Shot Through Velvet (17 page)

“What’s making you blue then, my moody Smithsonian? You should be happy. That’s quite a scoop—a big, blue scoop. Front page!”

“Not one person in the world seems to care or utters a kind word for the deceased. Other malevolent souls have friends. Every lying, cheating, dog-kicking politician in Washington has friends. But not this guy. I found just one drinking buddy who maybe tolerated Gibbs. As long as he was buying. That’s all. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“No. Unfortunately, my naive style scribe, there are reprehensible bastards too many to count in this world. And it says something when the bastard turns up dead and blue and the widow swears she’s going to have an open casket funeral. By gosh, I’d like to see that myself. Maybe I’ll have the blue flu on Friday.”

Lacey growled. She was still looking for her coffee mug.

Tony Trujillo strolled around the corner, stopping at Lacey’s desk. He took a seat in the death chair and balanced his highly polished cowboy boots on top of her wastebasket.

“How do you do it, Lois Lane? Is death the new blue this season?”

“Jealous, Tony? Believe it or not, death happens, with or without my presence.”

“Just not as often. I’m planning to read your opus in depth after I’ve had my breakfast. By the way, where’s your protégée?”

“If you are referring to perky Kavanaugh, I have no idea. And in point of fact, she is not my protégée. I still have no idea what to do with her. I’m hoping Mac will give her back to
you
. She doesn’t know anything about fashion or anything else.” Lacey leaned in close and stage-whispered, “Maybe we could give her to Sports.” She opened her desk drawers. “This is ridiculous. I can’t find my coffee cup, and my chair has been stolen. Why me?”

“Lacey’s a bit sensitive this morning, Trujillo,” Wiedemeyer confided. “The mantle of truth-telling lies heavy, and it’s taken its toll. Witness the seat of death you’re sitting on.” He indicated the chair of doom on which Tony sat. The police reporter jumped out of it like it was a hot skillet. Wiedemeyer took up the paper again and mused. “Sounds like this bastard got his just deserts.”

“Speaking of just desserts,” Tony said, “have you seen Felicity? She said she would save me a cupcake.” Tony started snooping on Felicity’s desk, but not a crumb was to be found. He was sniffing the air for clues to today’s specialty when the chubby food editor herself appeared, with an empty tray and a satisfied smile. Felicity wore another in a long line of sacklike dresses purchased from catalogs. This one resembled a yellow floral chintz sofa.

Felicity’s china blue eyes and straight auburn hair always made Lacey think of a malevolent baby doll. But Felicity was in the blissful throes of her betrothal to Harlan and more cheerful these days.

“I’m sorry, Tony. Maybe next time. My red velvet supreme cupcakes turned out to be a surprise hit. Who knew?”

As if,
Lacey thought. Felicity had the newsroom trained like a pack of nut-starved squirrels. She appeared and they sat up and begged.

Felicity was ostensibly writing about romantic treats for a special Valentine’s Day food supplement. But her every waking moment was consumed with her upcoming wedding plans and what to feed her sweetheart Harlan every day, until he was stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. Felicity and Harlan’s relationship was founded on love, mutual admiration, and fattening food. Theirs would be a marriage made in confectionary sugar.

“I think our cake should be red velvet with cream cheese frosting,” Felicity said. “It’s such a lovely Southern confection. But there will be a surprise inside. Chocolate, perhaps, or caramel, or—a
praline
!” Her eyes lit up at the thought. “I’m still working on it.” Felicity’s expression was pure mad scientist.

“The wedding cake?” Lacey asked.

“Of course, the wedding cake!”

“I’m sure it will be delicious, whatever you make, my sweet Pickles,” Harlan declared loyally.

Felicity had already been through a variety of cakes that she had sworn would be perfect for the wedding. There were cheesecake and carrot cake, spice cake and brown sugar cake, chocolate cake and German chocolate cake, lemon cake and marble cake, and she’d even bounced around the idea of caramel apple cake. But Lacey somehow knew that red velvet cake was going to be the winner in Felicity’s wedding cake competition, simply because everywhere Lacey turned,
velvet
was closing in on her. Even Marie, her friendly neighborhood psychic, had left a message that morning warning Lacey that she seemed to be “suffocating in velvet.”

“Velvet. It’s the obvious choice,” Lacey said.

