Shot Through Velvet (31 page)

“Walter Pojack should hear you say that.” Lacey laughed.

“What’s a Walter Pojack?”

“The
Eye Street
exec who told me I should start polishing my résumé. Typical bully. Hits you when you least expect it.”

Stella leaned in to commiserate. “Lace, I know the type. Self-important little prick. Weasel with a tiny dick, right?” Lady Gwendolyn looked alarmed. “They’re the worst.”

Brooke sailed over from the next table, where Damon was holding court. “About time you got here,” she said to Lacey.

“Happy to oblige.” Lacey yawned.

“What’s wrong, Lace? Did your spring wind down?” Brooke asked. “We’re taking bets on where the Avenger will strike next.”

“Oh, Brooke. It’s much worse than that,” Stella said. “Some dinky-dick guy at her paper wants to get rid of Lacey.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brooke said. “Lacey is the heartbeat of that crummy excuse for a paper. Sorry, Lace. You know what I mean.”

Gwendolyn put up one finger. “Pardon me. When you say
dinky-dick guy
, Stella dear, you mean
what
, exactly?”

Stella measured out an inch with two fingers. “Tiny. Dick. You know.”

Enlightenment dawned on Nigel’s mother. “Oh! You mean his Wee Willie Winkie! The dickless rotter! We shall have to do something about that straight away,” Gwendolyn said, though she didn’t offer any specifics.

“I’ll represent you in a wrongful-dismissal suit,” Brooke offered. “It’ll be fun.”

“I’m not gone yet,” Lacey said. “Wrongful or not.”

“Just in case,” Brooke added. “How serious is this?”

“He told me to polish my résumé.”

“He will rue the day.” Brooke assumed a lawyerly pose, crossing her arms. “I promise you, Lacey. What’s his name?” She got out her trusty BlackBerry to make notes.

Damon and the Dominion Velvet crew edged nearer to Lacey.

“It’s good to have friends,” Lacey said with a smile. “My job is just collateral damage. It gets worse. And everything I say, Damon Newhouse, is off the record.”

Damon moved in closer. “There is no off the record, Smithsonian. You taught me that.”

“How can it get worse than it is?” Stella asked.

“Pojack wants to gut the paper and send me and
The Eye Street Observer
to . . . Crystal City.” Lacey put her head down on the table.

“Oh my God! Crystal City!” Brooke gasped. “That Stalinist gulag? Why, it’s across the Potomac! What’s this jerk’s name?”

“Pojack. Walter Pojack.” Lacey said, her head still down.

“The man apparently has a wee little dicky,” Gwendolyn said. “Classic case of overcompensation.”

“Ain’t that a pisser?” said Inez. “It’s always the guys with the little willies that want to put you down. Like Rod. I bet his was tiny. And blue.”

Amid the general laughter, Lacey lifted her head. The crowd was growing larger and more boisterous and she didn’t want strangers to get the wrong impression. She knew she shouldn’t be complaining about her job. At least she still had one, and they didn’t.

“Some swell funeral, huh? Any cookies left?”

 

Most of the crowd had dispersed. Lacey noticed an exhausted Honey, her head slumped forward, leaning against the wall. Armstrong stood next to her, glowering at all who approached. He reserved an especially sour look for Lacey.

“How are you holding up?” Lacey asked Honey.

“I’m managing.” Honey squeezed Armstrong’s hand.

“What do you want?” he asked Lacey.

Honey opened her eyes. “It’s okay, Gavin. She’s cool.”

Relieved to hear it, Lacey said, “This day must have been hard to get through.”

“Ask me tomorrow, after I read the papers,” she said.

“My follow-up story won’t be in till Sunday.”

“It’s weird reading the papers about Rod and seeing my name. I really shot my mouth off, huh?” Honey mused. “Well, I’m not taking it back. Can’t wait to see the
National Enquirer.
”

“I didn’t put in everything you said,” Lacey said.

“How tactful,” Armstrong snarled.

“I did say I’d have an open-casket funeral,” Honey said. “What was I thinking? I never expected this many people would show up. All taking pictures and videos.” She giggled. “I hope I don’t go to Hell for this. I sure don’t want to see Rod again.”

“Why did you go through with it?” Lacey could have sworn it would never happen.

Honey opened her hands wide. “Seemed like the right thing to do. Rod liked to humiliate people. Turnabout is fair play, right? And when someone becomes a legend, it seems kind of mean to deprive the world, or at least the whole town, of one last look.”

