“And I can run in these, too,” Brooke continued. “So what do you recommend seeing here, O Fashion Maven?”
“It’s a motley assortment,” Lacey said. “Stella wants wigs.”
“Totally,” Stella said. “For the salon.”
“And you, Lacey? What are you shopping for here?”
“Just looking.” Lacey knew she wouldn’t be buying anything. She preferred to go on the hunt alone, where she could trust her own instincts and not the crowd’s. There were way too many people here for her to decide on anything. “Some people come for clothes, some for costumes for Halloween, and I’m told, some for disguises.”
A look of interest crossed Brooke’s face. “Disguises?”
“Here we go.” Stella nudged Gwendolyn in the ribs.
“But that’s perfect,” Brooke said. “What better place for spies to refresh their covert wardrobes?”
“The Spy Store?” Lacey suggested.
“And did you see the news?” Brooke tapped her phone. “About that Russian billionaire who allegedly died of a heart attack in that Dupont Circle hotel?”
“I sense a correction coming,” Lacey said.
“It was no heart attack. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head.” She handed her phone over so Lacey could see the latest development. “Murder. And how many Russians does that make? A lot, let me tell you. Dozens.”
Lacey skimmed the story. DeadFed dot com, the Conspiracy Clearinghouse web site run by Brooke’s boyfriend, reported that autopsy results were in. The victim was another in a long line of Russians with connections to Vladimir Putin.
“Why did it take so long?” Lacey wondered. “He died months ago.”
“Exactly,” Brooke said. “And why did his family insist it was a heart attack?”
“They were afraid it was catching?”
“Exactly. They’re terrified.”
Conspiracy theories churned Brooke’s blood and gave her a reason to get up in the morning. The fact that the attorney had fallen for Damon Newhouse, the only man who could match her in this fever of intrigue, was just the icing on her tort. And now, months after the fact, there was a fresh report on a dead Russian oligarch, crudely dispatched in a D.C. hotel, supposedly fast friends with the intrusive and evil Russian president. Not anymore.
“Intriguing,” Lacey admitted.
“Ask Gregor Kepelov about this guy.”
“You still think Kepelov’s a Russian spy? As in currently?”
“If the trench coat fits. They say nobody is ever really ex-KGB. Unless they’re dead.”
“What’s going on?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Brooke’s on a spy hunt,” Stella said. “I can tell by the look on her face.”
“Just because he was once with the old Russian spy agency doesn’t mean he’s a spy now,” Lacey said.
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t,” Brooke countered. “You can’t swing an umbrella without hitting a spy here.”
True enough. And Lacey still had the occasional twinge of doubt about Kepelov. “This Russian’s murder seems a little sloppy, doesn’t it? Blunt force trauma? Why not something more clever?”
“You were expecting polonium or ricin?”
“Something like that.”
“I agree. Sloppy.” Gwendolyn said. “Very sloppy.”
“Just what they want you to expect,” Brooke said. “That’s why this is more clever than you think.”
“You go pick up some spooky disguise, Brooke,” Stella said. “We’ll recon later. I got places to go and stuff to see. Keep in mind HonFest, Lace. I want something awesome. You need something awesome too.”
“HonFest?” Lacey had a sinking feeling she’d forgotten something.
“Tomorrow! Baltimore. Beehive hairdos and all that stuff. It’s epic. You’re coming, remember?”
“It’s this weekend?”
“You promised!” Stella leveled a look at her. “You’re coming to HonFest with me.”
“As am I. I can’t wait to see myself in a beehive,” Lady Gwendolyn said.
“Beehive hairdos?” Lacey blinked. Lady G was the least likely candidate for that style.
“You’ll be so cute with your hair up, Lace. Trust me. It’ll be fun.”
Lacey hadn’t seen much of Stella since the honeymoon, so a little together time was important. She had even refrained from wearing her engagement ring from Vic Donovan on those few occasions they had seen each other. Lacey told herself she didn’t want to take away from Stella’s big moments and her rapturous descriptions of the islands she’d seen, and the food she’d eaten, and of course the wonderfulness of her new husband Nigel Griffin.
