Shot Through Velvet Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  The Crime of Fashion Mysteries by Ellen Byerrum

  Designer Knockoff

  LOOK FOR THE BOOKS BY

  Praise for the Crime of Fashion Mysteries, the Series That Inspired Two Lifetime Movies

  “Devilishly funny. . . . Lacey is intelligent, insightful, and spunky . . . thoroughly likable.”

  —The Sun (Bremerton, WA)

  “Laced with wicked wit.”

  —SouthCoastToday.com

  “Byerrum spins a mystery out of (very luxurious) whole cloth with the best of them.”

  —Chick Lit Books

  “Fun and witty . . . with a great female sleuth.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “[A] very entertaining series.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  Armed and Glamorous

  “Whether readers are fashion divas or hopelessly fashion challenged, there’s a lot to like about being Armed and Glamorous .”

  —BookPleasures.com

  “Fans will relish Armed and Glamorous, a cozy starring a fashionable trench coat, essential killer heels, and designer whipping pearls.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Grave Apparel

  “A truly intriguing mystery.”

  —Armchair Interviews

  “A fine whodunit . . . a humorous cozy.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Fun and enjoyable. . . . Lacey’s a likable, sassy and savvy heroine, and the Washington, D.C., setting is a plus.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “Wonderful.”

  —Gumshoe

  Raiders of the Lost Corset

  “A hilarious crime caper. . . . Readers will find themselves laughing out loud. . . . Ellen Byerrum has a hit series on her hands with her latest tale.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “I love this series. Lacey is such a wonderful character. . . . The plot has many twists and turns to keep you turning the pages to discover the truth. I highly recommend this book and series.”

  —Spinetingler Magazine

  “Wow. A simplistic word but one that describes this book perfectly. I loved it! I could not put it down! . . . Lacey is a scream, and she’s not nearly as wild and funny as some of her friends. . . . I loved everything about the book from the characters to the plot to the fast-paced and witty writing.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  “Lacey is back, and in fine form. . . . This is probably the most complex, most serious case that Lacey has taken on, but with her upbeat attitude and fine-tuned fashion sense, there’s no one better suited to the task. Traveling with Lacey is both entertaining and dicey, but you’ll be glad you made the trip.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  Hostile Makeover

  Also a Lifetime Movie

  “Byerrum pulls another superlative Crime of Fashion out of her vintage cloche.”

  —Chick Lit Books

  “The read is as smooth as fine-grade cashmere.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Totally delightful . . . a fun and witty read.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Designer Knockoff

  “Byerrum intersperses the book with witty excerpts from Lacey’s ‘Fashion Bites’ columns, such as ‘When Bad Clothes Happen to Good People’ and ‘Thank Heavens It’s Not Code Taupe’ . . . quirky . . . interesting plot twists.”

  —The Sun (Bremerton, WA)

  “Clever wordplay, snappy patter, and intriguing clues make this politics-meets-high-fashion whodunit a cut above the ordinary.”—Romantic Times

  “A very talented writer with an offbeat sense of humor.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Killer Hair

  Also a Lifetime movie

  “[A] rippling debut. Peppered with girlfriends you’d love to have, smoldering romance you can’t resist, and Beltway insider insights you’ve got to read, Killer Hair adds a crazy twist to the concept of ‘capital murder.’ ” —Sarah Strohmeyer, Agatha Award-winning author of The

  Penny Pinchers Club and the Bubbles Yablonsky novels

  “Ellen Byerrum tailors her debut mystery with a sharp murder plot, entertaining fashion commentary, and gutsy characters.”

  —Nancy J. Cohen, author of the Bad Hair Day Mysteries

  “A load of stylish fun.”

  —Scripps Howard News Service

  “Lacey slays and sashays thru Washington politics, scandal, and Fourth Estate slime, while uncovering whodunit, and dunit, and dunit again.”

  —Chloe Green, author of the Dallas

  O’Connor Fashion Mysteries

  “Killer Hair is a shear delight.”

