Shot Through Velvet (30 page)

Hank took one long, last look at Gibbs. He stood next to Sykes and Nicholson. They all seemed different somehow out of their work clothes, less angry than the last time she saw them. They had needed someone on whom to focus their anger: That person was Gibbs. Lacey hoped some of that anger would be buried with him.

But Sykes wasn’t quite through. He struck a fisherman’s pose by the coffin and told Inez to take a picture of him with Gibbs. “Hey, babe, tilt the camera so you get both of us! Like he’s a big dead blue trophy fish. Like a hammer-head shark.”

Sykes’s pirate grin looked sinister, especially with the scar on his face. Lacey decided he was still angry, but something like triumphant too. She didn’t like this side of Sykes at all.

Inez complained she was too short, but Sykes grinned away happily and she angled for a trophy shot or two, before the frowning funeral director chased them away from the coffin.

“Man, that was seriously tacky,” Hank said to Sykes.

Sykes laughed his raspy chuckle. “I never said I was Miss Manners, now, did I?”

The lighting in the room changed, cueing the crowd to take their seats. Finally they quieted in anticipation.

Honey Gibbs was the last to arrive. All eyes were on her. She was escorted to the front by the funeral director. The widow wore pink: an optimistically perky peachy-pink dress with matching jacket, which coordinated with her pink bag and pink shoes and pink nail polish. Her over-processed blond hair was tamed in a low ponytail, wrapped in a pink bow. Lacey thought Honey’s pink veil was an especially interesting touch. She also sported pink earrings, necklace, bracelets, and ring, as if she had been hit with a pink magic wand by the Fairy Godmother of Accessories, swinging on a pink chandelier. The matchy-match thing didn’t seem to bother Honey. All in all, Lacey approved. Pink was better than boring and bland. It was bold.

The widow approached the coffin and bent over the body of her husband, her nose wrinkled slightly in distaste. She sighed and shook her head. Lacey leaned forward to hear.

“Oh, Rod. You got your wish. You really are the Blue Devil now.” Honey spun on her pink heels and marched to her seat in the front row, next to Tom Nicholson. He leaned over and patted her hand.

Officer Gavin Armstrong was in uniform, hovering near the door, but his worried gaze kept returning to Honey. As if she could feel his attention, Honey turned around and scanned the crowd. When she saw him, her face relaxed into a gentle smile and her shoulders dropped a bit. She drew a deep breath. Lacey followed Honey’s gaze back to Gavin and felt as if she’d intruded on a personal moment.

Special Agent Mordecai Caine also watched this interaction between the lovers with interest. His lockjaw personality was still tightly buttoned up. He acknowledged Lacey with a curt nod, then resumed his examination of the room, while a white-haired minister took the podium and asked for a moment of silent prayer. The moment was broken when a soloist with an ear-splitting vibrato attacked “Amazing Grace.” The minister kept his head down.

Lacey wondered if he was praying for something to say about the deceased. Rod Gibbs was a hard case to eulogize. Indeed, the minister had some trouble coming up with the words for a proper send-off for Gibbs. He declared the evils of the world must have affected Rod, changed him and soured him. The dead man turned out to be a cautionary tale for these troubled times. The minister concluded by praying for mercy on the soul of the late Mr. Gibbs, and for the Almighty to spare others from the wrath of . . . the Velvet Avenger.

Lacey covered her eyes.
What have I done?

The minister should have prayed for the soloist too, as she launched into a torturous rendition of “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.”
Ouch.
Lacey realized the soloist must be her minister’s secret weapon to encourage prayer in his flock. Every head in the funeral home was bowed in fervent prayer for this torment to end.

Chapter 27

The minister is asking for trouble,
Lacey thought. He invited anyone who wanted to share memories of the deceased to come up to the podium and speak. There was an audible intake of breath from the crowd and a few audible snickers. Apparently, no one’s memory of Rod Gibbs was appropriate to the occasion.
If the Velvet Avenger is in attendance and looking for a platform for his or her message,
Lacey thought,
this is their big chance
.

Finally, Dominion Velvet’s Tom Nicholson stood and said a few words for the widow. He thanked everyone for their kindness toward Honey Gibbs in her hour of need.

