Grave Apparel (20 page)

She might
have
turned on her heel at this
tacky
spectacle,
but
Vic
was
holding her tight and trying not to chuckle too hard.
Trujillo
laughed until he had to sit
down,
Wiedemeyer
thought it
was
hilarious, and the skit
hadn’t
even
begun
yet. Felicity
was
frozen where she stood,
like
a deer in the headlights.

The trio of sportswriters indulged in a little Three Stooges style slapstick squabbling. “Cassandra”
whacked
the other
two
over
the head with her giant pencil. Then
they
joined hands and danced and sang a
medley
of customized Christmas carols, in
cluding
“Away
in
a Blazer,”
“Here
We
Come
ANeedling,”
“Have
Yourself
a
Fattening
Little
Cookie,”
and “Who Dressed
Ye,
Merry
Gentlemen?”
It
ended
in
a
threeway
slapdown,
until “Santa
Claude,”
a grouchy Santa
figure
in a loud plaid
suit,
obviously
meant
to
be
Mac
Jones,
showed
up.
Santa
kicked
their
butts
off
the stage and
threw
miniature candy canes to the audience.

The
crowd
roared. All
but
Smithsonian and Pickles.

“It could
have
been
worse,”
Vic
consoled
her.

“Yes,
it could
have
been
worse.”
They
could
have
beaten
each
other
bloody
with
giant
candy
canes.
Lacey’s
face
was
burning
with embarrassment.

“You
looked the best,
Lacey,
even
in
drag,”
Trujillo
said.

Linda Sue agreed.

A roomful of eyes were on
Lacey.
The Not Ready for K Street Players, still in costume,
bustled
over
to much applause on their
illfitting
high heels with a
staff
photographer,
to
have
their
pictures
taken
with
Lacey
and
Felicity.
Lacey
tried
to
smile
graciously,
but
her
face
hurt from the
effort.
The stage
was
being set for the
next
skit.
Lacey
looked
to
Vic
for help.

In the
next
room
they
could hear the band playing a
slow
blues
number.
Lacey
glanced longingly
toward
the music. The laughing
crowd
couldn’t
reach her there.

“Want
to dance?”
Vic
said.

“What took you so long,
cowboy?”

He took her hand and led her to the dance
floor.
This
would
be their
first
real dance, she realized, at least the
first
one in public, since a brief
but
memorable turn on a dance floor in Sagebrush, Colorado, one
New
Year’s
Eve.
That dance ended in a kiss that had haunted her for years, and it
was
the last time she had seen
Vic
until he
unexpectedly
reappeared in her life this spring. It had
taken
a long time for them to become a cou
ple,
and
then
a
long
time
to
overcome
their
“issues.”
Now
Lacey wasn’t
about to let a single
invitation
to dance get
away.
He held her tight, one hand on her
waist
and the other hold ing her hand. He brushed her
fingers
with a kiss. She
swayed
to the music,
following
him
effortlessly.
Vic
made it all so
easy.

“You’ve
done this
before,”
she said.

“I’m a man of
many
talents.
Didn’t
you
know?”
“I’m still
finding
out.”

The
band
played
some
lovely slow
songs
from
the
early
Frank Sinatra playbook.
Lacey
and
Vic
danced without speak ing. Other couples made more of a
show
on the dance
floor,
but
Lacey
was
content
just
to
hold
him
and
inhale
his
familiar
aroma
of
spice
and
cloves.
She
willed
herself
to
forget
the
awful
skit and the rest of the
evening,
everything
except
being held by
Vic
Donovan.
But the picture of the little shepherd
boy
in the
alley
kept
popping into her head. She sighed.

“You
thinking about the skit?” He held her
closer.

“Trying not to. I’m thinking about the kid. What was
he
doing in the
alley?”

“Lacey,
a
boy
doesn’t
need
an
excuse
to
be
in
an
alley.
Goes
with being a
boy.
You
said he
was
wearing a costume?”

“A
shepherd’s
robe. An escapee from a school
Christmas
pageant?
Maybe
a
church
Nativity
scene?”
She
gazed
up
at
him.
“Would
a
boy
run
away
from that?
Would
you?”

“As
fast
as I could, if I had to wear a costume. So tell me where
there’s
a Christmas pageant in that neighborhood?”

“Beats
me.
There’s
a
couple
of
churches,
but
it’s
not
a
homey
neighborhood,”
she said. Eye Street at
Farragut
Square in the District
wasn’t
a neighborhood full of children. It
was
all
business,
only a block from K Street, the heart of
D.C.’s
finan
cial
and
legal
district.
Lacey
rarely
saw
children
on
the
street
there.

“And
yuppie parents here don’t let their kids out of
their
sight, let alone roam the city after
dark,”
Vic
said. “Of course, boys generally will
find
a way to get
off
the leash. Back
in
Sagebrush, that
boy’d
be shooting up street
signs.”

“He called for help. Seemed
like
a nice kid. Pretty mature,
e
xce
p
t.
.
.”

“Except what?”

“He
wouldn’t
tell me his
name.”

“So the kid
didn’t
want
to get into trouble. He
wasn’t
sup posed to be
there.”

“He accused me of asking a lot of
questions.”
“Imagine that.
You,
asking a lot of
questions.”
“Are
you making fun of me,
Vic?’

“Not me,
honey.”
He swung her around, then brought her back smoothly to his arms. “In my professional opinion, this
boy’s
behavior
is consistent with being a
boy.”

Lacey
saw
Tony
and Linda Sue
take
to the dance
floor.
Ap parently the skits
next
door
hadn’t
kept
their attention
either.
Wiedemeyer
was
trying
valiantly
to cheer up a tearful
Felicity.
His musical antlers were bobbing back and forth
like
a
fool’s
cap.

“So,
boys
will be
boys,
Vic?
What about the cops calling the kid a suspect?”

“I
trust
you.
If
he
was
part
of
the
attack,
why
hang
around?
Calling the kid a suspect sounds
like
an
overworked
detective
going a little too much by the book. But
don’t
worry,
they’ll
probably
never
find
the
boy
anyway.
Kids are hard to
find.”

Lacey
leaned
against
his
shoulder.
The
adrenaline
that
had
kept
her wired all night had dissipated and she suddenly felt
exhausted.

“I’m not going to get
involved
with this one,
Vic.”
“Sure
you’re
not,
Lacey.”

“Really.
I’m not kidding. I
don’t
even
like
Cassandra
Went
worth.”

“Right.”
He
held
her
close
and
dipped
her
gently
to
the
music.

“And
I can hardly stand Felicity Pickles, and she
can’t
stand
me.
We
simply
detest
each
other
quietly
now.
So
why
should
I get
involved?”
Lacey
wasn’t
sure she
was
convincing
herself, much less
Vic.
She spun under his arm. “So
really,
Vic,
I’m not
going
to
have
anything
to
do
with
this—”
She
caught
her
breath. “This incident in the
alley.
I
don’t
care if one of them at
tacked
the
other
one,
I
don’t
even
care
who
hit
whom
and
why
and
who
saw
what
and
why
the
boy
was in
the
alley
and
where
he is
now.
I
don’t
care.”

He brought her back to his arms. “Just who are you trying to
convince,
Lacey?”

“You
don’t
believe
me?”

“You
don’t
believe
yourself.
Why
don’t
I try to
keep
you
busy,
and
we’ll
see
how
much
energy
you
have
left to
investi
gate
with.”