34 - The Queen's Jewels

by Fletcher, Jessica

  I said through a sardonic laugh, “Our novel is now taking shape quite nicely, isn’t it?”

  There were verbal agreements from members of the audience, and one gentleman in the second-row center loudly asked, “Do you know the ending before you start writing?”

  “I usually have a good idea when I start how the pieces will fall into place at the end, but the story and some of the characters often go off in their own directions as the writing progresses. But in the case of this particular novel, I’ve come to conclusions that will form the basis of my dénouement. Sometimes I struggle to reach this point, but in this instance I believe that a resolution has become clear.”

  “So?” the same man asked. “Who did the dastardly deed?”

  His question spawned laughter.

  “I’ll be getting to that,” I said. “But before I do, let’s add another dollop of drama to the story. The murder victim on the ship—I haven’t decided what name to give my fictional character in the novel—is accompanied by a beautiful woman. Naturally she’s bereft at the death of her companion, as any of us would be.”

  I looked down at Betty, who glared at me. She started to get up, but one of the bodyguards placed his large hand on her arm and gently restrained her.

  “I’m sure the real woman upon whom I’ve based my character won’t take offense at being used as a model for my fictitious character, which, as I’ve said, is only a creative exercise on my part.”

  I waited for the buzz to fade.

  “It struck me that it would enhance my novel if such a beautiful woman was not only romantically involved with the murder victim on the ship but also his partner. She’d been having an affair with the owner of the Heart of India, and had been the woman in his study the night he was killed. Of course, that would make her an accomplice to the crime. Why would she do it? If my flight of literary fancy is correct, she would likely be the recipient of money generated from the private sale of the Heart of India, because such a treasure could never come onto the open market unless it was recut, significantly lowering its value.”

  I stole a glance at Jennifer Kahn and Kiki Largent, neither of whom seemed to be contemplating leaving. Good! The Kensingtons sat placidly, Richard with his perpetual scowl, slumped in his seat, and Marcia nervously fiddling with the strap of the binoculars that she seemed never to be without, although she hadn’t raised them to get a better look at me.

  “Let’s see,” I said. “Where was I? Oh, yes, once I’ve decided to move forward with a plot that involves a beautiful woman, I then have to decide how to structure the spiriting of the stolen Heart of India and the other jewels out of Great Britain. A friend of mine, an intelligence agent, told me that some jewel thieves these days prefer to travel with their contraband on ships rather than by air. That makes sense. Ships like this, with more than two thousand passengers, make it relatively easier to get lost. Of course, that doesn’t guarantee unimpeded passage, but the odds against being intercepted are more favorable than going through, say, Heathrow or Kennedy airports.

  “Savvy, professional jewel thieves, not your garden-variety burglars, continuously seek ways to stack the deck in their favor, pardon the pun. Before boarding this ship for the crossing to New York, I was given a DVD of a new documentary about the smuggling of drugs from Africa into the United Kingdom. One of the smugglers was interviewed on camera, his face blurred of course. He said one of the most effective ways to avoid interception by authorities is to choose individuals to carry the drugs—they call them ‘mules’—who are least likely to be suspected of engaging in such behavior. That makes sense to me, and if I were smuggling drugs—or stolen jewelry—I would certainly follow that advice, which means that’s how I would have the jewel thieves in my novel do it.”

  My gaze dropped to the seat usually occupied by Harry Flynn and across the sea of other faces. Harry had attended each of my previous lectures, but I didn’t see him in the audience for this one. Since he hadn’t appeared at dinner, I wondered if he wasn’t feeling well. I hoped that wasn’t the case and that he’d simply decided to eat elsewhere and try his hand again at the casino’s craps table. I did, however, see another familiar face in the crowd. Rupesh had entered the planetarium and stood near Michael Haggerty and Uri Peretz. He was out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Did room stewards get an evening off?

  “Is everyone still following me?” I asked.

  A chorus of “Yes” answered my question.

