10 Lethal Black Dress (12 page)

“You are her family, so the dress might come back to you.
After the authorities release it.”
If they ever do.

“It won’t do any good,” Mrs. Wallace said, suddenly
ferocious. “Courtney is dead. I never want to see that dress again. I hope they
burn it.”

So much for me asking to see it
, Lacey thought.

“All we want is closure,” he replied. “I don’t know where she
found that thing. She didn’t usually dress like that. Courtney was way more
casual.”

With the dirt on her face in the sandbox,
Lacey
thought. He probably didn’t know or understand anything about his grownup sister,
the ambitious Washington reporter she’d become.

“There is no closure in death. There is only sorrow.” Mrs.
Wallace lifted her eyes to her daughter’s picture, a glowing Courtney holding
her Emmy. “She was a golden girl, but God chose her time on this Earth, and He
chose when it ended. Courtney never liked to come home much. Not with her
career and all. Now, she’ll never leave us again. She’ll be with her daddy in
the family plot.”

Her son put his hand on her arm and guided her away to a seat
in the corner. Lacey declined to follow them. They seemed to have no
information about the dress, or Courtney’s death, or possibly even about
Courtney’s life. For them, Courtney had no enemies and no faults.

Mrs. Wallace was surrounded by other mourners, with other
inane yet comforting things to say. Even if they disliked Courtney, they would
praise her, perhaps feeling shame for their previous feelings. Death had that
power over people.

Lacey headed to the refreshment table. Lamont was already
there. She picked up a Styrofoam cup filled with tasteless black coffee. Although
a few reporters approached Lamont with questions, he shook his head and put up
his hand in warning. They stopped. He was not giving out quotes. To those who
insisted, he repeated his mantra. “No comment. Tragedy. Just here to pay my
respects.”

Courtney’s photographer edged over to the refreshment table.
He drank down a cup of punch in one gulp.

“Hi. I saw you at the Correspondents’ Dinner,” Lacey said.

“I remember. You followed Courtney out of the room. After
the—you know, the incident.”

“I’m Lacey Smithsonian.” She extended her hand.

“I know.” He gulped down a second cup of punch and shook her
hand. “Eric Park.”

“You know who I am?” She was always surprised when people
recognized her. She liked to pretend she was anonymous, even after Mac put her
picture at the head of her column.

“Courtney used to read your stuff.”

“She did?”
I could tell.
“Interesting.”

“Yeah, she thought you’d found a good gig. A wide open beat.
You investigate hard news as much as you do clothes and fashion trends. She
said it was right up her alley.”

“Really?”
Courtney was a copycat.

“Oh yeah, she was a fan of yours. Imitation is the highest
form of flattery.”

“Sure.”
No it isn’t!
she thought. Fashion might be
flimsy, but Lacey had found real things to say. About style and society and
what people reveal about themselves in their wardrobes. She could read a
person’s history in what they wore. She found foul play in fabrics, secrets
stitched between the layers of a corset, fashion clues that few could see. Most
people didn’t realize how much information they could glean with a single glance
at someone’s clothes.

To Lacey, Courtney’s unflattering imitation was worse than the
obvious theft of her ideas. Courtney didn’t care that clothes told stories.
How
could you call yourself a journalist and not care about stories?

“Eric, did you accompany her on the entire vintage series?”

“Yup. I won the coin toss.”

“I’m curious. Why did she move from investigative reporting
to fashion? From hard news to soft? Besides the Granville mess.”

He squirmed and reached for another cup of punch. “Here isn’t
the place to talk about it,” Eric said, eying the big detective standing
nearby, though he didn’t seem averse to talking.

“Is there a better place?” She dug a card out of her bag and
handed it to him. “Coffee?”

Eric measured her with his expression. “Do you have some
feeling about her death not being an accident?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re Lacey Smithsonian. Courtney used to say that
the old clothes part of your beat wasn’t that interesting, it was the murders
you uncovered. She was pretty much in awe of that.”

“The ‘old clothes part’ was always the key to the murders,
Eric.”    

He tucked the card in his pocket. He smiled a slow, calculated
smile. “Sure. I’m always up for gossip and a good latte. Ask Zanna Nelson about
Courtney, too. They were tight.”

“How tight?”

“Best friends, I guess. Call me, we’ll do coffee.”

