Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

department. Cut him some slack, sure.
    At this hour there were few shoppers. She pawed through the racks and pulled out a sexy black teddy with a lacy bosom. Her size. Holding it up to herself in a side mirror, she thought, Racy, Wetzon. She tucked it under her arm and went back to the rack. The teddy also came in pale peach.
    “May I be of help?” A slim black woman, her hair beaded in cornrows tight to her scalp, was standing at her elbow.
    “Yes, I’ll take both of these.” She thrust the two teddies at the woman before she got cold feet.
    “Do you want to try them on? They can’t be returned.”
    “That’s all right.” She gave the woman her charge plate and then wandered over to a circular rack of nightgowns.
    A woman on the other side of the circle was furiously flipping through the nighties, making grunting noises and carrying on a whispered conversation, with hostile overtones. When she worked her way around to where Wetzon could see her, it turned out to be Barbara Gordon, or someone who looked a lot like her. And there was no one with her.
    “Barbara?”
    Barbara pulled her eyes from the rack and dropped them on Wetzon. Her face was floridly psychotic, and she’d cut her red curls off close to the scalp in a punky crew cut. “Wetzon.” Her hands continued to fumble through the flimsy garments. She was wearing a matte gold raincoat over tight black leather pants and black leather riding boots. All she needed was a whip.... Her strange eyes flitted from here to there. She leaned close to Wetzon. “I love the way you do your hair. Will you show me how?”
    “Of course,” Wetzon said cautiously. “After yours grows in.”
    Barbara’s clawing hands flew to the short bristles on her head. “Oh—I—uh—” Her eyes took on a lunatic glaze, which immediately vanished, replaced in quick succession by suspicion, then fear. “I’ve cut my hair off,” she said, as if she’d just discovered it. “Jerry will kill me.”
    “Oh, come on, Barbara. Jerry may be upset with you, but killing is a whole other thing. And it’ll grow back.”
    “Your package, Ms. Wetzon, and your card. Will you sign here, please?”
    Wetzon took the bag and signed the charge slip, then slipped her card into her purse. When she turned back to Barbara, Barbara was gone.
    Loony tunes, she thought. Right in the doctor’s own home. Sad. Could Barbara have murdered Brian and Tabitha? Did she have psychotic lapses during which she did things she couldn’t remember? Like cut her hair off? Or kill?
    The sun had not been able to break through the overcast and had obviously given up. She walked back to the office slowly, thinking, feeling vaguely depressed. It was a little after three when she hung her coat in the closet. She might be able to get some calls sandwiched in between the meeting with the assistant district attorney and the one in Richard Hartmann’s office. She took the stack of pink message slips that B.B. handed her into their inner sanctum.
    “Oh, really? How very kind of you, but we don’t do freebies.” Smith’s voice was ice on cold steel. “There’s nothing to think over.” She hung up and looked at Wetzon. “Can you believe that veggie Cafferty? He says we can get back in his good graces if we give him a freebie—someone who produces one-fifty or more.”
    “Fuck him,” Wetzon-the-ruthless said. “The minute he pays us what he owes us for Evan, let’s scorch his earth.”
    “Now you’re talking!” Smith looked delighted with Wetzon’s bloodthirsty reaction. Spotting the Saks bag, she pounced. “What did you buy?”
    “Um, just a few odds and ends.” Wetzon felt herself flush clear up to her cheekbones.
    Smith was eyeing her critically with her X-ray vision. “Show me.”
    Wetzon pulled the shawl out of its bag. “See, just a shawl, which I’ll probably never wear.”
    “Very nice.” Smith dismissed the shawl. “What’s in the other bag?” When she saw Wetzon’s hesitation, she wheedled, “Come on now, sweetie pie.”
    Reluctantly, Wetzon pulled the black teddy from the bag and held it up. “Don’t make a big deal, please.” She was not about to show Smith the peach teddy. She’d never hear the end of it.
    “Well, now.” Smith put her finger to her cheek and smirked. She raised her coffee mug. “I salute the King of Cups.”
    “Will you stop that.” Wetzon crumpled the teddy and stuffed it back in the bag.
    “He appears in every reading I do for you. And last night