Veiled Revenge (4 page)

“This shawl and my Gregor’s far-flung family have survived every recent upheaval in Russian history.” Marie was enjoying her tale, adding a little verbal embroidery of her own. “Every one of those tragedies has left its mark in the shawl, recorded by the Kepelova women. Perhaps the shawl has protected them from disaster.”

Leonardo reached out to the shawl. “Let me touch it and make a wish. If it’s so magical, let’s all make a wish.”

“Leo, go home,” Stella said. “That’s my wish. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“The name, my dear, is Leonardo!” He snatched the shawl from Marie’s hands and danced away, swinging it over his shoulder like a cape. “Make another wish!”

“The shawl does not grant tawdry wishes! Do not mock the shawl,” Marie cried, “or you’ll be sorry.”

“Me? Mock the shawl? I mock everything,” he replied.

Dancing with the extravagant shawl like an imaginary partner, Leonardo snapped it in the air as he imitated a flashy tango, five steps forward, a sharp spin and a snap of his head. He seemed to be having the time of his life, embarrassing Stella at her own bachelorette party. He flung the shawl back around his shoulders and rubbed it against his neck lasciviously, as if he were doing a striptease.

“Is this where he takes his clothes off?” Rosalie’s frizzy hair was bobbing with excitement. “And Stella said no male strippers! Woo-hoo! This totally rocks!”

“There are no male strippers!” Lacey tried to take the shawl from the spinning Leonardo. Stella was hopping mad. Marie and Brooke seemed rooted in place in horror.

“Amen, sister,” said Michelle. “This here is a party, not an orgy.”

“Stop it right now! No one’s taking their clothes off here,” Stella said. She made a grab for Leonardo, but he twirled out of reach. “And Leo’s the last man on earth I want to see in the buff.”

“Trust me, darlings, there’s nothing special to see.” Miguel tried to tackle Leonardo as he dodged away. “Take it from someone who knows.”

But as quickly as he began, the prancing Leonardo jerked to a halt. His face contorted in anger as he threw the shawl down. “Ow! It bit me. That damn thing bit me.” He rubbed his neck furiously.

“You mocked the shawl.” Marie shook one beringed finger at Leonardo.

The bachelorettes and servers stood agape while Lacey lifted the garment carefully off the floor. She saw nothing amiss, not even a loose thread, not a drop of blood. She folded it gently and handed it back to Marie.

“It’s a fraud!” Leonardo shouted, still furiously massaging his wounded neck. “There’s nothing magical to that dreary old thing and it bites. Now tell me my fortune.”

“You don’t deserve any fortune from me.” Marie backed away from him, clutching her shawl to her breast. “You’ve made your own fortune.”

Leonardo glared around the party room at the stunned guests. His little act had fallen flat, and his Caesar haircut made him look like a deranged dictator at bay. His nostrils flared. He released his neck and grabbed Marie’s hand.

“I want to know my future!”

Marie gazed into Leonardo’s face. Her mouth and eyes opened very wide.

Then she fainted.

Chapter 4

“So she fainted.” Vic Donovan nuzzled Lacey’s hair and whispered into her ear. “Tell me more.”

“Bad things happen when Marie faints. You know that.” Lacey was trying not to be superstitious, but Marie’s spells had a history of preceding some dark episode. “It’s best to treat it as a storm warning. Admit it—she is good with the weather.”

“The connection is not scientifically proven.”

“Still . . .”

“Okay, I give up,” Vic said. “Storm is coming. Give me the blow-by-blow. Nothing bad happened after that?”

“So far. Though Leonardo’s lunatic scene definitely put a damper on the party. And Stella’s already on pins and needles.”

“Stella’s always on pins and needles.” Vic hushed her with a kiss. “And what about you and me? I haven’t seen nearly enough of you since we got back from Sagebrush.”

“You’re seeing me now.” She kissed him back, reclining on her blue velvet sofa, shoes off. She was exhausted, though keyed up after the party. “But I’ve been so busy writing that accursed book with Mac and Tony. And you’ve been busy catching up on work. And there are all the endless last-minute wedding details, and I’m Stella’s maid of honor, and now tonight of all nights Marie has to
faint
—”

Lacey wanted to chill out. Tomorrow was a workday and the wedding hovered over her like an unburst rain cloud.

“Shhh. Sweetheart, Stella will be the Queen of the May, with you or without you.”

Lacey counted on her fingers. “It’s only April. Stella hates her wedding dress, her mother is coming, Marie faints, and Brooke will somehow concoct a conspiracy out of the whole thing.”

