Shot Through Velvet (15 page)

Sykes answered first. “I reckon I was having a good-bye drink at the cantina. I’ve been grieving my losses all week. I may continue to grieve all month. I’m still in the grande margarita stage of grief. Sooner or later when it lets up, I might move on down to the Bud Light stage of grief.”

Hank smacked his lips. “I guess it would depend on what time Rod died. I pulled the late shift that night, the last one. Sunday hours are overtime, so the money’s good. But I was gone early, by ten Sunday night. Things were real quiet. He had to been killed sometime after that.”

“Did you see Rod when you were there?” Vic asked.

“Nope. All quiet.”

“What about Wade?”

Hank smirked. “You mean Wobblin’ Wade, the Junkyard Drunk? He must have stumbled in sometime after I left. You should ask him. Course if he saw anything, it might have been pink baby elephants. Anyway, I went over all that with that state cop.”

“Special Agent Mordecai Caine?” Vic asked.

“He’s special all right. Why, Officer Dudley Do-Right Armstrong looks like a slacker next to Agent Mortified Caine. I didn’t see anything out of place, like I told him. Damn little to see at that plant anymore. Locked up and left.”

“I understand Gibbs’s car was in the parking lot all night,” Vic said.

Lacey hadn’t even considered the car. It wasn’t the fancy blue Corvette. She would have remembered seeing that. “What kind of car?”

“Black Mercedes,” Hank said. “His formal vehicle.”

“Caine said the car was in the factory lot the afternoon he died. It wasn’t moved.” Vic had been gathering information.

“Rod parked it there all the time,” Hank said. “Didn’t mean he was at the factory. He could have gone off with one of his lady friends or walked over to the Cozy Corner for a drink. We all preferred it when he wasn’t around, believe me.”

“Did either of you see him that afternoon?”

“Not me,” Sykes said.

Hank shook his head. “No telling where Rod was. We never actually caught him working, did we? Woulda been a shock. He wasn’t even in the building all that much. Kind of surprised he died there.”

“But he called himself the night manager,” Lacey said. “Didn’t he?”

Sykes howled with laughter. “Midnight rambler was more like it. The
chupacabra
liked people to think he worked day and night, like a lot of managers want you to think.”

Like Walt Pojack
. Lacey thought about the resident management pain in the butt at
The Eye Street Observer.
The man with the ax. And the golden parachute.

“That’s right,” Hank went on. “I met Sykes for a drink after I got off. You remember that, Sykes?”

Sykes concentrated. “I seem to remember you bought a round or two.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hank agreed. “I bought a round or three, and you still owe me one. We closed down the cantina. Went on home.” Nell hovered and asked if they needed anything else. “Of course, I been trying to get somewhere with Nell here for years, but she’s
particular
.”

Nell pantomimed a big yawn. She had heard this comedy routine before. “Well, Hank, I’m game, but my husband just wouldn’t understand. But if you vacuum my house, do my dishes, and rub my aching feet, we got something to talk about.” They all laughed and she bustled back to the kitchen to check on Vic’s platter.

“I heard the two of you owned some boat before Rod Gibbs,” Lacey said.

“It wasn’t just some boat,” Hank said.

“It took a lot of years, but yeah, Hank and me bought a boat, so we could fish Lake Anna and have parties. And be pirates,” Sykes said. “It was a damn shame.”

“She was the
Gypsy Princess
when we had her. Rod changed her name. Ought not to have done that. I hear that can give you real bad luck, changing a boat’s name.” Hank gave Lacey a grim smile. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

“She was a Cobalt. A boat that would make your heart tremble, all sleek and fast,” Sykes said, lost in a reverie.

“A Cobalt.” Vic whistled, impressed.

“Cobalt: the Corvette of fishing boats,” Lacey put in casually. “Did you guys know that?” Vic looked away and chuckled. Hank and Sykes just nodded sagely at her, as if to say,
Dude, you said it!

“Beautiful boat. She was a real coquette,” Hank said. “And a money pit. Like your ex-wife, Sykes.”

“Can it, Hank.” Sykes bit into his burger and chewed with a purpose.

“Your ex-wife, Dirk?”
How many threads are there to this story?