“It’s been a trying time, as you can all imagine. Now I’d like to invite everyone for coffee and light refreshments, which will be served at the high school cafeteria.” He noted that the school was available because it was a teachers’ planning day. It was the only place in town large enough to accommodate the crowd. Or maybe the rates were reasonable. Dominion Velvet was picking up the tab. The burial, slated for later in the afternoon, was to be private. Presumably, Honey Gibbs did not want the carnival-like atmosphere to continue at the graveside.

Lacey watched the crowd file past the coffin, each non-mourner in turn silent or gasping or giggling or murmuring some irreverent comment that made their fellow non-mourners chuckle. Lacey looked at an older, noncolorized picture of Gibbs in the program, which listed his accomplishments. There was a lot of white space. On the back was a map to Black Martin High, home of the Badgers.

She waited for everyone to pay their last respects or disrespects to Rod Gibbs. She took her place at the end of the line.
No harm in filing past the coffin one more time
, she thought. But when she did, she was sorry. Nothing could wipe out the memory of that bloated blue face and the swollen hands that didn’t even look human. And this time, Lacey noticed something new. Her stomach churned and chills tapped a tune on her backbone. Someone in this crowd had dropped a little memento into the coffin.

A blue velvet ribbon lay coiled through Gibbs’s fingers like a snake.

She froze. She looked around. No one else seemed to have noticed. Lacey motioned urgently to Hansen. She said nothing, just pointed at Gibbs. After Hansen took one last series of frames, the harried funeral director gave the sign that the velvet cloth should be tucked in and the coffin lid closed.

“Lacey, you going to the coffee at the high school?” Stella was at her elbow. “ ’Cause Lady G and me think it will like totally cap our day.”

“Uh, sure.” Lacey smiled as if nothing was wrong. “I’ll be along in a while. I have to see a man about a quote first.”

“I’ll save you a seat.” She swayed on her one stiletto and her cast and wobbled over to a happy Lady Gwendolyn Griffin.

Lacey watched the crowd. Everyone seemed to be heading for the high school. After all, who would want to miss a swanky, postfuneral coffee-and-cake reception at the home of the Badgers? She saw the funeral director deposit the dead man’s watch and wedding ring in Honey’s hands as they left the room. She spotted Vic and sprinted over to interrupt his conversation with one last flirtatious female mourner.

“Sorry,” Lacey said, taking Vic’s arm and pulling him into a corner. “Vic. Blue ribbon. Gibbs’s right hand. Right now. It wasn’t there before.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty much the ribbons-and-bows go-to gal here. So yeah, Vic, I’m sure. They just closed the coffin.”

He looked chagrined. “Our joker just put a velvet ribbon in the casket?”

“Joker? Or Avenger?”

Vic gave her a dirty look and folded his arms. “Please.”

“I’m just saying it looked like a match to the ribbon that was sent to Claudia Darnell. So what are you going to do?”

He unfolded his arms and blew out his breath. “I’m gonna stop that casket.” Vic moved swiftly to the pallbearers, who were getting ready to move Rod Gibbs to the limousine for the last ride to the graveyard. Lacey was right behind him.

Vic got some static from the pallbearers, who just wanted this job over and done with, but when Agent Mordecai Caine materialized, with whatever he had rammed up his backside, their protests faded. Caine called Officer Armstrong and requested his presence. The local cop went to Honey’s side and sent her on to the reception ahead of him.

“Now, what’s this all about?” Caine asked Vic, who then turned to Lacey.

Caine turned out to be more reasonable than Lacey had anticipated. He had the coffin opened up again. It was still a shock when the lid was raised and Rob Gibbs came into view. Still blue.

“Ms. Smithsonian, would you please explain what you say has been deposited in the casket, and why we should care about that. You may point, but please do not touch.”

“The blue ribbon, right there. In his right hand. It wasn’t there the first time I walked past the casket. It looks like a match to one that was sent anonymously to Claudia Darnell,” Lacey said.

Caine turned to Vic. “You can confirm this?” Lacey bristled. It was apparent Caine didn’t believe her. She glared at him.

“I can confirm it,” Vic said. He put a warning hand on Lacey’s shoulder. “I’ve seen Darnell’s ribbon. It’s in a safe at
The Eye
.”