“Stella will be the Queen of April and Marie will faint. It’s what they do. But what I want to know is, when can we go buy an engagement ring together?” He kissed her fingers.

“Oh. Well, maybe I can pencil that into my busy schedule. After Saturday. Stella’s wedding day.”

“I suppose you want something big and gaudy?”

“Never gaudy. More like big and tasteful.” She grinned and pantomimed wearing a giant rock on her ring finger. He laughed as she fluttered her fingers at him. “But, Vic, honey, we don’t have to do anything right away. Do we?”

Lacey’s biological wedding clock was not ticking as urgently as Stella’s. Lacey wanted to savor her semi-secret engagement for a little while, without putting out a press release for the public or her entire circle of friends and family. Mac and Tony knew, and a very few others, but she’d sworn her editor and coworker to secrecy, at least for the time being.

Everything that had happened in Sagebrush, Colorado, was a mere handful of days in the past, but it all seemed far away and dreamlike now. She recalled a whispered “I love you” in the midst of flying bullets. And Vic’s proposal? So incredible, it was as if she’d dreamed that too. The memory was delicious, but she wasn’t willing to share it yet. Her ring finger was still bare.

Following an exhausting flight from Denver and a taxi ride back to her apartment building, she had stepped into the dusky night and taken a deep breath. The Virginia air was perfumed with honeysuckle and magnolia, the night sultry and sweet with the intoxicating aroma of spring. After that wild ride in Sagebrush, Lacey had never been so happy to get back in one piece to Alexandria. She was home.

She leaned back in Vic’s arms and closed her eyes.

“Sweetheart, people don’t have secret engagements in the twenty-first century,” Vic whispered.

“They can if they want to.”

Although the look on Vic’s face was troubled, it didn’t change the handsome features she loved to gaze upon. Lacey played with the dark curl that fell over his forehead.

“Do you really want to keep it a secret, Lacey?”

“Just for now, until Stella’s wedding is over. It would be rude to intrude on her big moment. She might murder me.”

Vic sighed. “Women.”

“Don’t forget you’re marrying one.” She kissed him again. “Thank you, dear.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t go shopping for that ring. Consider it a secret mission, for a secret decoder ring. We could leave town, maybe head up to Annapolis or down to Richmond. We could go in disguise.”

“When? I have work! The bride-to-be requires constant handholding and reassurance. And—”

“And what?”

“Well, I can’t get Marie’s fainting spell out of my mind.”

“Sweetheart, you’re borrowing trouble.”

She felt his breath on her neck, followed by more kisses. “Why would I borrow trouble? When so much of it lands at my feet for free?”

Lacey couldn’t shake vivid images of what had happened at the party only hours before. Stella’s doubts about her dress, Nigel’s surprise spying mission, his obnoxious “best” man, Leo’s nasty turn as a psychotic party crasher. And Marie’s fainting spell to top off the festivities. She’d witnessed Leonardo recoiling in fear from the sight of the hefty Marie slumped over the table as if she were dead. Lacey and Brooke had run to Marie and lifted her head, making sure she could breathe, checking her pulse.

“You’ve done it now, you freaking diva!” Stella had wailed at Leonardo. “You pissed off the haunted shawl! At
my
bridal shower! It’s a well-known fact Marie only faints when something terrible is about to happen. And this time it’s going to happen to
you
, Leo.”

Leonardo withered before Stella’s rage. “That is just so—just—” he sputtered. He scratched his neck where he claimed the shawl had “bit” him and grimaced in pain. “I don’t believe a word of it. It’s all just a load of bull—” He backed away from Stella and her gathering bachelorettes, who formed a protective wall around their fallen fortune-teller.

“You’ve caused enough trouble, sugarplum,” Miguel broke in. “You are out of here.”

Leonardo tried to sneer. “Ooh, Miguel, I love it when you act all butch.”

“I’m not acting. I’ll crush you like the bug you are.” Miguel took a firm hold on Leonardo’s arm, propelled him bodily out the door, and slammed it behind him.

In a few minutes Marie revived, with no apparent ill effects and no memory of what had made her faint. The party limped along until the pink champagne ran out and Gregor Kepelov arrived to retrieve his Gypsy psychic. But the fête had lost its fire.

Lacey shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts. It was dark and quiet in her apartment, alone with Vic, but her thoughts were abuzz. Vic stroked her face.

“Where’d you go just now?” he asked gently. “Back to the party? Or should I say the scene of the crime?”

