10 Lethal Black Dress (18 page)

CHAPTER 22

Harlan Wiedemeyer was dancing on
air
the next morning at the office. He was also dancing down the hallway. Lacey
knew one of the little known secrets about him: He was once the leader of a
retro-swing band, Harlan and His High-Stepping Hipsters. When he was happy, he
ate doughnuts, he sang, he danced. When he was unhappy, he just ate doughnuts.

Mac was smiling. Tony had a spring in his step. Harlan Wiedemeyer
was twirling. It could mean only one thing: Order had been restored to the
universe, and Felicity Pickles was baking.

“You’ve done it again, Smithsonian,” Wiedemeyer sang out. “My
Felicity Pickles, Dilly Pickles, my sweet little gherkin, has a bridal gown. I
don’t mind telling you we were all taking bets on how long it was going to be before
there was a food fight.”

“Bets? Thanks a lot.”
Where is my coffee cup?

Lacey was glad she’d dressed easy today, in another Forties
favorite, a V-neck navy dress with embroidered flowers asymmetrically placed on
one hip and one shoulder. The skirt was flared for easy movement. The three-quarter
sleeves were cool enough for outdoors, yet they covered her arms under the air
conditioning vents.

“It could have taken days, Lois Lane,” Tony opined, lured by
the scent of almonds and cinnamon. “There could have been bloodshed.”

Lacey ignored Tony and addressed Wiedemeyer. “Did she show it
to you?”

“Are you crazy? That’s bad luck. No use inviting trouble.”
The irony escaped the resident jinx.

“I’m sure it will be a big happy surprise for you, Harlan,”
Lacey said.

“People make their own luck. Mmm, smells like some kind of
cake,” Tony said, retrieving a precut square of this morning’s treat.

One crisis solved, and another was brewing. An ill wind (or
Felicity’s baking aromas) blew Peter Johnson their way. He strode into the
newsroom as if he were a media star of the marble corridors of Congress,
glorying in the minutiae of federal regulations and the quirks of obscure
politicians.

“You!” He shouted at Lacey.

What now?
The paper’s reader algorithm must have shown
a readership spike over her story on Courtney, while his ponderous “all the
news to snooze” must have put them to sleep.

“What is it about you?” he went on. “Where you go, disaster
strikes. Not once, like lightning, but repeatedly. When are you going to leave
this alone?” He threw a copy of her updated story at her. It fell to the floor
at his feet.

“This is about Wallace, I presume?”

“Smithsonian doesn’t cause trouble.” Little Wiedemeyer braved
Johnson’s wrath. “She discovers it, celebrates it, revels in it. She has a nose
for news. She finds stories you never could.”

“Said the jinx.” Johnson backed up a few steps from the
shorter, chubbier man.

“Then beware my superpowers, you sorry bastard.”

Johnson turned to Lacey, his voice quivering. “The White
House Correspondents’ Dinner is the most high-profile event of the year. And
you go and ruin it.”

“Who? Me, or Courtney Wallace with her unfortunate death, or
the poor waiter who bathed her in champagne?”

“The spotlight belongs on the President. The dinner, the
dignity of the press corps.”

“The spotlight lands where it lands, Johnson. And let me try
to wrap my head around the dignity of the press corps pandering to sleazy, second-rate
celebrities to make the evening newsworthy. By the way, your zipper’s undone.”

Johnson turned a dangerous shade of purple as he half turned
and fumbled with the front of his pants. “My sources are asking me about this
story as if it were important. Not just one story, but a follow-up? It’s a
desecration of the front page.”

Mac stormed up the aisle. “Johnson, go back to your sour
grapes and rewrite that turkey of a story you gave me. This time, try it in
English.”

“What about her?” Johnson whined. “What are you going to do
about her?”

“Smithsonian? I’m going to let her get back to work. People
read her stories.”

“My stories are vital!”

“To what? National security?” Lacey cracked. She always
seemed to get on his last nerve without even trying. It was time to fight back.
“Or do you have a dissertation on Herodotus’s potty training you’d like to
share with us?”

Johnson started to sputter. He loved to bring up Herodotus,
the ancient Greek historian, for no apparent reason. Johnson crumpled up the
paper in his hand and threw it at her, glaring with all the intensity he could
muster behind his glasses. This time his missile went almost to its mark.

“Johnson, I said move,” Mac ordered. “Go back. Rewrite. Fix
your mess.” Johnson retreated, glaring daggers at them all.

