Grave Apparel (24 page)

Lacey
turned to
Brooke.
“What
word
do you people use for
no
in your parallel
universe?”

Brooke
leaned in close, ignoring her in the same blithe
way
Damon had mastered.
“You
need to be careful,
Lacey.
From this attack on
Wentworth,
it looks
like
someone is going after reporters. I can get you a
Taser
cheap.
I’d
tell you to just get a Glock nine
millimeter,
but
you’d
be a little dangerous with a
gun.”

“One editorial writer getting assaulted in an
alley
does not
make
a
vendetta
against
reporters!
And
I
don’t
need
a
gun
to
be
dangerous,
Brooke.
Tell
Damon
that.”

“You’ve
been
lucky
so
far,
Lacey,
but
one of these days—” “I
always
have
you to bail me out,
Brooke.”

“That’s
true.”
Brooke
changed direction. “So
what’s
your theory then? About this madman in the
alley?”

“I
don’t
have
a
theory,”
Lacey
said. “The
fact
is, Cassandra
Wentworth
is a pill, she
aggravates
everybody,
and somebody
attacked
her.
And that is not a quote,
Damon.”

“It’s
personal then?” he
asked.

“Could be. Or
not.”
Lacey
craned her neck to see
over
the
crowd.
Another tartanclad pipe and drum band marched by in formation.
“Have
you seen
Vic
anywhere?”

“Cassandra
Wentworth
is an editorial writer?”
Brooke
said. “Oh, she
couldn’t
be the same one who wrote that nasty Christ mas sweater editorial? The one
everyone
thought you wrote?
Even
my mother
was
upset with you. I told her of course you
didn’t
write it, it
didn’t
have
your flair and it
was
utterly humor less so it
couldn’t
be you,
but
she
was
hard to
convince.
She is the soul of taste you
know.
Well,
Washington
taste
anyway,
and she hates those
tacky
acrylic things,
but
she does
have
this one
white
wool
Christmas
cardigan
with
just
the
tiniest
edging
of
holly,
she’s
had it for years, and she
was
stricken!
Positively
stricken!
The
Eye
denigrating Christmas sweaters! Mother only wears this old thing when
they
go to
buy
the tree and the occa sional caroling
party,”
she continued,
“but
it’s
a tradition with
her.
Taking
away
her Christmas sweater would just ruin
her
Christmas.”

“Brooke,
my
love,”
Damon cut in before
Lacey
could say a
word,
“that editorial
wasn’t
really about Christmas sweaters.
That
was
obviously
just
a
cover.
This
Wentworth
woman
is
some kind of agent
provocateur
behind her ecoradical
facade.”
“You
think?”
Brooke
trained
her
baby
blues
on
him.

“Mother will be so
relieved.”

Damon
was
obviously
deranged,
but
Lacey
bit her tongue. She
liked
Brooke’s
mom. She
wanted
Mrs. Barton, with her real pearls and perfectly bobbed blond
hair,
to wear her holly
edged
white
Christmas
cardigan
without
fear
of
ridicule
from
The
Eye
.

Vic
reappeared and
saved
the day with
two
cups of hot
cider.
He
handed
Lacey
one
and
Brooke
the
other
and
smacked
Damon on the back.
“How’s
the parade going?”
Lacey
blew
on her cider and sipped.

“Thanks,
Vic.
So,
Lacey,
what’s
the suspect really like?”
Brooke
asked.
“The kid in the
shepherd’s
costume. Hispanic kid, right? About twenty?”

“First of
all,”
Lacey
started to
say,
then stopped. “No com ment! Where did you get that?” It troubled her that
they
knew
about the child. It must
have
been in the police report, the so called Hispanic teenager in the blueandwhite
jacket,
but
how
did Damon get police reports?

“A
source.”
Damon
looked
smug.

“No
fair
going all nocomment,
Lacey,”
Brooke
complained. “I’m your
lawyer.”

“Not while Damon is your fly on the
wall.”

“We
are
soul
mates,
we
share
everything,”
Brooke
said.

Damon stood by her in silent agreement.

“I rest my case,
Counselor.”
Lacey
turned back to the parade and listened to her friends grumble behind her back.
“Are
you here to pump me for information I don’t
have,
or watch
the
parade?”

