The Masque of the Red Dress

by Ellen Byerrum

  “You are a tool of an evil state!” Volkov shouted at him. “I lose actors when you are around. I lose a perfectly good stage manager because of you.”

  Sokolov was impassive as the D.C. cops locked him in a prisoner transport body chain. Lacey’s eyes went wide at this precaution.

  “My suggestion,” Vic said modestly.

  “Good idea too,” Lamont added. “Now, tell me, Smithsonian, are we expecting any more party guests at this shindig?”

  Lacey didn’t have to say yes. Her publisher Claudia Darnell arrived in the second-floor lobby, followed by staff photographer Todd Hansen, draped with cameras and his usual jaunty attitude.

  “Hey, Lacey! I wasn’t supposed to work this weekend, but my buddy got the flu and I got lucky.” He flashed two thumbs-up and a smile.

  “Claudia, this story is going to be big trouble,” Lacey told her. Under her breath she added, “We have a confession. Sokolov admits killing Saige Russell, Amy Keaton, and others. He’s the Centipede.”

  “Well then! A hell of a story.” Claudia’s eyes glittered like aquamarines. She wore a white linen sheath, Lacey thought, because the good guys always wear white. And it went so well with her tan. She gazed over Lacey’s shoulder at her laptop screen. “So far, so good. If we’re going down, Lacey, we’re going down in a blaze of glory.” She winked. “And we’ll take ’em all down with us.”

  Claudia turned her devastating smile on Broadway Lamont. She asked for a photograph and Lamont personally dragged Sokolov front and center, the big detective scowling in his fierce-yet-handsome way for Hansen’s camera. Claudia pointed out other subjects for Hansen’s lens, her cell phone glued to her ear.

  Another loud voice was heard on the stairs, demanding access to the theatre’s second floor lobby.

  “Eye Street Observer! Let me in up there!” The officers at the door parted and Mac Jones burst on the scene in his jeans and sneakers and some kind of sports team shirt. Lacey didn’t recognize the team. His press credentials dangled from his neck and he wore a red Washington Nationals baseball cap on his head.

  “Welcome to the party. Where are the girls?” Lacey asked, still typing.

  “They’re waiting in the car with Kim.”

  She heard a high voice from the stairway. “We’re here! We have to help Miss Lacey.”

  “I don’t think they’re in the car, Mac,” Lacey said.

  The voice belonged to Jasmine, one of Mac’s soon-to-be-adopted daughters. Jasmine was thirteen and Lily Rose, now eleven, was right behind her big sister. Lacey saw a female officer trying to hold the girls back.

  “Are you all right?” Jasmine shouted at Lacey. She struggled to see into the room around the cops.

  “I’m fine,” Lacey said.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “Out of the mouths of babes, huh, Mac? Girls, this is how I look when I’m hard at work, writing a story for your dad.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Miss Lacey?” Lily Rose asked with a frown.

  “I’m so sure. I’ve got my whole village right here. Broadway, they’re Mac’s girls. Can’t they sit right here with me?”

  Lamont gestured to the cops at the door to let them in. The two girls slipped away from the officers and ran to Lacey’s side. She grabbed them both in a group hug. The big detective warned them to be quiet and not to move a muscle, and they nodded their heads vigorously. Their heads spun in unison from Lacey to Mac to Broadway and Sokolov and back again.

  Mac’s wife Kim was right behind the girls. Her trim figure and immaculate outfit made Lacey feel like a mess. Lamont waved her in too, and Kim gathered her girls to her.

  “Come on, girls. Now you have proof that Lacey is fine.” Kim explained to everyone, “They had to see for themselves.”

  “You know Miss Lacey gets herself into trouble,” Jasmine said to her mom.

  “You know she does!” Lily Rose piped up, not to be outdone. “We have to watch her. We have to protect her.” Lacey raised an eyebrow at Mac. Was she a topic of conversation in their home? “Now that she’s okay, can we get pizza?” Lily Rose added.

  “If you all don’t mind,” Broadway Lamont said. “I got work to do here. And Smithsonian, you’ve got one hell of a statement to write for me.”