  —Elaine Viets, national bestselling author of

  An Uplifting Murder

  Other Crime of Fashion Mysteries by Ellen Byerrum

  Killer Hair

  Designer Knockoff

  Hostile Makeover

  Raiders of the Lost Corset

  Grave Apparel

  Armed and Glamorous

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, February 2011

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47714-4

  Copyright © Ellen Byerrum, 2011

  All rights reserved

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part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When writing a book, you can’t get far without inspiration and information and a host of people who are willing to help—whether it’s with the writing or just keeping up your spirits. A lot of people kept me going during the road to publication of Shot Through Velvet, and I offer them my wholehearted appreciation.

  I’d also like to explain that while there is no little town of Black Martin, Virginia—nor is there any velvet factory called (or exactly like) Dominion Velvet—there are several parts of that state that have been deeply affected by the demise of the textile industries. My friend Regina Cline alerted me to the last velvet factory in Virginia, and also inspired my interest in visiting beautiful Lake Anna, for which I am deeply grateful. Paul S. Majeika of A. Wimpfheimer & Bro., Inc. opened my eyes to the plight of the velvet industry in Virginia and across the country. He was generous with his time and experience, and he gave me a fascinating tour of a well-managed velvet factory, for which I am very grateful. Any errors and omissions in the history and practice of making velvet are, of course, my own, as are the imagined details, characters, and situations in my fictional Dominion Velvet. Corrine Geller, public relations manager with the Virginia State Police, also answered my questions in the midst of her busy schedule.

  Many thanks to my fabulous agent, Paige Wheeler, who has gone above and beyond the call of duty on my behalf. And I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of my terrific editor at NAL, Sandy Harding.

  As always, I wouldn’t be here without the support of my husband, Bob Williams, as well as his keen eye, critical insights, and back rubs. Honey, there just aren’t enough words.

  Chapter 1

  The body was blue.

  Not merely wearing blue, he was blue—and not the blue pallor of death. He was sapphire from head to toe, a deep shade of mood indigo.

  Oh, that’s taking the matchy-match thing way too far, thought Lacey Smithsonian, fashion reporter for The Eye Street Observer. No, Lacey, she told herself. This is not What Not to Wear. This is how not to be caught dead.

  The corpse was lashed to the bottom of a giant spool of velvet, fastened with strips of the same velvet, as blue as his skin. He rose dripping from a vat of blue dye, splashing inky blue liquid on the factory’s cement floor. Everywhere Lacey looked there was a serene shade of blue made obscene by death.

  The dead man’s head was swollen, his hair matted blue-black, his lips and tongue a royal blue, his protruding eyeballs a lighter shade, perhaps cerulean. A human gargoyle in death, he was a sight both horrible and fascinating.

  A song played unbidden in Lacey’s mind. He wore bluuuue VELLLL-vet . . . Lacey, stop! NOW!

  How long would his blue skin last? Lacey wondered. Through all eternity? Or just through decomposition? With Valentine’s Day less than two weeks away, maybe he should have been dyed red instead of blue. Then again, maybe not.

  Although the man had been completely submerged in the tint, the spool of velvet was only half dyed, the un-submerged part still cream-colored. It was a sodden mess hanging from a long heavy chain attached to the overhead machinery of the dye house.

  Lacey had been touring Dominion Velvet, the last velvet factory in Virginia, on its final full day of operations, for a special report for her newspaper on the vanishing U.S. textile industry. She was planning to write a fashion-related feature article, one with more substance than style. Her agenda for the day was not supposed to include murder. Murder was never on Lacey’s game plan, and yet here it was. Again.

  This time death wore blue velvet.

  Lacey spared a sigh for the velvet, the deceased, and the factory workers. And herself. She wondered how the man’s demise would affect her feature story. There were days Lacey detested being a fashion scribe. Today might be one of them. I can’t believe this is happening.

  Standing next to Lacey and also witnessing the royal blue debacle was Dominion Velvet’s newly hired security consultant, Vic Donovan, her boyfriend. He was supposed to start working up a security plan the next day and have new guards and a new security system on-site within a week. He was there to get a look around, but he was getting far more than he’d anticipated.

  Vic was dressed in his professional attire, a close-fitting black turtleneck that showed off his muscles, a black leather jacket, black boots, and gray slacks instead of his usual jeans. One pesky dark curl fell over his forehead. Lacey restrained the urge to push it back and gaze into his green eyes.

