Veiled Revenge (13 page)

“You are the last person I would mess with, Broadway. Just reporting the facts. It’s what I do.”

“Damn it all. I don’t need no hauntings, no curses, no psychics, and no ghost-infused hanks of cloth.” He echoed her sentiments exactly. “I want to see that shawl. Spread the word.”

“You’re going to take the haunted shawl into custody, Lamont? Go medieval on it? Rough it up till it squeals?”

“You smart-mouthing me?” Broadway Lamont treated her to one last wicked grin. “You just be glad we’re friends, Smithsonian. I know cops who’d lock you up and throw away the key for less than that. You and your vampire wrap too.”

Chapter 15

K
ILLER
S
HAWL
S
TALKS
W
ASHINGTON

Lacey read the headline and seethed. It was exactly the kind of headline she’d dreaded. That headline didn’t appear in
The Washington Post
or
The Washington Times,
or in the scrappy but semi-respectable
Eye Street Observer
. Even Harlan Wiedemeyer had agreed there wasn’t enough of a news hook, yet. The shawl was a tease without a story. Tony’s story had given it a few puzzled paragraphs, buried in the back of the paper.

But Damon Newhouse had struck again. The “Killer Shawl” and Leonardo’s suspicious death led the hot news online at Conspiracy Clearinghouse, also known as DeadFed dot com:

Whosoever mocketh the shawl shall surely die! Thus sayeth the legend of a haunted Russian shawl, possessed for generations by an infamous family linked to every major tragedy in Russian history. One hapless victim in Washington, D.C., has already paid the ultimate price for making sport of this ominous black cloth covered with secret symbols, which has suddenly vanished in the wake of his unexplained murder: Leonard Karpinski, known professionally as Leonardo, highly regarded Washington hairstylist to Capital City celebrities and a key figure in a notorious local murder last year, may be only the first identified American victim of the curse of the Killer Shawl . . .

Killer Shawl, my ass
, Lacey thought.
If anybody should beware of the curse, it’s Damon Newhouse. I wish the shawl would pay him a visit, shut down his Web site, and delete all his files
.

Lacey scanned the story. It was Damon’s usual half-baked hodgepodge of paranormal fancy and conspiracy-obsessed conjecture. She didn’t know what was more frightening, Damon continuing to get everything wrong, or someday possibly getting something right.

Leonardo’s death was unfortunate and still technically “unexplained,” but Lacey was certain there was nothing supernatural about it. He was poisoned, possibly with a homemade dose of nicotine. He complained about a bite and he scratched his neck. If there was poison in the shawl, someone put it there. And if it was deliberately put in the shawl, she reasoned, then it could not have been meant for Leonardo. Whom the poison was meant for, why and by whom, and where the shawl was now—those were the real mysteries that Damon couldn’t be bothered to address, not the supposed supernatural powers of a haunted phantom shawl. It made her head hurt. And it was far too early for her first headache of the day.

She conjured an image of the shawl in her mind that reminded her of the elaborate embroidered Russian altar cloths she had seen on display at the Hillwood Museum above Rock Creek Park in the District, once the home of millionaire Washington socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. The wealthy wife of the American ambassador to the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, Marjorie had purchased innumerable Russian artifacts and brought them home with her to Hillwood. The Soviet treasury at the time was empty of hard currency but full of Romanov booty, and it was eager to sell priceless treasures to rich Western collectors. Marjorie took conspicuous consumption to new heights, but she had the money to do it and she did it with style.

Marie’s shawl was not made of velvet, like the Hillwood Russian altar cloths. It wasn’t woven with the same amount of real gold thread either, but it was rich with stories. In recording the history of the Kepelovs, it also reflected nearly two centuries of tumultuous Russian history. Lacey prayed it would turn up soon. But if it did, it would probably end up in the hands of Broadway Lamont and the D.C. police. Lacey hated the thought of such a priceless artifact hidden away in a police evidence locker, possibly forever. It was a lovely garment with its own secrets, the multitude of stories it held in its fabric. If only she had taken more time with it. If only she could touch it and examine it more closely.
Without being bitten.

Lacey didn’t have time to dither over Damon that morning, but she was still steaming when she dialed Brooke, the source of Damon’s leak.

“Hi, Lacey, what’s up?” Brooke sounded cheerful.

“‘Killer Shawl’?! Really? Are you kidding me?” Lacey demanded.

“Great headline, isn’t it?” Brooke said. “Leo mocks the shawl, the shawl is cursed, Leo is found dead. Ipso facto: Killer Shawl! Don’t you love it? Murderous shawl, fatal shawl, shawl suspected of foul play—those just didn’t have the same ring.”

