Death by Diamonds (17 page)

“Okay, good.”

Nick clapped his phone shut. “A friend on the NYPD is sending a man for it right now.”

I called Kyle to let him know the police were coming for the trench coat.

“Good, we can tell Werner that I saw the man’s coat at Dom’s, and by the size of it, I knew it didn’t belong to her publicized lover, Gregor Zukovski.”

Nick filled himself a plate and came to sit beside me on the fainting couch.

“You should have asked Brad if they had any leads or prime suspects, or even if they’ve made an arrest.”

“Their prime suspects are obvious and weak: the chef, the understudy, and the ex-husband.”

“I suspected them, too,” I admitted. “But Werner agrees with you. They’re weak. That’s why I like having him to bounce ideas off of.”

Nick wiped a bit of sauce off my chin and licked it off his finger. Oy, I needed to get away from this man.

“Don’t eat so fast,” Nick said. “You’ll get indigestion.”

I’d always been a nervous eater.

“Try this.” He fed me a forkful of lemon chicken.

It was like Chinese foreplay.

“So,” he said, “Dominique suspected the diamonds would be stolen because she’d been approached by Deep Throat to steal them, which is probably why you saw her using decoy gems in another vision. Is that right?”

“Right. And you’re going to call the New York police and the FBI to see what they know before we get together with Werner, tonight, right?”

“I hate it when you’re all business, ladybug.”

I stood. “You’d better be civil tonight, though Werner told me that you apologized.”

“You just got home last night. How did you know?”

“You’re giving me the third degree, again.”

Nick put down his plate. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not the jealous type.”

“It’s like the frickin’ pheromone wars,” I said not quite beneath my breath. “And I’m caught in the crossfire.”

“What?” Nick looked up, his hand combed halfway through his hair, his mind miles away.

“Nothing.” I had just figured out that Werner had a dangerous set of those sexy little pheromone suckers himself.

Thirty-eight

I can’t afford a whole new set of enemies.

—CECIL BEATON

“When Werner picked me up at the train station last night, he told me that you apologized,”

I said. “I’m glad. No need to pout.”

“I am not pouting.”

I laughed. “You’re hard to frazzle,” I paraphrased from the Grinch, “but I did my best, and that’s your problem.”

Nick’s eyes twinkled. “It’s because I’m green, isn’t it?”

And with that perfectly executed Grinch quote, the angst between us eased.

“I’m glad your safe room stayed safe. Maybe Phoebe and the guys were right. Somebody thinks the diamonds are in the dress box or on the dress. Somebody besides Phoebe, Lance, or Zachary. They were in Mystick Falls the day the dress arrived at my store, but somebody else must have followed me and saw that I left the box at your house.” I shivered.

“Who are Phoebe, Lance, and Zachary?”

“Phoebe was Dom’s girl Friday. Zach is Kyle’s friend. Lance is Zach’s brother and was Dom’s leading man. They got Dom’s dress to me that morning. At the cemetery, after Dom’s service, I figured out that they were my delivery man and customers in disguise.”

“Any of their voices fit the phone threat?”

“No, the caller used a voice modulator.”

“I’m sorry, but you did need a bodyguard in New York. Sending Werner was a good idea.”

“Don’t go there. He told me why you sent him.”

“To keep you out of harm’s way, as well as out of trouble, I swear.”

“Don’t perjure yourself.” I took another helping of pad Thai noodles, pure comfort food.

“My dad told me that somebody actually succeeded in breaking into your house but that the gown I made for Dominique is still in your safe room, but what about your things? Did anything of yours get stolen?”

“Between the police watching the place and the silent alarm, the guy barely got in before he was getting out. My neighbors saw an older guy in the area, red plaid flannel shirt, navy thermal vest, salt-and-pepper hair.”

“I’m so sorry that storing my dress at your place got you into trouble. It’s time to stand on my own. I’ll have a cold storage room put in upstairs as soon as possible, with an alarm of its own.”

“Mad, I like you keeping your stuff at my place.”

When had he gotten this close?

“Not a good idea,” I said, “especially since we’re off again.” I put my empty plate down and went to look beneath my counter for my chocolate stash. The bowl was empty. Problem was, with me behind my counter, Nick had followed and boxed me in. And he kept coming closer.

Where was a cold shower when you needed one?

My doorbell rang.

