Designer Knockoff (16 page)

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Authors: Ellen Byerrum

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Designer Knockoff
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On Friday morning, the talk radio shows were abuzz with the news that missing intern Esme had been playing two guys at the same time. And they had to credit
The Eye
with breaking Esme’s connections to Senator Van Drizzen and Aaron Bentley. Mac had given her a byline along with Trujillo: “Two Powerful Men—One Missing Intern.” The same edition also ran her column on the Bentley armed robbery and her preview of the Bentley collection in the museum. It was altogether too much Bentley for Lacey.
When she arrived at the paper, she learned Van Drizzen had scheduled a press conference for eleven A.M. An e-mail from Brooke demanded all the secret details she was sure Lacey had declined to print. A second e-mail from Damon Newhouse echoed Brooke’s message. Lacey noted that Brooke’s e-mail cc’d Damon, and Damon’s e-mail cc’d Brooke.
Oh, no, they’re already e-mail buddies.
At ten-thirty, Tony and Lacey grabbed a cab to Capitol Hill to hear the venerable Senator Van Drizzen once again deny the allegations that he had an affair with Esme Fairchild and condemn
The Eye
for printing scurrilous, unconfirmed allegations from its gossip columnist. “I’m not a gossip columnist,” she whispered to Tony.
“He’s on the run now, and everyone knows it,” he said with a grin.
“How long do you want to bet it takes before Mrs. Van Drizzen is by his side vouching for the sanctity of their marriage?”
“Next week. I’ll say Monday morning. Want to start a pool?”
Van Drizzen wasn’t taking questions, and he had fallen into the trap of vigorously denying the charges rather than simply letting them die. The farther the story inched ahead, the more true it began to look, regardless of the facts: a time-honored way of judging guilt in D.C.
For Lacey, the biggest surprise of the morning was the sight of Felicity in a suit. Granted, it was just a plain black number with a white blouse worn without accessories, and the effect was rather like a secular nun. But Felicity never wore suits. She was a slave to puffy dresses with large patterns, the louder the better. The occasional jumper was her only attempt at widening her fashion horizons. First a diet. Then the suit. It could mean only one thing: a job interview?
Lacey didn’t dare ask, but she could hope. “You look nice, Felicity.” And she did look nice, for Felicity. “Special occasion?”
“I’m going out on a story.” Felicity fumbled in her drawer looking for a pen, then tried to unearth a notebook among the crumbs of past culinary triumphs.
“A story?” Lacey asked. “A food story?”
Felicity shifted her gaze.
She looks as guilty as Van Drizzen,
Lacey thought. The office busybody seldom left the office, though she was rarely seen at her desk. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, Lacey had no idea how Felicity managed her job; she just tried to steer clear of her. Felicity battered away at Lacey’s stories as a part-time copy editor, and she wrote about food and it showed.
A lot.
Finally, latching on to a dog-eared notebook, Felicity grabbed her purse and left. Lacey briefly entertained the thought of scanning the food editor’s desk. The furtive way Felicity was acting tickled Lacey’s suspicions. There could be a telltale résumé lying around. However, notwithstanding Felicity’s new diet, Lacey feared finding deadly little food bombs: M&M’s in the file cabinet, Twinkies tucked behind the dictionary, handfuls of hard candy in the pencil drawer. And recipes, everywhere there were recipes. It was too frightening to consider.
Lacey turned away, picked up her copy of
The Eye,
and read her column.
CRIMES OF FASHION
The Well Dressed Criminal—Armed in Armani?
by Lacey Smithsonian
We knew it all along. Even criminals follow a dress code. Most people are bound in some small way to wear the garb of their chosen profession. So it is with the bad guys too. Our clothing tells stories about us.
Perhaps our lessons are informed by Hollywood. We all know that cat burglars wear black, old-time gangsters wear pinstripes with dark shirts, and jewel thieves are immaculately groomed in evening dress. And, of course, don’t white-collar criminals wear white collars? The street pimp wears flash and gold chains, the prostitute hot pants and cruel heels. If it is true that clothes make the man, does the crime of fashion make the criminal?
