Armed and Glamorous

by Ellen Byerrum

  “For many years,” Kepelov said, “I work for KGB.” The class was silent. “You have heard of it?” He laughed. “No? We were famous at one time.” Lacey heard laughter around her. “My job description? If I tell you, I have to kill you. As everyone should know, Washington, D.C., is full of spies.

  They tell me every sixth person I see is a spy.” He counted the class. “Ah, must be two spies here! After class we must meet at Spy Club. Drinks on you.” There was more laughter. Kepelov’s stand-up routine was a hit so far.

  “Where is this Spy Club, Greg?” Damon Newhouse squinted, trying to place him.

  “Spy Club? Is a secret. If you were a spy, you would know,” the ex-spy said. More laughter. A KGB comedian, Lacey thought. Who knew? “To begin. You may think you would know me anywhere. My look, my face, my walk. My hat. I have very distinctive look, do I not? But you would be wrong. My profession requires me to be a chameleon. Another time, another place: You will see me, but you will not know me. But I will know you.”

  Hunt poked his head through the doorway. “This guy cracks me up. Have fun, y’all. I got paperwork to do. They’re all yours till lunch, Greg.” He disappeared, leaving Kepelov in charge.

  “You are wondering perhaps why I am here. Am I not rich like other espionage agents? Do I not live life of James Bond on the Riviera? Sadly, not all spies are James Bond. I have no Aston Martin or double-oh-seven lifestyle. KGB pension plan? Not so good.” Kepelov shrugged extravagantly at the laughter, then smiled. “You have heard of course that every spy is a ladies’ man, irresistible to women. That part? Is all true.” Every man in class laughed. Edwina too was enjoying his performance. Poor Willow just looked dazed.

  Lacey did not laugh. A loud rumbling sound caught her attention. She was seated right by the back window, and a large blue garbage truck rolled noisily past, drowning out Kepelov’s comedy for a moment. She turned her attention back to the ex-spy and jotted some notes in her notebook. Why is he here?

  As if to answer her question, Kepelov said, “Today I am here for the money. Never do anything except for the money. Is first lesson of being a private investigator: Don’t do anything except for the money. My friend Bud Hunt will tell you also. It is capitalism, yes? Good business. I do this for a little of your money. Spasibo. Means thank you in Russian. Now I have a question for you. What is a spy?” He looked straight at Lacey and nodded ever so slightly to her in recognition. No one answered him.

  “A spy,” Kepelov went on, “is someone who watches. To spy is to watch, to watch in secret. To observe and be unobserved. A spy sneaks into your life, your business, learns all about you, stays invisible. Every little thing, where you work, where you play, what you read, what you buy at grocery store, what you do when you think no one is watching. But the spy is watching.”

  Edwina giggled, drew something in her notebook, and showed Lacey a stick-figure PI in a trench coat. Perhaps Edwina dreamed of a more exciting life than being a country club wife.

  Kepelov’s smile suddenly warmed his sharp features. “Why does the spy or the PI watch? For money! Other reasons too. For governments. For private business. For clients. Maybe for love, maybe for patriotism. For a purpose. But not for your purpose, if you are the spied-on. For the spy’s own purpose. That purpose will tell us best way of watching. One kind of watching is to conduct surveillance. I teach you a little surveillance today,” Kepelov said. “Today we learn some basics, later we will do actual surveillance exercise. But let me warn you, takes a long time to perfect these skills. Do not be discouraged. No KGB final exam for you today.”

  “Did you train for a long time in the KGB to do surveillance? ” Damon had his pen poised to write.

  “Oh no. One week only. KGB final exam? Very final. You must be fast study in KGB or they shoot you.” Kepelov mimed a gun to his head. “Bang bang.” There was silence. “Is a joke!” He laughed and the class laughed with him, except Lacey. He leaned against the desk and folded his arms. “I have even conducted surveillance on someone sitting in this classroom today. Strange but true.” He had the audacity to wink at Lacey. “All over Paris, Normandy, France, back into this country. New Orleans.”

  “You chased a fashion writer?” Goldstein cracked. “Must have been important.”

  Kepelov turned to him with his chilly blue glare. “Mr. Snake, with that attitude you would have missed out on the jewel recovery of the century. More for me.” He grinned at Lacey. “Good times. Is that not right, Lacey Smithsonian?”