“My ex, the heartless bitch.” He swallowed. “Rod couldn’t resist her either. They had an ‘affair.’ ” He made air quotes. “Sleazy drunken fling was more like it. She left me for him. All that money was hard for her to resist. Then he dumped her. Served her right.” Sykes poured himself another cup of Nell’s coffee. “Then he had to go and take my one last pleasure in life. The
Gypsy Princess
.”

“How did he manage to take the boat away from you?” Lacey wondered whether Honey’s remarks had been accurate.

Hank worked his jaw, but said nothing. Sykes looked pained. “He flimflammed us. Had some business proposition that never existed. Sucker bait. He wanted us to put up money and we’d be in. But we didn’t have any money. We just had the
Gypsy Princess
.”

“Shut up, Sykes,” Hanks growled.

“Shut up, yourself. It don’t matter. He got the boat. We lost her.” Sykes sighed deeply. “We may be dumb sons of bitches, but Rod Gibbs was a lying snake in the grass. He just wanted to get the
Gypsy Princess
away from us. We were playing poker and getting blitzed one night and Rod, he says, if he loses, he’d put up the money, and if we lose, we sign over the boat to him as promise money.”

“So he won and you signed over the boat,” Lacey said. “What about the business deal?” Nell arrived and set Vic’s platter in front of him.

“Rod said the deal fell through,” Hank said, “but he still owned the
Gypsy Princess
fair and square. Of course he didn’t, not fair and square, but the flaming cockroach had the title and we couldn’t fight him on it.” Hank downed the last gulp of coffee. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you he was a card cheat too.”

Lacey rolled her eyes. She refrained from agreeing about how dumb men could be.

“I see that look, Ms. Smithsonian. And you’re right. We were, let’s say, a little gullible,” Sykes said. “Rod could make things sound real good. A business deal that would make us all rich. Then he used our gullibility against us. Would we really want people to know how he crooked us? Made fools out of us? Nah, we didn’t say anything.”

“A little blackmail between friends,” Hank added.

“Only we weren’t friends,” Sykes said. “I’m glad the goat sucker is dead.”

Chapter 13

“I think we should call it ‘The Black Martin Blues.’ ” Vic put the Jeep in gear and pulled away from the curb at Good Eats. He headed toward the highway back to Northern Virginia.

“Call what ‘The Black Martin Blues’?” Lacey slipped on her sunglasses against the winter glare.

“The country song we could write about Rod Gibbs’s death.”

“You’re writing a country song?”

“Not me. Maybe you should. Just saying we could.”

Lacey flipped through the music Vic had on hand and slipped a disc into the CD player. Tom Waits wasn’t country, but he made music to muse by. And under the circumstances,
Blue Valentine
was irresistible.

“Why not?” Vic went on. “It’s the tale of two men and their
Gypsy Princess
, and the Blue Devil who came between them. Or the tale of workers done wrong by their dirty rotten boss man. You got heartache, hard times, no-good men, cheatin’ women. And a boat. It’s a country song.”

“You never revealed this side of you before, Vic. I look through Aunt Mimi’s trunk for inspiration, and you make up country song lyrics?”

“Don’t know what’s gotten into me, sweetheart. Must be all this country around us.”

“I understand to have a great country song, you have to have a truck, a train, a dog, and a broken heart.” Lacey lowered the volume on Tom Waits. “And Momma getting out of prison. And rain. Did I miss anything?”

“As I understand it, there were many broken hearts, and I’d guess the deceased probably kicked a dog or two in his life.”

“You got me there. He did kick dogs, and you couldn’t count all the lying, cheating, stealing things he did.”

“Whoa, Lacey. Where is your famous reporter’s objectivity?”

“Gone with the velvet. Lucky I’m writing a feature. I’m allowed to actually use adjectives. But you’re talking motive, right?”

“Motive isn’t as strong as opportunity, but it can be pretty compelling. Especially to a jury. But motive can also lead you in the wrong direction.”

“You’re right.” Lacey flashed back to a woman she’d read about, a murdered woman who had been a prominent fashion writer. There were numerous plausible suspects: lovers, former lovers, would-be lovers, jealous wives, her father’s girlfriend, even her own father. They all seemed to have motives for her murder. But after all their lives were turned upside down by her death and the police investigation, the killer turned out to be the man who picked up the garbage. Who had no apparent motive at all. Just opportunity. Motive was a trickster. “It could be the trash man,” she said.