“Yes, except there’s no crime. Just an indelible stain on my party-organizing street cred.” She groaned loudly. “Parties are stressful.”

“Well then, darlin’, let me help you with that.” His kisses did their part. “Let me soothe away your pain, party girl.”

Lacey forgot all about the botched bachelorette bash. At least for a while.

Chapter 5

“He’s dead! No joke, Lacey. Leonardo is dead! Like,
totally
dead! I’m telling you, Lace, Leo is
el muerto
.”

The Monday-morning crowd in the lobby of
The Eye Street Observer
turned to stare at Stella Lake, as much for her outfit as for her outburst. Her shocking-pink sleeveless spandex top dipped far below daylight standards of decency in the Nation’s Capital. Her short magenta skirt was just this side of street legal, and everything was so tight that Lacey wondered how Stella could even breathe. She wore towering pink sandals and carried a small purse in the shape of a pink corset. She was dressed very perkily for a messenger of doom.

“Dead!” Stella repeated it as she clung to Miguel’s arm. He gently disentangled himself from her so he could hug Lacey hello, smoothing his pale blue polo shirt, which he wore outside his black jeans rather than tucked in. Although he was wearing his darkest shades, it was possibly the most casual Lacey had ever seen him.
Casual, or grief-stricken?
Lacey wondered. As cool as his demeanor might be, Miguel looked shaken, not stirred.

Lacey shushed Stella, but
not
attracting attention was a lot to ask of her distressed friend. Of course Lacey wanted to know everything, but there were too many news-seeking ears in this place. She dragged Stella and Miguel into a distant corner of the lobby.

“Miguel, he’s not really dead, is he?” Lacey asked. “He couldn’t be.”

“Unfortunately,
está muerto
is correct,” Miguel said softly.

Harlan Wiedemeyer,
The Eye
’s death-and-dismemberment reporter, was about to enter one of the elevators, but upon hearing the word
dead
,
he spun on his heel. Harlan’s eyes lit up with a newshound’s prurient interest in a good headline, or a good doughnut. He bounced over to them like a child’s beach ball, and he rather resembled one.

“What? Some poor bastard died? Smithsonian,
who, what, when, where
, and most of all,
how
? And what’s the connection with our resident queen of fashion fatalities?”

“Harlan, hush.” Lacey glared at him. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“Your denial is music to my ears,” Wiedemeyer said. “Good stories always start with a denial—you know that.”

“Don’t butt in,” she practically hissed.

“Really? Smithsonian, how would I cover all the poor bastards of this world if I didn’t butt in? How would any of us cover the news without a natural curiosity about the morbid and grotesque?” His chubby cheeks bobbed in a cheery smile. He brushed doughnut crumbs off his jacket. “Now, who was the poor bastard?”

Wiedemeyer reached for his notebook, but Lacey stopped him with The Look. Although Harlan Wiedemeyer sometimes became involved with workaday police reports, his special beat for
The Eye
was the weird, the strange, and the bizarre in everyday lives. His stories might involve unusual deaths and disasters, unexplained exploding toads or falling frogs, mysterious creatures from the deep, or a fatal two-ton spill of pinto beans. And if anything involved Lacey Smithsonian, Wiedemeyer wanted to be in on it. She had a history of being in the neighborhood of unusual deaths.

Lacey the Murder Magnet, that’s me.

“Leonardo died,” Stella broke in, needing a booster shot of attention. “He was, like, alive and annoying last night. And now he’s dead.”

“Leonardo? Leonardo who? Not the actor? The
Titanic
guy? Never liked that movie myself, but my Felicity, oh, my God, does she love that scene where—”

“No, no, no. Leonardo the hairstylist,” Stella wailed. “Here in the District. We used to work together at Stylettos, my salon, or actually, he usually worked against me. But I knew him for a long time, once upon a time. We were sort of friends. Once.”

“And this poor bastard’s last name?”

Miguel sniffed. “Just Leonardo. One name, like Cher, Madonna, Liberace, Caligula, Stalin—”

“Leonardo was once known as Leonard Karpinski,” Lacey put in. “Now go, Harlan. Do your own digging, into your own stories.” She pointed Wiedemeyer to the elevator, gave him a little shove, and waited until the elevator doors closed. She turned grimly back to Stella. “What happened?”

“The
shawl
happened.”

“It wasn’t the shawl.”

“Weren’t you paying attention? Leo mocked the shawl. Marie fainted. And now he’s dead. Like Grim Reaper dead. Ipso facto, the shawl did it.”

