Armed and Glamorous

by Ellen Byerrum

  “Do you have any viable suspects? Like, for starters, Bud Hunt? Or Martin Hadley, Nigel Griffin, Philip Clark Ashton, or even Gregor Kepelov?”

  “You are not a police reporter, Ms. Smithsonian.” Jance laughed brusquely. “And even if you were, I don’t believe I would be sharing that information with The Eye Street Observer , or any other newspaper, at this stage in this investigation. ”

  Lacey ignored his tone. She assumed Trujillo had already gotten whatever he could from the closemouthed Detective Jance. She would get whatever Trujillo had.

  “Can you at least tell me what kind of gun she was killed with?”

  “A twenty-two. Only fifty million of those floating around. If we’re done here, I’ll get back to work. Thanks for calling.” He hung up on her.

  Chapter 23

  Lacey drove straight to Falls Church after work for the second session of her PI class. The sky was already inky black. She saw no sign of stars, nor of the “thunder snow” Marie the weather psychic had predicted. Lacey hadn’t had time to change out of her red suit and heels, and she found herself wishing she’d gone home first to throw on her blue jeans. She’d have been more comfortable. And more prepared to run for her life, if the situation called for it.

  The parking lot where Cecily Ashton’s body had been found was lit by two dim streetlights. Lacey seemed to be the first to arrive. She locked up the little green BMW, mentally thanking Vic once again. She wished hers wasn’t the only car there.

  The trees stood sentinel around the parking lot in the dark, their shadows fluttering against the fence, giving her chills. She blamed it on the frigid January wind. Lacey saw a light go on in Bud Hunt’s offices. She hurried down the steps, through the heavy back door of the building, and into the classroom.

  To her dismay, Hunt wasn’t there. Instead it was Gregor Kepelov, in his own inimitable style, black leather jacket, bright blue Hawaiian shirt, rumpled khaki slacks, and red and blue cowboy boots. The New Russia meets the American Dream. Kepelov turned around and smiled.

  “Ah, Lacey Smithsonian! Looking good. You have a date after class perhaps? With Donovan, that tough guy of yours?”

  “I wish.” She decided not to mention Vic was out of town. “No date tonight. It’s a school night, remember?”

  “Don’t worry. In that red suit I’m sure you get lucky. Donovan is not only big fish in Black Sea.”

  “You’re all charm, Kepelov.”

  “I sense sarcasm, Smithsonian. Was invented in Russia, did you know?” He patted her cheerfully on the shoulder. “Path of true love never runs smooth. Always a detour. Shakespeare says so. Chekhov says so.”

  Kepelov, the KGB love guru. “Where’s Hunt? Running late?”

  “He asked me to run class tonight. I am a good teacher. I am available. What luck for you.” Maybe Kepelov really did need the work. He seemed to be a bust at the Romanov treasure-hunting gig. “Don’t look so disappointed, Lacey Smithsonian! Aha. So you checked my alibi with Falls Church’s finest, yes? Too bad I cannot be your favorite suspect now. Maybe next time.”

  “You’re always my favorite suspect, Kepelov.” She looked at him, her eyebrow raised in a question mark. But if Kepelov had an alibi, what about Hunt? On Saturday Hunt had seemed a little too eager for the whole class to drop out. Was their instructor the first to go? “So, why isn’t Hunt here?”

  “No secret. Anyway he didn’t say not to tell. He had people to see, places to go. He mentioned maybe the household staff of Cecily Ashton.”

  “So he wants to find out who killed her?” It must mean, Lacey thought, the police were all over Hunt, as Vic told her.

  “Naturally he wants to find the killer. Or else the killer is busy covering his tracks. Always consider all possibilities.”

  “You think Hunt had something to do with her death?”

  “Is a joke, Smithsonian. Where is your funny bone? You find funny bone in your very pretty red suit, and I go make coffee for us.”

  “Coffee would be good,” she said. “Could you make some decaf?”

  Kepelov shook his head sadly. “Smithsonian, what am I to do with you? Decaf is not real coffee! In Russia we drink real coffee. With vodka.” He headed for the kitchen, still laughing.