“Exactly.” He smiled, his eyes on the road. “But for the song, let us not forget the eternal triangle, a Honey of a woman, the cop who loved her, and the husband who did her wrong.” He hummed to himself. Lacey closed her eyes.

“Is Gavin Armstrong a real suspect?”

“Yes and no. Motive, yes, but it would be pretty stupid of him. And a cop wouldn’t go in for the blue-dye theatrics.”

“You mean they have no imagination. What does Special Agent Caine think?”

“Caine keeps his cards very close to his chest. He doesn’t want this investigation to get out of hand. He doesn’t share.”

“So he’s not going to be your buddy?”

“I’m an outsider.”

“What about Armstrong? Will he talk to you?”

“More willing than Mordecai Caine. And he’s worried about Honey.”

“Because she’s a suspect?”

“She’s a very chatty suspect. Could talk herself into trouble.”

Lacey hadn’t seen a car in twenty minutes. The desolate highway past the old Army base was eerily quiet. It was an easy drive, but the whole area had an abandoned feel.

“You’re quiet,” Vic said.

“I’m writing. In my head.”

“Country song?”

“Later. I’m working on the lede for my story.” Lacey retrieved her notebook and jotted down some thoughts, including bullet points she didn’t want to forget, names, and questions still to ask. “I hope it doesn’t come out like some kind of low-down, roadhouse blues lyric. Mac would love that. But you never know. Might give it more flavor.” She smiled at the thought.

“I wouldn’t worry about the flavor. This story’s got plenty of color already,” she growled.

“Why so industrious?” Vic asked.

“Mac moved my deadline up. It’s due tonight.”

“Tonight? So much for a romantic dinner. And I’ll have to take a rain check myself. Got some work to attend to.”

My annual Valentine’s Day curse is starting early this year,
Lacey thought, but said nothing. She tried to focus on the victim in the story—the dead one, not the ones who were left behind without jobs, who had to somehow pick up their lives and move on. Lacey had fully expected something to come to light, some aspect of Rod Gibbs that was redemptive. Perhaps he had saved one person in some way. Maybe he gave the Little League its uniforms. Maybe he once fed a homeless person. But so far there was nothing.

“One thing bothers me,” she said.

“Only one?”

“At the moment. Don’t you think killing Rod Gibbs was too much work for one person? Stringing him up on the velvet reel? Then handling the machinery and drowning him in the dye? If he
was
drowned.”

Vic kept his eyes on the road. “It could be done by one very driven person with a serious mission in mind. And maybe Rod was drugged. Won’t know till the autopsy’s in, and the toxicology. It would be easier with more than one, but then you got a problem, Lacey.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You got a conspiracy.”

“Bite your tongue, Vic Donovan. Let’s call it a partnership of two.” But could there be more than two people involved in Rod’s death? Maybe even the entire town? “All I need is for Damon to get going on this and come up with the Velvet Avenger conspiracy, a subset of the all-encompassing global conspiracy of everyone against everyone else.”

Vic laughed. “It would be fun to read, you have to admit that.”

“No, sweetheart, I don’t have to admit anything.” She sighed and leaned back against the headrest. “What about the boat? Why so much melodrama about a fishing boat?”

“Lacey, it’s a Cobalt. The Corvette of fishing boats—you know that. And a wise man once said, ‘There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.’ ”

“Let me guess.
The Wind in the Willows?
”

“You take your wisdom wherever you find it.”

“I don’t have a boat to mess about in.”

“No, but you do have me.”

 

“You expecting bad guys to break in?” Lacey teased him, as he checked every lock and window in her apartment. “Spider-Man, a cat burglar, or perhaps the Velvet Avenger with a bottle of blue dye?”

Vic favored her with his special exasperated look. He escorted Lacey home and insisted on checking it out for her. Even though she lived on the seventh floor, he inspected the windows and the balcony too.

“No harm in making sure, darling. And it makes me feel good. So how about humoring me?” Vic tickled her chin and kissed her when she laughed.

“You’re really cute when you’re overprotective, you know.”

“Yeah, all my women tell me that.” He concluded her apartment was safe. “Be sure and double-lock and chain the door when I go.” He headed toward the door.