Shot Through Velvet Read Free Page B

Lacey’s unasked question, Nicholson added, “Rod Gibbs, the man you were supposed to meet. He was part owner of the company, a partner. Liked to come around, keep an eye on things. Called himself the night manager.” Nicholson wiped the sweat off his forehead. “When I agreed to show you around, I sure as hell didn’t plan on this. I’m real sorry.”
    “Not your fault,” Lacey said. “Ms. Garcia called him the Blue Devil?”
    “Yeah.” Nicholson took a moment before answering. “It was Gibbs’s nickname. He thought it was funny. Had a strange sense of humor. Anyway, he keeps a boat out on Lake Anna. Calls it the Blue Devil .” Nicholson walked around the corpse and gestured mournfully at the ruined spool of velvet. He seemed lost in thought.
    “Rodney Gibbs.” Lacey wrote the name down. “You’re sure this is him?”
    “He’s not looking his best right now,” said Dirk Sykes. “I imagine he’s got one ferocious case of blue balls.”
    The little crowd laughed uncomfortably. Vic’s lips were twitching, but he kept his professional cool. Lacey continued writing notes.
    “It’s kind of hard to tell what he looked like.” Lacey took another look at the body, craning her neck for a better angle. She was sure his eyes didn’t bulge like that in life, or his tongue hang out that way. But he was so transformed by the dye, he might have been an alien.
    “I only talked with him on the phone,” Vic said. “And e-mail.”
    “What did old Rod look like? That’s easy,” Sykes said. “I’ll be right back.”
    Sykes trotted from the dye house toward the front entrance of the factory, where a Dominion Velvet sign announced the company was owned and operated by Symington Textiles, Inc. The sign was flanked by eight-by-ten pictures of the company’s various executives and managers. Sykes returned with one and handed it to Lacey.
    The picture of Rod Gibbs was typical of executives’ publicity photos. Each was posed in front of the same backdrop, their heads at the same slight angle, with big pasted-on smiles. Lacey stared at the likeness for a few moments and handed the photo to Vic.
    Judging from the picture, the man was in his early forties, though hard living might have made him look older. Lacey thought Rod Gibbs looked like a high school or college jock who had gone to seed after the last game. He might have started out handsome, but something had taken its toll. Perhaps drinking. His watery blue eyes were bloodshot, and his pasty white skin had taken on flab. His dark hair had thinned. His smile, however, was still toothpaste perfect. The very picture of a big fish in a small pond.
    “I put that velvet on the spool myself yesterday. I tucked up the selvage on both ends so it would be perfect.” Inez sounded mournful. “I always do. Especially since it’s the last batch and all.”
    “Damn it all! That filthy pig ruined my last batch of velvet!” A woman who had just walked into the dye room offered her opinion unasked. Her name was Blythe Harrington, Lacey learned later, but she was anything but blithe .
    She looked like any soccer matron, although with an impressive set of biceps from lifting heavy velvet and running the dye house. Blythe Harrington had short dark hair in a classic suburban-mom hairdo, red glasses, and a downturned mouth. She wore a smock over long pants and a T-shirt, and steel-toed shoes.
    “Wouldn’t you know it’d be the Blue Devil,” Blythe continued, much aggrieved. “Leave it to Rod Gibbs to ruin my very last spool! Just like he ruined this company.”
    That didn’t sound like the man who had promised Lacey a story about how the company was headed for a sparkly new future.
    Blythe grabbed a pair of scissors from her smock pocket and launched them at the body. They stuck in the victim’s thigh, not that he would feel it. The crowd gave a collective gasp.
    Lacey flinched, but Vic stepped forward and put out one arm to block Blythe. “We have a crime scene here,