Hostile Makeover (20 page)

“You’ve met Mac, then.”
Wonderful. The two of them would make a great song-and-dance team.

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t read your newspaper. There are so many I have to skip reading before yours. Generally I start my day by not reading
The New York Times
; then I don’t read
The Washington Post
, and I certainly don’t read
The Washington Times,
except occasionally. You can see that I hardly have time to not read
The Eye Street Observer
.”

“Yeah, it could fill your day, not reading all those papers. How can you tell when you’re done?” He made no move to open the front door, so she did.

“I gotta ask you one thing, Smithsonian. You got a yen for weird-ass situations, or what?”

“Referring to what exactly?”

He held the front door for her and followed her in. “Putting yourself in harm’s way. That Razor Boy character last spring who killed those hairstylists? And messing around with the Bentleys on that missing intern? Esme Fairchild, just last month. I know you had a hand in catching the guy, but anyone ever tell you that this stuff is dangerous? Going around stabbing people with sword canes? That’s a nasty weapon. We don’t see too many of those on the street, I’ll tell you.”

“Self-defense.”

“I’m not arguing the point. You ever take up fencing?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should start.”

Lacey wondered. She always liked those dashing fencing outfits they wore. “Fashion is a tough beat, Detective. Not for sissies. At least here at
The Eye
.” She hit the elevator button. “I write ‘Crimes of Fashion.’ Some people just take it more literally than others.”

“So I hear. Mac Jones is a font of information,” he said, as if that were big news.

“Yeah, in seventy-two point type.” She never knew what Mac would say about her.
The tattletale.

“Says you’re trouble, but decent fashion reporters are hard to find. I understand the last one died at her desk. Another fashion-related death?”

“It was natural causes, or so they say. And if you must know, Douglas MacArthur Jones is stingy with praise. Editors are like that.” The doors opened up on her floor. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

“Take my advice, Smithsonian. On behalf of the Metropolitan Police Department, I’d like to encourage you to stay the hell out of this one. You’ve been lucky so far—you haven’t been killed, maimed, or kidnapped—but your luck can change. Reporters tend to think they’re indestructible, but it ain’t necessarily so.”

Lacey was tired of people telling her what to do and what not to do. She strode to her desk in the newsroom in a hurry, the big detective in lumbering pursuit. Felicity Pickles intercepted them in the aisle, a plate full of hot apple tarts in her hands. Broadway Lamont brightened considerably at the aroma.

“Try one, Lacey,” Felicity said. “Down Home Barbecue on U Street gave them to me. I’m running the recipe this week.” The tarts’ crusts were glazed and topped with a dusting of sugar. They looked sinful enough to tempt a saint, but Lacey declined.

“Sorry, I just ate something. Really.”

Felicity also offered one to Lamont. “Please help yourself,” she simpered to the detective.

Lacey noticed Lamont eyeing them. “Go ahead; she lives for the attention. Felicity Pickles, food editor.” To Felicity she said, “This is Detective Broadway Lamont from the Metropolitan Police Department.”

“Oh, Lacey, are you in trouble again?” Felicity asked, and the detective laughed, a booming guffaw that made people stare.

Lacey turned her back on this heartwarming little scene, flung her purse into her bottom desk drawer, and waited for Broadway Lamont to focus on whatever he wanted to tell her. She had to listen to several big “mmms,” some lip smacking, and Felicity’s fawning and giggling.

“Do you really like them? Are you sure there’s enough cinnamon?” Felicity urged a second tart on the big man and they seemed to share a warm moment.
Perhaps a spark?
It would take a lot of food to feed Broadway Lamont. But Felicity, no doubt, would be up to the task. “I’m so glad you like them. Here, take one for dessert tonight.”

Gag me.
Lacey turned back in time to see Harlan Wiedemeyer duck behind a cubicle, witness the cozy scene between the object of his affections and this huge unknown stranger, and slink away dejected. But Harlan wasn’t her concern at the moment, and she had to butt in to retrieve the detective’s attention. “Did you want something else, or was the friendly warning the gist of your trip?”

Lamont swallowed the last of the tarts and wiped his hands on a napkin offered by Miss Felicity Pickles. “Here’s the gist. We found your car, a 1983 Nissan 280ZX, silver and burgundy? No plates. Matched the VIN number, though.”

“What? My car? Oh, my God. Is it okay? Where? When can I get it?” She held her breath, trying not to sound too excited.

He put out one long arm of the law. “Hold on a minute.” He grabbed a nearby chair, the one in which the former fashion editor, Mariah “the Pariah” Morgan, had died, pulled out his notebook, and sat down. “They found it behind the Source Theatre on Fourteenth Street, in the alley. Funky neighborhood.” He paused and rubbed his chin. “And ‘okay’ is not the word I’d use for it. It was stripped.”

“Stripped? As in . . . ?” She fought the vision of her poor Z stripped.

“Wheels, stereo, the usual. It’s a parts car now.”

And so fate delivers another dropkick in the head.
Lacey was a little dizzy and a lot upset. She had to sit down. She couldn’t talk; she merely looked at him, hoping for it all to be a bad dream.

“And no, you can’t have it back yet.”

“When?” She tried to contemplate a fitting burial.

“Couldn’t say, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. If I were you, I’d just call the insurance and total it.”

She sucked in some air and tried to shake the cotton from her skull. “Was it used in the attack on Amanda Manville?” She hoped fervently that it wasn’t. But she knew it was. Why? Sheer implausible coincidence? The Wiedemeyer Effect? Or some sick bastard deliberately entrapping her in this mess?