  Wonderful. Something else to write.

  Lacey Smithsonian’s FASHION BITES

  Make the Art of Illusion Your Friend

  Clothing can be full of illusions—and delusions. One can enhance your look. And the other? Well, let’s talk.

  Illusion—the use of light and shadow, color and texture, to deceive the eye—is one of the theatre’s tools of the trade. But it’s not just for performers anymore. You too can employ clever illusions and a few theatrical tricks in your day-to-day wardrobe to emphasize your best points and camouflage your perceived flaws. What, you have no flaws? Right, me neither.

  Consider the role you play in your life. The star? Or the understudy? I hope not the understudy! Too many people already play that part. You don’t want your wardrobe to announce that you’re the extra who plays that character named Forgettable Woman In An Oversized Gray Cardigan. In the theatre, your costume can tell us who you are before you even speak a line. Does yours telegraph to the world that you’re the administrative assistant on the lowest rung of the ladder? A tired geography teacher who can’t find a road map out of her style crisis? Or the star of your own show, whether you’re on Broadway or way way way Off?

  Hint: It’s your life, so it’s your show! What do you want your role to be? The sky’s the limit. And your budget, of course. Nevertheless, you can make up in creativity what you lack in cash.

  Remember this: In your own closet, you are the Master of Ceremonies. It is your kingdom, your production, your stage. It should reflect your choices and decisions. Your preferences, not your mother’s, your sister’s, or your best friend’s. Do you want to be the sidekick in a kitchen-sink drama? Or the star in a sparkling Noel Coward wit-fest of a play? It’s your wardrobe’s casting call.

  Think theatrically. What does a costumer use to make a character unforgettable? Glamour. Drama. Color. Shape. The contrast of light and dark, rough and smooth, familiar and surprising.

  Color choices on stage mean something. Blue is the color of hope and communication. Black is the color of power and authority. Red translates as passion, sex, danger. Green is calm, serene, a deep mystery. White can be innocent—or the favorite hue of ghosts. Can you find a color theme in your clothes? Hint: In D.C., black is a given, gray is a tropical depression. Find your closet’s favorite accent colors. Discard the ones that don’t flatter you.

  The shape of a garment can hide flaws and create illusions: the suggestion of a nipped-in waist, the impression of broad, strong shoulders, that long, leggy silhouette. The right shape can work to camouflage a tummy or thighs. A well-constructed dress or suit may cost a little more, but it is invaluable. Illusion is your almost magical ally.

  The contrast of light and dark colors can also work together to enhance your appearance. Use dark colors where you want the focus to recede, light where you want pull the eye. Consider those dresses that employ colors strategically to create an hourglass frame, or simple shifts with dark side panels. Illusion can come down to accentuating the positive by illuminating your pluses, shadowing your minuses. Put the light where you want it to shine.

  The Essential Full-Length Mirror

  Your outfit consists of more than the three-quarter glimpse you see every morning in the bathroom mirror under those horrible fluorescent lights. That’s more like a funhouse looking-glass. No wonder you don’t look in that mirror for very long.

  A full-length mirror and good light are essential for a complete and honest appraisal. Unless you have a three-way mirror, you also need a hand mirror so you can see what you look like from behind. It may come as a complete shock. Yikes!

  Remember, theatre dressing rooms have wonderful mirrors outlined in lights. They have to, because they’re made for
people about to walk out on stage in the glare of the footlights. You need a great mirror not merely to see your flaws, but also to view your possibilities.

  Borrow a few tricks of the theatre trade, and discover your best you!

  CHAPTER 45

  Lacey sagged against Vic and held on tight. It was the longest weekend in the world.

  Saturday afternoon, on the heels of submitting her official statement to Detective Lamont, she filed her first teaser story about the Centipede, master spy and master costumer, while she was still at the theatre in the upstairs lobby.

  To Yuri Volkov’s immense relief, Broadway Lamont finally hustled a shackled Nikolai Sokolov out of the theatre an hour before the donor gala started. Volkov explained to his well-heeled guests, DeeDee told Lacey the next day, that the police crime scene tape that still covered the costume shop and the wardrobe closet was just a surprise sneak preview for Kinetic’s next show. Lacey was sure he’d come up with something. Perhaps Crime and Punishment, the Musical!

