Hostile Makeover (16 page)

“What about Caleb Collingwood?” Lacey asked. “The old boyfriend that she humiliated on national television. The one they say she murdered? She says he killed himself, but his body’s never been found.”

“And you think he’s alive, just like Elvis, and orchestrating this whole thing? Yeah, I’d expect that kind of story from a reporter,” he snorted. “Leave the investigating to the police. Anything else?”

“What happened to the little guy the police took away?”

“I do believe he was arrested for resisting an officer. And no doubt is being questioned at this very moment. Maybe not so friendly, like you and me.”

Lacey didn’t want to know what “not so friendly” was. “And do you know where my friend Stella Lake went?”

“Smithsonian, if you’re gonna ask me pointless questions, we’ll be here all night. The questions are my job, got it?”

“No singing or dancing?”

“That’s right. I ain’t no Broadway song-and-dance man, no matter what my mama named me, so don’t give me no song and dance. Now, is there anything else you saw, heard, smelled, or even imagined at any time before, during, or after the shooting?”

Lacey sighed deeply. “Oh, there is one little thing.” She put her head down on the table. “This may not mean anything.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. And look at me.” She straightened up and stared back at him. He looked like a judge to her. A hanging judge. She said nothing. “I’m waiting,” Detective Lamont said.

“My car was stolen yesterday in the District while I was at work. I reported it to the police. But I think I saw it tonight. When Amanda was shot.”

Showing some mercy, Lamont didn’t ask her to repeat that. “What kind of car? You could be mistaken. Dull-gray Hondas you womenfolk drive, they all look alike. And exactly when, in relation to the shooting?”

Dull-gray Honda! What does he take me for?
“It’s a Nissan 280ZX. Last model year they made them, 1983. It’s silver and burgundy. Not as much rust as you’d expect. And I think I saw it speeding around Dupont Circle just as the shots were fired. But I couldn’t see the driver.”

“Hell, Smithsonian! That almost sounds like a clue to me. And you said you were clueless. See how much better this works when I ask the questions and you just tell me everything you know?” But Lamont didn’t look happy about it. His big neck was bulging against the collar of his tight pink knit shirt.
Uh-oh,
she thought,
the bull is back, and he’s snorting and pawing the ground.
“Let me get this straight, Lacey Smithsonian. This woman you don’t even know tells you someone’s trying to kill her. She wants you to find out who it is, although in the next breath she tells you it’s her former fiancé. You don’t believe her, you tell her to go to the police, but you question the accused would-be killer anyway. Then someone steals your car and may have used it in the drive-by shooting of the woman who told you she was a murder target. And you say you don’t know anything useful to assist the police in our little investigation.”

“That pretty much sums it up.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it one damn bit. I just hate it when a witness, and a reporter to boot, plays dumb and then turns out to be all wrapped up in the damn thing.”

She refrained from telling him she didn’t like it much either. But she kept quiet.

“Reporters. Lord have mercy. You’d think they’d want to tell you the damn story, but it’s always like pullin’ teeth.” Lamont snorted several times. He went over it again to confirm all the details, and he made her write out a statement and sign it. He noted every phone number and address she could ever be reached at, muttering darkly about “reporters.” Finally, he let her go. It felt like the middle of the night. She felt like she’d gone ten rounds with the Spanish Inquisition.

Chapter 12

This night couldn’t get any worse,
Lacey thought. But of course it could. And it did.

When she finally got home at nearly midnight the message light was blinking on her answering machine. Hoping it was Vic or Stella or Brooke, or at least not bad news about Amanda, she hit the button.

“Lacey, this is your mother. I have a surprise for you. Your sister and I are flying in on Friday. Isn’t that wonderful! Let me see here—” There was a pause and the sound of rustling papers. “—Yes, to Ronald Reagan National Airport. That’s close by you, isn’t it? I know you’d say not to, but I feel that this is your hour of need, and your sister and I are going to be there for you. . . .”

“No! No, no, no! Mom, this is no time for you to go all maternal. I have a life. I have plans.” She thought of her plans with Vic, but talking back to the machine did not help. Lacey listened in horror as Rose rambled on about the details of their flight and her plans to come to Lacey’s aid in the citadel of evil that was Washington.

