Shot Through Velvet (14 page)

Without the hum of the machinery, the plant felt empty and chilly. Kira rubbed her arms for warmth. The woman had pulled her hair back in a ponytail and was wearing an unflattering gray turtleneck sweater that matched the shadows under her eyes.

“Are you all right?” Lacey asked.

“All right as I can be under the circumstances,” Kira said. “I didn’t sleep much.”

“Understandable.”
Dead bodies have a way of sticking in your brain,
Lacey thought.

“I just kept seeing Rod hanging on that spool.” She picked up some files and shuffled through pages. Lacey got the message and left Kira’s office.

She wandered around the plant, from the room that once held looms and weavers to the perimeter of the dye house. She moved past the remaining large spools and past the low dryers and the tall shearing machine. She was standing lost in thought in front of a rainbow of velvet when her phone rang.

“Smithsonian, what the heck are these photos you sent me?” Mac sounded irritated, and it wasn’t even noon.

“Hello to you too, Mac. You must be talking about the blue body.” They were the only photos she had sent. Lacey knew they were more appropriate to the Smoking Gun Web site than her newspaper, but she was sure her editor would want to see them.

“I can see that. Did you take these pictures?”

“Nope, I was taking notes. I have a couple of lousy photos on my little digital. These were left for me by an unknown leaker. They’re pretty vivid, though, aren’t they?”

“Unknown leaker? Swell. Smithsonian, do you expect me to publish these?”

“Not my call, Mac. That’s why you make the big bucks.”

“They’re appalling, to say the least.” Mac snorted into the phone. “I’ll have to figure out how many readers would cancel their subscriptions if I print these.”

“I aim to please.” The velvet was mesmerizing in all its infinite hues.
What shade will the Grim Reaper choose next? Or should I say, the Velvet Avenger?
Lacey found it hard to concentrate on Mac’s harangue. “I just wanted to share. I still have to write my story.”

“Make it snappy.”

“What’s the rush, Mac? My story is going to be in Sunday’s paper.”

“I’m moving your deadline up. You got a dead blue guy, and our publisher is involved and very interested. And you know how uncomfortable it can get when Claudia rides a story.”

Lacey knew. “But I’m writing a feature!”

“Now it’s a news feature. You’ve got tonight. I want to run it in tomorrow’s paper. Front page. Below the fold, so we don’t upset too many subscribers.”

Lacey could think of a million reasons why that was a bad idea. On the other hand, her byline on the front page of
The Eye
, thanks to the Claudia connection? Her byline was getting to be a regular feature there, but she wanted to keep her streak going.
Job security,
she thought, as if there were any such thing in the newspaper business anymore. And she thought of another reason to jump on this story as fast as they could.

“Hey, Mac, can you pull up Conspiracy Clearinghouse and see if there’s a story on Rod Gibbs in it? And no, I wouldn’t give Damon Newhouse the time of day when it comes to news, but . . .” She turned around to see if anyone was listening. “He’s got some real hard-core fans down here. Maybe the anonymous friend who leaked the photos to me sent the same stuff to DeadFed?”

Damon might already have posted it. If he had, Lacey was curious about his cockeyed take on the subject. Something along the lines of VELVET AVENGER STRIKES BLUE BLOW FOR JUSTICE.

“This just gets better and better, doesn’t it, Smithsonian?” Mac said. “You think he’s got some off-the-wall conspiracy angle?”

“If Damon’s breathing, yeah. Whether it’s true or not.” Lacey waited while Mac connected to DeadFed dot com. “Well?”

“Nothing. There is no story. Unless he buried it, and why would he do that?”

Lacey was puzzled. “He wouldn’t. Maybe the locals were just yanking my chain. I have no idea. Right now I have to go read the neighborhood rag and see what it says.”

“Don’t forget you have a deadline tonight.”

“As if I could forget. But there might be more to the story tomorrow.”

“That’s what follow-ups are for.”

“I’ll file this story from home, then.” No sense in tramping all the way back to
The Eye
in the District when she could write the story in her jeans on the sofa. Lacey could also avoid a lot of uncomfortable newsroom questions as to what exact shade of blue the dead guy was, and why Smithsonian was the lucky reporter. Again. Inquiring minds would want to know, and newsrooms are full of inquiring minds.

