Shot Through Velvet (13 page)

“It sure as hell does. Make no mistake, the town of Black Martin is going to suffer when we go dark for good,” he said. “It’s already suffering.”

“What will you do when that day comes?”

“The same thing everyone else is doing. Apply for unemployment. Look for a new job.” Nicholson looked morose.

“Here in Black Martin?” The only businesses that seemed to be thriving were the Mexican cantina on Main Street and a gas station on the edge of town. “Or back in Massachusetts?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to think about leaving. But velvet’s all I know.” Nicholson had been idly flipping through a big sample book of the company’s velvets. He handed it to Lacey.

There were velvets made of rayon, cotton, silk. Every fiber took a different kind of dye. The core colors every year were black, green, blue, and red, but other hues came and went as seasons and fashions changed. She stopped at a sample of shimmering pink that looked silver in the light at certain angles, and when it was folded or draped both colors shimmered against each other. “That’s beautiful.” She could imagine that velvet in any number of uses. In décor, in couture, even a wedding gown.

“That one’s called shot velvet, or shot through. We say the two colors are shot through the velvet, or, in other words, one color is shot through another. See how the color changes, depending on the angle of the light? This pink is called Posy and the other is what we call Star Shine. Pretty, isn’t it? It’s kind of an illusion. Like this job.”

Lacey sighed and closed the book, but she couldn’t put it down. “Do you have any job prospects?”

“I’ve been talking to a few people, but let’s just say it doesn’t look too good on the old résumé to be the manager of a sinking ship. And that isn’t for publication.”

At the clicking of boot heels on the concrete floor, they both looked up. Special Agent Mordecai Caine clipped past the office to confer with one of the crime scene technicians. For a moment, he stared through the windows and decided to ignore them. Lacey tried to keep her focus on interviewing Nicholson.

“There’s still work to be done, cleanup work, paperwork, personnel files, tallying up the inventory, shipping the last of the velvet out to our few remaining customers,” Nicholson was saying. “I’ll be one of the last out the door. A month, maybe two.”

“But what about the velvet?” Lacey said.

“People don’t want to pay for high-quality velvet these days. Anyway, velvet has always been cyclical. There’s always some call for it at Christmastime. It’s been in and out of fashion, but less and less of a presence in high fashion in recent years.”

“I thought you made velvet for other uses too.” Lacey reluctantly laid the book of velvet samples back on Nicholson’s desk. She couldn’t resist opening it again, and the samples made a rainbow of fabrics. She wished she could run her fingers through the fabric for hours and let her thoughts wander, but that wouldn’t get her story written.

“Sure, jewelry boxes and earring cards, velvet to line your coffin with. Velvet is usually the last thing your body touches. Funny how people want the finest possible quality when they lay their loved ones to rest. But we’ve lost a lot of other customers. At one time, nearly half our production was contracted to Kodak.”

Lacey looked up, puzzled. “Half the production? That’s a lot of velvet. Why Kodak?”

“Kodak film. Each little canister of film you buy—if you buy film anymore—has two small strips of black velvet.”

“Ah. To prevent light leaks.”

“These days with people going to digital cameras, hardly any film gets sold anymore, so that market’s about gone.” Nicholson kicked his feet up on his desk and stretched his arms behind his head. “Hope you don’t mind. Not very businesslike around here these days.”

“I’ve always loved velvet.” Lacey ran through a mental inventory of all her velvet items, from her jackets and dresses to her dark blue velvet sofa inherited from her aunt Mimi. “This is very depressing.”

“I suppose it couldn’t last forever, though we had a really good run. We’re almost the last velvet factory in America,” Nicholson said. “There’s one velvet mill left in North Carolina. They make upholstery-grade velvet. The heavy stuff, for sofas and armchairs. Don’t know how long it can hang on.” Nicholson handed Lacey three swatches of lavender velvet from the samples spilling across his desk. “Now, these are from our plant, right here. Feel how soft these pieces are. That’s cotton, this is rayon, and that’s silk.” He layered more samples in her hand. “Feel the difference? Velvet is an old, old craft, lots of hand work involved. It’s always been a very small part of the textile industry. No one’s poured money into research and development to automate it or make it easier or cheaper to produce. So you need cheap labor to make it pay. We don’t have that anymore. Not in this country.”

