Death by Diamonds (19 page)

When Quinny exited the elevator wearing a black Claire McCardell “baby doll” dress, circa 1946, I knew it was my turn.

As I walked down the Vancortland stairs while Kyle described the dress, naming me as the designer and creator, exclusively for Dominique DeLong, I got a pretty good collective “ah”

from the audience, people who knew me, I expected.

But then I got a flashback to Dom’s gut-wrenching fear as she replaced the cubic zirconias with rhinestones. I gasped, grabbed the stair rail with one hand, and slapped my other hand to my heart.

That’s when it happened.

Half the rhinestones fell like a waterfall down the stairs, tinkling all the way. My first thought: Great, they’ll think I’m a slipshod dressmaker. My second thought: Why were Ian DeLong and Lance Taggart on the stairs scrambling over each other to collect the rhinestones?

Another flashback and an answer from Dom: “Because they think they’re the missing diamonds and they don’t want to lose a one.”

There was more than my psychometric ability at work here. Dom was trying to help me find her killer. I’d never missed her more.

As for the gems, I knew diamonds, but I hadn’t looked that closely at any point in time, not after I got the news that Dom died, certainly, and not after I saw Dom put the rhinestones in. But suppose I missed a gem switch along the way?

Had I just let loose a rain of diamonds?

For me, the fashion show was ruined. “Gentlemen,” I said to the greedy miscreants, or murderers, at my feet, “you’re hampering the proceedings. This is a fashion show. Last I knew, being adored isn’t part of the script.”

The women in the audience chuckled.

These men thought they knew something I didn’t. I knew now that Dom led her murderers on a merry chase, and she wasn’t finished with them yet, not even from the grave. I picked up a gem myself. Yep, a wild-goose chase, more fool them. This was not a diamond.

“I apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for the interruption. I shouldn’t have included the dress in the show, once I knew that Dominique, an outstanding Broadway actress but a shoddy seamstress, replaced the stones herself. Thank you for your patience.”

I motioned Werner over and led him from the room so the fashion show could continue.

“Detective, would you please relieve the gentlemen of their diamonds.”

Yes, I’d described them as diamonds on purpose. It was called bait. I counted the empty settings on my dress. “Werner, between them, they should have fifty.”

I watched until Werner did a count and gave me a nod.

I opened my hand for the diamonds, closed my fingers over them, and watched Lance and Ian stare at my hand as I did.

“Mad,” Werner said, “I’d like to detain these characters, if you don’t mind, just long enough to have the guys at the station run a check on them.”

“Be my guest,” I said, unable to hide my smile.

I made a spectacle of myself getting into the elevator in front of everyone, and halfway up, in the dark behind an ornately gilded elevator gate, I heard the crowd burst into applause. I sighed. Not such a catastrophe after all. That made me feel a bit better. Knowing that Ian and Lance thought I had the diamonds, however, scared the hell out of me. Because they were likely Dom’s murderers and they knew that I saw through their thoughtless greed. I misled them on purpose saying the rhinestones were diamonds. I hope the gamble I just took with my life was worth the risk. I prayed that because of it, I found Dom’s killers, plural, because I was beginning to think there had to be more than one. Cort came up and gave me a leather case for the rhinestones and let me lock them up in a bedroom safe, bless him. But I couldn’t tell even him the truth. Not yet. I didn’t have to walk the stairs/runway for another half hour, in Coco Chanel’s very own little black dress, to end the show. So for now, I could breath easy. Dolly modeled a fitted, long-sleeved gray pinstripe Givenchy wool dress with a full front placket and four self-bows. “Dolly, that makes you look seventy-five again.”

“Can you find an outfit that will take another thirty years off? I’d wear it to your shop.”

Her giggle entertained Cort and he laughed, too. “Go and strut your stuff, you cheeky babe,”

I said. She positively glowed as she went down the stairs on Cort’s arm, and she did it with style.

When I heard the guests applaud, I peeked around the corner and saw that she’d gotten a standing ovation. Even Cort stepped aside to applaud her.

I was still smiling when I took off the seafoam gown and hung it up. Then I grabbed the black robe over one of the stuffed chairs, slipped it on, sat in the chair, lay my head back, and closed my eyes for a rejuvenating minute.

