The Masque of the Red Dress

by Ellen Byerrum

“This is the dress, yes? From the Russian theatre you told us about? And it has secrets?”

  “It has secrets. If I tell them all at once, Gregor, it won’t be any fun,” Lacey replied.

  “Very well.” He smiled that off-kilter smile. “Let the fun begin.”

  Showtime. They all stared at the dress. Vic held it up and flicked on the overhead lights in the conference room, so the red gown was flooded with light. They watched intently, as if it might come to life and sing and dance.

  “It’s more than just a dress, cher, isn’t it?” Marie reached out for the material and caressed it.

  “Yes. It’s the Red Death costume, made to be worn on the stage, under stage lights, designed for and worn by the actress Saige Russell, who played the character of the Red Death.”

  “It’s a memorial, to— To—” The psychic backed away and took a seat. Everyone turned to her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to faint. I just need to sit.”

  “A memorial, Marie? A memorial to Saige Russell?”

  Marie waved her hands. “Not clear. Faces again. I see so many faces. I’m okay.”

  “I want to show you something. One of its secrets.”

  Lacey nodded to Vic. He handed her the forensic flashlight and switched off the room lights. In the sudden gloom Lacey flicked on the black light. Skulls on skulls on skulls appeared, covering the dress from neckline to hem, dancing with the dress as it moved. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and then unexpectedly, applause, first from Olga, then Gregor.

  “This is a little taste of what the audience saw during the show,” Lacey said. “Imagine it on the young actress it was made for, as she spun and whirled across the stage.”

  “Very beautiful,” Olga said. “Very Russian.”

  “And there’s more,” Lacey said.

  “This dress was sold?” Gregor moved closer. His teeth glowed almost lavender in the black light. “But why? You say it was a mistake?”

  “Apparently.” Lacey turned off the flashlight, and Vic flipped the room lights back on. He carefully placed the dress back on the table.

  “Did I mention that my coworker LaToya Crawford’s apartment was broken into?” Lacey said.

  “Burglary?” Kepelov asked.

  “Breaking and entering, nothing taken, but the perp left a message.”

  “What kind of message?” Olga asked.

  “LaToya’s clothes. Whoever did it spread her clothes around her apartment in dead silence,” Lacey said. “Complete with accessories, and the clothes were stuffed to— ”

  “—To look like invisible bodies, sitting in her chairs.” Marie shook her head. “Very strange. More than a violation of her privacy. You saw them, didn’t you, Lacey?”

  “Yes, it was a little unsettling.” The Kepelovs said nothing, but they nodded in unison. “What? Do you have an idea?”

  “The connection is obvious,” Gregor said. “The dress, the break-in, and you. Once again, Lacey Smithsonian is in the middle.”

  “That must be terribly annoying for LaToya,” Marie said. “But this event will draw that big man to her. There is a big guy in her life, isn’t there?”

  “But he’s a little reluctant, Marie,” Lacey said. “Let’s see how it unfolds.”

  “There is another secret, Smithsonian?” Kepelov rubbed his hands in expectation.

  Lacey lifted the skirt of the red dress and turned up the hem. She showed them where she had opened a small seam, and then she carefully extracted the medal she’d found earlier and tucked back in place. It was about the size of a silver dollar. She placed it on the table.

  “These were sewn into the dress to weight the hem down, so the skirt will hang and flow properly. An old costume designer’s trick. You put a little extra weight right at the hem to make it swing. And there are others, with room for many more.”

  Marie leaned forward. “Why, that looks just like— Gregor, darling, isn’t that—” The Kepelov siblings exchanged another look.

  “Vladimir Lenin,” Gregor said. “The past follows us, like an orphan looking for a home.”

  “What can you tell me about this thing, Gregor?” Lacey handed him the medal. “Vic, can you snip out the rest of them for us?”

  Vic went to work carefully with his Swiss Army knife scissors, and soon six more medals lay on the table in a row. They were all slightly different in size and style and the design on the back, but each of the seven bore the same distinctive profile of Vladimir Lenin.

  Lacey handed a second medal to Olga, who examined hers with great care. She turned it over and over. The siblings shared a look amid a torrent of Russian words. Gregor switched back to English.