“Thanks, Mac.” Lacey had a champion in Mac.
At least this
morning.
She momentarily forgot her irritation with Felicity as her editor
reached for a piece of almond cinnamon Bundt cake with thick cream cheese
frosting. While Felicity’s cake might mollify Mac, it wouldn’t stop Johnson,
who lacked the capacity to enjoy anything so trivial as food.
Watch your
back, Lacey,
she thought.

Was Johnson fearful for his job? That might explain his
behavior. These days, every reporter had reason to worry. Newspapers folded
faster than lawn chairs after a picnic. For that matter, if the print news biz
faded away, what would Lacey have to show for it?

She couldn’t waste any more time on Johnson or her dubious
future. She had leads to follow. A vintage shop in Del Ray. A woman named
Ingrid Allendale. A dress with a Paris Green lining. And a cameraman who might
have seen something.

Lacey pulled her notebook out of her bag and flipped through
it to her contact information for Courtney’s Asian cameraman, Eric Park.

CHAPTER 23

If Eric Park was anything
like “Long
Lens” Hansen, the top photographer at
The Eye
, he would notice
everything. At least Lacey hoped so.

Hansen was a quiet observer, a man of few words. He saw the
world through his camera lenses and spoke through his photographs. Judging from
the photos he took of Lacey, he had a particularly wicked sense of humor. He
hadn’t caught her slipping on a banana peel yet, but he’d come close.

Eric, on the other hand, turned out to be a chatterbox and a
gossip—Lacey’s favorite type of source. They met for coffee near Judiciary
Square. He had to shoot a story with Eve Farrand at a Senate hearing, but he
said he had time first for a quick meet.

When he arrived, Lacey was in line at the counter, behind
someone who ordered
two
double caramel latte macchiatos with soy milk
and whipped cream, some very complicated additional instructions, and apparently,
no irony.

“You said you were buying, so—” He favored her with a grin.

“Not a problem. Order anything you like. But not two of
them.” She tilted her head at the two-latte lady.

“Only kidding. I can handle a latte, even on my salary.” He
checked his watch. “Eve ducked out for what she calls a ‘quick’ manicure before
the hearing. I figure I got an hour.”

“You’re not attending the whole hearing?”

“Why bother, Eve never does. She picks up the preprinted
testimony and then tries to get a quick quote on camera from some senator when
it’s over. And those beige nails of hers are very important.”

“Beige nails.” Will Zephron had mentioned that detail, too. She
didn’t know what shocked her more—wearing beige nails or skipping out on covering
a hearing. True, most hearings on the Hill were ninety-nine percent snooze, but
that one percent could be full of newsworthy surprises and pithy quotes.

“She’s into them. Like corpse hands,” he said. “It’s Eve’s
latest thing. She’s trying to wear beige, or cream, or camel, on camera, so she
looks different from everybody else. Complements her dark hair, so she says. It
looks ‘rich and competent.’ Yadda yadda. The nails are part of her new look. I
hear her on her cell all the time, talking with her girlfriends and ignoring me.
She thinks I don’t listen to her babble on. But I do.” He grinned. “Or maybe
she thinks I’m deaf.”

“Stocking up on cocktail chatter?”

“Exactly, or just blackmail.”

“Dodging a hearing, though? Wow. She could get blindsided if
some witness goes off script. Or a senator keels over dead.”

“It’s her story. I just follow her lead.”

Broadcast is very different from print,
Lacey thought,
not for the first time.

Lacey was one of those tiresome old-school reporters who
covered meetings from beginning to end. When she covered the occasional Hill
hearing, on such subjects as safety concerns of textile workers or the budget
for the fashion museum in D.C., she arrived early, grabbed all the printed
testimony and press releases, read them, and then watched the entire hearing,
waiting patiently for those rare moments when a witness or a congressman or senator
said something unscripted and genuine, or memorably stupid or offensive, or
admitted something they hadn’t planned on admitting.

But then, Lacey didn’t get to Capitol Hill that often. She
was aware there were the occasional print reporters who ducked out of an
endlessly dull meeting for a haircut or a shopping trip and still hammered out
a barely passable story. Peter Johnson sprang to mind. She tried to scrub her thoughts
of him, but he had sullied her day.

She paid for their coffees. Eric picked up the cups and
followed her to a table.

“Eric, I was wondering—how did you team up with Courtney?
Were you always on stories together at Channel One?”

“No. Just turned out that way for her vintage clothing thing.
The photographers drive the cars and the cameras, the reporter drives the
story. Usually, it’s kind of luck of the draw. Keeps it interesting. If your
reporter du jour is a dud, better luck next time.”

