Grave Apparel (25 page)

“We
had
better
things
to
do.”
Vic
winked.
Brooke
and
Damon laughed.

“Someone had to dig for the real
story,”
Damon said. “So I guess
it’s
my
scoop.”

“Oh,
please,”
Lacey
said. “Scoop?
I’ll
tell you what
it’s
a scoop
of.”

“It’s okay,
Lacey,”
Vic
put
a
calming
hand
on
her
arm.
“Damon
writes
in
a
completely
different,
um,
style
than
you
do.”

“Yeah,
it’s
positively extraterrestrial,”
she shot back.
“That’s
why
I
love
him.”
Brooke
put
her
arms
around
her
cyber
beatnik.
“He’s
definitely
not K
Street.”
They
kissed.
Vic
smiled at
Lacey,
and she felt momentarily guilty for dismissing Damon as a nutcase. He and
Brooke
were both
crazy,
but
they
were good
together.

“So
Damon,”
Vic
said, interrupting their kiss, “in
your,
um, alternative theory of the crime, why do you suppose
they’re
after the
Wentworth
woman?”

“They?”
Lacey
asked
Vic.
“Who are
‘they’?
The little peo ple of
Damon’s
imagination? Maybe the kid
was
a leprechaun!

Cassandra
Wentworth
hasn’t
written
anything
about the Little People pro or con, that I
know
of,
but
maybe she wrote it in a secret code.
You’ll
have
to look into that,
Damon.”

“Boy,
I must
have
stepped on
someone’s
toes
today,”
Damon complained.

Brooke
stepped in between them. “Damon, you
have
to re member
Lacey
found the
woman
bleeding after the attack. It must
have
been traumatic for
her.”

Not
as
traumatic
as
it
was
for
Cassandra,
Lacey
thought. She realized she should
have
felt guilty for not being more trau matized by the attack,
but
she wasn’t. Cassandra
Wentworth
was
so unpleasant to be around, it
was
hard to feel
even
the nor
mal
level
of
human
sympathy
for
her.
But
why
would
someone
attack Cassandra? What could
have
tipped someone
over
the edge into rage?
Was
the sweater a real clue or a red herring?

“You
have
that look on your
face,”
Vic
whispered in her
ear.
She flashed her
eyes
at him. “That look you
have
when you get
involved
in one of these messes. This time
keep
me in the loop, sweetheart. Okay?”

“Watch
the
parade.”
Lacey
sipped her
cider.
A tartanclad
regiment
of foot soldiers circa 1776 marched to a halt in the middle of St. Asaph Street. At a shouted command from their commander, they shouldered their antique rifles and fired
in
ragged unison. Only blanks,
but
lots of noise and great clouds of sweetsmelling
smoke
from their black
powder
charges.
The
crowd
cheered. Little kids all around them laughed and clapped their hands.

Next
came
a
Scottie
terrier
club
in
an
array
of
colorful
plaids, led by their Scottie terriers, some black, some white, some wearing tartans and tams. Delighted children on the side
walks
ran into the street to pet the dogs. One sprite about eight years old declared to her
mother,
standing
next
to
Lacey,
that she “only petted the softest
ones.”

“I
forgot
they
had dogs in this thing!”
Brooke
said. “Did I tell you I’m thinking of
buying
a dog?”

“You
don’t
have
time for a dog,
Brooke,”
Lacey
said. “It
would
starve
to
death.”

“I’ll
hire a service to
walk
it and feed it and groom it and all that.
I’d
love
to
have
a
happy
puppy
to come home to
every
night.”

Lacey looked at Damon with his puppylike eyes,
but
Vic
nudged her gently and she refrained from stating the
obvious.
“Yeah,
that
would
be
nice,”
she said.

The marching tartankilted clans
kept
coming, Campbells and Gordons and
Wallaces
and MacDonalds and
MacDuffs
and
MacSomethingorOthers
who
strutted
down
the
street,
the
pride of the Highlands.
Lacey
enjoyed
them all: the colors, the
variety,
the sheer number of people of
every
kind, all proud to claim their clan and their tartan.

