Armed and Glamorous

by Ellen Byerrum

  “All true. So?”

  “So maybe I want to learn something new. So maybe I’m interested in improving my investigative skills. Maybe I want to find a way to get onto a new beat, something worthwhile, something hard news, something not fashion-related. So sue me.”

  “You don’t like the fashion beat?” He looked nonplussed, like it was a brand-new thought. Like she hadn’t mentioned it a hundred times or more.

  “Mac! I’ve been telling you that since the day after Mariah died! Or maybe it was two days after she died, I’m not exactly sure, not knowing the exact time of her death. Because she died at her desk! And not a living soul even noticed she was dead! Because she was the damn fashion reporter! I don’t want to die at my keyboard, Mac.”

  “More drama. You should be the drama critic.” Her editor rolled his eyes. “Give it up, Smithsonian. You’re a star. The fashion beat is your Milky Way. You’ve made it what it is.”

  “What would that be? A joke?” Lacey needed some coffee. She noticed that Mac’s coffee cup was full. He stabbed at his cherry Danish, popping a piece into his mouth. Lacey briefly wondered what would happen if the food editor ever wanted a new beat too. Nothing, obviously. Mac would never give up the cakes and pies and endless goodies Felicity Pickles baked as research for her column. They were both stuck.

  “Your ‘Crimes of Fashion’ and ‘Fashion Bites’ columns are among the most widely read features in The Eye Street Observer. Did you know that?”

  “My columns are not just about fashion. Nobody reads my stuff for the fashion. This is the city fashion forgot, remember, Mac? And I’m turning into the fashion reporter time forgot, just like Mariah.”

  “No, they’re not just about fashion. Your columns are about that kooky sensibility you bring to it, the way you decode it, like it’s some sort of secret code and you’re the fashion spy, the secret agent of style. It’s a little scary, Lacey. I live in fear you might decide to decode me someday. Dissect everything I wear. I mean in print, not just in your head, where you’re probably doing it right now.”

  Not exactly a challenge, she thought. Anybody could decode Mac’s style, or lack of style. It didn’t take a genius code-breaker to read the message in his mismatched clothing. To his credit, Douglas MacArthur Jones wasn’t like the beige and gray bureaucrats who floated colorlessly through the D.C. streets. From his tattered brown corduroy jackets to his motley assortment of clashing plaid shirts and garish striped ties and neon slacks, his wardrobe was living in the past. It declared that he was a down-home, man-of-the-people, sixties-intellectual kind of guy, a truth-and-justice-seeking man of the Fourth Estate. A journalist! And possibly as blind as a bat, dressing by sonar.

  “Face it, Lacey, you care that people in Washington dress badly, because you think it speaks badly of them in some way. Or maybe it speaks badly of all of us, or badly of America, I don’t know. I don’t get it, but you do, and you care, and I think that’s great, whether they care or not. And some of them really do care, because you care. You couldn’t write the stories you write if you didn’t have passion. And that’s without any of the dangerous stuff, all that stuff I’m always telling you not to do, and you end up doing it anyway.”

  “It’s not enough, Mac. I’m burned out. I want a chance at another kind of story. There’s more to life than this year’s accessories and last year’s shoes and next year’s—”

  “Of course there is, especially when the accessories come wrapped up in a murder story. You get those ‘other kind’ of stories. Flirting with danger is not your job, you just invite it, and so far you’ve gotten away with it. Why would you want to give up a beat like yours? It’s got everything!” She tried to object, but he plowed on like a steamroller. “A certain number of our reporters envy you that whole ‘murder magnet’ thing. They have so-called hard news beats where nothing ever happens, some of them. Some fossilized government agency almost makes a decision and then decides not to, and that’s their big headline for the month. You really want a beat like that? They’re jealous of you, damn jealous.”

  She fixed him with an icy glare. “What an honor.”

  “You have a gift, Smithsonian. Deal with it.” He picked up a pen to mark up a story, signaling the end of this fatherly chat. “By the way, how are you coming with the Cecily Ashton follow-up?”

  “I’m working on it. You might not want to get too close, Mac. You know, that ‘murder magnet’ thing.”

  Lacey stood up on her high heels and stomped out of his office.

