Lacey sat bolt upright in her seat. “ ‘Home’? Back up, cowboy. Where exactly are you taking your ex-ex-wife?”
“What’s he saying?” Stella was leaning over to hear Vic’s side of the conversation.
“Stella, watch the road,” Lacey whispered.
“I mean I’m taking her to my mom and dad’s place, not mine. I tend to say ‘home’ when I mean their home. My place is just a rest stop.”
“And you’ll be staying where?” Her heart felt like ice.
“At my place. Alone. Damn it, Lacey. Anyway, this trip came up so suddenly, Montana didn’t get a chance to make a reservation, and my folks really like her, so . . .”
Better and better,
Lacey thought.
His folks still dig his ex. Great. I haven’t even met Vic’s folks. And I never will at this rate.
“Vic, are you really a private investigator? Because any rookie knows this town is lousy with hotels! She could walk into any one of them day or night and snag a room, and probably some rich old geezer with it. For free.”
This sounded like fun to Stella. “Is he on a hooker case now?” She pulled the Mini to the curb.
“Come on,” Vic pleaded. “She’s a small-town gal who doesn’t know her way around Washington.”
“Ha! She’s a big-time operator, and she knows her way around you, Vic Donovan!”
And what about me?
“Listen, honey, we shouldn’t fight when we’re both tired. You take care of yourself and Stella tonight, Lacey. I’ll come over tomorrow night to meet your mother and we’ll start over.”
“Don’t you dare come over! You stay away from my mother and my sister! I’ll talk to you next week, if you’re not remarried to Montana McCandless Donovan Schmidt
Donovan!
”
“Lacey—”
“Good-bye.” She pressed the Off button on him. It wasn’t as satisfying as slamming down a real phone.
Stella looked over, dying for more information. “Wow. Is Vic getting married again?”
“Just drive, Stella. Okay?”
The Mini Cooper roared back to life and they were off.
Chapter 18
If Lacey was afraid that her heart would stop beating over Vic’s apparent dalliance with his ex-wife the previous night, she needn’t have worried. Conspiracy Clearinghouse, a.k.a. DeadFed dot com, had her heart thumping away in no time first thing Friday morning as she read:
TOP SECRET BIONIC BABE AMANDA
MANVILLE SLAIN IN DUPONT CIRCLE
Fashion Scribe Smithsonian’s Car Used in Drive-by Attack;
Grisly Coincidence or Message From a Killer?
Most of America is unaware that one of their favorite supermodels, the late Amanda Manville of Chrysalis Factor fame, was allegedly part of a secret government project known unofficially as the “Bionic Babes,” sources have told Conspiracy Clearinghouse.
In fact, none of the artificially beautiful women in the project were aware that they were being used for clandestine purposes. Or that they were cybernetic surgical prototypes for a superstrong bionic female warrior to be deployed in combat in the near future. Their various implants and prostheses were made with weapons-grade silicones and plastics, manufactured in secret laboratories in Delaware, packed with classified nanotechnology devices. They are not available on any open market for civilian use.
The Babes had not given their permission to be part of any experiment, nor did they know how special they were—or that their every move was being tracked. Global positioning systems were embedded in their breast implants to allow a rogue group of so-called government scientists to keep tabs on their human science projects. . . .
Lacey snorted in disgust. “Newhouse, how do you get away with this drivel?” But she kept reading his Amanda Manville story, which had nothing in common with the one she had written except the name Amanda Manville.
Manville had recently undergone a severe personality change, attributed to toxic chemicals from the highly experimental implants in her body, which used nanotechnology, sending microscopic machines coursing through her membranes and into her brain like a kamikaze cocktail. Our source hypothesized that she had to be eliminated before she became completely unstable and brought too much attention to herself and the project. That may also be the reason for the attack on Dr. Gregory Spaulding, the TV plastic surgeon who was duped into using classified government-provided materials in this ghastly lab project. . . .
Lacey couldn’t read any more. She reached for the phone and dialed. Damon Newhouse answered immediately. “Where do you get this stuff, Damon? Do you just make it up, you sorry excuse for a journalist?”