The truth was that Lacey was reluctant to share everything with the world at large. She wanted to keep the engagement, and Vic to herself. But the diamond suddenly glinted in the sunlight and Stella saw it.
“Oh my God, Lace, you’re engaged!” Stella squealed. “Wow! It’s gorgeous, Lacey. What a ring! Filigree? A little froufrou for my taste, but it’s so perfect for you.”
Lacey grinned. As if Stella ever eschewed froufrou!
“So when’s the big day?”
“One thing at a time, Stella. I believe in long engagements.” Years. Maybe decades.
“You’re the only one! I promise you, marriage is wonderful. With the right person, of course.”
“We’re not here to talk about marriage,” Lacey said, sensing an escape from engagement chatter. “While we waste time, someone else is grabbing all the good stuff.”
“Yikes! This isn’t over, Lace,” Stella said. “I need all the facts. Every detail.”
“Later. You go ahead. The wigs await you.”
Stella was off, with Lady G at her side. Saved by the wigs.
“Hey, isn’t that LaToya Crawford? From The Eye?”
Lacey followed Brooke’s gaze. “That is definitely LaToya. But what on earth—”
There was some kind of disturbance at the cash register. At first Lacey couldn’t tell what was going on. One woman was chasing another, knocking over a table full of props. Then the two women were fighting over something. Something red. Then the crowd parted around them and it was the red dress, the costume LaToya had fallen in love with. There was more shouting, and LaToya waved a receipt with one hand.
Lacey was willing to bet the more someone wanted something LaToya had, the more she was ready to fight for it. The tug of war was vicious but brief. LaToya seized the prize triumphantly from her frazzled combatant, who finally backed down in defeat.
“LaToya is one tough interviewer,” Brooke said.
Lacey whistled. “I had no idea she was that tough.”
LaToya paused to catch her breath, then she shook the dress out and stared at it. She seemed to be checking for damage. Satisfied, she looked up as Lacey and Brooke arrived at her side.
“A little misunderstanding there, LaToya?”
“You could say that! That crazy woman tried to steal this dress right out of my hands. She said it wasn’t for sale, but they just sold it to me! I got a bill of sale for this dress. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and I’ve got a receipt. I’ve got one hundred percent possession.” She wiped a drop of sweat from her brow.
“Are you all right?” Lacey asked her.
“You kidding me? I’m good. I won!” It was clear that the dress was even more valuable to LaToya in the moment of victory. But then LaToya’s expression changed. She looked down at the red dress and frowned, and then back at Lacey. She suddenly thrust the bright compelling costume at the fashion reporter, piling its voluminous folds into Lacey’s arms. “Smithsonian, I’ve got an itty-bitty favor to ask.”
LACEY LOCKED THE RED dress in the trunk of her vintage BMW. It filled the entire trunk. LaToya accompanied her to make certain it was secure. Brooke stood by to oversee the operation, a specialty of Brooke’s.
“This is silly, you know.” Lacey turned and faced LaToya.
“You’re the one with the EFP,” La Toya said. “What’s it
telling you?”
“She’s right,” Brooke said. “ExtraFashionary Perception.”
“Would everyone stop saying that? You know that stuff is ridiculous.” The dress was fast becoming a nuisance, but Lacey didn’t need any EFP to tell her that.
“What is it about the dress?” Brooke asked LaToya. “Why did that other woman want it so badly?”
“I have no freaking idea! She wouldn’t even fit in that dress. I just want Smithsonian to keep it for a couple of days, till it’s, you know—cleansed.”
“Cleansed?” Lacey stared at LaToya, checking for irony. There wasn’t any. “I assume you’re not talking dry cleaning?”
“Course not. I mean psychic cleansing. I’m not the one with the EFP. And I don’t have a psychic friend. Like you do.”
“Ah, this is a job for Marie Largesse,” Brooke said.
“Yeah, Marie. The hoodoo queen of Old Town. If you can’t do it, Smithsonian, maybe your psychic can do it. You got to vet and cleanse this dress for me. I’ll take it back in a couple of days, when it’s safe. I mean— Please.”
