by Scott, D. D.
“So tell us about your pink beryl,” Roman said.
I choked on my kiwi, and I didn’t have over-botoxed lips to blame.
Pink beryl, also known as Morganite, is named after financier J.P. Morgan, the backer of the famous gemologist George Kunz who named the crystal. It gets its unique color from trace quantities of manganese, and the world gets most of its Morganite from our mine.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, and yes, for the record, I knew exactly what he wanted to know, but I didn’t want that knowledge to put a price on his head.
“I need to know enough to keep our family safe,” Roman said, evidently unwilling to negotiate.
“Well, Morganite comes in shade ranges from pink and rose to peach. There are also some purple-pinks from Madagascar.”
“Cute, but I already know that. You and I also know we’re not concerned with Madagascar’s Morganite right now. Just the Witherspoon & Witherspoon Morganite, which oddly enough is right here, with us, in Brazil. Would you agree?”
I could tell from the short quips of his voice that he’d reached the limit of his patience.
“Perhaps I need to be more direct,” he said.
“That always works for me,” Vitto said, his voice so Marlon Brando soft, I barely heard it.
“No it doesn’t always work for you,” Granny V said in a sing-song scolding tone.
From the attempt she made at narrowing her eyes, although they wouldn’t budge much due to being cosmetically tied behind her ears, I had a feeling she knew something I didn’t.
“How much does Stanley know about your Morganite?” Roman continued, not bothering with his grandparents’ side tiff.
“Enough to get us all killed,” I said, then took a long swig of coconut water to give that thought time to digest.
“By who?” Roman asked, his upper body lifting and his pecs flexing like they did right before…shit, right before he cracked his neck, like he just did, meaning heads and bodies too were about to roll.
“Depends on who you ask,” I said, being completely honest.
“Sounds like we better start asking then,” Vitto said, raising his wine glass in salute to who only knew what kinda trouble we were about to stir up.
Chapter Seven
Back in my childhood home, which was now a Winter Wonderland along the fabulous shores of Lake Michigan, people had just finished celebrating the holiday spirit of over the river and through the woods to grandmothers’ houses they go.
But not so down here in Brazil, the land of Rio’s Carnival, carats galore, and now grandparents with mob connections.
There’s a ton more goin’ on along this surf and sand paradise than dancing the night away to the samba and world-class sea turtle conservation projects.
We were about to embark on our own version of over the river and through the woods.
We’d head over the Sergipe River by ferry. And after keeping up our energy for the rough journey ahead with some grilled fresh fish from one of the street stalls along the way, we’d be travelling much more than through the woods. We’d be heading straight into the Amazon Rainforest, the home of Stone Age Indians who made their livings from the land on which my family’s mines were built.
Indians who Stanley had royally pissed off by stealing from them what was theirs…not ours.
Somehow, I had to make all this right, before we ended up in a mass grave like the ones that held other gem thieves and smugglers.
I couldn’t think of a better way to save my two families - or Witherspoon & Witherspoon - than to seek the help of the rainforest Indians I’d come to love like family.
What I wouldn’t give, though, to still be safe inside my parent’s gem vault, buried deep beneath the snow-covered drifts along Lake Michigan.
People are always amazed by the beauty of the snow on its glistening-like-diamonds surface. But there’s an entire world buried underneath the snow-covered Earth, a world that has its very own razzle-dazzle. But along with that dazzle comes deadly games to procure then secure its brilliance.
And here in the land of carats and coconuts, I’m about to show you just how deadly that well-cut and polished dazzle can be.
Nothing means power, control, and unfathomable wealth like conflict gems.
And the world of smuggling that circulates those rock-sacks-of-riches is responsible for one helluva deadly, cozy cash caper.
I only hope we can stop it before it buries us first.
