had never seen her in such perfect cheerleader form. Cherise’s new tan pump connected with Penfield’s jaw at the very apex of her kick, knocking him out cold. He crumpled to the hard floor, and the nine iron went flying.

Cherise looked down at her handiwork, or rather footwork. Three Smithsonian women crowded around the fallen killer and spoke in unison.

“Geronimo.”

Chapter 32

“It’s so nice to see you two working together on a project for a change,” Rose said, as Lacey and Cherise busily trussed up Tate Penfield like a Thanksgiving turkey, using a roll of duct tape from his camera bag. They left him in a sitting position on the floor, leaning against the wall. He was still unconscious, but except for a cut lip, he seemed to be physically all right, as near as they could tell.

The sisters looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Toss me the tape, Lethal Feet; you missed a spot,” Lacey said. Cherise stuck her tongue out and threw her the tape.

Lacey finished double-taping his wrists and ankles just as he came to and started thrashing around, but the duct tape held. Penfield was conscious now, in pain and furious. He seemed to have completed the transformation that Lacey had feared. He wasn’t Tate or Caleb anymore. His language was so vile that it took all of Rose’s patience not to stop his bleeding mouth with another piece of duct tape. But when Lacey picked up the twisted nine iron and told him to shut up, he stopped talking and sulked.

“For the all-time record, game-winning high kick, Cherise, thank you,” Lacey said. “Both of you.”

“That’s what families are for, dear.” Her mother gave each daughter a quick hug. Penfield said a bad word, and Rose almost kicked him, but she stopped herself.

“Don’t get close to him; he’s tricky,” Lacey cautioned them. “I need a phone. I left my stupid cell phone at home.”

“There’s one in the office,” her mother pointed out.

Lacey located Penfield’s gun, where it had come to rest under a stool in the makeup area. Nobody seemed to need it at the moment, she thought, so she upended an empty wastebasket over it for safekeeping. She backed into the office carefully, keeping her eyes on Penfield, even though Rose stood sentry with the nine iron in her hands—and a new spring in her step. Lacey called the private D.C. police number that Detective Broadway Lamont had given her. It seemed well past the moment to call 911. Lamont was off duty, a dispatcher told her. Lacey started to explain the situation, but she realized it wouldn’t be easy to put it into a sound bite for a bored police dispatcher. Would another detective do? she was asked. Did she want to transfer her call to 911?

“I want Broadway Lamont,” she said. “Find him, page him, track him down, wake him up. He’ll want to see this for himself. Tell him it’s Lacey Smithsonian, and I have a killer for him.” She gave the address and hung up. If that didn’t get her Lamont, she decided, she’d have to call Agent Braddock at the FBI. Her next call was to Trujillo.

“Lacey? Hey, man, what’s up?” He sounded groggy.

“Did I wake you up?”

“It’s okay; my eyes are open now.”

“You alone, Tony? I’d hate to interrupt anything.”

Trujillo laughed. “I’m sure you’re calling about something important, so I’m waiting already.”

She took a breath. “I’m in Hansen’s studio on New York Avenue.”

“Yeah, I’ve driven him over there a couple times. He needs a new car. So?”

“We’ve got the guy who killed Amanda Manville.”

“Dude! No way!”

“Way. The thing is, I know Mac won’t let me write the news story. At least not without you. He’s got this thing about objectivity, and I don’t have any on this subject.” The truth was that she felt torn. Penfield had seemed like such a good guy before he morphed into the hostile-makeover killer.

“I’ll be there in twenty.” Trujillo hung up. Back in the studio Lacey studied the elaborate video-camera setup Penfield had arranged to capture the final scene of his documentary. The cameras were still whirring softly. “I wonder how we turn these damn things off.”

“Don’t touch my cameras,” Penfield ordered gruffly, but they ignored him. Lacey decided to let the tape run out on its own.

“And don’t you ever call me Lethal Feet,” Cherise said firmly, “unless you are in mortal danger. Again.” She took a quiet moment to comb her hair and refresh her makeup.

“I’m very impressed, Sis. I wasn’t sure you still had it in you.” Cherise tossed the comb at her sister’s head, but Lacey neatly caught it. “You’ll always be Lethal Feet to me.”

“And what,” her mother demanded, “about me?”

“That’s a wicked swing you’ve got there, Mom.”

“I’ve been practicing,” she said proudly. “Wellshire Municipal Golf Course.”

“I suppose you’re mad at me for messing up your visit?” Lacey asked.

“Mad? Why would I be mad? You needed your mother. And I was there for you.”

“
We
were there for you,” Cherise chimed in.

“Do you suppose we’ll be on that Web site of yours?” Rose’s eyes twinkled. She was growing younger with her enthusiasm. “That’ll give Mrs. Dorfendraper something to talk about!”

“Oh, I can practically guarantee it, Mom.”

“It’s been a wonderful trip, Lacey,” Cherise said. “Of course, you kept all the cute guys for yourself.”

“And I got to see how they decorate a house in Georgetown,” her mother said. “Although I think a black bathroom is going a bit too far.”

Cherise was staring at Penfield. His eyes were closed, but even tied up, disheveled, and clearly deranged, he looked like a sleeping god. “Are you sure this is Caleb Collingwood? That ugly guy who was in love with Amanda? I just don’t see it.”

The unlocked front door of the warehouse slammed open, and Lacey expected to see Tony Trujillo or the cops burst through it, but instead it was Hansen loping through the office into the photo studio.

“Smithsonian, you there? Sorry, I need my keys—” Hansen was going to say something else, but he was riveted by the sight of Penfield decked out in duct tape. He looked at Lacey and her mother and her sister.

“Whoa. This isn’t some kind of weird sex thing, is it? ’Cause I could just leave—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hansen,” Lacey said.