“Suit yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re all heart, Mac.” Lacey hung up and called Brooke to find out what had happened to Damon.

“Hey, Brooke, I was sure Damon would hoist his sails on the Cyber Sea and write something about the blue death in Black Martin.”

“Poor baby, I told him about the blue body. Damon’s interested, but he’s feverish and green around the gills,” Brooke said. “It’s the flu.”

He must be at death’s door to pass up this story
, Lacey thought. “Better green than blue. Fix him some chicken soup. It’s good for anything. Tell him not to worry. This story is really no big deal.” She could afford to be magnanimous. Her scoop was safe. For now.

Lacey took a last longing look at the rolls of velvet, hundreds of them, stacked in long tubes on massive steel shelving. Colors in every shade and hue, dozens of purples and violets and reds, blues, greens, yellows, pinks, browns, and blacks. All of it, thousands of yards of the very last American-made dress-grade velvet. She took several photos of the fabric and the empty rooms with her small camera.
Might as well give Mac a choice
. For context, she took shots of the crime scene tape and beyond.

Nicholson was still in his office conferring with Kira, going over papers in file folders. Perhaps Gibbs’s financial shenanigans. The dye house was empty now. The last crime scene technician had walked out with the final bits of evidence. Lacey turned toward the front door, past Nicholson’s office, past the row of remaining management photos that were still mounted on the red brick wall.

Soon all of Dominion Velvet would be silent.

Chapter 12

A waitress in a pink uniform with NELL embroidered on the pocket smiled and told Lacey to seat herself anywhere in the Good Eats Café. Lacey chose a table near the counter with a view of the front door. The air was a blend of homey aromas—bacon and eggs, burgers and fries. She opened the paper to see how the local reporter covered Rod Gibbs’s death.

She wasn’t surprised to find that Will Adler’s news story was brief and contained little more information than she had given to Mac. However, Adler’s story had a colorful description of the corpse, with its “protruding eyes and grotesque death mask.” He reported that Gibbs’s widow was “too distraught to comment.”

Maybe he meant she was too
drunk
to comment,
Lacey thought.
Surely, this guy couldn’t have missed Honey’s freewheeling remarks last night.
But caution seemed to be Adler’s watchword, and he didn’t report everything Honey had said. Or maybe he did, Lacey thought, and it was edited out. Adler didn’t draw any connections between the factory closing and the murder.

He spent more column inches on a sidebar about the most notorious unsolved murder case in Black Martin, the famous bodies in the taxicab in the graveyard, which Lacey learned took place in 1954. The story included a plea for any information on the cold case, even at this late date.

“Well, if it isn’t Ms. Lacey Smithsonian of
The Eye Street Observer
,” a voice greeted her. She turned to find Dirk Sykes behind her.

He wore a pair of sunglasses and carried a sloshing cup of coffee in his hand. Despite the cold weather, he wore another Hawaiian shirt, his sartorial signature. This one was black with shocking pink flamingos. “Mind if I join you? I was talking to Hank over there, but he’s not nearly as interesting or attractive.”

Lacey glanced in the general direction of Sykes’s hand and spied Hank Richards, who was sitting at a table in the back. Hank took her gaze as an invitation and grabbed his coffee to join the party.

“Where’s your friend Donovan, Mr. Security?” Hank asked.

“Right behind me,” Lacey said, hoping it was true.

“Let me keep his seat warm till he comes.” He pulled out a chair and sat down.

Nell bustled over, set down a cup of coffee for Lacey, and took her order for an egg-salad sandwich. Nell eyed the men and left the coffeepot on the table. “Looks like you’ll be needing this,” she said, and patted Sykes on the head.

“You’re a doll, Nell,” he answered, as she quickstepped back to the kitchen. “Nice thing about this place, they know me. And they serve me anyway.”

“So, how do things appear in the clear light of day?” Lacey asked.

“A little fuzzy,” Sykes said, and Hank laughed. “But a wake’s a wake.”

“Any more thoughts about who might have killed Rod Gibbs?” Lacey did not want to let go of her train of thought.

“You don’t think it was the Velvet Avenger?” Sykes snorted, then moaned and put his hand to his head. “He’s still my first choice.”

“I thought this Avenger stuff was nuts on a stick.” Hank lifted his cup in salute to his buddy. “But I gotta admit, Sykes, it’s growing on me. Sykes here has made a sound case for it.”

