Shot Through Velvet (12 page)

“No. Thoughts don’t kill. Not without action. Honey, isn’t there anyone who might be sorry Rod’s dead?” It took an effort for her to sound neutral.
Surely, somebody must have cared for him
, Lacey thought. Everyone has multiple sides. Didn’t he have some redeeming feature? Other than keeping a drunken security guard company? Didn’t he even have a dog who loved him once?

Honey switched positions, putting one leg over the arm of the sofa. “Well, that’s a tough one! His mama’s gone to her reward. His daddy’s in a nursing home. Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t even remember Rod. He might feel a bit bad about it, for a minute. I’m not gonna tell him. Not one person at the velvet factory, or in this whole town, is going to miss him. I guaran-ass-tee it.”

“Seems like a shame.” Lacey stared at her notebook. “Did he have pets?”

“Had a hound once. Cleo. He’d chase her in his car, hanging out the door, screaming at her to come home. This one time, Rod drove into the neighbor’s dining room chasing the dog. The neighbors hated him. Cleo ran away. Look, Lacey, I know what you’re saying—I do. You think there’s got to be some little shred of goodness in the man, and I would agree, with any human being on Earth, excepting maybe terrorists. But not Rod.”

“Why did you marry him?” It was a question that often bothered Lacey. How in the world did people wind up with the people they wound up with, for good or ill?

“Oh, my. I ask myself that question every damn day.”

Honey stood and pulled down a photo album from one of the tall oak bookcases. She opened it on the marble-topped coffee table to a picture of Rod and Honey, young and fresh and beautiful on their wedding day. Honey was dressed in a profusion of chiffon and lace. Rod was grinning in a tuxedo. A blue tuxedo.
Naturally
.

“I don’t know why we didn’t throw this thing out. It’s like those are two different people. Back then, Rod had a lot of charm, personality, money—anything he ever wanted. Smooth as can be. Confident. Good-lookin’. He was fun.” She flipped through a few more pages. “But he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.”

“I know the type,” Lacey said. Life was full of people who thought they were the smartest one in the room. It was no surprise Rod Gibbs thought he was all that.

“It went bad pretty fast. Rod failed at everything he tried. I could see it eat away at him. His own father fired him. Here he was, God’s gift to the world, and he couldn’t hold a job, unless he owned part of the place. Good thing he had a trust fund. And there wasn’t as much money as everyone thought. Last couple of years, he was running through it as fast as he could.”

“So, you kept your job at the gym.” Honey was a lot smarter than she’d looked the night before.

“I own a piece of it too.” Honey laughed out loud. “And this house. I guess that makes me the smart one. Course after being married to Rod for a while, I wasn’t the dewy-eyed bride anymore. There are things I’m not proud of. But Rod destroyed people. He liked it. He fired people for no good reason, except he hated them, or he was jealous of them. And if it was a woman, it was because she wouldn’t sleep with him, or ’cause she did and he got tired of her. All I can say is, he liked to take things away from people, the things they loved most—like that stupid boat.”

“You mean the
Blue Devil
? That boat?”

“Oh yeah,
that
boat.” Honey nodded and closed the album. “That pretty little fishing boat wasn’t called the
Blue Devil
back then. It was something like the
Gypsy Princess
. It belonged to Dirk Sykes and Hank Richards. Those boys really loved that boat. They scraped all their money together—I don’t know how long—to buy it, so they’d have something to do on weekends. I was still working at the factory when they brought it to the lake. It was a secondhand Cobalt.”

“Cobalt?” Lacey knew nothing about boats.

“Yeah. Most fishing boats, they’re kind of dumpy. Like minivans? Or maybe Jeeps? Well, a Cobalt is like a Corvette. The Corvette of fishing boats. Well, Rod one day tells me it’s his. They used the boat to pay off a debt they owed him. Hell, I don’t know what he had on them, but it was a shame.”

“So they had a motive to kill him? Over a boat?”

“Maybe.” Honey paused. “But Dirk and Hank, they’re sweet old boys. They’re all macho talk and no action. Just daydreamers. I don’t know if they can catch a fish. Even if they had a boat.”

Sykes seemed the more likely suspect to Lacey, salting his alibi with that anonymous Velvet Avenger theory. They weren’t
just
good old boys. Lacey felt sure of that.