Lacey could hear the satisfaction in Brooke’s voice. She practically purred with reflected glory.

“And you fed this story to Damon without even a shred of factual evidence?”

“We are soul mates, Lacey. Of course I had to tell him. As for evidence, well, Leo’s dead. That’s a fact. That Russian shawl has unknown powers. That’s sort of a fact. It’s missing, that’s a fact too. Lacey, I thought you of all people would be all over this story.”

“And where did he come up with that ‘whosoever mocketh’ business? Nobody says
mocketh
! Or
sayeth
!” Lacey complained. “Marie didn’t say
mocketh
. And there are no secret symbols in the shawl. Marie explained all that.”

“Damon has a creative way of telling a story. His readers like it. It’s simply a different kind of journalism from the kind you do, Lacey.”

“Yeah, his kind is the crazy kind. It’s not creative, Brooke, it’s not poetic license, it’s just wrong. Where are the experts, where are the facts? I know Damon likes to call it ‘gonzo journalism,’ but this stuff is too far gone to be gonzo!”

“I suppose you wanted to keep this story all to yourself?” Brooke’s voice turned frosty.

“If this
is
a story, which I doubt, I’d want it to be factual and accurate, not something out of a pathetic sci-fi movie.” Lacey had to admit to herself that at another time and another place, she would want to write this story.
But only if it were true.

“As a matter of fact, Lacey, I know Marie has already been questioned by the police, and I imagine they will be at our doors any moment. If Damon wants to write this story his way, he will. He is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

“Protected, Brooke, but wrong. The shawl in itself might be a great story, but do you really think it’s sentient? It has evil supernatural powers? It somehow walks the streets and murders people? It drives a speeding black limo?”

“Then you’ve considered all these possibilities too!”

Lacey growled into the phone. “Crimes of Fashion, that’s my job.”

“Of course it is. And Lacey,” Brooke lectured, “you do believe in the power of clothes.”

“The power we
give
them. The feelings we invest in them, the symbols we make of them. Not because they’re possessed by demons or aliens or ghosts!”

“Oh, that’s good. I’m taking notes.” Brooke and Lacey could go round and round with this conversation for hours, and only Brooke would enjoy it. It was one of her talents as an attorney. Lacey didn’t need to give her or Damon anything else. DeadFed had dragged her name into its loony stories often enough.

“That’s not for publication, Brooke. I mean it. I’m not giving you quotes to hand to Damon,” Lacey said. It was cold comfort that he never got anything she said completely right. His more credulous readers believed whatever he wrote anyway. “I have to go.”

“Wait, don’t you want to hear about my dress for the wedding?” Brooke asked.

Brooke could be planning on attending the wedding stark naked and painted in Burberry plaid, for all Lacey cared at the moment. “No, I don’t. And for your information, the latest news hot off the press is that Stella is canceling the wedding. Good-bye.”

Lacey had seldom been so irritated with Brooke. And Damon. And herself for rising to the bait. “Killer Shawl” sounded like a late-night television comedy skit, with the vampire-fanged shawl at the wheel of an out-of-control limo, cruising the streets for victims. This time it wasn’t funny. It only made her think of yesterday’s brush with death. And worse, if she didn’t watch out, Mac would be wondering why Damon beat her to this story.

Her desk phone rang. “Lacey, cher, have you seen the story on DeadFed?” It was Marie.

“My blood pressure says I have.”

“I don’t want to make things worse, but I’m seeing a cloud rolling in, following you and Stella, and who knows who else, and it’s about to burst.”

“Is this one of your famous psychic weather reports, Marie?”

“No, the weather for Saturday is fabulous, a beautiful cherry-blossom-perfect day for a wedding.”

“Stella’s threatening to call off the wedding.”

“I heard from her this morning.” Marie clicked her tongue. “Targeted by a dressed-up taxicab. She’s mighty shook up, and I don’t blame her. I’m so sorry, cher.”

“You were right about the traffic being bad.” Lacey just remembered Marie’s traffic prediction. “Turns out Gregor wasn’t the one who wanted to run me down.”
This time
.

“Of course he wasn’t. Luckily you’re all still alive.”

“What about the wedding, Marie? Will it happen?”

“Stella, God love her, is just as changeable as the weather. When I think about her wedding, I see a roller-coaster. Up and down and up and down. I think whatever goes down, must come up, don’t you? Truly I don’t know. Stella has free will, she will decide.”

