10 Lethal Black Dress (35 page)

CHAPTER 42

LAcey SMITHSONIAN’s capture of Zanna
Nelson
was prominently played in the newspaper and its online edition for the rest of
the week. It created a one-week’s media sensation in Washington, bookended by a
Presidential gaffe and a Mideast crisis.

Mac Jones was still trying to find out who allowed the
theatre critic Tamsin Kerr to write a front-page “review” about the
confrontation for the Wednesday early edition. None of the night editors or
staff would admit to having seen it, edited it, or approved it. And yet there
it was, big and bold, above the fold. Along with a photograph of Zanna Nelson
in handcuffs, Lacey Smithsonian being attended by paramedics, and Broadway
Lamont looking sternly about the debris-strewn newsroom.

“We write the news. We don’t critique it,” Mac muttered to
anyone within earshot.

“I don’t know, Mac,” Tony said. “I would have paid to see that
performance. And it got a great review.”

Mac buried his face in his hands. “This is a newspaper. It’s
supposed to be the facts.”

Tamsin Kerr was unapologetic. “It is the facts, Jones,” she
said. “And something more. My unique interpretation of the action and its
meaning in a context our readers can appreciate: Entertainment. Comedy. Drama.
Spectacle.”

“Spectacle is about the right word for it. Circus is another.
Who on earth, Kerr, or on this newspaper,” Mac demanded, “told you that you
could do this story the way you did it?”

“Who can say, Jones? Memory fails. It was a beehive of
journalistic activity here last night after Smithsonian’s encounter with
Nelson. You should have seen it, you’d be proud. The Production Department was
in an uproar. Somebody down there was tearing apart the whole front page and
remaking it around the attack at
The Eye
. Somebody said we needed to
kill the
Brain-Dead Monkey
review for space. A mercy killing, if you ask
me. Somebody suggested that, because I was an eyewitness, why not write what I
saw, to tell our own story and scoop our competition. Why not, indeed? I caught
the fever and flavor of the moment and communicated that to our readers in my
own inimitable style,” she told Mac.

“You’re not a news reporter.”

“No. I’m better than that. I am a critic. That is my job,
Jones. I gave
The Eye
’s dramatic confrontation five stars, by the way. I
never give five stars. Think about
that
.” She stalked out of the
newsroom, majestically as usual.

Mac stood there scratching his head and fuming. “Critics!
Spare me from critics.”

Lacey was fascinated (and slightly appalled) by Tamsin’s take
on her confrontation with Zanna. She was glad it appeared in
The Eye
first and scooped all the other media in town. It hit the wires and was picked
up in print and online around the country and around the world, usually in some
section resembling “News of the Weird.” Proving yet again, Lacey told Harlan
Wiedemeyer, that every news organization in the world had some poor bastard
working a beat just like his Death and Dismemberment beat. He shrugged: It went
without saying.

Lacey’s feature article explaining the origin of the dress,
its journey to becoming a weapon in Zanna Nelson’s hands, and the aftermath of
Courtney’s death, appeared the following day. The two-page spread featured a
wealth of interviews and photographs, including the vintage
Mademoiselle
picture of debutante Betty Lionsgate in the stunning black gown with its
original white lining, and Hansen’s best shot of Courtney in the Madame X dress
with the deadly green lining at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. There
were also pictures of the silk scraps next to Nadine’s painting on green silk
and the postcard from Jillian Hopewell’s art show at the gallery in Old Town.

A sidebar on the fate of Hopewell’s paintings that were shown
at the Old Town exhibit was also added to the mix for the later edition. While
most of Hopewell’s works were painted on canvas, those were strongly suspected
of also containing Paris Green pigment in her self-mixed paint. They had all
been purchased.
The Eye
was attempting to contact the buyers, but not
all of them had been tracked down yet. One of the known buyers, who was happy
to speak with Lacey, was a former KGB spy turned adventurer and soldier of fortune,
Gregor Kepelov. He was now on the trail of one of the silk paintings himself.
Acting, he said, on behalf of a major museum with an interest in crime. Big
Mike, Nadine told Lacey, was hanging onto his painting in the hope of the price
going higher.

Felicity was in mourning. She mourned the senseless loss of
cake, her Pink Sky Angel Food Cloud Cake.