Lacey didn’t know what to say. She had the feeling her mouth was hanging open. “LaToya—”
“Thanks, Smithsonian. What are friends for?” She trotted off on her high heels, her burden lifted.
“So what’s the story?” Brooke nudged Lacey, her eyes full of delight. “This big old red dress really came from Kinetic? Isn’t that a Russian theatre?”
CHAPTER 3
“i thought you weren’t going to buy anything.”
Vic greeted her at her apartment door when she got home. He looked bemused. Handsome and dashing, as usual, but definitely bemused, one dark eyebrow arched over deep green eyes. He was handsome even when he was mocking her, she decided.
“I didn’t buy anything.” Lacey arms were overflowing with the red dress. The thing was even heavier than it looked.
“Did you steal it?” Vic took it off her hands and lifted it up to look at it. “This is a lot of dress, Lacey. It’s red. Really red. Must have been hard to steal.”
“Tell me about it. I’m storing it for LaToya Crawford. Temporarily.”
Lacey spread the costume out on her blue velvet sofa, its skirts reaching from arm to arm. It was a crazy confection of a dress, a deliciously mad swirl of blood red with multiple layers in various fabrics, shades, and textures. It was hard to even take in all at once, without someone inside it.
“You’re not generally so generous with your closet space.”
“And I’m not feeling generous. My closets are so small I can barely hang up what I have.”
“How did this happen, then?” He was a little too amused.
Lacey pulled up a chair opposite the dress occupying her sofa. “Thumbnail version. LaToya bought it and was walking off with it when a woman from the theatre came running up and said it wasn’t for sale.”
“And yet, here it is.”
“There were words. I couldn’t hear all of them. ‘Bee-yatch’ was one of them. LaToya Crawford wasn’t about to part with it. You’ve never really seen her in action.”
“Formidable, I’d guess.”
“She sets a high bar. And she was bigger that the other woman. But after that scene, LaToya decided she didn’t want it at her place for a while.”
“And why is that?” Vic moved the dress over and sat down in his accustomed place on the sofa. He stretched out and placed his hands behind his head, his mouth turning up at the corners.
He thinks this is funny? He should have been there.
“Um, it might have a history. She thinks we should, um, research the dress.” Lacey cast a nervous glance at the gown.
“Research? Lacey, what aren’t you telling me?”
“There is the slightest possibility this ruby-red gown here might be connected to a dead actress named, I’m told, Saige Russell. She allegedly wore it onstage for one last performance before she died. She played Death. That’s the story. What I know of it.”
“Here we go again.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Come here.”
Vic stood and pulled Lacey into a hug. “Let me see if I’ve got this. You have a friend with a dress she’s afraid to have in her own home? So she handed it off to you? And you took it?”
Lacey avoided his eye by snuggling under his chin. He was warm and comfortable and strong and she was exhausted.
“When you put it like that, it sounds funny. Anyway, it’s only because Broadway Lamont’s got her all excited about my alleged ‘fashion voodoo.’ As if.”
“As if it really exists, which it seems to, sweetheart. Your infamous ExtraFashionary Perception.”
“Not you too.”
“Me too.”
“Can we find something different to call it?”
Something about the dress made her pause. There was a mystique about it. While Lacey admired the effort and imagination that went into the gown, it was a costume, not clothing she could imagine herself, or anyone, actually wearing. It was the difference between life and the theatre, again. And the difference between daily life and, say, the annual Helen Hayes Awards, where many actresses had worn it.
She turned in Vic’s arms to look at it. The red dress almost seemed to have a life of its own. The waning evening light hit the dress and it seemed to glow from within. As if it knew it was the topic of conversation.
“What else do you know about it?”
“Not much, and this is hearsay. It was made for a production of The Masque of the Red Death at the Kinetic Theatre in the District. A dozen years ago.”
“The Poe story?”
“Adapted for the stage. According to our friend Tamsin, the leading lady took a header off the scaffold or the set after the last show. Something like that.”
“She died at the theatre?”
She peeked up at him. “Supposedly. I can’t verify it, darling. I don’t know, in fact, whether Saige Russell was wearing the dress at the time. Or whether she really is dead. I don’t know what the real story is. It’s the theatre. Tamsin says it might be just—a story. A theatre legend.”
