Shot Through Velvet by Ellen Byerrum Read Free Book Online

economy.”
    “You made your point.”
    “What I don’t get is why Gibbs told me the factory had a bright future when clearly it doesn’t.”
    “Propaganda, Lacey. They say Napoleon sent reports to France of his glorious victories in Egypt, while he was really just getting his ass beat. They didn’t know that back in Paris. They thought he was the conquering hero. Good for morale.”
    “You’re saying Rod Gibbs wanted to put one over on me? So I’d write a story about how good things are coming if everyone would just be patient, when really, there’s no way this place was going to ever reopen.”
    “That seems to sum it up.”
    “So he can look like a hero long enough to make a get-away? I hate people like that,” Lacey said. “But then, he didn’t get away, did he?”
    “The big question for me is why today, sweetheart, when we’re here? The day that Lacey Smithsonian has a meeting with the deceased.”
    “There can’t be a link, Vic. That would make his death somehow our fault, as if he were killed so he couldn’t talk to us, and that’s crazy. We don’t know these people. We’ve never been here before. No one but Gibbs even knew we were coming today.”
    “The last day of anyone’s job is tense enough without a reporter on scene. Workplace violence happens, especially with an unstable employee or two and a whole factory shutting down,” he said. “You never know how close to the edge some people are.”
    She thought about it. Tempers could get pretty peevish at the newspaper, but most reporters were nonviolent, or at least not fit enough to be violent. They’d chosen to believe the pen was mightier than the sword and that was how they dealt with their enemies. “Have you seen a lot of it—violence on the job?” Lacey asked.
    He frowned. “I’ve seen the aftermath of people going berserk on the job. But it usually involves fists or guns. Never seen anyone dyed blue before. And what happened to the so-called night watchman? If they’d called me in a week ago, this wouldn’t have happened. Not on-site anyway.” He stopped and held Lacey’s arm, turning her toward him. “I suppose it wouldn’t make a difference if I asked you to stay away from dangerous stories.”
    “No. But I appreciate the concern.” Lacey kissed him. “Besides, a story is never dangerous until it is. Unless it involves mocking Christmas sweaters, which I would never do. That’s really dangerous.”
    Vic knew he wasn’t getting anywhere. “Speaking of dangerous, are you hungry?”
    “I’m starving to death. Could that be civilization up ahead?” She tugged at his sleeve and they headed toward the lights.
    Black Martin’s sleepy downtown was all of four blocks long and two blocks wide. But the early twentieth-century architecture along Main Street was rather grand for a city of its size, a collection of attractive buildings from a bygone era when the town was flush with money from textiles and agriculture and catered to soldiers looking for nightlife. Handsome pre-World War II facades sheltered too many empty storefronts, victims of the recession that had hit Black Martin harder than any other area of the state.
    The county had the highest unemployment rate in Virginia. Since the Army had pulled out of the nearby base a few years back, Black Martin had become the kind of town where the sidewalks rolled up at six p.m. Only a couple of downtown restaurants were still open.
    The first one was a café named Good Eats. The menu in the window featured Southern comfort food, like chicken-fried steak and vanilla tapioca pudding. It was brightly lit and half full of sedate senior citizens.
    “What do you think?” Vic asked. “Is Good Eats good enough for us?”
    “I feel my hair turning blue at the very suggestion. Not a good color choice under the circumstances.”

Chapter 5
    La Puerta Roja, the Mexican cantina across the street, seemed to be the only happening place in Black Martin. Multicolored lights beckoned