“I’ve heard your people say making velvet was an art, not just a job.” Lacey examined the lavender fabric, imagining velvet dresses. Jewelry boxes. Coffins.

Nicholson smiled. “You’ve been talking to Blythe Harrington. Some workers like their jobs, but with Blythe it was personal. She was one of the best employees we ever had here. She took real pleasure in the craft of velvet. You can’t have too many Blythes. Even if she was prone to temper now and again.”

“She threw her scissors at the body.”

“She doesn’t generally throw things.” He smirked.

Lacey gazed again through his windows to the factory floor. The massive machines that washed and stretched and dried the fabric were quiet. The spools with their sharp teeth to grab the velvet were empty. “What will you do with the equipment?”

“Try to find a buyer for it. We have some feelers out. It’s old but it’s solid, one hundred percent American-made quality. But who needs it? Hate to see it go for scrap.” He slapped his hand on his desk. “Damn shame. Another American business bites the dust. Every piece of velvet you see in America will soon be foreign made. From India, China, Mexico, Turkey. It won’t be the same quality. It won’t be the same.”

“It must be hard to be the one left behind to clean it up and close it down.”

Nicholson checked his watch, then leaned forward and peered out the glass to the empty factory floor, as if he expected to see someone.

“It’s break time. Can you tell? I can’t either. No one left to take their fifteen minutes. It’s hard to leave and know that people are going to suffer. With so many layers of management gone, you know a little too much about your employees, you know? Who’s got a mortgage to pay, whose truck won’t make it another year. We’ve got folks with kids in school, elderly parents. They’re squeezed on every side.” Nicholson sipped some coffee from a ceramic mug. “Sometimes I hate knowing so much about all these people. They become your shirttail relatives.”

He rubbed his head as if it hurt. Nicholson cared. It was a side of management some people never see. But perhaps he was among the minority, like Lacey’s editor. Mac Jones, for all his bluster, occasionally revealed a softer side.
And then covered it right back up.

“What did Rod plan to do when the plant closed?”

Nicholson snapped a pencil in half. “I didn’t keep track of Rod. I know people think he had some kind of secret deal going on so he would make money somehow when the factory went under, but that doesn’t make any sense. He just got a little crazy when he knew the end was coming. Trying to hold on to what he thought was his.”

Nicholson was distracted by the sight of someone walking through the front doors. Lacey recognized Kira Evans, her shoulders weighed down with worry. She disappeared into her office in back without looking up. “Rod started bothering some of the women. More than usual,” he said.

“You’re talking about sexual harassment?”

“He never did learn his lesson. I guess you heard about that. It got worse when Honey left him and when the factory was closing. He could be one mean son of a bitch.”

“What were his duties at the factory?”

“Oversight, I guess. He had an office here. Told me he was a ‘direct report’ to the Symingtons. Didn’t seem to do any real work. Maybe he did and I didn’t know about it.”

“Are you sorry he’s dead?” Lacey couldn’t see how he would be, but it was pro forma.

“Personally? No. But I can’t say I’m enjoying the police investigation, so I’d much rather Rod would have gotten himself killed somewhere else.” Nicholson shifted in his seat. “This is off the record, but I suspected Rodney was stealing money from the company. A little here, a little there. Moving money all around. But I’m no accountant.”

“Rod Gibbs was supposed to be rich. Why would he do that?” Everything Lacey learned about Gibbs seemed to bring more contradictions.

“I think he regretted putting money in the company, and maybe he was tapped out, so he was trying to take a little back out. Can’t prove it. I’m just slandering a dead man. But I asked Kira to look at our expenses and try to track it. Not that I could do anything with that information. Not now. I just want to see if I was right.”

“Did Rod know you suspected him of stealing?”

“I kept it quiet. He would have caused real trouble if he’d found out.”

“Were you trying to get him out of the company?”

Nicholson laughed. “I don’t have any such power. Besides, these are the last days of Dominion Velvet. Maybe he thought no one would care.”

