Damon’s voice crackled in faintly. “We’re conducting a reconnaissance through a group of warehouses. We saw a big gray vehicle turn in here. Over.”
“Was it our subject?” Lacey asked. “Over.”
“Unknown. Um, anybody get the gray Ford’s tag number? Over.”
“His rear tag light is out, but we got a partial,” Snake put in. “Virginia JKL something. Over.”
“Copy that,” Damon replied. “You sure it wasn’t JFK something?”
What a bunch of ace spies we are! Lacey gradually closed the gap between Willow’s old Toyota and the silver Bimmer. The three follow cars drove up and down the side streets off Lee Highway in Vienna for another ten minutes, looking for an invisible gray Crown Vic with a tag number no one could quite remember, or had written down. Willow seemed lost in her thoughts.
“I just can’t stop wondering about her, dead in her car. I’m wondering what’s going to happen next,” she said.
“Cecily Ashton had her own problems, Willow,” Lacey said. “There are other suspects.”
“I guess, but do you really think Cecily’s death might have nothing to do with me?” Willow sighed deeply. “That would be great! I mean, for me. Not for someone else.” She leaned back against the headrest and smiled. “You see, there’s this new guy. I kind of fell for him while I was breaking up with Eric. We—Well, it’s been kind of a secret.”
“You have a new boyfriend?” Lacey hoped she didn’t sound too astonished.
Willow didn’t want to divulge his name just yet, she said, she didn’t want to jinx it. She proceeded to describe a dreamy combination of Sir Galahad, Hugh Grant, and George Clooney. Let Willow have her fantasy Prince Charming, Lacey thought. She suspected this very troubled woman was the kind who always had some imaginary soap opera going on, in her head if not in her real life.
Just as Lacey was back on Lee Highway and taking the lead position ahead of the silver BMW, another voice came crackling over the two-way radio.
“Where are you, my lost little chicks?” It was Kepelov, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Your subject is back at school. Class is in session. School bell is ringing! Come to grandma, little red riding hoods! Big Bad Wolf. Over.”
Kepelov was waiting for them when they returned. He was leaning against a car, not the Crown Victoria in which he’d led them a merry chase, but a dark older model car. It was an ancient purple Gremlin, which struck Lacey as exceedingly odd. Hadley pulled his Lincoln in last and parked next to Edwina’s silver BMW. No one wanted to park too close to Willow’s shabby Toyota. Kepelov waited for all of them to park and assemble around him under the dim streetlight. Their surveillance leader and master spy crossed his arms. His mustache bristled. His cold blue eyes seemed to be enjoying this.
“You ran a red light, buddy.” Snake was the first to speak. “You were speedin’ like a demon. And you said we had to be good. What’s the deal?”
Kepelov shrugged. “Funny what people will do when they know they are being followed, isn’t it? You learn to do what’s necessary. Takes time.”
“So we screwed up?” Damon looked distressed.
“Yes, Mr. Newhouse.” Kepelov lifted himself up off the hood of the Gremlin. “You will have another chance to impress me. Lucky I am no longer KGB, you would all be sent to driving school. In Siberia. Lucky I am such a nice guy. My little Hansels and Gretels lost in the woods, we will talk about how not to hug the bumper, how to swap positions and stay in contact, how not to lose your cool and your subject, and how not to freeze in parking lot before exercise begins.”
“Wait a minute,” Lacey asked. “What happened to your gray Crown Vic?”
“I have so much spare time out there all alone, I go car shopping. Nice wheels, eh?” Kepelov looked at his watch. “Take a break! Meet me back in classroom in twenty minutes. We talk about how to do surveillance like pros.”
The students were silent. They looked embarrassed. Willow burst into tears.
“I think that went well,” Lacey said as she headed toward the back door. “I need coffee.”
In the office’s little kitchen, Lacey poured herself another cup of Kepelov’s decaf with plenty of cream and sugar and popped it in the microwave. She was wondering what to tell Vic when he asked how class went tonight when something outside the window caught her attention. It was Kepelov again, but with a woman. They were kissing and laughing, oblivious to the cold and dark. Lacey found this tableau very interesting. The last woman Kepelov had been involved with—that she knew of—had shot him and left him for dead in Paris. Lacey understood that reaction to Kepelov. She had wanted to do the same thing on more than one occasion, including just now.