“But it spooked LaToya and you want to find out why, don’t you?”
“I might have a slight curiosity. Maybe if I wasn’t on the fashion beat—”
“God only knows what disaster would befall you on another beat.”
“I wonder myself. This is probably nothing. A theatrical tall tale. Smoke and mirrors.”
“And someone died.”
“Just a rumor.”
“So far.”
Lacey recounted Tamsin’s hearsay about theatre people and their belief the dress could bring good luck or bad luck. And they lined up for the opportunity to dare to wear it.
“Is there no end to these fashion conundrums?” Vic smirked. “And you brought that bad-luck dress home with you?”
She picked up the dress up and shook out its complicated folds and layers. It looked unscathed by its adventure at the theatre yard sale. “You don’t believe in bad luck, Vic.”
“I didn’t use to.” He stared at the dress as she hung it in a protective garment bag and zipped it up. “I think it’s mocking us.”
“Now you’re playing with me.” She hung it in the front closet and closed the door. “Don’t worry, it won’t be here long. I promise.”
“You’re still running off to Baltimore for HonFest tomorrow?”
“I promised Stella. I forgot all about it, but she’s all abuzz.”
“You don’t seem too excited.”
“You’re not coming. And she’s threatening me with a beehive hairdo.”
He laughed and teased her with a kiss. “Take photos.”
“Not on your life.”
“At least a beehive wouldn’t go with a killer dress straight out of Edgar Allan Poe.”
“Thank goodness for small favors.” Lacey held on to him, trying to forget all about the red dress.
“I can think of more fun things to do than t
alk about costumes or dresses or beehive hairdos.” He drew her closer to him.
“So can I. Let’s compare notes.”
CHAPTER 4
In what mad universe were cat-eye glasses and beehive hairdos ever really popular? Lacey found herself wondering. In the past, did Baltimore women really wear housedresses on the street with pink feather boas and call each other “Hon”? Or is this HonFest thing all just pretend?
The world was full of Renaissance Festivals and street fairs and neighborhood block parties, but Lacey doubted there was anything else quite like HonFest. A street festival with a twist, Baltimore’s HonFest was a fantasia of retro fashion from the Baltimore of the 1950s and 1960s, and possibly from some even more garish imaginary past. Certainly from the hallucinatory Baltimore celebrated in John Waters's Hairspray. Lacey was happy she’d worn sunglasses so she could stare with impunity at this garish costume parade.
This annual festival in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood was a glimpse into another world, both fun and a little frightening. It was a world where beehive hairdos reached the sky, cat-eye glasses were the cat's meow, and spandex pants were as skin-tight as the tattoos they barely covered.
“Listen, hon, my husband won’t come near this thing with me,” Lacey heard one woman tell another. “He says I’m embarrassing. Can you believe that?”
The woman wore fuzzy bedroom flip-flops, shocking pink skintight pants, and a skintight bandage top that exposed her ample stomach. She topped off her look with cat-eye glasses and sponge rollers in her dark brown hair, wrapped with a pink scarf. The woman’s companion also wore sponge rollers, a pink housecoat, and purple bedroom slippers that slapped the ground when she walked. The two women burst into laughter, as if their clueless husbands had any business at this event anyway.
Lacey had to agree with the absent husband. She could only imagine what this women’s hair would look like when the rollers came out. But they seemed to be having a wonderful time. While Lacey appreciated the merrymaking of HonFest, she could never get on board with wearing curlers in public.
What would Aunt Mimi say?
There were enough faux leopard prints and other faux animal skins to fill a faux jungle. Lacey’s eyes were dizzy with all the leopard spots and tiger stripes. Women in strapless animal print smocks and mile-high hairdos were somehow managing to look like hip Wilma Flintstones and Betty Rubbles, though perhaps a little more generously padded. Tattoos were out in full force, but did they really go with 1950s vintage dresses? All that inked skin was fighting with the retro dresses, and Lacey decided the ink was winning.
The Masque of the Red Dress Page 3