Designer Knockoff
Table of Contents
BREAKING NEWS
Just another crank caller.
That’s what fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian was thinking when the explosion rattled the front windows, flashing white light through
The Eye Street Observer’s newsroom.
That’s what fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian was thinking when the explosion rattled the front windows, flashing white light through
The Eye Street Observer’s newsroom.
Lacey had been trying to finish a column, trying to make it funny, when the phone rang.
“I’m warning you, bitch. Stop writing these stupid stories.”
“Who is this and which stupid stories are you referring to?”
I’m on deadline here on a stupid story, you stupid—
I’m on deadline here on a stupid story, you stupid—
“Look outside and kiss your precious wheels good-bye.”
She was puzzled. Her ungrateful Nissan 280ZX was at the shop again, rusting complacently in the humid smog of Washington, D.C. At least she thought it was. She hurried past four rows of reporters’ desks to peer out onto the street below.
My Z isn’t out there.
Her copy editor Felicity’s dismal gray minivan squatted illegally in the fire lane in front of
The Eye.
Lacey was looking straight at it when it blew up.
My Z isn’t out there.
Her copy editor Felicity’s dismal gray minivan squatted illegally in the fire lane in front of
The Eye.
Lacey was looking straight at it when it blew up.
Lacey streaked back to her desk, grabbed the receiver, and heard expectant breathing. All she could say was:
“YOU THOUGHT I DROVE A
MINIVAN?!”
MINIVAN?!”
Praise for
Killer
Hair, the first Crime of Fashion mystery
Killer
Hair, the first Crime of Fashion mystery
“Cut-wrong hair mingles with cutthroat Washington, D.C., in Ellen Byerrum’s rippling debut. Peppered with girlfriends you’d love to have, smoldering romance you can’t resist, and Beltway insider insights you’ve got to read,
Killer Hair
adds a crazy twist to the concept of ‘capital murder.’ Bubbles may have to visit.”
—Sarah Strohmeyer, Agatha Award-winning author of
Bubbles Ablaze
Bubbles Ablaze
“Ellen Byerrum tailors her debut mystery with a sharp murder plot, entertaining fashion commentary, and gutsy characters. I’ll look forward to the next installment.”
—Nancy J. Cohen, author of the Bad Hair Day Mysteries
“Chock-full of colorful, often hilarious characters.... Lacey herself has a delightfully catty wit. The book is interspersed with gems from her ‘Crimes of Fashion’ column.... A load of stylish fun even if you don’t know anything or care to know anything about fashion.”
—Scripps Howard News Service
“Lacey Smithsonian is no fashionista—she’s a ‘40s starlet trapped in style-free D.C., with a feminist agenda, a cadre of delightfully insane friends, and a knack for stumbling on corpses.... Lacey slays and sashays through Washington politics, scandal, and Fourth Estate slime, while uncovering who-dunit, and dunit and dunit again.”
—Chloe Green, author of the Dallas O’Connor Fashion Mysteries
“Lacey Smithsonian skewers Washington with style in this new mystery series.
Killer Hair
is a shear delight.”
—Elaine Viets, national best-selling author of
Shop till You Drop
Shop till You Drop
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, August 2004
10 9
10 9
Copyright © Ellen Byerrum, 2004
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADAWithout limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
eISBN : 978-1-101-17535-4
This book is dedicated to the late Professor Art Kistner, whose words of encouragement kept me going for years—long after logic dictated otherwise. He suggested that I write novels because I had too much plot for short stories.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a long, arduous journey to publishing a book, and I want to recognize the people who helped me with anecdotes, information, and photographs, all of which sparked my imagination in the pursuit of the story. My thanks go to Nancy Adams (no relation to the fictional Gloria Adams), Luis Martinez, Howard Miller, Dotty Sohl, and an unnamed source.
Those who listened to me, encouraged me, and cajoled me include Guy Burdick, Jay Farrell, Barbara McConagha, and Bob Swierczek. I also would like to thank my new editor, Martha Bushko, and my agent, Don Maass.
This list would not be complete without expressing my utter gratitude to my husband, Bob Williams. Without his support, I would never have reached this point. He is, quite simply, the best and smartest man I know.
chapter 1
If you can’t dress up for the United States Senate, what can you dress up for?
Lacey Smithsonian wondered.