Honey shifted position on the sofa again. “I suppose you heard Rod was screwing me to the wall on this divorce, fighting me tooth and toenail?”

“Didn’t he want the divorce?”

“Oh, sure! We hated each other something fierce, but it hurt his pride that I was the one who filed. Anyway, he cleaned out the bank accounts and hired a fancy attorney to help him hide his money. What he had left. I was just glad he wasn’t going after
my
money. For all I know, he was planning to and just got distracted. Rod was like that.”

“What else did he do?”

“Anything to break my spirit. The prick. Sometimes I think that’s why he married me. To break me. Sick, huh? There were days and days he wouldn’t come home. I’d worry all night. At first. He’d call early in the morning and leave horrible messages on the machine, how I was terrible in bed and a shrew. And out of shape! And that is ridiculous—I am totally in shape, on account of my profession at the gym.” Honey flexed some impressive arm muscles. “Rod would tell me how hot he was, screwing other women, and he’d be calling me right from some bimbo’s bed. Did it just the other day, and I haven’t been warming
his
bed for over two years, now.”

“What did you do?”

“Yawned and hung up on him.”

“Sounds like he didn’t want to let you go,” Lacey said.

“You think? Oh, it was real amusing.”

“Do you still have the messages?”

“No. But my attorney does. He found them very helpful, building a case for adultery. Like I didn’t already know the dumb-ass was catting around on me. After so many black eyes and a couple of broken ribs, don’t think I cared. Except for those poor women who got involved with him. Excuse me for a minute.”

Honey killed the Dominion Lager and replaced it with another.

Lacey was feeling light-headed just watching the beer going down. “I’m surprised he could get another woman.”

“That’s another mystery of the universe.” Honey took a long pull off her fresh bottle of beer. “I thought to myself a hundred times, the only way I’m ever going to get rid of this jerk is if he dies. When I got that call yesterday, it was like a get-out-of-jail-free card. It was like a miracle.”

“I’m sure Rod didn’t feel that way,” Lacey said, with a smile.

“Believe me, I’m trying to find a little sorrow over the whole thing. Looks bad for the merry widow to be dancing a jig at the funeral. But I seem to have mislaid my tears.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’re a suspect?” Honey was proving to be a good interview. Lacey marked asterisks on quotes she might use in her story.

“I’d be surprised if I wasn’t. Had me a real long talk with those state policemen. That sharp little mean one?”

“Special Agent Mordecai Caine? Tightly wound, isn’t he?”

“That’s the one.” Honey sat still and contemplated the neck of the beer bottle. The sunlight cast an amber light on her face.

“Did he accuse you of Rod’s murder?”

“Not exactly, but I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to know an awful lot about the time I had Rod thrown in jail.”

“You pressed charges in a domestic dispute?”

“Domestic dispute, my ass. That son of a bitch tried to kill me!” Honey pulled another long swallow of beer.

“But you went back to him?”

“Pretty stupid, huh? I’ve learned my lesson. The first few times he hit me, he was real sweet afterward. He promised to change.” She made a
pffft
sound.

Lacey had heard that story before from other women. Rod had chipped away at Honey’s confidence, little by little, day by day. He built his complaints into a continual rant. Like so many batterers. How many ways did he tell Honey she was worthless? But there was one spark of defiance in Honey. She never believed him. She believed in herself. Lacey tried to stop herself from believing that Rod Gibbs deserved his fate, but it was getting harder all the time.

“They got my pictures in those files, all black-and-blue. Not a pretty sight. That’s when I decided to get strong, build myself up.” She flexed her toned biceps. “He was never gonna do that to me again. Yeah, I sure as hell had a motive. I just didn’t do it.”

“Why was he so brutal?”

Honey arched her back, yawning. “You know, I don’t know. Not like I spend much time pondering it. I don’t care anymore.” She picked up the wedding album and flipped through a few pages: Honey with her bridesmaids, walking down the aisle, dancing the first dance with Rod. “Who were those people, I wonder. Who the hell was I?”

