Grave Apparel, page 12
“Really?” Lacey’s eyebrow raised involuntarily and she
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glared at Vic. “I wouldn’t cross this woman if I were you, Sean Victor Donovan. She sounds like trouble to me.”
“Mother, now isn’t a good time,” Vic said.
“Oh, she is trouble! This very striking fashion reporter, according to Vic, pretty and sassy and smart too,” Nadine continued. “I liked her. And I thought, how on earth can a smart fashion reporter get in trouble writing about hairdos and hemlines? Well, good Lord! I found out! Didn’t we all!”
“Concert should be starting again soon,” Vic said, but nobody moved. Lacey raised her eyebrow. Danny tried his best not to laugh.
“Vic was so aggravated with this woman,” Nadine continued, “I just knew he must have some sort of serious interest in her. This mysterious ‘Lacey Smithsonian’ person. Wants to protect people he cares about, you see. Takes after his father that way. Couple of overgrown Boy Scouts, the two of them. Aren’t they adorable?”
Danny took his wife’s arm and began to lead her away, back toward the theatre. “Nadine, it’s time we got back to our seats.”
Nadine broke away from her husband’s protective arm and stuck to Lacey’s side.
“So, of course, I started reading your paper, Lacey, just to keep up on the players in this little drama, or else I’d never know what goes on with my own family. Then you started popping up on DeadFed. Good heavens, the stories they have about you, dear! But what I wanted to say is this. I know you don’t have a car right now. That little misadventure with the car theft and the drive-by shooting and all? Such a shame. Your poor little Z. So I’d be more than happy to drive you on one of your little adventures. We’d have fun, Lacey. It would be a hoot.”
Lacey almost spit out her Cabernet on her blouse. She covered it with a cough. “And we can take the Caddy!” Nadine continued, reaching her point at last. “You can wear your vintage clothes, I will drive my vintage Cadillac, and we will solve crimes in high style. What do you say, Lacey?”
Nadine’s everyday car, for trips to the grocery store or her bridge club, was a large, comparatively sedate, scarlet Mercedes-Benz. But for excursions to the country club or when she was out just “catting around,” as she called it, Nadine drove her large unmistakable Cadillac, a 1957 Eldorado Biarritz convertible. A bright pink Eldorado Biarritz, a sleek monument to the
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stylish American excess of the mid-twentieth century, complete with fins out to here. Only 1800 were made, Nadine told Lacey later, and none as pretty as her “Miss Flamingo.”
Father and son both looked pained. “No need to encourage her, Lacey. She’ll find some excuse to take the Caddy out for a road trip anyway,” Danny said.
Nadine looked so pleased with her idea, Lacey almost didn’t have the heart to dash her hopes. “But Nadine, there is no mystery. There is no case. Not this time.”
“That’s what you say now, Lacey. From what I read, that’s what you always say before you’re up to your you-know-what in alligators. According to Vic, anyway. Oh look, showtime!”
The house lights were flashing, signaling the end of intermission. The concert was about to resume. Lacey reached for Vic’s hand and led him back up the stairs in a rush behind his parents.
“If you ever want to get me alone tonight, darling,” Lacey whispered in his ear, “get me out of going on a road trip with your adorable mother!”
Chapter 13
“Where’s the Sunday paper?” Lacey asked Vic sleepily. Brunch the next morning seemed to come all too soon, after a late night with Vic’s parents, first at the Folger and then later over drinks at the bar at the Willard Hotel, all the while denying that she was champing at the bit to “slap on the old Wonder Woman bracelets,” as Nadine called having an adventure, and tackle the investigation into Cassandra Wentworth’s attack. Nadine seemed to have the oddest image of her, Lacey thought. Wherever did she get the idea that I was a freelance righter of wrongs in heels and a vintage suit? Oh yeah. DeadFed. And she may have had a little help from Vic too.
Lacey just wanted a nice unpretentious Sunday meal after Mass, where they arrived late, so they drove down Route One to El Puerto for their great Mexican food. Vic handed her a huge pile of newspapers and took a tortilla chip, dunking it in the salsa.
