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Felicity Pickles was furiously writing in a notebook. As a feature reporter and a part-time copy editor, she had a foot in both camps, and Lacey was afraid Felicity looked a little too interested in all this blather about content quality driving consumer brand loyalty. She peeked over Felicity’s shoulder at her notes. To her relief, she saw the words avocados, lemons, pickled ginger.

  Next to Felicity sat Harlan Wiedemeyer, her new boyfriend and the death-and-dismemberment beat reporter. To amuse Felicity, Wiedemeyer was making little faces behind the moderator’s back whenever he turned to write something on his big pad of paper. That made Lacey feel better too. Dryden focused his bulbous eyes on Lacey.

  “Okay, let’s start with something easy. Fashion. You, Smithsonian. Thanks for joining us. A little late. Big day on the Style section?” He made a show of looking at the wall clock and she wanted to pitch her coffee at him. She hoped it was hot enough. “What can we do to improve the content quality on your beat? Give me a concrete example.”

  “Less buttons and bows, more blood and guts,” someone yelled from the back of the room, to much laughter.

  “The corpse wore a boa—constrictor,” another one hollered, one of the less literate sports reporters. Hilarity ensued. Lacey didn’t even bother to look around. She was just about to say, Take this beat and shove it! But she didn’t have a chance.

  “Who killed Cecily Ashton?” Tony Trujillo’s voice boomed out. Lacey stared at him. He gave her a smug little smile: Payback for not tipping him off. There was a sudden hush in the room. Dryden was momentarily struck dumb. Wiedemeyer and Pickles both turned to stare at her and Tony. She crossed her arms and lifted her eyebrow. A long moment passed before the voices started buzzing again.

  “It appears some people haven’t had enough coffee,” Dryden said, to weak laughter. Lacey clearly wasn’t about to play along, so he stumbled on to his next victim. Unfortunately for him, but to the delight of the rest of the room, he picked on Harlan Wiedemeyer.

  “Content?” Wiedemeyer asked. “Would you be talking about how I do my job? Because when you say ‘content,’ I’m really not sure what you mean, Dryden. Are you talking about the news, or about my beat, or about my sources? Or about what I do all day?” Harlan took a deep breath. Dryden closed his eyes. Lacey thought, Good, let’s send the inquisitors to purgatory too.

  “I’ll tell you what will improve my job,” Wiedemeyer continued, warming to the subject. “Letting me do it, without these preposterous meetings! Right now, some poor bastard out there is dying in some horrible way. Getting sliced in half on some unprotected conveyor belt, getting his arm ripped off by some ungodly unsafe obsolete piece of machinery, getting smothered in a vat of cranberries because his company is too damned cheap to buy him a reliable respirator. I should be reporting the news to let other poor bastards know what they can do to keep from dying like the first poor bastard. But no! I can’t do my job because I’m sitting in this ridiculous meeting, listening to people who don’t know my job ask me what I can do to ‘improve’ my ‘content. ’ My content is what it is! My job is to go out and find it. So just what the hell are you talking about?”

  Lacey remembered what she liked about Harlan. He loved his beat.

  “The comments on content quality from the death and dismemberment beat are duly noted,” Dryden said, in visible pain. “Let’s move on.”

  He asked the senior obituary writer the same question. The obit writer, Chester Bardwick, was a grizzled old guy with a neatly trimmed white mustache, and he always wore a vest and a crisp bow tie. Lacey didn’t know him well; he was a veteran who didn’t mix much with the younger reporters.

  “Well, to borrow from Wiedemeyer here, it would help me a lot if the ‘poor bastards’ would have the consideration to die before my deadline,” Bardwick said. Laughter rippled through the room. “Really, Dryden, I try to write a lot of obits ahead of time, the ones for celebrities that you know are coming. But like they say, it ain’t over till it’s over. And others come at me right out of the blue. Cecily Ashton is a good example. I’ll have to really scramble on her obit, and sitting in this meeting isn’t helping any. I don’t have much control over life and death, much as I would like to. And that’s my content: life and death. So take it or leave it.”

