Mr. Higgins took the podium, blew lightly into the microphone to assure it was on; it was, and his breath came through a bit too loudly. Slight laugh.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our ‘Strike It Rich’ night. The staff and volunteers of the Philpont Museum welcome you to our annual gala. We hope you enjoy our glittering theme this year, along with the glittering company of your fellow diners and philanthropists.”
Todd stood to the side, watching the catering staff waiters set salads at each place, while Higgins went on—perhaps a tad too long—about how the purpose of the fundraiser, as everyone knew, was to assure the Philpont had enough funds to keep the doors open and to provide the city with … blah, blah, blah. Todd tuned out most of it. Eventually, Higgins apologized for going on so long, promising to be back at the end of the meal with more information and to introduce their celebrity auctioneer for the evening.
The man Todd so urgently wanted to speak with was seated at a full table, apparently charming the ladies with some story. Todd decided he might as well take his own seat. His stomach felt better now. He was the only single man at the eight-place table, and the others all seemed to know each other already. He stabbed at the curly lettuce on his plate, letting the conversation flow around him.
Salads were cleared. Filet mignon arrived. Drinks were refilled. The chatter around him continued while Todd chewed the tender steak. He had opted for beef rather than chicken but the filet might as well have been hamburger for all the enjoyment he received. He kept an eye on the other man and saw him rise from his chair. Before the waiter could take his plate, he folded his napkin and excused himself.
The stone fountain in front of the museum added a nice ambiance to the warm spring evening. Todd spotted one man standing there, alone. As he approached, the man pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered Todd one.
“I don’t smo—”
“Take it. Having something to do makes our meeting look entirely coincidental.”
Todd took the cigarette and accepted a light. He couldn’t force himself to inhale the hot smoke, but he could fake the motions well enough.
“So,” said the man, “you think you’re calling the shots now?”
Chapter 23
Penelope hid a yawn behind her dinner napkin as Stan Higgins droned on about the museum and all the great things it did for the city. Salad arrived and she picked at it. At her side, Benton—bless him!—made conversation with the other couples at their table, entertaining them with stories from the golf course. His best stories, of course, came from his days in the prosecutor’s office but he rarely talked about those. She merely put on a smile, hiding her thoughts.
Had Sandy and Gracie been able to glean any new information on the robbery from the museum director’s office? Had they actually gotten in before he came along? How long could this bloody dinner go on?
Pen glanced around the room. Three tables away, Sandy and Gracie sat with two couples and two single men. Gracie was laughing at something one of the men said, gesturing as she added something to the conversation. Sandy appeared much the way Pen must—a false smile, a distracted darting of the eyes, complete boredom with the surroundings.
As a banker with frequent duties toward customer service, she must have had her fill of client dinners and community banquets. Gracie, on the other hand, was no doubt enjoying a dressy night out without her kids.
Perhaps Pen could make use of something here for a character or situation in a future book. She began to take note of little things—the way a particular dress fit its wearer, the melodic tone of another diner’s giggle, the coquettish glances between two of the wait staff who were no doubt romantically involved. To fill her mind with something interesting, she began to concoct an intriguing little plot around them as she cut into the filet before her. The meal was not extraordinary but the sauce was interesting.
* * *
Sandy kept an eye on Gracie’s evening purse, sitting there so precariously on her friend’s lap. The phone inside held all the evidence they were ever likely to get for Pen. She forked the tender-crisp broccoli from her plate. The sauce on her chicken smelled good but she was dieting again and tried to eat her fill of the lower-calorie foods first. Well, maybe just a bite … She was glad Pen suggested meeting before the dessert arrived.
Thinking of Pen, Sandy glanced toward the other table. Pen’s gentleman friend was talking animatedly with another man. Pen herself had a serene smile. Hard to believe she was in the midst of tonight’s plot. Sandy’s own thoughts didn’t seem to go anywhere except to the close call she and Gracie had awhile ago in Higgins’ office.
A handsome young waiter who looked about eighteen years old came around and asked if she was finished with her plate. She nodded. He might have been her grandson … if only … She turned her thoughts in another direction, a habit so ingrained she hardly had to think about it.
Another glance toward Pen. Dinner plates had been cleared and desserts—something in short parfait glasses—were being set before each diner. Sandy raised her eyebrows and Pen gave a quick tilt of her chin toward the vestibule.
Sandy cleared her throat and turned toward Gracie. “I’m heading for the ladies room …”
“Oh. Oh! I think I’ll come along.” Gracie excused herself to the group who seemed a little perplexed that she’d cut short the punchline of her joke.
At the far side of the vestibule, it became apparent the visit to the restroom was not a good plan. A lineup waited outside the door.
Sandy turned toward Gracie and Pen. “I think I could use a smoke.”
Pen looked startled. “I didn’t think—”
“I could go for some fresh air,” Gracie piped up. She started for the large double exit doors.