“What was Wallace like?”

“Drama queen. All wrapped up with being Courtney, that’s for
sure. But it wasn’t hard work for me. I was just the camera guy on board that
day for the first piece. She liked the way it turned out, so we wound up teamed
together for all of them, so they would have a cohesive look. The lighting, the
editing, that kind of thing.”

“Did she have more fashion pieces planned?”

“Just the dress at the dinner. That was it. All she wrote.”
He nodded and sipped his coffee. “The Correspondents’ Dinner was supposed to be
the final piece, the wrap. Turned out it was. She might have been planning
something else, but she didn’t tell me.”

“The moment she got drenched with all the champagne. Did you see
anything? Or get any video of it?”

“If you mean, did I see anyone slam into that poor chump of a
waiter, I didn’t. I’ve been wondering about that too. Mostly I have Courtney’s
back, chasing some actress. Courtney dodging through the crowd at top speed, me
zig-zagging after her, my camera rig bouncing around. I caught up with her just
as she got nailed with the drinks. A few great seconds of her dripping wet,
yelling and screaming. A bit of the waiter. Nice clear footage, tight on her,
well lit, Courtney dropping F-bombs on the world. The station will never use it.
Some cop looked at it, though. Nothing there but Courtney.”

“Which cop, do you remember?”

“Detective. Didn’t catch his name. Some big black guy.”

Some big guy named Detective Broadway Lamont, I’ll bet.
Holding out on me!

“No smoking gun in your footage? That’s too bad.”

“I know! Would that be great? But you said ‘footage’? Too
many feet in that footage, not enough room. I was stepping on feet all night.
You really need steel-toed boots at those things. My guess is the waiter just
got his feet tangled up in somebody else’s and over he went.”

“Sounds like the likeliest story,” Lacey said, not mentioning
Will Zephron’s take on the incident and the small hands or fists he felt pushing
him. “By the way, who exactly decided on the vintage series? The station?”

“Courtney. She had to sell the idea to them. Slow news day
stuff. She was looking for a regular kind of feature gig, a signature sort of
story, after she screwed up big-time.”

“The Thaddeus Granville story?” Lacey wanted confirmation by
name.

“That’s the one. Boy, am I glad I was nowhere near that one.
Look, I don’t really know how far the fallout went. The suits upstairs were in
an uproar. There were contract issues and legal issues. Granville was breathing
down their necks with a possible lawsuit. It looked like she wasn’t going on
air again. At all. Ever. And then she did. She thought she could escape the
chopping block by going in a whole new direction. It worked too, for a little
while.”

“Was she grasping at straws, choosing fashion?”

“Maybe.” He licked the froth off the side of his cup. “The
rise and fall of Courtney Wallace. Her contract was coming up for renewal soon
and she was tap dancing as fast as she could to stay on.”

“What were her chances?” Granville told Lacey there was no
chance. She wanted Eric’s take on it.

“A long shot. A very
long,
long shot.”

“Did Courtney have enemies? Other than Granville?”

“You mean, did anyone want to kill her at the Correspondents’
Dinner?” He laughed. “Yes, I’ve been reading your stuff. Really, who knows? Lots
of jealousy going around in this biz. Hey, did you know Courtney was reading
your column as background for her series? She said fashion was easy. After all,
look at Lacey Smithsonian.” Lacey felt her temperature and her eyebrows rise.
Eric put his hand up. “Just quoting.”

“Right. If Lacey Smithsonian can do it, anyone can do it.” It
wasn’t the first time she’d heard that.

“Hey, that might be what Courtney thought, but it’s not what
I think,” Eric said. “You’ve done some really cool stuff. Not just the fashion
stuff. The sword-cane dude might be my favorite. Death threats! Explosions! How
interesting is that? Solved murder cases too. There’s more than meets the eye to
the fashion beat, right? Too bad you don’t get to do it all live on camera.”

“Oh, there’s been an embarrassing picture or two. I can’t
tell you how happy I am that my whole career isn’t on YouTube.”

He laughed again and pointed an imaginary video camera at
her. “And the diamonds in New Orleans? Wow, that was a killer story! What’s up
with those? Did they ever decide who gets to keep them? I’m pretty sure
Courtney was hoping for a big story like that. Something like that might have
saved her ass.”

Those diamonds had been hidden for nearly a century. Many
people had looked for them. Courtney could never have stumbled onto that story.
Not in a million years.