  Mac was sitting conveniently by the door at the very back of the room, ready to make a quick escape should the opportunity present itself. Lacey saw someone open the door a crack and slip him a note. He stood up, looked her way, and said one word: “Smithsonian.” She stood up and gathered her things and threw a triumphant grin toward Dryden, now sweating under the lights.

  “My content calls,” she said. “I think I’ll take it—and leave,” and she got a laugh. Mac met her in the hallway.

  “You’re wanted upstairs,” he said. He pointed to the elevator. “Claudia has spoken.”

  Chapter 19

  “Why?”

  “No idea. Tell her the EQ meeting’s going just swell,” he said sourly. Lacey waited at the elevator while Mac walked away. She hoped she wouldn’t somehow be blamed for the demise of Claudia’s friend Cecily Ashton. There were too many suspects already. She exited on the sixth floor and made her way across the marble floors.

  Lacey was waved in by Claudia’s receptionist, and she stepped through the dark wood doors into the soft glow of Tiffany lamps. It was the only room at The Eye free of the nasty green glow of fluorescent lighting. Their publisher’s office was the most elegant at the newspaper, with its cherry wood furniture and deep red oriental carpet on the gleaming hardwood floor. The walls were painted deep green, contrasting with the bright white crown molding. Claudia Darnell’s office overlooked Farragut Square, a one-block-square patch of green between Eye Street and K Street, with the proud statue of Admiral David Farragut at its center.

  “Lacey, come in.” Claudia sat behind her desk and beckoned her in with a wide smile, which gave Lacey pause. It was a little too bright for this early in the morning.

  The publisher of The Eye was a fabulously well-preserved woman of a certain age, perhaps in her mid-fifties, though in the soft Tiffany light she could pass for late thirties. She had buttery tan skin, most likely from a spray at the spa rather than a tanning bed. Claudia took very good care of herself. Her turquoise eyes were as bright as the two-carat diamonds that decorated her ear lobes. Her pale blond hair was tucked into a bun at the base of her head and her understated makeup looked perfect. Today Claudia wore a winter white pants suit. As usual, she was dazzling.

  Lacey was glad she had dressed in the red vintage suit that fit her curves so well. It never felt good to feel like a ragamuffin next to Claudia.

  “Lacey, thanks for coming.”

  “No problem.” Was there a choice?

  “I would like you to meet Philip Clark Ashton, Cecily Ashton’s—um—” Claudia struggled for the appropriate term. Lacey turned and noticed the older man sitting on the sofa that angled away from Claudia’s desk.

  “Ex-husband,” the man said. “I saw your article yesterday, and I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  Lacey’s stomach did a flip. Fabulous. Just what I don’t need. She was curious to meet the man Cecily had blamed for all her troubles, but she wasn’t prepared. A command face-to-face meeting in the publisher’s office suggested a factual error of the worst kind. Or maybe a lawsuit? The newspaper’s legal staff was absent from the meeting. Good sign or bad sign, she wondered.

  Ashton did not rise to greet her. Normally that wouldn’t bother Lacey. The newsroom was a very informal place. But coming from a man of Philip Ashton’s status and background, it was a subtle insult. A gentleman rises to greet a lady; but he does not, for example, rise to greet the hired help. He did, however, consent to offer his hand, forcing her to lean down to take it. Ashton had a firm handshake, and he added a little extra squeeze that hurt her fingers. He had said nothing, but he had already conveyed that he intended to be the boss in this meeting. Lacey glanced at Claudia. Her face was carefully composed and betraye
d nothing.

  It was common knowledge that Philip Clark Ashton bought and sold people as easily as he bought and sold professional baseball and football teams. Actually, it was probably easier. And cheaper. Ashton was taking his time before he spoke. It gave Lacey a chance to look at this man who was a legend in Washington. She knew nothing about sports or his controversial record as a team owner, so her interest was purely in the man. His style spoke volumes.

  Of course his watch was a Rolex. On his wedding ring finger, he wore some kind of insignia ring with a large diamond. It probably had something to do with football, Lacey thought, rather than love. Instead of a suit, he wore slacks and a navy jacket, a casual pale pink shirt without a tie. Obviously expensive, and nothing worn or wrinkled. He was tanned, but not over tanned. His head was mostly bald. What there was left of his hair was gray and cropped close. Although there were wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, his skin was smooth for his age. His hands, covered with age spots and large blue veins, were older than his face. If he’d had plastic surgery, it was good work.