  According to the course outline, tonight’s lesson would cover “Garbology, or the fine art of finding evidence in the trash.” Oh good, Lacey thought, wrinkling her nose. Trash picking, a time-honored tactic of private detectives and National Enquirer reporters. Hunt definitely wanted to discourage them with the nasty business first.

  Lacey sat down and looked through her notes on Cecily from talking to Martin Hadley and Simon Edison. She was deep in thought when someone came in and sat down next to her. The woman’s hair was platinum blond and it seemed to have a life of its own, a frothy concoction of curls that bounced off the woman’s shoulders. It was like cotton candy crossed with angel hair, and it drew the eye as if lit from within. Definitely not the sort of hair you often saw in the D.C. area, or even in Falls Church, Virginia. Perhaps a little further south. Lacey blinked.

  “Willow? Is that you?” It couldn’t really be that shy little mouse, could it?

  “It’s me.” The woman smiled. “I took your advice. I went to see your Stella.” Willow’s face was still unadorned with makeup. It made her mop of white-blond hair look even stranger, like a visitor from another world, the Planet of the Peculiarly Pale People. Tonight she wore a gray sweater instead of a beige one. She patted her platinum coiffure. “Do you like it?”

  Lacey nodded vaguely, wondering what to say. “It must have taken hours.”

  “Yeah, it seemed like all day, because she had to strip out my own color. If you want to know the truth, my scalp is a little tender,” Willow said. “Stella was great, just like you said. She’s so funny. And she’s a wizard with hair color. She helped me pick.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like Stella.” That’s not a color, it’s the absence of color.

  “It’s not too much of a change, is it?” Willow frowned.

  Before Lacey could think of an answer, Edwina marched into the classroom. She stopped short when she saw Willow’s shockingly blond hair. It was a shade or two lighter than Edwina’s own color, but Willow’s coiffure was fiercely fluffy, while Edwina’s style was long and sleek. The two women couldn’t have looked more different. Willow was dressed in a shambles of a wrinkled colorless smock, while Edwina looked smartly pulled together in a bright turquoise cardigan over a crisp white blouse, black slacks, and a black headband. Edwina’s uniform look suited her self-image as an upper middle-class suburban McLean, Virginia, matron who had found her own style. Willow had found—Stella.

  “Well, that’s quite a change for you, Willow Raynor!” Edwina announced. “My goodness, you need some makeup to bring out your features. You look like a ghost!” Lacey was grateful Edwina was the one to say it. Edwina examined Willow with a practiced eye. “I mean, you’ve just got rabbit eyes without a little makeup. Don’t feel bad, we all need a little color, don’t we, Lacey? And so nice to see you, dear, by the way, and my, but don’t you look very polished tonight in that lovely red suit of yours!”

  “I came right from work,” Lacey said.

  “See what I mean, Willow? A little color never hurt anyone.”

  Willow looked to Lacey for confirmation. “It’s true, Willow, a little makeup would help finish your new look.” And a new wardrobe, Lacey added silently. And what on earth was Stella thinking with that hair?!

  “Good,” Willow said, her head nodding like a bobble-head doll. “Stella said she’d teach me how to put on some makeup and buy some clothes.”

  “Stella?” Her stylist was really jumping right in on this fashion victim, Lacey thought. Obviously Stella’s work was not done here. At this rate, Willow would be tattooed by Wednesday and sporting a nose ring by Friday. Or worse, she would be “Gidget Goes Surfing with the Jetsons,” like Stella’s own new look. Lacey wasn’t sure which would be worse. “Stella’s a doll, but
don’t let her get carried away, okay? I love Stella, but I’m not kidding.”

  “Stella?” Edwina inquired.

  “My stylist,” Lacey filled in.

  “She’s in Dupont Circle, in D.C. It’s a really cool area,” Willow chirped, her face finally showing some animation. “She did my hair. She was so much fun.”

  “I have my hair done in McLean,” Edwina sniffed. “Same stylist for years and years. She’s very predictable, where it counts.”

  Other students showed up and took their seats, but several faces were missing tonight. Dropouts after all, Lacey thought. The murder Saturday apparently scared some of them away. Damon Newhouse finally arrived, grinned hello to Lacey, and stared at the fluffy-haired blond Willow. He started to introduce himself, thinking she was a new student. Finally Kepelov took his place at the front with a steaming mug of coffee.