  Vic Donovan, the man in her life, had tipped her off to the factory closing story. He invited her along to the little town of Black Martin, Virginia, to see the factory firsthand while he initiated the security contract for Dominion Velvet in its waning days.

  After angry graffiti had been scrawled on a factory wall one night, the company had instituted some stopgap security measures, but its original plan was not much more sophisticated than locking the doors and turning out the lights. The workers were unhappy about losing their jobs. The local economy was devastated; there were no other jobs in town. Dominion Velvet was afraid an empty plant would just encourage more vandalism. The company had hired some local good old boy to watch the plant at night, but he wasn’t a real security guard. Donovan’s company was hired to install a serious security system to ensure there would be no more incidents on-site. When and if the building and the machinery were eventually sold, security would be the new owners’ problem.

  For Lacey and Vic, this foray to Black Martin was supposed to be a quick road trip away from Washington, D.C. Lacey could work on her serious fashion story, Vic would meet his new client, and she and Vic could have a romantic dinner somewhere. But their plans for a little romance were spiraling down the drain, along with the blue dye dripping from the corpse.

  Things had gone wrong from the start that morning. Vic and Lacey were supposed to meet with Vic’s contact, a company official named Rod Gibbs. But Gibbs hadn’t shown up, so general manager Tom Nicholson had filled in. He was giving them what he called the five-cent tour.

  Rod Gibbs was also the company official Lacey had intended to interview. He had promised her on the phone that the shutdown would be temporary and he would give her details of “an exciting new plan” for the factory’s future.

  At the moment, Vic was taking a deep breath, no doubt trying to control his emotions. “This is a disaster,” he whispered and shook his head.

  “This is not my fault, Vic Donovan,” Lacey whispered back.

  “I know that, Lacey.”

  “That’s not what your tone says.”

  “My tone? Are you telling me this is one of your infamous crimes of fashion?”

  “Just what would you call it? He is tied to a spool of velvet. He is blue. Do the math.”

  “It’s a workplace homicide,” he said. “Just so happens the workplace is a velvet factory. Besides, I didn’t mean this was your fault. I meant mine.”

  Lac
ey raised an eyebrow in response. “Your fault? How do you figure that?”

  “I should have started this job yesterday. Then this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “The company set the timetable, not you. The client is always right. Right?”

  “Yeah. That was my first mistake. The client is usually wrong.”

  A handful of other witnesses were sharing this spectacle. Vic and Lacey’s tour had picked up a few hangers-on, employees who trailed along in a kind of melancholy parade, not knowing what to do to fill their time on their last day on the job. They collected their personal mementos and cleaned out their lockers, but they had nowhere else to go. It didn’t feel like a brand-new day waiting around the corner for the factory, as Rod Gibbs had promised. It felt like a heartbroken good-bye. A deep blue good-bye.

  This is what happens when people lose their jobs. The irony didn’t escape Lacey. She was writing about job loss at a time when newspapers were closing all over the country and her own newspaper was in trouble. She could lose her own position just when the job horizon for reporters was rapidly dimming. Lacey had expected her journalism career to move from paper to paper, onward and upward, with better positions at every step along the way. But what if The Eye Street Observer was the end of the road for her? Newspapers were threatened daily by the Internet and twenty-four-hour broadcast news. Lacey shook her head to clear her thoughts. This wasn’t about her. This story was about Black Martin, Virginia.

  The group had turned a corner, from the velvet-shearing operations on the main floor to the white-tiled room that was called the dye house. Six large gray steel vats sat in a row, partly sunken in the floor. Five of them were empty. Each vat was seven feet deep to accommodate the heavy steel spools of fabric six-and-a-half feet wide. Nicholson, their tour guide, had been surprised to see there was a problem with the sixth. The spool of velvet seemed to be stuck half in and half out of the vat. When the spool was slowly lifted by the heavy machinery, the blue corpse came up with it.

  In the ensuing confusion and gasps of disbelief, Lacey felt Vic’s hand on her shoulder. His face was stern and his jaw was set. She’d seen that look before. She whispered, “I do not have a murder mojo.”