Grave Apparel (71 page)

“Then the hunt is
off
for the other suspect you
saw?”
“What suspect?”

“The kid in the
alley,
in the
shepherd’s
robe? It
was
in the papers.
Yours
and the
Post.
”

At least he
hadn’t
mentioned DeadFed.
Lacey
buttoned
her coat and
fished
her
gloves
out of her
pockets.
“Oh, you
know
how
newspapers
are. Full of misinformation. But
isn’t
Cassan dra looking better?”

“Better
every
day.
When
I
think
of
what
I
could
have
lost—”
He
shook
his
head.

“I understand you and Cassandra are an
item.”

“We’ve
always
meant a lot to each
other.
Now
even
more.”
“Where were you when she
was attacked?”

“Ah,
yes,
the
obvious
question.
I
was
not
that
far
away,
sadly.
I
was
at my
firm’s
Christmas party at the Army
Navy
Club on the
next
block. And I understand you were just inside
The
Eye
’s
offices
at the time. All the while Cassandra
was
lying there on the
ground.”

Lacey
saw
the
cranky
nurse
from
the
other
day
heading
briskly
down
the aisle
toward
them.
Wilcox
noticed her too and motioned her
over
to the chairs in a
waiting
area, apparently in no hurry to reach Cassandra.
Lacey
perched on the edge of a
chair
overlooking
the
street. She
gazed out the
window.
People
were
bustling,
Christmas shopping. It seemed that city dwellers
never
strolled,
they
were
always
rushing about.
Lacey
would
rather be out there too, in the fresh cold
air,
rather than inside among the mingled smells of medicine and disinfectants and Henderson
Wilcox’s
cologne, a sickly sweet, metallic
aroma
that reminded her of high school
boys
drenched in their
first
af
tershave.
It
was
nearly as
overpowering
as
Wendy
Townsend’s
jungle
gardenia
scent.

“I
heard
you
guys
were
taking
a
break
from
each
other,
you’d
broken
up.”

“We
did
take
a
break,”
Wilcox
was
saying. “But this incident

shocked
some sense into
me.”
He
looked
down
at his manicured hands and a look of remorse crossed his
face.
“I realized what I could
have
lost.”

“What
about
Wendy
Townsend?
I
gathered
you
were
more
than friends
too.”

Wilcox
shook his head.
“Wendy
has this
fantasy
about me. If I were you,
I’d
discount half of what she says.
Don’t
get me wrong,
but—”

She rubbed her nose. “I got it. Just friends with
benefits.”
He had the grace to flush.
“It’s
a complicated little dynamic.

Wendy
and I
have
a history and
we’ve
grown
closer since this happened,
but
I
have
to
take
care of Cassandra,
first
and
last.”

“Her friends seem to think
you’ve
sold your soul for a posh K Street
law
office.”

“Alex.
It
was
Alex,
wasn’t
it? He
likes
to say I abandoned the cause of Garrison of Gaia.
That’s
a lot of crap. He refuses to see you can accomplish a lot more if
you’re
well connected and
working
from the inside.
You
don’t
have
to break the
law
and
use
violence
and
polarize
people.
And
Alex
has
always
been a little jealous
over
me and Cassandra. And
Wendy.”

“He’s
jealous?” Did
Alex
Markham hate
Wilcox
because of the cause, or because of Cassandra? And poor
Wendy’s
always
the alsoran?

“Ancient
history.
Let’s
not talk about
Alex.
What
have
you heard about this
stalker?
How
long
was
he after Cassandra?” He leaned
over her,
making her feel small
next
to his
bulk.
She
slid
away
to
gain
some
more
space.

“I’m sure the cops
know
more than I
do.”

“But what
have
you heard?”
Wilcox
was
way
too close. She stood up to get a little more breathing room.

“Nobody tells me
anything,
Wilcox!
You
know
how
people clam up around
reporters.”
Or
else
they
talk
my
ear
off.
“I just
wondered
if someone else could be after
Cassandra.”

He smoothed his
hair.
“I suppose there could be more than one
unhappy
reader.
We’ve
discussed her
finding
a
new
job,
with
a
lower
profile.
We
can’t
go
through
this
again.
I’ll
take
her
away
for
a
while
when
this
is
all
over.”
He
opened
and
closed one
large
fist.
“I wish I could get my hands on that little
creep.”

“That
doesn’t
sound
very
lawyerly.”

“Maybe
I’m
not
very
lawyerly.
Believe
it
or
not,
Miss

Smithsonian, ice
water
doesn’t
flow
in all of our
veins.
Some of us
have
passions.”

When
Lacey
finally
managed to shed the
overbearing
Hen derson
Wilcox,
escape the hospital, and return to the
newsroom,
Mac
wasn’t
there. She left a message on his
voice
mail. Felic
ity
wasn’t
there
either,
and
she
didn’t
answer
her
cell.
No
Wiedemeyer.
No
Trujillo,
he’d
left
for
Santa
Fe.
Vic
hadn’t
called her back; probably on a job or in a meeting.
Lacey
tried to concentrate on “Crimes of
Fashion,”
but
it
was
impossible. The
shadows
over
her desk
grew
long and then disappeared. The phone
didn’t
ring. She shut
off
her computer with a sigh. Mac and Felicity
hadn’t
reappeared.
Another
productive
day.
Reel
her
in,
Mac
says,
but
Jasmine
won’t
take
the
bait.
Go
see
Cassandra,
he
says,
and
Cassandra
puts
me
right
back
in
the
middle
of
this
feud
with
Felicity.
But she
wasn’t
about to write up
Cassandra’s
latest
revelation
without talking to Felicity and Mac.
Damn,
I
should
be
out
Christmas
shopping!

It was time to get ready for the Bentleys’ cocktail
party.
She was getting used to changing in the ladies’ room at work, and changing her clothes would help her shake
off
the
frus
trating
day.
New
outfit,
new
perspective.
You
are
what
you
wear.
The creamy lace blouse that had been
Mimi’s
made
her
skin
glow
and the
fit
was perfect. Lacey was reasonably
cer
tain no one else would be wearing anything like it. She
re
freshed her makeup and realized she still hadn’t heard
from
Vic.
Would
he meet her at the
Willard
or not? She left him
an
other
message.

Lacey
wished she could just go and
have
a good time,
but
she
would
be going with a
heavy
heart and a shopping bag full of
puffy
little girls’ coats. If Jasmine called, she
wanted
to be ready to abandon the cocktail party and jump in the nearest taxi. Back at her desk she found Mac
waiting
for
her.
He launched into her without so much as a hello.

“People are protecting those kids,
Lacey.
Jasmine and her
sister.
Someone must
know.
But no one is talking, not
their
friends, not the
pastor,
not the neighbors. Not to you, not to the cops, not
nobody.”

“Why
not,
Mac?
And
don’t
you
want
to
hear
the
latest
bombshell from Cassandra?”

“Later.
One
headache
at
a
time.
Those
kids
come
first.
People
242
Ellen
Byerrum

are protecting them because
they
don’t
want
them separated.
They
don’t
want
them to end up in the system.
Everyone
is hop ing their mother comes back and
they’ll
have
another crack at being a
family.
That’s
my
theory,
and I’m right. So this is the
deal,
Smithsonian.”
He
leaned
on
her
desk
while
she
gathered
her things to
leave.
“You
get ahold of those kids.
You
tell them
there’s
a place, a foster home, not one of the bad ones,
but
one
where
they
can
stay
together
till
their
mother
comes
back.
They’ll
be safe and
they
won’t
be pulled
apart.”