“And why is this important?” Caine asked. Mordecai Caine was not a reader of
The Eye Street Observer
or of DeadFed dot com.

Lacey took a deep breath and tried to control her temper. She didn’t like being treated like an idiot. “It could be someone’s idea of a joke, or it could be something else. Have you heard of the Velvet Avenger?”

“I heard.” Caine set his jaw and looked bored. “But why don’t you tell me?”

She filled him in. While he didn’t seem convinced the killer was trailing blue velvet ribbons in his wake, he was willing to consider that the ribbon in the coffin could be something resembling a clue. Lacey refrained from calling it a “fashion clue” in a room with so much weaponized testosterone.

“Not a chance in hell we’re going to get any forensics off that,” Armstrong said. “And hundreds of people were here today, if not a thousand.”

Caine nodded unhappily. “I’m also willing to bet nobody saw who planted the ribbon in the coffin.” He then turned his beady eyes on Lacey. “And you’re a reporter.”

“Indeed I am,” she said.

Vic said nothing, he just looked from Caine to Lacey with an eyebrow arched.

“Aren’t you just supposed to be writing about ladies’ dresses?”

Lacey smiled. “My beat is wide-ranging, which you know all about from my good friend Detective Broadway Lamont.” She wasn’t above being a little snotty. “And blue velvet ribbons definitely fit my beat.”

Blue velvet ribbons—fashionable corpses will be wearing them this season
.

“Get out of here, both of you,” he instructed Vic and Lacey. “Stay available.” Caine told Armstrong to close the partition between the rooms, leaving Vic and Lacey on the other side.

There was only time for one reassuring hug. “I’m going to check in with Forrest. Remember, the ribbon thing? Good catch, but it’s Caine’s problem now.” Vic gave Lacey a quick kiss and was gone.

Lacey collected her things from her chair and put on her coat. The room was empty. An argument was brewing on the other side of the partition. It was amazing how easy it was to overhear. She quietly inched closer.

“Where were you?” Caine asked.

“Making sure Ms. Gibbs got away safely,” Armstrong replied.

“Oh, really? Nicholson seemed to have everything in hand. You can cut the crap, Armstrong. Everyone knows about your personal relationship with the widow. It’s what we’d call suspicious.”

“Exactly what are you saying?”

“What do you think? You’re a cop. You know the prime suspect is usually the one closest to the victim. Honey Gibbs had good reason to want her husband dead.”

“He was an asshole. Everyone wanted him dead!”

“Including you, Armstrong?”

Lacey heard a chair overturn. She stepped back. It sounded like a shoving match.

“I had nothing to do with Gibbs’s death,” Armstrong said.

“Really?” Caine said. Lacey heard what sounded like the chair being righted. “The blue dye thing? And the ribbon? It’s a little weird for a cop, the kind of thing that might throw someone off the trail. But a cop could do it. To help out his married girlfriend.”

“I’m out of here.” Armstrong stomped away, and Lacey heard a door slam.

“Give my regards to Mrs. Gibbs, won’t you?” Caine called after him.

Lacey stepped quietly away from the partition. She crept to the door and peeked into the hall. It was empty. She sprinted out the door to her car.

Chapter 28

“What’s up, Lacey? You awake?” Stella asked. “Have a cookie.”

Lacey was wondering why all school cafeterias had the same smell. There always seemed to be a hint of spaghetti sauce in the air. She sat down at one end of a long lunch table, with a cup of coffee and a plate of coffee cake and cookies that Stella had saved for her. But she felt as if the stuffing had been knocked out of her.

The good ship Dominion Velvet had sunk and the workers reached out to each other like survivors in a life raft. The factory group was sitting at the next table, laughing over multiple cups of free coffee, not knowing where their next paycheck was coming from.

Lacey didn’t know where her next paycheck would come from either. She loved being a reporter. Sure, she would like a beat that didn’t include the relevance of hemlines, but being a newshound thrummed in her veins. It made her blood pump. Most days.
Not today.

“Lacey, it’s like you’re in a coma or something.” Stella seemed utterly energized by the day’s events.

“I might be losing my job,” Lacey managed to say. “This could be my last big story. And I’m getting nowhere with it. People drop big fat blue clues right under my nose and I miss them. It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless.”

“WTF! No way. You are totally
The Eye
to me.”