THE END
CARATS AND COCONUTS
(Cozy Cash Mystery #3)
Chapter One
Now that you know my life is just a cut above crazy, let me pick up where we last left off…
I was seated at my Brazilian beachside picnic with my fake husband Prince Roman Bellesconi eating cantaloupe with sea salt and trying to figure out just how much trouble Queen Granny V and King Grandpa Vitto had gotten us into. It looked like the kind of trouble that could result in us being buried alive beneath this brilliant and beautiful white sand beach.
There’s only one thing – or person, rather – who could bury us deeper still.
And she was coming right at us, across the beach, looking as if she’d stepped right out of a Maxine comic strip.
I mean it. She looked exactly like John Wagner’s Maxine, with the same open-mouthed, crankiness-twisted, sourpuss face in full reverie.
And by ‘she,’ I’m referring to Grams, who was making her way through the sand, bitching a mile a minute about every sea shell that poked her bare feet.
I glared at Roman, who responded with his favorite shrug then said, “Look, you know she has bigger balls than any of us. We need her for this mission.”
I wasn’t arguing with the balls factor. He was right. Grams had huge cahonies.
“But she also has a big mouth that comes with those super-large cahonies, and that thing could get us all killed even quicker.”
“Good point,” Roman said, looking at me with those puppy dog eyes that he knew would damn well guarantee he’d be off the hook in no time.
“But you have to admit, we have a ton more fun with her around,” Granny V said, raising her wine glass to the still-bitchin’ Grams, who I noted, had never stopped swearing the entire way from our villa’s boardwalk to our glamorous beachside picnic canopy.
“And y’all think I have a potty-mouth,” I said, then harrumphed.
“Aloha, Y’All,” Grams said, tossing her recycled brown paper grocery bag onto our lavish lunch table.
Sand poured out from the glued folds of the bag and scattered across the table linens and into the serving dishes still filled with fruit…well…make that fruit and sand.
“I think I must be allergic to this lame ass lei.”
“No offense, Grams, but your lei is plastic, and you’re not allergic to plastic. Also, both your lei and your Aloha greeting are Hawaiian. You’re in Brazil.”
Roman covered his mouth, trying but failing to completely hide a huge grin.
“Polynesian. Portuguese. Whatever. The tropics are the tropics, and this lei happens to match my ensemble.”
I said nothing. I just shook my head and quickly put on my sunglasses. That way, no one would see my eyes rolling in response to her antics.
I’m not sure why I expected anything different from her. Hell, when we were in Italy, she was speaking to everyone in Spanish. When we visited my parents over the holidays along the fabulous shores of Lake Michigan, she sputtered Greenlandic East Inuit Danish phrases ‘cause she thought we were close to The North Pole.
That was Grams…always at least one or two countries behind our current location. And it was clear from her ensemble in all its mix-matched glory, she was also a fashion season or two behind.
Her ‘ensemble’ (one of her new favorite words, because she’d seen it used on the online fashion report my styling company produced daily) consisted of bright turquoise gauchos with Tuscan yellow daisies. The pants were so bright, they damn near made you dizzy. She’d paired
those blinders with a lime green camp shirt over the top of a hot pink shell. To top it off, she’d added a huge straw safari-style hat, complete with mosquito net.
“You know you can tell a lot about a person at a nude beach. Of course, it’s usually stuff I’d rather not know,” she said, shoving a piece of watermelon in her mouth.
“You’re not on a nude beach,” Granny V said and chuckled.
“But there’s one close by. And y’all can bet your ass I’m goin’ there. I might even join in the festivities, if you know what I mean.”
“Is that a Maxine-ism?” Granny V asked.
“You know, I wonder if Maxine’s ever been to a nude beach? But that’s one of her lines, so I’m bettin’ she has. I’ll tell ya what…I’ll ask her. I just signed up to attend one of her conventions, and I can’t wait.”
Grams clapped her hands together like a child who’d been invited to a birthday party she was dying to attend.