Ipso facto? Stella’s been hanging around with Brooke.
Lacey looked to Miguel for help. Miguel took off his shades. His eyes were slightly red, as if he’d been crying.

“He was found dead only this morning. I heard it on the gay gossip drums, and Stella heard it through the salon grapevine. And yes, I have explained to her that it is not
our fault
that he’s dead.
Yes
, it’s tragic.
Yes
, he probably brought it on himself. And
no
, no one knows exactly what happened. Stella’s acting like a bad hairstyle I can’t do a thing with. And we really must deal with last-minute wedding details today, like the
reception
. I’m terribly sorry, but we have no time for this
Leonardo el Muerto Misterioso
business. I’m counting on you, Lacey, to help me chill her out.”

“Smithsonian! I want this story.” Wiedemeyer popped back out of the elevator and into their little huddle. Death had lured him back, like the scent of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, and he had ears like a bat, or at least like his hero, the late lamented Bat Boy from
Weekly World News.
“It’s confusing, but interesting. I smell a story here.”

Lacey took Wiedemeyer by his shoulders and physically steered him backward in an awkward two-step. “I’m warning you, Harlan.”

He calmly took a Krispy Kreme doughnut from a white bag tucked under his arm. “Have a doughnut. Everything, Smithsonian. I want all the facts, or else I will sic our intrepid police reporter on you. And you know Trujillo’s a chronic byline thief.”

“And you’re not? Go work the story then! Call the cop house, see if they’ll give you a cause of death for one Leonard Karpinski. And let me know what you get.”

Wiedemeyer bit into the doughnut’s fluffy glazed perfection and smiled blissfully. He gracefully waltzed backward with his doughnut into the open elevator, surprisingly light on his feet for a man of his beach-ball build.

“I mean it, Smithsonian. I want all the gory details—” The elevator doors shut, but she could faintly hear his last words “—on this dead bastard!”

Too many people were still staring slack-jawed at Lacey’s trio in the lobby.

“Let’s get out of here. Now,” Lacey said. “Buy me coffee, you two, and fill me in.”

She buttoned the navy linen bolero jacket over her early-1940s navy and yellow dress. It had seemed appropriate to this breezy spring day—before the day carried chilling news of the death of someone she knew, though didn’t necessarily like. In any case, someone too young to die. The late stylist known as Leonardo had been only in his early thirties.

Their brief walk across Farragut Square from
The Eye
’s offices to the coffee shop was a reminder of how glorious spring could be in the District of Columbia. Red and yellow tulips and a few late daffodils bloomed in small flower beds in the greening square. The trees were leafing out into their summer glory. The warm air fairly cuddled Lacey’s cheeks. Unfortunately, each soft breeze now reminded her of how brief life could be. Moments later, after dodging a gaggle of gray-suited lobbyists marching toward K Street, they settled with coffee and sweets into a wooden booth at Firehook Bakery.

“Here, have a butterfly,” Miguel said, offering Lacey a pretty iced cookie to go with her coffee. “Stella already grabbed the tulip.”

“Do you know what happened? Aside from the shawl mocking, I mean,” Lacey said.

“Only that he’s dead as a doornail.” Stella bit thoughtfully into her cookie. “Leo was not a nice person. Always thought he was the queen bee of every hive he ever buzzed into. But jeez, last night I just wanted him to leave. Not
die
.”

“Do you know how he died? It could have been natural causes, couldn’t it?”

Surely that’s possible
, Lacey thought.
Even though he was still young. Stress, anxiety, a faulty heart valve? Something like that?

“Anything is possible,” Miguel said. “Leonardo was found outside his apartment building this morning. Facedown in that little postage-stamp-sized yard they have, behind some bushes. Like a fallen lawn gnome.”

“Maybe he was mugged,” Stella suggested.

“Could be,” he mused, “but muggers don’t usually kill you. Unless it was some doped-up meth head. Speaking from my experience as a
muggee
and armed robbery survivor, you just hand over the Gucci watch, the Ralph Lauren wallet, the Bentley leather jacket, and you both walk away. After the first few times, it’s like a business transaction. ‘Hi, I’ll be your mugger today! Let me tell you about our specials!’”

“You have lived in some seriously bad neighborhoods,” Stella said.

“But colorful.”

“Maybe Leo had a weak heart,” Lacey said.

“If he had a heart,” Stella interjected.

“He had one,” Miguel said. “Rusty, not often used, but easily bruised.”

