The villa was no comparison to the greatest surviving relic of that area, the ostentatious Teatro do Amazonas, which Carolyne had passed to get there, but, at least, as viewed through its gates, it was in an even better state of repair. Carolyne’s preference for the villa over the Georni ranch house which, likewise, had seen very little expense spared in its construction was probably a case of aesthetics triumphant over functionality.
Despite her success in the beauty parlor, Carolyne wasn’t dressed for high tea. She’d expected hot water poured from a rustic, tin kettle into chipped porcelain cups. Nevertheless, she rang the bell on the gate.
“Yes?” The reply came from a weather-proofed squawk box.
“Mrs. Santire for Mrs. Leider.”
The expected reply: “Who for whom?” The actual response: “Yes, please,”
The gate swung open with a click, and Carolyne, very much the poor relation come to call, steered the Jeep up a driveway of crushed pink quartz and parked in front of a large, double, teak door that opened its left side as if on cue.
Jane Leider was as much a surprise as her home, and not just because she didn’t send a servant but came personally down the three half-circle steps that echoed the arch of the porch. She extended a hand upon which rode the biggest emerald Carolyne had ever seen. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, and I hope you’ll forgive my unorthodox method of invitation. Someone at the hotel knew of my interest. Unfortunately, my note arrived after you’d left, and it was necessary to pass it to one of the youngsters better able to maneuver city streets in pursuit.”
“I’m delighted he caught me.” She was, too. “You have such a lovely home.” Wasn’t that the understatement of this year and last? “One of the 1890 constructions, isn’t it?”
“1894.” She wore a cream-colored pantsuit of some soft material that clung to all the right places and camouflaged all the bad; good care and plenty of money made her look thirty. “Are you a student of our local architecture?”
“Only insofar as I’ve always found it fascinating,” Carolyne admitted.
“Fascinating enough for the ‘grand tour’ of the house, or would you find that not only tedious but presumptuous?” she came across genuinely concerned that she didn’t want to inconvenience.
“I’d be flattered to have the grand tour.” The first thing Carolyne had done when initially checked into the Georni Ranch had been an in-depth view of those premises—literally from top to bottom.
Now, the women strolled gardens whose indigenous plants were Mediterranean in arrangement, confinement, and cut. Sculptures were Greco-Roman, white-marble representations of fauns, nymphs, goddesses and gods, centaurs, and satyrs. A bronze-dolphin fountain spewed water that spread wide and long into a cool, reflecting pool.
“My grandfather built this house.” Jane’s voice was low, cultured, in no way out of place amid the surroundings. “Our family emigrated from Venice; thus, the Italian influence.”
Marble had been brought from Italy, tiles from Portugal, porcelain from England, furniture from France, wrought iron from Germany. Ceilings and walls were decorated with mirrors that reflected murals of harp-playing angels cavorting with half-naked Amazon Indians.
Carolyne was transferred back to 1894 when no expense had been spared by rubber barons who brought artisans and artists in by the boatload; who bought an evening of entertainment from Sarah Bernhardt, Caruso, and Pavlova, for exorbitant fees; who thought nothing of shipping all personal laundry to Paris for just the right press or fold.
The tea service was Spode Fine Bone China, the tea: green Gunpowder sorts, the silverware: Regency. While the ladies ate crustless cucumber sandwiches, time ticked on a nineteenth-century, French, lapis lazuli clock bracketed by matching François Rude candelabra.
Jane kept up a polite banter that drew out small talk of Carolyne’s life as well as her own. Carolyne regretted the upcoming moment of truth, because she enjoyed herself and had so very little to offer as regarded Melanie’s “J” emerald that had to be Jane’s chief concern.
“We were lucky and got out of rubber before the disastrous bust; I forget who tipped my grandfather, but we owe whomever this house, life-style, and acquisition of the cheap land suddenly so valuable today.”
Carolyne refused another sandwich. It was time to pay the piper; she knew she didn’t have the price. Without being asked, she told Jane all the facts as she had them.
“One final room to show you,” Jane said when Carolyne had completed. She got to her feet and led the way.
It was accessed through a large bookcase that swung open in the library.
