Designer Knockoff (23 page)
She gazed down the hall. Long, lanky Hansen was striding into view with a couple of Nikons hanging around his neck and a bag of film. His scruffy blond hair was in need of a cut. He was wearing his usual blue jeans and oxford-cloth shirt, and some sort of grubby athletic shoes. Lacey ran to the ladies’ room to check her makeup. The red lips startled her, but it went with the hair and the suit. She returned to her desk, where a small crowd had gathered. Trujillo materialized again to watch, and there was Mac, always a fashion heart attack.
Not surprisingly Felicity was also on duty, watching everything. Today Felicity wore some sort of hippie dress that could have been left over from 1967, or brand-new from some catalog. The yards of tie-dyed purple gauze trimmed in purple ribbon had a sort of wistful Ophelia feel to it and would have nicely suited a lovelorn hippie teenager in the Summer of Love. Seeing Felicity wearing a suit and pumps the day before had given Lacey hope that the food editor was climbing the food chain up and out of
The Eye Street Observer
—and out of Lacey’s life. This dress said she was going nowhere. It depressed Lacey.
Probably Felicity too.
The Eye Street Observer
—and out of Lacey’s life. This dress said she was going nowhere. It depressed Lacey.
Probably Felicity too.
“She says she’s going to look different every day,” Mac told Hansen, and raised the old bushy mood indicators over his eyes, daring Lacey to defy him. He was way too amused.
“He doesn’t believe me, does he?” Lacey asked Trujillo.
I’ll really have to do it now.
I’ll really have to do it now.
“I think he’s beginning to see your point.”
“Hansen, could you shoot from my left side, please?” Lacey asked.
Todd Hansen was a news photographer. He didn’t care about his subjects’ good sides and bad sides. He liked to catch people looking silly. He looked through the viewfinder. “Whatever.” He switched sides.
“Bounce that flash so there aren’t any gross shadows. And get up off your knees, buddy, because if you take one frame of me from that angle I guarantee you will never get up again. And Mac, don’t get any ideas; you are not going to put a photo with my column.” They had been wrangling over this idea for months. Hansen snapped off a few shots while she was talking. “I mean it, Hansen. If even one picture bears any resemblance to my congressional press pass, you will suffer.”
“Relax, Lois Lane; you look very cool. Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen, and the rest of the gang are all here to support you in your hour of need,” Trujillo said. “Superman will be here soon to fly you around the
Daily Planet.”
Daily Planet.”
“Smart-ass.” She relaxed and Hansen got his photos. She wished the photographer good luck and told him that if she didn’t get to see the proofs, the whole proofs, and all the proofs, and approve the final choice, she would hunt him down and make him eat his Nikons. Hansen laughed and ambled off to his darkroom.
“Lacey.” Mac settled against her desk. “Now tell me about the story that’s going to piss off Hugh Bentley.”
“Maybe I should just write it first; then you can judge.” Sometimes she had to write out a story and let it make its own point, rather than share an idea that he could squash in an instant.
“The judge is waiting.”
“Esme Fairchild isn’t the first woman involved with the Bentleys who has gone missing.”
“What? Damn it all to hell. When did you find this out?” He stood up straight, all of his six-foot, broad-shouldered presence on full editorial alert.
“Don’t get too excited. It happened sixty years ago. Hugh was involved with this woman before Aaron was even born. It’s just one of those weird-coincidence stories that catch the imagination, with a fashion angle. But her family never got over it. It still haunts them.”
Well, one of them.
Well, one of them.
“Hmmm.” Mac was thinking, but he looked doubtful. His eyebrows were static; they didn’t know which way to jump.
“Think about all the women who disappear from Washington, Mac. What happens to them? Lots of high-profile cases that just trail off. The last one was never solved, although there are plenty of theories. And that woman who was found in the Potomac a couple of years ago? Not even a suspect.”
“You’re thinking we could do something like Washington’s top ten unsolved mysteries?”
It was a good idea. “We might even have to go back a month or two to capture that many,” she said.
