Armed and Glamorous Read online

  Chapter 12

  “No, Mac, I don’t know anything else about the woman. You probably know more than I do at this point.”

  Lacey rubbed her eyes and looked at her alarm clock. Seven a.m. She moaned and threw on a favorite warm black silk robe embroidered with roses. It was way too early on a Sunday morning to be fielding a call from her editor.

  “You working on a follow-up?” Mac asked. Her story on Cecily Ashton and news of the woman’s death had just hit their subscribers’ front porches.

  “I’m working on getting my eyes open. And maybe a cup of coffee.” She padded barefoot into her small 1950s-era apartment kitchen with the phone to her ear and opened the fridge with her free hand. It didn’t look promising. She pulled out a half cup of cold coffee from the day before, popped it in the microwave, and pressed the button. Mmmm, half a cup of nuked leftover day-old coffee! Could be worse, she decided. Could be a whole pot of fresh-made newsroom coffee.

  “What are you doing up this early anyway?” she asked Mac. “It’s seven o’clock in the morning. Sunday morning.”

  “We’re taking the girls to church.”

  “Why, Douglas MacArthur Jones, you’re a churchgoing man! I never knew.”

  “Gotta set an example,” he snorted. “Those are good little girls, have you heard?” The Joneses seemed unlikely foster parents. They were older, in their forties, and they had never had children. At least Mac seemed an unlikely dad. He’d struck Lacey as the type to eat kids for breakfast. She’d been wrong about Mac. Kim, on the other hand, was clearly a natural foster mother. The moment she saw Jasmine and Lily Rose, two orphaned and homeless little girls, just before Christmas, Kim wrapped them up in her love like a warm cashmere blanket and they were her little lost chicks.

  The girls didn’t believe Lacey at first, when she told them she knew parents who wanted them and would be perfect for them. But they all fit together even better than Lacey had dared hope. The little girls’ resilience amazed them all, and being a father seemed to have a calming effect on Mac. Jasmine and Lily Rose were an ethnic blend of black and white and Asian. Mac was African-American (and half white), and Kim was Japanese-American. They blended well, not because of color, but because of love.

  The girls learned their mother was never coming home again just before Christmas. Lacey had to tell them the bad news, and it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to say. Sometimes the girls had nightmares, Mac told her, but the bad dreams were fading. They adored Kim, and gruff old Mac too, and they were learning little pleasures they’d never known before, like baking Christmas cookies and riding bikes. Mac showed off their latest pictures at the newsroom the previous Friday.

  “Those two little girls have turned you into a big sentimental softie,” Lacey laughed.

  “Why not, they’re not reporters.” She heard him rustling newspapers in the background. “You seen your story yet?”

  “Not yet.” Lacey opened her apartment door. The Eye Street Observer was hanging on her doorknob in a plastic bag. She tossed it on the table and pulled out the Sunday LifeStyles section: Her story was the front page feature. There was Hansen’s best shot of Cecily Ashton, leaning back glamorously on the blue velvet sofa in her fabulous dressing room, flashing her Rita Hayworth smile. She looked like a woman whose every wish had been granted.

  “It’s kind of a fluffy story,” Mac said. “For a dead woman.”

  “It’s a feature on the woman’s closets and clothes, Mac, what do you expect? And she was very alive at the time. Was I supposed to know this would happen?”

  “That’s why we do follow-ups. Especially for high-profile murder victims. Maybe you could start thinking a little deeper. Once you’ve had your morning coffee.”

  “What if it’s suicide? Last I heard—” A part of Lacey still hoped that perhaps Cecily had turned the gun on herself. That would be just as tragic a story, but perhaps not such a complicated one. Lacey didn’t need any more complications in her life.

  “It’s not suicide. Just confirmed.” Even over the phone Mac could sound smug. “No weapon in the car, wound wasn’t self-inflicted, so it’s murder. Trujillo left the message on my voice mail. He’s already out of bed and working the story.”

  “You put Tony on this story? What happened to Kavanaugh?”

  “Tony doesn’t want you to skunk him on his own beat. You know how he hates it when you scoop him. You gonna let him scoop you back?”