“Not this thing. I want The Eye, not The Post. ”
“You really want to see it?” Vic held the paper back, his face a practiced blank.
“What? Oh no. Let me see.” She grabbed it. On the front page was the Cassandra Wentworth story. “Oh my God. Did it really deserve a box on the front page?”
EYE STREET OBSERVER WRITER ASSAULTED
Heroic “Little Shepherd” Witnesses Attack, Calls for Help
Observer Fashion Reporter First on the Scene
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She gazed up at Vic and back down at the paper. The new cops reporter Kelly Kavanaugh had milked the story of Cassandra Wentworth’s attack for all it was worth.
“I never told her any of this stuff. We barely said hello.
Where did she get all this? And half of it’s wrong!”
“I take it she got the information from an industrious and probably rather young cop,” Vic said. “Feminine wiles and all that. Or maybe she’s a real reporter after all.”
“Feminine wiles! Kavanaugh’s not that wily. Or feminine.
And look, she’s described the boy in the shepherd’s robe, and even though I said he’s a witness, she also quoted the cop saying he’s a suspect. Either way, she could be putting the boy in jeopardy. Just in case the jerk who conked Cassandra in the head didn’t remember the kid, she reminds him and gives him a description. This is irresponsible journalism!”
“Sounds like Kavanaugh wants a Pulitzer Prize.”
“She wants a kick in the head, if you ask me.” Lacey threw the paper down. “I can’t believe Mac let her get away with this. You better be right about the robe, Vic. I hope he took it off and it’s back in the costume closet in the church basement somewhere.”
“Now you know how cops feel when they read the papers.”
He took another chip. “At least you’re not named till the third paragraph.”
“Let me see.” Lacey sipped her tea and picked up the paper again. The story jumped to an inside page. She was still steaming when her attention was caught by a tiny news brief at the bottom of the page.
Holy Family Robbed
The Holy Family is a little more destitute than usual this year at the small stone church, Shiloh Mount Zion, in the Shaw neighborhood of D.C. The scene at the stable in the church’s Nativity had been made cozier by generous
parishioners, who had made new robes for the plaster figures. But not long after the traditional scene was put on display, persons unknown took several of the new robes, Metropolitan police report. Mary, Joseph, two of the
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Wise Men, and a shepherd have all been left unprotected from the onset of winter weather.
The theft might have been a prank by teenagers, according to police, or the work of homeless people who gather in the vicinity. The church itself was not entered or damaged, Church Pastor Wilbur Dean told The Eye. “I don’t know who would do such a thing! And at Christmas. It makes you wonder about people.”
“Vic, read this.” She handed the paper to him. “Robes stolen.
A shepherd’s robe.”
He read it and met her eyes. “A shepherd. No description of the robes. Big shepherd or little shepherd? Coincidence?”
“Pretty coincidental.”
“Coincidences happen.” Vic reached for another chip. “A known fact.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure that kid is safe.” Lacey pulled out her cell phone, got a number from information, and dialed the church, even though she realized the pastor was probably busy.
After all, it was Sunday. A machine answered and she left a message, identifying herself as a reporter with The Eye and asking Pastor Wilbur Dean to call her as soon as possible.
She wondered if the kid still had Cassandra’s phone. Lacey dialed the number. Maybe the little shepherd would pick up.
But it rang until Cassandra’s voice message came on, saying she couldn’t come to the phone right now and please save the planet and leave a message after the beep. Lacey didn’t leave a message. The kid wouldn’t have Cassandra’s password to access her voice mail.
“Lacey, please eat your enchiladas, they’ll get cold. Or else I’ll eat them.”
She took a bite. “If Kavanaugh could take the facts and mush ’em together like she did, I can’t imagine what Damon Newhouse did with them.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Ruin your appetite.
You gonna eat that taco?”
“Right. I won’t. It will. And I am! Get your thieving hands off my taco, cowboy. Taco rustler!” But of course she couldn’t get her mind off it until they returned to her apartment. And she let the thieving taco rustler have half her taco.