  “KGB medals. You were right to call us. These are ordinary KGB Lenin medals, and yet they are not ordinary. These have a very special purpose.”

  “Not just to weight the hem of a red gown, I’m guessing,” Vic said.

  “Look.” Olga held hers up like a teacher showing it to the class. “A very particular kind of Lenin medal. You see?” She deftly popped it open with a fingernail, revealing a tiny secret compartment. Olga displayed it to them all with a grim little smile, and it was Lacey’s turn to gasp. “Fortunately this one is empty. Or perhaps not so fortunately, for someone.”

  “Like those hollow spy coins that open up,” Vic said. “You can buy them in the gift shop at the Spy Museum, in the District.”

  “Yes, but not like these,” Gregor said. “These are the genuine artifact out of the Soviet past. And who knows, the FSB may hand them out even today.”

  “So something could be hidden inside the medal?” Lacey asked.

  “Secrets,” Gregor said. “Usually microfilm. But these particular medals?”

  “Poison needle,” Olga said, very matter-of-factly.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Poison needle? Where?” Lacey peered into the medal Olga was holding up to the light.

  Brooke cannot hear a word about any of this, or DeadFed and Damon Newhouse will be stalking us all.

  “Where? Good question.” Olga pointed out the tiny slot in which it would have nestled, against a tiny spring. “Needle is now presumably in deceased target.”

  “Deceased target?” Lacey’s head was spinning.

  Olga opened the rest of the medals, very carefully. “No needles. All gone.”

  “Are you sure?” Lacey asked.

  Olga leveled a look that brooked no argument.

  “My sister is sure,” Gregor said. “You see, these were not sold in spy souvenir shops. They contained poison needles, at one time.”

  Seven poison needles? If the Kepelov siblings were to be believed, and Lacey had no reason not to believe them, these medals represented seven deaths. Or if as Marie said, the dress was a memorial, perhaps they represented seven tombstones. A killer’s trophies?

  “What kind of poison?” Lacey asked. “Cyanide?”

  “Better than cyanide,” Gregor said, picking up another medal. “A secret Soviet poison. There is a Russian name for it. Stops the heart, disappears quickly, cannot be traced, and if other plausible evidence of cause of death is present...” He shrugged.

  “Are you talking about a super-secret Soviet knockout juice?”

  “No. Super-secret Soviet knockout juice merely renders you pleasantly unconscious, it does not kill.” He smiled at her and they shared a memory. For Lacey, not a pleasant one. “And we do not call it that.”

  The first time Lacey encountered Kepelov, he’d approached her from behind, covered her face with a monogrammed handkerchief, and rendered her unconscious with that secret Soviet juice. But not so “pleasantly.”

  As if answering her unspoken comment, Gregor said, “That was before we were such good friends, Lacey Smithsonian.”

  Yes, good friends indeed. “Wait a minute. LaToya told me something odd. During that break-in, she never woke up. She claims she’s a light sleeper and she’s up at the slightest sound, but she never heard a thing.”

  “Ah. The burglar made her sleep more sound
ly,” Olga said. “This is a very polite burglar.”

  “How is that polite?”

  “If she had awakened, the thief would have had to deal with her. Perhaps even kill her. Obviously this was not the plan.”

  “Exactly right,” Gregor said. “Well executed. Saves on excess corpses and questions.”

  “Okay. First, I don’t like where this is going. And second, I am not going to tell LaToya this,” Lacey said.

  “Good,” Olga said. “No unnecessary explanation.”

  “Please hand me one of the medals, Gregor, honey,” Marie asked. He put one in the palm of her hand. She breathed deeply and nodded her head in a brief prayer. He handed her all the rest. She cupped the seven medals in her hands, blinked, and started to sway. She managed to whisper, “Murders. Memorials. Faces. Why are there so many faces?”

  Marie’s eyes rolled back and she crumpled into a faint. Kepelov caught her gently before she fell out of her chair and held her tight against his shoulder.

  “My darling, rest now. Gregor is here.”

  “I was really hoping that wouldn’t happen,” Lacey said, catching her breath.