  Lacey wasn’t about to let Mac goad her. “Nobody in D.C. could care less about what happens out in Falls Church, Virginia. ”

  “Not unless someone like Cecily Ashton meets her maker there,” Mac said. “What was she doing there? Do you remember anything else she said? Did she mention anyone making threats? And by the way, what were you doing there?”

  She ignored his last question. “Not threats exactly. She’d said her ex, the one and only Philip Clark Ashton, was responsible for ‘all of it.’ Whatever ‘all of it’ meant.” But men like Ashton did not kill their ex-wives, Lacey thought. Not personally. If they really wanted them to disappear permanently, they hired specialists to do it for them, quietly and efficiently. But why was Cecily in Bud Hunt’s parking lot? And why would someone kill her there? To pin it on Bud Hunt? Or because the killer was Bud Hunt?

  “You still there, Smithsonian? I need a follow-up. Tomorrow.”

  “What kind of follow-up?”

  “Surprise me,” he replied. “Fashion stuff. Your readers expect it.”

  “You realize there is no fashion angle. You always want a fashion angle.”

  “You always say there isn’t one.” Mac chuckled. “And yet isn’t it amazing that you always find one. She was wearing some kind of clothes when she was killed, wasn’t she? And if she wasn’t, that’s a fashion angle too. Hang on a second. ” Lacey could hear a happy commotion in the background, consisting mostly of high-pitched giggles. Mac came back on the line. “Jasmine wants to talk to you.”

  The next voice she heard was a happy “totally almost” thirteen-year-old girl.

  “Hi, Lacey! It’s me, Jasmine! When are you coming over?”

  “Hi, Jasmine. I’m not sure, but soon. How’s life with Mac and Kim?”

  “Good,” the girl said. “Really good. We’re going to church and then we get doughnuts! And later me and Lily Rose get to ride our bikes down the trail. Mac promised, and he’s riding his bike with us too.” She giggled again and Lacey heard Lily Rose laughing in the background. “But we’re lots better bike riders than Mac! We go like the wind!”

  Mac on a bike chasing two little girls. There’s a front-page picture, Lacey thought. Maybe she could get Hansen to take some incriminating candids. For Christmas, Mac had assembled (with a little help from Vic Donovan) pink and blue bikes for Jasmine and her little sister Lily Rose. They’d never had bikes before.

  “Isn’t it too cold to go out riding today?”

  “No, no, no!” Jasmine giggled. “We have the warm coats you gave us and besides you stay really warm when you ride like we do. And guess what, we have our matching helmets now, Lily Rose and me, did you know that? Mine is blue and hers is pink of course and they’re perfect! You have to see them. Mac has a helmet too. His is red and I make sure he wears it so he doesn’t hurt himself.”

  “Good for you!” I’m a fan of any woman who can make Mac behave.

  “We think he looks funny in it,” Jasmine added softly, “but we make him wear it anyway.” Lacey was also a fan of anyone who could make her boss look funny. “When are we gonna see you, Lacey?”

  “Soon. Maybe when you go see Stella to have your hair trimmed.” A visit to the salon at Dupont Circle was going to be a big treat for the girls. “She told me you’re coming this week. I’ll stop by.”

  “Cool! You have to be there, it’ll be fun! I gotta go now, we’re going to church. Bye Lacey! Say good-bye to Miss Lacey, Lily Rose.”

  Lacey heard Lily Rose giggling her good-bye. Then the phone changed hands and in the distance she hear
d Jasmine say, “Hey, Lily Rose, we’re gonna see Lacey this week when we go see Miss Stella!”

  Mac came back on the line. “Time for church. Tomorrow we’ll talk about your follow-up story. And you’ll have some ideas for me, right?”

  “Right. I can hardly wait.” Another sip of the warmed-over coffee convinced Lacey to get dressed and get a clue and get some real java.

  “Mac!” Lacey heard Jasmine in the background, giving her new dad his marching orders. “Kim says we are late and you have to say good-bye to Miss Lacey now!” Lacey heard Lily Rose’s voice too, then a loud chorus of good-byes from the girls, followed by more giggling. She heard Mac laughing, and then the call clicked off.