Eric swiped a petite tea sandwich from the table behind him
on his way out. At the door he seemed to catch sight of someone he didn’t like.
He grimaced and slipped out. Lacey followed his look: A man impersonating a Ken
Doll, tall and blond, was speaking to Mrs. Wallace.

“That’s the boyfriend,” Lamont said, suddenly standing behind
her.

“Aha. He looks the part.” Lacey took in the impeccably
tailored gray suit, somber blue shirt, gray-and-blue striped tie, and pocket
hanky. “I’m guessing he’s a lobbyist or a lawyer for some interest group. Does
he have a name?”

“Drake Rayburn. Lobbyist. Mouthpiece for some plastics
association, or something like that.”

“That fits. Ken to Courtney’s Barbie.”

The tall blond man directed a blazing smile to a comely brunette.
Lacey recognized her as Eve Farrand, another broadcaster on Channel One. They
shared a look over the head of Courtney Wallace’s mother, a warm and intimate
look. He leaned down and kissed Mrs. Wallace on the cheek, exchanged a few
words of sympathy, and slipped out the side door with Eve, his hand in the
small of her back.

“Whose boyfriend, again?” Lacey questioned Lamont.

“Man in motion. Not wasting any time, I guess.”

They weren’t the only ones who noticed Drake’s escape with
Eve. Zanna’s gaze followed them, a look of longing on her face.

“Gotta go.” Lamont tossed his cup and paper plate in the
trash bin. “It’s been real.”

“Call me if you get any news, Broadway.”

“Dream on, Smithsonian. One non-leak per non-homicide is all
I got to give. On the other hand, you get some far-out hunch about Courtney
Wallace, or old clothes, or anything at all, you call me.”

“You said it was an accident.”

“And I believe that. But just in case you got a theory, let
me know before it hits the paper.”

“Because you have to entertain the troops in the office?”

“That’s right,” he chuckled. “I’m the guy supposed to know
things, even crazy-ass ideas like yours. And don’t put too much store in what
happens here today. People act funny at funerals. Don’t mean they’re killers.”

Lacey watched Lamont exit without ceremony. Nearly everyone
at the memorial service was rushing back to a job, work to do, deadlines to
meet. Lacey seemed to be one of the very few who had the rest of the day off.
But she noticed that at least one other mourner seemed to be in no hurry to
leave.

CHAPTER 14

Zanna Nelson wiped her eyes
before
picking up a cup of fruit punch.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Lacey said.

The woman jumped and the punch sloshed in her cup. “Oh.
Thanks.” She checked her outfit for spills and composed her face. “It’s hard to
believe Courtney is dead.”

“Sorry I startled you.”

“Deep in thought. You know. Courtney was so full of life.
Fate was always so kind to her.”

What did Fate like about her? That she was ruthless?
Blond?
Lacey put out her hand. “I’m Lacey Smithsonian.”

“Zanna Nelson.”

“I know you tried to help her that night. In the ladies’
room.”

“I did try.” Zanna smiled sadly. “She never listened to me.
But how could anyone help? No one knew what was wrong.”

“I guess no one could.”

Zanna stared at Lacey. “You wrote the story in
The Eye
Street Observer.
You figured it out. The green dye thing, didn’t you? How
on earth did you know?”

“It was just a feeling at first.” Lacey thought back to that
evening. She gestured with the tasteless coffee. “And then I remembered
something. It was a hunch.”

“A feeling? A hunch? How did you come up with that? It was
totally off the wall.” Zanna looked perplexed.

“You know how it is, you’re a reporter, right? Random bits of
information float around in your head. Sometimes they coalesce, come together,
create a storyline.”

Where did her knowledge of Paris Green dye come from? The
first time, she thought, was in a college class on costume history, where she
remembered mishearing it as “poison apple green.” It was a cautionary example
of fatal fashions.

“Must come in handy when you write about the stuff you do.”

“You’ve seen my column.”

“Maybe once or twice.” She tossed off a shrug and looked
around the room, perhaps checking out who might be more important. She filled
the cup again, turning her back on Lacey.

“Zanna, did you get a headache at the dinner, or feel
strange? Or smell anything unusual? When you were in the ladies’ room with
Courtney?”

“Like bad perfume? Like those imitation designer scents?
There was a lot of that going around that night.” She turned back. “But I
wasn’t really paying attention. I mean, there was so much going on. Did you?”

Lacey distinctly remembered the oppressive feeling she’d had
around the sodden dress, the smell of garlic and old wet fabric.