  Behind his trademark black square-framed glasses his eyes were steel gray, their expression without warmth. It was no wonder Cecily Ashton looked for heat in younger and less serious men, Lacey thought.

  Ashton waved Lacey’s article on Cecily and her closets. “This was a frivolous article you wrote about my wife, but I suppose I’ve seen worse,” he grumbled in his famous raspy voice. “There were no obvious factual errors.”

  How about unobvious ones? “Are we here to discuss my article?” Lacey met his eyes with a direct look. She sat down in a cream-colored brocade wing chair opposite the pale green sofa on which Philip Ashton sat. She refused to stand as if she were the maid.

  “I had a visit from the police Saturday night to inform me of Cecily’s death. The husband is always the first suspect. I know that.” He paused, looking away for a moment. “But now it’s up to me to bury her and take care of everything. I don’t plan to deal with flatfooted cops who should look elsewhere for her killer. Apparently, those geniuses said she’d told some reporter that I was responsible for all her misery, pointing to me as a suspect. That reporter would be you.” He coughed to clear his voice. “That sounds very like Cecily to say that.”

  “That’s what she told me, but as you can see I didn’t disclose that in print.”

  “Good thing too.” He looked directly at her. “Or we’d be having a very different kind of meeting. I had to buy a copy of your newspaper Sunday and read it myself.” He sounded aggrieved by the effort. “You should know I never willingly read anything but the sports pages.”

  “Oh, were you in sports? Sorry. Not my beat.” Lacey detected the faintest curl of a smile twitching at the corner of Claudia’s mouth. Ashton ignored it.

  “Ms. Smithsonian, about what Cecily said, you must understand one thing. People say horrible things in a divorce. And Cecily—this isn’t easy to say. My wife, Cecily, that is, my ex-wife, was mentally ill. She heard voices.”

  “She heard voices?” So Hadley was right—maybe she was one of “them.”

  “Oh, yes, Cecily never did anything halfway. She heard voices. She had hallucinations. She was paranoid and depressed and increasingly unstable. And that information is medically verifiable by her doctors, but it is not for attribution.”

  He didn’t say “not for publication,” Lacey noted. He didn’t mind if the information got out, and he would probably make sure it did. His concern was merely that it should not be attributed to him. He knew how the news game was played. It came with the billion-dollar territory.

  “At the time I married her I had no idea about her illness. She hid it very well. At first.” Philip Ashton’s voice never softened. He spoke of his former wife as if she were simply an imperfect possession, an acquisition that had proved a disappointment. “I believe she committed suicide.”

  “Interesting theory. I heard the police found no gun in the car,” Lacey said. “Of course, my information could be wrong. But I assume that means it was murder.”

  “Your information is correct. Your assumption is wrong.” Ashton looked irritated. He wiped his glasses with an ivory handkerchief.

  “By all means illuminate us.” Lacey started a slow burn over his cavalier attitude.

  “Cecily was a tortured woman.”

  “Really?” Lacey restrained herself from saying she had an idea who tortured her.

  “Yes, really,” he snapped. “She often spoke of killing herself, but she said she lacked the courage. I believe it is entirely possible that Cecily arranged for someone with more courage to do the job for her.”

  Claudia Darnell sat up straight in her seat, but she said nothing. She kept her cool blue-eyed gaze on the billionaire.

  “You’re saying she hired a hit man to kill her?” Lacey asked.

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m merely suggesting the possibility. She was a very sick, unhappy woman. And our financial settlement was not quite as extravagant as it has been reported in the papers. It had a time limit, and certain conditions were attached. Her money would be running out soon, at the rate she was spending it.” He flashed a wide cold smile full of expensive porcelains. Ashton seemed pleased that he had engineered a settlement that would end by ruining the lifestyle to which his ex-wife had become accustomed.

  “Would she have to give you back the Rita Hayworth case, and all the other sentimental gifts she treasured?”

  He took his time considering her. “I’d have to have my lawyers check the settlement papers.”

  “Did you ever love your wife, Mr. Ashton?”