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*
*
*
Lacey raced past Vic and her front door to her office-slashguest room, the second bedroom of her apartment, which had a lovely view of the Potomac River. Today, however, she barely noticed that wide ribbon of water that divided Virginia from Maryland, gleaming in the early December sunshine.
“I have a sick feeling about this.” Lacey sat at her little antique writing desk and flipped open her laptop.
“I told you not to look at the paper,” Vic said. “Do you really want to turn on the computer? It’s Sunday.”
“I have to do this.” She powered up and dialed into her ISP
to connect her woefully slow dial-up connection to the Internet.
She preferred to surf the Web at work.
“Didn’t you want to do some Christmas shopping?” Vic stretched out on the trundle bed, which was made up to look like a sensible sofa, his cowboy boots propped up casually. “Whatever DeadFed has to say will just bum you out. Guaranteed.”
“You’re probably right.” She turned around while the Internet connected. “I know you mean well, Vic, but I have to know what insane flight of fancy has seized that little wretch Damon.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Are you telling me you’ve already seen it?”
Vic closed his eyes. “I don’t have to see it. Damon Newhouse is an open book. Written in an unknown language.”
Lacey turned back to the screen. “Oh, no!”
SWEATERGATE, LACEY SMITHSONIAN,
& MISSING SHEPHERD!
Cassandra Wentworth, op-ed page wordsmith at The Eye Street Observer, took a giant candy cane to the cranium Friday night at the hands of an unknown assailant, reportedly disguised in a Santa cap. Wentworth still lies unconscious in her hospital bed, Conspiracy Clearinghouse has learned. And the only witness to the savage attack is said to be someone wearing a shepherd’s robe, described as a child. A child, or something much more sinister? This assault may be part of an orchestrated attack on the freedom of the press and the First Amendment. But by whom?
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Or what? According to sources who requested not to be named, this purported “child” witness may in fact have been the assailant. This tiny suspect may in reality be a small man, a Little Person, midget or dwarf with criminal or paranormal, perhaps even extraterrestrial, connections. The perp may also be the perpetrator of a bizarre hoax calculated to delude The Eye’s ace fashion reporter, Lacey Smithsonian, whose ability to unravel a bizarre crime is unparalleled and well documented on these
pages. What part in this attack was played by “Sweatergate,” a strange scandal brewing deep inside The Eye’s newsroom and hidden from the public eye by newspaper management—until now? Is this attack part of a concerted effort to silence the press on some story Eye writer Wentworth had been keeping under wraps?
There was more. Much more. And all in Damon Newhouse’s patented purple unparagraphed prose. “He’s dead,” Lacey said.
“Who’s dead?”
“Damon Newhouse is so dead. I’m sorry, Brooke, but he is so dead this time.”
“I was afraid you might not like it.” Vic stood behind her and peered at the screen.
“The little bastard. He can’t really believe this stuff, can he?
Is it all just a big comedy act for him?”
“Who knows? Once he gets ahold of a story, all bets are off. Sweetheart, one thing I learned about the press as a cop: Once the barn door is open and the horse is running down the street, there isn’t much you can do, except to say, ‘No damn comment.’ ”
“He had the nerve to e-mail me his resume too.” She was tempted to delete it from her e-mail. “He wants to be an investigative reporter for The Eye. Can you believe it?”
Vic chuckled. “You mean he’s not gonna get the job now?”
“That’s what the expression ‘cold day in hell’ was made for.”
“On the other hand, if Mac hired him, he’d be Mac’s problem, not yours. Damn shame he’s Brooke’s boyfriend,” he said.
“You can’t actually kill him. She’d be upset.”
“Yeah, a shame his crazy-ass theories aren’t true. Then
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maybe one of his space alien midgets would kidnap him and take him to another planet. It wouldn’t be just the scoop of the century, it would be the scoop of the universe.” Lacey turned and gazed at Vic. “I could deal with that. How many light years does it take to get to Pluto?”