  If I’m never going to get off the fashion beat, why not just do whatever I want?

  Chapter 27

  The flowers on her desk brought back Lacey’s smile. They reminded her of Vic, so his plan was working. She put all the rest of it out of her mind, the fashion beat and deciding what she wanted to be when she grew up. All of it but Cecily Ashton.

  The nonexistent state of her elusive follow-up on Cecily depressed her, as did the apparent state of the police investigation into Cecily’s death. The cops weren’t talking. All Trujillo seemed to have was the caliber of the gun, and Lacey had that too. The obvious suspects had alibis, like Bud Hunt, or money, like Philip Clark Ashton. Then there was Simon Edison, who was in love with Cecily and had been furious with her for humiliating him. She realized she didn’t know what his alibi was. She picked up the phone and called him.

  “Oh, Lacey, I’d have to know the exact time of death to know exactly what I was doing right then,” Simon mused. “And the paper said they haven’t determined that yet. Once they do I can check my daybook and get back to you.” Scientists, she thought. Ask a simple question, like did you kill somebody, and they go all technical on you.

  “Okay, what were you doing that day, in general terms, not second by second?”

  “I suppose I wasn’t too far away,” Simon said. “I live in Falls Church and I visit the Farmers’ Market every weekend. Organic vegetables, you know, they have the greatest— Oh my God! She might have been there looking for me! You don’t suppose she meant to meet me there? My poor sweet Cecily.” His voice broke.

  “Did the police talk to you, Simon?”

  “No, why do you ask? Do you think they will? I’m sure if they have an exact time I can tell them exactly what I was doing—”

  Lacey promised to get back to him. Simon Edison had a knack for disorienting her. She thought of the other possibilities, the nonobvious suspects, like Hadley and Griffin, who were busy throwing themselves in front of Lacey, expecting to be arrested at any moment. Willow Raynor expected to be shot at any moment, and Edwina Plimpton was stocking up on cocktail party chatter.

  Philip Clark Ashton was Lacey’s favorite candidate in the murder sweepstakes, but favorites could be wrong. No doubt the not-so-grieving ex-husband was capable of ordering his exwife’s murder as casually as he might order a drink at the bar. And a hired professional killer would probably be long gone and difficult to track. Lacey had no idea how to crack Ashton’s wall of money and lawyers. She was certain he wouldn’t willingly speak to her again, after that meeting in Claudia’s office went so well. If she went after Ashton, she couldn’t do it alone.

  But maybe it wasn’t Ashton after all. He certainly had the money and the power to have someone killed, but why bother? Hadn’t he solved all his Cecily problems with the divorce decree? Did he still have some lingering secret she might have exposed? Or would this be one of those cases where the cops finally get a DNA match and the murderer was a wild card, completely out of the blue? The killer would turn out to be, say, the garbage man, for example, not one of the many known suspects, likely or unlikely?

  Willow Raynor’s story bothered Lacey too. Was there really a shadowy assassin out there tormenting that very shy retiring woman? Killing other women around her by accident? Or at random, so when he finally murdered her no one would see a connection? That was part of the tangled story of the infamous "D.C. Snipers” a few years earlier, where the real target among all the random shootings seemed to be an ex-
wife.

  Lacey searched the Web for anything about Nina Vickers, the woman Willow claimed was killed instead of her. There wasn’t much, just a link to a newspaper story on her unsolved murder. There was even less on Willow herself. But Lacey did find out the name of the art store and gallery where she’d worked, Up and Downtown Arts, which had several locations in Philadelphia. She made a call and she discovered that Willow Raynor hadn’t been entirely frank with her. Willow worked at a smaller location, but the larger gallery had been the one to feature Cecily Ashton’s small exhibit of her vintage accessories. Willow had helped out, her friend Nina too. That probably warranted some follow-up. Why did Willow lie?

  Willow said she was in hiding from an abusive ex-boyfriend and she wanted to learn how to disappear. So perhaps she was reluctant to be quite candid because of the man who had frightened her so much. It might be hard to understand how someone could be so meek, so trapped, so hopeless, unless you had experienced it. Willow had been desperate enough to leave her home just to get away from him, and to change her looks. And yet she hadn’t changed her name. Yet. Maybe that was part of what Willow hoped to learn in PI school, how to assume a new identity and drop out of sight.