Apparently, not much,
she surmised, judging from the crowd outside the hearing room at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on a steamy Tuesday morning in September, the ninth to be exact.
Lacey Smithsonian wondered.
Apparently, not much,
she surmised, judging from the crowd outside the hearing room at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on a steamy Tuesday morning in September, the ninth to be exact.
A microcosm of the Capital City, they wore their politics on their sleeves, as well as in their position statements.
Dressed for the picket line:
A group of men and women wore blue jeans and identical blue-logoed T-shirts, marking their solidarity—the union workers. A few men in small wire-framed glasses, clad in wrinkled khaki pants, tan jackets, plaid shirts, and earth-toned ties, clasped tattered manila folders—the Democrats:
Dressed for a Save the Endangered Eastern Nuthatch rally at the Unitarian church.
And then there were the trim navy-suited crew carrying sleek leather briefcases and wearing crisp white shirts and red silk ties—the Republicans.
Of course,
Lacey reflected,
they’d be dressed the same way at the beach. Only with TopSiders.
Dressed for the picket line:
A group of men and women wore blue jeans and identical blue-logoed T-shirts, marking their solidarity—the union workers. A few men in small wire-framed glasses, clad in wrinkled khaki pants, tan jackets, plaid shirts, and earth-toned ties, clasped tattered manila folders—the Democrats:
Dressed for a Save the Endangered Eastern Nuthatch rally at the Unitarian church.
And then there were the trim navy-suited crew carrying sleek leather briefcases and wearing crisp white shirts and red silk ties—the Republicans.
Of course,
Lacey reflected,
they’d be dressed the same way at the beach. Only with TopSiders.
And then there were the others.
Poorly dressed, badly coiffed, regrettably groomed? Ah, yes: journalists.
Lacey smiled at them. She was a reporter too, albeit on the bottom rung of the news ladder of the Nation’s Capital at
The Eye Street Observer.
They didn’t smile back.
Lacey smiled at them. She was a reporter too, albeit on the bottom rung of the news ladder of the Nation’s Capital at
The Eye Street Observer.
They didn’t smile back.
There is nothing quite like being snubbed by your so-called peers in the halls of Congress,
Lacey thought. The high-and-mighty attitude and the preference for flammable fabrics derived from fossil fuels came with the territory of the Fourth Estate.
But why the animosity?
she wondered.
Does polyester cause haughty indifference? Do they hate me because I work
for The Eye, because I’m a lowly fashion reporter and not a
Hill reporter, because I’m not dressed the way they are—or all of the above?
Lacey thought. The high-and-mighty attitude and the preference for flammable fabrics derived from fossil fuels came with the territory of the Fourth Estate.
But why the animosity?
she wondered.
Does polyester cause haughty indifference? Do they hate me because I work
for The Eye, because I’m a lowly fashion reporter and not a
Hill reporter, because I’m not dressed the way they are—or all of the above?
Lacey had first been cut dead in the hall by a frizzy-haired brunette working for the wire services who wore a rumpled pavement-gray suit and square-cut glasses with heavy black frames. Then she’d been glared at in the ladies’ room by a helmet-headed blonde, who wore a lumpy suit that might once have been maroon, paired with a pilled brown sweater. And finally she was nearly tripped at the door of the hearing room by
The Eye’s
own Peter Johnson, clad in his trademark grime-stained tan suit and an equally dingy shirt of an indefinable color. His tie was a misdemeanor of mud and mustard colors.
Dressed in Capital Camo.
The Eye’s
own Peter Johnson, clad in his trademark grime-stained tan suit and an equally dingy shirt of an indefinable color. His tie was a misdemeanor of mud and mustard colors.
Dressed in Capital Camo.
“What are you doing here?” Johnson hissed.
“Still holding a grudge, Peter?” Johnson was a prima donna Hill reporter who had become her sworn enemy after she stumbled onto his territory during that little scandal in the spring. Lacey freely admitted that the whole Marcia Robinson mess technically should have been Johnson’s story, because he covered congressional happenings for
The Eye.
But Marcia, the notorious Small Business Committee staffer who pioneered her own political porn site, would speak only to Lacey. It still fried Johnson.
The Eye.
But Marcia, the notorious Small Business Committee staffer who pioneered her own political porn site, would speak only to Lacey. It still fried Johnson.
“Stay away from my beat, Smithsonian. I mean it.”
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