  “Isn’t that perfect.” The smile twisted into an ugly sneer. “I suppose that is the kind of cockeyed question a fashion writer would ask. Tell me, Claudia, do you have any real reporters at this toy newspaper of yours?”

  Claudia slapped both hands on the desk and opened her mouth to answer, but Lacey pressed on.

  “Because I think she still loved you. Or the man she once thought you were. It seemed that way to me when I interviewed her. She told me she never understood why you stopped loving her. Did you ever love her, or was she hallucinating about that too?”

  “I’ve wasted enough of my time here,” Ashton rasped, his lips pressed together in a tight line. He stood up a bit shakily, his hand clenching the arm of the sofa. “I should have just sent my lawyers. Next time I will. I don’t want to read any wild allegations about me that my late wife may or may not have made. I don’t want to read any slander from two-bit newspapers. I don’t want any more visits from two-bit detectives. Do you hear me, Ms. Smithsonian?”

  “Oh I definitely hear you.” Lacey folded her arms and glared at the man. She didn’t get up. She could smell his cologne as he walked past, it was expensive and sickly sweet, mixed with the aroma of decay. Claudia stood up imperiously behind her desk.

  “You can see your own way out, Philip. And don’t even think about making threats to me, my reporters, or my newspaper again.”

  He looked from Lacey to Claudia and smiled the same cold smile. “You may think you’re tough, Claudia, but if you tangle with me, you will be sorry.” Ashton threw open the door and thundered out. “Good day!”

  Lacey lifted herself to her feet, a little light-headed. Well, at least he did say there were no factual errors.

  Claudia sighed. She perched on the corner of her desk. “He’s an ass, Lacey. Don’t let him get to you.”

  “It’s not that. I can’t believe he would say those things about his own wife. She’s dead. It’s not like she can hurt him now, can she?”

  “Some things never stop hurting, I suppose, and Philip’s not one to forgive and forget. But remember, Lacey”—the publisher smiled—“The Eye always supports its reporters.”

  Easy for you to say, she thought. “Next time it’ll mean lawyers, you know.”

  Claudia shrugged. “That’s what we pay them for. This newspaper will not be bullied, not even by the likes of Philip Clark Ashton. I didn’t get into the news
paper business to be bullied,” she said, her blue eyes blazing with indignation. “Cecily brought a lot of her trouble on herself, but she didn’t deserve a Neanderthal like that.”

  “I’m going back to work,” Lacey said.

  “Are you working on a follow-up to your story?”

  “Mac ordered one. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  Claudia nodded. “I’m sure you’ll find something. Follow it wherever it takes you. But be careful around Philip. He could have killed his wife, or had her killed, he’s certainly capable of it.”

  “You’re not buying his theory that she hired her own assassin?”

  “Philip is an idiot if he thinks he can make that story stick just by saying it.”

  Lacey wasn’t so sure about that. She knew powerful people used and manipulated the media all the time. It was a big game, especially in Washington, D.C., where it was one of the biggest games in town. Politicians, pundits, congressional staff members, bureaucrats, activists, lawyers, lobbyists and more, even some reporters, they all deliberately floated lies, half-truths, and rumors in the press, just to see what would fly. Someone in the media, in the newspapers or on television or on the World Wide Web, would print or broadcast Ashton’s allegations, whether they believed them or not. And if you print it, Lacey mused on the way down in the elevator, someone will believe it.

  She made a note to herself to tell Brooke to head Damon Newhouse off at the pass and not to let DeadFed dot com be used by this creep or his puppets. She hoped Damon was more interested in Martin Hadley’s mind-control angle on the Cecily Ashton murder than in a billionaire who thought he could buy anyone. But you never know.

  Lacey decided to forego the pleasure of rejoining the editorial content quality meeting. Instead she headed back to her desk to check her e-mail. There was a press release from the Bentley Museum of American Fashion, reassuring the media that the upcoming Cecily Ashton Collection exhibit would open as planned despite her “tragic and untimely death.” It gave Lacey enough information to write a quick follow-up on Cecily, with a fashion angle. That and maybe a “Fashion Bite” might stall Mac while she asked some questions elsewhere.