The Masque of the Red Dress

by Ellen Byerrum

  “You know something, Gregor,” Lacey said. “Something more. Tell me, who put the medals in the hem of the dress?”

  He shrugged. “I do not know. Only a suspicion. A tiny little suspicion. I can say nothing more. Not yet. Keep close watch on this building. I will be in touch.” Just like Kepelov to go all inscrutable after being so chatty. But Lacey was too tired to try and worm more out of him. Vic wanted to go home, and Marie was practically in slumberland, so she let it lie. “Please. Do nothing for now,” the Russian ordered her. “Tell no one. Write nothing.”

  Lacey and Gregor locked eyes. Normally, Lacey would bristle at his authoritarian tone, but she wasn’t in any hurry to break this story.

  “Okay. For now.” What could I write, anyway? She had too many questions, not enough answers.

  “Call me. We will get together for big evening on the town.” With that, Gregor ushered Marie and Olga down the hall to the elevator.

  “What was that about?” Vic asked after he shut the door. “Get together? On the town?”

  “You got me. Maybe it’s some kind of secret spy code. Like saying ‘let’s do lunch.’ Only with plenty of vodka.”

  THE RED DRESS WAS BACK under armed guard. Lacey was nestled in Vic’s arms in his townhouse in McLean. She’d had only a sip of Kepelov’s vodka, for solidarity, but now she consented to a sherry. Vic was opening a Dos Equis. And Lacey was very relieved she didn’t have to go home tonight.

  “It could all be nonsense, you know,” Vic was saying. “Hollow medals, poison needles, spy versus spy. Seems more like an elaborate inside joke. Or an accident. That whole theatre is full of Russians, right? So one of them inherits a shoebox full of Lenin medals, thinks they’re just corny old Soviet junk, uses them for hem weights in a stage costume. That’s as good as any other explanation.”

  She snuggled a bit closer, trying not to yawn. “Do you think Kepelov was telling the truth? At least some of the truth?”

  “From his reaction, I’d say yes. I was watching him, and his eyes popped open when Olga opened up that first medal.”

  “She opened up a can of worms too.” Lacey sipped her sherry.

  “Another can of worms. The real question is, Why does Lacey Smithsonian keep finding all the weird fashion stories?”

  It was her turn for a raised eyebrow. She sat up and grabbed his lapels.

  “No, Victor Donovan. That is not the question. The question is: Why do crazy Russians hide weird things in their clothes?!”

  He laughed and pulled her into a hug. “Oh, that’s the weird thing. Thanks for enlightening me. Now, what is Lacey Smithsonian hiding in her clothes?”

  When they came up for air, Lacey said, “I just wish the obvious solution didn’t add up to spies.”

  “Like you said, D.C. is full of spies. But what I want to know is, in all this crazy mess, how did you end up with someone else’s dress?”

  “It’s a gift.” Lacey groaned and pulled away to rub the headache beginning to flutter above her forehead. First vodka and now sherry. What was I thinking? “This is nuts, Vic. LaToya wants to me make sure it’s ‘psychically cleansed.’ Or something like that.”

  “Yup, clean into another mystery.” Vic yawned and stretched. “Much as I want you to get rid of that thing, I can’t see you giving it back to LaToya. Not yet. Not until we find her a psychic dry cleaner. And will she even want it back?”

  “Oh, Vic, you don’t know LaToya! It’s a matter of honor for her. She won’t give it back to the theatre. I’m just afraid she won’t take it off my hands either. I mean, how can you tell when something is really ‘psychically cleansed’ or not?”

  “A dilemma. What to do?”

  “Hush.” She put her finger on his lips. Lacey was tired of talking. She started kissing him and unbuttoning his shirt. “Let’s do this.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Vic managed to say, before forgetting all about red dresses and Lenin medals and sweeping Lacey off to bed.

  Things were looking up.

  CHAPTER 22

  On Wednesday morning, Lacey was still practicing her excuses for coming up empty on the Red Dress of Death story.