  Lacey smiled. “It didn’t get you what you wanted though, did it, Kepelov?”

  Damon Newhouse’s eyes went wide as saucers. He’d played a tiny part in that adventure, dogging Lacey’s heels there as well, and he’d heard tales of the elusive Kepelov, but he’d never seen him in the flesh. Damon started furiously taking notes. Lacey wondered how soon he would plaster this story all over Conspiracy Clearinghouse.

  “You would be surprised, Smithsonian. My wants are . . . adaptable. We must talk about American dream again, sometime.” He gestured toward Lacey. “My friend Lacey Smithsonian is not laughing yet, but one day we will laugh over how we met. Very amusing.”

  “Yeah, that was hilarious.” Lacey still wasn’t laughing. “Care to tell me what secret Russian knockout chemical you used on me?”

  “Professional secret.”

  “I probably have residual brain damage from it,” Lacey said, much to the amusement of the group. “That’s probably what I’m doing here.”

  “No no. Lots more brains left in you, I think.” His blue eyes focused on the rest of the class. “This Lacey Smithsonian, she found the fabled corset of a long-ago Romanov princess,” he told the class. “Full of diamonds! And do you know how she found it? With her woman’s intuition. This technique I cannot teach you. She calls this technique her ‘fashion clues.’ Something KGB did not teach.”

  “And who got to the corset first?” Lacey said.

  Kepelov bowed gallantly. “You win, Smithsonian. At least I was spying on the right woman, yes? A lesson, class: Looking for something? Follow someone smarter than you. Try to follow around a woman who has such talents. Yet she wastes this amazing talent as a fashion reporter.”

  Lacey finally laughed. “Tell me something I don’t know.” There they were in agreement.

  “Maybe in this class my friend Lacey Smithsonian will learn to be the spy she was born to be.”

  “You mean to tell me,” Edwina blurted out, “I missed all this because I wasn’t reading that scandal sheet, The Eye Street Observer?” Lacey rubbed her face and sighed. “Why, I’m subscribing today!” The class burst out laughing. Again at Lacey’s expense.

  Lacey didn’t know what to make of the new, improved Gregor Kepelov. She’d never known what to make of the old Kepelov, for that matter. He came on like a big bully, a comic strip version of a Cold War spy. Then he’d turn into a big sentimental teddy bear. He’d once confided to her his dream of owning a ranch in Texas. He called it his American Dream. So far, at least he had the ten-gallon hat. Why are you mad at me, Lacey Smithsonian? he had once asked her. I did not kill you! Maybe in Kepelov’s warped universe, she reflected, either he killed you or he was your buddy, with nothing in between.

  “Smithsonian and me, we are good friends now,” he told the class. “Bygones.”

  Lacey’s eyebrow expressed her skepticism. He ignored the eyebrow and continued his lecture/comedy routine. He got a big laugh with his impression of KGB agents trying to follow people stealthily around Moscow and East Berlin in their ancient, rattling, smoke-spewing Eastern European cars. The mysterious Kepelov that struck such fear into Smithsonian last year in France and New Orleans seemed to have turned into a fine Russian ham.

  Lacey didn’t know what to take seriously and what was a joke. Maybe the comedy act was simply another cover. Maybe he owed Hunt a favor. At the rate former Soviet spies were being poisoned by polonium, he was lucky to be alive, but a lucky ex-spy might still be doing business in the U.S. for Russian inte
rests. Perhaps Vic could help her sort it all out later. He might be very interested that Kepelov was still hanging around town. By the time noon rolled around and the class broke for lunch, Lacey was contemplating writing an article on Kepelov and his new comedy act: THE SPY WHO BUGGED ME.

  Damon Newhouse headed her way, waving at her, with Martin Hadley in tow. Lacey grabbed her white all-weather trench coat and tote bag to make a fast exit. She wanted to avoid going to lunch with anyone. She hoped to take a quiet break at the Farmers’ Market and the vintage clothing store down the street. She wasn’t fast enough.

  “Hey, Smithsonian, what do you make of Kepelov here? Wasn’t he the one Nigel Griffin thought was so deadly? The one who tried to kill you?”