“You’re tired, Honey.” Officer Armstrong tried to break up her reverie, but Honey was on a roll.

“God, he looked terrible. Rod was so vain, he’d like to die, if he wasn’t dead already.” She sighed loudly. “Besides, the body is just a shell. Isn’t that what the preachers say? Rod isn’t even in there anymore. And it’s a good thing, because he’d kill me if he knew I did that to him. Put him on display like that. Blue as a blueberry muffin.”

“About Rod—” Lacey started, but Armstrong stopped her.

“Leave her alone. I’ll tell her about your little discovery, but it’s too much right now.” Gavin Armstrong was a whole lot bigger than Lacey, so she treated him to The Look. She could always call Honey later. “You want to go home, Honey? I’ll take you home,” he said. She looked around at the crowd. “You’ve done your duty by him. And more. The perfect hostess.”

She smiled back at him. “I’d like that.” Armstrong stood up. He pulled Honey to her feet and put his arm around her.

“Just one question.” Lacey also stood. “Honey, do you want Rod’s killer caught?”

“I don’t really know.” Honey looked puzzled. “I don’t. I just—”

“This interview is over,” Armstrong said.

 

“You have that lean and hungry look,” Vic said. “You having steak?”

“Does the moon rise in the east? A lady needs her protein.” Lacey ordered her steak medium rare. She leaned back and relaxed for what felt like the first time that day.

It was late afternoon before they got away from Black Martin, and her workday was not over. She had to drive back to Northern Virginia and file a story from home for the Sunday papers. Because they were in separate cars, Lacey met Vic for a very early dinner at Café Europa in Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom district.

The restaurant was warm and cozy, and Lacey was in danger of falling asleep. Couples at other tables were leaning in to each other, starting an early Friday night.

“You have a dreamy look on your face,” Vic said.

“It’s date night for everyone but me and you. I have to go home and write a story. A story I don’t have a finish for. One about blue ribbons.” She brightened up. “But I am not feeling sorry for myself, honey. I am alive. I am with you. I am not any shade of blue.”

“Rhyming again? You must be tired. Sweetheart, you want to go on a date tomorrow night? Your story will be over. My paperwork will be finished.” Vic smiled. “A night on the town.”

“Try and get out of it.” She changed the subject. “How are things, securitywise, at the factory?”

“The building is secured. My guys have the new video surveillance and alarm system in place, all digital, all remote, can’t be tampered with. And, most important, we actually turned it on. A couple of local guys are going to handle the night shift.”

“Not Wade, I trust.”

“Not Wade,” Vic said. “Nicholson paid him his week and sent him packing. Forrest gets to go home and so do I. By the way, nice catch with the ribbon. What made you take another look?”

“The reporter in me, I guess. Oh, hell. A better reporter would have seen who left it. Caught the Avenger blue-handed. Velvet Avenger, one. Lacey Smithsonian, nothing. Why didn’t I notice something, Vic?”

“You did. And you gave Mordecai Caine a big headache.” He flashed his wolf grin.

“That’s something. You just cheered me up, darling. I bet I’m on his list now. Right after Officer Armstrong.”

“What do you know that I don’t know?”

Lacey told him about the argument she overheard, the overturned chairs, the shoving match.

“No love lost there, that’s for sure,” he said.

“So are they still going to bury Rod?”

“Sure. The ribbon just delays things. The forensic guys will have to process the coffin. It’ll have a thousand prints on it. Won’t tell us a thing,” he predicted.

The waitress came with their dinners. Lacey inhaled the aroma of her skirt steak and cheese potatoes. She took a bite and made
yum
sounds, which made Vic chuckle.

“Lacey, are you really worried about losing your job?”

“A little. I don’t think Claudia would okay it, but Pojack seems to be doing an end run around her. And he doesn’t like me.”

“I don’t know why. You’re eminently likable.”

She laughed. “I could always file my PI paperwork and switch careers. What do you think of me as a private investigator?”

“I don’t think you’ve got the wardrobe for it. A PI’s got to fade into the woodwork. Not be so darned cute.”

“Cute.” She sighed. Lacey hated being called cute. “You don’t exactly fade into the woodwork, handsome.” He snorted. She continued. “Maybe I could work with Bud Hunt, Hunt Country Investigations, where I took the class. You remember Bud Hunt. Old Grit, Guts, and Gumshoes?”