  “Good. So far I’ve put together the elements for a pretty solid murder-mystery novel, or, as my British friends prefer to term them, ‘crime novels.’ It has everything going for it—a beautiful woman, ruthless killers, expensive diamonds and other precious gems, terrorists, and government intelligence agencies—and I’m now ready to start writing. But—”

  The gentleman in the second row interrupted again. “But do you know how it ends before you start?” he repeated.

  I paused for effect, cocked my head, placed an index finger on my chin, and replied, “Yes, I think I know how it ends.”

  That answer fostered a flurry of comments between members of the audience.

  Richard Kensington stood and yanked at his girlfriend’s arm.

  “You aren’t leaving, are you?” I said, directing my comment at them.

  Everyone turned to see whom I was addressing.

  “Before you go,” I added, “you might want to hand over the binoculars you’re wearing to one of the uniformed crew members stationed at the doors.”

  Richard pulled Marcia to her feet and tried to drag her up the aisle. She dug in her heels and said, “No! I won’t do it anymore!”

  Richard released his grip and proceeded toward an exit but was stopped by the ship’s security crew. He struggled, but they easily subdued him, one on either side, his arms firmly in their grip.

  “Why don’t you come up here with me,” I said to Marcia.

  The commotion had left audience members in the dark, and they verbalized their confusion. I waited for Marcia, who now stood trembling in the aisle, to decide what to do. Slowly, using the backs of seats to steady herself, she approached the podium. When she drew near the podium, she halted, her expression fearful.

  “May I?” I said, holding out my hand.

  Slowly she lifted the strap that held the binoculars from around her neck, and placed them in my hand. I glanced at Jennifer and Kiki, who sat with Stanton. I expected some sound of protest from either of them, but they remained silent.

  I faced the audience again and held up the binoculars. “In the novel I’m writing, I’ve decided that these binoculars will have a function aside from bringing things closer. If I’m wrong, then, well, I’ll have to come up with a different ending.”

  People leaned forward in their seats as I fiddled with the twin lenses in search of a way to open them. One wouldn’t budge, but the other opened easily. I unscrewed it, tipped it over my open hand, and let out an involuntary gasp when my fingers closed over a small black velvet pouch.

  “What is it?” someone yelled.

  I emptied the pouch and held up the blue stone. The Heart of India caught the spotlights trained on the podium and set off a dazzling light show, a breathtaking display of brilliance and fire. Oohs and aahs filled the spacious planetarium. One voice cut through. “Is that real?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s the Heart of India, the diamond stolen in London, the one a man was killed for, that man who was the partner of the murder victim on this ship.” I motioned to a pair of security guards, who took possession of the diamond and the binoculars and, accompanied by the Queen’s purser, left to secure them in the ship’s safe until the ship docked in New York and they could be handed over to the proper authorities.

  I waited for the multiple voices to wane before continuing. “In order to be fair to my readers, I’m obliged to explain how I came to suspect the binoculars might be used for more than their usual purpose. This young woman, like many of us, was eager to look out over the w
aves in hopes of catching a glimpse of whales or dolphins. I’d noticed that whenever she raised the binoculars to her eyes, she would look over them, more than through them. That struck me as odd, although I might not have connected it with the theft of the Heart of India had it not been for the behavior of her male companion, Richard Kensington.

  “Richard and Marcia were posing as honeymooners. Why would they do that? Remember the DVD I mentioned, the one about smuggling drugs? If I were smuggling a diamond aboard this ship, who would be the perfect person to carry it, someone considered unlikely to become involved in such a nefarious undertaking? A honeymooning couple! How perfect.

  “Of course, I have to come up with a reason for this person to have agreed to smuggle something in the first place. Richard held the clue. What if he’s the disgruntled son of the executive director of an insurance company, the insurance company that held the policy for a famous diamond? What better way to get even with a parent you hate than by taking something that will hurt him both personally and professionally? And the bonus is getting paid handsomely at the same time by the jewel thieves? That works for me.”

