Killer Hair (15 page)

There were copy editors and news editors, assignment editors and section editors, but Mac reigned supreme over the newsroom, including the sneered-at LifeStyle section—where there were news holes to fill. But Mariah had been a solitary queen in her little fashion kingdom, leaving no protégé lined up to take her place. Mac’s mind went into red alert. Adrenaline pumped. He glared around the newsroom, bushy black brows raised over golden-brown eyes in a search-and-destroy mission.

Unfortunately for Lacey, she was the first person in Mac’s line of vision. Like a baby chick that imprints on the first thing it sees, Mac imprinted on Lacey. He didn’t see a hardworking reporter breaking stories, a woman cultivating sources, ferreting out the truth, and championing justice. Mac saw the only reporter at
The Eye
who dressed well, who could put two colors together without nauseating passersby on the street. The one with the funny name.

“Smithsonian!”

From her first day, Mac sensed a kindred spirit of sorts in Lacey Smithsonian. Mac was at ease yelling at her or prodding her with faint praise, such as, “Hey, this sucks less.”

“Lacey Smithsonian.” He always smiled when he uttered her name. “Get over here.” She didn’t like the way he said it. She looked at him, a squat tyrant with a bullet head and bristling mustache. Mac wasn’t an ogre, but he was not a jolly old elf either.

Some intuition made Lacey glance at the empty desk that had been Mariah’s.
He wouldn’t dare.
She moved slowly, deliberately, fixing a glare on him, trying to send brain waves.
No. No. No.
Mac returned the glare in kind. Two word slingers facing each other at high noon over the corpse of a fallen comrade.

Mac pointed out that there was an unexpected opening. It would be a promotion, he lied. It would be temporary, he lied.

“A few weeks. How hard could it be? Just until I can find a replacement.”

“No! It’s a dead-end job. And I emphasize the dead. It killed Mariah, Mac.” Lacey knew it would never be temporary. The dead-end beats never were. Was working night cops ever temporary? Was writing obits ever temporary?

“Lacey Smithsonian, Fashion Beat.” He chuckled. “They go together.” Mac studied her. She looked like she had stepped out of a Cary Grant movie. Lacey seemed perfect for the job, at least to him. Most reporters at
The Eye
looked like they dressed out of a rummage sale at the congressional cloakroom.

“It’s L.B., Mac, not Lacey.”

“Not anymore.” The editorial sneer was back. “You’ve got a fashion column to write. For women. Besides, you do that ‘matching’ thing. You know, with your clothes. You’re practically an expert.”

“Mac, just because I don’t wear plaids with stripes does not mean I’m qualified to write about fashion. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Qualified? For God’s sake, it’s just clothes! You don’t need a Ph.D.”

“But no one reads it! You could really improve the paper by just killing it, Mac. Bury it with Mariah.”

No one told Mac how to improve
The Eye Street Observer
without suffering.

“You’re breaking my heart. ‘Lacey Smithsonian, Style Maven. Fashion Newshound.’ ” He laughed. She didn’t.

She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she couldn’t help herself. Her soapbox beckoned.

“Fashion is ephemeral, Mac.
Style
is forever, but Mariah’s column isn’t about style,” she proclaimed. “Fashion is commercial. It’s tawdry and tacky and it’s calculated to sell junk, not to flatter women. It has nothing to do with style.
Style
is what counts, Mac. Fashion today is about power-crazed designers who hate women. They design clothes for drag queens and little boys and mutant aliens. They know nothing about real women with breasts and hips and waists! They design for models who look like the emaciated skeletal remains of women. Designers paint them up like women from Mars, spray their hair into ungodly sculptures, and they call that fashion. I can’t write about that crap.”

Mac leaned back in his chair. People were staring. Reporters looked up from their stories in midsentence.

“I don’t know, Smithsonian. You sound pretty passionate about it to me.”

The warning sign was lit up in neon, but she missed it.

“Male designers give us idiocies like sheer blouses and slips for dresses. They don’t give women pockets: Why not? Men get pockets. Take your jacket.” Lacey grabbed it off his chair. “You’ve got pockets on the outside, pockets on the inside. You don’t have to drag a purse around. What about women?” She threw his jacket back at him. “Don’t real women deserve pockets? They say it would destroy the lines. That would be fine if there
were
good lines. Women get no respect, no consideration—and no pockets! I want pockets!”

