10 Lethal Black Dress (2 page)

She set Lacey’s teeth on edge.

Lamont’s height gave him a better view. “Don’t look now, but
I think she’s headed this way. Looks like someone poked her with a cattle
prod.”

Courtney veered from left to right and back again, searching
for prey. A congressman spotted her and ducked out the door to the patio. He
obviously preferred the rain and polluters to an impromptu interview.

“Let’s get out of range,” Lacey said. It was easier said than
done. She and Lamont were stuck in one of the many pre-dinner cocktail parties
in the tiny reception suites, a labyrinth of congested spaces. There was barely
room to turn around. Before Lacey could escape, a microphone was thrust in her
face.

She wouldn’t dare
, Lacey thought, but Courtney did
dare. There was a strange gleam in her eyes.

“Well, Lacey Smithsonian! And Detective Broadway Lamont! I’m
sure there’s a story here,” she said into her handheld microphone. A clip-on might
have spoiled the bodice of her black gown. “The two of you! Together! Say hello
to our viewers on Channel One!”

Lamont glowered at her and she took a step back. Wallace turned
smoothly to his companion.

“Lacey Smithsonian, style maven for
The Eye
.” Courtney
advanced on her. She towered over Lacey in her sky-high heels. “Talk to me
about your dress. It’s obviously a vintage piece. Do tell our viewers all about
it!”

“No. Not on camera, and not for the record.” Lacey backed
away from her, not because Courtney was in her face, but because her perfume
was so strong. It was overpowering and sickly-sweetish, and Lacey thought she
detected a whiff of garlic, though that seemed unlikely.
What reporter,
she
thought,
even a bad one, would load up on garlic to get up in people’s faces
with a microphone?

“It will just take a second, Lacey.” Courtney’s voice was
sing-songy. Her cameraman was edging in close. “After all, you’re Washington’s most
famous vintage fashion expert, right?”

Lacey covered the microphone with her freshly manicured hand.
“I’ve already written extensively about this Gloria Adams original in
The
Eye Street Observer.
And no means no.”

Courtney showed a lot of teeth in an approximation of a
smile. “I’m sure most people didn’t see your little story. You haven’t won an
Emmy, have you?”

“Do you expect to win an Emmy for fashion reporting? I must
change careers immediately.”

“You can joke, but my viewers will have a chance to see that
fabulous dress of yours on Channel One News, One For All. No one reads newspapers
anymore.”

“That’s too bad, because there’s so much that can’t be
explained in a ten-second news bite,” Lacey said. “Or is it five seconds now,
for the attention-span impaired?”

“You’d be surprised at how long a few seconds can be.”

Not at the moment.
The cameraman readied his lens.
Lacey caught his eye. She shook her head. He froze. Lacey switched tactics. She
suspected Courtney would much rather talk about herself anyway.

“Courtney, why don’t you tell me about your own vintage
dress? Forties, right?”

“My dress?” Wallace gestured to the stunning black gown she
wore and smiled, as if for an audience of Emmy judges. “Fabulous, isn’t it?
It’s early twentieth century. This snazzy number will be the culmination of my
series on vintage fashion. Perhaps you’ve seen my features on Channel One?” A
flash of green lining showed through the gown’s artistic cutouts as she gave a
half spin for the camera. They looked like symbols from the suits in a deck of
cards, hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.

“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t have to see it. I’ve already written
the stories you cribbed your series from.”
Do not get in a snark fight with
this shark
, she warned herself.

“But I’m the one on TV. I’m just demonstrating that some
styles are timeless and can go anywhere. Like this lovely black satin dress.
And yours.” Courtney gestured to the cameraman to continue, but Lacey froze him
with another Look.

“Your dress is a great find, Courtney. Really beautiful.
However, I don’t want to be on camera. I’m a print reporter, not a broadcast,
ah, personality.”

Wallace’s expression changed. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips
pressed together in a tight line. “All right. Don’t cooperate. You don’t own
vintage and you don’t own fashion. And just remember, Lacey Smithsonian, ideas
are not copyrightable.” She spat the words.

“That makes it all right to copy me? As if you had ideas in
the first place?”

“If you don’t want to go on camera, I still have footage of
your dress for the background. I don’t need your help and don’t expect any from
me.”

Meow
. Lacey smiled back at her. “Have a nice evening,
Courtney.”

The woman spun away with a flounce. “Come on, Eric. I see
that actress from that awful movie, what’s her name again? Move your butt!”

Eric the cameraman seemed to be used to this treatment. “What
actress? What movie? Did she take her clothes off?” He winked at Lacey and
shouldered his camera.

They went in search of the elusive actress from the bad movie.
This dinner might be in honor of the Fourth Estate, but the celebrity guests
would be a bigger draw on the eleven o’clock news. Lacey and Lamont watched
them go, Courtney Wallace in a flurry of anger and a rustle of silk and satin
in green and black.

“You mean you media types aren’t all the best of friends?”
Lamont muttered. “Never would have guessed.”

“Nobody likes a story thief,” Lacey said. “I’m just glad
she’s on the least-watched channel.”