The leader of the
next
marching clan
wore
a huge black fur helmet and carried a
staff.
He stopped, commanding a moment of silence with his upraised
staff,
and then
lowered
it. The bagpipes and drums tore into “Brian
Boru’s
March.”
Vic
put his
arm
around
Lacey’s
shoulders
and
she
felt
chills
go
up
her
spine. She
wasn’t
sure whether it
was
Vic
or the bagpipes,
but
she
liked
the combination.

“Are
you sure it
was
a kid who
attacked
your
copy
editor?” Damon
broke
into the bagpipes.
“And
not a midget or a
dwarf?
Maybe
a
gang of
renegade
dwarves
who—”

“Gang
of
dwarves?!”
Lacey
growled.
“Are
you
off
your
meds, Damon? Where do you get this
stuff?
Good Lord! Listen,
Newhouse,
and listen good! The perpetrator of this particular crime was not a midget, the assailant was not the child,
the
child
was
a witness, and the child
was
a child. Not a
dwarf.
Not a
pygmy.
Not an alien in
child’s
clothing, or some sort of half human Creature From the Potomac Lagoon. And Cassandra is not a
copy
editor,
she’s
an editorial writer! Are we clear on all this?”

“Just asking, Smithsonian.
One journalist
to
another.”
Damon
sniffed,
wounded.
A
truck
full
of
laughing
children
crept by in the parade, the kids pelting the
crowd
merrily with
candy.

“I
don’t
mean to intrude on this
fascinating
conversation,”
Vic
broke
in.
“However, Wentworth
suffered
a
head
injury, right? Might be
difficult
for a child, a midget, or a
dwarf
to in flict a head injury on a standing
adult.”

“Good
point,”
Brooke
said.

“Aha!
Unless of course, the child, midget,
dwarf,
whatever
it
was,
used a ledge or a ladder to commit the
assault,”
Damon persisted.
“Any
ladders in the
alley,
Lacey?”

“No, Damon, no
ladders.”
Lacey
sighed
wearily.
“Maybe the tiny assailant dropped an invisible
anvil
on her head from a passing balloon, or the alien mother ship! But maybe it
wasn’t
an
evil
alien
dwarf
or
a
tiny
SpiderMan
with
an
attitude.
Maybe
it
was
an
ordinary
human
adult
with
some
ordinary
human
motive,
who
was
seen by a good human kid who had the smarts to elude the
attacker
and call someone for help. Just a
theory.”

“Hmmm. What if a
very
small suspect
attacked
your
copy
editor
after
she
was
already
lying
on
the
ground?”
Brooke
asked.

“Two
separate attacks?” Damon said.
“Fascinating
theory,
Brooke.”

“You
people are crazy!”
Lacey
said. “One
attacker!
One wit ness! One child!”

Brooke’s
face
lit up. “The
dwarf
attacked
Cassandra
after
she’d
already been struck
down!
The second attacker
theory
makes
so much more sense,
doesn’t
it, Damon?”

“I’ll
cover
all this in
tomorrow’s
story on
DeadFed,”
Damon said.

“Another
story?”
Lacey
said. “What
was
the
first
story?” “
The
Eye
didn’t
bother to write it”—Damon sneered—“so I scooped you on the
Web.
Last
night.”

“You
haven’t
seen
Damon’s
Web
site
today?”
Brooke
looked
shocked.
“Honestly,
Lacey,
you
don’t
check DeadFed daily for
what’s
going on behind
official
Washington?”

“Believe
it or not,
it’s
not the
first
thing on my reading list. No
offense.”
Lacey
sighed. “I
never
even
check my email on the
weekends.
Much less
DeadFed.”
Damon
Newhouse’s
imag ination
was
stirred by aliens, Bigfoot, the
Jersey
Devil,
imag
ined
conspiracies
that
lurked
in
the
halls
of
Congress.
His
vision of journalism took its cues from the
Web
pages of Matt Drudge and The Smoking Gun and the
airwaves
of Art Bell.
Now
his curiosity was tickled by
events
in the alley
behind
Lacey’s own
newsroom.
Not a good thing,
Lacey
thought.