Armed and Glamorous

by Ellen Byerrum

  “Wow, I’m so glad we’re paired up.” Willow turned the ignition key, to the sound of grinding. Finally the Toyota wheezed to life. “I was afraid I’d have to go with Mr. Goldstein. He really scares me. That python tattoo and all.”

  “I think that’s the whole point of the tattoo,” Lacey said. “Part of the tough-guy image.”

  “Really, you think so?”

  “I’m sure he’s a nice guy, a nice tough guy.” Lacey thought Snake looked like he might have good stories to tell, unlike Willow.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this. Cars and radios and everything.” Willow rubbed her face and took a deep breath, then blew it out. She adjusted her mirror and her seat belt. She looked up. She eased the car out of its space, hit the gas, and killed the engine right at Little Falls Street. “Oh, no! Everyone else is gone.”

  The radio crackled to life in Lacey’s hands and made her jump.

  “Smithsonian, where are you? Over.”

  Chapter 24

  Lacey peered at the two-way radio and hit a button, hoping it was the right one.

  “Damon, is that you? We’re still here in the lot. Um, over.”

  “Aha. I thought you were using a secret Smithsonian tailing technique, so secret even a master spy couldn’t find you. Over.”

  “You can cool the sarcasm. Over.”

  “But I do it so well. Turn left out of the parking lot and left on Broad Street. Look for a subtle line of gray cars. Remember, we have to stay in contact. Over.” Lacey set the radio down.

  “I’m so sorry I messed up,” Willow said.

  “Don’t worry, just drive,” Lacey commanded. She realized a hint of irritation had slipped into her voice. “How are you doing? You okay?”

  Willow looked both ways before cautiously turning onto the street. “I’m a bit freaked out about the whole thing Saturday, that woman in the car, you know. I can’t get the picture of her out of my mind, her eyes, all that blood on the windshield.”

  “It’s difficult, I know,” Lacey agreed. Willow stopped at Broad Street and Lacey tried to catch a glimpse of the other cars. The radio in her lap crackled again and Damon’s voice came through.

  “Smithsonian, I still don’t see you! Over!”

  She pressed a button. “We’re at Broad. We had some trouble with Willow’s car.”

  “Silver Bimmer here.” It sounded like Snake Goldstein’s voice. “I don’t think the point is to lose you so soon. Over.” He clicked off.

  “Oh, God, I’m gonna fail at this!” Willow’s voice cracked.

  “You’re doing fine, Willow, just turn left,” Lacey ordered again. “So why did you decide to take this course?” She couldn’t imagine what Willow was doing here, she seemed to be uniquely unsuited for the work. Even Edwina, with her country club “win the bet at all costs” attitude, would make a better private investigator.

  “I needed a change, I guess,” Willow squeaked. “That’s why I took the PI class, partly anyway, to get out of my rut.” Lacey nodded. “I know I’m too, you know, shy to be a private investigator. But Mr. Hunt said there’s lots of work behind the scenes, online searching, information gathering, that sort of thing. He didn’t really mention following people in cars, for heaven’s sake!”

  “And so here we are.” Lost at the gate. “A little faster, Willow?” Willow gave the little car some gas. It didn’t seem to help.

  “I can be very detail-oriented when I put my mind to it. And I’ve met some really interesting people, like you and Edwina. And it seemed like it would be really fun, but the very first morning—that had to happen.” Willow’s voice broke. A tear rolled down her cheek. “That woman died. And I’m not very strong when it comes to that.”

  “Look, Willow, nobody is good at that sort of thing.”

  “I saw her dead. All that blood on the window. I couldn’t look away.” She wiped her eyes.

  “You can’t drive if you’re crying,” Lacey pointed out as gently as possible. She pulled a tissue for Willow from a box on the dashboard. “Please don’t cry.”

  “Thanks. You seem so smart and capable, Lacey. You’ll make a great investigator.”

  Lacey saw a large gray sedan blocks ahead of them, probably Hadley’s Lincoln. She felt immensely relieved.

  “You give me too much credit. Really.” After all, I got stuck with you. “We don’t have to talk about Cecily Ashton if it upsets you. Look, I think I see the other cars. They’re turning right on Maple a couple of blocks up ahead.”