“Last I heard, the State Department and the Kremlin were
still dancing a tango over ownership and who gets to show them off first. And
The
Eye
wants to be prominently mentioned as their discoverer. If the diamond
dust ever settles, I’ll write a follow-up.”

“Then you pop up with that
Madame-X-poison-lining-lethal-black-dress thing. I didn’t see that coming.
Wild.”

“You read my story?” Eric was a guy, and they generally
didn’t read about fashion.

“Are you kidding? Everybody at Channel One reads your stories
now. They’re about Courtney and she’s dead. Hits way too close to home. You
know that dress really did look like the one in the Sargent painting. Courtney
never made the connection. I didn’t either, until you made it. If Courtney
really had what it takes for fashion, she should have figured it out. Or at
least suspected something. You did.”

“It’s kind of a special talent,” Lacey said.

“I feel bad for her. Looking back, I can see she was getting
sicker and sicker all night and maybe I should have dragged her out of there.
But she insisted on sticking with it. My job is to follow wherever the on-air
talent wants to go.”

“What did you think of her vintage clothing series?”

“Different than the stuff I usually shoot. I liked the
juxtaposition of now and then. I wanted to shoot some of it in black and white,
with shadows.”

“Film noir?”

He gestured with his macchiato. “Right. Shadows of venetian
blind slats across Courtney wearing some classy old gown, that kind of thing. I
kind of got into it.”

“Sounds cool. I didn’t see that on the news clips.”

“Wasn’t there. Some things you try just don’t make it.”

“Too bad. Was she happy with the series?”

“Guess so. She was all about finding stuff that would look
good on her.”

“She succeeded,” Lacey said. “Especially the black dress.”

“The Madame X dress. You have an interesting mind, Lacey.”

She smiled at him. “It’s the clothes. They carry messages, if
you pay attention. I’m not talking about the message I see a lot around this
town, of total anonymity and the desire to wear what everybody else wears. If
you put a little of yourself into your clothes, you can use them to reveal
things that are personal and meaningful about you.”

“And that dress of hers said, ‘Drop dead!’ So you think
someone put Courtney in that dress on purpose?”

“I’d like to find out. And that is totally off the record,
Eric.”

“I get it. You can’t let it go until you’ve figured it out.
You’re that kind of reporter.” He seemed to think this was a lark. “Want to make
a wager?”

“Never take a sucker bet. I just want to put it in context.
Clothing messages are all about context. Freaky accidents are freaky by their
nature. Freaky means out of context.”

“Do you think someone killed Courtney on purpose?”

“It’s about a zillion to one. I just have a bad case of
curiosity.”

“You can’t let it alone, can you?”

Lacey laughed. “Are you interviewing me?”

“Nah, I’m just the camera guy right now. But hey, I’m curious
too. Someday I could be on the other side of the lens. Promise to tell me if
you find out?”

“You and the rest of the world.” It would never cross Lacey’s
mind to call the broadcast media to scoop her own story. Never, ever. “Anything
I find out goes to
The Eye
first.”

“Too bad people only believe what they see on TV,” he teased.

“Ouch.” She pretended to spill her coffee on him.

“Come on, Lacey. Just give me a heads-up, in case persons
unknown are gunning for another Channel One reporter. Or God forbid, a
photographer.” He grinned. He had a great smile, bright and guileless.

“Will do. On another subject, Eric. How is it, working with
Eve Farrand?’

He whistled. “She’s a piranha, man. If there’s blood in the
water, it’ll draw her like a shark.”

“Did she like Courtney?”

“Like a shark likes a baby seal. She didn’t take Courtney’s
beat and her boyfriend out of love and friendship. Two cats hissing. They
mostly kept their distance. But they had a big screaming fight right before the
dinner. I have no idea what it was about, but people said they could hear their
voices shouting in the ladies’ room.”

Women’s Conference Room.
“Really? So Eve was at the
Correspondents’ Dinner too?”

“She was there. She wasn’t working it, though. Took the new
boyfriend under cover. Apparently they wrangled seats at one of the big
magazines’ tables. With Bloomberg, I think.”

Eve had a definite vision for her image, the brunette who
wore cream and beige in a city of black and gray. Courtney’s boyfriend and the
beat—were they just stepping stones? Would she just as easily step over
Courtney? Would she push a waiter with a tray of drinks? Timing was everything
in television. Timing was everything in Courtney Wallace’s death. And Eve’s
rise.

“So Courtney’s gone and Eve is on the ascendant. Where does
that put Zanna Nelson?”