  “Delayed reaction,” Olga noted. “Still, she is getting much better.”

  “How is this better?”

  “See how softly she fainted? No shock, no terror. And she was able to tell us there was a murder before she went under. She has given us so much more information than she could have before. Marie is very gentle person. It is a mercy she doesn’t remember everything. She leaves it to us to find out more. Or in this instance, to you.”

  “But why so many faces?” Lacey said. “Who are they? Victims? Or killers?” Olga said nothing.

  “Are you sure there were poison needles?” Vic asked. “Not microfilm, microdots, whatever?”

  “Needles,” Olga stated. “I know this concealment method. Watch me.” She held up one medal. “Hold like this. Press like so. There is a tiny spring. Concealed needle pops out. Can be delivered by stealth or in formal ceremony. Can even be done while pinning medal on target. Mission accomplished. These needles have served their purpose. Found their targets.”

  “And who were those targets?” Lacey asked, knowing that was a question that couldn’t be answered. Not yet.

  “Not the aging family pet,” Gregor said. “Human targets. The only target where you must conceal the weapon. But the killer?” He lifted his glass of vodka and realized it was empty. “Who can say?”

  “How old are these things?” Vic asked. “Cold war stuff? Or current issue?”

  “Good question, Victor,” Gregor said. “Not necessarily old. Possibly they have been made to look old.”

  The Kepelovs launched into another debate in Russian. Figuring that her fingerprints were already all over the medals, Lacey picked them up and felt the weight of them in her hand.

  “But you’ve seen these Lenin medals before?” she asked Gregor. “This exact kind of medal?”

  Gregor nodded. “Never before hidden in a dress.”

  “A costume, Gregor,” Olga corrected. “In the theatre, everything is illusion.”

  Lacey turned the medals over, face down. They were scratched on the back. She lined them up in a row. All had distinct marks.

  “What are you thinking, Lacey?” Vic rubbed his face. He was clearly ready to go home.

  “I’m not sure. Look at these markings.”

  “Could be a code,” Gregor said.

  “A code?”

  “Fascinating,” Olga said. “But useless without the key.”

  “Can you figure it out?” Lacey asked Gregor.

  “Lacey Smithsonian, I am flattered that you think I have such powers.”

  “And to answer your next question,” Olga added, “premature to call in expert Russian cryptographer. These are troubled times. So many deaths. ”

  “So these marks are Russian?” Vic opened another soda. Gregor poured more vodka.

  “Possible. Some are Cyrillic letters. Badly done. Other scratches are not. Perhaps unique to the one who marked them.”

  “We all want to know what it means,” Olga said. “But it is wise never to seek out expert opinion until you know whose side the expert is on.”

  “A code. This makes my night.” Vic leaned back in a chair and propped his cowboy boots on the conference table. “Thoughts, anyone?”

  “Someone hid these medals in this scarlet costume,” Gregor said. “Why? A dressmaker’s reason, of course, to make it hang just so. But there is another reason. Is it meaningful or trivial? For example: Medals found forgotten in a closet at this Russian theatre, used innocently without knowing their original purpose? Trivial. But if meaningful, the concealer is possibly also a killer. A killer is unlikely to want such things lost to some unknown buyer. If selling it to LaToya Crawford was a mistake, this killer will be most unhappy.”

  “Uh oh.” Lacey said and everyone turned toward her.

  “Are you all right, Lacey?” Vic sat up and reached for her.

  “Amy Keaton, the woman from the theatre, the one who fought to keep the dress, was panicked when I ran into her on Sunday. Maybe she knew the dress’s secrets and knew there would be hell to pay if it were lost. She begged me to get LaToya to give it back. And if it wasn’t a freak accident, she paid a price for that sale.”

  “Explain, please,” Olga said. “Freak accidents are Russian government specialty.”

  “Amy Keaton is dead.”

  “Aha! At last the heart of the mystery! Someone had to be dead, or we would not be here.” Gregor poured more vodka for Olga. “Another woman connected to the dress is dead? That makes two?”