  At their first class session, Hunt said some of his typical female PI students seemed to be “dames with a personal problem.” Lacey wondered what his take on Willow might be—one more thing to ask Hunt about, she realized, like whether he’d killed Cecily. She tried Hunt’s PI office and his cell phone number from the class contact sheet. No answers, only voice mail.

  If this Eric O’Neil was as unstable as Willow claimed, she was in real danger. But how could Willow’s abusive boyfriend have anything to do with Cecily Ashton? It made Lacey’s head hurt.

  She spent an hour on the phone finding someone from the Philadelphia Police Department to talk to about Nina Vickers. The case had no new leads, she was told by one of the detectives who worked the case. He seemed to barely recall the murder. The slug that killed Nina was never recovered. There was no other evidence, no reliable witnesses, no viable suspects, no arrests. She asked about Eric O’Neil, but was told there was “no paper” on him. He’d been questioned; that was all. They had nothing.

  Lacey remembered she had a secret weapon. If anyone in D.C. knew more about Willow Raynor than what little she or Bud Hunt did, it would be the woman responsible for Willow’s new blond hair: Stella. Stella loved to talk, and people loved to talk to Stella. A little shampoo and head massage under Stella’s knowing fingers and her clients eagerly spilled their deep dark secrets. Lacey was now glad she had sent Willow to see her. Willow had already talked to the Stella Broadcasting Corporation.

  Lacey didn’t need an excuse to visit her friend at the salon, but if she paid for a service, she’d feel better about pumping her for information. She looked at her hands. Her nails were a mess. Perfect!

  She walked the eight blocks from her office on Eye Street, across Farragut Square and upper Connecticut Avenue, to the Stylettos salon at Dupont Circle. The walk gave her a chance to clear her head. And window shop. Filene’s Basement always had something amusing to look at. Lacey would get a manicure and pick Stella’s brain over her lunch hour and grab something to eat on the way back. As a bonus, she could avoid discussing the matter with Mac.

  Stella was busy layering a client’s hair when Lacey strolled through the door. The stylist wore her new blond bob, and a bright yellow miniskirt under her black Stylettos smock. She tottered on improbably pointy high heels, yellow with black polka dots. They looked incredibly painful. Lacey couldn’t wait until those nasty pointy-toed stilettos went out of style again. Only people like Aladdin should wear pointy-toed shoes, Lacey firmly believed, and maybe Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves. Put those shoes on a magic carpet and send them to Never Never Land!

  “Lacey! Hang on, be right with ya!” Stella danced over as soon as she finished with her client. Lacey held up her nails and sighed dramatically. “Oh my God, Lace, you are so right. Nail emergency! I don’t know how you can face the world with those disgraceful digits. But we’ll fix you right up. Sit, sit, sit. Tell me everything.”

  “I have something for you too. That article you wanted on”— Lacey reached in her bag and pulled out Stella’s copy of Brooke’s secret document; what was the code name Brooke told her to use?—“Pretty Cute Curls.”

  “Say what?” Stella looked blank as she took the envelope.

  “The PCC,” Lacey said with a broad wink. “You know. Pretty in pink? It’s from our mutual friend, Blond Ammunition? ”

  “Oh! The Code! Lace, I’ve been waiting for this!” Stella squealed happily and flipped through the leatherette folder, like the one Brooke made for Lacey. “Gee, that’s so great. Blondie said you’d be getting it to me. She didn’t trust e-mail. Wow, so many pages! I’ve got some homework to do. Back in a sec, I’ll go stash this in my locker.”

  Stella skipped to the back of the salon and returned with her assessment of Lacey’s look for the day.

  “Ya know, Lacey, that outfit of yours? Totally Our Miss Brooks. Black Mary Jane heels? Please! Well, it just totally cries out for a French twist. You soak those claws, I’ll do the twist.” Stella set her up with a manicurist and slid behind her with hair pins and a wide tooth comb. Lacey felt her hair being pulled, professionally but not delicately.

  “Ow! What happened to that light touch I tell everyone you have?”

  “Stop fussing. You had a snarl.” Stella whacked her lightly on the head with the comb. “I’m not even charging you. It’s a freebie on account of I’m in a good mood.”