“Whoa, Smithsonian, a personal call. I am deeply honored. To answer your question, I have highly placed sources, Lacey.” He chuckled. He was annoyingly calm.
“Who hang out in the psych ward at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, no doubt.”
“A history of institutionalization would not necessarily mean your information is false.”
“Spill it, Damon. Do you guys just get high and cook this stuff up? Do you take turns inventing the wacky conspiracy of the week, and then call each other your sources?” Felicity looked over at Lacey to admire her tirade. “And who do you think the shooter is, in this comic-book conspiracy theory of yours?”
“A quasi-government agent. Probably an untraceable subcontractor.”
“Of this secret rogue Bionic Babe agency?”
“That’s right.”
“Lunatic!” Lacey was so animated she knocked over her coffee cup, which was not full, but it splashed a little onto her sweater. Fortunately she had worn black slacks and a black V-neck sweater, because she knew she would need to be comfortable to dash around all day. She also had a new sleek black leather jacket to combat the coolness of the October air. After sopping up the coffee with a paper towel, she focused back on Newhouse, who was still blathering away into the phone, something about “rogue nanotechnology, deep background, and secret documentation.”
“Then why kill her in Dupont Circle, in front of everybody?” Lacey cut in. “If she’s got GPS transmitters embedded in her implants and you can track her anywhere, why not just kill her quietly in the middle of the night?”
Felicity stopped any pretense of work and simply stared, as did Peter Johnson and Tony Trujillo, riveted in their tracks on their daily goody run to Felicity’s desk.
“Because,” Damon said, “this way it looks like anything
but
a top-secret government conspiracy.”
“It’s
not
a top-secret government conspiracy! Amanda Manville died because someone who knew her intimately hated her and wanted her dead. And the bastard used my car, Damon, which makes it very personal for me.”
“Is that a quote? ’Cause I really like it. I’m using it.”
“No, it’s not a quote!”
“It is if I put quote marks around it. It’s good talking to you, Smithsonian. I liked your column, by the way. Responsible, but with some feeling.”
“Don’t you sneer at responsible journalism, you kook; you write for the funny papers. Look, Newhouse, I realize that you fancy yourself a rogue pirate on the high seas of the information superhighway, and you can write whatever jumbled, sleep-deprived fantasy you want, because it’s your Web site, but . . .” She tried a deep, cleansing breath. It didn’t work. It never worked.
“I’m putting you on speakerphone here. Is that okay?”
Lacey ignored that; she knew he usually worked alone. “Just for the record, I’m glad you make Brooke happy, but please leave me out of your paranoid hallucinations. Do not connect the name Smithsonian with these crackpot stories.”
“Don’t worry about it, Lacey. Half the people who read my Web site just think you’re a wing of the museum. You know, the Lacey Smithsonian Crime of Fashion Wing, right between American History and Air and Space? Gotta run. ’Bye.” He sounded a little too damn cheerful for Lacey’s taste this early in the morning.
She hung up, wondering if Brooke could be saved from the clutches of this madman. She doubted it. Brooke was a true conspiracy-theory believer, and she trusted that Damon had broken through the “pheromone jammers” mounted on top of the White House and the Pentagon just for her. And he was pretty damn cute for a crackpot. In other words, Brooke was a fool in love.
The phone rang again, jangling her nerves. Her audience returned to their own quieter pursuits. She was hoping against hope for a last-minute reprieve from her mother’s visit. Lacey prayed that Rose Smithsonian had suddenly decided that there were oh-so-many things to do before her traditional Halloween party for the neighborhood, where she served hot apple cider and cinnamon doughnuts, and no doubt was planning some wild new creation involving Wheaties, chocolate chips, maraschino cherries, and four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. And she would save her visit for later.
Maybe ten years later?
“Lacey Smithsonian,” she answered, forgetting to even look at her caller ID.
“My God, I thought you were dead!” It was Miguel. “Gunned down along with the horrendous and deserving Amanda Manville! What other reason could you have for not calling me? Me, your dearest friend, your personal couture stylist, who would rush to your side at your merest call.”