“Oops. Lunch hour’s over. Customers!” I pushed my way around him and unlocked the door to Dolly and Ethel Sweet. This required hugs all around. I’d never been so happy to see them.

Nick said hello to them and good-bye to me.

“We didn’t mean to interrupt anything, cupcake,” Dolly said with a giggle and a wink. Ethel, the younger Sweet, at eighty, started cleaning up the remains of lunch. Dolly, her centenarian mother-in-law, looked around, gave a cheeky grin, and followed Dante, the ghost, a man that only she and I could see, down the rows of nooks until she disappeared behind him in Vive La Paris, the fashion nook farthest from us. Later, after Ethel had refolded my shelf stock, and Dolly returned giddy and pink-cheeked from her assignation with the ghost she’d had an affair with last century, I asked her to make a margarita pie for me to bring to Nick’s that night.

“I don’t know, cupcake,” Dolly said, “that pie’s a lot of work.”

“Mama, it is not,” Ethel said, scandalized. Dolly made a habit of scandalizing her daughterin-law. It was one of her favorite sports.

“I’ll pay you,” I said.

“What do I care? I’m rich and too old to spend what I’ve got.”

“Watch it,” Dante warned me, chuckling. “She wants something.”

Didn’t I know it. “If not money, what do you want to trade for the pie?”

“I want to model one of Dominique DeLong’s vintage dresses during the fashion show you’re giving for her charities. And if George Clooney is there, I want an introduction . . . and a kiss.”

“Whoa,” Dante said.

“Hey,” the plucky centenarian said. “I’m still alive.”

Dante winked. “You certainly are.”

Thirty-nine

Fashion design is a functional art. It’s an art you can actually touch and feel and interact with and not be afraid to wear.

—REBECCA TURBOW

That night, Werner showed up at Nick’s with three six-packs of Dos Equis, and I was happy to tempt the two pheromone spritzers with margarita pie.

Things were strained, at first, because of that show-down in Dom’s bedroom, Nick versus Werner, but the beer, and the extra dose of tequila in the pie, chilled us out by the time we took out our notes.

The two men agreed that I should go first, and since they agreed, I did, too.

“I’m not going to bore you by repeating what we all saw together,” I said, “but I will share a few of my personal observations and deductions, if you don’t mind.”

Nick tilted his head and Werner remained poker-faced.

“First of all, Kyle told me a little while ago that Zander Pollock, Dominique’s personal chef, showed up to pack his bags and move out of his apartment there. He’d been a prime suspect but when the medical examiner’s official report came in, it proved that no peanuts were found in Dom’s stomach, so we can cross Pollock off our lists.

“He was never on mine,” Werner said.

Nick shrugged. “Mine, either.”

“So glad you two agree on something. But it seems to me that if a cook wanted to kill someone, he wouldn’t do it with food he cooked himself. He could have killed her some other way.”

Nick raised his bottle of beer. “Mad one, Nick and Werner zero!”

Werner tapped Nick’s bottle with his and they both drank to me.

“Are you mocking me?” I asked.

“Great beer,” Nick said.

Okay, so they agreed on two things. But were they ganging up on me and when had I gone paranoid? When I kissed one and was procrastinating about telling the other?

I shook away the ridiculous thought. “Nick, since the medical report has come in, what did you find out when you called the police and FBI this afternoon?”

Did Nick cringe? “They’re doing a sound analysis on your threatening phone call. I hope you got another phone.”

“I’ve got Dad’s for now, thanks. Anything else? Any new suspects?”

“Our suspects pretty much clammed up on the phone,” Nick said. “I’m more charming in person.”

Werner’s bottle hit the table. “Not always.”

“Stop it,” I said, cutting them off at the pass. “Did either of you notice Ian DeLong’s crooked baby finger?”

Werner chuckled and Nick shook his head.

“Okay. I get it. You don’t look at other men. Well, I do, and here’s the scoop. Ursula Uxbridge has the same crooked baby finger, same hand, same shape as Ian DeLong. Galina Lockhart is her mother. My guess is that Ian cheated on Dominique with Galina and that Ursula Uxbridge, Dom’s understudy, is their love child.”

“Your point?” Nick asked. “This isn’t a soap opera.”

“Her point,” Werner said, “is motive. Galina’s motive would be jealousy. She’s known for despising Dominique. Getting Dom out of the way would be a powerful motive for her own acting career, not to mention getting her daughter the starring role in Diamond Sands as an added bonus.”

