Grave Apparel (22 page)

“I’ll
find
out when he
calls.”
She joined
Vic
in the kitchen. “What a
night.”

“You
worried
about Felicity?
She’s
a big
girl,”
Vic
said, stir ring the hot chocolate.
“That’s
not what I meant. She is a pretty
big
girl,
but
you
know
what
I
mean.
She
can
take
care
of
herself.”

“Yeah,
all
she
has
to
do
is
start
cooking
again.
She’ll
have
the entire
newsroom
wrapped around her hot cinnamon
buns
in
no time.
They’ll
start
a
legal
defense
fund
just
to
save
her
buns
from
prison.”
Lacey
laughed.

“Lacey,
I
can’t
believe
we’re
talking about
anyone’s
buns
but
yours.”
He
drew
her
toward
him for a kiss, and then poured hot chocolate into
two
mugs and topped them
off
with a squirt of whipped cream. He made her sit
down
on her
velvet
sofa
to sip some chocolate and unwind.
Lacey
was
finding
it hard to
concentrate
on
anything
but
Vic.
Not
even
his
delicious
hot
chocolate
was
distracting
her.

“Okay,
Vic.
No more
buns.
For
the moment.
Let’s
solve
the crime right
now,
so I can stop thinking about it, okay? Felicity could
have
done it, right? She
was
missing in action this after noon. She
doesn’t
have
much of an alibi. She
was
angry.
She
could
have
waited
for
Cassandra
and
attacked
her.”
Lacey
sipped and
Vic
licked
the cream
off
her lips. “Wrapping her up in the Christmas sweater
would
have
been stupid and
obvious,
but
like
you
say,
people do stupid
obvious
things all the time. She
even
had a
motive,
although I
know
how
you cops hate that
nebulous
concept.”

“It all
fits.
Nice, neat,
obvious,
and
possible,”
he said.
“And
Felicity had a big
obvious
motive.
Cops
like
obvious.”
Lacey
slurped
her
hot
chocolate
again
and
murmured
with
pleasure.
“You’re
making
those
little
‘ummm’
noises,”
Vic
said.
He
smiled his
wolfish
smile. A gentlemanly
wolf,
she thought.

“Ummm.”
She smiled back.
“You’ve
made hot chocolate be fore,
haven’t
you?”

“Once or twice. Good for what ails you, my mamma
always
says.”

“I
know
what else is good for what ails
me.”
She set the cup
down
and slid onto his lap. She put her arms around his neck.
“I
could
do
that
‘ummm’
thing
again.
Lots
of
ummms.
Big
ummms.”

“Ummm
yourself,”
Vic
said, and that
was
the last time
any
one mentioned Felicity or Cassandra until morning.

“Scotland the
Brave”
filled
the air with the sound of bagpipes and drums, announcing the start of the Scottish
Walk,
the an
nual
parade
that
opened
the
Christmas
season
in
Old
Town
Alexandria,
Virginia.

This
event
was always
on
Lacey’s
calendar and she
was
de lighted to
find
it was
now
on
Vic’s
as well, though she
sus
pected he would be there partly to ride herd on his
security
agents,
watching
over
some of the
valuable
vintage cars fea tured in the
Walk.
He and
Lacey
arrived
well before it started, and
they
strolled up and
down
several
blocks before
finding
the right spot.

“You’re
just
casing
the
place,
aren’t
you?”
she
asked.
“You’re
on the clock today?”

“You’re
a
very
suspicious
woman,
you
know
that?”
Vic
took
her
hand
and
kissed
her
fingers.
“Just
making
sure
we
can
see
everything.
You
don’t
want
to
miss
the
cute
little
Scottie
terriers
in
their
cute little
kilts,
do you?”

Alexandria was
founded by Scots in the middle of the eigh teenth
century,
long before that upstart village
known
as
Wash
ington,
D.C.,
was
ever
carved
out
of
the
swamp
across
the
Potomac. That Scottish heritage
was
honored by the city with a
gathering
of
the
clans
from
up
and
down
the
East
Coast
every
year on the
first
Saturday of December for the Scottish
Walk.
Dozens of tartanclad clans took
over
the streets of Old
Town
in
full
regalia
and
colorful
kilts
with
pipes
and
drums.
Step
dancers and pipe bands in kilts (and sometimes Santa
caps)
marched in formation up and
down
streets named King, Queen, and
Duke,
St. Asaph and Pitt and
Fairfax,
all lined with colonial
townhouses.

The
Scottish
connection
also
mustered
a
host
of
St.
An
drews
societies and the Lord
Provost
of the City of Dundee, Scotland,
Alexandria’s
sister
city.
This
wasn’t
the parade for Shriners in
tiny
cars and
clowns
(that
was
the
George
Washing
ton’s
Birthday parade in February), although in a similar
vein
it did feature local politicians from the city of
Alexandria
and the Commonwealth of
Virginia.
A sitting U.S. Senator
from
Virginia
was
occasionally called upon to
serve
as Grand Mar
shal.
These
visiting
dignitaries
waved
to
the
crowd
grandly
from vintage automobiles. Some
even
walked in the
parade,
gamely
taking
to
the
street
among
the
bagpipers
and
high
school marching bands. And dogs.

The parade was full of dogs of
every
breed with any
imag
inable
kind
of
Scottish
connection:
Scottish
terriers,
cairn
terriers, Dandie Dinmont terriers, Scottish deerhounds,
shel
ties,
Westies,
Airedales, border collies, and seemingly
every
sheepdog on the East Coast, not to mention a gaggle of grey hounds. Some of the canines were
even
putting on the dog
in
their kilts and tamo’shanters and the occasional Santa
cap.

The
sky
was
a brilliant blue and the day promised perfect
parade
weather,
just
cool
enough
to
require
a
jacket.
Lacey
wore
a plaid
shawl
over
her forest green
jacket
and congratu
lated
herself
for
looking
so
festively
Scottish.
Vic
wore
his
usual jeans, black
sweater,
and black leather jacket,
looking
handsome as
ever.
She
loved
looking at him, and he hugged her close to him.

Lacey and
Vic
and their fellow commoners on St.
Asaph
Street
had
their
choice
of
watching
the
Scottish
Walk
or
gazing
into the
windows
of the grand
townhomes,
where parties of
ex
pensively
groomed
people
turned
out
in
plaids
and
Brooks
Brothers
jackets
to
gaze
down
on
the
clans
and
the
hoi
polloi,
champagne flutes in their manicured hands. The
Donovans
had a
fair
share of Scottish blood and
Vic’s
parents usually attended
one
such
party
in
one
of
the
elegant
colonial
homes
on
St.
Asaph.

“Will
we be seeing your folks?”

“Nah, I’m sparing you that pleasure, for the moment.
We’ll
be with them tonight at the
concert.”

Lacey
was
a little disappointed that she
wouldn’t
get to see the inside of one of those
gorgeous
homes.
She’d
have
to
wait
for the
annual
house
and garden
tour.

“You’ll
thank me,
really,”
Vic
broke
into her thoughts.
“Why
is that?”

“Nadine heard about the incident behind your
building
last night. She
would
have
devoured
you with questions
today.
She will tonight. Brace yourself,
babe.”