Fleeced: A Regan Reilly Mystery (19 page)

It didn’t take long for Jack to pack his things in the hotel room. He dialed Regan’s number on his cell phone. It rang three times before she picked up.

“Hey there,” he said after she picked up.

“Jack. Hi.” Regan’s voice sounded relieved.

“What’s the matter?”

“Where do I start? Well, let’s see. Someone came into the apartment last night when I was sleeping. They ran away when they realized I was here.”

Jack’s hand squeezed the phone tightly. “I had a bad feeling about that place.”

“And now I’m pretty convinced that Nat Pemrod was murdered.”

“I’m on my way back,” Jack told her.

“You are?” Regan’s voice lightened.

“I’ve finished here. And I found out something that might just add to the troubles at that club. A guy named Thorn Darlington, who heads the most famous butler school in England, is planning to open a school in New York. He doesn’t take kindly to anyone who tries to compete with his business.”

“Oh, great,” Regan said. “Maldwin will be thrilled to hear the news.”

“They’re getting more information on him for me. In the meantime, be careful around there.”

Regan smiled. She hadn’t told him the special significance that expression had for her. She’d wait till he got back. “I will. And I have other stories for you that you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday really took the cake. This morning the Settlers’ Club and all its woes are splashed on the front page of the
New York World.”

Jack sighed. “I’m really glad I’m coming back tonight.”

“Me too. You know we have the club’s anniversary party.”

“Save me a dance.”

Regan laughed. “A lot of Lydia’s singles will be here. I’m sure the women will make a beeline for you.”

“Thanks but no thanks. I’ll tell them my dance card is full.”

The maid knocked on Jack’s door, then a half a second later, flung it open. “Oh, hello, love,” she said.

“It sounds like your dance card is already full,” Regan said.

“Very funny. I’ll see you tonight.”

Regan turned off her phone and smiled. Clara came up behind her. “Was that your boyfriend?” she asked.

“Yes,” Regan said, although she’d never called him that.

“Ya know, you’ve got the same look on your face that Nat got when he talked about Wendy.”

Oh, great, Regan thought. Let’s hope I don’t end up dead.

Maybe we should just break up.” Janey cried daintily into her oatmeal.

Thomas grabbed her hand. “We could try counseling.”

“Counseling? Why do we need counseling?”

“Because you want to break up.”

“No I don’t. I’m upset because I embarrassed you.”

“Forget it! We’ll get through this. Now eat, you need to eat.” Thomas dug into his soft-boiled egg. “We need our strength to get through today.”

“If only Mrs. Buckland hadn’t called me yesterday wanting some stupid roast chicken. This never would have happened.”

“Janey,” Thomas chided, “life is full of ‘if onlys.’ If only Ben hadn’t died, if only Nat hadn’t died, if only they’d given us the diamonds before they died…”

“Hello, folks.” Regan was standing at their table.

“Regan!” Thomas looked up. “Sit down.”

“For a few minutes,” Regan said as she took a seat. They were at the same table as the night before, and the dining room once again resembled a tomb. But tonight, Regan thought, hopefully, there will be some action. She glanced up at the portrait of the club’s founder and was sure the expression on his face had turned into a scowl overnight. I can’t blame him, she thought. “I saw Clara.”

“The other troublemaker,” Janey remarked.

“Don’t do this to yourself, my darling. Clara was worse,” Thomas insisted. “She broadcast our problems to the world. You didn’t know that when you went over to Ben’s and took the food that-”

“Thomas, I know what I did!”

Regan helped herself to a croissant and sipped the cup of coffee the waiter put in front of her. She didn’t want to get in the middle of any tiff between the two lovebirds.

“I know you know,” Thomas said. “All I’m saying is that you didn’t know it would end up on the front page of the paper.”

“Forget the paper,” Regan advised.

“Have you seen it?” Thomas asked.

“No. My mother called me about it.”

Janey groaned. “I could kill Mrs. Buckland.” Then her face took on a startled expression. “She must be reading about it too! My business very well might go down the tubes!”

“Join the crowd,” Thomas said wryly.

“Okay, now,” Regan said. “I want to go out to the store and get those perfumes. Are you going to be around here later this morning, Janey?”

She nodded. “I’ll be helping Thomas blow up balloons for the party tonight.”

There’s one way for the two of you to get rid of all your tension, Regan thought. After you’re finished, you can hit each other in the head with them. “The police will be checking out the list Lydia gave me of people who were at the party. If you can match any of the perfumes I find to the one you smelled yesterday, we’ll take it from there.”

Thomas looked worried.

“What’s the matter?” Regan asked.

“This morning Janey had the sniffles. Her nose is stuffed up. Probably from sitting on the floor of that cold closet all afternoon yesterday. Janey, after breakfast I’ll get you some vitamin C.”

“I won’t be gone long,” Regan said. “With any luck your sense of smell will hold out until I get back.”

“I’ll do my best,” Janey said. Then her face brightened. “I just thought of a line I’ve always loved.”