  Lacey glanced at the clock. If she hurried, she could just make it to church too. She’d get to see what early Mass at her neighborhood Catholic church in Old Town looked like. She was usually a slip-in-the-back-late kind of Catholic, at the late morning or the occasional late-afternoon Mass. But a Catholic, nonetheless. Even if the sermons often lacked passion and the soloist tortured the hymns with her off-key vibrato. Lacey headed for her closet.

  She had candles to light.

  Chapter 13

  “Stella tells me you think I’m a— What was the phrase? A ‘man slut’?” Nigel Griffin had some nerve asking Lacey what she thought of him. As if he didn’t know. Much to Lacey’s dismay, the “man slut” himself was sitting at her dining room table, up close and personal. Way too personal.

  Nigel Griffin was good-looking in that pale smarmy way of his, Lacey thought, and his teeth were good. For an Englishman. He was wearing what appeared to be his overage preppy schoolboy uniform, a navy blazer over a light blue oxford shirt, khaki slacks, and cordovan tassel loafers.

  “Man slut? I’ve called you so many things, Griffin, it’s hard to remember them all.” Lacey glared at the little blond tattletale sitting next to him. Leave it to Stella.

  “You know you always say that about poor Nigel, Lace.” Stella looked deceptively innocent. “Maybe not those exact words, but the sentiment, you know?”

  Stella looked like a sexy sugarplum in today’s pastel outfit, a baby blue angora sweater with a low-cut neckline and puff sleeves, matching slacks, and white high-heeled boots. Her perky blond bob was set off with a matching blue headband. She sat next to her man slut and gazed at him with undisguised ardor. Where, oh where, was the punky little smart-mouth bad girl Lacey knew and loved?

  “Well, man slut will do.” Lacey looked Griffin square in the eye. “I have heard allegations to that effect, Griffin. Some of them directly from you.”

  When they first met, Nigel Griffin told Lacey he didn’t like his women to be “too refined.” He preferred his females a little trashy, he said, he was a “cheap one-night-stand kind of guy.” Then he started seeing Stella. Lacey hadn’t seen any evolution in Griffin, so she assumed he included her friend in the “cheap one-night stand” category too. Lacey was still holding that against him. Among other things.

  “Stella’s my friend, you know. I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

  “And that’s so sweet of you, Lacey!” Stella piped up. “But what we want to tell you is that, you know, Nigel is now a reformed man slut. He has totally changed his ways. And he quit smoking too, did you notice?”

  “Now that you mention it, thanks for not polluting my air. Not that I would have let you.”

  “The new me,” he said. “It’s all because of Stella.”

  “You kept me in line when I was quitting, Lace, and if I can do it, Nigel can do it, and he did it for me.” Griffin smiled sheepishly. Stella jumped up from the table and hefted the coffeepot. “And as you know, speaking of man sluts, I used to be kind of—you know—myself.”

  Lacey wisely kept her mouth shut.

  “Let me just say, Smithsonian, your bad impression of me was partly my own fault. I truly am sorry. But everything is different now. Water under the bridge. As you can see. I am not smoking, as you can see, and it is killing me. But anything for Stella.”

  “Yeah, you’re still thinkin’ of the old Nigel,” Stella said. “The BS Nigel. Before Stella. More coffee, anybody?”

  And here I thought BS was Nigel Griffin’s middle name. Lacey sighed and nodded for more coffee. She’d returned from Mass feeling uncharacteristically filled with peace and love for her fellow man and woman, only to find these two waiting for her in front of her apartment building. Lacey was looking forward to making herself a cozy breakfast and settling in with the Sunday New York Times. Wrong. It was amazing how fast her peace and love vibe could dissipate around Nigel Griffin. She didn’t even have a chance to change out of her church outfit of the day, an emerald-green short-waisted jacket over a long black wool skirt and black high-heeled boots.

  “Lacey! Wow, you’re up and dressed already,” Stella had said, hugging Lacey in the chilly sunshine. “Cute outfit. Retro retro! Sort of Wuthering Heights meets His Girl Friday , right? Can we come up and talk?”

  Just when I was feeling all calm and generous of spirit.