Lacey chuckled. “Do you know anything more about Leonardo?”

“Not about who killed him, I’m afraid. Yet I know he’s in a better place and he’s holding no grudge, maybe for the first time. He was a tormented soul.”

“I’m sorry you had to talk to the police again last night. Broadway Lamont told me.”

“It wasn’t so bad. They think I’m either crazy or I’m a crazy killer. They just can’t make up their minds. It will all blow over in the end. Lamont is a sweetie under that big scary shell, and Detective Hopkins took turns telling me I was hiding something and asking me to tell his fortune.” Marie managed a little of her trademark musical laugh.

“Did you?”

“I sure didn’t want to! As a detective, he’s been around so much death. I was terrified a faint would come over me.”

“But it didn’t?” Lacey asked. “His future looks good?”

“Oh, that. Not if he doesn’t do something about his high blood pressure, and his arteries are cloudy, and he’s feeling guilty about flirting with some female desk sergeant. I warned him not to eat that bag of greasy burgers and fries from Five Guys. That he needs to pay more attention to his wife—she is so much smarter than he is—because she is beginning to think there might be other men out there for her. He was startled, to be sure. I also told him he better not forget his anniversary is this weekend. Same day as Stella’s wedding. Isn’t that nice?”

“What was his reaction?” Lacey reached for her now-cold coffee.

“He said I was just guessing. People always say that. I warned him he better make a reservation for the Old Ebbitt Grill for their anniversary, and if he was lucky his wife might remember he was once a very romantic man. Why the Old Ebbitt, he asked. I said, That’s where your first date was, wasn’t it?”

“Is there any way to tell if that’s true?”

“Not that I know of, cher, ’less his wife kept a souvenir of their first date, but I was getting all this very strong and clear. Anyway, he pulled his cell phone right out and called the restaurant. And then he let me go.”

“Nicely done, Marie. You rock.”

“Thank you, cher. Still, I’m worried about this cloud I’m feeling, Lacey. It has nothing to do with the rain. Something is clouding my vision, like I’m trying to peer through a veil.”

“A wedding veil?”

“No, something else.” Marie sounded worried. “More like a gray veil.”

“Not a vale of tears?”

“No—a veil of revenge.”

“Can you explain that?”

“Not really. Wish I could. This psychic thing is a charm and a curse, believe me.”

Lacey slumped in her chair.
Why tell me these things, if you can’t give me more?
“Will Stella marry Nigel?” Lacey wanted to know if she should pick up her pink dress. She was due for the final fitting.

“I can’t see that far through this gray cloud, cher. Wait a minute, was it a gray car that jumped the curb and nearly hit y’all?”

“No. It was black. Doesn’t help much, I know.” As Broadway Lamont had said, black limos were practically the official D.C. vehicle.

“Stay safe, cher, till the sky clears, till I can cleanse my third eye.”

Lacey checked her beautiful new watch from Vic. It was later than she’d thought. She also reached for the Saint Christopher medal from his mother and said a quick silent prayer for safe travel. She drank the last of the cold coffee in her cup.

“I’m worried about you, Marie.”

“I’m safe. My sweet Gregor is watching over me.”

“Yes, but what about his sister?” Lacey had unsettled feelings about her.

“Olga’s an old soul and she is a bit scary, with a chilly personality, but that’s probably because she’s from a cold country.”

Lacey cleared some of her desk. “Gregor is from that same country.”

“Yes,” Marie agreed. “But he’s got a warm Southern soul. He’s a big old Texas cowboy at heart.”

“It’s the love talking.” In the background, Lacey heard the door chimes of The Little Shop of Horus. So Marie was at work. “Have you found the shawl?”

“I have searched and searched, high and low, up and down, and inside out, honey, but it seems to be on the move.”

On the move?
Lacey really wished Marie hadn’t put it quite that way.

 * * * 

Harlan Wiedemeyer had the disquieting ability to pop up when he was least expected, like a chubby grinning jack-in-the-box. He stared at Lacey over her cubicle divider as she collected her purse and her own vintage (but not haunted) shawl. Behind him was Mac, wearing his grumpy editor’s face. Lacey’s spirits sank.

“DeadFed scooped us on the haunted shawl murdering Leonardo,” Wiedemeyer accused her. “Poor bastard can’t even get a decent story in this paper about his own death.”

“How can DeadFed scoop us if its story isn’t accurate, Harlan? It isn’t a real story!” Lacey had to get going or she’d be late to the restaurant. She leaned against her desk. “It’s not true. We try to print things that are
true
.”