Lacey kept her promise to Eric Park and gave him an on-screen
interview for Channel One News after
The Eye
broke its story. It was the
least she could do for him for leaking the clip, and it was well received,
raising his profile at the station. Channel One News tried to treat the story
as if its own reporters had broken it in partnership with Smithsonian.
However,
it took some dancing on their part to finesse what they said about Zanna
Nelson. The station first described her as a “part-time, swing-shift employee.”
They then corrected that description to “former short-term employee.”

As for Zanna Nelson, she was locked up on a psychiatric hold
pending her eventual transfer to jail and trial for murder and other charges.
While Nelson cooled her heels in the mental ward,
The Eye
’s health
editor produced a lengthy article on the potentially corrosive effects of envy
in the workplace, particularly in a place like the District of Columbia where
the hard-charging workaholic lifestyle reigned, and where mental illness could
masquerade under any number of guises. Until it was too late.

Not to be outdone, Channel One produced an on-air feature
with a psychiatrist about the warning signs of imminent workplace violence.
They said there were no red flags in Zanna Nelson’s work history, but they used
her breakdown and alleged crimes as a cautionary tale. Lacey wasn’t sure
whether this feature was a naked grab for viewers’ eyeballs, exploiting the
news hook of their “family tragedy,” or genuine guilt that this had happened in
their own corrosively toxic workplace.
Probably both.

Damon Newhouse lauded Smithsonian’s counterattack, and he also
reported on DeadFed that Zanna Nelson was thought to be a tool of a larger
conspiracy to infiltrate the television news with mind-controlled killer zombies.
He named several other well-known Washington on-air personalities as suspected
zombies and promised to blow the lid off this story in future articles.

Lacey hoped Nelson would just plead guilty, so everyone could
avoid endless courtroom proceedings and lawyerly shenanigans. Brooke retorted
that “lawyerly shenanigans” were her stock in trade, and in fact a high art.
Nelson’s public defender was giving no hints about her strategy, but an
insanity defense was considered possible.

Detective Broadway Lamont promised Lacey, when she was
feeling up to it, that he would personally escort her to the medical examiner’s
office to visit the by-now infamous Madame X dress, still locked up in a secure
evidence room. The dress might be released back to the family eventually—or not,
now that it was evidence in a murder case. But Lacey would be allowed to view
it, as long as she promised not to touch anything, or wreck anything, or tune
in to any “fashion voodoo.” Lacey agreed. Courtney’s dress probably wouldn’t
tell her anything she didn’t already know, she realized, but perhaps it would
set her mind at rest. And it would let her see the end of the story.

“I told you not to get blood on those galleys,” Mac said to
Lacey late Wednesday.

“There’s just a little. Sorry.”

“Guess I didn’t mention not getting dirt and cake and pink
frosting on them either,” he said.

“You didn’t. And it was in a good cause.”

“It’s always in a good cause with you.”

He dropped a fresh print of the
Terror at Timberline
galleys on Lacey’s desk. He informed her that, attack or no attack, he still
needed it read and returned by Friday. Lacey informed him Friday was good for
her, but it would have to be some other future Friday, because she was not
working late nights alone in
The
Eye
’s newsroom ever again. Mac
just snorted and stomped away.

By the end of the week, Lacey was finally sleeping well at
night again and the scratches on her shoulders and face were healing. She wasn’t
thinking very much about the Lethal Black Dress, or Paris Green, or Zanna
Nelson. She dwelled on the aftermath—the sweet aftermath—with Vic.

#

And yet for Vic, the immediate aftermath, that very night, had
been bittersweet. He was glad Lacey was safe, but he felt terrible that he
hadn’t made it there in time to prevent the fight. He was a block or two from
The
Eye
when Turtledove called to report that Lacey wasn’t answering either her
desk phone or her cell. Vic arrived just as Turtledove entered the lobby and
they charged upstairs together. Turtledove was also feeling remorseful about
not checking the parking garage entrance, which he, and everyone at
The Eye
,
thought was secure. Though he admitted he might not have suspected quiet,
pretty Zanna was a potential assailant. No one else had either.

Lacey had tried to reassure both of them that night, after
the fight, after the uniformed cops took their statements and departed with
their suspect in custody, leaving them in the wreckage of the newsroom with
Broadway Lamont and the crime scene techs.

“I only suspected her tonight, myself. Right before she
showed up here.”