Lacey took a breath. “And what about shoes? Don’t get me started. Most real women’s clothes are not comfortable, they’re not attractive, and they’re not affordable. We should be writing about style, Mac. Face it—fashion news is ridiculous. It’s obsolete.”

“Like hell it is,” Mac growled. “Fashion news is indispensable. Call it style if you like. It’s what we string around the department-store ads. And did you hear yourself? You just wrote your first column! Give me twenty inches.”

“Washingtonians wouldn’t know style if it bit ’em on the butt.”

Mac had turned back to his newspaper and snatched a half-eaten donut that rested on a paper towel on top of a tower of press releases and
Federal Registers.

“So bite ’em hard, Lacey. The fashion beat: Beat ’em up with it. It’s your oyster. Sink your teeth into it. Write it for those
real women.
”

To add insult to injury, Mac made her move to Mariah’s old desk.
The dead woman’s desk.
It was still haunted by Mariah’s personal effects and had the extra stigma of being known as the “blue-hair zone,” for Mariah’s readers. Lacey wheeled her own chair over to the condemned area. “You better not try to give me the Death Chair, Mac. It’s not even ergonomic.”

“Fashion in Washington? It’s Howdy
Dowdy
Time!” was the headline of Lacey’s first column. She slammed everyone—the designers, the industry, and the frumps who inhabited the District and the burbs, from the blue-blooded to the blue collared.

As she keyed her copy, she longed for the days when reporters had typewriters. At least they could vent their feelings pounding on the keys, beating a tune to the savage anger in their hearts. Lacey figured she could sabotage this assignment, get it pulled, and return to the city beat in no time. She figured wrong. She failed to count on a fistful of letters to the editor cheering her on in the first week, and another dozen that hated her guts. Mariah had never gotten mail. Never. Lacey’s fate was sealed.

The more outrageous she tried to be, the more her readers liked it. She went after known Washingtonians, sacred and not-so-sacred cows and bulls. “Gray Is Not a Color; It’s a Tropical Depression.” “Look for the Union Label, but Don’t Wear It on Your Sleeve.” “You Can Wear What You Want, but You Can’t Stop People From Laughing.”

“Crimes of Fashion” was born and refused to die.

The fashion beat wasn’t the worst fit for Lacey Smithsonian, but she would never admit it. “Crimes of Fashion” was soon firmly entrenched. Lacey railed on about Washington’s lack of style and stood up for the common woman, the one who couldn’t afford designer clothing or even designer knockoffs. Readers loved her and hated her. She proved a particular thorn in the side of the FFL, the former First Lady.
The Eye Street Observer
didn’t care, as long as there was a reaction.

And now she was after the truth about a killer haircut in the middle of a media mob scene.

Chapter 11

Lacey stopped by Stylettos at lunch to collect the number of the crime-scene cleanup company and let Stella know that Angela Woods would be this week’s fashion crime. Lacey had composed most of the column in her head. Angela Woods would not fade from memory without a few more column inches. But she hadn’t exactly told Mac about Angela, the dead hairstylist, and had managed only to give herself more work with Marcia’s Sunday feature.
Bloodsuckers. No matter how much you give, editors only want more.

Stylettos was about ten blocks from the office, a short cab ride or a nice walk. She decided to walk. But Lacey did a double take when she got there. The familiar lilac interior was freshly painted over in cream with black trim. The stations had been moved around and everything was now in a different location. New black-and-white posters adorned the walls, and a glass brick partition divided the reception area from the stylists’ stations.

Stella was ringing up a customer’s haircut, shampoo, and conditioner. She waved at Lacey. When she was finished with the sale, she led Lacey to the small back room. It was warmer than the rest of the shop; a load of towels was spinning in the dryer. Bottles of shampoos and chemicals lined shelves against the back wall. Stella grabbed a Coke and sat down at a small plastic table. She reached under her smock and rubbed vigorously. She sighed.

“Is something wrong?” Lacey asked. “You keep scratching your stomach.”

“Oh no. I just got my navel pierced. It’s really cool, but it itches. Want to see?”