“My husband checked in on a regular basis.” Jane motioned toward the short-wave. She pulled a binder from a shelf and opened it.
Carolyne divined a larger version of the type of log that Roy had once produced of his gem discoveries and sales. Like him, Jane provided a drawn diagram of the “J” emerald that Roy had sold to John Leider. Likewise, she had a color photograph of it that included a caliper to provide scale. “Would you say this is the stone in question?”
It certainly seems so. I’m sure that Melanie would let you have a closer look.”
“You might assure her that I have no plans to make any legal claim. Not that I’d have a leg to stand on, except, of course, for my conviction that John would never have sold that particular stone.”
“Nor lost it.”
“Nor lost it,” Jane agreed.
“Which says what?”
“I can’t be sure. I do know that when my husband disappeared, he had not only this emerald in his possession but at least these other five as well.” She flipped back the preceding pages and paused at each for Carolyne to see the diagram, the color photo, and the accompanying handwritten notes. “The diagrams are based upon coded information broadcast to me from my husband at various times while he was in the field.”
“Coded?” Roy had once borrowed the expedition’s radio in order to broadcast seemingly numeral nonsense.”
“Airwaves are easily accessed. Not everyone with big ears is honest, as any prospector with his own secrets and codes will tell you.”
“And the photographs of the gemstones?”
“These six were on a digital chip passed to me by Roy Lendum, given him by John at the time my husband purchased the ‘J’ emerald in question. Roy was incoming civilization, at the time, in order to renew permits and what-not.”
“The proceeds from the sale of so many emeralds could have taken your husband a long ways from the Amazon.”
“As part of some he left his wife theory?” Jane suggested but didn’t sound upset. “Except, more money than you’re talking from those emeralds was available in banks right here in Manaus; John’s money, still untouched. Why make it more complicated than it need have been to pack up and walked out on me? Did he think I’d make a scene? Did he think I’d attempt legal action? You can easily find that John wielded more than enough clout to counteract mine. I trusted him implicitly. He had full access to all of my business affairs. I assure you, he left everything in impeccable order; no running out because he’d embezzled company funds.”
Would Jane benefit if Carolyne failed to bring up one logical possibility? “Your husband had reason to want Gordon Wentlock dead?”
“They weren’t friends. There was bad blood. But murder him? Lose the emerald your friend, then, found? Be so careless as to leave Gordon’s body to be discovered by one of you? Leave our lucrative business behind? Leave this house?”
“Leave you?”
Jane smiled. “No relationship is perfect, ours no exception. But taking everything into account, yes, I think we might add that to the long list.”
On her drive back to the ranch, Carolyne slowed at the approach to a steep downgrade that bottomed out with a sharp left turn that skirted, rather than penetrated, a thick growth of banana trees. The first time over this stretch of roadway, she’d overshot the dip in the roadway at only moderate speed; that had been enough
to launch her and her vehicle as substantially as Roy and she had been launched over the lip of that jungle pool which had saved them from the fire. Being airborne had been scary enough, but the jarring landing, on shock absorbers that had seen better days, had telescoped her spine and clattered her teeth with a force she’d thought, at the time, had cracked them.
Now, she edged the car smoothly into the drop; indication she’d learned from her past mistake.
Someone else hadn’t been so lucky: at the bottom, where the turn veered sharply, there was a tunnel plowed into the underbrush, the rear of a Jeep visible beneath a banana tree knocked off vertical; two bunches of bananas looked like chandeliers hung in a room off-kilter.
No convenient place to pull over, she took the makeshift pathway provided by the damaged Jeep.
She expected the worst.
The audible groan indicated a survivor but didn’t assess the damage to the crumpled body curled in a nest of crushed vegetation.
The victim rolled before Carolyne knelt to warn that movement might be dangerous until injures could be determined.
“Dear God!” She saw a bleeding and battered Richard Callahan.
She wasn’t sure he recognized her. There was something about his eyes that was definitely unfocused. His speech was slurred but still pseudo-Brit. He, maybe/maybe not, said, “Brakes. Gone.” Then, he passed out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Carolyne tried to be calm and coolly consider her alternatives.