Kepelov was one tough ex-Soviet spy. He survived that shooting and it apparently hadn’t diminished his love of the ladies, either. Despite his cool blue eyes, his bushy mustache, his nearly bald round head, and his bad jokes, they seemed to love him too. Who was this latest femme fatale? Lacey couldn’t see much through the kitchen window, it was too bright inside, too dark outside. The microwave dinged. Lacey grabbed her coffee cup and took it with her.
She opened the back door and caught a cold blast of wind. It carried the sweet aroma of cool night air and wood smoke. Also the malodorous reek of cigarette smoke. Snake Goldstein was grabbing a furtive nicotine fix. He nodded to her impassively and turned his back into the wind. Lacey stepped around the corner of the building.
Kepelov was wrapped in the generous arms of a voluptuous laughing female figure, her long thick dark curls spilling over her red velvet coat. In the cold streetlight glare, Lacey saw what looked like a purple skirt and purple suede high-heeled boots. The woman’s laugh was deep and throaty, and Lacey recognized it.
It couldn’t be! Here? With this guy?
“Marie? Marie Largesse?” Lacey said. “Is that really you?”
Chapter 25
Kepelov’s zaftig lady in red velvet spun around at the sound of Lacey’s voice.
“Why, it’s Lacey Smithsonian! Goodness gracious, girl, it’s been simply ages!” Marie wrapped her up in a great big hug and nearly tipped the coffee out of Lacey’s hand. “It must be a whole month since I saw y’all last!”
Marie Largesse was the owner and resident psychic of The Little Shop of Horus in Old Town Alexandria, a little storefront with a distinctive New Orleans flavor near the river. She sold candles and crystals and New Age books and consultations with the resident psychic. Despite Marie’s spotty record as a seer, Lacey always enjoyed visiting her. Marie had a big heart to match her generous figure, and chatting with her was like a lazy trip back to the Big Easy.
“Lacey Smithsonian,” Kepelov said archly, “you are skipping ahead in the workbook? Spying on the master spy?”
“I was spying on the spy who led us on a wild goose chase,” Lacey admitted. “Marie, I had no idea I’d find you here with the wild goose himself.”
“Well, here I am, honey!” Marie’s laugh was deep and comforting. “I’m no apparition. Flesh and bone. More flesh than bone, y’all.”
“But what are you doing here? And with—” Lacey looked from one to the other. “Him?”
“Greg? My big Russian doll baby? If y’all’d come around more often, Lacey, you’d know these things.” Marie winked broadly. “I owe him all to you, you know. So thank you kindly, honey.”
“Me?” Lacey was horrified. “You can’t blame this guy on me!”
Marie and Kepelov both burst out laughing. “Last fall,” Marie explained, “after your little adventure down Nawlins way? Well, I just had to read all about it in The Times-Picayune , my hometown paper. My cousin Louisa down in the Quarter sent me all y’all’s juicy clippings. And I read all your stories in your own little paper, The Eye, of course. The whole adventure was just humming with psychic vibrations! I took one look at that picture of Gregor Kepelov. He was standing behind you and I knew. Something about those blue eyes of his, don’t you think?” Kepelov smiled and wiggled his mustache and opened his eyes wi
de for Lacey’s benefit. “I felt like I’d been seeing those beautiful eyes in my dreams for years.”
Lacey was glad she didn’t see Kepelov’s blue eyes in her dreams. He was more like a nightmare for her. She still hadn’t forgiven him for being on the other side of that adventure that so captured Marie’s imagination.
“Is funny.” Kepelov gave Marie a hug. “Life, you know?”
“Pretty funny, all right. I’m really happy for you, Marie.” Lacey smiled brightly for Marie to see, but she felt downhearted and confused. She didn’t want the credit or the blame for bringing Kepelov into Marie’s life. Lacey wasn’t psychic, but she saw disaster ahead. “I’m freezing, I better go inside. We are still finishing the class, right, Kepelov, after our big surveillance flop?”
“Here, Smithsonian.” Kepelov pulled a flask from his leather jacket. “Little shot of vodka. Warm you up.”
“No thanks. Not on a school night.”
“Smart woman. Never touch the stuff myself.” Kepelov winked at Marie.
“Before you go, sugar, I just have to tell you one thing.” Marie took Lacey’s hands in hers and pulled her aside. “I’m getting some kind of funny vibration here. Sort of a tapping vibration, you know? Something tapping on my shoulder?”