“A Maxine Convention…that’s wonderful,” Granny V said then winked at Roman and I before whispering to me, “Does she think Maxine is a real person and not just a comic character?”
I nodded.
Maxine was Grams’ latest passion. She’d seen one of her calendars in my office and was instantly hooked. I swear, she even dressed like her. And every day, every damn day, she piped up with more Maxine quotes.
I didn’t know if Brazil was ready for a Gram-style Maxine fixation. I did know we sure as hell weren’t!
“Woohoooo! Over here, Bunny and Beefcakes!”
At the sound of Grams loud cattle-like call, we all jumped and looked behind us in the direction she was waving with her bird-thin arms.
“Bunny and Beefcakes?” I asked, knowing things were going to get interesting.
“Bunny is my new friend from Michigan who’s staying at my hotel, and that hunk of meat is her personal trainer, Antonio. But you can just call him Beefcakes. That’s what I call him, and he seems to like it,” Grams said as she stood up and continued to wave her arms as if they hadn’t heard her cat-call whistles.
Beefcakes Antonio looked like Antonio Banderas. I had to agree, I could get used to having him around.
“After I kick whoever’s ass y’all need me to kick for this mission, Bunny and Beefcakes are taking me with ‘em to Carnival in Rio,” Grams said, leaving us to greet her friends as they finished walking the last fifty feet to our canopy.
“Oh my God,” Granny V said, making the sign of the cross across her chest, “Grams at Carnival?!”
Without a word, Vitto, Roman and I also made the sign of the cross.
I made the sign, and I’m not Catholic, I’m Buddhist. But I didn’t have time to get into a yoga pose and breathe in the richness of a much-needed downward facing dog and Namaste.
So, here we are, about to try and save our family jewels. Not Gene Simmons-style family jewels. Real royal jewels.
But, who knew The Four C’s of the gem world now included coconuts and crazy-asses, even if they were lovable crazy-asses.
Chapter Two
Our beachside picnic was in my past, as well as another sleepless night. I tried to keep my attention focused on the road ahead, a road that was taking us deep into the Amazon Rainforest.
And no, this road couldn’t be found on any of Brazil’s official maps. It’s simply one of the thousands of very narrow paths that have been cut through the country’s forest for timber logging and much more.
It’s the much more part that has me on edge.
Seeing two majestic sapphire blue macaws flying above us, I couldn’t help but begin to hum the songs from one of my fave animated movies - Rio. I love Jamie Foxx’s “Fly Love” and Taio Cruz’ “Telling the World,” so I started with those. And to Roman’s credit, he just let me have at it.
The hums soon turned into full-on, straight-from-the-soundtrack, karaoke-worthy renditions, missing only the amplification of my Mr. Microphone. These days, I’d taken to singing, and singing loud, to calm my nerves. I could carry a pretty decent tune too, so I’m sure it wasn’t total misery for Roman.
With each bar I belted out, I thought about the two blue macaws circling overhead as well as those from the movie. Okay. Yes, one in the movie was named Blu. And this region of the world is known for blue diamonds. Perhaps a bit of satire. Perhaps not. But considering the writers named the second exotic bird Jewel, I was leaning towards total satire. I also found it intriguing that in one of the fight scenes, while the smuggled birds fought their captors, what tumbled out from their beaks but rare gemstones the colors of the most brilliant of rainbows.
Coincidence?
I don’t think so.
Just as exotic birds are smuggled out from this region of the world, so are the multi-colored gems the movie producers chose to show.
Ornithologists and gemologists have a lot in common in the forests Rio calls home. They’re both struggling to save Mother Nature’s magic.
Thank the powers that be, I’d seen the birds and allowed their magnificent flights to sooth the restless energy building up inside me. By focusing on the catchy soundtrack of the film and the flight of the real birds it celebrated, I had a slightly better chance of keeping my nerves in check.
It wasn’t till my very own prince started singing along with me that I was finally able to overcome my fears.
Who knew the guy could sing?!