  She shrugged. He moved in closer and hushed his voice: Big Conspiracy Time. “You know the Russkies were deep into mind control, right?” He arched one eyebrow melodramatically. “Kepelov’s here? Hadley’s here? Do the math.”

  “Not a math major, Damon. I’ll wait for the big print edition.”

  “Lunch?” he asked. “We can talk about it.”

  “Sorry, I have plans. You guys go ahead. Ask Kepelov. He likes math, I bet.”

  She just reached the classroom door when a scream cut through the air. Everyone froze. Silence. The first long scream was followed by sharp shrieks, as if from a frightened animal. Everyone unfroze and rushed toward the sound.

  Newhouse and Hadley followed Lacey up the stairs and out into the parking lot in the chill January drizzle. Hunt and the others were already outside, running toward the back of the lot where a woman was screaming. It was Willow Raynor, the PI student who was too shy to say her name above a whisper. She stood there shaking, her arms at her sides, her fists tightly balled up. Flanked by a stunned Edwina, who was gagging and trying not to cry, and a stoic Snake Goldstein, Willow was still shrieking, short jagged shrieks, a scream in hiccups. She seemed unable to stop. Bud Hunt stepped up to her and slapped her across the face and then put his arm around her. She stopped.

  It took Lacey a moment to realize that Willow wasn’t actually injured in any way. Willow finally pointed to a silver-blue S-Type Jaguar that was partly blocked from the building by a stand of trees and a large Dumpster.

  Lacey followed Kepelov to the car. The windows of the Jaguar were wet with rain and lightly fogged inside, but slicing through the condensation were long thin streaks of bright red blood. They traced a grim but delicate design on the inside of the glass, reminding Lacey somehow of an Asian painting. She took a step toward the driver’s door of the Jaguar. Then she stopped.

  Through the windshield Lacey saw a woman sitting very still behind the wheel, deadly still. There was a bullet hole in her head and a lot of blood. Through the misted car windows and their tracery of blood Lacey realized she saw something else, something worse.

  She knew the woman.

  Chapter 5

  What on earth is Cecily Ashton doing here? And what the hell happened? Hot and cold chills ran up and down Lacey’s spine. She took a big gulp of the icy air and issued a silent command to get ahold of herself. There was nothing she could do to help. Nobody could help the woman now.

  Lacey felt awful, disoriented, sick to her stomach. When she daydreamed about finding the big story that would help her leave the hemlines and high heels beat far behind, it didn’t involve another death. Still, she took another look through the delicate sprays of blood on the windshield.

  The dead woman had a small hole on the right side of her head, blood congealing where a bullet had entered. Cecily’s large brown eyes were open and there was a surprised look on her face.

  Why the expression? Lacey had no idea. Did Cecily kill herself? Maybe dying hurt more than she expected, maybe death was different than she thought, maybe she changed her mind at the last minute. Or maybe someone else had surprised her.

  The dead woman was Cecily Ashton, one of the more notorious Washingtonian socialites, the former trophy wife of an aging billionaire who once owned a baseball team in the District of Columbia and a football team in a state further south. Cecily was a Washington gossip column staple for her many misadventures, romantic and otherwise.

  Decades younger than her billionaire husband, Cecily was a free spirit who conducted her personal affairs rather publicly. She tended to get the wrong kind of press coverage for her husband’s taste, so the split was inevitable. Washington society had once embraced her as the wife of Philip Clark Ashton, but cut her dead, so to speak, as soon as the ink dried on the divorce decree. Cecily joined the growing ranks of the cast-off Mrs. Ashtons. After more than a year of a bitter courtroom battle, Cecily had recently received a hefty financial settlement.

  Lacey was current on the details of the scandal because she had interviewed Cecily Ashton the previous week for The Eye. She had focused on Cecily’s couture collection and style; the scandal was just background. The socialite was said to possess the most fabulous wardrobe in all of Washington. Lacey could confirm that she had marvelous closets. Closets full of beautiful clothes—and secrets.

  In a frank moment, Cecily told Lacey she didn’t know how she could ever regain her place in the rarefied ether of old-money Washington society, and that she would give anything to find her way back into that world. She still had, however, her amazing collection of designer clothes and accessories, more than two thousand outfits, a portion of which were to be featured in an upcoming exhibit next month at the Bentley Museum of American Fashion in Washington.

