The Diva Wore Diamonds (20 page)

“
Something with mustard.”

“
I’m having the Pasta Puttanesca. It’s today’s special.”

“
Ah,” I said. “Harlots’ pasta. It sounds spicy.”

“
Harlots, eh? Well, if it’s good enough for harlots, I guess it’s good enough for me.”

“
Can I pull up a chair?” We both turned and saw Noylene standing a few steps from the table. Cynthia was coming up behind her, hurriedly scribbling something on her pad.

“
Sure,” said Meg. “Sit down. We were just about to order.”

Cynthia finished writing, dropped a check down on the table next to us, and seemingly conjured a glass of water out of thin air for Noylene.

“
Y’all ready to order?” she asked.

“
I’ll have the Harlot’s special,” said Meg. Cynthia looked at her blankly. “The Pasta Puttanesca.” Cynthia smiled and wrote it down.

“
I’ll have my usual.”

“
Right,” said Cynthia, still writing. “A mustard sandwich. You want anything else on that? Ham, maybe?”

“
Yeah. Ham.”

“
Tomato? Lettuce? Maybe a pickle on the side?”

“
Okay,” I said.

“
Swiss cheese? Some potato salad?”

I nodded happily.

“
Rye bread okay?”

“
Just right,” I said.

Cynthia finished writing and turned to Noylene.

“
You got any soup? I’m not feeling too perky today. Morning sickness.”

“
Sure, hon. We’ve got mushroom or enchilada.”

“
Better give me the mushroom,” said Noylene.

“
Would you like some chervil on that?”

“
What?
” said Noylene, not at all sure that she’d heard correctly. “Gerbil?”

Meg, who was unfortunately taking a sip of water, snorted some of it out her nose in a most unladylike fashion. I managed a cough.

“
Yes,” said Cynthia without a blink. “Gerbil. I could give it just a gentle squeeze to see if you like it or not. If you do, I’ll take it back and give it a real yoink.”

“
Umm,” said Noylene. “Okay, I guess.”

“
May I have a yoink of gerbil on my sandwich?” I asked.

“
I don’t think so,” said Cynthia with a sniff. She spun on her heel, still writing, and went to turn in our order.

“
So,” I said to Noylene, “what’s up?”

“
I heard that Russ Stafford found some diamonds on my land.”

“
Where did you hear that?”

“
Word gets around,” said Noylene.

“
Sorry I’m late,” said Nancy, walking up and taking the empty chair. “I talked to the Thatchers. They have a cute little store over there in Valle Crucis.”

“
What’s it called?” asked Meg.

“
Crab Orchard Crafts,” said Nancy.

“
Oh, I’ve been in there,” said Meg. “Mother and I stopped by a few weeks ago when we went over to the Mast General Store. It’s darling.”

“
Did you order me anything to eat?” asked Nancy.

“
Nope,” I said. “I never know what to get. You might want to try the gerbil soup.”

Nancy looked puzzled for a moment, then chose to ignore me and continued. “Nice couple. Two little kids. They only started going to New Fellowship Baptist a month ago. They haven’t even joined the church. Jenny Thatcher says they’re still ‘church-shopping.’ Her exact words.”

“
So they have no vested interest in whether New Fellowship gets sued or not,” I said. “Not really.”

“
Not that I can see,” said Nancy. “And neither one of them seems like the murdering type.”

Cynthia arrived at the table with Noylene’s bowl of soup, Meg’s Harlot pasta and my mustard sandwich with all the trimmings. She set them down with a waitress’ practiced efficiency.

“
Is that the gerbil soup?” asked Nancy. “I’ll have that and a ham and Swiss on rye.”

“
Will do,” said Cynthia. “I’ll be back to refill your drinks in a sec.”

“
Can we get back to the diamonds?” said Noylene.

“
What diamonds?” asked Nancy.

“
The diamonds that Russ Stafford found on Quail Ridge.”

“
Oh,
those
diamonds,” said Nancy.

“
Well,” I said, “Brianna has some raw diamonds that looked a lot like the ones that were in the time capsule. But whether Russ found them on Quail Ridge or somewhere else is anyone’s guess.”

Noylene gave me a smirk. “I
guess
that he found them on Quail Ridge. That’s why he wanted to buy it so bad.”

“
You’re probably right, but there’s no way to prove it, Noylene. The diamonds legally belong to Brianna.”

“
Oh, I know. I’m just asking ’cause Wormy’s been up there from morning till night for the past two weeks, looking for that cave. I’m gettin’ worried about him.”

“
If he thinks those diamonds are up there, he may be at it for a while.”