“No way!” Stella said in disgust. “He was mean as a crocodile. Like you wouldn’t believe what he would do to clients he was pissed at. Chop, chop, chop! There were tears, I tell you. Many tears. Lots of cleanup and Kleenex.”

“Tell me about it.” Miguel stirred his coffee furiously. “Leonardo could nonchalantly say the most horrible things to you, about you, about everyone he knew. He was so nasty. At the same time, he’d be devastated if anyone did the same to him. Even though he deserved it.”

Fling or no fling, it sounded to Lacey like Miguel and Leonardo had had a serious relationship. Once. One that had gone seriously bad.

“You reap what you sow, and sadly, Leo’s been reaped.” Stella munched on a cookie and sighed. “I’m not even sure where he was working lately. He jumped around a lot since he quit Stylettos.”

“You can’t insult everyone you meet,” Miguel said. “What goes around comes around and bites you in the butt. Leonardo always had dreams of glory, his own salon, his name in lights. Not going to happen now.”

Lacey’s cell phone tinkled with the sound of cathedral bells. “Hello, Brooke.”

Stella brightened instantly. “Brookie? Say hello for me!”

“Stella says hello.”

“Did you hear that Leonardo character who crashed our party was found dead this morning?” Brooke was breathless with excitement.

Stella and Miguel jammed their heads against Lacey’s to overhear this conversation. Lacey put the phone on speaker and set it in the middle of the table. After the mid-morning rush, Firehook was nearly empty, the gray-suited lobbyists gone, and the trio in a back booth was well out of earshot of stragglers.

“It’s the topic of the hour, Brooke. I’m here with Stella and Miguel.”

“Good! We’ll conference,” Brooke said.

“How did you hear?” Lacey asked. It was mere curiosity; Brooke always knew when these things happened. She was connected.

“WTOP radio online: ‘Prominent District Hairstylist Found Dead,’” Brooke read.

“He wasn’t
that
prominent,” Stella said.

“Does it say anything else?” Lacey asked. “Anything helpful, like cause of death?”

“No. Nothing obvious, apparently. ‘Manner of death withheld pending autopsy.’ Presumably he wasn’t shot, stabbed, beaten, or run down by a car. Nothing like that. It says that when he was found this morning, neighbors first believed he was drunk or homeless, or both.”

“A homeless guy in that eight-hundred-dollar jacket Leo was wearing last night?” Miguel impatiently drummed his fingers on the table.

“Where did he live?” Lacey asked.

“Off Fourteenth Street, near the little theatres,” Miguel said. “He bought a place there before all the gentrification. When you could still find a parking place.”

“Before Whole Foods,” Stella added. “I remember. He had a party when he moved in.”

“Well, team,” Brooke said, “what are we going to do about this?”

“We are going to mind our own business,” Lacey said. “We have a wedding to make happen.”
We are not
CSI District of Columbia
.

“Maybe we should send flowers.” Stella played moodily with the remains of her cookie. “When we find out where the funeral is. Oh, my God, you don’t suppose it’ll be on Saturday? On my wedding day? He wouldn’t dare do that to me.”

“It would be so like him, the little attention whore,” Miguel added.

“Surely not,” Brooke said.

“Enough of Leonardo.” Miguel put his hands on the table. “Stellarrific and I have got to get back on the wedding. People to see, places to go, menus to verify.”

“Oh, all right,” Brooke said. “Go. Do your wedding thing, Stella. Meanwhile, I’ll try to find out the cause of death.”

“Leo mocked the shawl,” Stella said. “That’s the cause of death.”

Lacey put her finger to her mouth to shush Stella, but it was too late.

“The shawl!” Brooke breathed the word reverently. “Holy Roman Empire. I’d forgotten about that ridiculous business with the shawl.”

“Brooke.” Lacey picked up the phone and took it off speaker. “There is nothing to the shawl. Leo was being a jerk last night. His death today is just a tragic coincidence.”

“A coincidence? Please,” Brooke said. “There are no coincidences. What was it exactly that Marie told everyone about the shawl?”

“You were there.You don’t need any help from me and Stella.”

“I’ll call Marie. She and her shawl might even need a lawyer.”

Lacey rubbed her forehead. “Shawls don’t kill people. People kill people.”

“And they’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers off my shawl? Whatever. I would think your Spidey senses would be tingling over this, my dear fashion sleuth. Your ExtraFashionary Perception
is
tingling, isn’t it? You’re just not
telling
me you’re tingling.”

“No, Brooke, I am not tingling, jingling, or ringling. But I must return to the office and finish a regular, good-for-everyday-use fashion column,” Lacey said.