  Stella had assumed, correctly, that Lacey’s pantry would be “as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.” Knowing Lacey would be more welcoming after “a little something,” the newly domesticated Stella took over Lacey’s kitchen and made coffee from a bag of freshly ground beans she had thoughtfully brought along. The same Balducci’s bag also carried fresh bread. Stella sliced the bread, toasted it in the broiler, slathered it with butter, cinnamon, and sugar, and then slid it back into the broiler until it bubbled. The apartment filled with a sweet savory aroma Lacey hadn’t smelled since she was a little girl. Her mother used to make cinnamon toast for her as a special treat. She almost forgave Stella for bringing Nigel along. Almost, but not quite.

  “There you have it, Smithsonian. I am a reformed man slut. The AS Nigel, Anno Stella. Behold, a new man. Ecco homo nuovo, or however you Catholics would put it.” Griffin spouted his fractured prep school Latin easily, and he had the nerve to smile engagingly. It gave his face that boyish English movie star charm some women found so attractive. “Now that’s out of the way, I’d like us to be friends.”

  “The three of us,” Stella clarified.

  “Am I supposed to believe this big change in you, Griffin? ” Lacey sipped her coffee. “You’d sell your grandmother if you got a good price for her.”

  “Quite true. Never cared for the old bat. No market for grandmothers anyway, so she’s safe enough. But really, Smithsonian, we need to talk. Send Granny to her room.”

  “Talk about what?” Lacey inquired. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  “We have certain mutual interests. Cecily Ashton, for starters.” Griffin tapped a soundless tune on the table with his fingers. “I’d very much like to know what you know about her recent sad demise. Tell you why in a minute.”

  A chill ran down her spine. A fever, or maybe a warning from her intuition. From their brief acquaintance last fall, Lacey’s opinion of Griffin was that he couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth until the bitter end. Maybe not even then. He’d dole out bits and pieces of half-truths, like an annoying news source, and keep the real information to himself. It was transparently obvious to her why he’d be interested in Cecily Ashton. Her missing pearls. When there’s blood in the water, watch out for sharks.

  “Let’s start with you,” Lacey replied. “What do you know?”

  “I know this.” He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded copy of her feature story in The Eye Street Observer. “Cecily Ashton spoke to you about the burglary before she died. Therefore, you must know something useful.”

  “Useful to you?”

  “Among other people. Yet this article of yours doesn’t illuminate a thing.”

  “Well golly, Nigel. I’m so flattered you even read it.” Lacey bit into a piece of cinnamon toast. Delicious.

  “Smithsonian, I’m your biggest fan!” Lacey almost choked on her toast.

  “Next to me, Lacey,” Stella offered
helpfully. “And you interviewed Cecily Ashton! I would kill for that woman’s closet space. Um. Figure of speech. I didn’t even know people lived like that. Except in the movies, maybe, not around here.” She topped off their coffee cups.

  “Smithsonian,” Nigel implored, “what are we to make of these oh-so-telling fashion details? The clothes, the closets, the chandeliers! And the grand metaphorical significance of a doodle of some exotic bird in a cage on the back of a photograph of Rita bloody Hayworth, possibly drawn by the one and only star herself? Who bloody well cares? What inquiring minds really want to know, Smithsonian, is who did the late lamented Cecily finger for the bloody burglary?”

  He really wants those pearls. Lacey’s article, and perhaps the drawing as well, was a miniature portrait of a woman trapped in the ruins of her dreams, nothing more.

  “But Nigel,” Stella spoke up, “don’t you see, babycakes, it’s like that doodle says it all. Even if you’re rich you can still be unhappy and trapped, like a bird in a cage. Whether you’re a famous movie star or a rich bimbo, you can still feel lost and lonely.”

  “Lonely my arse, sweetheart,” Griffin said. “Stella, my dear, the tragically wealthy Mrs. Ashton boffed anything in pants. Or out of pants. Her bed was about as lonely as Charing Cross Station.” He caught Lacey’s scowl. “Of course that doesn’t detract from her being an absolutely lovely and tragic person, now does it?”

  Lacey picked up the clipping and took another look at what she had written.

  CRIMES OF FASHION SPECIAL FEATURE

  The Social Lioness, the Rich, and the Wardrobe

  By Lacey Smithsonian

  “I never meant to be scandalous,” Cecily Ashton says, a half smile playing on her lips. “I was young and I didn’t know how to act around Philip’s friends. I’ve learned a lot since then.” Her smile dims for a moment, but then it returns, a little brighter.