“Not too obvious, I hope. That would be terrible.” Felicity looked stricken. “Now then, I haven’t decided whether to have cream cheese or buttercream frosting. And don’t forget the surprise inside!”

“Like a box of Cracker Jacks.” Lacey had an urgent need for coffee to clear her head. She tried to concentrate on locating her belongings and not on Felicity’s sugary diversions. Lacey lifted newspapers and moved files. No coffee cup. It was amazing what could disappear after only two days away from the office.

Felicity continued to rattle on, much like Stella did when the subject of weddings came up. “For the bridesmaids, I’m thinking chocolate-colored dresses with mango velvet bows. Or maybe red velvet dresses with whipped-cream-colored bands . . .”

All Lacey could think was that unless the wedding was interrupted by some disaster, which was entirely possible considering this was Harlan Wiedemeyer and Felicity Pickles, it was still six long months away. Six months of listening to recipes and guest lists, six months of listening to what everyone would be wearing, six months of Felicity changing her mind. Lacey would have to prepare for a long siege in Wedding Planning Land.

“But the flower girls would look sweet in mango-colored dresses—don’t you think?—with a chocolate velvet bow. Yes, I think that’s more seasonal,” Felicity continued, not paying the slightest attention to Lacey. “The flowers will be a variety of fall colors: butterscotch, peach, lemon, and cinnamon roses. . . .”

Everything Felicity discussed these days referenced some kind of food. It might have been completely natural for a food editor, but it drove Lacey bananas. Maybe Mac Jones would let her change desks with somebody else? Maybe old Chester Bardwick, the senior obituary writer, who was off in a corner all by himself. A very quiet corner. Oddly enough, Bardwick didn’t have to deal with the death chair.

“Hey, Lacey, did you know Dilly Pickles and I are taking dancing lessons for the big event?” Harlan confided, and he demonstrated a quick two-step with a turn. He was surprisingly light on his feet. “I’m going to be the luckiest bastard on Earth that day. One lucky dancing bastard.”

Unabashed, Harlan starting crooning “Blue Velvet,” took Felicity by the hand and led her out between the cubicles. They assumed their dance position and lurched into a foxtrot. Lacey thought they looked like a couple of dancing teddy bears. Felicity giggled and blushed, but love gave her courage.

Every newsroom had its hermits and its butterflies, and Harlan was an uninhibited butterfly, with his off-the-wall opinions and the occasional song and dance. But what surprised Lacey the most was Harlan’s singing voice. He was doing his best Bobby Vinton impression. And he wasn’t bad.

“Harlan, you can sing!”

“Can I
sing
, Smithsonian? I’m a man under the influence of love.” He twirled Felicity and dipped her. “And I had a retro swing band in college. Harlan and his High-Stepping Hipsters. You should have seen us in our zoot suits.”

Wiedemeyer danced Felicity back to her cubicle, then quickstepped off to his own cubicle across the large newsroom, where news of the strange, the curious, and the downright demented awaited him.

“Smithsonian, you’re wanted upstairs—sixth floor.” Mac Jones could be heard down the hall and charging her way. He passed the dancing imp. “And Wiedemeyer, I hope you’re working on a story about how dancing kills or maims some poor bastard. Or causes brain damage.”

“Oh, dancing never kills, Mac. Never dancing.” Wiedemeyer sailed on.

Mac reached Lacey’s cubicle. He glanced forlornly at the empty tray on Felicity’s desk. “You hear me, Lacey?”

“Now? I can’t find my coffee cup.” She straightened up. “I haven’t had my coffee. And I’m dangerous.”

His eyebrows did a little dance, but not a foxtrot. “Claudia calls. She’s more dangerous than you. She said as soon as you got here. You’re here.”

“But, Mac—”

“Go.”

Lacey had already dispensed with the chatter-with-coworkers portion of the day. But Mac didn’t give her a chance to settle in and go through the rest of her morning routine—the coffee, the e-mail, the press releases. “And my chair has been kidnapped.”

“Breaking my heart, Smithsonian.”

“It had better be here when I get back.” She sighed dramatically, locked her purse in her desk, and marched toward the elevators to the sixth floor.

Chapter 15

Lacey had never seen the publisher of
The Eye Street Observer
look anything less than perfect. But today was the day she saw a chink in Claudia Darnell’s sartorial armor.