“No!” Too late, the smock was hiked up and Stella proudly displayed the new gold ring hanging off the top of her belly button. She actually pulled on the shiny ornament in case Lacey hadn’t noticed. “Thanks for sharing these intensely personal tidbits that I do not need to know.”

Stella grinned. “Bobby loves it.”

Lacey recalled the scene at the Mud Hut: Stella the Man Magnet and her overaged delinquent. “Bobby? Oh yeah, bad-boy-Cupid-on-a-motorcycle Bobby?”

“The curly-headed one. You know those are natural curls? And he’s a real blond.” She winked. “Anyway, he talked me into it. I was thinking about it anyway. I was like the last hold-out in the whole salon. Guess what Bobby wants me to pierce next?” Stella raised both eyebrows.

“That’s enough personal information for one day, Stella. Stop now or I’m out of here.”

“Prude.”

“So sue me. I am a prude.”

“Yeah, that’s what Vic said.”

Oh he did, did he?
She could feel the heat rise in her face. “He’s dead. I ought to pierce his big fat . . . ego.” With an urgent need to change the subject, Lacey asked, “So, what happened here? New colors?” The smell of fresh paint lingered under the salon’s normal chemical aromas.

“Makeover for the salon. Looks good, doesn’t it? The lilac was definitely passé,” Stella said.

“But where’s Angie’s station? I don’t see it.”

“Gone.” Stella moved an ashtray out of the way, fighting the urge for a cigarette.

“Gone where? I wanted to look at it.”

Stella looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Well, no one was going to use it. Jeez. You can’t expect that. Not after Angie died there, Lacey. For God’s sake!”

Lacey had forgotten how superstitious Stella was. After all, Lacey was working at a desk where someone had died.
Reporters. We’re nothing but a bunch of hard-hearted ghouls,
Lacey concluded.
Of course, I won’t use that chair.
The Death Chair was wheeled right back up to the newsroom as soon as the former fashion writer’s body had been put on a gurney. Empty but still afloat, like a ghost ship found abandoned.

“Everyone was pretty freaked out,” Stella continued. “Even after they scrubbed the station down. Bad vibes and all that. Anyway, Ratboy had it hauled away, along with her chair. They’re all modular units, the stand, counter, and mirror, all attached. And then he decided to redecorate. You know, drive out the evil spirits. Even had it done after hours. That must have cost him something.”

“He got rid of the whole crime scene? In one fell swoop? Pretty darned efficient, I’d say. Very suspicious.”

“Crime scene? Oh God, when you put it that way . . . I guess Ratboy put it in the warehouse. I mean, a couple guys from the warehouse came and got it.”

Lacey had counted on seeing it. She thought the atmosphere might help her start the column, as trite as that seemed now. She was disappointed as well as disoriented by the sudden changes at Stylettos. Lacey assumed Stella would let her come back after closing so she could examine the place where Angie had spent her last moments. Somehow, in some alternate universe, she would get ahold of a spray bottle of luminol to raise the bloodstains and figure out what happened that night. Smears. Spatters. Bloody footprints.
Just like on TV.
Maybe she’d comb through the drawers for clues and just happen to find the hair.
Yeah, right.
The idea was preposterous, and anyway, fate had taken away that option. Now she was stymied. She wondered how she could get into the warehouse. In the dark, with luminol and a camera. No plan emerged.

“Stella, how come Angie was here alone that night? I thought you told me there were supposed to be two stylists to lock up every night.” After one too many assaults on lone stylists closing up in deserted shopping centers, a company-wide edict had gone out detailing safety procedures. Never letting a stylist work alone was one of them.

“Yeah, well, you know, Lacey. Things happen.” Stella averted her eyes.

“You weren’t supposed to be here that night, were you?”

Stella pulled a load of towels out of the dryer and started folding them rapidly. “I got Michelle to cover for me. She was supposed to lock up with Angie. But her mother got sick and she had to leave early. Angie told her not to worry. It was a slow night. Oh shit, Lacey. I had a date, and Michelle and I cover for each other all the time. But it’s probably all my fault.” Her voice broke and she turned away.

“No, Stel, it wasn’t your fault,” Lacey said. There was no use in saying anything more.

“There are supposed to be two people to lock up. If an emergency comes up, you call someone else in, or you close early and catch hell the next day. But either way, you don’t leave a stylist alone.”