Bentley’s Boutique on Wisconsin Avenue was robbed this week by three overdressed bandits, one of them an attractive woman wearing Chanel. The men were apparently armed in Armani. What the salespeople did not expect was that the chic-looking thieves who robbed the boutique of more than a million bucks in jewelry and other sundries turned out to be low-class vicious thugs....
The fashion beat, Mac once told her, was her oyster. She could do with it what she liked. Lacey retrieved Mimi’s picture of the three young women from her purse and placed it in front of her. Next to it she placed the pictures of Esme. At the moment she liked the connection of Esme and Gloria—and the Bentleys. Esme was ambitious, trying to boost herself to another level. As far as Lacey was concerned, the jury was still out on Gloria Adams.
Obsessed lying stalker or wronged woman?
She opened one of the letters from Gloria that she had brought with her.
Dear Mims,
March 17, 1942
Mother is still mad at me for moving here. She says factory girls have bad reputations and there are plenty of office jobs in Washington, although she really thinks the only respectable work for a woman is teaching. When I tell her I’m not really a factory girl and I have bigger plans, she says I’m a fool. She doesn’t think clothes are important. Well, neither did Adam and Eve, but they found out!
Every time I see someone walking down the street their clothes tell me stories. I can tell who’s a nurse, who stays at home with her baby, who’s a factory girl, who’s up to no good, who’s got a dream that’s a little too big for whatever shabby uniform she’s got to wear to the factory.
My mother said I was crazy and you don’t get ahead by dreaming. But you know, Mims, I think you have to dream or you go crazy. You always believed I could design wonderful clothes, and I’ll always be grateful for that.
See you in the funny papers!
Your Glory
There couldn’t be many people left after sixty years who had known any of the principals in the Gloria Adams story, but she might know one or two. There was Duffy, Frank Duffy, Mimi’s old boyfriend, or whatever you called someone you lived with for years without benefit of marriage. Her family pretended not to know, and Duffy would move out temporarily when Mimi’s relations came to town, to “keep up appearances.” Lacey caught on to the affair early one morning during a summer visit when she was a teenager. She looked out her window to see Frank kissing Mimi good-bye and getting in his car. If anyone would know more about Mimi’s past, it would be Frank Duffy.
Although she hadn’t kept in close contact after Mimi died, Lacey was fond of Frank. He’d moved to Frederick, Maryland, a few years ago, where he hooked up with an amorous and possessive widow. Lacey exchanged Christmas cards with him, but now she picked up the phone. Duffy was surprised when she called, but he said he would be delighted to see her. They made a lunch date for the next day, Saturday. His lady friend was making a shopping trip to New York with some gal pals and he was on his own.
The other possibility was that “Honey” (Mrs. Phillip) Martin, who lived in Georgetown when the “Three Musketeers” photo was taken, was still alive.
By now she might be “Honey” Zimmerman and long since deceased,
Lacey realized,
but you gotta start somewhere.
She ran Web searches on several variations on the names and came up with a couple of thousand leads. But only a handful were local. On her deceptively logical principle of “look in the easy places first,” she ruled out any lead that was too far out of the Beltway.
Plenty of time to comb the earth later.
After a couple of false starts, she got lucky and found that a Mrs. Phillip (Honey) Martin had moved to Cleveland Park, only a mile or two from Georgetown.
Lacey sat before the screen, a little dumbfounded at finding her presumed quarry alive and living not five miles away after sixty years.
It’s that weird small-town Washington effect,
she thought.
It’s a sprawling metropolis and a bunch of little villages, and it’s the most transient place on earth—except for all the people who never leave.
Lacey called Mrs. Martin, introduced herself, mentioned that her great-aunt was Mimi Smith, and was promptly invited to tea that afternoon. Mrs. Phillip Martin was indeed “Honey,” the third Musketeer.
Lacey waved to Mac, caught a taxi to the very verdant and upscale neighborhood, and was charmed by Honey Martin’s pale yellow-and-white three-story house. A round turret overlooked the front walk, which was flanked by two handsome magnolias and a hedge of holly.