“That sounded suspiciously like sarcasm, Smithsonian. The District is not that bad.”
“Right. We almost took back the murder capital title this year, and now the chief of police has declared a state of crime emergency. How is it not that bad? But that would be a big research piece. I’m tapped out, and this Bentley story will take all day.”
Mac gazed around the newsroom looking for an easy mark. He settled on Trujillo and quickly moved off toward him.
Ha. Payback time!
she thought. Before she could get started on her story, however, her phone rang.
Ha. Payback time!
she thought. Before she could get started on her story, however, her phone rang.
“You’re the one who wrote the Esme Fairchild story?” The male voice sounded vaguely familiar.
“Who is this?”
“An affair with a U.S. senator isn’t enough of a motive to kill somebody these days. You’d have to kill half the women on the Hill. And a few of the men.”
“I take it you have a better reason? And a name?” Lacey automatically started typing up what he was telling her.
“For motive try forty million dollars that mysteriously landed in that appropriations bill.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s a madhouse during appropriations. Put that together with any number of people with access to computers where the bills are put together. A clever young intern or staffer could have inserted doctored numbers in the final bill, which was passed without debate, because they’d already talked all the line items to death.” Lacey recalled that despite Senator Dashwood’s assertions that they would find the person behind the additional funding, no one had turned up.
“So all you’re telling me is that pork is everywhere. Pork winds up in just about every appropriation bill. Why is this a motive for murder?”
“Women disappear here. It’s almost routine. Everybody blames it on sex—it’s a boyfriend, a psycho, a serial killer. What’s everybody looking for? A body out in the woods or in the river. What’s everybody
not
looking for? Numbers in a column in a computer file. There are people on the Hill who’d much rather have a bunch of dopey homicide cops poking around than a bunch of smart accountants with a special prosecutor, adding up columns of numbers that don’t match up.”
not
looking for? Numbers in a column in a computer file. There are people on the Hill who’d much rather have a bunch of dopey homicide cops poking around than a bunch of smart accountants with a special prosecutor, adding up columns of numbers that don’t match up.”
“And a dead woman is a pretty easy place to lay the blame for some sort of financial trickery,” Lacey said. “So the same clever person could easily leave a phony trail leading to Esme.”
“Maybe. Sounds like the kind of questions a reporter might ask. If a reporter were asking questions at all.”
“Here’s a question. Who am I talking to?”
“You don’t need to know, and you can’t trace this call,” he said.
Big deal,
she thought.
Like I could trace a call if I wanted
to. The Eye didn’t even have caller ID, anyway. The paper was too cheap to give such a luxury to mere reporters.
she thought.
Like I could trace a call if I wanted
to. The Eye didn’t even have caller ID, anyway. The paper was too cheap to give such a luxury to mere reporters.
“So why would Esme Fairchild mess with that?”
“To please the fashion fat cats who could make it all happen for her.”
“Like Aaron Bentley? Then if the fat cats are happy, why kill her?”
“Dead interns tattle no tales. Try following a road map, if somebody hands it to you.” He was mocking her.
Some days it feels like the national sport.
Some days it feels like the national sport.
“What do you really want?”
“Maybe I’m a troublemaker. I want to see this story break big. On DeadFed.”
“Then call them yourselves. Better yet, e-mail. Tell ’em you’re Deep Throat. They’ll like that.”
“Very funny. It’s better if it comes from a legitimate paper first.”
“Did you call
The Post?
”
The Post?
”
“Give me a break.”
At least he called us legit.
“I think it’s pretty easy to blame a dead girl.”
“I think it’s pretty easy to blame a dead girl.”
“It is, but you’ll be hearing rumors to that effect soon, very soon. Want to be first or last?”
“So, the question is, who is going to scapegoat Esme Fairchild?”
“It’s a start.”
“Why don’t you just tell me that?”
“Maybe I don’t know. Maybe she did it. I’m just passing on information.
Ciao,
Ms. Smithsonian. Use it in good health.”
Ciao,
Ms. Smithsonian. Use it in good health.”
