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Detective Broadway Lamont made it to The Eye’s offices before Lacey did. He’d had a head start. Luckily, the smell of sizzling bacon and cheese was in the air as she arrived. Lacey spotted Lamont with a plateful of something that looked like quiche, deep in conversation with her editor.
“Smithsonian. My office. Now.” Douglas MacArthur Jones beckoned her with a finger. His dark balding head was shiny with humidity or possibly sweat. Lacey popped her small bouquet into an empty coffee mug, dropped her tote bag at her desk, and picked up a notebook and pen, just in case. She tried not to sigh, because Monday morning was too early in the week to start sighing.
Mac’s office was in its usual state of chaos. Papers covered every surface, though she noticed a space had been cleared on his desk for a new framed photograph of Mac’s blended family. Mac was African-American, his wife Kim Japanese-American, and their soon-to-be adopted daughters Jasmine and Lily Rose were a blend of African-American and Chinese. All wore implausibly big grins, including Mac. Mac’s was a smile rarely on display in the newsroom, but he had changed since the girls had come into his life. He was a big teddy bear when it came to them. With reporters he was still just a bear, at least on the outside.
His new daughters were trying to make some stylish inroads into his wardrobe too, which was usually an explosive mix of colors and patterns. Today he looked almost coordinated, in khaki slacks with that unfortunate front pleating that did nothing good for his ample frame. His shirt was a bizarre plaid of orange, purple, and red, with just a sliver of khaki that almost looked like it was meant to go with the slacks. His psychedelic purple tie looked like an eleven-year-old picked it out. Lily Rose was eleven, Lacey remembered.
Above the purple tie, Mac was balding and fierce, but not nearly as imposing as the big African-American police detective standing there eating quiche. Lacey nodded to them.
“Morning, Mac, Broadway. How’s Felicity’s new quiche?”
“What is it with you, Smithsonian?” Mac favored Lacey with his beetle-browed expression of puzzled concern. His eyebrows were the most expressive part of his face, and today they predicted storm clouds.
“And you would be referring to what specifically?”
“Some kind of crazy dress connected to some kind of a break-in at LaToya’s place. Your specialty, I believe.”
“I assume you mean dresses, not break-ins. I was just over there. I understand nothing was taken. Has a connection been proven, then?”
Is everybody suddenly seeing fashion clues now, where they may not be? On one hand, people taking fashion seriously might be a positive thing. On the other, Lacey didn’t want anyone stepping on her beat. Or her process. Or her so-called ExtraFashionary Perception.
“Nothing that we know of,” Lamont said. “She’ll have to take a closer look at her closet, and right now she’s pretty spooked.”
“You’re usually working homicide, Broadway. Why were you there?”
“Um—” He swallowed a piece of quiche. “Favor for a friend.”
“LaToya called you? So she’s got your private number?”
My, my! So she’s ‘a friend’ now?
“I saw that look, Smithsonian. Don’t get cute with me. Tell me about the fight LaToya had with that woman at the theatre sale.”
“She already told you.”
“I want your take on it. She’s emotionally involved.”
No kidding. “What I saw looked like a tug of war over the dress, between LaToya and a woman from the theatre. Short, blond, pudgy,” Lacey said. “The theatre sold it to LaToya, but now this woman wanted it back. But you don’t know if the two incidents are related, neither do I, and neither one has anything to do with me.”
“I wouldn’t rule anything out.” Broadway glowered at her.
“Ditto.” Mac’s bushy eyebrows did a dance that Lacey interpreted as skeptical. And probably hungry.
“Felicity’s quiche smelled pretty yummy, Mac,” Lacey said. “Didn’t you get any?”
The first lesson of the newsroom was to keep editors happy and well-fed. Especially Mac Jones. And that didn’t seem to be happening today.
“Lamont got the last piece.” He looked grumpy. Broadway grinned.
“Poor Mac. So what do you want me to do?” she asked. “It’s not my story, you know, it’s really LaToya’s.”
“It’s fashion, so it’s your beat. Do what you always do,” Mac said. “Stay on the dress angle. Figure out what’s happening. Dig up its past. See if it’s cursed or something. Don’t get killed in the process.”
“You think the two are connected?” she asked Broadway.
“Normally, I wouldn’t. But you’re involved, so—”
“I’m not involved! I happened to be there when she bought the dress.”
“Exactly,” Mac put in. “Crawford buys some weird old dress, Smithsonian is on the scene, and the next thing you know Crawford’s apartment gets, well, whatever it got. It’s weird. It’s never happened before. You’re in the middle of it. So it’s connected.”
Lacey snorted. “She probably has some crazy stalker. Maybe the dress is innocent. Detective, you were at LaToya’s, what did you think of the crime scene?”
“Bizarre.” The big man rubbed his face. “I’ve seen all kinds of crazy-ass things. This wasn’t messy, wasn’t bloody, nobody got hurt, but it raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Course that could have been LaToya Crawford shrieking in my ear.” He shook himself. “One thing, Smithsonian. I don’t like perps who send a message, like this one did.”