“Miguel! Is that you?” she teased. “I’m sorry, it’s been really crazy. I left you a message.” She realized she hadn’t spoken with him since Amanda’s murder, and if Stella was the voice of Radio Free D.C., then Miguel was the Mouth of Manhattan.
“A very uninformative message. I promise to forgive you, but only after you tell me everything, absolutely everything, every little detail. Leave nothing out.”
“You sound just like Stella, you know. Demanding this, demanding that.” Lacey smiled at his high dudgeon. “I desperately want to share everything with you, Miguel, but I have another crisis. My mother is coming to town, and I can’t let her find out about any of this.”
“That is so sad, dear, and I promise not to rat on you to your mama, so you can tell me all,” he pleaded. “I can’t believe that Stella was there and I wasn’t, the minx! Who did it? Have you figured it out yet? Are you in danger? Do you need me to help bring the bad guy down like I did last time?”
“You’re my hero, Miguel, but I think I’ll be okay. More than okay—I’ll be surrounded by my mother and my sister, but I’ll be lucky if they don’t aggravate me to death. Or vice versa.”
Lacey took a few minutes to bring him up-to-date and promised him an in-depth gossip session soon. She knew Miguel would be entertaining the New York fashion world with juicy tales of how
his
friend had seen Amanda go down.
She dreaded her next task: informing Mac that she had to leave early because company was about to descend on her, and she had to rent a car in order to pick them up at the airport. She’d forgotten to clear it with him.
“Who is coming to town?” Mac inquired. “Your family?” He looked suspicious, as if he didn’t believe that she could actually have a family.
Well, I’m with you on that one, Mac.
“My mother and my sister,” she said, eager to get out of his office and finish her work. “Really. It’s the truth.”
“Two more Smithsonians?” Mac squinted at her. “Does this mean trouble times three?”
I’m so amused by you sometimes, Mac. But this is not one of them.
“For your information, they are extremely nice people who never get into trouble.”
Which is possibly why they don’t understand me one little bit.
He chuckled and bit into an oatmeal cookie, heavy on the cinnamon, courtesy of Felicity Pickles. Obviously the specialty of the day. It smelled delicious. “Be my guest. By the way, Smithsonian—and I say this only out of habit, you understand—stay out of trouble.”
“You have no faith, Mac.”
“No, but I have a lot of experience with you. What’s your mother like?”
“She likes meat loaf,” was all that Lacey could think of saying. She knew Mac liked meat loaf. “And she collects wallpaper patterns.”
“Doesn’t sound too dangerous.”
“My job is to chauffeur them to the museums so they can buy Smithsonian souvenirs.”
And avoid anything unpleasant, like having them mess with my life.
“It’s bound to be a boring weekend.”
“It sounds perfect to me. Are you planning to do any work today?”
“Zoe Manville has agreed to talk with me. I’m meeting her at ten o’clock.”
“Fashion?”
“It could be fashion.”
Mac rustled some papers on his desk, then leaned back in his chair. “You know, Lacey, no matter what that crazy dead woman said, you don’t have to try to solve this thing yourself. That’s actually the cops’ job.” She said nothing. “I hate the jerk for using your car,” he added.
“Thanks, Mac. I hate him too.” Neither of them believed that the use of her car was a coincidence. She stood to go. “Just another day in happy valley,” Lacey said as she dashed out of his office.
The Manville family home was an unprepossessing row house in an untrendy area of Northwest D.C. far above Georgetown, a two-story edifice with a front porch painted white.
Zoe met Lacey at the door, weepy and red-faced, without makeup. She wore a long white shirt over black slacks, and her feet were bare. Neither she nor the shirt had any starch left. She ushered Lacey in, shutting the door against the bright sunshine as if it were an insult to her grief.
The small house was immaculate, and roomier inside than it appeared on the outside. Wooden floors gleamed against creamy walls and were topped by dark-red-and-blue Oriental carpets. A full complement of sturdy mission furniture completed the polished look.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Lacey said.
Zoe’s eyes measured her. “Can you find out who did this terrible thing?”
Lacey shook her head and shrugged helplessly. “I’m not a detective; I’m just a reporter. I just write stories.”
Tears squeezed out of Zoe’s eyes. “I heard that the killer used your car.”