“It’s been impounded, and crime-scene forensics are gonna take a look, see if it was the shooter’s car. Might be prints, powder, shells, receipts, body fluids, all sorts of good stuff.”

“My poor little Z.”

“Just be glad it was your car and not you that got roughed up. But somebody finds your car, they can find you, so watch your back.” She didn’t respond. “Cheer up, Smithsonian. I’m leaving now.” He made no move to go.

“You’re not going to tell me what to write? Or what not to write?”

“Does that work?” He looked at her with interest.

“No, just asking. Some people don’t feel the conversation is finished until they tell me how to do my job.”

“I suppose that means you’re going to spill your guts in this rag.”

“So to speak.”

He shrugged his giant shoulders. “I’ll try not to read it. At least you’re not
The Post.
It’s harder to avoid.”

“Nice backhanded slap, Lamont,” she said.

He rose from the seat and loomed over her. “I’ll show myself out. Y’all stay safe.” He paused next to Felicity’s cubicle, and Felicity was instantly back on full boil. “And if you think of anything else, call me. I’m a good listener.” He walked a few more steps. “Even the off-the-wall stuff you write about. Guess you call it fashion clues, Smithsonian.”

“You don’t think they’re crazy?”

“Sure I do. Lots of things are crazy. I hear crazy shit daily. But whatever works.” He left with a hint of a smile on his face and an apple tart wrapped in a napkin from Felicity Pickles.

Lacey whirled around to her computer and contemplated what to write about the late Amanda. She typed the words,
“I don’t want to die.” Those words were nearly the last thing Amanda Manville said to me.
But just then the office mail cart came by, and it turned out that Lacey was wrong. The mail brought another wrinkle, a letter from the dead model, written the day before, perhaps just hours before Amanda was gunned down in Dupont Circle. The letter was almost an apology—almost, but not quite. Apologies were apparently not Amanda’s style. Lacey held the paper up to the light. It looked like there were tearstains on the light-blue stationery that bore a watermark of Amanda’s interlaced initials.

Damn!
Lacey thought.
How do I duck a promise when a dead woman begs for my help?

Chapter 16

Lacey highlighted the single line she had typed and hit Delete. Tapping Amanda’s letter in her hand, she wondered what to make of this. There was no question now of giving up. Besides, she always needed to know how the story ended. But where could she start? Was this evidence that would interest the police? She read the letter again. Broadway Lamont might be interested in it, and he would tell her again to stay the hell out of it. Lacey slowly smiled and remembered that Mac was fond of telling her to trust her editor. This was the kind of sticky situation in which she found that advice valuable: passing the buck.

Lacey approached Mac with the letter in one hand and grabbed one of Felicity’s tarts to offer him, in case he had a bad reaction. She handed both the letter and the tart to him without a word. He read it silently and glanced up at her. “You’ve still got that trouble-magnet thing, don’t you? Go make copies of this for us. The original will go to the police. We’re going to cooperate with them on this. As much as possible. Don’t step on their toes—that’s Tony’s job—but stay on it.” Lacey smiled and said nothing. Mac turned his attention to the tart, and she exited for the copy machine. He was munching away when she returned and slipped the Manville letter and a copy on his desk. She returned to her own desk with a copy of her own.

Her brain was as blank as her computer screen, but luckily she was distracted. Her cell phone rang inside her purse, inside her bottom desk drawer, surprising her with a call from Gary Braddock, an FBI agent with whom she had dealt before. He had recently rescued a pair of her shoes—insanely expensive shoes, purchased in a fit of madness—and saved them from a fate worse than death; an FBI evidence locker. After a brief hello, he said, “Broadway Lamont is one of the good guys, Lacey. Be nice to him.”

“Word travels fast, Agent Braddock.”

“What kind of agent would I be if I hadn’t heard about your latest adventure?” He chuckled. “Besides, you’re all over DeadFed dot com. Part of my daily fringe pseudonews diet.”

“It’s not exactly my adventure. And Lamont’s not the lead investigator on this case.”

“No. But he’s the smart one.”

“You don’t care for the lead investigator, Detective Steve Rogers?” Lacey knew only that the lead detective on Amanda’s investigation was by reputation a flashy dresser. She hadn’t dealt with him.

“The Bureau does not comment, but off the record—”

“You can tell me, Braddock.”

“He’s an arrogant bastard who couldn’t crack a case with a crowbar. Looks good on TV, though.”

“Are you working on the case?”

“Not yet. No jurisdiction. We’re waiting to be asked for our help. And that is not a quote.”

“When will that happen?”

“When the case goes unsolved for so long that it gets embarrassing and dead cold and next to impossible to solve.”

“So why are you calling me?”

“Little bird told me you’re in it up to your neck. Did Manville really ask for your help?”

Amanda’s letter was just about burning up in her hand. “You can read all about it tomorrow. But between you and me and very shortly the Metropolitan Police Department, she sent me a letter to that effect.”

“When?”

“After I interviewed her and before she got killed. It arrived in the mail today.”

“Interesting. I’ll keep that in mind if we catch the case. Be safe, Smithsonian.” He paused, then added, “I mean that. You know how you are with sharp implements.”

“Someone’s always got to be a wise guy,” she said.

He hung up laughing, no doubt clipping his cell phone back on his belt, one of four she remembered he carried there. She made a batch of phone calls and left a message on Zoe Manville’s voice mail, asking for a few minutes of her time.

As for the possible stalker, John Henry Tyler, she found his Web site again. It hadn’t been updated for a week; however, there was an e-mail address. Lacey wrote a brief message saying she knew he had been questioned and that she saw him spit at the dying Amanda. She offered him a chance to tell his side of the story and left her office e-mail address and phone number.