Vic took a bite of his dinner. “Sure. Good old Bud. All heart, no head.”

“Or maybe Gregor Kepelov might have some crackpot jobs for me to work on. He likes me, when he’s not trying to kill me.”

“With Marie, his black-magic woman. The three of you would make quite a team. Beauty and the Beast, and the Psychic Who Faints at the Thought of Danger.”

“That’s not a bad thing, Vic. Poor Marie, she’s like the canary in the coal mine. I should have her around more often. I could have used her today.”

“Fainting and falling into the coffin?” Vic said. “I don’t think so.”

Chapter 29

Lacey was furious.

If that idiot Walt Pojack wants to fire me on my day off, I’ll feed him through the printing press. Headfirst.

It was Saturday. Pojack had demanded by phone that Lacey come in to the office for an urgent meeting. It was ice cold outside. Beneath Lacey’s seventh-floor windows, the Potomac River was ten shades of chilly blue, with a thick crust of ice hugging the bank. She just wanted to cozy up with a pot of coffee and a couple of magazines.

She dialed the one person who had promised to help. And wasn’t completely crazy.

“It’s Saturday, it’s way too early, and this had better be a matter of national security,” Brooke answered sleepily. “Who’s calling?”

“It’s Lacey. Pojack called me in to the office. I think he might try to get rid of me.”

“Like hell. This is what you do if it happens, and it may not: Just say no. Don’t let him get away with it. Claudia Darnell is the publisher. Insist she be the one to let you go. Pojack won’t expect you to resist.”

“You want me to stage a sit-in?”

“If that’s what it takes.” Brooke yawned into the phone. “Call me if anything happens. And bring a recorder. Get anything he says on tape. Or digital. Secretly, if you have to.”

“Isn’t that illegal in D.C.?” Lacey retrieved her pocket tape recorder from her desk.

“He probably doesn’t know that. Don’t tell him. And you need it for ammunition. Better yet, insist on taping it. That might shut him up. Call me.” Brooke hung up.

Lacey put fresh batteries in her tape recorder. She thought about getting dressed.

While she would normally throw on jeans and a turtleneck to go in to the office on a cold February weekend, there was no way she was going to look casual in front of Walter “Benedict Arnold” Pojack. She selected an early Fifties sweater that had been Aunt Mimi’s, one of the few items Mimi left behind from that decade. The sweater was a soft red wool with three-quarter sleeves, and it featured a shawl collar with satin piping. It zipped up the side for a sleek fit. She teamed the sweater with a pair of charcoal gray slacks and a cream-colored jacket with patch pockets for the recorder. For presence, she pulled on her tallest black boots. For luck, Lacey also selected a vintage broach of enameled red cardinals. The birds, not the clergymen.

You don’t scare me, Pojack. I’m going to scare you.

 

“Hey, Lacey, want a doughnut?” Wiedemeyer was waltzing through the office with a dozen fresh glazed doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. The intoxicating aroma of yeast and sugar filled the air.

“No, thanks, Harlan. My stomach is queasy. Hey, what are you doing here on a Saturday?”

“Just making up some hours. You seem glum, chum. What are you doing here?”

“Walt Pojack wants to see me. He called me at home and told me to come to the office.”

“He what? Maladjusted bastard has no sense of priority. It’s Saturday! You haven’t actually updated your résumé, have you, Smithsonian?”

“Every week. But he blindsided me today. He can’t do anything without Claudia. I won’t let him.”

“Gee, you just missed Claudia.” He opened the box and grabbed one of the doughnuts. He took a bite.

“She was here?”

He nodded and swallowed. “I saw her driving out of the garage when I came back from Krispy Kreme.”

That’s weird.
“She couldn’t have told Pojack to call me, could she? She wouldn’t do that. Would she?” Lacey held on to a glimmer of a hope that she still had a job.

“I’m going with you,” Wiedemeyer decided. He took another bite, sprinkling himself with crumbs. “He can’t fire people on the QT. And on a Saturday. That miserable bastard.”

Her stomach knotted and she grabbed her purse. Wiedemeyer marched beside her to the elevator. They headed to the sixth floor, where the high muckety-mucks had their offices.

“Why on a weekend? What can’t he wait till Monday?” Lacey thought about Tom Nicholson at Dominion Velvet, being told it was gentler to fire people on a Monday.
Reason enough for Pojack to pick Saturday, I suppose.
She rehearsed Brooke’s plan in her head and felt the recorder in her pocket.