In less than a second, I knew that rejuvenation was not to be. I stood looking down at the top of a round oak table. Near a quarter-moon-shaped scratch, I saw a large jar, not of a skin-tightening gel. This jar had a name: Samson’s Body Glue. The labeled container sat surrounded by half a dozen small empty jars exactly like the jars Dom switched in her dressing room.

Clear gel. Body glue. Diamond glue.

Beside the large jar sat a diamond-shaped early American pressed-glass salt cellar with a tiny green glass ladle to match.

Inside the salt cellar: four peanuts.

Forty-four

Clothes can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or indeed lie, and apply subtle pressure while their wearer is speaking frankly and straightforwardly of other matters.

—ANNE HOLLANDER

I had zoned, but I didn’t know why, didn’t know who I was. I saw my hands, small, bony, with scratched pink polished fingernails chewed to the quick. My knuckles went white as I grasped the edge of the oak table because my neck hurt so badly. Someone was pushing my head forward with a vengeful grasp on my neck, so I couldn’t look anywhere but down, at the table, at the jars, and ladle, at the sleeve of my black robe.

“This is no time to change your mind,” someone whispered furiously. “You’re not alone in this. Just do it.”

I did it. I picked up the tiny green glass ladle, scooped up a peanut from the salt cellar and dropped it in the large jar of body glue . . . the glue that would adhere Pierpont’s diamonds to Dominique’s face tomorrow night for the last time.

When I finished and put the tiny ladle down, I thought I might throw up. I saw a man’s hand pick up the ladle, and on his costume uniform cuff, a Royal Air Force button. That hand didn’t hesitate to drop a peanut into the body glue. “Take that, bitch,” he said with a voice that could rival James Earl Jones.

Another peanut got dropped in with a flourish. “She wouldn’t be a DeLong if it wasn’t for me!”

The last got fumbled and dropped and had to be caught by a shaking hand with a diamond and gold cigar band ring, G. L. L. engraved in the center.

During that fumble, I got a peek at the aging linoleum floor in the dressing rooms at the theater.

I opened my eyes and saw that several of the models were watching me. “Did you have a good sleep?” Phoebe asked. “We hated to wake you but the show’s almost finished, and you have to put on the Chanel dress for the finale.”

“Oh sure.” I stood up and saw that there was another black robe on a different chair. “Eve, which is the robe you brought for me?”

“Sorry,” Eve said, “but it’s not the one you’re wearing.”

“That’s my robe,” Rainbow Joy said. “No problem. I don’t mind that you wore it.”

I picked up Rainbow Joy’s hand and ran my finger over her purple nail polish. “Pretty color, but you should stop biting your nails.”

“Dominique used to say that I’d get an infection if I didn’t stop.”

“Well,” I said. “You showed her.”

Rainbow paled and took a quick step back, before she shook her head, denying the venom in my statement.

I finished the fashion show in Coco’s gown, accepted everyone’s congratulations, and ate crème brûlée in a daze.

Melody and Kira had gotten a great many donations from the vintage clothing collectors and big checks from Cort. But I felt as if I existed in a parallel universe. I knew Dominique’s murderers and they were, all four, here at the fashion show . . . watching me. They knew where my shop was. They were going to be outside when I left tonight.

Unless I stayed here. Cort would let me. Sherry and Justin were staying. I needed to tell someone who could do something about this, but I didn’t want to ruin Dominique’s show with a scandal or lower the donations for the charities, as people were still writing checks.

Werner came my way. He might be able to keep me safe, if I could figure a way to act like I needed protecting.

Nick knew about my psychometric ability, and sure, he thought I was nuts at first, until I proved myself. But telling Werner? No. No way. Never.

I sure wished Nick had come tonight despite the fact that he’d rather be Tasered than attend a fashion show. I mean, he could have come just to support me, though he did say he had paperwork for the Bureau to do.

I know, he’d attended some boring cocktail parties with people in the fashion industry, but, well, this was different. This was my show, for my dear friend.

“Mad,” Werner whispered, “don’t you think you should get that dress with the diamonds on it to the New York police?”

“Why?” I asked. “Dom gave it to me.”

“They’re stolen diamonds.”

I couldn’t screw with him anymore than I’d already been forced to do. I excused myself to the people waiting to talk to me and walked Werner a bit away from the crowd. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Of course. Anytime.”