  “Okay.” Willow nodded vigorously and timidly pressed down on the gas. “Do you think the police will want to talk to me again?”

  “Hard to say. They let you go home Saturday. You didn’t know her, did you?”

  Willow changed lanes to the right and closed in on Edwina’s platinum BMW. “Me? Know someone like Cecily Ashton?” Willow shook her head. “But you did, didn’t you? I read it in the Sunday paper yesterday morning. I always read your stuff.” Lacey didn’t know whether she should be pleased or horrified. She was always a little disoriented to meet an actual reader. Suddenly everybody she met was reading The Eye Street Observer, Lacey reflected. She’d have to announce that at the next content quality meeting. She was more accustomed to people refusing to own up to reading the city’s lowest-ranked newspaper, even if they secretly did. Of course most people didn’t read newspapers at all anymore, except for the freebies handed out at the Metro stations. They got their news on TV and the Web. “You really read my work?”

  “Your columns? Oh sure, I’ve learned so much about fashion from you.”

  “No kidding?” Lacey gazed at Willow’s overly beige oversized overcoat. Like her former hair color, it was as colorless and lifeless as a dead mouse. Now you’re really depressing me.

  “Oh, yes, I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want to be a pest. After all, you’re like a celebrity.”

  She’s never seen colors before, she learned her nonexistent fashion sense from me, she looks like an alien, and I’m a celebrity. What planet is this woman from? Help!

  Willow suddenly braked the car to a screeching halt. A horn blared behind them. “The light was yellow!” She looked like she might cry again. Edwina’s car turned right on the yellow light and disappeared. Lacey sighed and jotted a note in her log.

  “What do you think happened to her, to Cecily Ashton?” Willow asked.

  “I have no idea. Other than she got up Saturday morning, got dressed, drove her Jaguar to Falls Church, Virginia, and was shot to death.”

  “You’ve written about these sorts of stories before. You get involved in them.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll be involved in this one, Willow.” Lacey really didn’t care to discuss her thoughts on the subject. “Why don’t we talk about something else? You have me at a disadvantage, you’ve read my stories. Tell me about yourself. Nobody in D.C. is a native, so where are you from?”

  If she could get Willow talking about herself, Lacey wouldn’t have to talk, and she could concentrate on the task at hand. She jotted their street location on the log and thumbed the radio button that was supposed to buzz Edwina’s car, but Snake didn’t respond.

  “I’m from all over. My folks were in the military, so we lived in a lot of places, but recently I’m from Pennsylvania. Philadelphia.”

  “What do you do when you’re not in PI class?” Or wrecking the surveillance exercise?

  “I work in an office now, secretarial temp stuff. So boring you don’t want to know. But in Philly I used to work in one of those cute little art stores, you know the kind, they have art supplies and it’s also kind of a gallery?”

  Lacey looked at Willow, who was concentrating very hard on traffic. The light turned green. The battered gray Toyota lurched forward and made a right turn into a residential neighborhood. Lacey tightened her seat belt.

  “Some of Cecily Ashton’s vintage pieces were displayed in an art gallery in Philadelphia, last fall. Did you happen to see them?”

  “M
aybe. I’m trying to think.” A large black limousine passed swiftly on the left. The driver flipped them an obscene gesture and shouted something inaudible. Only Lacey saw him. Willow was oblivious, trying to focus on the road ahead. “There are so many galleries in Philly.”

  “Lots of galleries here too, if you were looking for a change.”

  “The one where I worked was so small. It was a fun job, though.” She sounded wistful.

  “So why move here?” The question hit some sort of nerve. Lacey saw a tear sliding down Willow’s cheek. She handed her another tissue from the box. The little Toyota apparently witnessed a lot of tears. “I’m sorry, that’s not usually such a touchy question.” Lacey tried to be sympathetic, but her patience was stretched thin. They were flubbing the class exercise; it would be Willow’s fault, and Lacey would get blamed.

  “It’s not that.” Willow wiped at her face and drove even slower. “It’s . . . Something happened in Philly. My best friend was killed a few months ago.”

  “Killed?”