Claudia had a ragged nail. A button was missing on her stark charcoal-colored suit. A few strands of white blond hair escaped from the knot at the nape of her neck. Others might not notice, but it was Lacey’s job to notice the small details. And search them for hidden meaning.

The hidden meaning of a ragged nail escaped her for the moment. She wondered whether the events in Black Martin, and her story on them, had jangled her publisher enough to break a nail. Whatever the reason, Claudia was clearly under stress. For once Lacey dreaded talking with her. But this was a command performance.

The publisher’s office was the most luxurious at the newspaper. From the deep red oriental carpet to the cream brocade wing chairs to the impressive cherry wood desk Claudia sat behind, it was designed to make a visitor relax and yet be awed by the statement of quiet power. Lacey was duly awed, but not at all relaxed.

So far, Claudia hadn’t said anything. She was jotting notes while listening to a phone message. She gestured for Lacey to sit down. Finally she hung up and flashed Lacey a thin smile.

“Lacey, thank you for coming.”

“My pleasure.”
Do I have any choice when my publisher requests my presence?

Claudia looked at her notes. She seemed to be having a hard time starting this conversation.
I’ve never known her to be tongue-tied before,
Lacey thought.
Bad sign?

Looking around, she noticed an odd addition to the exquisite décor. A large fanciful dream catcher was hanging incongruously in one of Claudia’s windows overlooking Eye Street. Dream catchers, Lacey recalled, were said to filter your dreams, trapping nightmares in their spiderweb so that the sleeper would dream only good dreams. The bent willow hoop was filled with an intricate spiderweb of leather and multicolored beads. Long streamers of white feathers fell dramatically to the floor. Beads and bits of stained glass cast colored prisms in the cool February light.

“That’s very pretty,” Lacey said, to make conversation. “The dream catcher. Is it new?”

“No, I have a little collection of them at home. Most of them I bought in the Southwest, where I lived for a while. I just thought bringing a dream catcher in to the office might—I don’t know—”

“Let only the sweet dreams in?”

“Something like that.”

Claudia Darnell was certainly not superstitious. But Lacey believed everyone was entitled to a bit of whimsical, magical thinking now and then. With all the troubles in the newspaper business and at the velvet factory and around the world, who wouldn’t want to trap their nightmares in a web?

Claudia took a breath and smoothed the errant strand of hair away from her face. Her turquoise eyes looked troubled. “It’s been one of those weeks,” she said. “First of all, I’m sorry you had to witness such an ugly crime scene down in Black Martin. I sometimes wonder what would happen if we put you on the crime beat instead of fashion.”

“I’m sure the world would survive. Do you want to transfer me?” Lacey didn’t really want to go to a straight police beat, like Tony’s. Too much night work. And she was finally getting Mac comfortable with the idea that she could write any story she went after.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Claudia shook her head. “I think features and crimes of fashion are more your particular forte, though I’m not sure of your Kelly Kavanaugh’s aptitude for—
anything
.” She raised one eyebrow and they both smiled. “Back to the subject at hand. I think you’re the right reporter for this unfortunate story.”

“I had no idea you were involved with the factory.”

“There was no reason for you to know, Lacey. But it wasn’t a secret. Black Martin couldn’t keep a secret in an armored truck. My involvement in Dominion Velvet certainly wasn’t newsworthy while the factory was a going concern. And my role was strictly hands-off. But I’m into it up to my neck now, it seems. With the plant closing, I’m one of the villains. It wasn’t supposed to go that way.” Claudia briefly closed her eyes, then shook her head. “I assume you have some questions.”

Lacey hadn’t planned on an impromptu interview, but it wouldn’t do to admit it. “The employees there implied you voted to close Dominion Velvet, along with Rod Gibbs and Congressman Tazewell Flanders. True?”

“I had to. There really was no other choice. The reason I was a silent partner is because, believe it or not, I just wanted to help my hometown. When I bought in to the velvet factory, I was looking for some way to save it, even if the plant would never see its glory days again. The economy was flush. The rest of my business interests were solid. But now . . .” Claudia took a sip of coffee before continuing. “The factory was up against foreign imports, cheap child labor, a rapidly dwindling market for luxury fabrics. There was no future for it. All we could do was try to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible.” Lacey wasn’t sure whether or not to take notes. She decided not to interrupt Claudia’s train of thought. “This is confidential, Lacey, not for publication. I’m tapped out. I had to vote to close the factory in order to save
The Eye
.”