  After the D.C. Metropolitan Police released the newspaper crew, Lacey met with Claudia at The Eye and filed her official story, with more background material. Mac worked it over on the spot and sent it to The Eye’s production department to remake the front page for the Sunday edition. Lacey’s story ran at the top, above the fold: SEVEN DEADLY LENINS HIDDEN IN A HEM.

  Trujillo had never come through, so neither did his double byline. That byline now read: Lacey Smithsonian, Observer Staff Writer. Not “Fashion Reporter.” Not “Ghettoized Chick Stuff Writer.” There would be more stories to come. If Sokolov had his way, they might never end. But Lacey felt sure the Feds would soon shut down his channels of communication.

  Hansen had caught a picture of Nikolai Sokolov on his feet, handcuffed and shackled, gazing ardently at Lacey. In his melting makeup and battered matador costume, he looked like the saddest of sad clowns. Mac ran it with a simple cutline:

  Master spy Nikolai Sokolov, allegedly “the Centipede,” collared by Eye Street Observer reporter Lacey Smithsonian.

  The picture wasn’t so bad, she thought. At least I wasn’t on my butt this time.

  Hansen’s other photos from the theatre sale, including frames of Lacey and LaToya, ran on the inside spread, as well as archive photos from the original production of The Masque. And to Lacey’s horror, there was that alarming photo of her, the one Hansen had taken at the Baltimore HonFest. She was in Stella’s full crazy-lady makeup, looking like a diva in a bad Italian film, face to face with the late Amy Keaton, Sokolov’s last victim. I hope.

  It seemed a bizarre coincidence that her front page story would run in the same edition with the feature article she’d written on Nikolai Sokolov’s costumes for the LifeStyle section. Claudia added her own Publisher’s Notes to both stories to link them together. She also allotted much more space for photos than usual. She promised to run everything past the paper’s attorney later Saturday evening, but Lacey knew Claudia usually got her way.

  The sensational news about the Centipede was online by midnight Saturday night. Claudia promised them a big celebratory dinner for the following weekend. Unless they were all in jail.

  Late that same Saturday evening, Lacey and Vic rendezvoused at Vic’s offices with the Troika, Gregor, Olga, and Marie. Turtledove joined them, bringing with him the Red Dress of Death from the Undisclosed Location. Lacey brought out the jeweled mask and set it on the conference table next to the dress.

  She knew she didn’t have much time before the first early print edition of The Eye Street Observer would hit the newsstands. She didn’t know how much later the call would come from agents of the US government. And who? Vic’s money was on the FBI. Gregor said it might be some agency they had never heard of and that officially did not even exist. Whoever they might be, they would want to scoop up the sparkling crimson items she held in her hands. She would have to turn them over eventually, she knew, but not before she had more photographs, many more. And more time to explore them, with her eyes and hands. And her EFP.

  Vic, Turtledove, and Lacey took hundreds of photos of the dress, the mask, and the medals, with Olga stage managing. Backwards and forwards, upside down and inside out, in room light, floodlights, and black light. The photographs would make it very hard for anyone to deny this costume had ever existed.

  Wearing white gloves, they carefully examined the remaining seven Lenin medals, the scratches and symbols, the marks on the back of each medal. Comparing them with the symbols on the mask, there were seven matches. Gregor said it was some kind of code in Cyrillic characters.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before,” Gregor said.

  “We didn’t have the mask before,” Olga sniffed. “The key. I told you the ciphertext was useless without the key.” She was still irritated that she wasn’t in on the takedown of Nikolai Sokolov.

  Marie did not faint that evening, but she did go into a light trance. She told them afterwards she had seen the ghost in red, the spectre who had appeared to her at the theatre. This time, the crimson ghost saw Marie and she no longer seemed lost. She smiled and waved goodbye.

