Grave Apparel (10 page)

The child said nothing. All
Lacey
could see
was
a blueand white striped
shepherd’s
robe with the hood pulled
down
to the
child’s
eyebrows.
The
shadows
and
glare
from
the
yellow
streetlights high
above
the
alley
didn’t
help. A reckless little
boy,
Lacey
thought, judging from the
voice
and the
shepherd’s
robe.
A
little
wayward
shepherd
boy,
strayed
from
the
Nativity
pageant.
But
there
are
no
sheep
here.
What’s
he
doing
in
our
alley?

As curious as she
was
about the
boy,
Lacey
turned to
exam
ine
the
woman
lying
on
the
ground.
Carefully
gathering
up
the
folds of her
velvet
skirt, she bent
down
next
to the still
figure
in the grimy
alley.
Cassandra was breathing,
but
she didn’t
re
spond
to
Lacey’s
voice
or
touch.
Lacey
felt
for
a
pulse
and
found one,
but
it seemed weak.

She
became
aware
of
another
presence,
uncomfortably
close. The little shepherd had crept silently up to Cassandra on
the
opposite
side
and
squatted
over
her,
leaning
so
close
to
Lacey
that their foreheads nearly touched.
Lacey
looked
up to see a pair of dark
brown
almondshaped
eyes
staring at her in tently,
framed
by
the
blueandwhite
striped
woolen
fabric.

Lacey
caught
a
whiff
of
that
earthy
smell
that
comes
from
play
ing outside in the dirt. And perhaps a little motor oil.

“Is she dead?” the shepherd
asked.
“No.”

“Because if
she’s
dead I didn’t do
it.”
It was the kind
of
statement someone who
always
got blamed might
make.

“I
believe
you,”
Lacey
said. “Did you see who did it?”

“A
man.”
Her
companion
appeared
to
be
about
ten
or
eleven
years old,
but
Lacey
decided she
was
perhaps not the best judge of
children’s
ages. He appeared to be part black, part Asian, and maybe some white,
Lacey
guessed. It
was
hard to tell, the light
was
so bad and the
face
was
so
dirty.
An
exotic
mix of ethnici ties,
but
not uncommon in the
Nation’s
Capital.
Lacey
stood up and rubbed her hands to
warm
them.

“She’s
alive.
It’s
a good thing you called someone. I
have
to call for
help.”

Feeling sick to her stomach,
Lacey
fought the guilt of
hav
ing
argued
with
Cassandra
moments
before
someone
came
along and
knocked
her in the head. She took another close look at
her.
There were small red and white
slivers
of something on the ground and some were speckled in the
woman’s
hair near the
wound.

Lacey
dialed 911. She reported a
woman
assaulted in the alley
off
Eye Street Northwest across from Farragut
Square.
She told the dispatcher she
would
wait
for the
ambulance
and
clicked
off.
She heard a siren,
but
there were
always
sirens in the background in the District. It
faded
in the distance.

“You
saw
what happened?” she
asked
the child.

He sized her up silently and pressed his lips
together.
“Really,
you can tell
me,”
Lacey
said.
“After
all, you
didn’t
hit
her.
Right?”

“I
didn’t.”
The little shepherd remained squatting
over
the limp form of Cassandra, peering at her as if she were a giant science
experiment,
a
very
interesting one, one that might roar to life without
warning.
Cassandra, whose skin
was
normally pink and
weatherroughened,
looked
deathly white, her lips a
chalky
gray
color.
The
alley
suddenly seemed
very
quiet.

“It
stopped,”
the shepherd said, and
Lacey
realized he
was
talking about the Christmas
sweater.
The lights had
stopped
flashing and the
tinny
sound of “Jingle Bells”
was
suddenly
blessedly
still.
Grimy
little
hands
started
searching
the
garment.

“What are you doing?”

“Something
makes
it
turn
on.
The
music.”
Dirty
fingers
pressed a
button
at the bottom of one
sleeve.
The lights started
flashing again and “Jingle Bells” tinkled
a
reprise.