Marie Largesse once told Lacey she often felt her “psychic vibrations” tap-tap-tapping gently on her shoulder to get her attention. That’s why she had the mystical symbol of the Eye of Horus tattooed on each shoulder blade, to help her watch for the more subtle vibrations. Lacey privately suspected a pinched nerve, or an overactive imagination. She remembered vividly the time she dragged Marie to a crime scene, hoping desperately for some psychic clue. Marie took one look, closed her eyes, and fainted dead away, her “psychic circuits” overloaded. Lacey hadn’t asked her again.
“Marie, my darling all-seeing eye,” Kepelov teased, “you would tell me if you are sensing diamonds, maybe, or rubies? Or pearls, perhaps, large natural pearls from the bottom of the sea? Lacey Smithsonian here, she is like a dousing rod to find water, only Smithsonian finds diamonds. Or maybe pearls this time.”
“Sorry, Kepelov, I only find dead things,” Lacey cracked. “The Romanov diamonds were a bonus.”
Marie focused on a spot in the dark just beyond Lacey’s head. “No, I don’t see jewels or pearls, only a box. Some sort of funny box.”
“A jewelry box? What kind of—”
“A box of secrets.” Marie suddenly flinched and grabbed her head, massaging her temples as she squeezed her eyes tight shut. Her purple painted nails gleamed under the streetlights. “It’s not over! The hunting season isn’t over till the prey is captured! There’s a deceiver in the woods!” She opened her eyes.
A deceiver? Take your pick, Lacey thought. Kepelov, a professional liar, a man of many identities? Griffin, a professional—whatever he was? Bud Hunt? Martin Hadley? Philip Clark Ashton? Simon Edison? Someone else in the PI class? Willow Raynor, Edwina Plimpton, or even poor dead Cecily herself?
“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” Marie gazed up at Kepelov. Rimmed in purple kohl, her eyes looked huge and dark. She pointed to the far corner of the parking lot, shadowy and empty in the night. “Over there. That’s where it happened. But the hunting isn’t finished.”
“Not to worry, darling,” Kepelov said. “Gregor will take care of you. Nothing will hurt you. Go home and stay warm and I will be there soon.” He put his arms around Marie and walked her to the ancient purple Gremlin, waiting in a pool of pale streetlight.
“Oh my God, Marie. Is that your Gremlin?” Lacey’s breath was a puff of white vapor in the chilly air. Marie laughed and her curls danced. She seemed quite herself again.
“Don’t you love it, Lacey? I just bought it. Needs a little work, but when I saw that purple paint, honey, I just knew.”
Just like Kepelov, Lacey thought. A fixer-upper for Marie to remodel.
“But a Gremlin? I didn’t know any of those were still on the road.”
“Might be the last one,” Marie said. “Greg doesn’t like it much. I had a little car trouble tonight and he rode to my rescue, the sweet thing. Damn, honey, is it gonna snow any second tonight or what?”
“Look at this thing, Smithsonian! Purple! A rolling target, a grape on wheels,” Kepelov complained, his mustache bristling. “And slow too, worse than Yugo. Maybe I soup it up with extra horses. Big American V-8, eh? Vroom vroom.”
“I’m as fine as a day in June now, Gregor, I didn’t mean to scare y’all. I wasn’t trying to tune into that terrible death, believe me. But I knew that’s what it must have been, when that whirlwind started inside my head, and I was hearing— I don’t know, darlin’, all I can tell you is, whatever it is, it ain’t finished.”
“What did you mean about ‘hunting season’?” Lacey asked.
“Hunting season? I said that? No idea. Come see me at the shop, you hear now?”
Lacey read the bumper sticker on the back of Marie’s new old purple Gremlin: HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR PSYCHIC TODAY? The driver’s door creaked loudly as she opened it. Kepelov kissed Marie good-bye, warned her to lock her doors, and said he would see her after class.
Another mysterious couple, Lacey mused. Marie apparently felt no psychic warnings about being with this ex-KGB spy. Did that mean Kepelov wasn’t really a bad guy? Was he just a bad spy? Or was Marie just a bad psychic? Lacey and Kepelov watched Marie’s comical purple car pull away from the curb and disappear into the night.