  “No Bud Hunt tonight. My friend is off being PI, instead of teaching PI. Fortunate for you, you have me! Tonight we are supposed to talk about what private investigators can do that the police cannot do. And that is? Nothing much.” There was a smattering of laughter. Lacey stifled her inner critic. She readied her pen for pearls of wisdom.

  “But! What private investigators have got,” Kepelov continued, “if your clients have the money? Is time. Time is something police never have. So many crimes, so little time. Time lets you cover same ground more thoroughly, cover new ground, meet more people, follow more avenues of information, ask more questions. Ask questions police never bother to ask. Mostly because they have no time. You know what else you have got? You got people’s trash. One subject of tonight’s lesson. Garbology. Old Russian word. Meaning one man’s trash is maybe your treasure. But don’t get too comfortable, I maybe have surprise later.”

  Edwina groaned audibly. “Trash! The things I do to win a bet.”

  Kepelov smiled at her and continued. “You learn a lot about people from what they throw away. People are not so careful about what they throw away. Bills with credit card numbers, phone bills with every number they call, receipts of everything they like to buy, receipts from where they like to go to eat, postcards from where they like to go to cheat. People think, I threw that away in the garbage! It is gone forever! No one will ever see that again! Not true. Private investigator— you—will see it.”

  “Garbology is the study of who you are, based on what you discard?” Damon piped up.

  “You don’t mean to tell us that we are expected to go pawing through people’s garbage?” Edwina’s eyes were wide in shock.

  “Exactly!” Kepelov’s smile lit up like a Christmas tree. “Garbology. Garbage plus ology. Some people call it ‘urban foraging.’ If the Dumpster is very old, we call it archaeology. Gives the garbage more class.”

  “That is disgusting,” Edwina said.

  “Is dirty business, but someone has to do it,” Kepelov shrugged. The guys in class were laughing. Lacey didn’t laugh. It sounded pretty distasteful to her too. “Remember your rich client, the one with all that money? And you, poor little private eye, with nothing but time? Time is money. If you don’t like trash, or money, what will you think about peeing in a bottle on surveillance?” The guys roared.

  Edwina clucked her tongue in disgust and turned back to her notebook, but Lacey noticed she wasn’t taking notes. Edwina was doodling a picture, a cartoon of a garbage can with a stick figure poking it with a stick while holding its nose. She wasn’t bad. Lacey was a note taker, a writer, not a doodler. She didn’t have whatever gene it was that made someone draw pictures instead of writing words. Doodling must be some kind of visual shorthand, she concluded, and simply not one of her skills, but she admired Edwina’s little cartoon. It seemed to sum up tonight’s class so far.

  “I recommend always wear the heavy rubber gloves,” Kepelov was saying, “and you keep N-95 respirator in your PI kit, which of course you have in your car at all times. You never know what’s in somebody’s garbage. Maybe coffee grounds, maybe needles with AIDS, maybe vial of anthrax. You never know who somebody really is—until you see their garbage.”

  There’s a pleasant thought. Lacey’s stomach turned.

  “And you never know who is after you,” Kepelov continued. “Right now, someone could be following your life, your every move, going through your garbage, waiting to steal your identity. If you are spy like me, you have many identities. So many spies in Washington, you all have secret identity, yes? Perhaps you can spare one or two. But most people have only one identity. Guard it with your life.”

  Lacey thought about Stella, and all of the identities that her friend liked to try on. She wondered how long this blond phase of her stylist would last. Until she turned all her new clients blonder than blond, into little blond clones of Stella?

  “Secrets are revealed in many ways. Hair, skin, mud, blood, cigarettes, receipts, used Kleenex, maybe even used condoms in trash,” Kepelov said. “Bingo! Proof of identity, proof of infidelity. Also in dirty sheets. Sheets are like a diary you write on all night. I myself have purchased on several occasions wonderful used sheets from hotel maids. Excellent cheap source of DNA. Makes good evidence in divorce case.”

  “That is the single most disgusting thing I have ever heard!” Edwina threw her pen on the desk. The look on her face was priceless. “Picking up dirty condoms out of waste-baskets? Buying dirty sheets? Peeing in a bottle? This is not a profession for a well-bred woman!” The guys thought Edwina was as funny as Kepelov.