  Perhaps that was why it was her turn to wear red today. It was a sleeveless red-and-white vertical striped dress. The white collar fluttered around her neck and the red cotton bolero jacket warded off the indoor chill at the newsroom. She wrapped a long red scarf around her neck for extra warmth. She hoped she looked crisp and cool and not like a peppermint stick, although at least that had a breezy and fresh connotation.

  It was barely half past her first cup of coffee. Too early to fully engage the brain. She was distracted by Harlan Wiedemeyer’s story on Amy Keaton in the morning edition of The Eye. It ran in the editorial section for some reason. Obviously too many adjectives, she thought.

  Tragic Mishap or Something More Sinister?

  Death of a Sad Stage Manager

  By Harlan Wiedemeyer

  When you hear of a friend’s death, even one you haven’t seen in years, it hits you in the gut. It takes your breath away. It fells you like a runaway truck. And so it was when I heard that Amy Keaton, stage manager at Kinetic Theatre in the District, had died in an incident the police are calling a “freak accident.” Amy was a friend. No. She was more than a friend. Keaton was a beacon of hope in the theatre world...

  Lacey had been unaware of Keaton’s beacon-like attributes. Although the writing was florid and full to the brim with tortured phrasing, Lacey was pretty sure Mac had done his best to edit the piece before relegating it to an op-ed slot. To her amazement, Harlan didn’t mention the fight over the dress between Amy and LaToya. Or did Mac cut that part?

  The deceased paragon celebrated in the article bore no resemblance to the woman who confronted Lacey in Baltimore, and Lacey had no idea what Felicity thought of Harlan’s former relationship, now enshrined in deep violet prose. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely displeased that Amy-the-paragon was now even more definitely history. And Felicity must not have felt too threatened: The aroma of baked goods permeated the newsroom air. She had cooked up a storm of fruit tarts, possibly in a flurry of love-induced hormones.

  Felicity appeared right behind that aroma in a clash of crayon colors. Her sack-like dress was bright orange, and the fruit-themed sweater was glow-in-the-dark yellow with cutouts of bright red cherries and apples and royal purple berries. Felicity’s style brought to mind a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school. A seasonal calendar of delights. Isn’t love grand? Lacey thought, while applauding the eye-popping outfit in front of her.

  I wouldn’t be caught dead in that, but it’s fun to look at.

  It seemed the balance had been restored to Felicity and Harlan’s relationship. At last, the newsroom could look forward to more recipes with summer’s ripened fruits, for Felicity announced she had picked her own cherries and blueberries for today’s repast. In fact, she had some kind of membership at an orchard or a farm. There would be semi-healthy, although drenched in sugar, baked goods for the rest of the season and into the fall, until the apples turned crimson.

  Lacey was still pondering the meaning of those home-baked goods, and reading Harlan Wiedemeyer’s opinion piece, when the shadow of her editor loomed. She peered at him over the newspaper.

  “Pretty exuberant piece of prose,” she said. “Harlan’s little op-ed.”

  Mac’s bushy eyebrows knit together like two caterpillars mating. “It was so awful there was nothing to do except shovel it over to editorial.”

  “Good call. It will keep Harlan happy.”

  “Smithsonian. Listen. You find out anything more about that creepy crimson costume?”

  She put her fingertips together, as if in contemplation. “I need to talk to the costume designer. I haven’t heard back from him yet.”

  “You need any help?” His lips formed a sadistic smile. “Wiedemeyer would love to sink his teeth into it. He volunteered.”

  “For the love of heaven, Mac.” She waved Harlan’s pur
ple prose in front of him. “You’d do that to me?”

  “Something’s got to give, and soon. This story’s got my newsroom in an uproar. Wiedemeyer’s turned the hysterics on high. Crawford’s jumpy, and when she gets nervous, she gets mean.”

  “LaToya is fierce,” Lacey said.

  “One way of putting it. It’s because of that dress. It’s haunted or something screwy, isn’t it?”

  “I’m trying to find a connection. Some threads to follow. A red thread.”

  Felicity moved out of earshot, heading to the kitchenette with a bag of her special personal coffee. Mac sniffed the air, his gaze following her.

  “And Pickles— I hope she’s back to normal.”

  “I don’t know, Mac. Anything could happen. The Harlan-and-Felicity nuptials aren’t until next month. Long time around the newsroom.”