Richard solved her dilemma with short-lived unconsciousness. “You’d better drive me to the ranch infirmary.” He attempted to stand but couldn’t quite manage.
“Maybe I should go get help?” The zone was dead, as was almost everywhere thereabouts, by way of cell phone.
His condition made him irritable. “Maybe you should just give me the hand I’ve suggested.”
If she could get him into her Jeep under some of his own power, it would be easier. On the other hand, “I’m not sure you should be up and around before a doctor sees you.”
As usual, he found her impossible! “I’m only moving as far as your Jeep.”
If they could make that happen. She made the effort. It wasn’t easy, because he wasn’t as capable as he thought and as she hoped. More than once, she had to support them both which nearly dropped them. His final deposit in the Jeep’s backseat wasn’t as graceful or as gentle as she’d planned. Nor was it any too soon, because, once again, he was dead to the world.
She estimated she hit every bump on her way out. The road was a washboard. She glanced back several times to see Richard slide farther down in the seat. She stopped to reposition him, not pleased his head kept bleeding. Head wounds could be nasty things, but he’d seemed lucid enough for those few moments he’d been awake.
The distance seemed endless; there was little consolation in Georni land stretched as far as the eye could see.
When she reached the main complex, she had visions of Richard quite dead. Of all her alternatives, this one had become the wrong one. She should have never listened to him, or moved him, because the easiest way wasn’t always the best way.
Roy saw her and waved. He read something in her failure to stop and ran after her to the infirmary. “What is it?”
“Richard’s car crashed on that steep section of roadway between here and Manaus.”
“Better get him inside.”
Having gotten him this far, she was more cautious. “Maybe, we’d better have Dr. Seln check before we move him.”
“Maybe,” Roy agreed. He was already en route to the door. Shortly, he produced Dr. Ferdinand Seln who gave permission to move Richard inside. Roy managed the transfer with no need of assistance—for which Carolyne was grateful.
Dr. Seln assigned chairs outside the curtained examination area.
Roy didn’t stay. “I’d better tell Kyle.”
Shortly, Kyle appeared, sans Roy, before the doctor was ready with any verdict. “Ferd?”
“Take a seat with Mrs. Santire, Kyle. I’ll be with you both as soon as I’m ready.” The doctor’s accent was some hybridization that Carolyne couldn’t place.
Kyle turned to Carolyne. “Roy said it happened on the Tlesselan Grade. No one can persuade old Tlesselan to shift his bananas.”
Carolyne didn’t know Tlesselan, but his stubbornness was a menace. Not that he was totally to blame. “Richard said something about his brakes gone out.”
“Wrong place for that to happen.” Kyle’s observation was superfluous. He phoned Inspector Barco, came back, and sat down.
A short, dull hum indicated an x-ray. After that distraction, Carolyne realized Kyle eyed her strangely. “I put my head on wrong this morning?” She sounded testy and was glad he laughed.
“You look fantastic,” he complimented; she thought he was sarcastic—she didn’t feel fantastic. “Your hair, right?”
She remembered the beauty parlor. “Some major repair.”
Dr. Seln appeared, only briefly. “My preliminary doesn’t indicate anything serious, but I want to do a more thorough go-over of the x-ray.”
“We’ll be optimistic.” Kyle settled back, ready to wait.
Carolyne had no intentions of deserting her post, either, until final diagnosis. She didn’t like Richard but didn’t wish him harm. She wanted proof positive that her assistance hadn’t been detrimental.
Dr. Seln returned to the world behind the curtain.
“While in town, I had tea at the Leider villa,” Carolyne told Kyle. She wanted input and figured he was the man to provide it.
“Had you to the Villa Borgia, did she?”
“Is that what she really calls it?”
“An ‘in’ joke,” he apologized. “Reference, I guess, to the Italian influence.”
“Weren’t the Borgias Spanish?” It was her attempt to impress.
Kyle was no less astute: “Spanish in origin; Italian by temperament.”
“Rather unsavory reputations, if I remember my history. Patricide, wantonness, vice, high crimes.”