The others followed along. Outside, the air felt balmy and the scent of orange blossoms somehow managed to reach the center of the city from the acres of outlying orchards. Or perhaps they came from the few trees on the museum grounds. A fountain bubbled quietly in the roundabout where cars would later arrive to pick up the benefit attendees. To one side an arbor draped with trumpet vines looked like a secluded place for conversation but two men already stood there, their conversation seeming rather intense.
“How about this pathway?” Pen suggested, heading the opposite direction.
Flowering trees, their trunks entwined with fairy lights, made the isolated area feel safe and well-lit as the three walked along, as if for a cordial stroll. Sandy related what little she knew about the safe inside the director’s office—that it was a good one, tough to get into—and Gracie pulled out her phone with the pictures.
Pen peered at the photographed documents. “I don’t think I can make out much detail here.”
“I’ll send them to you. On your computer you can enlarge them quite a lot.”
If I know how, Pen thought. She needed to move ahead in her knowledge of technology if she meant to associate with this group. She watched as Gracie tapped a few lighted buttons on her phone.
“Okay, they’re on the way to your email,” she said.
Pen had a feeling their little computer whiz, Amber, would be called back to action on this one.
“We need to decide our next step,” Sandy said, as if she’d read Pen’s mind. “Amber is working on some things. Let me contact her in the morning and I’ll let everyone know.”
“Meanwhile, we should get back inside,” Pen said.
“Separately, I’d suggest, since we don’t know who among the museum staff might have been involved with the robbery,” said Sandy. “Pen, you go first. We’ll take this other side path so we don’t end up going inside at the same time.”
Pen doubled back, taking enough time so it appeared she was there to admire the landscaping. She passed the arbor where the two men had been talking a few minutes ago. One had left, and she thought she recognized the gait of the man she’d met earlier, Todd Wainwright, who was either Dan Stevens’ or Stan Higgins’ assistant—she’d forgotten
. The other man was stubbing out a cigarette in an urn of sand. She definitely knew him. It was Detective Caplin.
Chapter 24
“Detective Caplin and that young man who works for the museum—do they know each other well?” Pen asked Benton on the way home.
They were in his car, and she was feeling the adrenaline letdown after the evening’s previous rush of nerves. She nestled into her seat and closed her eyes against the glare of oncoming traffic on Interstate 10.
“I have no idea,” Benton said, watching his mirrors for an opportune lane change. “I assume you’re thinking in terms of the robbery and your missing necklace?”
He didn’t have to ask. Pen had told him about the disappointing news from Caplin and her subsequent debacle with the private investigator.
“I imagine they must have had contact,” Benton said. “After all, Caplin surely questioned everyone at the museum right after it happened.”
“True. He did. It’s just that I saw the two of them talking tonight, off in the shadows, away from the party. It just seemed odd.”
“And I bet you’ll soon find out. In all our years together, Pen, I’ve never known you to let many questions remain unanswered.”
He reached for her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. They had exited the freeway and he was following the familiar route to her hillside home. She glanced at his handsome profile, reminded of the day they met. Hard to believe it was more than twenty years ago.
She’d been working on her first novel, in retrospect a pitiful thing that never made it to a publisher’s desk. Part of her plot revolved around the prosecution of a felony murder case and she had no idea, aside from television stories, how such a thing worked. She’d called the district attorney’s office and asked to speak with someone who could answer her questions. A community relations person was supposed to return her call but when four days went by with no call from the woman, Pen simply drove downtown and marched in.
The CR was out with the flu. The district attorney himself walked through the room, turned to an attorney who was standing there and asked if he could take care of the lovely lady. It was Benton Case. With his salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes, the man in the perfectly tailored suit charmed her immediately.
Penelope and Benton had discussed her questions for the novel over lunch. It turned out to be pure luck that put them together. Benton had retired from his position as District Attorney several years earlier to start his own private practice. It was coincidence that he’d stopped at the office that morning. He, of course, didn’t have to follow the new DA’s request. He admitted he did so merely to get to know Pen better.
Within two months they were lovers, a carefree arrangement both of them accepted for what it was. Pen, with two previous marriages behind her, had no desire to push for another. Benton, widowed years earlier, had a busy law practice to fill his days. They traveled together and saw a lot of the world. Eventually, he received an offer to sell the practice and he happily retired to golf. Sex became infrequent and the relationship settled into one of pleasant companionship shared by two dear friends. They were each other’s choice for social occasions which required one to bring a date. He still answered her questions about the law; she still loved having him along as a traveling companion when she went on her ever-less-frequent book tours.
He steered his Lexus up the hillside and parked at her front door.
“Come in for a nightcap?” she asked.
It was tradition with them and would have been rude not to ask but, truthfully, she had her mind on the photos Gracie had emailed to her earlier. She hoped the picture quality would be good enough to read details on the documents her friends had found in Stan Higgins’ office.
Benton walked around to the passenger door and opened it. An old-fashioned tradition, one most women would either refuse or had never experienced these days. But Pen enjoyed the small acts of gentlemanly kindness and she waited to take his hand.