  “Yeah. And the hottest damn month of the year.” He picked up a cherry tart, looked at it, and picked up a blueberry tart as well. “A July wedding in Washington. Everybody sweating in the church like pigs. What do you have for me today? Crime of Fashion-wise?”

  Grasping at straws, Lacey grabbed her notebook. “Street fashion! Popular looks this summer on the streets of the District.” Of course most of the same looks were popular last summer and the summer before, so it wouldn’t be difficult. “Gotta go outside. Commune with the street.”

  “You aren’t fooling me. You just do that when you’re out of ideas.”

  “And yet it always works, Mac.” She smiled and tossed the notebook and pen in her tote bag and stood up. She figured she could scan some denizens of the city in their summer togs, ask a few questions about their outfits, and voilà, instant column. To save the day, and her beat. And while she was out, she would stop by Kinetic Theatre and try to finagle some more tidbits on the fatal frock.

  But how? Did anyone there even know that those Russian medals were used in the hem? Had they replaced earlier weights? Had the dress been designed with weights in mind? The resewn threads indicated the weights were added at different times over the years. Why? To add even more weight? Or had others fallen out and been lost? Once, those weights were deadly spy weapons. Heeding Kepelov’s advice, Lacey decided it was wiser to refrain from mentioning the face of Vladimir Lenin, or even the hem of the gown. At the moment, her head felt as hollow as those seven Lenin medals.

  “If you have time, figure out what’s going on with that red rag LaToya bought, so my newsroom can go back to normal. Or whatever passes for normal around here.” Mac took a bite of the blueberry tart. “Let me know if there’s something I can do to push this along.”

  How the world had changed. Even Mac wanted to jump on her story.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You think it was more than an accident? This Keaton woman? Is this one of those feelings of yours?”

  “I prefer to call it intuition, but honestly I don’t know what it is. Yet.”

  “Okay. Get out of here. Work on the dress story. I know you will anyway.”

  “It’s touching, your faith in my work ethic.”

  “Will we have anything on fashion from you today?”

  “Yes, on a Fashion Bite. No, on the crimson costume.”

  He harrumphed loudly. “Throw something together by deadline. What did you say, street fashion?”

  “I did.”

  “So hit the street, Smithsonian.”

  Felicity returned with a fresh platter of tarts. Lacey briefly wondered if the paper actually paid for all those fattening dishes she made.

  Of course they do! With their waistlines, she realized, if not with their wallets.

  Lacey hugged her notebook to her waistline and fled the premises.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was another steamy June day in the Nation’s Capital. The District’s inhabitants appeared to be moving more slowly than their normal brisk trot. The sun’s blazing rays and the soaring humidity made the air as thick as syrup. Lacey settled into the tempo and headed up Seventeenth Street, taking her own sweet time to scout potential candidates for her fashion column.

  She spotted a couple of men strolling down the street in seersucker suits, one blue and one gray, bright white shirts, and crisp bow ties. And to complete their summer attire, one wore on his feet light blue bucks and the other light tan. Lawyers, she decided, possibly lobbyists. They carried on as if the heat were no big deal, but at a leisurely pace. Definitely from the South, and a much deeper South than Northern Virginia, she decided. Together they seemed the epitome of preppy self-assurance and retro cool. Or were they heading for a magazine photoshoot somewhere? Maybe for Southern Living?

  She observed other men in one of the District’s summer uniforms: khaki pants, loafers or boat shoes, pastel shirts with short sleeves or long sleeves rolled up, and no ties. All covered with a thin layer of sweat. Apparently from cooler climates, they found the heat and humidity oppressive. Women in the muggy D.C. summer fought a never-ending war against frizzy hair, exploding in the humidity. They wore it up and off the neck, clipped back in oversized barrettes, or controlled by the ubiquitous ponytail.

  Not everyone seemed exhausted by the heat. Delivery workers in blue and brown looked well put together in their summer uniforms, happily in shorts. For young women who worked in offices, the sleeveless dress was a perpetual winner, in seersuckers, striped or flowered prints, or basic black. It was simply too hot to wear long pants, but she spotted a number of capris and sleeveless tops, as an alternative to the sundress. All had that dashing-to-lunch look. No doubt there were sweaters and jackets waiting for them in their frigidly air-conditioned offices.

