10 Lethal Black Dress (13 page)

CHAPTER 15

Marie’s dream and Kepelov’s offer
of
help chilled Lacey. As usual, however, Marie’s psychic hotline was short on
useful details. Kepelov took his leave of her with an uncharacteristic hug.

Is Marie really turning him into a Russian teddy bear
?
Nah.

Lacey had to get out of that depressing church hall. She needed
fresh air, air that had nothing to do with death. She took the wheel of her
vintage green BMW and headed northeast, up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to
Charm City.

Unlike Washington, D.C., Baltimore always felt like a real
city to Lacey. The Capital City sometimes seemed like nothing but stage scenery
for the theatre that is American politics. The District, as beautiful as it
was, produced mostly laws, red tape, paperwork, and hot air. Baltimore, on the
other hand, worked for a living.

The downtown heart of Baltimore was solid and expansive, with
huge old buildings marching down to the waterfront. She parked at a garage near
the Aquarium at the Inner Harbor and met Vic, standing waterside, looking as
dashing as a modern-day pirate in his jeans, black polo shirt, sunglasses, and
leather jacket slung over his shoulder.

Vic caught sight of her and smiled. Her heart melted. Love
sometimes grabbed hold of her and she found it hard to breathe.

“How about lunch?” he said, breaking away from her kiss.

“I’m starved.” She kissed him again. “I assume you know a
place?”

“I know a place.” Vic didn’t want to eat in the Inner Harbor
area by the waterfront. Too full of tourists, he said. They hopped in his Jeep
and he navigated the streets of Baltimore. Lunch was in the Mount Vernon
neighborhood at a small French bistro. The food was delicious, the atmosphere
romantic, and the service leisurely.

“How was the funeral?” Vic asked. “Any likely suspects?”

“Have you heard of Thaddeus Granville?”

“The political operative at the center of Wallace’s dirty
campaign tricks story. Yeah. Turned out the story was false. At least that
particular story. There are others.”

“Have you had dealings with him?”

“No, just heard tell he’s a handful.”

“Well, he popped up at the funeral today, spouting words of
compassion. It caused quite a stir.”

“Really?” Vic asked. “So he chose Wallace’s service for his
return to the fray?”

“In the flesh, and very nattily dressed.”

“That man’s got nerve. I give him that. What did he say?”

“He said all was forgiven.”

“Now that she’s dead.”

“The media lapped it up.”

“You included?” She shrugged and she caught him grinning. “So
tonight he leads the news.”

“And tomorrow, he is going to talk to me. At least, I plan to
talk to him.”

“Be careful, sweetheart. By all accounts, he’s as dangerous
as a snake.”

“But smooth. Very smooth. For example: In the midst of the
controversy, all the he-said, she-said, Courtney disappeared from the Channel
One investigative team. Eventually turned up doing fashion features.”

“And you think Granville had something to do with that?” Vic
said.

“I know he held a grudge and he has influence. Other than
that, the funeral was depressing, including the church,” Lacey said. “Reminded
me of a shoebox, only not as cheerful.”

“No pomp, then?”

“No circumstance either. Guess who else popped up today?
Gregor Kepelov.”

“Kepelov? Did he expect to find you hiding some Romanov
treasure?”

“Marie is having bad dreams. He is standing by to help me, if
I need it.”

“He thinks there’s treasure somewhere,” Vic said.

“I gather he wants to get his hands on Courtney’s dress and
sell it to the highest bidder.”

“Like I said. Are
you
satisfied it was an accident?”

“I can’t see Granville giving her a poison dress, even though
he is a bit of a dandy. I think I’ll follow up with Courtney’s Channel One
photographer, too. We’re having coffee.”

“You’re not satisfied.”

“ ‘There is no hope for the satisfied man.’ That’s a quote
from Fred Bonfils, cofounder of
The
Denver Post
, which was once a
great paper. In this case, there is no hope for the satisfied woman.”

“Not exactly what I’ve been dreaming of.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t satisfy me, honey.” Lacey smiled.
“Vic, I know this has taken us forever to go ring shopping, but do we have time
for a quick stop first, after lunch?”

“You want to be—satisfied?” he inquired, with one lifted
eyebrow.

She laughed. “Sweet talker. Not right now. Maybe later.”