“Who do you think killed Gibbs?”

“Me? Take your pick. I pick the Avenger.” Hank topped off his coffee and poured more for Sykes. The sleeves of his blue work shirt were rolled up and showed off sinew and muscle. Factory work might be backbreaking, but it was certainly good for upper-arm strength.

“Who knew you had waitressin’ skills, Hank,” Sykes cracked. “Boy, I’d say you got a future in the restaurant biz, unlike the rest of us. You’ll be in back flipping burgers any day now.”

“Smart-ass.” Hank pantomimed pouring the contents of the pot in Sykes’s lap.

“Hey, cut that out. Unless you want to mop it up yourselves,” Nell said as she set two sizzling hamburger platters in front of the men. Lacey was assured her order would be up in a jiffy.

“Best cure for a hangover,” Sykes said, taking the burger in two hands. “Fat neutralizes the booze in the blood. A well-known fact. Puts you right as rain in no time.”

Hank was also two-handing his burger. “I just like a good burger, no matter what the medicinal qualities.” He swallowed. “I read your story online. Wasn’t much to it, was there?”

“That wasn’t my story. My editor wrote a news brief,” Lacey said. “My article on the factory will be in tomorrow’s edition.”

“You’re writing about Blue Boy too, aren’t you?”

“Don’t worry. He’s the centerpiece.”

“That’s funny,” Sykes said between inhaling fries. “I’ve never thought of the old goat-sucking
chupacabra
as a centerpiece before.”

“We’re all looking forward to it,” Hank added. “Brings some color to our day.”

“Me too,” Lacey said.

“Damon Newhouse’s been a bit slow on the uptake,” Hank said. “I already checked.”

“DeadFed has an alien brain virus today. I have it on good authority,” Lacey said. Hank grunted in response and took another bite.

“He couldn’t feel worse than I did when I woke up,” Sykes said.

“Better not tell Inez that,” Lacey said.

He smiled a little shyly. “Inez made it all better—that’s for sure. You gonna use those photos your secret admirer gave you?”

“Would you happen to know who that might be?” Lacey was convinced they both knew who slipped her the photos. It was probably a big joke between them.

“No, ma’am. But whoever it was,” Sykes said, “I’d guess it was a
friend
trying to help you do your job. One friend to another.”

Lacey leaned back in her chair and looked from Sykes to Richards. Neither one batted an eye. “I sent them to my editor. It’s his call, not mine.” Lacey shrugged eloquently. “Was it you, Dirk? Did you give them to me?”

“Hell, it wasn’t me. Wished I thought of it. Honest to God, I was shocked spitless seeing the Blue Devil trussed up like that, like a demon blue scarecrow or something.” He polished off another bite, and Lacey raised a brow in question at Hank.

“I don’t have a camera,” he said. “Can’t hardly afford my damn car payments.”

The door opened and all three turned at the sound. Lacey breathed a sigh of relief. Her ride out of town arrived. Vic eyed the other men and smiled.

“Looks like a party.” Vic took the fourth seat across from Lacey.

“I understand Nell’s hamburgers are the best cure for a hangover,” she said.

“I don’t have a hangover.” Vic quickly scanned the menu. “But the burger sounds good. They’re not just for hangovers anymore.” Nell waltzed out with Lacey’s egg salad on rye with a few potato chips. Puny compared to the guys’ platters. “I’ll have a cheeseburger, well-done, fries, and a Coke,” Vic said.

“Just like you to join the boys’ club,” Lacey said.

“Founding member. And I need fuel, not rabbit food,” Vic responded. He took a chip off her plate.

“We were just discussing who might have killed Rod Gibbs.”

“Figure it all out yet?” Vic asked.

“We think it was the Avenger,” Sykes said. “The Velvet Avenger. He started with Rod. Who knows who’s next. The field is wide-open. Today the Blue Devil. Tomorrow the bad bosses of the world.”

“Unless it was just someone who hated Rod’s guts and decided to do the world a favor,” Hank said. “The world thanks you, Velvet Avenger.”

“The blue goat sucker had more than his fair share of enemies,” Sykes added. “Actually, no, I take it back. He had exactly his fair share. Earned every last one of them.”

“Where were you when he died?” Lacey asked. Sykes and Richards looked at each other. Lacey let the question hang in the air.