Honey opened the door herself, even though a housekeeper was bustling about. Following brief introductions, she ushered Lacey into her lush garden, where they enjoyed a view of a host of climbing roses, pots of mums in a riot of colors, and beds of autumn flowers. Honey was happy for the company, she said. She had lost her husband the previous year and missed him terribly. Her children were trying to persuade her to move into a senior residence, but she would have none of it.
“Can you imagine? They want to lock me up in the suburbs. They’ll have to wait until after I lose my mind completely. Not before.” Honey had lively brown eyes and short curly white hair. Her skin was thoroughly lined and parchment white. Full of energy, she seemed younger than her eighty-one years, except for the telltale osteoporosis. Wearing purple slacks, a lilac sweater, and a colorful silk scarf wrapped around her neck, she looked like a slightly withered flower in her own garden, perhaps an old-fashioned tea rose. Silver drop earrings and a large emerald-cut diamond set in platinum were her only jewelry. She mentioned that she had lost touch with Mimi over the years. Their lives had grown in different directions and she was sorry for it.
“I can see the resemblance. Yes, about the mouth and the chin. And your carriage too,” Honey said. A look of puzzlement crossed her face; then her eyes lit with enjoyment. “Weren’t you involved in some shocking events at one of those fashion shows sometime back? You didn’t kill someone, did you? No, no, I remember, it was the young man who was the killer; you just stuck a fork in him.”
Lacey nodded, not knowing quite what to say. “Scissors, actually.”
“Now I remember.” Honey’s laugh crackled. “Mimi would have loved that. I do believe she would like that dress you’re wearing too. She was quite the clotheshorse.”
“Thank you. It’s vintage.”
“All the rage, I’ve heard. And perfect for tea. Now, where is my Ruby?” As she spoke, a woman in her sixties came bustling out the door into the garden, a very handsome light-skinned black woman with a bouffant hairdo.
“I’m coming. Don’t wrinkle your underpants.” The woman wore a yellow sweatshirt and blue jeans. Lacey introduced herself to the woman. “How do. It’s nice to know that someone has some manners around here.”
“There’s nothing I can do about her, Lacey; she’s been with me for the last thirty years.”
“Thirty-
five
years and no dental plan.” Ruby showed her perfect teeth.
“She thinks she runs my life, ” Honey lamented.
Ruby set down a tray with two tall iced teas and slices of nut bread. “I do run her life. Now you just holler if you need anything. She doesn’t know where anything goes in this house.” The woman gave Honey an indulgent look. “Don’t forget to take your pill, Honey.”
“Cholesterol or some damn thing.” She swallowed it with a gulp of tea. “What can I say? She cooks like an angel. Now, why do you want to talk to an old woman like me?”
“There’s so much about Mimi that I don’t know—I thought perhaps you might have some answers.” Lacey produced the “Three Musketeers” photograph and handed it over. “Do you recognize this photograph?”
Honey’s hands trembled slightly and her face softened as she took it. “Oh, yes, I do. We were so young. So alive,” she whispered. “So full of promise. So long ago.”
“What can you tell me about that day?”
“There were several days like that.” She turned the photo over, then turned it back. “Would you look at that hairdo? I suppose I thought that looked clever.” In the picture Honey’s hair was braided and crossed over her head, rather like a milkmaid’s, with a flower tucked into it. Mimi’s was pulled back and tied with a scarf, and Gloria’s was wild, perhaps from the humidity. “We called ourselves the Three Musketeers, not terribly original.”
“Was it a special occasion?”
“Well, let me think.” Honey closed her eyes for a moment. “Phillip was in the Navy then, and I missed him so. Mimi used to keep my spirits up with impromptu picnics. We would wrap up some sandwiches and pack a thermos of coffee and off we’d go. We’d catch a ride to the park. Gloria came down once or twice to visit her family. This must have been around Easter. Yes, you see, the dogwoods are in bloom.”
“Who took the picture?”
Honey looked up and blinked. “I have no idea. You don’t expect me to remember, after sixty years?”

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