“How quick a stop and where?” Vic paid the bill. It was time
for ring shopping.

“I happened to notice a little vintage store a couple of blocks
from here.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“One of the shops Courtney mentioned on Channel One. The only
one I haven’t been to.”

“Ten minutes?”

“That’s all I need.”
Unless they have some slamming
Forties fashions
. She led the way down the street and he followed. She
skipped up the steps to the shop, which was just opening for the day. The door
said BVB, which stood for Best Vintage Baltimore. Vic stayed outside, grabbing
some sunshine.

The store wasn’t promising for Lacey’s favorite era of
vintage clothing, but it was illuminating just the same. The woman at the front
counter told her the specialty of the store was the Eighties.

“The Eighties?” Lacey asked. “You’re kidding.”

“The kids, they love that stuff from before they were born.”

“Me too,” Lacey said, though she preferred the decades from
long before she was born. Indeed, there were a couple of young women, in their
late teens or early twenties, trying on vintage Eighties jumpsuits: pink and
purple with huge shoulders and big white buttons, ready for their close-ups on
MTV. The woman smiled and nodded, as if to say, “Told ya.”

“I never expected to see so many jumpsuits. They’re really
big here?”

“You see, hon, here in Baltimore, what we want are outfits that
are
all that
. It’s a Baltimore thing.” She gave her city’s name the
distinctive local pronunciation, which sounded something like “Bawlmer.” Lacey
must have looked blank. “All that. You know, the total outfit, the one with all
the style, the answer to all your prayers? Like, all that and a side of fries? My
store, we got
all that
.” She indicated the racks of clothing around the
room.

“Courtney Wallace mentioned this store on the Channel One
news.”

“Oh, yeah, down in D.C. She was the TV woman? The blonde?”

“Yes.”

“I remember her. Didn’t see the story. Heard about it. I
suppose I could Google it or something. Didn’t something happen to her? She
just died or something?”

“Yes. She died.”

“One of my customers mentioned it. Sad to say, I would have
paid more attention if she was from Baltimore. You know, local.”

“Did she buy anything here?” Lacey gazed around the store.
Courtney hadn’t featured the Eighties. Perhaps if she’d had more time.

“No. She asked me a few questions, had her guy take some
video, said she’d mention us on TV. I said fine, whatever. That was about it.
How’d she die?”

“Wearing a dress with a green lining, which was toxic when it
got wet.”

The woman’s eyes grew large. “No way! It wasn’t polyester,
was it? Because I never believed that polyester was that bad, even though some
people say it was. I mean, I pretty much trade in polyester all day long, all
this Eighties stuff. ”

“It wasn’t polyester. It was from a dye that was used in the nineteenth
century.”

“Oh. Seriously antique vintage. Well, what do you know?” She
turned around and hung up a few garments. Apparently the woman, as well as her
clothes, was living in the Eighties. What happened in the present didn’t faze
her.

One of the young shoppers brought two jumpsuits to the
counter. A pink and a purple. “These are so cool! I can’t decide. I guess I
have to get both of them. They’re all that, huh?”

The owner smiled brightly. “Cash or credit?”

As Lacey opened the door to leave, the woman called out to
her. “Hey, if you really want to understand Baltimore and Baltimore fashion,
the whole story, you gotta come to HonFest next month. I’ll have a booth there.”

“HonFest?” She’d heard about it, probably from Stella, her
stylist. In “Bawlmerese,” the Baltimore dialect, a woman dressed in a uniquely Old
Baltimore style was called a
hon
(short for
honey
), and HonFest
was a summertime street festival in their honor in Baltimore’s Hampden
neighborhood. Women competed for the title of “Bawlmer’s Best Hon” in their curlers
and bedroom slippers, tight lamé and leopard-print outfits, beehive hairdos,
and cat-eye glasses. It sounded scary.

“You gotta go just for the beehives. It’s a style statement
nobody but Baltimore speaks,” the woman testified. “It’s all that. In fact,
it’s more than all that.”

Lacey met Vic at the bottom of the steps outside.

“Did you find out anything?” Vic said.

“Not really. They may have ‘all that,’ but they didn’t have
what I was looking for.”

#

“Victor, my lad. Welcome one and all.”