“Perhaps my analogy was a little wide of the mark. Then again.…”
He had her curious. “I found Lucretia.…” Her reward for her further reference to the infamous Borgia clan was his smile. “I mean, Jane,” she needlessly corrected, “exceedingly charming.”
“I’m sure she was.” Jane had a way about her that he’d come to resent more and more over the years. “She can be quite charming when she puts her mind to it. It’s the result of all those years in private finishing schools.”
“She was interested in Melanie’s recovery of the ‘J’ emerald.”
“Wants the gem back, does she?”
“Actually, she seemed more concerned about the whereabouts of her husband.”
“Could be, but she always seemed so much happier whenever he was away.”
Carolyne gave him silence in which to continue. Some people were acutely uncomfortable in silence and would fill it with the most marvelous tidbits if given the opportunity by a skillful listener. Of course, there were those not at all cowed by it; Kyle was one. If Carolyne wanted anything more on Jane Leider, she’d have to work for it. “Mr. and Mrs. Leider weren’t the ideal couple?”
Kyle contemplated not taking the subject farther. He never had spent all of his venom, regarding Jane and her family; whether or not Carolyne was the right sounding board, she was at least available. Better yet, she wouldn’t be around for long to remind him of any slips of the tongue, here and now. “I’d hate to have any of this come out as sour grapes.”
If he thought that would have her diplomatically cut him off at the pass, he was mistaken. “Actually, Mrs. Leider seemed almost too attractive, too gracious, too good to be true.”
“Would you like a drink of something?” Kyle detoured.
A jigger of rubbing alcohol, you mean?” She didn’t mind the tangent, as long as it was only temporary.
He smiled, which put his dark good looks to their best advantage. He liked anyone who
held their own in a conversation, and he appreciated Carolyne’s wry sense of humor, noticed as far back as their first meeting. “Ferd, I’m raiding your liquor cabinet!”
A reply came from somewhere behind the pulled curtain: “You know where I keep the key. You might ask Mrs. Santire if she’d like something, too, while you’re at it.”
“The good doctor still sees me as a self-centered brat apt to forget simple good manners.” It wasn’t really criticism.
“You and the doctor go back a long ways, do you?” She calculated the doctor’s age, based on his shock of pure white hair and his myriad worry lines.
“I was a difficult delivery, and he’s never forgiven me the extra work I caused him.” He brought her two fingers of liqueur in a clear glass. “Curacao,” he identified.
“How’d you know I was fond of oranges?” She gratefully sipped while he again settled into the chair beside her.
“This used to be Fernelli land,” he said. “Not just the Georni Ranch but all of the other ranches, large and small, around here.”
“Fernelli land?”
“Jane Fernelli Leider,” he provided clarification. “Thomas Fernelli was the real powerhouse and made the family fortune in rubber. Also, he got out of rubber before it went bust. After which, he bought up cheap land and supplanted rubber as king in these parts.”
“We’re talking Jane’s grandfather?”
“As opposed to Arthur Fernelli, her father, who, as a walking catastrophe, gave poor Thomas many a cause to turn over in his grave.”
They clinked glasses and drained off the resulting liqueur; Kyle went for refills which Carolyne didn’t refuse. There was nothing like alcohol to smooth tattered nerves and foster bonhomie.
“Thomas Fernelli founded the dynasty and enlarged its net worth; Arthur Fernelli let Thomas’ legacy slip away, slowly at first, then in a great, huge hemorrhaging. John Leider to the rescue! Of course, there were a few of us as willing to play White Knights, too: myself, Roy, Janner Tyrol, Simms Mason; but, John beat us out, because he had founded lucrative Leider Platinum by then and came from a family fashionably old guard. Before the rubber bust, the Leiders were really even a few steps above the Fernelli on the social ladder: a definite advantage over those of us late on the scene and seen only as scavengers eager to gulp down whatever Fernelli holdings Arthur let slip. One thing about John, he might have had none of the polish the Leiders had before him, but he did have luck as a prospector and the skills to exploit his findings into a stockpile of profits. You’d have to look far and wide to find anyone in the whole Amazon Basin who did as well off its natural resources.”
Amaz'n Murder Page 11