  “She was murdered.” Willow dropped her voice and Lacey had to lean in to hear her. “The police said it was random, a drive-by shooting, but I don’t believe it. I told them what happened. They didn’t pay any attention to me.”

  Lacey looked at the woman’s anguished face. “You’re not taking the class to try and get involved and solve the murder, are you?” That was one of the first things Hunt had warned them against.

  She shook her head and took a deep breath. “No, I’m taking the class to try to learn how I can disappear. You understand? ”

  “You don’t want someone to find you?” So that’s why Willow’s clothes made her fade into the woodwork, Lacey thought.

  The radio crackled ominously. “Smithsonian, you taking a secret detour? Try to stay with us, you dig? Over.”

  “Car trouble again, Snake. Over.”

  “Tell her to put her foot on the gas pedal, not the brake. Over.”

  “I will! Really!” Willow yelled, and the vehicle lurched forward again.

  “I thought Toyotas were reliable,” Snake snarled. “Over.” The radio crackled again and he was gone. Willow’s lips trembled.

  “I thought I could learn how to get away and disappear, so he can’t find me.”

  “He? Who is he?”

  “Eric, my ex-boyfriend. He killed my friend Nina. But no one believes me.”

  “Eric and Nina who?”

  “Eric O’Neil. Nina Vickers,” Willow whispered. She broke into sobs. Lacey wanted to stick her head out the window to clear it, but she fought the impulse. She had lost all sign of the follow cars, much less Kepelov. And Willow couldn’t stop crying.

  “You should pull over on Annandale Road, right there. We’ll change drivers.”

  Willow nodded. “That would be good.” Her hands were shaking as she pulled into a fast food restaurant’s parking lot and stopped the car. They swapped seats and Lacey took the wheel. She showed Willow how to use the radio to call the other cars. Newhouse in Hadley’s Lincoln responded first: They were several blocks away, heading southwest on Lee Highway. Lacey put the Toyota in gear, turned around, cut through a side street, and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted one of the other follow cars. She passed Hadley’s car and Edwina’s to move in behind the gray Crown Vic.

  The radio crackled again with Snake’s pungent New York accent. “Smithsonian! Long time no see. Glad you could join us.”

  Willow fumbled hopelessly with the radio. Lacey grabbed it and pushed the button. “We changed drivers. Bite me. Over.” She threw the radio on the dash. “It’s a crazy world, Willow. What makes you think your boyfriend is the killer?”

  “Because it was supposed to be me!” Willow took another deep breath, as if she needed it to push this story out. “Nina and I worked together at the gallery, that’s how we met. We were meeting for dinner that night. Italian. Nina loved Italian. I couldn’t get off work in time to get to the cleaners, but she got off earlier and said she’d pick up my things on her way to the restaurant.” She dabbed at her eyes with the now-soaked tissue. “It was supposed to be me. I’m the one who was supposed to die.”

  “Why would he want to kill you?”

  “I don’t know, he was just—I think he was crazy. He was doing weird things, threatening me and yelling. He didn’t like it when I worked late, he thought I was fooling around on him. Nina was at the cleaners, so I think he thought she was me.”

  “But surely he would know you.”

  “It was dark. She was wearing my coat. It’s my fault.”

  Willow’s reaction didn’t surprise Lacey. The death of someone close often inspired feelings of grinding guilt.

  Crackly chatter came over the radio. “Hey! Greg, I mean our subject, just pulled ahead,” Damon said. “He said not to speed, but he’s sure as hell speeding. Over.”

  “Fall back, Gray Toyota! Silver Bimmer’s takin’ the lead,” Snake responded. “Over.”

  Lacey saw Edwina’s car change lanes and speed up, still far behind Kepelov. Lacey tried to keep pace in the old gray Toyota. She found herself stuck in traffic behind Hadley’s Lincoln.

  “Why are we speeding? Are we supposed to be doing this?” Willow seemed to suddenly become aware of the surveillance maneuver.

  “Yes, we are,” Lacey responded. “So tell me, did the police arrest anyone? Did they question your boyfriend?”

  “No. The police didn’t believe me. He had some kind of alibi anyway. People lie about alibis, don’t they? The police said it was probably a gang drive-by shooting and Nina just got caught in the crossfire. They questioned some people, but no one was arrested.”