“You
probably
shouldn’t
play with
that,”
Lacey
cautioned. “I’m not hurting it!” he protested, displaying a logical side.

“I
like
to
know
how
things
work.”

“Yes,
but—”
But what? He
wasn’t
hurting Cassandra. Could
the
sweater
be
evidence?
And
what
would
it
tell
anyone?
“Never
mind. Did the man put this sweater on her?”

The child stood up. “He laughed when he
was
doing it,
like
it
was
the funniest thing in the
world.”

“Did he say
anything?”

“He just laughed. He
was
dressed
like
this Santa
Dude.”
“ ‘Santa Dude’?”

“Yeah,
a dude wearing a Santa hat?
You
know,
those hats
like
Santa wears?”

Lacey
nodded.
Like
the Santa caps the managers
would
be wearing to
The
Eye
’s
party this
evening.
The shepherd lifted his
face
to hers, his
eyes
clear.

“The Santa Dude. Did you see his
face?”

“He’s
a white
guy.
Like
Santa. No beard,
though.”

“Was
this guy wearing a full Santa suit? Red and
white?

Reindeer?”

The
shepherd
gave
her
an
exasperated
look.
“No
reindeer!
Just a Santa hat. The Santa Dude. This Santa Dude is rude, with a
bad
attitude.
He
had
squintchy
eyes.”
The
shepherd
boy
made
an angry
face
and squinted. He opened his mouth in a
fierce
gri mace.
“Like
that.”

“What happened?”

“I just
saw
the lady and the Santa Dude yelling. She
was
on that
bike.”
He gestured to
Cassandra’s
bent mountain
bike.
“So he grabs her
off
the
bike
and she hits him with her
bike
helmet.”
“She
was
going home.
Was
he
waiting
in the
alley
for her?” The child shrugged. “The Santa Dude hit her with this thing, this giant candy
cane.”

“A
what?”
Lacey
had
the
feeling
she
was
being
had.
“Like
a redandwhite striped candy cane?”
Oh,
please,
a
candy
cane!
“Like
I
told
you!”
The
shepherd
glared
at
her,
offended.
“The biggest one I
ever
saw.
I
swear.
This big!” The shepherd gestured with both hands spread wide, indicating the size of the

alleged
giant candy cane weapon. Then he acted out the drama in the
alley.
“And
the Santa Dude holds it up
way
high
over
her head. This candy cane? She gets really quiet, and
she’s
kind of little.
He’s
bigger.
And I think maybe she tells the Santa Dude to stop or go
away
or something? Whack! The dude cracks her
in
the
head
with
it.”
The
boy
gestured
the
blows.
“She
just
stands there for a second and
there’s
lots of blood. And he does
it
again
and
again
and
again,
and
she
falls
down.
And
he
puts
the sweater on
her.”

“That sounds pretty
scary.”
And
pretty
strange.
Lacey
had seen the shards of red and white and
wondered
what
they
were,
but
she
wasn’t
about to touch them.
Fragments
of
the
weapon?
Lacey
bent
down
again to check
Cassandra’s
pulse. She
was
still breathing,
but
her skin was cold. “Hold on,
Wentworth.
You’re
tough.
You’ll
make
it.”

“She
looks
bad,”
the
shepherd
said.
He
squatted
again
to
get
a better look.
“You
think
she’s
gonna die?”

“Where did he
have
the sweater?”

“I
don’t
know.
I
was
hiding.
They
were
screaming.”
“What did
they
say? And where were you?”

He
looked
up at
Lacey.
“I
didn’t
hear all the
words.
I
was
hiding
behind
the
Dumpster.”
He
showed
her
the
narrow
gap
behind the
large
trash
container.
It
would
just hold a child.
“And
then I
peeked
out.
Like
this.”
Lacey
saw
just a flash of blue andwhite stripes and a pair of dark
eyes
peering out. “Because you got to
know
your circumstances in this
town,
you
know,”
he
counseled
wisely.
“I
could
have
been
whacked
too,
you
know.
Like
the
lady.”