Inside, she poured his favorite, Drambuie on the rocks, and brewed herself a cup of tea. Conversation dwindled but it was all right. They sat on the back patio staring at her incomparable view of the city lights. When he left, a half hour later, she hoped her goodbye didn’t seem too eager.
As his taillights vanished down the driveway, Pen rushed to her office and entered her computer password. Emails from both Gracie and Amber awaited. She opened Gracie’s first.
The first photo showed the front of a safe with a heavy handle and a keypad of numbers, along with a little panel with lights that presumably showed its status as locked. Not sure what I’m supposed to do with this, she thought.
The other photos showed documents with very tiny print. It appeared the ladies had found items of interest, but Pen’s eyes were tired and she wasn’t sure how to enlarge the pictures enough to make them readable. She set that message aside and went to Amber’s. Copies had gone out to the whole group.
We need to meet. Found very interesting info on Richard Stone.
Chapter 25
A flurry of emails and texts brought the group together the following afternoon at Amber Zeckis’ apartment a few blocks from Arizona State University in Tempe. Pen took the 101 freeway and found it easily, a tan stucco two-story building typical of off-campus student housing. Apartment 27 was at the east end of the second floor. To her knock, Amber’s voice shouted a casual, “Come in!”
It had been so many years since Pen had seen the inside of a twenty-one year old’s apartment, she’d forgotten the sheer chaos of it. The one-room efficiency had a galley kitchen at the far end with two wooden stools at the counter. Aside from an open door to a tiny bathroom, it was all right here. A garage-sale end table beside a crooked futon was scattered with colorful hair ties and bottles of blue and purple nail enamel. Magazines littered the futon’s cushion, most of them following themes of computers or travel rather than the celebrity slicks favored by most young women these days. Framed memorabilia on the walls consisted of science fair awards, a few extra unexplained blue ribbons, and a framed photo of Amber (it had to be, the curly hair was the same on the twelve-year-old version) standing beside Bill Gates.
Amber looked up from the oversized computer screen at the desk which dominated the room and caught Pen looking at the picture.
“I had the wildest older-man crush on him back then,” she said. “I nagged my mom into taking me to the electronics show that year.”
Pen smiled. Her own girlhood crush had been for cowboy star Roy Rogers, not exactly the logical choice for an English-born girl who lived in Chicago. Her reflections were interrupted by the arrival of Sandy and Gracie at the same time. Amber gave them the same verbal invitation to enter then turned back to her computer.
For the first time, Pen noticed what was on the screen. A spread of pages, the documents Gracie and Sandy had photographed in the museum, enlarged to a readable size.
“Some interesting stuff here,” Amber said. “Can you all see the screen?”
Sandy had moved toward the futon, picking up the magazines and stacking them. While she straightened the end-table mess into neat piles, Gracie ignored the clutter and walked to the kitchen counter bar, picking up the two lightweight wooden stools, placing them slightly behind Amber’s chair—one for herself and one for Pen.
Pen glanced toward Sandy.
“I’m fine over here.” Sandy brushed some kind of crumbs from the futon cushion and sank down, the seat obviously giving way a little more than she’d expected.
“These are the documents you sent me from the museum file,” Amber said to Gracie.
With a dizzying flick of the mouse pointer she rolled through them. “The copy of the police report is interesting because it shows the robbery as petty theft.”
“What!” Pen practically shrieked. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t caught that notation when she looked through Detective Caplin’s file.
“What does that mean?” Gracie asked.
Sandy spoke up. “Grand theft, in Arizona
, is theft of something worth more than one thousand dollars. Anything less is considered petty theft. The big difference is in the jail or prison time that can be given. And, of course, how much time the police devote to solving the crime.” She shrugged. “Just saying, because of a few things down at the bank.”
Pen considered that. This could be what was behind the Philpont staff insistence that her necklace was a reproduction. Lesser value, lesser criminal implication, lesser penalties. They all seemed to believe she would never miss the money. But money was the least of her attachments to the family heirloom. No one seemed to understand that.
“Here are copies of two appraisals,” Amber said, dragging the two documents side by side on her large monitor.
The pages looked identical, exactly like the one Pen had provided when she loaned the necklace for the exhibit. The letterhead from Potts Fine Jewelry was a perfect duplicate. Regis Potts’s signature was the same on both. But the sheet on the left gave precision measurements of each stone and valued the necklace at $1.3 million dollars; the one on the right described the stones as lab-created emeralds and cubic zirconia diamonds, value $950.
“Conveniently below the thousand-dollar threshold,” murmured Gracie.
“Are there photos with the appraisals?” Pen asked.
“There should have been, but we didn’t find them in the file,” Sandy said.
“I can show you exactly what the cheap one looks like,” Pen said.
She reached for her handbag and pulled out the familiar velvet pouch. When she undid the cord at the top and tipped it over, a cascade of brilliance landed in her other hand.
Diamonds Aren't Forever Page 7