“Didn’t think you cared about the fashion beat.” He lifted
two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed her one.
“You complain about it enough. You actually worry that Wallace woman’s been
riding your coattails?”

“I do complain about my beat, it sucks sometimes, but it’s
mine. And as far as I’m concerned, Courtney Wallace can kiss my coattails.” She
saluted him with the champagne flute. “Besides, you got it right the first
time: A piece of pretty poison.”

CHAPTER 2

Lacey cast a backwards glance
and
caught the whole silhouette of Courtney’s stunning dress. She paused. Something
about that inky black gown struck her as very familiar. What was it?

The details were clearly vintage, but there was more to it
than that. It was classic, even, Lacey realized, iconic. The light bulb went
on. It looked like a copy of the gown worn in the famous “Madame X” portrait by
John Singer Sargent. But the so-called Madame X, the woman in the portrait,
looked nothing like this brash, blond, twentieth-century newswoman. The
portrait’s model was a striking brunette, pictured with her hair pulled up and
off her face. Her profile was haughty and sharp and she had eerily white skin,
like a corpse. The stunning dress and the scandalous portrait had been nothing
but bad luck for her.

“I know that dress,” Lacey said under her breath.

“Did you say you
know
that dress?” Lamont was
nonplussed. “Excuse me, of
course
you know that dress. Say what?”

“Madame X. Wallace’s dress is a duplicate. Almost. There are
a few changes, like the lining and the cut-outs. But it’s so close, it must be
a deliberate copy.”

“Madame who? This more of that clothing voodoo you’re always
throwing out?”

Lacey shrugged. “Madame X. And I’m just observing. I’m
talking about a famous painting by John Singer Sargent.”

The original Madame X gown incorporated velvet and satin with
a tightly corseted waist. It featured a deep plunging neckline and thin jeweled
straps. The original painting was shocking when it was first displayed in 1884.
Courtney’s vintage copy did not look as old as the Sargent portrait, and her
jeweled straps featured costume jewelry stones. In fact, Lacey realized, it
might be a genuine vintage copy from the Forties. Every decade’s style took
cues from earlier periods. Both dresses, in fact, looked oddly modern, though
Wallace’s version was less alarming than the original.

Lacey silently marked the difference between the frocks.
Courtney’s designer had taken artistic liberties with the skirt, where the
small open cut-out designs revealed a lining of emerald green. And the skirt
was hiked up on one hip with a rosette to reveal a flash of leg. The effect
rendered the skirt slightly asymmetrical and allowed more of the brilliant
green underskirt to show, a dazzling effect, but one that somewhat compromised
the original Madame X silhouette. The dress flashed green and black as Courtney
strutted away, green and black and green again.

Lacey was sorry she hadn’t found out where Courtney had found
the dress, before their little confrontation. She was sure there was a story
stitched into every seam.
Not that Courtney would have told me. If she even
knew.

“We just got rid of your fake Madame X, and wouldn’t you know
it, here comes the X-Files,” Lamont snorted.

Brooke Barton, Lacey’s BFF and sometime attorney, squeezed
through the crowd to reach them. Lacey considered her brilliant and crazy.
Brooke was a conspiracy theorist to the bone, immersed in everything from alien
abductions to Bigfoot to foreign spies among us in every branch and department
of the government. The ‘foreign spies’ part was probably true, Lacey conceded.

Detective Lamont wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he seemed to
be having a wonderful time. Lacey knew he thought crazy people were good fun,
as long as they weren’t killing each other.

“Good evening to you too, Detective,” Brooke said.

“Don’t tease her,” Lacey said. “Brooke hasn’t had a promising
intrigue in days. She’s practically normal.”

“In a world where women kill with stiletto heels, anything is
possible,” Brooke declared. “Scoff if you want.”

“Scoff, hell, Barton,” Lamont said. “I’m scared to death just
checking out your killer heels.”

“Don’t worry, my wit is sharper than my stilettos,” Brooke
said. The heels were, in fact, a mere two inches—not high enough to fall
off—and they were hidden under her long, sleek, black dress. The only drawback
to her garment was that it resembled a hundred other dresses in attendance. Brooke,
with her long blond hair and regimented fitness routine, could be any
beautiful, successful young attorney in the Nation’s Capital. But she might
have been the only one carrying a dossier of suspected alien life forms in her
mental briefcase. And they weren’t all congressmen.

In their pre-event confab, Lacey had argued for some color in
Brooke’s evening attire, but Brooke dismissed it on the grounds that all-black
was appropriate for any lawyer, anywhere, any time. And her black gown would go
with her boyfriend Damon’s inevitable all-black, all-the-time, Geek Noir
fashion vibe. Lacey sighed.
Two geeks in love.
At any rate, black was
better than gray, another one of Brooke’s favorites.

Although Damon Newhouse was what Lacey considered a fringe
journalist, with his popular Conspiracy Clearinghouse blog on the Web at
DeadFed dot com, he somehow managed to be a member of the White House
Correspondents’ Association. Lacey couldn’t figure out how he could swing that,
or the cost of the dinner ticket. But there he was. And Brooke was his date.

