Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (4 page)

I found Philippa standing in the foyer, staring at a cubist painting by Fernand Leger.
 

“What’re you doing?” I asked.
 

“Waiting for you. Where’ve you been?”
 

“I had to see a man about a thing. Everything okay? How’s Millicent?”
 

“She’s fine. Your cousin is here. Oh my god. He is so hot. How can you stand it?” She fanned herself dramatically and I couldn’t help but smile.
 

“It’s easier than you think, given that he’s totally obnoxious.”
 

“You call that obnoxious? He brought croissants and Irish butter. I think I’m in love.”
 

“Well, good luck with that,” I said, heading for the staircase.
 

Philippa grabbed my arm. “You wouldn’t mind?”
 

“Why would I mind?”
 

“He talks about you a lot, and I know you’re not blood-related.”
 

I felt a little twinge, kind of like the first moment of getting the flu. Not an ordinary flu mind you, the so-sick-death-seems-preferable flu. “Go for it. If he’s bothering you, he won’t be bothering me.”
 

I started up the stairs, and she stopped me a second time.
 

“Mercy, I’ve been getting calls.”
 

I dragged her into the cloakroom. It’s not as small as it sounds, more like a cloak museum. “Who called you?”
 

“I’m not sure. He doesn’t say his name clearly.”
 

“What does he want?”
 

“He wants to know about Myrtle and Millicent’s art collection. If they’re thinking about selling,” said Philippa. “I don’t know how he even knew I was working for them.”

“What did you say?” I asked.
 

“Nothing. I don’t know about the collection, but he keeps calling. This morning he wanted to know how Millicent was feeling. It was creepy.”
 

I rubbed my eyes. This was just great. I was hoping Spidermonkey was wrong. There were always rumblings in the art world about something or other. It didn’t have to mean anything. If they were going after Philippa, it was serious.
 

“Did he offer to pay you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How much?”
 

“He didn’t say, just that it would be worth my while.”
 

I didn’t like that. No one ever offered to pay me. It was usually just an introduction that people wanted. Myrtle and Millicent weren’t easy to access and people wanted an in to pitch investments or ask for charitable donations. Occasionally, I got questions about the art. Someone wanted a certain piece for a certain museum and wanted The Girls to loan it out. They never loaned and that’s what I said. No one had ever inquired after their health and the thought gave me a shiver. My godmothers were getting up there and I didn’t like to think about it. The fact that I’d been bypassed in favor of Philippa meant whoever it was knew me well enough to know they wouldn’t get anywhere and that was troubling.
 

“Are you upset?” asked Philippa.

“It’s just the last thing I needed.”
 

“I’m sorry. I know we put a lot on you with Keegan.”
 

“Don’t worry about it. Keegan will get his oil. This is just, I don’t know, a new wrinkle.” I opened the door and we walked out to find Chuck standing beside a wide pedestal supporting an early Henry Moore sculpture. Chuck had his usual look of licentiousness about him and it was oddly appropriate with a nude reclining woman at his elbow.

“Two beautiful women in a dark closet. My favorite,” he said.
 

I groaned and Philippa blushed.
 

“Dirtbag. We were just talking,” I said.
 

“Don’t ruin it for me.”
 

“I make it a point to ruin all your fantasies.”
 

“You haven’t been remotely successful, but, for the sake of argument, what were you doing?”
 

“I told you. Talking.” I nudged Philippa toward the stairs.
 

Chuck snagged my elbow. “You go ahead, Philippa. I need to talk to Mercy for a second.”
 

Philippa left reluctantly, and I rolled my eyes. She’d known Chuck for nearly as long as she’d known me. The fact that he was a love ‘em and leave ‘em type and sleazy to boot seemed to make no impression on her or any of my friends for that matter. He’d dated nearly every female I knew. I suspected that he did it to annoy me. Nothing was worse than going out with a friend and having to hear about Chuck’s excellent bod all night.
 