She smiled at the woman in the picture and lines crinkled around her eyes. Yet Honey was more attractive now, Lacey thought, than that untried and untested girl. Despite the pink sugarplum-coated wardrobe, Honey had gained strength and wisdom, not to mention those muscles. And she did it the hard way.

“What was his connection to Claudia Darnell?”

“Oh, Claudia! They were partners. But you knew that.” Honey gave Lacey a long, slow smile. “He always liked Claudia. So she had a little mess-up with that politician way back when. Didn’t stop her. Claudia Darnell, she’s the lady from the wrong side of the tracks here who made good. Between you and me, I think he wanted her fairy dust or whatever it was she used to get herself to the top. And she never gave Rod the time of day, till the three of them got together to save the factory. “

“Why did he do that, buy into the factory?”

“Rod wanted to be a hero. But the lower the factory sank, the worse he got and the more he tried to suck up to Claudia.”

The publisher of
The Eye Street Observer
made it to the top because she was smart, but also because she had a burning drive to survive her Washington scandal. Maybe it was revenge that motivated her. Lacey appreciated Claudia’s toughness, but as far as reading the depth of the woman, Lacey was beginning to think she’d only read the Cliff’s Notes
,
the carefully crafted public image.

“I guess a lot of people would like to know how she does it,” Lacey said.

“He wanted to sleep with her, but I bet you anything he never even got close. She’s way too classy for him. And too smart. Rod generally wanted to sleep with anything that moved, if it was female and of legal age. Or not. Hell, I don’t even know exactly how old Claudia is—in her fifties, maybe—but damn, she looks good. As a fitness professional, I can tell you she’s spent time in the gym. You don’t get arms like that lifting potato chips.”

Lacey was all too aware of Claudia’s attractiveness and power over men. In fact, she thought, Claudia should really give lessons. “Who do you think killed Rod?”

“There we go. That’s the big old mystery. I been wondering how long it took whoever did it to tie him up the way they said he was. He weighed a lot. That’s a lot of work. And dyeing him blue—that took some thought. Some kind of cosmic message.”

“Do you have an alibi?” Lacey couldn’t help smiling.
There it went, the last of my journalistic objectivity.

Honey smiled back. “Yes, ma’am. I had company all night. Real nice company. And a real reliable witness.”

Take a wild guess, Lacey.
“Officer Armstrong?”

Her smile turned into a big grin. “You are
observant
, girl.”
As if,
Lacey thought. Any fool could see the connection between the two. “Most everyone round here knows. We tried to keep it quiet for a while, but you know how small towns are.”

“I do. It seems everyone in town has an alibi, but everyone has a motive too.” Honey said nothing, but she frowned. “Do you have a favorite suspect?”

“Everybody.” Honey laughed. “Get the Black Martin phone book. That’s your list.”

Chapter 11

The yellow and black of crime scene tape were the new spring colors at Dominion Velvet. From Tom Nicholson’s glassed-in office, Lacey could see the police tape marking off the dye house. A couple of state police technicians were working behind the thin yellow strip. The place had an air of desolation and death, despite the busy people there.

“They took the spool of velvet out of here yesterday, and they drained the tank. Took samples of God knows what and then some,” Nicholson said.

He was still taking care of business, until the last lights were turned off. He had agreed to spare a few minutes for Lacey’s interview, the one she was supposed to have had with Rod Gibbs.

Dominion Velvet had been on site in Black Martin for only about twenty years, Nicholson told her, after relocating from Massachusetts. The company, previously known as Symington Textiles, had become too expensive to operate in the Connecticut River valley, where the original mill was built in the nineteenth century. Times had changed. Cheaper transportation costs, nonunion labor, and local tax incentives drew the Symingtons away from New England, down to Virginia. It was an attempt to keep the company alive. It worked—for a while.

“Did anyone relocate to Black Martin?”

“Very few. Most had deep family ties to the community. Only the management came to Virginia, and not all of them. I moved with the company,” Nicholson said. “I started back in Massachusetts when I was eighteen years old. I’ve done maintenance, I’ve sheared the velvet, I’ve washed it, dyed it, and put it through the dryers. Then I had an opportunity to get into management. It helps knowing every job.”

“More than one person has told me they felt the factory closing was like a death in the family.” Lacey felt some of the weight of their pain. “Does it feel like that to you?”