  I turned to Marcia, whose crying had subsided. “How much were you being paid to pretend to be married to Richard?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t being paid,” she said. “I love Richard. We really are engaged to be married; we’re just not married yet.”

  “You jerk!” Richard Kensington shouted. “You stupid—I was never going to marry you.” A yank on both his arms by the security officers ended his tirade.

  Marcia flew up the aisle after him. “You promised! Don’t call me a jerk. I’ll tell them everything I know about you.” She trailed after Richard and the officers as they escorted him out, screaming at her former fiancé.

  I said softly to the audience, “Characters in my novels often do things for love that all the money in the world wouldn’t entice them to do.”

  An audience member spoke up: “So he and his girlfriend stole the diamond from the character in your novel and killed him.” Another asked, “Is she the beautiful woman you referred to earlier?”

  “Bear with me a little longer. We’re not finished yet,” I replied. “No, in my novel, this young man and his love-struck girlfriend only serve to smuggle the Heart of India into the U.S., hiding the diamond in plain sight in a pair of binoculars, as common a tourist accessory as you can find. They aren’t murderers; they were the mules. It’s very possible he had her carry the diamond so that if they were intercepted by customs agents, she’d take the rap, and he could claim to know nothing about the gem.”

  A few people booed Kensington, evidently not for being involved in the scheme but for his lack of concern for Marcia.

  “So,” someone said, “who killed the passenger and the guy in London who owned the diamond?”

  I looked at Kiki Largent and Jennifer Kahn. “Would you like to help me answer that question?” I asked them.

  Without warning, Kiki scrambled over Stanton and ran up the aisle in the direction of Haggerty and Peretz, who braced to intercept her. But she stopped short of them, grabbed a young blond woman from her aisle seat by the hair, and pulled her into the aisle. Kiki then pulled a knife from beneath her black sweater and held it to the woman’s throat.

  “Get out of my way,” she snarled at Haggerty and Peretz.

  “Don’t be foolish, Kiki,” I said into the microphone. “We’re at sea. There’s no place you can go.”

  “Move!” Kiki told Haggerty and Peretz.

  “Let her go,” Haggerty said.

  Kiki’s answer was to pull the terrified young woman closer and to hold the knife up to her face. “You move or she dies,” Kiki said.

  Haggerty and Peretz held up their hands as a gesture that they were complying and stepped aside. Members of the ship’s security staff did the same as Kiki maneuvered her hostage, whose face reflected her abject fear, toward the closest exit. I came down from the podium and approached Betty. “You don’t understand,” she said to me.

  I ignored her, content that those with her wouldn’t allow her to leave, and went up the opposite aisle to the back. Rupesh looked at me but said nothing. Kiki appeared to be unsure of what to do next. She’d reached the exit doors but hesitated.

  “Don’t compound what you’ve done by hurting an innocent bystander,” I said.

  Kiki’s square face was a mask of anger and resolve, lips a thin, tight line, eyes wide as though reacting to a harsh light, the knife’s steel blade reflecting the planetarium’s lights. The hundreds of men and women in the audience looked on in shock as the tableau played itself out.

  “We can take her,” I heard a security officer say to a colleague.

  “Please don’t,” I said. “It’s not worth the risk; we don’t want anyone hurt.”

  Kiki made her next move. She herded the woman out the door and into the reception area. We followed—Haggerty, Peretz, Rupesh, an assortment of uniformed officers, and me. Kiki headed for the elevators off Stairway A, which wasn’t far. Passengers who stood waiting for an elevator gasped as they saw Kiki and her hostage appear, and ran from the area.

  The elevator arrived. Other passengers stepped from it, only to be confronted by a woman dressed in black holding a knife to the throat of a young blonde. They got out of the way as Kiki forced the woman into the elevator and pressed a button. The doors slid closed. We watched as the numbers above the doors indicated her ascent—four, five, six, and seven, where it stopped. Security officers ran up the stairs, followed by Rupesh. Haggerty and I frantically pushed the up button. Seconds later the empty second elevator arrived and we got in it. I pushed seven; the trip to Deck Seven seemed to take an eternity.