And wow! Talk about a voice!
He could easily have been mistaken for Josh Groban, and I’m not kidding. I could get used to a lifetime of crooning coming from this royal hottie.
“Have you considered how ironic it is that we’re venturing into the world of highly-prized gems, the same stones the ancient Egyptians as early as 2000 B.C.E. thought were symbols of life and fertility, and we’re tracking them to save our lives?” Roman asked, as he drove us to within a few hundred feet of our destination, the Sol Larga Reservation.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I have. But thanks for saying something to totally boost my confidence,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m tellin’ ya, between you and Pliny the Elder, my nerves are tied tighter than a bunch of sailors’ knots.”
“What’s Pliny got to do with it?” Roman asked, that ornery grin I loved so much back in place.
“Pliny thought the greens and blues of beryl gems were soothing, calming, and had healing powers. So, you’re both full of shit.”
“Hey, at least I always tell you the truth.”
“Well…in this case, the truth sucks, so you’re still at the top of my Shit List. How ‘bout you just keep singing?”
“Does that mean you think I can carry a tune?”
“Not bad. Not bad at all. Let’s just hope we can keep a song in our hearts and then harness some of those healing powers after we begin this mission.”
“Which would be?”
“Watch and learn, my dear,” I said, kinda’ tickled that for once I knew what to do and he didn’t.
We got out of our Jeep and waited for the two behind us to take the spots in the clearing next to ours.
R pulled in with Vitto and Granny V.
Next came Grams and Company.
“I still can’t believe you want her in on this,” I said to Roman, who was totally hidden by the dust flying everywhere caused by Grams literally sliding her Jeep in sideways next to R’s.
“Now, that woman can drive,” R said, elbowing Roman in the side.
With all the whooping and cheering goin’ on in Grams’ vehicle, you’d think she, Bunny and Beefcakes were already enjoying Rio’s Carnival. In no way, shape or form did they appear ready for the seriousness of what we were about to do.
And speaking of shape and form, just looking at the three of them approaching us was enough to make you wish you could climb a tree and watch all this from way above the rainforest floor.
There was Grams looking very Maxine again, eat shit grin and all.
Then there was the ultra-sophisticated Bunny, who wore large enough jewels she could be in some S
mithsonian coffee table book filled with photos of the museum’s gem collection and captions reading “This piece was a gift of Bunny Winston”. They were large enough gems that wearing them could also get her killed in this forest.
And yes, I shit you not, her last name was Winston, although, I don’t think she was related to Harry.
Oh, and let’s not forget Antonio Banderas’ lost twin, Beefcakes, who smiled a lot and moved like a human wall.
Well, one thing was for certain, I thought to myself, there’s no way in hell we looked like a bunch of wildcat miners, so we shouldn’t raise suspicion with the Brazilian authorities on that front.
But speaking of a front, a nice line of Brazilian federal police made their way toward us.
They were not one of my favorite greeting committees.
Chapter Three
In the last few years, more than a billion dollars – that’s right, I said billion – in diamonds and other precious gemstones have been taken from this forest. Many of the world’s largest mining companies believe our Witherspoon & Witherspoon Operations could be part of the richest mines in the world.
But they’ve got a problem.
This land belongs to the Sol Larga Indians, and mining is illegal on all of Brazil’s Indian lands.
My parent’s operation is allowed because they’re not a for-profit mining business. They mine for research and conservation.
But no matter how hard they try, even with the cooperation of the indigenous people, they can’t stop the thriving black market from pilfering the treasures these forests hold.
Thus, a special unit of Brazil’s federal police are here to attempt to keep out the wildcat miners.
“If you ask me and the Sol Larga’s Chief Valente, here comes our biggest problem,” I whispered to Roman as Police Chief Maurio Fosito moved toward us, flanked by a few of his officers.
“Usually is,” Roman answered, his jaw twitching, which meant his mind was preparing his body for trouble.