  Smithsonian’s article on Cecily was to appear in The Eye’s Sunday magazine section, the very next day. The thought crossed Lacey’s mind that she should call the news desk and tell them about the woman’s death, but she didn’t reach for her cell phone. Not yet. News was transitory, but death was permanent. It felt wrong to her somehow to celebrate the demise of someone she knew for the news value. And she had rather liked Cecily, maybe because she had punched D.C. society right in the snoot. Perhaps if Lacey waited to make the call, Cecily wouldn’t have to be officially dead quite yet, meat for the press buzzards to gather round.

  What brought Cecily all the way out to Falls Church? Lacey wondered again. The PI students huddled in the chill in the parking lot, talking and eyeing the car. Bud Hunt was on his cell phone with the police. As he’d pointed out in class, the police station was across the street. It wouldn’t take them long to get there.

  Lacey found it hard to look at the woman, and hard to look away. Cecily’s official age was thirty-nine, but Lacey suspected that number was off by at least a few years. It didn’t matter, the notorious divorcée was still beautiful, even though her skin was a bit too taut over her bones, thanks to a recent facelift. In death, Cecily looked like a wax mannequin splashed with blood, a clever approximation of the real thing, but not the woman Lacey had known.

  What business did Cecily have on a suburban Saturday in Falls Church, Virginia, when she lived high above Georgetown in one of the most expensive enclaves of Washington, D.C.? Lacey didn’t think she was visiting the Farmers’ Market. Could Cecily have had something important to tell her and tracked her down somehow? But that was crazy. Cecily Ashton had no way of knowing Lacey would be here, this very day, at this very building in Falls Church. She didn’t even know Lacey’s home phone, or where she lived. At least Lacey didn’t think so.

  Willow was still crying quietly, but she tried to speak. “We were just heading for Edwina’s car to go to lunch, and there she was and she was. . . . And I—” Willow sobbed again and started to collapse. Snake held her up and handed her off to Kepelov, who helped walk her back to Bud Hunt’s offices. Behind his sunglasses, Damon Newhouse was green around the gills. Hadley looked as blank and somber as he had in class, giving no hint what he was thinking. Or what the voices in his head might be saying.

  “Oh my God! It’s Cecily Ashton!” Edwina swallowed hard and stepped closer to peer into the parked Jaguar. She whirled on Bud Hunt. “You told me this parking lot was safe! That could have been me in that car! How cou
ld this happen to somebody like Cecily?”

  “You know Cecily Ashton?” Hunt stared at the body, then at Edwina. He was sweating in spite of the cold. Something about the way he looked at the dead woman made Lacey think he knew her too.

  “Everyone knows Cecily Ashton!” Edwina met quizzical glances from the others. “Well, I used to know her. Socially. The opera, the club, the charity galas and things. I haven’t seen her much since, well, the divorce.” Edwina kept rubbing her hands together in the cold. “Good God, do you think she killed herself? Here?”

  Cecily’s left hand was still hooked over the steering wheel. The other rested on the seat next to her. Lacey could see the woman’s French manicure. It looked perfect, with immaculately squared white tips. She didn’t see a gun. On the passenger seat was a cherry red Hermés Birkin bag in some ludicrously expensive species of crocodile.

  Lacey wondered why she hadn’t seen the silver blue Jaguar pull up. She’d seen other cars cruise past the window, and the noisy garbage truck. The Jag wasn’t there before class, when she parked her little green BMW in the corner by the back door. Then she realized the building had a driveway on each side, one marked ENTRANCE, the other marked EXIT. The PI school windows faced the exit driveway. Lacey would have seen Cecily Ashton’s car only when it left the parking lot. But Cecily had never left.

  Hunt cleared his throat and Lacey looked up. The police were there.

  The Falls Church detective sat behind Bud Hunt’s desk. Seated opposite him, Lacey realized his chair was at least six inches higher than hers. He towered over her. She felt like a first grader in the principal’s office. Lacey smiled: Interrogation 101. The difference in chair height is a subtle way to establish dominance, over a client or a job applicant. Or an interrogation subject. Lacey knew the trick, so she wasn’t about to let it work on her.