“Where were you when he was killed?” Lacey ticked off another required question.

“Me? Are you asking if I have an alibi?” He looked a little surprised. “Not here. Rod wasn’t here when I left around six. I went home. My wife was cooking dinner. I had too many beers. Never left the house after that. Shouldn’t have had to work on Sunday anyway. They should have just let me close down at the end of the week like I wanted.”

“Do you think the police will find out who killed him?”

“Don’t know.” Nicholson shrugged weary shoulders. “Not much incentive for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The community thinks justice has already been done. That’s off the record, by the way.” It was the third time he’d asked not to be quoted.

Lacey stopped writing for a moment. She had no wish to humiliate Nicholson or anyone else, if they didn’t deserve it. She wasn’t that kind of reporter. Now, if he’d been wearing something ridiculous, she might make fun of that. But he was casually dressed in slacks and a blue oxford cloth shirt, neatly tucked in. For the first time, Lacey noticed how strong and muscled his arms were. His hands also bore old scars from mishaps with the machinery. Were they strong enough to lift Rod Gibbs and tie his dead body to a spool?

“Do you think Honey Gibbs had anything to do with his death?”

“Honey? Other than wishing for it?” Nicholson smiled at her name, the way many men in town did at the mention of the comely widow, with her blond hair and fitness instructor’s body. “Well, Honey is a little pepper pot. But I think she’d just as soon have plugged him with her nine millimeter.”

“Honey has a gun?”

“Rod bought her one for Christmas some years ago, when they were getting along. But she sure was pissed. He thought it was funny. Honey wanted diamond earrings, not a gun.”

“Nothing says love like a gun,” Lacey cracked.

“He said it was to protect her.”

“It seems to me Officer Armstrong might also have been interested in protecting her from Rod. He’s a mighty big guy.”

“You think he had something to do with it?” Nicholson laughed, then straightened up in his chair and watched the crime scene technicians carry boxes out of the factory. “I don’t know. Gavin may be a special friend of Honey’s, but he’s a regular Dudley Do-Right. That’s kind of his nickname here, in fact. He’s a divorced dad, a scoutmaster, coaches the Little League. Besides, he’s the one who called in the state police.”

Wouldn’t a Dudley Do-Right want to get rid of the villain in true comic-book-hero style? And then call in the state police so he couldn’t be accused of hiding evidence or conducting a sloppy investigation. Or maybe he knew they wouldn’t look too deep? As Nicholson had just said, there wasn’t much incentive.

“What can you tell me about Wade Dinwiddy, the security guard?”

Nicholson made a face. “Did you meet him?”

She nodded. “He makes an impression.”
A sour one
.

“After the graffiti incident, just some nasty things scrawled on the front wall about losing jobs, we had to do something. Rod said he’d handle it. We had some old cameras here and there, but no one ever monitored them much. My jaw about fell on the floor when he showed up with Wade Dinwiddy, who supposedly had some security work in his background. I told myself maybe at least he would scare the kids off.”

“Why would Gibbs come here at night and drink with an alcoholic?”

“Maybe Wade was the only one who could stand his company anymore.”

Kira knocked at Nicholson’s open door and he gestured for her to enter. “Sorry, Tom. I have those reports you wanted to see.”

He sighed deeply and took the pages. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked Lacey.

She stood up. “You’ve been very helpful. Thank you. I’ll call if I have any more questions.” She tucked her notebook in her purse. “Mind if I take a last look around?”

“Sure, just mind the crime scene tape. Our police guests might get upset.”

Lacey walked Kira back to her desk in another glassed-in office down the hall from Nicholson’s.

“Did you get everything you need?” Kira asked. She looked almost ill in the glare of the fluorescent factory lightbulbs. Lacey thought she probably looked just as bad. Fluorescent lighting was no one’s friend.

“Hard to say. I’m just going to take a last peek around.”

“Sure.” Kira seemed lost in thought, but she gave Lacey a small, sad smile. “It’s a little hard to concentrate, what with the crime scene tape, everything that happened here, all the empty workstations. My friends are already gone. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now.”