Noylene’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think I killed Russ, do you? ’Cause I didn’t. He may have been a snake, but I didn’t kill him.”

“
I’ll bet you thought about it, though. He was going to steal Quail Ridge from you.”

“
I didn’t kill him.”

“
Relax, Noylene,” I said. “I know you didn’t kill him.”

Meg looked over at me with a quizzical expression. Nancy hid her surprise, but waited for the explanation.

“
We took that rock in for analysis the next day. There wasn’t anything on it. No fingerprints, no DNA. Nothing.”

“
So?” said Noylene.

“
That afternoon, you’d just come over from the Beautifery. You were still blowing on your nails. They weren’t even dry.”

Noylene smiled. “
Passionella Pink.
”

“
So you couldn’t have done it,” said Meg happily. “There would have been nail polish on the rock.”

“
Some trace of it, anyway,” said Nancy. She turned to Noylene. “I’m glad you’re in the clear. I would have hated to find someone else to cut my hair.”

“
Me, too,” said Noylene. “I wouldn’t have had any problem killing him, though. No problem at all.”

“
I know,” I said.

Meg and Nancy nodded their agreement.

•••

“
Have you found the children a musical yet?” asked Meg, after Nancy and Noylene had finished their lunch and headed back to their respective workplaces. “You have your first rehearsal tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock, isn’t it?”

“
Ten o’clock to eleven thirty. And, as a matter of fact, I have. Something that will make us both happy. It’s a miniature oratorio by Henry Purcell. A companion piece to
Saul and the Witch at Endor
, otherwise known as
In Guilty Night
.”

“
I’ve never heard of it.”

“
It’s one of the compositions that Purcell enthusiasts would select as touchstones of his genius. It’s really a musical dialogue in the Italian style, about twelve minutes long.”

“
Touchstone, eh? I love it when you start quoting from your music appreciation lectures. What’s this companion piece?”

“
Here’s the exciting part. It’s a newly discovered work. There’s mention of it in the literature, of course, but no one has ever found the score.”

“
And?”

“
And, I just got the word from Geoffrey Chester. Apparently, the score has been discovered in the library of St. Catharine’s College at Cambridge among Henry Purcell’s grandson’s papers. They’d been left to the college when he died in 1765, but he was a minor musician at best, and no one paid them any attention.”

“
It seems remarkable that a composition by Henry Purcell could have been overlooked for all these years,” said Meg, with more than a hint of skepticism in her voice.

“
And yet,” I said, “it was.”

“
And the name of this masterpiece?”

“
Elisha and the Two Bears,
” I said. “We’ll be doing the American premiere. The world premiere will be at St. Catharine’s in two weeks. We’ve got to hurry, though. There will be plenty of early music groups vying to be the first to perform it over here.”

“
How can we get the music?”

“
I already have it,” I said with a smile. “Geoffrey got a copy from the organist at the college and faxed it over this morning.”

“
I don’t know the story. Are there children in it?”

“
A children’s chorus, a tenor, and two basses. Twelve minutes long, start to finish. A miniature opera.”

“
This could be just the thing to jump-start our children’s choir,” said Meg.

“
That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

Chapter 15

I was usually off on Saturdays, but since I had a special children’s choir rehearsal, I’d also made an appointment with Mitch St. Claire. He’d been in Winston-Salem for the last couple of days, but said he’d be happy to meet me downtown at nine o’clock. After parking my old truck in front of the police station, I had just enough time to pick up a cup of coffee and a cheese danish at the Slab. I took my breakfast into the park, found an unoccupied bench and spent a few minutes watching the Bear and Brew go up. A full crew was working, even though it was a weekend, and, at the rate they were going, the restaurant looked as though it would be back in business in a month or so. Maybe sooner.

I finished the last bit of the pastry, took a sip of coffee, and was just licking my fingers clean when I saw Mitch St. Claire and Brother Hog coming toward me across the newly mown grass.

Mitch wasn’t a tall man. In fact, he was quite short, maybe five-six or seven. If he felt deficient in the height department, he certainly tried to make up for it in the gym. He had the rolling gait of a man who lifted weights incessantly and the secondary characteristics of a gym-rat who indulged in the occasional injection to improve his look and performance. I suspected he’d been in more than a few body-building competitions. He was wearing a tight, dark red t-shirt with a picture of a Herculean Jesus carrying a massive cross up a mountain. His biceps strained against the material, and I could count his abs from ten feet away. His waist was tiny and his legs stuck out of his shorts like tiny tree-trunks. He was tanned and shaved, from the top of his slick head down to his hiking boots. His right hand was in a cast, something I hadn’t noticed at the Bible Bazaar, due to the beggar’s cloak he’d been wearing.