  The team knew more than they did before. Still, they did not crack the code. Olga said there was simply not enough of it, they needed more text. Another problem was there seemed to be many more coded names on the mask than the seven medals in the dress could account for. The Kepelov siblings said they would consult a friendly cryptographer with photos of the code for further enlightenment.

  Perhaps Nicky Sokolov was right about there being other trophies. Other dresses. It would have to be a puzzle for another time, as Lacey pointed out to them, because newspaper deadlines wouldn’t wait.

  And thank God, she thought. Nothing would ever get written without a deadline.

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON, LACEY’S story appeared to come as a complete surprise to several government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI. When reporters asked them, Lacey included, they had few comments to offer on the record. The dress and the mask and the mythical Centipede were simply “fantastical” and “a conspiracy theory” and “complete fiction,” but they clearly still wanted to get their hands on them. One agent told Lacey off the record, “I don’t know whether to arrest you or hire you. You got a resume?”

  Late Sunday evening, Broadway Lamont informed Lacey that the Feds had finally wrangled Sokolov into their custody after he had spent twenty-four hours in dead silence in the company, and at the expense, of the Metropolitan Police.

  “They showed up ’bout fifteen minutes after this Sunday morning surprise of yours hit. But it took ’em all day to get through the paperwork. I made sure they dotted every last I. And by the way, where are those damn Lenin medals, that red mask, and that red devil dress? I don’t recall you coughing up those crucial items of evidence at the theatre when I rode in with my cavalry.”

  “Gee, Broadway, my mind just goes blank when I face a killer. Sorry. I hope they’re not lost. But if the dress ever somehow made its way into your custody, how soon would the Feds get their hands on it?”

  “Get something out of a D.C. police evidence locker? And me, cooperate with the Feds? You know how ‘cooperative’ I can be. Could be a long damn time. And you know that Centipede character, you just be glad he’s locked up, wherever he is now. He’s on the late-stage obsession scale where you’re concerned.”

  “I am glad. Believe me.”

  She and Vic worked out an immediate delivery via the reliable Turtledove to Detective Lamont, whereby they could truthfully tell the Feds, whenever they called, that they had no idea where the dress and the mask were now, and they should probably contact the Metropolitan Police for further information. After all, the police had secured the crime scene.

  A Sunday afternoon tweet from the White House said The Eye Street Observer was a “failing newspaper” and the story was merely “fake news.”

  In response, Claudia Darnell wrote a fiery online editorial that Sunday evening, defending freedom of the press. She pointed out that S
mithsonian could have died unmasking the Centipede, and had certainly risked being abducted, simply while doing her job as a reporter, her job to bring the truth before the American people.

  LaToya Crawford was alternately annoyed at not being included in the story and relieved to know she had been spared from putting a dress with that bloody history on her body. And she swore to Lacey that such a thing would never happen, now or in the future, because LaToya Crawford was absolutely done with “funky old clothes” that “God knows who” had worn before her.

  “But it seems to me,” LaToya complained, “I’m out some serious cash here. I bought that dress fair and square!”

  “Have you still got the receipt? When they’re finished with it, if they ever are, you might get it back. Maybe you could have my buddy Kepelov broker a deal for you, with the Spy Museum or someplace like that,” Lacey suggested.

  “You think? Or you think the damn Feds are going to squabble over it till the cows come home?”

  “Maybe you could send them a bill.”

  “If I do, I’m going to mark it up a thousand percent. For my pain and suffering. And for yours too, Smithsonian.”

  Yuri Volkov continued to deny to reporters that he knew anything about Nikolai Sokolov’s homicidal history. “I thought the bad things that happened were coincidence,” he was quoted.

  No one believed him, but no one was arresting him yet. However, because the D.C. police had waited until after Kinetic’s opening night to question him, Volkov gave Broadway Lamont complimentary tickets to the show.

  Volkov called Lacey that afternoon to complain about the “inconvenience” she had caused him. Following her Sunday stories in The Eye, his new show, The Turn of the Screw, would be in such demand that the run would have to be extended. They would have to find an alternate space to present their next production. He was also afraid the theatre would be put on the Washington, D.C., Spy Walking Tour. “With busloads of people taking pictures. Of my theatre!”