Chuck stepped back and gave me a good view of the excellent bod clad in well-fitted bootcut jeans and a blue turtleneck sweater that matched his eyes. He wasn’t beautiful with a slightly receding hairline and a hint of acne scars on his cheeks, but he had a quality that was hard to define, maybe it had something to do with confidence.
 

“Somebody’s been calling Lester,” he said, the sleaziness gone.
 

Lester was The Girls’ driver. He was older than them and should’ve retired twenty years ago, but he seemed happy to spend his remaining days driving them to lunch, the airport, or the cathedral. The rest of the time you could find Lester snoozing under the palm trees in one of the enormous conservatories that flanked the house.
 

“Calling about what?”
 

“The Bled Collection.”
 

“Great. Philippa is getting calls, too.”
 

“Money?” he asked.

“It didn’t get that far. How much did they offer Lester?”
 

“Fifty thousand if he’d arrange a meeting that resulted in a loan.”
 

“Which pieces do they want?” I asked.
 

“It didn’t get that specific. Lester tried to get them talking, but they’re holding it pretty close to the vest.” Chuck stroked my shoulder. “Don’t look so upset. We’ll handle it.”
 

“I’m not upset. I’m mad. How dare they try to use Lester or Philippa or anyone for that matter. I don’t get it. Why’s this worth fifty thousand to them? Even if The Girls loaned out the Monets, for instance, a loan is just a loan.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I think it’s planned as the thin edge of the wedge. They’d say something like they let us have these pieces. Why not all of them? For the good of the public. And before you know it, getting control of the Bled Collection looks like a public service, instead of what it is.”
 

“A moneymaker. Can you imagine what a world tour would rake in?”
 

“I can’t. You’d know better than me. I don’t even know what it’s worth,” he said.
 

“Nobody knows. None of the pieces have been appraised. The best you can do is look at the artist’s other works and guess.”

“So guess.”
 

“The Barnes Collection had around twenty-five hundred pieces and the estimate I heard is twenty-five billion.”
 

“How many pieces do Myrtle and Millicent have?”
 

“I never counted. Fifteen hundred isn’t beyond the realm.”
 

“They’d better have airtight wills,” said Chuck.
 

“Mr. Barnes’s was airtight, but it failed just the same.” I felt like crying. The day had started out crappy with a four-year-old in absolute misery with impending death at the ready and had moved on to legalized art theft.
 

Chuck grabbed me so fast I didn’t know what was happening, and there I was folded into his long arms with my face pressed against his warm sweater. There were pecs under there. Hard ones. Well-defined and, frankly, not all that comfortable to have my face rammed against, but the smell was oh-my-god-awesome. It was just Chuck’s normal smell, man with a hint of cologne, a little beer, and squad room. Put it all together and I felt safe and comforted.

“Myrtle and Millicent have something Mr. Barnes didn’t have,” said Chuck, his hot breath ruffling my hair.
 

“What?” I said, looking up.
 

His head lowered towards mine. “Us.”
 

“Us,” I whispered.
 

Closer. Closer.
 

“Mercy!” Philippa called out from the top of the stairs, and I jerked back.
 

“What?” I yelled.
 

She jogged down the curving staircase and leaned over the railing. “Millicent wants you. Everything okay?”

I ran my fingers through my hair and said, “Fine. Why don’t you tell Chuck about those phone calls you’ve been getting.”
 

Philippa brightened up. “Sure. Let’s have some coffee.” She ran down the rest of the stairs and dragged Chuck off toward the kitchen. He gave me a sly smile on the way out. Sleazy bastard. He almost had me. What was I thinking? It’s Chuck, not to be confused with a nice guy. It must be the sleep deprivation.
 