  “That we know of,” Lacey said. This part isn’t nearly as much fun. Maybe I should give that vodka a try. Vic stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “The medical examiner hasn’t released a cause of death. Off the record, a police source told Trujillo at The Eye that it looked like a freak accident. Or maybe murder.”

  Olga nodded with satisfaction.

  “And of what did Ms. Keaton die?” Gregor persisted.

  “Looks like a broken neck. Again, no determination yet.”

  “Is that not the way the actress died? Broken neck, falling off the set?”

  “Yes, and I know what you’re thinking,” Lacey said.

  “Then we are all thinking the same thing. We are ninety-nine percent sure this was no freak accident.” Olga seemed very cheerful. She was about to continue, but just then Marie emerged from her faint. The psychic blinked and wiped her eyes.

  “It happened again, didn’t it?”

  Olga clucked like a mother hen and poured Marie a glass of water. “Not to worry, dear. You had good information for us. You are feeling all right?”

  “Yes, Olga honey, I’m fine, but I went out like a light. It must have been bad.”

  “Yes, my darling, but you were magnificent,” Kepelov cooed into her ear. “And I caught you. I will never let you fall.”

  “Lacey, the woman you wanted to speak with,” Marie said. “The one I said wouldn’t return your call?”

  “She’s dead,” Lacey said.

  “Yes. I saw that. There is no light there, where she used to be.”

  “We will let Lacey find out what happened,” Olga said. “She is good at finding secrets. How did you put it? Secrets behind the seams.”

  “Answers will come, Lacey, but keep your wits about you.” Marie reached out for Lacey’s hands. “And your mask. Don’t forget your mask.”

  “What do you mean—my mask?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, cher.” She giggled unexpectedly. “Sometimes words just slide out. It must mean something.”

  “But why would anyone keep this thing in a costume shop,” Lacey asked, “with all these ominous things sewn into it? Why lend it out to actresses every year?”

  “I don’t know, sugar. But we need to be getting home, and I have to drive.”

  She wobbled as she rose from the chair with Gregor steadying her. Olga patted
Marie’s purse and deftly produced her car keys. A pickpocket in a previous life? Or just more KGB training?

  “Not to worry, Marie. I will drive, very carefully. I have not drunk as much vodka as Gregor.”

  Vic put his arm around Lacey’s shoulder. “It strikes me that by dangling that dress in front of the world, and letting all those women parade around in it unknowingly, this nut job is laughing at everyone. Thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. Any other symbolism is probably personal.”

  “Excellent point, Victor.” Olga took Lacey’s arm. “Take warning, Lacey. You are very smart journalist, but you must tell no one what we have discovered here tonight. Is not safe at present time. Every day another death: Russian agents, ex-agents, persons of interest, spies, witnesses, family members, they die every day. Someone is erasing footprints.”

  Gregor nodded. “Olga is right. Could be agent of foreign government. And we all know exactly which government. Very dangerous.”

  Oh please. “But is it any more dangerous than usual? There are thousands of spies in D.C.,” Lacey said. Brooke had repeated that often enough. For Brooke, spy conspiracies were as fun as aliens and Bigfoot and killer rats in Congress.

  “True, but only one such as this. This spy is an assassin.”

  “Do you know someone like this?” Vic asked Gregor.

  “Premature to say. I know many assassins, but none who sews red dresses.” Gregor reached for the gown. “Let me take this costume and keep it safe for you, Lacey Smithsonian.”

  Vic stepped between the spy and the red dress lying on the table. “It’s safe, Kepelov. Trust me.” If it wasn’t well protected in Donovan’s walk-in safe room, Lacey thought, it wasn’t safe anywhere. Vic put his hand out. “And Gregor, the medals? Please.”

  Kepelov hesitated. “They have more information. On the other side.”

  “Chain of custody. Come back and visit them. You’re always welcome here. But it’s late.”

  “Perhaps a good idea.” Olga put her hand on Gregor’s arm. “Victor understands security too.”

  “Please, sugar,” Marie said. “I’m dead on my feet.”

  It was clear that Gregor Kepelov didn’t want to part with the seven little Lenins, but he smiled his crooked smile and dropped them into Vic’s hand.