Grave Apparel (42 page)

Lacey
allowed
that K Street
was
where it
was
at. “So you
saw
her run across the square and that
was
that?”

“That
was
that,”
Quentin said. “But I tell you something I learned on the street, Smithsonian. That little lamb in
shep
herd’s
clothing mean something to you? Then you be on the lookout for
her.
Little lambs, they always draw the big,
bad
wolves.”

*

Jasmine
failed
to
call
back.
The
name
Lee
was a
dead
end,
and
Quentin’s
information
was
tantalizing,
but
it
led
her
nowhere.
No
schools,
Mac
had
said.
She
was
stumped.
Lacey
gave
up
at
five
o’clock
and
tried
to
make
her
escape from
the
office.
She
was
thwarted
by
Peter
Johnson.
It
was
that
kind
of
day.

“I need to talk to you,
Smithsonian,”
he commanded. “Not
now,
Johnson.”
She stood and grabbed her bag.
“Yes,
now.”

He sat
down
imperiously on her desk, prompting
Lacey
to
shove
him right
off
her desk.
“Have
the courtesy to at least park your
butt
in a
chair,”
she said.
“And
not my
chair.”

She sat back in her
brokendown
ergonomic
chair.
Johnson
picked
himself up and sat in the rolling Death
Chair,
which for
some
reason
usually
came
to
rest
near
Lacey’s
desk.
It
had
earned its
moniker
when a
fashion
writer,
Lacey’s
late unla mented predecessor Mariah, had died in it one
day,
many
hours before her notsountimely demise
was
discovered.
The Death Chair
wasn’t
an ergonomic model,
but
an oldfashioned
oak
armchair with a
grooved
bottom. Someone had painted a skull and crossbones on it. The
staff
cartoonist had long been sus pected, despite his denials.

Sadly the Death Chair did not deter Johnson, who pulled out a notebook and pen with his inkstained
fingers.
“What do you
have
for me?”

She could feel her
eyebrows
lift in surprise. “Excuse me?” “What
have
you found out about
Cassandra’s
attack? Sus pects? Theories?”

Lacey
shook her head. Did Johnson really think
she’d
spent the rest of the day coming up with suspects for him?

“My day was not so productive. What did Cassandra
tell
you?”

“You’re
the only one
who’s
seen her in
person.”
His pale
eyes
were
accusatory.

“You
never
got
to
speak
to
her?
Oh,
I
am
so
honored
to
be
her
one
and
only.
But
she
told
me
nothing
at
all
of
any
importance.”
“I
was
only able to get her on the phone for a
few
minutes,”
Johnson said. “Felicity Pickles
was
the only name she came up
with.”
He
gave
her his
attempt
at an
imperious
reporter’s
stare.

“They
had a
fight.
Cassandra
was
found wearing one of those ridiculous sweaters. Felicity
Pickles’s
sweater.”

“Yes,
they
had a
fight.
And I
saw
her in the
alley
wearing Fe
licity’s
sweater,
remember? But I
don’t
think Felicity did
it.”

“You
don’t
think
so.”
He peered at her
skeptically
over
his glasses.

Lacey
leaned back and stretched. She might as well
show
him she
was
bored. “What about those friends of
‘Cassie’s’
at the hospital?”

“They
don’t
know
anything.”
Johnson
put
his
notebook
down.
“I
asked.”

“You
asked
them what
they
knew
and
they
said, ‘Nothing’?

And you
believe
them
why
exactly?”

“If
they
knew
something,
they
would
have
told
me.”

“And
why is that, Peter?
Because
you’re
a
reporter
and
they
trust you?”
Lacey
always
assumed the
overwhelming
probabil
ity
that
people
who
spoke
to
her
were
lying.
Even
if
they
weren’t,
their stories were
always
calculated to put them in the best light.

“My.
Gut.
Instincts.”
Johnson tapped his pen on each sylla ble
like
a
conductor’s
baton to emphasize his
words.
His glasses slid
down
his nose and nearly
off
the tip.