“Yes. That’s one reason I thought she needed to find
something else to wear. She didn’t look well, she was stressed, her dress was
soaked, and there was that odd smell about it. I thought at first it might be
mildew, or the dress might be full of hidden mold.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t smell anything extra strange.” She
looked sad and tired. “I was just concerned about Courtney.”

“I know. We both were. Do you know where she found that
dress?”

“She didn’t share that information with me.” Zanna swallowed
the second glass of punch and made a face at the taste. “I was more interested
in what I wore.”

“Eric Park said you two were best friends.”

“You talked to Eric? Well, we were, I guess. But I didn’t
know everything about her. Not every last little thing. Not like her clothes.”

Judging from Zanna’s aloof attitude, Lacey thought that could
be true. “I heard Drake Rayburn was Courtney’s boyfriend.”

Zanna puckered her lips. The punch couldn’t be that bad.
“Occasionally. One of many.”

“He was just comforting Eve Farrand earlier.”

“Well. That’s only natural.” Zanna looked back to the side
door as if expecting Rayburn to walk back in. “Excuse me, I have to go see
about her mom. She’s pretty broken up.”

Lacey warmed up her coffee as she watched Zanna reach out and
hug Mrs. Wallace. Courtney’s mother started to cry.

“Lacey Smithsonian, you only go to the best places,” a voice
with a distinctly Russian accent said. She knew who it was before she saw him.

“Gregor Kepelov. Imagine seeing you here.” The ex-spy seemed
to dog her steps in the most unexpected places. “Did you know Courtney
Wallace?”

“No.”

“Why are you here, then? Just following me around again?”

“Always, Smithsonian.” Kepelov grinned his odd crooked smile.
“I am faithful follower of your reporting in
Eye Street Observer
. The
manner of this death interests me too, as well as your proximity to the
unfortunate woman when she suffered the fatal dose of champagne.”

“My proximity? I had nothing to do with it.”

He put up his hands in surrender. “Obviously! You are just
lucky to be so often in the right place at right time.”

“I’m not sure Courtney would agree.”

Kepelov laughed. “The dress would also interest KGB, which
exists no more. Except in spirit.” Gregor Kepelov was a former KGB agent with a
thick Russian accent who often talked of someday buying a ranch in Texas. It
was his version of the American dream.

Kepelov had been shot and looked death in the face, and he
seemed utterly fearless. He could easily blend into a crowd, unless someone looked
at him closely. Stocky and well-muscled, he wore his pale blond hair cropped so
short his round head looked almost bald. His facial features seemed a quarter
turn off normal, and his round blue eyes were icy, until he started talking
about his fiancée Marie. Then they warmed. He was one of the oddest people Lacey
knew, and it had taken a lot of work for him to earn her trust. But he had.
Mostly
.

“How did you know I would be here? Am I so predictable?”

“Is what I would do. We are alike in many ways. Also Marie
said you would be here.”

Obviously.
Marie Largesse, his fiancée, was a psychic
whose talents came and went, but she was positively savant about the rain and
wind and snow. She was as accurate about the weather as a brass rooster
weathervane. Apparently she had a reliable internal GPS where Lacey was
concerned, too.

“She didn’t faint, did she?” Lacey inquired.

“Not this time.” Marie had a history of fainting whenever
something bad was purportedly about to happen, like a death or an assault. She said
whatever she saw in that medium’s twilight was too awful to remember. Lacey was
skeptical, but she paid attention to Marie’s fainting spells.

“That’s a relief.”

“She has not collapsed in recent days. She has been working
with Olga on whatever it is Olga teaches her. Personally, I think Marie is
afraid to faint in front of Olga.” He laughed. Olga Kepelov was Gregor’s
intimidating older sibling.

“I’d be afraid too. I thought your sister was going back to
Florida.”

“Unfortunately, she believes we need her. And though she
finds us bothersome, and she does not like Marie’s chicory coffee, she will not
leave.”

“You did get shot.”

He shrugged. “I was wearing a vest. But I was, in her
opinion, reckless. And now I will never hear the end of it from my meddlesome
sister. Blood is thicker than bullets, it seems.”

Olga had emigrated not only to the United States but also
right into her brother’s and future sister-in-law’s lives. She was said to be
some kind of weapons expert who consulted with law enforcement. Her brother’s specialties
in the KGB were surveillance and, Lacey had heard, assassination. They were a
frightening family.