“What’s that?” Regan asked.

“A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”

“Beautiful,” Regan muttered. And then she thought of the name of the perfume she was particularly taken by. Lethal Injection. I can’t wait to see the bottle that stuff comes in, she thought.

At the 13th Precinct, Detective Ronald Brier greeted Regan like an old friend. She had called ahead to see if he’d be there. The
New York World
was on his desk.

“I understand you had quite a night.”

“Oh yes.” Regan nodded and pointed to the newspaper. “Wait till that reporter finds out about the little visit to Nat’s apartment last night.”

“She already has.”

“Already?”

“She came by this morning and was digging around for recent incidents in Gramercy Park. Boy, was she shocked when she read in the reports about what happened to you.”

“Oh, great,” Regan said.

“I know. But I’ve got some good news. They’re doing a rush job on the fingerprints that we lifted from Ben Carney’s and Nat Pemrod’s apartments last night.”

“What about the red box the diamonds were in?”

He shook his head. “They’re working on it. But it looks like all the prints are smudged.”

Regan pulled several lists out of her purse. “Here are the names of the people who were guests at the singles party, the student butlers, and everyone who lives and works at the club, including Lydia Sevatura, the woman who owns the dating service. There was some question about her after she received this windfall from her neighbor in Hoboken. I was hoping you could check it out.”

Brier took the list from her. “You don’t have a social security number or date of birth for her either, so it will take time. But she did rent the Settlers’ Club apartment, so we’ll be able to find out something.”

“There’s even more of a reason to check those names out other than the break-ins,” Regan explained. “I’m really beginning to believe that Nat Pemrod was murdered.”

Brier looked at her.

“I know that no one thought so the other night. But a lot of things are suspicious. First the diamonds owned by Nat and Ben were missing. Then the break-ins at both Nat’s and Ben’s apartments. Now the maid tells me that not only did Nat never take a bath, but special appliquéd towels that he never used, because they belonged to his dead wife and he didn’t want to ruin them, are also missing.”

“Towels are missing?” Brier asked.

“According to the maid, Nat took a shower every night. Maybe the killer used the towels to dry the stall so if Nat was found in the bathtub not too long after he died, it wouldn’t be suspicious that the shower was all wet.”

“We didn’t have any indication that this was anything but an accident. With all the people, including our cops, who have traipsed through there since Pemrod was found dead, any crime scene would be tainted. I think the chance of getting relevant physical evidence is nil.”

“I know. Let’s see what we can get from that list. In the meantime, I have a couple of other leads to work on.”

Georgette was restless. Blaise had gone off to his butler class, and she was left to twiddle her thumbs until the evening, when she’d head over to the party. There was no money for shopping, and she didn’t have the energy to do her rounds of the coffee shops.

Life was bleak.

She turned on the television in their little studio and started cleaning up. If only we had gotten those diamonds, she thought. On the counter were the four glass stones that had been in Nat’s red box. She was about to throw them in the garbage, but something made her pick them up and hold them in her palm.

Sitting back down on the bed, she closed her hand over the stones and started to chant. Not that she was a real chanter. This was a chant she made up. Over the years, she’d visited psychics and had a mild interest in enlightenment. She thought that by chanting right now she might get a message about the location of the real diamonds.

“Ummmmm,” she chanted in a singsong voice, closing her eyes. “Ummmmm.”

No message so far.

She opened her eyes and stared at the glass stones. Nothing. She shut her eyes even tighter, leaned back and cried, “Ummmmmmmmm.”

“Ummmmm” turned to “owwwww” when she banged her head against the cinderblock wall. Rubbing her bruised cranium, she pulled up the teddy bear that had been with her through thick and thin-lately mostly thin-and gave it a hug.

“Buttercup, what are we going to do?” She smiled when she thought about how she’d told Nat to call her Buttercup. He was a really nice old guy. Better than the one down in Florida who got nasty and called the cops when he caught her taking some jewelry. She hightailed it out of there fast. But Nat was sweet. Just the way he loved those sheep meant he had a good soul.

Georgette held out her teddy bear. “He had Dolly and Bah-Bah, and I have you.”

The teddy bear stared back at her. It was so old that one of its eyes was gone.

“My poor baby.” Impulsively, Georgette took one of the round glass stones and stuck it in the eye socket. It looked good! “There, that’s better. I’ll have to get some glue.” She started to get up when an image flashed through her mind. She screamed again, but this time it was definitely not a chant.

“Dolly and Bah-Bah!” she cried, staring at the glass stones in her hand. “These are the eyes of Dolly and Bah-Bah! That’s where the diamonds are!” She slammed her hand down on the bed, thinking of Nat’s favorite song, “I Only Have Eyes for You.”
Ewe!

“Isn’t that just like Nat?” She raced for her cell phone and called Blaise’s. She got his voice mail. “He’s probably learning how to change a lightbulb properly,” she hissed. When his message ended, she practically spat into the phone. “I know where the diamonds are! Call me back before we’re too late!”