Shot Through Velvet (16 page)

“You’re leaving?” She blocked his path.

“You have a story to write. And I’ve got to see if someone’s available to spend a few days in Black Martin before I choose a more permanent solution. Another security specialist. A real one.”

“Like who?”

“My regular guys are all committed this week, and I didn’t think this job would require special talents. But I need someone scary and who doesn’t scare easily. Thought I’d call on a friend of yours. Forrest Thunderbird.”

“Turtledove?” She had crossed paths more than once with Forrest Thunderbird, code name Turtledove—neither one his real name, Lacey suspected. He was a freelance “security expert” and he also pulled some jobs as a bodyguard for high-profile celebrities. Six-four and all muscle, he was built like a pro wrestler, but he was a gentle mixed-race man who was extraordinarily easy on the eyes. If that wasn’t enough, he occasionally played trumpet in a jazz band. Lacey had heard him play at a little club in Old Town Alexandria called Velvet’s Blues.
One more blue velvet connection and I will scream,
she thought. On the downside, Turtledove believed that Damon Newhouse was
not
completely crazy. But everyone was entitled to a quirk or two, Lacey decided.

“Good choice, if you want to alert the entire population.” No one could miss Turtledove. “Are you expecting trouble?”

Vic sat on the arm of the sofa and pulled her close. “Hard to say. We don’t see a lot of murders in these plant-security contracts. Vandalism, theft, drugs, embezzling, and when you have a factory shutting down, you might have to look out for drug drops, squatters, local teenagers looking for a place to party. But when you get something as colorful as a blue corpse, people jump to all kinds of crazy conclusions and do crazy things.”

“The Velvet Avenger?” Lacey drew him closer into a hug.

“Crazy enough. I want someone down there for a couple of days who looks intimidating but doesn’t have to act tough. Turtledove fits the bill.” He stood up, reluctant to disentangle himself from her arms. “So I need to go. And I don’t want to wind up as an unnamed source in your story.”

“You’re just teasing me.”

“It’s so much fun. Now, don’t forget to lock up. I’ll call you later.”

“Promise.” Lacey kissed Vic and pushed him out the door.

It was late afternoon, and the clouds had gathered and dimmed her apartment. She changed into a soft hunter green sweater and dragged her cell phone, laptop, and notes to the sofa. Lacey made an obligatory call to both the Black Martin police station and the Virginia State Police, neither of which supplied any new information. The case was classified as a homicide, but complete forensics and toxicology test results would not be in for a couple of weeks. Cause of death? No comment. Suspects? No comment. Persons of interest? No comment.
That figures.

In response to Lacey’s call for a comment on Rod’s death, Symington Textiles e-mailed her a statement typical of a business that vetted its every word through lawyers. Symington said it was cooperating with the authorities in every way in this unfortunate death, which had nothing to do with the plant’s security processes and excellent record of worker safety. The company’s sympathies, naturally, were with the family and widow.

Just like everybody in Black Martin.

The factory closing and Gibbs’s death were clearly connected. But somehow she found it hard to get a handle on the victim. Rod Gibbs never killed anyone, though he whacked away at their souls. He stole their livelihoods, their wives, their money, their dignity, and their boats. If anyone was ever asking to be murdered, it was Rod Gibbs.

Lacey started to write.

Lacey filed her story with five minutes to spare before her extended deadline of nine o’clock. She stretched and yawned. Her phone rang. Again. She had been ignoring the familiar number on her cell phone. But it rang again and again. Stella Lake, hairstylist extraordinaire and the Voice of Dupont Circle, would not be denied.

“Lacey, where have you been? I got a crisis here!” Stella’s New Jersey accent was thicker under stress. “Nigel’s mother is coming. Here, in, like, America. This week.”

“Hi, Stella. I’m fine. Thanks for asking. What have I been up to? Funny you should ask—”

“Do you hear me, Lacey? Nigel’s mother! The woman is a Gorgon. And that’s not me saying that—that’s what Nigel calls her. A Gorgon. Do you know what that is? Snakes for hair. And I can do a lot of things with hair. Miracles, even. But I do
not
do snakes, Lacey. I am not going to be able to deal with Gorgonzilla.”

Nigel, Stella’s fiancé, had done nothing but cause problems since he entered the picture, in Lacey’s opinion. Now his mother was coming? Lacey didn’t know if she had the strength to live through another episode in Stella’s romantic soap opera. She thought her feisty little punk goddess hairstylist (with a heart of gold, as Stella herself would say), was perhaps the least likely best friend she’d ever had. And Stella had a talent for involving her friends in her personal dramas. Resistance was futile.

“I’m sure Nigel’s mother does not have snakes for hair, Stella.” Lacey collapsed into one of Aunt Mimi’s wing chairs and let her friend entertain her. “Although, I grant you, if she’s Nigel’s mother, she may have other, um, character traits.”

“She’s got metaphorical snakes, Lace. And they’re worse. And where the heck have you been all day? I called and called. Finally got ahold of Brooke and she said you were in like West Elbow, Virginia.”

“Close enough. South Kneecap. Just working on a story. A story that made my head spin.”

“Better put it back on straight, because I need you, Lacey. This is my hour of need.”

“What on earth can I do about Nigel’s mother, Stella?”

“How about some moral freaking support?”

Lacey moved back to the sofa and stretched out flat, reaching for a pillow for her head. It was hard to keep her eyes open. “I just filed a story, Stel, and I’m wrung out. I can’t move. You’d need a crane to get me out of here right now. When exactly does the Gorgon arrive?”