  Armed with an iced chai to keep her cool, Lacey was still relatively crisp by the time she reached Kinetic. She wanted to touch base with Yuri Volkov and if possible meet the elusive costumer, Nikolai Sokolov. But first she ran into a woman who hadn’t been helpful the day before.

  It never failed to impress Lacey that talking with someone in person was so much more valuable than doing it over the phone, or worse, via email or text. The Eye’s shyer reporters, the ones who preferred to stay in the office and cover their beats via C-Span and the Web, didn’t know what they were missing.

  Lacey was a throwback to an earlier style of reporting, and she preferred to believe her journalistic brain was better off for her anachronistic skills. Most of the time, she inked her rough notes with fountain pen on paper, saving the computer keyboard for the mad dash to deadline. But she knew working journalists who had lost the ability to write by hand. It was rather like strutting in high heels, she thought. Women who stopped wearing them found their ability and desire had vanished, and they would be stuck with flats forever.

  Aha, another Fashion BITE!

  Lacey opened the theatre door and stepped into the lobby. A woman edged around cartons of wine stacked in front of the bar for tonight’s show to greet her, and Lacey inquired after Volkov and Sokolov.

  “Yuri stepped out for a minute, and I have no idea where Nicky is. I’m DeeDee. Can I take a message?”

  “I’m Lacey Smithsonian. From The Eye.”

  “Oh hi. We talked yesterday. About Amy.”

  “You’re DeeDee Adler?” The woman who couldn’t wait to get off the phone. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  DeeDee was small and muscular, with a gymnast’s physique. Short dark hair and dark upturned eyes made her look a bit like an elf, an elf wearing cutoff blue jeans, a long-sleeved blue T-shirt, and running shoes. She appeared to be in her early thirties.

  “I’m the assistant stage manager, and I help out in the costume shop and whatever else needs doing. Looks like I’ll be picking up some more hours now.”

  “Because of Amy Keaton’s death?”

  “Sadly so. It’s a big job. Well, a lot of responsibilities.” DeeDee waved at the bar stacked with stacked cases of wine. A Trader Joe’s grocery sack sat on the counter, filled to the top. “I just bagged up all the personal items Amy left here at the theatre.”


  “Is that it?”

  “Yeah. One bag. There’s not that much, mostly stuff from her desk drawers. Her tea collection. She must have had every brand of tea. It’s just that Yuri wants everything of hers gone ASAP. It’s because of the show. Press night jitters. Superstition. You know.”

  “That’s pretty cold.”

  “You have to understand, Yuri’s a genius. He’s the motor behind everything here. Offstage, he just can’t deal with personal stuff. To him, people are too messy when they’re not on stage. Too much information, or something.”

  “I’ll make a note of it. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

  “I guess not.” She scratched her head.

  “Was Amy your friend?”

  “Yeah, sort of. Not like best friends. We hung out sometimes.” DeeDee paused to stuff some of the overflow back in the Trader Joe’s sack. “This is such a drag. It’s not a cool thing to have to clean up after someone who died suddenly. I’m supposed to give all this stuff to her brother.”

  “Her brother?”

  “Yeah. Don’t know why he called me. Maybe Amy had an address book at her place? Maybe I was the first name, you know. Adler. Always up front in the A’s. And I had to tell Yuri about Amy dying too. That was a treat.”

  “Messy? Like people?”

  “You got it.”

  “You suggested suicide, on the phone.”

  “I have no idea why I said that. She wasn’t a happy person. But turns out it was some freaky accident. That’s what her brother said.”

  “So I heard. When was the last time you saw Amy?”

  “Saturday. Working the sale.”

  “Did you see the fight? Over the red dress?”

  “Yeah! What a scene! That lacked dignity.” DeeDee laughed at the memory. “I don’t think Amy even saw the Red Death costume on our rack until that woman bought it. Then she went ballistic. Like a crazy person. Insisted it wasn’t supposed to be in the sale. It wasn’t on the sale inventory.”