  Kepelov stopped and pulled a jangling cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open, and put it to his ear. He smiled, spun around for some privacy, and said something Lacey couldn’t hear. He listened and laughed briefly. The big Russian flipped the phone shut and clapped his hands.

  “Enough of garbage. Tomorrow you paw through garbage with Bud Hunt. Time for surprise. Tonight, we do vehicle surveillance.”

  “But the vehicle surveillance isn’t scheduled till Saturday, ” Damon piped up.

  “I take liberty of rearranging your schedule. Don’t thank me.”

  There was a murmur from the students and their spirits seemed to rise. Vehicle surveillance sounded a lot more exciting than picking through garbage.

  The object of this exercise, Kepelov explained, was to follow the “subject car” and observe where the occupant or occupants went, who they met, and what they did, without either losing the car or being “made.” He pulled out two-way radios from Hunt’s desk and explained how to use them. They would work in teams, three “follow cars” to “surveil” one subject car, with a team of two or three students in each car. The follow cars would stay in touch by radio and take turns in the lead, so the subject car would see more than one vehicle in the rearview mirror. Each team would keep a log of the subject car’s route and the team’s observations, noting the time and location whenever someone left the subject car, entered a building, met other people, or did anything notable. The exercise might also include a foot surveillance, and he would give them further instructions and tips as they went along. He cautioned them above all to “act natural.” No skulking, he said, and no “driving like drunken Russians.”

  “You have accident, you get speeding ticket, you lose your subject? You are pathetic excuse for PI. Don’t forget coffee, you can pee in the empty cup.” Predictably, the guys all laughed. Edwina, Willow, and Lacey groaned in unison.

  The students grabbed their coats and scarves and some fresh coffee and stood in the cold parking lot, awaiting instructions. Kepelov would be in the subject car, a large gray Ford Crown Victoria. He strutted toward the parked cars, coffee mug in hand, and stopped at Lacey’s car.

  “Look at this! Beautiful old BMW. Vintage 1974, yes? Forest green. Nice little car.”

  “That’s mine.” Lacey patted the hood with pride. “Do you want me to be a driver?” She hoped so, she loved showing it off, and it was fast.

  “Rare old green BMW? And so shiny? Absolutely not! That car would be made in a minute. You will be passenger.”

&nb
sp; Damon looked smug, but Kepelov ruled out his wheels as well. “Ah, Mr. Newhouse, not one to blend into the crowd, yes? This is your hippie van? This ancient Volkswagen bus, with CONSPIRACY CLEARINGHOUSE written on side? DIG THE TRUTH? Ha! More outrageous than Smithsonian’s cute little car! Now, show me more cars, people. Who has sensible surveillance vehicle? No bright colors! Only gray, black, rust, primer, dirt. Dirt is good.”

  Kepelov selected three gray sedans belonging to Martin Hadley, Willow Raynor, and Edwina Plimpton. They would follow his own pavement-gray four-door Ford Crown Vic. He rubbed his hands together, pleased.

  “My BMW is not dirty and it is not gray,” Edwina protested. “It is platinum.”

  “Whatever. Hundred shades of gray. Yours is expensive gray.” He surveyed the lineup of his dark gray subject car and the dark gray follow cars. “Now, this is very nice. Looks like line of lesser Soviet diplomats. Maybe for state funeral.”

  Lacey hoped she would be able to ride with Snake Goldstein, the least likely person to be interested in fashion or believe in alien abduction. But Kepelov selected the teams, and he apparently thought it would be funny to pair the socialite with the ponytailed, tattooed bounty hunter and one of the burly ex-cops. Edwina looked appalled as the guys climbed into her precious platinum BMW. Damon Newhouse and an ex-military guy were teamed with Martin Hadley in Hadley’s slate gray Lincoln, a typical Washington lobbyist’s car. Lacey’s spirits sank as she drew Willow Raynor and the newly blond woman’s rusty silver-gray ten-year-old Toyota Corolla, the one with the crunched right rear fender.

  Why do I get the loser car? I always get the loser car! Lacey reluctantly opened the passenger side door and got in. At least she was placed in command of the two-way radio and the all-important log.