Grave Apparel (58 page)

“I
don’t
know,
take
a
look.”

“Does it
have
something to do with Cassandra?”

“Maybe
indirectly.
And with a certain witness in a certain
alley.”

“Tony,
are
you
telling
me
that
pigs
have
flown?”
Lacey
stepped
over
his
legs
to get to her
chair,
her
Macy’s
sack full of
puffy
parkas in one hand, her purse and coat and
Tony’s
enve
lope in the
other.
She dumped it all on her desk and opened the
envelope.
“Recent
evictions!
From the federal marshals’
office!
Oh,
Tony,
thank you!”

“
De
nada.
That phone number seems to be a pay phone in
Shaw.
But
evictions
we got. So
how
do
evictions
figure
into the style beat, Smithsonian?”

“Three guesses,
Tony.”
She smiled brightly and opened the
envelope.

“It’s
that
little
shepherd
kid,
isn’t
it?
An
evicted
family
equals homeless kids equals little crime scene witnesses in al
leys
behind
newspapers.
Did I do the math right?” She laughed and flipped through the pages. “Rumor has it that
you’re
work
ing with Johnson
now.
There’s
a dream team: Lois Lane and Elmer Fudd!
You
throwing
me
over
for
Fuddsy,
Lacey?”

“Bite your tongue, Trujillo. Elmer is out huntin’ wabbits. Meanwhile,
you’ve
brought home the prize carrot. At least I hope
so.”

Tony
flashed his dazzling white smile. “I thought so.
You’re
leaving
Fuddsy out of the
loop.”

“Peter
Johnson
is
loopy
enough
without
my
help,”
Lacey
said.
“Speaking
of
loopy,
why
aren’t
you
riding
herd
on
Kavanaugh?”
“More
like
housetraining a
new
puppy
than riding herd. I heard
you’re
pissed about the story she
wrote.”

“About
the ‘Hispanic teenage boy suspect’? What makes you think that?”

Tony
playfully
socked
Lacey
on
the
shoulder.
“Kelly’s bound to get
better,
it’s
the
way
it
works
in this biz.
You
get bet ter or you flunk
out.”

“Which
way
are you betting?”

“Hey,
I
can’t
do her job for
her,
okay? I got
vacation
coming up, I
leave
tomorrow
for my
sister’s
quinceañera and I
don’t
want
anything
to
screw
up the deal. Least of all trouble with the junior cop reporter who thinks
she’s
Dick
Tracy.”

“You’re
going to Santa Fe?”

“Yep,
home
to
Ma’s
enchiladas
and
chili
rellenos.”
He
smacked
his lips.

“Yum.”
Lacey
had a
definite
taste for
crispy
chili rellenos, the
way
they
made them in
Denver.
You
couldn’t
find
them
any
where back East. “So are you taking Linda Sue from the Christ mas party to meet the
family?”

He shrugged and stood up.
“We’re
just friends,
we’re
barely
dating.”

“I
see,”
Lacey
smirked.
“Too
many
ladies back home?”
“And
so little
time,”
he agreed. “If I can do
anything
else for you let me
know.”

“How
about taking
Kavanaugh
with you?”

“Bite
your
tongue,
Smithsonian.”
Tony’s
boots hit the road.
Lacey
sat
down
and pored
over
the marshals’
eviction
list until she found what she
wanted.
The District of Columbia had certain rules about
evictions.
They
couldn’t
be carried out if the weather forecast included a
fifty
percent chance of
snow,
for
example,
or
temperatures
below
freezing.
But
there
was
no
snow
in the forecast and the temperature
hadn’t
fallen
to that magic number yet. The list
Tony
had
somehow
sweettalked
out of a friend at the U.S. Marshals Service contained
several
dozen
evictions.
One in particular caught
Lacey’s
eye.

One Mrs. Anna Mai Lee had been
evicted
just after Thanks
giving.
Or at least her children were, although the list
didn’t
contain their names. Jasmine said
she’d
been missing a couple of weeks. The
family
had
lived
in the
Shaw
neighborhood, not far from the Shiloh Mount Zion Church. Lacey grabbed
her
coat, notebook, purse, and her big
Macy’s
bag of parkas, and headed for the
elevators.

She had a
vague
recollection that she still had a
fashion
beat and a deadline and a “Crimes of
Fashion”
column to turn in.
Wasn’t
this
week’s
deadline coming up soon? What day
was
this
again?
She
ignored
that
tingling
impendingdeadline
feel
ing. Surely her editor
would
understand, her crusty editor with a soft spot for kids in trouble.

Reel her
in,
Mac had said. That
was
an
order.

Lacey
hit
the
ATM
on
the
corner
for
cash,
flagged
a
taxi
in
front
of
Farragut
Square,
and
gave
the
driver
an
address
off
Rhode
Is
land
Avenue
Northwest.
She’d
struck
out
on
finding
a
“Miss
Charday,”
even
with
multiple
alternative
spellings,
but
she
hoped
to
find
more
information
at
her
destination.
On
the
way
to
the
apartment
house
where
Anna
Mai
Lee
and
her
two
daughters
once
lived,
Lacey
saw
an
elaborate
mural
decorating
a
boardedup
building.
It
looked
like
it
had
been
a
nightclub,
but
now
it
bore
the
inscription,
BIENVENUE
À
SHAW
,
SLUM
HISTORIQUE
.

“Welcome
to
Shaw,
Historic
Slum”?
She
wasn’t
sure
if
that
was
supposed
to
be
ironic
or
bitter.
Both,
she
decided,
and
the
French
added
yet
another
level
of
irony.
Shaw
was
once
the
home
of
Langston
Hughes
and
Duke
Ellington,
but
now
it
had
a
reputation
for
poverty
and
high
crime.
It
wasn’t
a
part
of
the
District
Lacey
knew
well.
Around
the
corner,
another
painted
inscription
in
French:
TOUJOURS
FERMÉ
.
“Always
Closed.”

The
entire
Shaw
neighborhood
seemed
to
be
in
transition,
like
so
much
of
Washington,
D.C.
Boardedup
townhouses
with
front
yards
full
of
trash
and
dead
grass
stood
next
to
others
that
had
been
lovingly
restored
with
fresh
paint,
neat
little
gardens,
leaded
glass
windows,
and
every
hallmark
of
urban
yuppie
nesting
impulses.
There
were
blocks
of
plainfaced
public
housing
with
iron
fences
and
NO
TRESPASSING
signs.
Lacey
no
ticed
a
few
vacant
lots,
corner
markets
tucked
into
the
ends
of
row
houses,
a
brandnew
Giant
grocery
store
with
a
big
parking
lot,
and
on
almost
every
second
or
third
block,
little
churches
with
long
names,
like
the
tiny
Shiloh
Mount
Zion
United
Church
and House
of Prayer
for
All
People.

Lacey
had read in her
own
newspaper
that there were more than six thousand homeless people in the
city.
Community ac
tivists
protested the ongoing trend of forcing
lowerincome
ten
ants
out
of
their
homes
to
make
way
for
highend
condo
conversions.
More
and
more
families
in
the
District
found
themselves
living
on
the
street.
The
slightly
luckier
ones
crowded
into
already
toosmall
apartments
with
relatives
or
friends.
They
were the
“roving
homeless,”
whose numbers ap parently
now
included
two
small girls with more courage than sense.