Damon materialized behind Brooke. He didn’t bother with a
tuxedo. He scoffed at black tie. Everything he owned was black anyway, so his black
suit, black tie, and black shirt would do. He also sported a small black
fedora. Damon was wiry, with delicate features. He sported short, sleek black
hair, sparse black facial hair, and serious black-framed glasses. He managed to
look like a choirboy playing a hipster.

“Smithsonian. What’s up?” he asked.

“Hemlines. Read it first in
The Eye
.”

“As hemlines go, so goes the economy.”

“You have been reading my column.”

“Did you ever doubt it? I’m always looking for hidden
messages from the Mother Ship. I know you’re plugged in.” He whipped out his
phone and grinned. “Hey, photo op.” He directed Lamont, Lacey, and Brooke to
crowd together for one of those golden-moments photos on Facebook.

“Lacey, what’s Vic doing tonight?” Brooke asked.

“Keeping himself busy. He’s meeting me here later, after this
circus lets out.”

“He was cool with the whole ‘bring a source, not your
squeeze’ concept?”

“He said he wouldn’t be caught dead at this soiree. Unless he
was getting paid for it.” It was a fib. Vic looked fabulous in a tuxedo and he
would have attended in a heartbeat if she could have invited him.

“She’s back,” Lamont interrupted.

Lacey twirled in the direction of his gaze. “Who?”

“The magpie with the microphone. Your Madame Whatzit. Pretty
poison.”

Brooke and Damon turned in unison. Courtney Wallace had the
same fevered stare in her narrowed eyes: intent on nailing sound-bites,
counting face-time seconds in her head, silently rehearsing her on-camera
patter. She was still hard at work recording live updates for Channel One News.
She dismissed Lacey with a sharp twist of her head and a swish of
black-and-green skirt.

“What was that about?” Brooke asked.

“Nothing, really,” Lacey said, rolling her eyes. “Broadcast
reporter. What can I say?”

“Wallace was trying to weasel out some style secrets about
Smithsonian’s getup,” Lamont filled Brooke in. “They hissed at each other.”

“Getup?” Lacey repeated.

“Dress. Outfit. Whatever. But Smithsonian, she asks, but she
don’t tell. Not when it comes to fashion and broadcast reporters.” Lamont
chuckled. “Me? I think some fashion voodoo is afoot.”

“That’s silly. Everybody knows about Lacey’s gown, designed
by the brilliant Gloria Adams, lost until Lacey brought her back to light. If
Courtney doesn’t know, she hasn’t been paying attention. She is oh-so-faux a
fashionista.” Brooke reached for a flute of champagne from the tray of the
hard-working waiter and lifted it high. “To Gloria! And to Lacey. No one would
even know Gloria’s name without Lacey.”

“Wait a minute,” Courtney yelled above the din, chasing a
Hollywood actress trying to flee from her in the crush of the overcrowded room.
She waved furiously at her photographer to follow her. “I only want ten seconds
of your time! About your divorce!”

Lacey turned to watch Courtney’s stalker act. The poor black-lace-clad
actress was stuck by the door. There were too many people crowding in for her to
get out. She was trapped, and Courtney was relentlessly elbowing her way toward
her through the crowd.

Certainly there were times when a reporter needed to press a
reluctant subject for a quote, Lacey thought, and the public’s right to know
justified being a little pushy. But she hoped she’d never been that desperate,
and for nothing but a pointless celebrity sound-bite.
Is this what it takes
to win an Emmy?
By now, Lacey’s entire quartet was turning to watch the
Courtney Wallace Show.

Something was happening around the charging TV reporter—a
rumble, a movement, a reaction. Lacey stood high in her heels and craned her
neck to see.

There was a loud crash of tumbling glasses and a bright spray
of champagne, as sudden as an explosion. A shriek came from Courtney, drenched
from head to foot. She and the champagne waiter had somehow collided, and she
was now wearing the entire liquid contents of his tray. People were backing
away from the mess, men brushing their wet tuxedo sleeves, women checking their
shoes and dresses for damage from flying glass shards and the shower of
alcohol. Lacey instinctively did the same. Brooke and Damon jumped backwards as
Broadway Lamont danced out of the way of the champagne shower. He was light on
his feet for a man his size.

“Much experience ducking whatever’s thrown at you?” Lacey
asked Lamont.

“Some. Police officer’s life is a messy one. Blood, bone,
slime, champagne. All play hell with the wardrobe. You might say I’ve developed
a spill-avoidance ability.”

“Remind me not to throw champagne at you. It would be wasted.”

People around the drenched woman stopped talking. The
unbroken glasses stopped clinking. Silence reigned for a moment, as if a ghost
had blown through the patio doors with the rain. More waiters appeared out of
nowhere and scurried to mop up the wet floor and broken glass.

“Did you see that?” Brooke finally said.

Hard to miss
, Lacey thought. “I guess it’s true that
pride goeth before a fall.”

Courtney’s pride had surely taken a tumble. She stood
stunned, surrounded by shattered champagne flutes, dripping in bubbly. Her
lovely vintage dress was soaked from neckline to hemline and her hair hung in
wet strings. Yet she still had a death grip on her microphone.

“Give her this, people,” Lamont said. “She puts on a show.”