“Come inside, Smithsonian. Cold night. Time for class, part two. What we learn from failed surveillance. How not to let your subject make a fool of you.” Kepelov turned toward Bud Hunt’s classroom building. Lacey fell in beside him.
“Speaking of fools, Kepelov, Marie is a friend of mine, you know. I care about her. I don’t want anyone making a fool out of her. You hear me?”
“She is my friend too,” Kepelov laughed. “Very special friend. And she is no fool. Have no worries, Smithsonian. Love is funny, no?”
“And this is love?”
“Always so serious you are! I am the teacher here, but you are, what, guidance counselor?” He stopped and turned to look at her under a streetlight. “Are my intentions honor-able, you wonder? Marie Largesse has never betrayed me. Or shot me. I have never betrayed her. Or shot her. And such a bountiful woman. An abundance of beauty. You see it too, I can tell. Yes, perhaps it is love. No fooling.”
“Love can turn sour,” Lacey said.
“Yes, like the very blond Willow and her boyfriend Ericsomething. ”
“She told you about him?”
“Heard it on the radio. Yours, Smithsonian. Did I not show you how to turn radio off ?”
“Damn you, Kepelov!” He laughed loudly. “And I am not getting in a car with her again, I don’t care how many times we do that damned surveillance exercise over.”
“Not your fault. Instructor gets the special spy radio. I listen in to all the follow cars, not just you. The stuffy Plimpton woman and the Snake, that was also worth listening to. But you and the strange woman, Willow? That was most interesting.”
“What do you think of her?”
He shrugged his big shoulders and dropped his voice. “She is thin and very nervous. She needs a better car. And a better life. Perhaps she is not so suited for surveillance work.”
“You got that right. So who do you think killed Cecily Ashton?”
Kepelov stroked his mustache. “I like easy answers. They are so often right. A woman is murdered? Look for her man. Her ex-husband hated her? He can buy whatever he wants? He can pay to cover his tracks? He is the easy answer. But then this Ashton woman, she lived a messy life. There may be many other interested parties.”
“Like your friend Nigel Griffin?”
“Ah! Nigel is always popular with the ladies,” he said. “Up to a point.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Ha! Cecily Ashton was way too skinny for me. Look at her. All skin and bones, and problems. Look at Marie. Who
wins? My Marie, hands down.”
“What about Bud Hunt?”
“Another messy life.” They reached the back of the building and Kepelov stepped lightly down the stairs. “Interesting thing, Smithsonian. A mystery is like a Russian doll. You know Russian dolls, yes? We call them matryoshka doll. Open up the doll. Inside is another doll. Open up that doll. Inside is yet another, and another and another, until you find the final tiny doll, no bigger than the tip of your little finger, a simple piece of painted wood. One tiny little mystery inside so many other mysteries.”
Kepelov pulled the door open and held it for Lacey.
“Which doll are we on with Cecily Ashton?” Lacey asked. “A big one or a little one?”
“Many dolls to go, I fear.”
Chapter 26
On Tuesday, a big bouquet of pale pink roses, white lilies, irises, and daisies awaited Lacey at the main desk in the lobby. They were a burst of spring on a winter’s day.
“My, my. Who sent you these beauties?” LaToya Craw-ford demanded as Lacey signed for the flowers. An attractive African-American city reporter and one of Lacey’s favorite people at The Eye, LaToya loved collecting information on anyone and everyone. She was in a blaze of yellow today, from her shoes to her dress to her matching overcoat. “I don’t get any flowers! Why doesn’t anyone ever send me flowers? So who was it?”
“It’s a mystery.” Lacey gathered up the immense bouquet in her arms. “I haven’t had a chance to read the little card yet. I may not read it for hours.”
LaToya snorted. Her perfectly manicured hand reached out and grabbed the card attached to the arrangement. “Well, girlfriend, I suggest we find out. Right now!”
Lacey snatched the card back from LaToya’s crimson-tipped fingers. “A little privacy, please?” She swept up her burst of spring and proceeded to the elevator, followed closely by LaToya.
“All right, you want your privacy. I respect that,” LaToya said, smirking. As if, Lacey thought. “But I’m a journalist, baby. I ask questions because I want to know things, you know. Just between us girls, who the heck is sending you flowers? That handsome fella you been seein’, or some other handsome fella, if you know what I’m sayin’?”
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