Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [57]
I’d seen him looking better. His face had already taken on that ashen look of the dearly departed, and a small trickle of blood appeared to be coming out of the corner of his mouth. Or it could have been a strand of hair, as he was laying on a pack of “Ridiculously Red, Number 38.” A police photographer was snapping away, periodically pushing the bottom of his Baltimore City Police Department jacket to the side to avoid the zipper as he crawled around and laid flat to get multiple angles. Miles was on his stomach, head turned to the side, his hands on either side of his head, as if he had tripped and was trying to soften his fall.
Most of the plastic packets of hair had been cleared from on top of him and I could make out the black crocheted sweater he was wearing over a T-shirt, and the handle of the scissors was sticking out through one of the holes near his left shoulder blade. Those sweaters had been the bane of the planning committee’s existence because Miles insisted that the center be kept well air-conditioned so he wouldn’t swelter. Not much of a problem, except that it was unseasonably cool outside even for a Baltimore April and many of the models were running around wearing next to nothing other than tons of hair. Maybe, I thought, one of them wigged out and killed him. The old “I-murdered-because-my-brain-froze” defense. Johnnie Cochran, may he rest in peace, could have taken that on.
“See anything out of the ordinary?” Ahmad asked.
“Well, he’s dead all right.”
“Other than that, Columbo.”
“It’s hard to tell,” I said. “Maybe if I could get a little closer look.” There was something about Miles’s sweater that seemed off. Were those holes part of the design, or had they opened up in a struggle?
“Forget about it, Jordan,” Ahmad said. “I’m surprised your sister even let you get this close.”
That’s when I realized that U was no longer with us. I stepped around the divider and caught a glimpse of her through the crowd about ten feet away talking to C.P. Murray, hairdresser and drama king extraordinaire. No one knows what the initials C.P. are short for, but my theory is that it stands for “Chile, please” because that’s what I feel like saying every time he opens his mouth. Forty-five if he was a day, but he claimed he hadn’t crested thirty yet.
He gave himself away reminiscing about the old-style hairdos he used to craft. He had cornered me more than once during the weeks before the show to chat about his glory days, clutching his little two-ounce Chihuahua, Bouf (short for bouffant). “We really must figure out a way to get national coverage of the absolutely fabulous salons we have here. Baltimore is the place to go for the latest styles and no one seems to know it. Forget New York and L.A., honey. We set the trends when it comes to black hair! Was I not the first to do the asymmetrical cut with the deep finger waves and the glittery bangs? Tell me that wasn’t fierce!”
It did no good to explain to him that we were lucky enough to get any coverage for Hair Dynasty, and I had only managed to pull that off because I convinced the photographers that they would get colorful shots of creations like the “Domestic Goddess,” which entailed a model with a hairsculptured kitchen sink on her head complete with wet and wavy hair coming out of the “faucet” to simulate running water. And unless Oprah or Halle Berry started jetting to B-more to get their hair done, I doubted that the national media was going to pay much attention to us.
Although, now they would. Death by scissors, buried in hair Miles had a shot at the cover of his beloved Weekly World News
U raised her hand and made a come-here motion, but when I started that way she shook her head vigorously and mouthed “Ahmad.” I stepped around the divider again and tapped him on the