Her
favorites
from years past were there too, the Clan
Hay,
marching in their
distinctive
clan tartan, the younger members of the clan pulling a little red
wagon
with a bale of
hay.
As
they
marched
they
shouted the stirring yet simple battle cry of their clan: “Hay! Hay! Hay!”
Happy
onlookers
shouted back, “Hay!” But when Clan Lamont strode proudly by in their blueand green Scottish tartans, she
was
riveted
by the
unexpected
sight of someone she
knew.
His name
was
definitely
Lamont. The
large
and
muscular
Detective
Broadway
Lamont
stood
out
among a platoon of pale blond and redheaded Lamonts. But she had
never
pegged
him for a Scot.

Detective
Lamont of the
Washington,
D.C.,
Violent
Crimes Branch
was
large,
forceful, AfricanAmerican—and apparently Scottish as well, at least a wee bit of him.
Lacey
had whimsi cally imagined that he
was
named Lamont because he
was
a mountain of a man. She felt a nudge in her side.

“Is that really who I think it is?”
Brooke’s
voice
carried
over
the
crowd.

Lacey
lifted one
eyebrow.
Lamont caught sight of her in the
crowd
and
gave
her
the
smallest
possible
nod
of
his
head.

“Only if you think
it’s
the one and only
Broadway
Lamont.”

“Is
Broadway
Lamont on the
Wentworth
case?” Damon
asked,
his
mouth
agape.

“No, some other
detective
caught the
case,”
Vic
said, “and
Lamont’s
probably thrilled about it. Seeing as
how
he’s
such a personal friend of
Lacey
here.”

“Introduce
me,”
Damon said to
Lacey.
“Please?
He’s
a local
law
enforcement
legend.
And
he’s
a
friend
of
yours,
right?
From our last case, the
legendary
lost corset hunt?”

“Oh please. The man is
busy
marching with his
clan,”
Lacey
said. “Or
didn’t
you notice? And you
don’t
want
to interrupt Broadway Lamont when
he’s
busy
marching. Or talking.
Or
eating. Or working. Or anything. Besides,
we’re
not exactly friends, although I
don’t
think
he’d
arrest me on sight
now,
like
he
wanted
to do once upon a
time.”

Lacey
had
developed
a grudging fondness for the big detec
tive,
but
she preferred him when he
wasn’t
breathing
down
her neck demanding information. And
now
she
knew
a little some thing about him that she
never
would
have
suspected: his Scot tish
family
connection. He
looked
very
proud to be marching
with
Clan
Lamont
in
that
mighty
kilt.
She
wondered
how friendly he might be with a certain
Detective
Charleston. And whether Lamont might be able to see
beyond
the
obvious
that
Vic
kept
telling her cops were so in
love
with.

Santa Claus, wearing a redandgreen kilt and riding atop a giant
fire
truck, signaled the end of the parade. His appearance animated the
crowd
into a
slowmoving
but
hungry throng. It was
time
for
lunch,
and
soon
every
seat
at
every
Old
Town
restaurant
would
be
filled
with paradegoers.

Brooke
and Damon departed for brunch with her folks.
Vic
and
Lacey
headed straight to Union Street, a popular restaurant and pub on the street of the same name, near the Potomac
River,
a friendly place with
warm wood
accents.

Before
they
could
even
order drinks, a
large
man in a kilt, kneesocks, and brogues joined them. He
wasn’t
carrying a gun,
but
he
was
armed with an
impressive
fancy
dress dirk swinging in its scabbard, a
large
matching kilt pin, and a smaller dag ger—a
Highlander’s
skean
dhu
—tucked
into one of his black kneesocks.
Vic
shook his hand and
moved
from his side of the glasspartitioned booth to join
Lacey
on her side,
allowing
De
tective
Broadway
Lamont to
take
the seat opposite them.

“So
glad
you
could
join
us
for
lunch,
Broadway.”
Lacey
smiled. “I
was
afraid you
hadn’t
gotten our
invitation.”

The
detective
turned
to
Vic.
“You
like
a
smartmouth
woman,
Donovan?”

“Yeah,
I
like
’em
feisty.”
Vic
jabbed
Lacey
playfully in the ribs and she jabbed back. “I
like
’em smartmouth and
smart.”
“Then
I’d
say
you’re
in
luck,”
Lamont said. “Big time. I’m meeting my clan here,
but
here you are too, so we can
have
us a little
visit.”