“Looks like you beat her up pretty good,” Turtledove said.
“Without us.” He looked pretty miserable himself.

“But who’s going to look better in the morning?” Lacey knew
she bruised easily, but she wasn’t sure Zanna would even carry a mark.
Maybe
a lump on her head where I mugged her.

Vic wiped her scratched face with something that stung from
the office first aid kit. The paramedics had already bandaged her arm.

“That woman isn’t your typical killer,” he said. “She wasn’t
even on my radar.”

“Ouch. No, she isn’t typical. She killed one woman with a
dress. She tried to kill me with a rock. And a shoe.”

A shoe, Lacey noticed, that was just then being bagged for
evidence, along with its mate and a tattered scarf of green silk. And her
shattered cell phone. Lamont also instructed the tech to bag as evidence her
favorite FASHION
BITES
mug. In two bags. The handle was broken.

“Shame,” Lamont said. “That’s my favorite mug to use when I
visit over here.”

“Will I get it back?”

“Get it back?” He just laughed.

Lacey made a mental note to have Mac order several more of
her special mugs. Maybe she’d surprise Lamont with a new one. That would give
the other homicide guys at his office something to talk about. Especially if
she had them made in hot pink.

She pulled a mirror from her desk drawer and inspected the
damage. There were three long bloody streaks across her cheek. She shuddered.

After Lacey was photographed from several angles for yet more
evidence, Vic gently applied sterile surgical strips to her wounds. “I have to
tell you, sweetheart, I’m very proud of you. You have a wicked pitch. Knocked
her right out.”

“As long as I have the power of Fashion Bites in my fist.”

“Darling, I know this isn’t the most romantic time and place
for this. I’m sorry.” He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. “Seems like
we haven’t had too many quiet moments lately. But before anything else happens
I want you to have this, if you’ll still have me.”

He offered the box to her. She opened it and caught her
breath. Her engagement ring rested there, clean and sparkling and freshly
resized. It looked much larger than she remembered it, with the substantial
Donovan family diamond nestled in the gold filigree.

“Oh, Vic. It’s beautiful. Oh my God.”

“Will you marry me? Please.” He slipped it on her finger and
bent down on one knee. The diamond looked huge.

Lacey blinked back tears. She didn’t know if she was laughing
or crying. “Of course I’ll marry you. I already said yes! Don’t you remember?”
She was laughing now, and he was too.

He had first proposed to her under a hail of bullets. Giving
her the ring in the aftermath of this brush with death was not just fitting, it
was perfect.

The ring looked right and felt right. It was unique. As unexpected
as their love story. She leaned into him and kissed him hard, barely noticing
that “Long Lens” Hansen had somehow materialized out of the gloom and was taking
their photograph.

“I’m sorry about the surroundings,” Vic said. “I was planning
something a little, well, grander.”

“But Vic, what could be grander? You and me at
The Eye
in the middle of the night? With cops bagging evidence,
Terror at Timberline
all over the floor, pink cake crumbs everywhere, icing stuck in my hair, and
surgical tape on my face? Sweetheart, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

About the author

Ellen
Byerrum
is a
novelist
,
a playwright, a
reporter, a former Washington, D.C., journalist, and a graduate of private
investigator school in Virginia. Her Crime of Fashion mystery series stars a
savvy, stylish female sleuth named Lacey Smithsonian. Lacey is a reluctant
fashion reporter in Washington D.C., which she lovingly refers to as "The
City Fashion Forgot.”

Lacey longs
to be taken seriously as a "hard news" reporter. But her nose for
nuance, her eye for a great story, and her untamable talent for getting into
trouble make her the perfect newshound for her newspaper’s underappreciated Crime
of Fashion beat. Her "ExtraFashionary Perception," her finely honed
sense for what we tell the world through the way we dress, helps her solve
crimes where others are clueless. In her vintage suits and killer heels, Lacey
discovers fatal fashion clues, fabulous shoes, dangerous women, drop-dead men,
and the occasional corpse (well-dressed or otherwise).

Fashion
sleuth Lacey Smithsonian and her creator Ellen Byerrum have a good deal of
personal history in common: a fondly remembered balcony view of the Potomac
River, a love for vintage clothes, and a humorous viewpoint on life, love,
mystery, and fashion.

And a window
seat on the wild and wacky world of Our Nation's Capital.