  When Stella handed Lacey the mirror her hair was in an elegant twist with long bangs swept to the side. “Very nice, Stel, even though you bruised my scalp.”

  “Beauty knows no pain, Lacey, doncha know that?”

  Lacey’s hands were massaged gently by Stella’s shy new manicurist, who said not a word. Just as well; Stella wanted to talk. She slipped off her Stylettos smock, and Lacey noticed Nigel Griffin’s golden key was still dangling in the V-neck of Stella’s tight yellow angora sweater. Stella fingered it fondly. She wanted to talk about Nigel.

  “Lacey, you really gotta give Nigel a chance here. My hope is you’ll come to like him by the time we’re walking down the aisle.”

  “Stella, he hasn’t asked you to marry him yet, has he?” Lacey’s heart sank.

  “Not yet, but he’s going to. A girl can tell these things.”

  Everyone seemed to be coupling up these days. All these odd couples, Lacey thought. Brooke and Damon were certifiably loony together. Wiedemeyer and Felicity too, and Felicity polished her ring every five minutes for the entire newsroom to see. Marie and Kepelov seemed all too improbably cozy, and now Stella was talking about tripping down the aisle with the very inappropriate Nigel? It could give a single woman a complex, especially with her Vic out of town. Not that Lacey was so eager to get married just yet, and she had a history of fleeing commitment.

  “You really shouldn’t get your hopes up, Stella,” Lacey began to say. “He’s such a—” Man slut? No, better not say that. “You know. Such a flirt.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Lace.” She twirled the key. “It’s written in the stars, as they say. Marie told me. We had a consultation this morning.”

  “Marie told you? Unreliable source. She’s discombobulated by love too.”

  “So she knows what it feels like. You just don’t know, Lacey.” Stella spread her left hand and slipped a silver ring off her right index finger onto her wedding ring finger. Her baby pink fingernails were perfectly manicured. She sighed. “I wonder what my wedding ring will look like? Nigel has such good taste in jewels and all. Maybe platinum, with an emerald cut diamond? Maybe he’ll surprise me.”

  Lacey cocked an eyebrow, as her hands were busy being manicured. “A smart woman would probably want to help pick out the ring herself, or at least the setting.”

  “Yeah, but with Nigel being in the jewelry biz, or the jewel retrieving biz, I
’m sure he’d pick out something fabulous. But I get you, Lacey. Something so important, a girl wants a little quality control.” Stella played with the ring on her finger. “Something you’re going to wear every day for the rest of your life? Ought to be pretty special.”

  “Anything particular in mind?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Haven’t really thought about it, you know, been so busy.”

  “Liar!” Lacey grinned at her. “You’ve probably looked at every ring in town.”

  Stella grinned back. “Well, maybe every other ring! Nothing so big that I couldn’t hold my hand up, but not so small that people would feel sorry for me either, or have to like squint to see the stone. And it has to be a diamond! I’m traditional that way. I’m a new wave old-fashioned girl. Diamonds are a girl’s best you-know-what.”

  The manicurist put another coat of color on Lacey’s nails, then a top coat, and she was nearly done. She switched on the miniature fans to dry Lacey’s nails and went on her lunch break. Stella took her chair and settled in on the other side of the table.

  “You want something appropriately gaudy, is that it?” Lacey asked.

  “Absolutely.” Stella’s eyes sparkled like diamonds. “Appropriately gaudy and, you know, tasteful too.”

  “Of course. Tastefully gaudy.”

  “And you know our wedding could be quite an event. An international soiree. Maybe even a double wedding.”

  “What? A double? With who?” Not with me! Stella couldn’t be referring to her and Vic, could she?

  “You never know, romance is in the air. Me and Nigel? Marie and Gregor?” Lacey exhaled in relief. “Ha! You didn’t think I meant you, did ya? You and Vic, the late bloomers of love? You two were on the Stubby Special Ed Bus To Love for so long I was beginning to think you’d never get there. Lord only knows when you’ll take the plunge. When it comes to men, Lacey, you got the coldest feet I know. I just hope you don’t need a walker to get down the aisle. You’ll trip on your train. How am I going to deal with that as your matron of honor?”