I pulled him into the family dining room, the small one, which only sat twenty people, and shut the door.

“Those aren’t diamonds on the dress. They’re rhinestones.”

“But you called them diamonds.”

“Did you see the way Lance Taggart and Ian DeLong jumped to pick them up? They think they’re diamonds, which means they might have murdered Dom. I let them think they were right so I could watch their reactions.”

“That doesn’t sound very smart.”

“Yeah, I’ve figured that out. Can you drive me home?”

“Sure. I’ll even bring you back for your Element, tomorrow.”

“Right, I need my car for Dom’s vintage clothes. I chose the Element because it could hold so many. I’m bringing them back to New York when I drive in for the reading of the will late tomorrow afternoon.”

“Bring one vintage dress with you now, will you?” Werner asked. “Bring the one with the fake diamonds. That way Cort’s house won’t be a target. Carry it out on a hanger so everybody can see it.”

“Good idea, except that would make us targets.”

“I know, Mad. I have a worse-case-scenario plan. Trust me?”

“I do.” Surprisingly.

Sherry had already gone up for the night by the time I got back out there to mingle with my guests. Melody and Kira would let me know how well we did, because some people took home brochures, so it wasn’t over.

Eve and Kyle left right before we did, and Eve’s wink at me said she had plans. Kyle looked quite pleased to climb into my best friend’s less than large but quite sporty little Mini Cooper and be taken anywhere she cared to take him.

I was happy for them.

It wasn’t long into our drive down the winding ocean road that Werner took a turn I didn’t expect.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re being followed,” he said. “By some old car.”

“Two-tone silver 1953 Bentley limo?”

Werner gave me a double take. “What are you, a car savant?”

“It belongs to DeLong Limited. It’s Ian DeLong.”

“Or Kyle,” Werner said.

“I wouldn’t be afraid, if it was Kyle.”

“Maybe you should be.”

Forty-five

Souls wouldn’t wear suits and ties, they’d wear blue jeans and sit cross-legged with a glass of red wine.

—CARRIE LATET

“Where are you taking me?” I asked Werner.

“Since we can’t shake the DeLong car, I’m arresting you. Murderers rarely try to break into jail. Do you have any evidence that they’re Dominique DeLong’s murderers, by the way?”

Admissible evidence? “Only their greed and panicked idiotic eagerness to pick up the rhinestones. What are you charging me with?”

“Possession of stolen diamonds.”

“They’re not diamonds.”

“Doesn’t matter. Bring the dress. Eventually, a diamond expert will prove you right.”

“Not anybody from Pierpont Diamonds, please. You and I sort of pissed them off after the funeral. Ask them to get somebody from De Beers or Tiffany, please.”

“Primo thought.” Werner glanced my way. “With an honest diamond expert, the charges will be dismissed.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“You scare me, but my uncertainty in this circumstance ranks right up there with nebulous dreams.”

“Ah, so you know now that they were nebulous?”

“Maybe I just wished they were real.”

“I could beat you for not letting Eve’s moronic comment of that morning go.”

Werner grinned. “I dare you.”

“Here it comes: Wiener, Wiener, Wiener!”

He barked a laugh as he pulled into the police station parking lot, while Dom’s Bentley kept going, thank God.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed with him. I guess that’s what friends did. Werner came around to let me out. I carried the seafoam diamond dress in plain sight for anyone who might have been watching: Ian DeLong for one.

“Book her, Billings. Possession of stolen diamonds.”

“Oh, that’s why you were laughing,” Billings said as he pulled out a chair for me at his desk. I touched Billings’ arm. “Thanks for not using cuffs.”

“Hey, I took you to our eighth-grade dance,” Billings said. “I can catch you if you run, and I’m pretty sure you won’t turn into Super Fashionista and fly away. I also know that you wouldn’t steal any diamonds.”

“After he books you, Mad, call your father, or whoever, to bring you an overnight bag and a blow-up bed you’ll be comfortable sleeping on. I have to work on extraditing you to New York.”

“What!”

“Tomorrow morning, I drive you in a police car, two ahead of us, two behind, as escorts, in case the ’53 Bentley appears on the road.”

My fists found my hips. “And I get put in jail in New York City? Are you crazy?”