“You can’t send him to Pluto, it’s not even a planet anymore.
It’s a dwarf planet, probably where his killer dwarf came from.
No more direct flights to Pluto, you have to make that darn layover on Neptune.” Vic rubbed Lacey’s indignant shoulders as she steamed before her computer screen. “Try to stop thinking about it, Lacey, it’ll ruin the rest of your day. And we have better things to do.” Vic rubbed her shoulders just the way she liked. He lifted her hair with one hand and kissed the back of her neck, sending chills straight to her heart. “I could take your mind off your troubles,” he offered. He kissed her some more.
“Remember that layover on Neptune? It’s nicer on Venus.
Warmer climate.”
“Keep talking, space cowboy. No, talking isn’t enough.
Keep kissing me,” she said and turned the computer off. Layover on Venus, here we come.
Chapter 14
It was late afternoon and the sky was turning toward twilight.
Lacey and Vic had whiled away the afternoon in the only way that made them both forget the entire rest of the world. They never did get to go out Christmas shopping. Lacey turned over and whispered in Vic’s ear.
“Would you like to go look at a crèche at a little church in Washington?”
He hugged her a little tighter. “But I’m so comfortable here.
Your feet are so warm.”
She didn’t really like to think about going to church while lying in such a compromising position. She sat up. That was better. “We’re going to have to move sometime. We’ll get hungry.”
“We’ll phone for pizza and eat it in bed.” She nudged him and he sat up. “Oh, let me guess. This wouldn’t happen to be the Church of the Little Shepherd?”
“That’s why you’re such a good investigator. You pick up on all the subtleties.” He raised one dark eyebrow and she giggled.
“The pastor didn’t call me back, so now I have to go pound on his door. I’m sorry we have to go there. It’s this car thing. Or the not-having-a-car thing. I’d have to call a cab. Or your mother.” She grimaced. “Scratch that.”
“Good call. She drives that Cadillac like a maniac.”
Lacey still missed her Nissan 280ZX, which had been stolen earlier in the fall and used in the commission of a vicious crime before being abandoned and stripped. She’d made a few halfhearted tries at replacing the Z, but she never had time to go car shopping. Most of the car dealers were so far away she needed a car to go car shopping. She’d had offers of cars from friends,
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like Brooke and Miguel, but nothing seemed to click. No new car could really replace the Z in her heart. It was fast, it was fun, it was a semiclassic, and it held the road, at least when it was running and some mechanic wasn’t swimming to Japan for an expensive part.
“And if I didn’t drive you to the church, you’d find a way to wander around up there in Shaw, wouldn’t you?” Vic interrupted her reverie. “That’s still a dangerous neighborhood, you know.”
“It’s getting safer.”
“Ha. I’m up.” He leaped out of bed. “This way I get to keep an eye on your exploits.” She would have answered him, but he kissed her instead.
“I’ve got to get a car,” she said.
“No need, Your Ladyship. I live to drive Your Ladyship. The Jeep awaits Your Ladyship’s pleasure. As does your humble servant, Your Ladyship.”
“Smart aleck. When you put it that way, how can Your Ladyship refuse?”
Half an hour later the Jeep pulled up in front of the little church overseen by Pastor Wilbur Dean, the Shiloh Mount Zion United Church and House of Prayer for All People.
“The name is bigger than the church,” Vic commented. The church was off Rhode Island Avenue near the U Street corridor, an area that had experienced a major turnaround in the last decade. The Shaw neighborhood was now part shabby, part gentrified, sometimes a block of one next to a block of the other. The contrast was striking.
But the block that harbored the tiny Shiloh Mount Zion Church was still several years away from gentility. Vic drove by slowly, looking for a place to park, a challenge in every neighborhood in the District, giving Lacey a chance to look at the front of the church, a small but pretty stone and brick building that had started out Episcopalian but was now a tiny nondenominational church. Next to the church in a vacant lot stood a weather-beaten wooden stable. A small knot of people stood viewing it in the cold.