“And that message is?”
“How do I know? But it’s some kind of message. Do I look like I speak fashion clues?”
“Perhaps not,” Lacey said. He looked fierce, with his biceps straining the sleeves of his navy polo shirt and his black pistol peeking out of his shoulder holster. “But you do speak homicide. And the dress has a history. No recent deaths though, as far as I know.”
“What do you mean ‘no recent deaths’?” Mac thundered, his eyebrows arching in alarm. Surely LaToya told Broadway about the actress’s alleged death in the red dress? Lamont didn’t betray any sign of it. Neither did Mac.
“It’s a rumor, Mac. And it was years ago. I’d have to research it.”
“Research it,” Mac ordered. “Where’s the dress now?”
“I’m not sure. It was in my car trunk, then as of this morning it was in my closet.” Lacey checked her watch. “Right now it may be in transit.”
“In transit?”
“I asked Vic to move it. Just a precaution.”
“So you’re spooked too,” Broadway said with a smirk.
“I wouldn’t say spooked. But there is that story.” She recapped the tale of the red dress and the actress who had supposedly died onstage in it during Kinetic Theatre’s The Masque of the Red Death.
“Great. A dead woman’s dress. Now we’re all spooked,” Mac said. “Stay on it. And let me know what you’re going to have for me this week.”
The big detective pointed a finger at her. “And you get any hoodoo-voodoo fashion clues, you call me.”
That almost sounded like an offer of help, but Lacey suspected Lamont just wanted to be done with the whole break-in and ease LaToya out of his life. If anyone here was spooked, it was him, and LaToya was the fear factor. Mac waved her away. Broadway Lamont balled up a napkin and tossed it in the trash. Lacey was dismissed.
She’d written a draft of her theatre yard sale piece, and jotted down a few notes for a “Fashion BITE” about HonFest, and now she was being ordered to explore the legend of the Crimson Dress of Doom. It looked like a busy week. She wondered whether she could wrangle some time off, because technically she’d worked all weekend too.
Could be worse. At least the fashion beat seems to be permanent job security.
Lacey returned to her cubicle and felt a chill suddenly racing down her neck. It had nothing to do with her chilling assignments. It was the air vent above her head. Another scorching day outside and the newsroom was freezing.
Typical. The newsroom’s air conditioning, like most offices, was set for the comfort of men in suits and ties, not for women in their summer dresses. Like employees in offices everywhere, Lacey would have to surreptitiously crack open the window near her desk to let in some warm air. In fact, she considered it a small miracle that the windows in the building could still be opened. There was an edict that no one was to touch them, but it was roundly violated. Even editors were guilty of opening a window for some fresh air and a little warmth.
Frozen Offices Defy Summer Fashion! Women Shiver While Men Swelter! Perhaps a headline for one of her “Crimes of Fashion” columns, she thought. Luckily, she was prepared. She grabbed her navy linen jacket and readjusted the scarf that went with her summer dress. Another small surprise was waiting for her as she rubbed her chilled fingers. In the middle of her desk was an envelope and a note from The Eye’s photographer, Todd Hansen.
“With my compliments,” it read.
Inside was a photograph from HonFest, capturing Lacey in her serious cat-eye makeup and caterpillar-thick lashes, courtesy of Stella. She was standing face-to-face with Amy Keaton, who looked frazzled, frizzled, and frumpy in the Baltimore heat. Both were gesturing dramatically, like an outtake from a bad movie. In the background, engrossed in the action, stood the impressively coiffed Stella, Lady Gwendolyn, and Nigel, leering like a bad boy in a Fifties biker flick. Surely a rumble was mere moments away.
Lacey put her head down on her desk. As long as this photo didn’t make its way into the paper, ever, she’d survive. She placed the picture face down, then reconsidered and turned it face up, contemplating the other woman.
Amy Keaton was number one on her list of people to contact today. Lacey tried her number. No answer. It was early, probably too early for theatre folk. Lacey tapped the picture on her desk. What did Keaton’s desire for this dress have to do with LaToya’s break-in?
Not for one moment did Lacey think that Amy Keaton could pull off a completely silent breaking-and-entering operation, not to mention the weird silent wardrobe tableau someone had left for LaToya’s edification. Nor did she seem the type to know someone who would or could commit that kind of crime. The theatre world was about the illusion of action, not actual action. Wasn’t it?
On the other hand, Keaton did not act in the theatre, or even run the lights and sound, direct, design sets, or create costumes. She had said she was a stage manager, maybe with some vague additional duties. Lacey called again and this time left a message requesting a call back.
Lacey rubbed her still-chilled neck. Trouble was heading her way, she could feel it. She looked up. Harlan Wiedemeyer, The Eye’s death-and-dismemberment beat reporter, was bearing down on her. The stranger and more bizarre the story, the happier he would be. But this morning, he was far from happy.
“Smithsonian.” His round face was pinched in misery. “We need to talk.”
Lacey slipped Hansen’s photo into her top desk drawer.
No sense in leaving potential blackmail material lying around.