A man small in stature, but large in personality, strode
through the small jewelry store, arms outstretched. He threw his arms around
Vic in a big hug, then leaned back to examine Lacey with some fascination. He
was on the far side of sixty, with thinning gray hair worn in a short ponytail
and a map of wrinkles around his grin. Slightly pudgy, he wore a gray vest over
a white shirt and a jeweler’s magnifying loupe slung around his neck on a
lanyard. He was a jeweler with the air of an aging hippie.

“Good to see you, Reese.” Vic put a protective hand on Lacey’s
shoulder. “May I present Lacey Smithsonian. Lacey, this is Reese Evans.”

“You may. I am so pleased to meet you, Ms. Smithsonian.”
Evans took Lacey’s hand in his. “Victor, this is the first time you have graced
my shop with a sweetheart. Where is my calendar, I must mark the date. I
wondered if I’d ever see the day. And you, Vic, what’s your secret with the
ladies?” He winked at Lacey.

“My secret,” Vic said, “is that there’s only one lady.”

“And the lady is a rose. And a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet.”

Vic turned to Lacey. “He always talks like that. With
flourishes.”

“Come in, come in. Ms. Smithsonian, welcome to my shop. It’s
not very grand. A family tradition, just modest Welsh watchmakers. It was a way
to escape the coal mining. We’ve been here in Baltimore for the last hundred
years or so, but we can’t seem to escape this city.”

“It’s a great city. And it’s Lacey, please.” She gazed at the
cases full of glittery delights, full of anticipation.

The shop was in a long narrow building in Fells Point, so
carefully tucked away it might not be noticed at first. Sprays of spring
flowers decorated the one large window, full of the shiniest current offerings,
earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, as well as rings and watches. Lacey
wondered how these two men met.

“I have known Sean Victor and his family for many years now,”
Evans was saying, as if reading her mind. “My father sold his father a very
fine watch, oh, more years ago than I want to say.”

“Seventeen jewels,” Vic said. “Or was it twenty-one? My dad
still wears that watch. A Longines. He bought it after his first really big
case.”

“Twenty-one jewels sounds very impressive,” Lacey said,
wondering precisely what that meant. “And you have other jewels, too?”

“Yes, you could say that. We have made wedding rings, just
for example, for more than a century. We made Vic’s mother’s ring and his
grandmother’s too. You get to know good people like the Donovans. So when I had
a problem, I took it to Victor.”

“It was nothing, really,” Vic said.

“This guy, he would say it’s nothing. But that’s not true. We
had a thief inside the company, a dirty little embezzler. And he made off with
a few emeralds and rubies too.” Reese Evans shook his head. “Obviously, that’s
not the kind of thing you want announced to the world. Victor has always been
the soul of discretion.” He slapped Vic on the shoulder.

“Some things are better handled in-house,” Vic said modestly.
“We simply kept it inside the family, so to speak. But we came on another
matter today, Reese. We’re thinking about resetting a stone.”

“For a ring,” Lacey said.

“An engagement ring,” Vic clarified. Lacey held her breath.
This
is really happening.

“Well, that is something to celebrate.” Evans’s mouth spread
in a wide grin. “Great news! Congratulations, Victor,” he said. “And best
wishes to you, my dear. Do you have the stone with you?”

Vic nodded and pulled a small blue velvet bag from his inner
jacket pocket. The jeweler opened the bag and set the diamond on a black velvet
board. He picked it up with tweezers and examined it with his loupe.

“I remember this stone. First I will have to clean it. You
can’t really see the beauty of a diamond when it is dirty.” He motioned them to
two chairs in front of a glass counter. Evans cleaned the stone and returned it
to the velvet board. “See how it sparkles now. It’s a very fine stone. No
chips. No visible flaws. Good color. Now, make yourselves comfortable.”

“Lacey would like a new setting,” Vic said.

“Of course. I remember the old one. You would need a new one
in any event.” The jeweler winked at Lacey again. “And you are particular about
what you wear on your finger?”

“Yes, I am. A bit.”

“A bit?” Vic poked her.

“I chose
you
,” she said.

“It’s a good thing you did,” Vic said, “because I’d already
chosen you.”

“Why shouldn’t you be particular?” Evans said. “It will grace
your hand for years to come. You will see it and cherish it every day of your
life. As Juliet said to Romeo, ‘My love is as boundless as the sea…’ ”