Lacey was unsure how Kepelov made a living these days, but he
seemed to make himself useful in foreign policy circles around Washington and he
dabbled in private security. He had even been a guest instructor in Lacey’s
private investigation course. Yet he also found time to be on the lookout for
Romanov treasures to sell to Russian millionaires. His greatest desire was to
locate a lost Fabergé egg. That, and a ranch in Texas. Lacey assumed one might
lead to the other.
If the egg came first.

“You wrote in your column that this woman’s death was
accidental.”

“I was quoting an unnamed source in the police department. It’s
good to have friends in high places.”

“Yes. Detective Broadway Lamont has been useful. However, you
don’t think the death of the television reporter was an accident?”

“I don’t know what to make of it, Kepelov. How about you?”

“Gregor, if you please. We are old friends.”

“Gregor.” She frowned. “It’s a little hard sometimes. With
our past history.”

“Lacey Smithsonian! I am wounded. Just because I happened to
render you unconscious that one time.”

“Kind of hard to forget, though.”

“I tell you this. Holding a grudge is not healthy. Do I hold
a grudge over the diamonds you found under my very nose? I do not. Most of the
time. We are friends. It is our destiny to be great friends.”

“So sayeth Marie?”

He helped himself to a plate of pastries. “The dress, how did
you put it? ‘Lethal Black Dress.’ Very clever of you. This dress with the green
dye is not an efficient way to kill. Yet it did. And so rare, so unlikely, who
would not believe it was merely a cataclysmic mistake? Yet a poison dye would
appeal to a certain kind of mind for a certain kind of death. The kind of death
that is supposed to be considered a mishap.”

“The KGB kind of mind?”

“Very possibly.” He winked at her. “And others. The patina of
misguided fate has great appeal as a cover for murder. What is your opinion?”

“It’s more convenient for everyone if it was an accident.”

“Just what a killer would want you to think.” Kepelov smiled.
His smile, though warmer and more frequent since he met Marie, still unsettled
Lacey. It was the smile of a wolf evaluating a lamb. “But Lacey Smithsonian,
what is your ExtraFashionary Perception telling you?”

“It took the day off. I only have questions. Where did the
dress come from? Was it a random find in a vintage shop? Or was it a gift from
the Evil Queen to Snow White?”

“Excellent. Origin of the dress is first step. And
intriguing, yes? A fabric unused in over a hundred years. But you know
yourself: Old fabric can be found.”

“What if it really was a freak occurrence?”

Kepelov reached for a piece of crumb cake on the buffet
table. “Even more unusual. The unusual is always of interest.”

“Why do you care anyway?”

“Idle curiosity. Professional interest in obscure methods of
death. Bonus: I like to watch you work. Harness your EFP for the service of
justice.”

“You’re not as funny as you think.”

He laughed and several people stared at them. He moved farther
away from the table and she followed him. “They say Napoleon perhaps died from
arsenic poisoning. Green wallpaper.”

“I mentioned it in the article.”

“You did.” He nodded thoughtfully. “If there is more of this
material in existence, a collector might be willing to pay for it. Particularly
if provenance goes back a century or two. Perhaps a museum would purchase such
an artifact. Or a dealer in curiosities.” He finished the crumb cake and licked
his fingers. “Many things are lethal. Guns, knives, bombs. Private collector in
such weaponry would be interested and possibly willing to pay more. But to take
possession of the very dress that killed TV personality Courtney Wallace…” He
let the thought hang in the air.

“Cool your jets, Gregor. The dress is locked up in the medical
examiner’s office. And Wallace’s own mother told me she wants it burned. The
family doesn’t want it, and they’ll probably never get it back, anyway.”

He raised his cool blue eyes to her. “Ah, most interesting
information. I am grateful to you.”

Now
what is he up to?
“Do you have a buyer in
mind?” Lacey remembered a recent trip with Brooke to the Crime and Punishment
Museum in the District, with its array of crime-related artifacts and weapons,
and the Spy Museum, with its fascinating collection of spy tools and deadly
devices. Kepelov sometimes hinted that some of his old handiwork was on display
there, though he would never say exactly what.

“Who knows?” He reached across the table for a napkin.

“What does Marie say?”

His eyes darkened. “She says her dreams are washed in green.
She woke up choking. She says, Beware the Green River, Smithsonian. But do not
fear. I say: Gregor Kepelov, at your service.”