I nodded. “Right in one, Detective.”

Nick crossed his arms, and the look he gave me shivered me to my toes, warm bedroom eyes full of promise. “Jealousy is powerful,” he said. “Makes people do stupid things.”

“Apology accepted.” I nodded and flipped the page on my notebook. “What about Gregor?

Was he working on his own do you think? Or was he getting what he thought were the diamonds out of the country for himself and a few partners?”

Werner ruminated on that.

Nick sat across from me. “We gave Zukovski a chance to give us his partners’ names for a

“get out of jail free” card, and he didn’t take it. I think he was working alone. He saw his chance when Dominique collapsed and grabbed the diamonds, which she always wore glued to her face like a mask in the last act, before the ambulance left the theater.

“The real killers, I suspect, pulled over on their way to the hospital planning to take the diamonds from her in the stolen ambulance only to find that the diamonds were already gone.”

“Who called nine-one-one?” I asked.

Nick shrugged. “Nobody seems to know.”

“Or they’re not talking. Can you run voice recognition software on that call?”

“Done. Same setup as your call.”

Nick opened another beer. “Zukovski’s plan sucked. That’s why I caught him so fast. The real killers were more thorough in their planning—not counting Zukovski’s last-minute theft—which is why we haven’t nailed them yet.”

“You caught Zukovski because he’s dumb?” Werner said. “Doesn’t say much for your skills.”

I was afraid they were going to get into it again. “What about Ursula Uxbridge, herself?”

Nick asked, ignoring Werner’s taunt. “Same motive: the lead role in an off Broadway production?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think she can spell motive, much less plan a murder. However cozy she looked on Pierce Pierpont’s arm, that was an act. Pierce was using Ursula to tick off Ian—her father—and Ursula lapped up the diamond magnate’s attention. She’s a bit of a pin tuck. No substance and more than a few stitches short of a seam. Murder seems too complicated for her, career or not.”

“Madeira Cutler,” Werner said, shaking his head. “I do believe that you’re a natural-born sleuth, whether I think you should be or not.”

Forty

Whether it’s the past or the present, all my ideas come from what’s going on around me . . .

—ANNA SUI

“Thank you, Werner. I’ll take that as a compliment. A natural-born sleuth, hey? Hear that, Jaconetti?”

“I do, and I’d like to throw natural-born vixen into the pot. You’re enjoying us butting heads over you, aren’t you?”

What girl wouldn’t? “Are you butting heads over me? I hadn’t noticed.”

Both men cracked a smile.

“I mean, why would you?” she asked on second thought. “It’s friendly head butting, isn’t it?

Which is definitely better than the other kind.”

“If you’re fishing for compliments,” Nick said, “you won’t get them here. You’re one scary sleuth.”

I raised my chin. “A sleuth should scare the perps.”

Werner chuckled. “But should she scare the police and the FBI?”

Nick gave Werner a nod. “Good point. She’s pretty much a loose cannon when it comes to sleuthing, don’t you think?”

“Hey, are you calling me a flake behind my back, right in front of me?”

Nick tried to look innocent. “Only on some points.”

“But you’re smart and amusing, too,” Werner said.

“And we both want what’s best for you, ladybug, so think of us as covering your back.”

“Damned straight,” Werner added. “And the head butting, that’s us jostling for position back there.”

I stood to look down at them, my hands on my waist. “Damned if your abuse didn’t end up sounding like a compliment. Anyway, murder case, remember? Try this clue on for size. I think Gregor Zukovski was a decoy.”

Werner stood and stretched his legs. “A decoy. Good point. He could have taken those diamonds where?”

“Plaidivostock,” I said.

Nick growled. “Slovenia!”

“Okay, don’t get your boxers in a bunch.”

Werner coughed. “He could have taken the fake diamonds to Slovenia to throw the police off the trail while the real diamonds were being stashed somewhere else.”

“Lytton, you’re good. I never thought of that.”

Werner looked surprised. “Isn’t that what you meant by decoy?”

“No, I meant that Gregor was a decoy boy toy. Dominique didn’t love him. She was in love with Victor Pierpont.”

“Ah,” Werner said. “The old double-decoy routine.”

Nick gave Werner the old double take. “Victor Pierpont? Do you mean Pierce Pierpont?”