  Willow Raynor seemed an unlikely victim, but stalkers had their own reasons. Lacey realized she shouldn’t make judgments based on Willow’s plain looks, especially if she was trying her darnedest to disappear. “It was over, but he kept calling and showing up, waiting for me after work,” Willow continued. “I moved here, and I thought he was still in Philly. But—” Her tears started again and her voice came out in a high squeak, her face was red and clenched. “When Cecily Ashton was shot right there while I was in class—” She gulped back a sob and looked at Lacey. “I wonder if maybe he knows where I am? Maybe he came here and killed her as a warning?”

  “Warning for what?” The little mouse’s logic eluded her. “Willow, that makes no sense. I hate to say this, but if he wanted to kill you, he would have killed you, not her.”

  “Maybe he mistook her for me?”

  Lacey blinked in surprise. Twice? Is he blind? And could someone really mistake this mouse in a plain brown wrapper for the beautiful and obviously expensive Cecily Ashton in a Jaguar? Impossible. But after being close in one way or another to two murders, Willow might easily imagine someone was after her.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think so,” Lacey said.

  The radio wheezed with another announcement. “Attention everybody,” Snake said. “Subject vehicle’s trying to shake us. We were a block behind him and he just wailed on through a red light at Gallows Road, right near Merrifield Garden Center. We lost him. He coulda turned down a bunch of side streets, no way of tellin’. Over.”

  “Why not stay on Lee Highway,” Lacey said. “If he gets back on, we might catch him. Over.” There were two slow cars between her and the silver BMW. She crossed Gallows Road, but she lost track of Hadley’s car. She couldn’t find it in her mirrors; perhaps he had turned off Lee Highway. “Gray Lincoln, what’s your location? Over.”

  “Taking a shortcut. Over,” Damon replied.

  “Shortcut to where, Damon, the moon? Over.”

  “Eyes left, Smithsonian. Over.” Damon and his team were cruising down the access road that stopped at the Merrifield Post Office. Lacey had no idea where they thought they were going. Was Hadley being guided by voices in his head? On the plus side, there was no traffic over there to slow them down. Lacey kept her sights on the silver BMW on Lee Highway. She thought Edwina and Snake someho
w had a smaller chance of being beamed up to the mother ship.

  Willow seemed to be paying no attention to the exercise. “Eric seemed nice at first. Cute. He was tall and blond and he had a nice smile, his teeth were a little crooked. We went out for a few months. Eric seemed really crazy about me, maybe a little too much, a little too soon. Suffocating, you know what I mean? He wanted to know where I was every minute. He didn’t like me talking to Nina, but she was my best friend.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “Not at first.” Willow was drawing little concentric circles on the logbook. “After a while, he started telling me how awful I was, how I was ugly, how I was lucky to have him and I would never find anyone else.”

  An abuser’s tactics, Lacey thought. “You split up with him?”

  “Oh yes. I made it clear it was over. He was so angry it scared me, he bruised me pretty bad, so I moved away. He e-mailed me a lot, but it slowed down and then stopped a couple of weeks ago. I hoped he lost interest, or maybe got a new girlfriend. But now I’m not so sure.”

  “Did you tell the local police about this guy?” Lacey changed lanes and caught up to Edwina in the lead position. But Kepelov had vanished into thin air.

  “What good would that do?” Willow sat up straight and opened her eyes wide. “Give them someone to look for after I’m dead? Like Nina? I need a private investigator, like Mr. Hunt. Maybe I can talk to him tomorrow night. I’m changing how I look so Eric won’t find me. Like my hair.”

  “Your hair?” Lacey gave her a sidelong glance. Oh yeah, no one will notice that hair. “You do look different,” Lacey conceded. “You really think the killer in the parking lot could be your Eric?”

  “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.” A couple of cars passed them and tucked into her lane, putting distance between the gray Toyota and the lead car. Lacey thumbed the radio. “Gray Toyota calling anyone. Any sign of subject vehicle? Over.”

  “No!” Snake sounded flustered. “Greg scrammed out of here at top speed. Where’s the Lincoln? Over, damn it.”