“. . . and we can look at cars for you while we’re there,” her mother’s voice continued, “something big and safe, like, oh, I don’t know, your father and I have always had good luck with Oldsmobile station wagons; can you still get those in Washington? And I haven’t seen Washington since your Great-aunt Mimi died. Good Lord, how long ago was that? It’s a shame we can’t go visit the White House anymore. But we must go to the Smithsonian! It’s a Smithsonian family tradition; it will be such fun. . . .”

“I can’t believe this. You can’t come here.”
This is my city.

“. . . and don’t think you’re talking us out of this, dear. The tickets are bought. Cherise wants to buy a Smithsonian sweatshirt and maybe one of those cute little caps. And so do I. See you on Friday.” Her mother hung up.

Lacey slid into a chair in shock. She couldn’t imagine her family invading her personal space. The only saving grace was that at least they weren’t dragging her father along. She remembered him as the invisible man behind the newspaper, who emerged only occasionally to tend to matters of plumbing, electricity, and basic auto repairs. He had just retired, and he was enjoying hanging out with his buddies, mulching the lawn, watching football, playing golf, having “tailgate parties,” whatever those were. Lacey wouldn’t know what to do with him. But then, she didn’t know what to do with her mother or sister either.

She looked around her rather shabby chic (though not on purpose) apartment, with its great French doors and balcony. It had an amazing view of the Potomac River from every window, which she loved, but it lacked any modern amenities, like a dishwasher or disposal, and the vile washers and dryers were in the skanky basement and only worked half the time. To make it cozier than the typical anonymous apartment, Lacey had painted the walls a soft French blue. She had inherited a few pieces of Great-aunt Mimi’s furniture: her cherry dining room set, her blue velvet sofa, her leather-bound trunk. But her mother, who imagined herself a great decorator, had often expressed her disdain for “Mimi’s old things.” And her sister had a definite preference for the interchangeable anonymity of IKEA catalog furniture.

But it was Mimi’s trunk, leather-bound and brass buckled, full of patterns and secrets, half-finished clothes from decades past and all their mysteries, that was Lacey’s personal treasure chest, a treasure that she lovingly excavated from time to time, finding a fabulous vintage pattern for an evening gown, clippings from the 1940s, letters with a little insight into Mimi’s life. When she was stressed-out and world-weary, Lacey usually wound up at the trunk, wandering through its patterns, fabrics, old photographs, and little snippets of Mimi’s legacy. She occasionally selected a pattern from the Mimi collection to have finished for her own unique wardrobe, which was leaning heavily toward styles from the fabulous Forties. They suited her curvy, petite figure, and her Rosie the Riveter-meets-Rosalind Russell attitude. She didn’t wear these vintage finds all the time. But they gave her a certain confidence. She now wished she had worn vintage today. Maybe she would have handled Broadway Lamont differently, dressed like a self-confident femme fatale out of a Bogart movie.

The thought of her mother and sister pawing carelessly through her things was unbearable, particularly Aunt Mimi’s trunk. Her sister would just think they were silly and glue herself to the TV. Her mother, on the other hand, might decide to throw everything out in a cleaning frenzy.

It was late, but the trunk was calling out to her. She gave in and opened it, inhaling the faint aroma of satin-and-lace sachets placed there decades before by Mimi. Running her hands over a length of emerald-green crepe, once intended for an evening gown, Lacey smiled. Her aunt had great ambitions with her sewing, but erratic follow-through. A note pinned to the fabric indicated a complicated
Vogue
pattern from the late 1940s that she had planned to use for it. But the pattern lay uncut in its package under the material. The dress would be lovely, but Lacey knew that nothing could rival the Gloria Adams dress that Miguel Flores had made for her from a pattern hidden in the trunk’s lining.

Lacey had been wondering if there were more designs by Gloria hidden away in the trunk, and she started to lift some of the materials out to look. Then she stopped. She would have time to get to the bottom of the trunk later, after her mother and sister had come and gone. The trunk was hers and hers alone. Mimi had wanted it that way, Lacey told herself, and she couldn’t risk their pawing through it. Besides, her mother couldn’t care less about vintage clothing. To her, vintage was merely old. Lacey didn’t dress for her family; she dressed to please herself. But every once in a while, those voices of maternal discouragement came floating through her subconsciousness: “You’re not really wearing that old thing, are you?”