I ran up the stairs past a framed collection of cameos and stopped so fast I nearly fell head first into the top stair. The cameos. When Spidermonkey asked me if I had anything from the collection I’d forgotten all about them. Myrtle and Millicent had given me a cameo by Charles Le Brun, court painter to Louis XIV, for my thirteenth birthday. Not exactly a normal present for a teenage girl, but I loved it. It was of a young girl with lovely thick brown hair tied over her shoulder with a pink ribbon. They gave me the second cameo for my eighteenth birthday. This one of a slightly older girl similar in the face to the first but she wore a huge brown wig and even bigger hat that suited the time and the painter, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. The artists were related only by marriage and I had no idea why The Girls had given me the cameos. They were priceless. By priceless I mean priceless. When Mom took them to be appraised for insurance they’d stumped the appraiser. He knew of no other miniatures by either artist, so they were entirely unique. We ended up insuring them for two million a piece and they were mounted under special glass and hung above Mom’s dressing table, where they’d been ever since, protected by Dad’s rocking security system.
 

I pulled myself together and walked slowly to Millicent’s room, wondering what this would mean in terms of the collection and if some nasty lawyer could make something out of nothing. My cameos had never hung in the Bled mansion as far as I knew. Did that mean they were never a part of the collection? If I was to be appointed as a trustee of the collection could someone use my ownership of the cameos against me in an effort to get control? No, that wouldn’t happen. Lawton would inherit and no one could question that.
 

“Mercy, is that you?” Millicent’s soft voice came through the ornate double doors of her bedroom.
 

I straightened my face and stepped inside her oversized bedroom. It was like stepping into the 1930s, even the bedside clock was vintage. “I’m here.”
 

Millicent lay propped up in the center of her Art Deco bed. It suited her so well with its stylized butterfly motif. Her mother had picked it out when she was born and it had been in her room ever since.
 

“Darling girl, what’s wrong?” she asked.
 

I guess I hadn’t straightened enough. “Nothing. Long night.”
 

She extended her hand and I took it, sitting on the edge of the bed. Millicent looked good, especially considering her age and the pneumonia that could easily have killed her. The medical equipment I’d stocked her room with was now unused and had been concealed behind an antique screen. She had a copy of
Gone with the Wind
and a tray beside her with one of Chuck’s croissants, plus coffee, milk, orange juice, and strawberries. They’d hardly been touched.
 

“You really have to eat,” I said.
 

“I’m trying.”
 

Out from behind a pile of extra pillows slinked my cat, Skanky. He did a curly-tongued yawn, ignored me, and curled up in Millicent’s lap. I’d brought the ungrateful wretch when I’d moved in to take care of Millicent and now he acted like he didn’t know me. Having a mansion as his domain suited him much more than my small apartment. You’d never know by his imperious expression that I’d bought him off a homeless man, half dead and completely disgusting.
 

I settled in, and we talked about how Millicent was feeling and I updated her on Arthur O’Quinn’s condition. She knew him from the cathedral and was keenly interested in his recovery. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she liked him, as in liked him liked him.
 

“Notice anything new?” she smiled and waited.
 

“In what?” I leaned in and looked her over.
 

“Not me. In the room.”
 

In the room? There hadn’t been anything new in Millicent’s room since 1932. I turned slowly and finally spotted it, off in a corner, unobtrusive, which I was certain it wouldn’t remain. I wanted to yell, “Who the hell gave you a parrot?”

“Isn’t he beautiful? Myrtle gave him to me as a get-well present.”
 

There was a green parrot with an orange and yellow beak eyeing me from across the room. It sat on top of the big brass birdcage that used to house Millicent’s last parrot, Bast. Only Millicent would name a parrot after the Egyptian cat goddess.
 

“He’s beautiful. What’s his name?”
 

“Li Shou.”
 

“Cat god?”
 

“Chinese. He was worshipped by farmers. Look how he watches you. Li Shou loves you already,” said Millicent happily.
 

I was not so happy. Spidermonkey wanted to know what I would inherit. It wouldn’t be the Degas, Picassos, or the Giotto panel. I was totally going to get that parrot. I’d seen my future and it was filled with squawking. I only had one hope.