“Thursday. Day after tomorrow.”

“What’s her name, Stella? You might want to start practicing it. You don’t want to call her Gorgonzilla, do you? The snakes might take offense.”

“You’re right, Lacey. She might turn me to stone. Her name is Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn Griffin. Lady Gwendolyn, I am not kidding. Lady freaking Gwendolyn. That’s what Nigel calls her when he’s not calling her a Gorgon.”

“That’s not nice. Does he hate his mother?” Lacey anticipated nothing but trouble from what Stella was saying.

“Nah, I think he likes her okay. For a Gorgon. But I am terrified.”

“And does Nigel have a father who’s coming to town too?” Lacey suddenly realized she was hungry, but the kitchen seemed too far away for her to do anything about it. And Stella was in the way.

“The ambassador? Oh yeah, he’s coming. It’s Sir Ian or something like that. Yeah, Ian. Sir Ian and Lady Gwendolyn, the Gorgon Twins.”

“I’m falling asleep, Stella. And I’m starving. You will find my carcass on the couch come morning.”

“You can’t abandon me, Lacey,” Stella implored. “You have to help me strategize for the British invasion.”

“Nigel’s mother hardly merits an invasion.” Lacey felt her eyelids slipping down, too heavy to keep them open.
I’ll just fall asleep,
she thought
. Stella won’t even notice. She’ll go right on talking without me. Until morning . . .

“Hello! Lace, she is coming here from England. She is invading me. She is a one-woman army. Like the queen. The redcoats are coming! I want you to come over tomorrow night after work, okay? We need to make plans. Lacey, are you listening to me? Lacey?”

Chapter 14

“How do you like that? Some noxious bastard winds up in a vat of toxic blue dye and our Smithsonian is there. Talk about a nose for news!”

Harlan Wiedemeyer greeted Lacey with a copy of
The Eye
as she dragged herself into the newsroom Wednesday morning. Wiedemeyer, who had earned his reputation as the paper’s “death and dismemberment” reporter, was more interested in offbeat crime news than any other
Eye Street
reporter.

“Front page, Lacey. Way to go! But Mac saved Little Boy Blue’s photo for the jump.” He rattled the paper and presented it to her. “Color too. Is that cool or what?”

“Let me see.” She flipped to the inside page. The photo from her unknown source showed a profile of Rod Gibbs, his body strapped to the spool of velvet in the dye house. “I can’t believe Mac ran it.”

“Oh, please. Who could resist?” Wiedemeyer said. “This is a classic. I understand there were far more gruesome ones. This one merely blurs the line of good taste.”

Lacey stared at him. Wiedemeyer and good taste had never met. Harlan sang a few bars of the old classic tune “Am I Blue?”

“How do you
do
it, Smithsonian?”

“I don’t do anything, Harlan.” Lacey bristled. “I am merely a reporter who happened to be on the spot when the body was discovered. Dumb luck.” Lacey hung up Aunt Mimi’s warm mouton coat and put her bag down on the desk. She wore an old reliable outfit, reserved for days when she woke up late and had to pull it together in a hurry: a camel-hair suit with a black turtleneck. Not vintage, but classic. It showed off her hair to nice effect. She added a gold pendant of Mimi’s and gold and pearl earrings. Lacey looked professional, but she felt fuzzy-headed. In contrast, Harlan looked like a happy little corduroy-coated teddy bear with doughnut crumbs on his tie. She noticed something was missing.

“Hey, where’s my chair? And where did this disgusting thing come from?” She kicked the notorious Death Chair away from her desk. She had almost
touched
it.
Ewww.

Mariah “the Pariah” Morgan, the fashion editor before Lacey was saddled with the beat, died on that old-fashioned wooden office chair. By the time editor Douglas MacArthur Jones remembered Mariah had a deadline, the woman was in full rigor mortis. The next reporter who walked into Mac’s field of vision was Lacey Smithsonian, and his personnel problem was solved. Mariah was gone, but her chair remained. Now painted with a skull and crossbones by some unknown newshound, the chair sailed around the office like the Rolling Dutchman of Doom. It was still a sore point with Lacey, and she refused to sit in it. Few people were willing to sit in it for long.

“That thing better disappear before I get back with my coffee. And I want my chair returned or there will be bloodshed,” Lacey announced at large to the newsroom. “Or possibly blue dye.”

“Ah, but the seat of doom always returns when there’s been a death around Smithsonian. It knows it is home, Lacey. It knows.”

Harlan Wiedemeyer laughed like a maniac, a jolly little maniac. As usual, he was hovering around the desk of food editor Felicity Pickles, in the cubicle across from Lacey’s. “And people think
I’m
a jinx.” Harlan chuckled at his reputation. He grabbed the paper away from Lacey. “Was he truly that blue?”

“Yes, he was that blue. Exactly that blue.” Lacey searched for her missing coffee cup. Her extra pens, new notebooks, and stapler were missing too.

You go away for two days! And what? They think you died, so they can plunder your desk?

“You have a gift, Lacey,” Wiedemeyer insisted.

“It’s a gift I would like to exchange, or regift to someone who deserves it more.”

“The world’s a dangerous place, Smithsonian, and it’s good to be aware of it. You just happen to have a talent for putting together fashion and disaster.” He paused and stared at the picture of Rod Gibbs. “Poor blue bastard.”

Lacey smiled at Harlan’s favorite term of endearment for nearly everyone. “I’ve heard enough blue humor now to last a lifetime. But this guy was a solid-gold bastard, according to all accounts.”