Lacey dug up Mimi’s old padlock, made sure she had the key, and secured the trunk.
Calm down, Lacey,
she told herself.
It’s a weekend, one tiny little ruined weekend. How bad could it be?
She grabbed a piece of paper and started making a list. She would have to buy groceries for the fridge and clean sheets for the new trundle bed that she had bought for the small second bedroom, the room she generally used as an extension of her closet. And she would have to make the sofa bed too, in case the two of them wanted their own spaces. Lacey wondered why Cherise was coming along. Her little sister had been the perfect child, which Lacey generally thought was a good thing, because it let her off the hook of being perfect. But she hadn’t seen her sister in years, except for the occasional mandatory visit home.

They couldn’t be more different, she thought. Cherise had been the head cheerleader for Denver’s Geronimo High School in her senior year, cementing her position as favored child. She was tall, thin, and blond with blue eyes, and she had never in her life done anything wrong—except once. It was the one thing that made Lacey sympathize with the stressful life of Cherise, the perfect sister, the chosen one. And it always made Lacey laugh, because it proved that Cherise was actually human. Nevertheless, it had become the incident of which the family Smithsonian never spoke.

It happened at the state championship football game between Geronimo High and some rival high school from Pueblo or Lamar in Cherise’s senior year, Lacey’s freshman year at college. The Geronimo High cheerleaders were dressed in their unique gold-suede fringed Indian vests and matching suede skirts with black turtlenecks and tights, outfits they wore only for the most special occasions, like state championships and homecoming. Lacey, who had refused on principle to participate or even attend any sports events, was bullied into coming home from college for the weekend and watching the game. It was a command performance; the entire family was there. Lacey had no interest or aptitude for football and was positive she would never understand it, even with subtitles and a program book, like a bad opera. But she was there to see Cherise, the golden one, do her thing.

Cherise was always totally focused on her cheerleading, but never more so than this game, achieving a Zen-like state of perfection. During the halftime show she was completely in the cheer zone: Jump! Turn! Cheer! Kick! Do it again! At the same time, Tommy Rutland, the dim-witted star quarterback for the Geronimo High Apaches, started goofing around with the cheerleading squad, mimicking their kicks, looking up their skirts, and generally clowning around for the crowd. Cherise, intently counting out her beats, never even saw him as she executed her killer high kick, and Tommy never saw it coming. Her right foot connected with his chin and knocked him out cold, to the horror of everyone, including, most especially, his coach. The other team, however, went wild. With Tommy out of the game, the Apaches were doomed.

Tommy revived late in the second half, and despite the humiliation of being drop-kicked through the goalposts of dreamland by a mere cheerleader, he went back in and made a heroic effort—and the winning touchdown in the last thirty seconds of the game. Then Tommy collapsed with a concussion and a broken jaw and was carried off the field.

Cherise’s instant nickname quickly evolved from “Lucky Foot” into “Lethal Feet”—and then stuck. The team was ordered to stay strictly away from her and the other cheerleaders during games and practices. The joke around school was that to win the big game all you needed was “Lethal Feet Smithsonian” to give you that lucky kick in the head. In the halls for weeks afterward, you could hear kids yell, “Hey, Lethal Feet! Kick me, I need a touchdown!” “Right in the jaw, Lethal Feet, I got a big math test today!” Though separated from high school by more than a decade, Cherise was still a little sensitive about the whole episode. Lacey often pointed out to her that even in screwing up big-time, Cherise had managed to be, once again,
perfect
. “You go, Lethal Feet,” Lacey said whenever she really wanted to bug her sister.

Unfortunately, now “Lethal Feet” was about to kick her weekend in the head, and Lacey didn’t see any way to recover in time for the big touchdown.

And how was Lacey supposed to entertain them? “I’m not even supposed to be here this weekend!” She knew in her heart that her plans had been thoroughly sabotaged by her mother and her sister. She felt like she’d been ordered to sit through the big game all over again, with Cherise as the star of the show.