“Oh. Right.
Well,
you do
have
a gut. So what do you think of her friends?” She thought it
was
too bizarre to be actually speaking with Peter Johnson for more than a moment or
two
in passing. And a hostile moment at that. Johnson considered him self to be at the top of the journalistic food chain and Smithson ian at the bottom.
Lacey
would
trust a politician in front of a TV camera before
she’d
trust his opinion of
anyone.

“Them?
Both
men
are
crazy
about
her,
of
course.”
He
seemed to
find
this both
obvious
and irritating.
“You
may not
have
picked
up on that,
but
I did.
Wendy
is her best friend. She and
Alex
are her housemates.
They
have
all this complicated history with each other you
wouldn’t
know
anything
about,
but
I—”

Yada,
yada,
yada.
Lacey had already gotten all that.
“No
hidden animosities then?”

“What
are
you
insinuating?”
He
shoved
his
oversized
glasses back up his nose.

“Cassandra
provokes,
um,
strong
reactions
in
people.”
Lacey
sat up and started
shuffling
papers on her desk. “I just

wondered if you thought there was anything else motivating their hospital vigil. Impressions, theories, your infallible
gut
instincts?”

“No.
There
wasn’t.”
He
tapped
his
pen
again.
“What
about
your gut instincts?”

“I am not getting
any
more
involved
with this thing than I
have
to be,
Peter.”
She willed her phone to ring. It
didn’t.

“Really?
You
don’t
want
to
work
together on this, Smithson ian? I’m not crazy about
working
with you
either,
but
Mac sug gested we share information. Suggested it
strongly.
Now,
what do you do when you get
involved
in one of these stories,
like
those murders with all the
fashion stuff?
Do you
have
a logical process, or is it just dumb luck?”

“Like my dumb luck to be having this conversation
with
you?” Her hands were itching to
throw
something at him. “I just ask questions.
That’s
all.
Ever
try that?”

Lacey wasn’t
about to discuss her instincts, or “all the
fash
ion
stuff,”
or the
way
that clothes and looks and other little style clues suggested meanings and connections to her and
some
times told her an entire story that most people
couldn’t
read. He
was
a man, what did he
know
about those subtle things? He
wouldn’t
believe
her
if
she
told
him,
so
why
even
start?

So
far
her socalled
fashion
clues consisted of the
infamous
Christmas
sweater,
the ubiquitous Santa cap, and the
alleged
giant candy cane. It
was
all too precious and
obvious,
and yet
baffling.
An
enraged
overreaction
to
Sweatergate?
Or
a
clumsy
attempt to look
like
it
was,
to
cover
some other
motive?
Per sonal or political? Calculated or
improvised?
Discuss all that with Peter Johnson, who just
wanted
to scoop her and pick her
brain
and
copy
her
“process”
without
even
respecting
her?
Absurd.

He referred to his notebook.
“According
to your supposed witness, the assailant
wore
a red and white Santa cap. At least a dozen guys at
The
Eye
’s
Christmas party were wearing those stupid things.
Fashion
clue?”

“Twelve
new
suspects?
Honestly, Peter,
you
think
it
was
someone from
The
Eye
?
No one here cares about
Cassandra’s
little
fiasco
of
Sweatergate,
except
to
laugh
at
her
over
it.”

“Don’t
call
it
Sweatergate!
Cassandra
was
the
victim
here!”
“The victim of her
own
hatefulness. And what should I call it, Slap
Down
at the Cookie Corral?” She stopped
shuffling
pa

pers
in
case
she
needed
to
knock
Johnson
off
his
chair.
He
leaned
in
with
an
ugly
expression.
Lacey
noticed
the
scalp
under his thinning hair
was
glistening with sweat. He
was
too close to
her.
She stood up, glared
down
at him on the Death
Chair,
and
picked
up her purse.