Her caller hung up. Lacey didn’t know what to make of this. It could be partly true and partly the fevered imagination of some paranoid wonk, like many Washington rumors. There are people who love to float rumors in the media, just to see how they play, to see who bites, who sticks her neck out.
Throw us a bone and we all go galumphing after it.
But if this rumor was going to see daylight in the other media, she’d feel like a fool to have missed it. The easiest thing in the world was to blame the victim. Her challenge was how to write it without condemning Esme, who couldn’t defend herself.
Throw us a bone and we all go galumphing after it.
But if this rumor was going to see daylight in the other media, she’d feel like a fool to have missed it. The easiest thing in the world was to blame the victim. Her challenge was how to write it without condemning Esme, who couldn’t defend herself.
When she contacted the staff spokesman for the Appropriations Subcommittee to check on the status of the so-far-informal inquiry into the forty-million-dollar mistake, he admitted that Esme Fairchild would have been a target for questioning, but so were two dozen other committee staffers and interns, not to mention the senators and their own staffers and interns. A call to Marcia Robinson revealed nothing new. Or as Marcia said, “Of course Esme could have figured out how to do that. I mean, duh. She crunched all the numbers for my Web site. But I totally don’t think she did it. I mean, she told me everything. Or at least she told me a lot. She told me all the really important stuff, like who she was sleeping with.”
A call to Tyler Stone told her that no one wanted to comment, but she persisted. “Did Esme have anything to do with inputting those figures into the appropriations bill?”
“It appears she was too busy sleeping around to do that,” Tyler responded before hanging up.
By the time she got off the phone, the police had confirmed that the remains found in Huntley Meadows were those of Esme Fairchild. The dental records matched. Lacey finally wrote what she could, noting that rumors were expected to fly about Esme’s possible involvement in tampering with figures in an appropriations bill. It was bound to cause trouble.
The vultures are gathering around the bones of a woman who no longer can defend herself...
she wrote.
she wrote.
Lacey sent what she had along to Trujillo. Thus freed from the burden of the ugly Washington rumor of the day, she felt free to return to her story on Gloria Adams and Esme Fairchild. There were similarities: Both were ambitious, both wanted a career in fashion, both slept with the boss. But Gloria’s story was unfinished, and Esme’s was finished all too soon. Where did they converge? She was getting nowhere fast when Brooke called.
“Hey, we didn’t get a chance to talk. So why don’t I pick you up? You didn’t drive, did you?”
“No, the Z’s in the shop again. Oil change and inspection sticker.”
“Great, I’ll pick you up. How’s sevenish?”
The loading zone in front of
The Eye
held Brooke’s slate-gray Acura. Lacey opened the door and sank gratefully into the deep leather seat and fastened the seat belt. “Thanks for the lift, Brooke. I’m wasted.”
The Eye
held Brooke’s slate-gray Acura. Lacey opened the door and sank gratefully into the deep leather seat and fastened the seat belt. “Thanks for the lift, Brooke. I’m wasted.”
“No prob. Whoa, what happened to you? Hair and lips, I mean. Wait, don’t tell me. Stella happened. Now what? Don’t tell me.” Brooke slipped into Q&A mode as she pulled into late-rush-hour traffic on I Street and headed toward Fourteenth and the bridge to Virginia. “Does it have anything to do with past-life regression? Were you Veronica Lake in a previous life?”
“No, this is not Veronica Lake hair. Watch where you’re going.”
“Okay, what about that strange gypsy psychic woman? The imposing one who dresses in veils?”
“Marie Largesse? No.”
Brooke looked confused. “Are you in a play at a theatre I’m not familiar with?”
Lacey checked her image in the mirror on the visor. “You don’t like it?”
“I like it! It’s just so, you know,
Out of the Past.
Wait, is it so retro-nouveau that I’m not even up to date yet?” Brooke looked so seriously concerned that Lacey laughed.
Out of the Past.
Wait, is it so retro-nouveau that I’m not even up to date yet?” Brooke looked so seriously concerned that Lacey laughed.
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