“Please stay,” Cherise said, training her big baby blues on the tall blond photographer, who melted a little bit under her gaze.

“Hansen!” Penfield roared to life. “Help me out of this, buddy! She’s a lunatic on the loose, and so’s her whole damned family. You gotta help me—”

Everyone started shouting at once. Lacey was afraid Rose was going to have to use the nine iron again, and she wasn’t sure who would get it first this time.

Lacey looked up and saw Vic stampede through the door, dark curls flowing over his forehead and green eyes blazing, with a look somewhere between relief and fury. Trujillo appeared in the studio doorway behind him, looking as cool and collected as if he’d been planning this entrance all day.

Vic took in the room and saw only her. “Lacey.” He closed the distance between them and held her in his arms.

“You two have met, I presume,” Trujillo cracked.

“How did you find me?” Lacey asked Vic.

He brushed a piece of hair out of her face where it had fallen. “I couldn’t get you on the phone.” She thought of her cell phone, safely plugged into its charger where she left it. “So I called Slick here.”

“Yeah, just try to get some sleep on a school night,” Tony said. “He called right after you did.”

“I followed him over here,” Vic said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Her mother and sister and Hansen and Penfield were mercifully quiet, and Lacey temporarily forgot all about them. “I thought you’d be busy. With Montana.” But the truth was that she didn’t know how to explain the whole situation to him. And she knew he couldn’t quite explain Montana to her. Maybe they both needed to clear the air.

He threw her a look that said he couldn’t believe it, but he reached out and hugged her instead. “Okay, what’s going on here?” He looked over at her mother and sister, and at Penfield trussed up on the floor. “I’m sure there’s some kind of good explanation for this, or an interesting one, anyway.”

Vic was waiting for an answer, but Hansen was confused. He made a move toward the duct-taped assassin, but Lacey blocked his path.

“Penfield killed Amanda,” Lacey said. “He attacked Spaulding, twice. And me.”

“Tate? Is that right, man?” Hansen asked. “What the hell—”

“The documentary. No matter what happens,” Penfield said hoarsely, “you must finish it. Hansen, promise me.” His voice was punctuated by sirens screaming through the nearby city streets and stopping at the warehouse. The group stood still. Penfield’s head dropped as everyone listened to car doors opening and shutting. Three D.C. cops with their guns drawn stormed through the front door and streamed into the studio.

“Police! Nobody move,” one policeman ordered, though no one was moving.

Lacey held her breath. To her relief, Detective Broadway Lamont ambled into the studio behind the uniforms. “Smithsonian, what in hell is going on here? Trujillo, you part of this madhouse too?”

Trujillo just smiled and tipped his head toward Lacey.

“Looks like a damn party going on here.” Lamont’s eyes settled on Penfield. “This the guy? You’re telling me this guy did it? Nice of you to wrap it up, Smithsonian, but I am waiting. Speak to me, madam.”

She explained the whole scene to Lamont as best she could, watching the storm clouds of skepticism gather in his furrowed brow. The thunderstorm abated somewhat once he was convinced that Penfield was Collingwood; Amanda’s sweater proved it. And Lamont was assured that a full confession from the killer was on videotape. Lacey lifted the wastebasket and showed him the gun. Lamont laughed out loud. He ordered one of the uniformed cops to sit on the wastebasket until the forensics team arrived. But he was still irritated.

“Smithsonian, you are a nuisance to public safety, and you piss me off.”

“Now tell me something I don’t know, Broadway.” The D.C. homicide cop pretty much rounded out the chorus of people who would be singing the same song, including Douglas MacArthur Jones, the editor who would blame her for his high blood pressure. And then Vic’s full reaction was still to come. She hoped he would save it for some private moment.
A very private moment.

“I thought the District would be secure with you hanging around with your mother and sister. I thought I told you to stay safe.”

“Well, I was safe. Ultimately.”

“You had nothing to worry about, Detective,” Rose put in. “We managed very nicely by ourselves. We Smithsonians stick together.” She hugged her daughters.

When he had moved Lacey out of earshot of her formidable mother and suspicious boyfriend, Detective Lamont finished his lecture and gave her a bit of unsolicited advice. “As soon as I have statements from every last one of you, I want you to send your Smithsonian posse home.”

“Why, Broadway, you mean this town ain’t big enough for the four of us?”

“It’s barely big enough for the two of us, Smithsonian. And do it before Halloween. Halloween is one of my busy nights.”

“Don’t worry, they’re out of here”—Lacey looked at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock on Monday morning—“Tuesday.”

“Now tell me, did your sister really knock him out with one kick?”

Lacey smiled. “Back home, we call her Lethal Feet Smithsonian.”

Broadway Lamont whistled through his teeth. “And I thought the cheerleaders at my school were tough.”

 

Monday went by quickly. Lacey slept late, put her mother and sister on a boat cruise to Mount Vernon for the afternoon, and stopped by the office to face Mac Jones. He held up the front page of that morning’s
Eye Street Observer
as she passed by his office. The headline: “
Eye Street
’s Smithsonian Snags Supermodel Slayer.” She saw the byline: Tony Trujillo. She stepped inside.

“The best part of the story for me, Smithsonian, was that you were so certain you weren’t going to get into any trouble this weekend.” He dropped the paper and made a show of reaching for his big bottle of Maalox.

“Not my fault—” she started.

“We’ve gone down that road before. Three Smithsonians? Trouble times three.” He shook his head and raised his eyebrows. “Now get out of here. Keep your mother and sister out of any more of those sticky situations that you specialize in. Got it?”

“Yes, but—”

“I don’t want to see you back here until your coconspirators are safely on a plane back to Colorado where they belong. Do you read me?”

“Loud and clear. And Mac . . .”

“What now?”