  We reached it and stepped out. Kiki now held the woman against one of the heavy doors leading to the outside promenade. You didn’t have to be outdoors to know that we were in the midst of a raging storm. Harry’s prediction of a gale was accurate. Violent streaks of lightning reaching from the sky to the ocean cast bizarre slashes of light. The wind picked up the rain and flung it against windows and doors and sent anything loose on the deck flapping, as though the Queen Mary 2 were being whipped by an angry god.

  Our collective impotence was palpable. All we could do was stand and watch. Kiki had the upper hand. I didn’t have a doubt that she would go through with her threat to kill the blond woman if anyone tried to take the knife from her and wrestle her to the ground. But where could she go?

  My mind raced. Would this saga that had resulted in two murders end with a third?

  I pleaded with Kiki to let the woman go.

  “Shut up!” she said. With that, she pushed the woman against the door with such force that it opened against the wind’s fury; windswept rain blew through the opening, spraying Kiki and her hostage.

  They were gone, out the door and to the deck, where in fair weather thousands of happy passengers enjoyed the exhilarating experience of soaking in the vast Atlantic Ocean’s vistas.

  Everyone looked at one another, confused as to what to do.

  Rupesh bolted from my side, raced to the door, laid his weight against it, and tumbled out onto Deck Seven, where Kiki stood at the railing holding the blonde from behind, one arm around her neck, the other pressing the knife against her temple. She saw Rupesh in her peripheral vision and turned, the woman between her and him. He extended his hand to Kiki. Although we couldn’t hear what he said, it was obvious that he was attempting to coax her to give up.

  “Somebody help him,” a security officer said.

  Before anyone could react to his order, Kiki pointed the knife at Rupesh and loosened her grip. The blond woman broke free and threw herself across the deck away from her captor. That left Kiki, who held the knife, and a weaponless Rupesh. We watched with trepidation as Rupesh stepped closer to her. The security officers went into action and burst through the door. But they were too late. Rupesh had grabbed Kiki’s wrist when she lunged at him with the knife; he twisted her arm and flipped her onto
her back on the deck. The officers swarmed on top of her, pulled her to her feet, secured her arms behind her, and led her inside, followed by a dripping wet Rupesh, his arm supporting an equally wet, but very relieved and grateful, ex-hostage.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Fifth Day at Sea

  It seemed I’d just gotten to bed at three o’clock that morning when my wake-up call sounded at seven. I resisted the temptation to answer the phone, hang up, and climb back under the covers. Instead, I staggered through my morning ablutions and emerged from the shower partially refreshed and somewhat ready for a new day.

  Kiki Largent had been secured in the ship’s brig for the duration of the crossing, which would end in New York early the following morning. That such a genteel giant as the Queen Mary 2 would have a brig came as a surprise to some, but it makes sense. On any given day the ship contains more than two thousand passengers and a thousand-plus crew members, the population of a small city. Rare as a seagoing crime is, having a secure facility in which to hold lawbreakers is a pragmatic necessity.

  Betty LeClair proclaimed her innocence and balked at being sequestered in her suite with two crew members guarding her door twenty-four hours a day. There was no legal mechanism under which to charge her while at sea, and she posed a dilemma to the ship’s senior officers. But Haggerty used his MI6 intelligence credentials to establish priority and called the shots when it came to handling the various suspects. He alerted law enforcement officials in New York and London that there were individuals aboard with possible (and plausible) connections to two murders, as well as to the theft of the Heart of India and other recent jewelry heists.

  Richard Kensington and his former fiancée and reluctant accomplice, Marcia, were sequestered in their cabin with guards to enforce that decree. But Marcia refused to stay with him—I applaud her for that—and was given a separate cabin in which to spend the final day and night of the crossing.

  Jennifer Kahn posed a different sort of problem. Although she and Kiki traveled together, there was scant evidence to link her to any of the crimes, including the murder of Walter Yang and the theft of his Heart of India diamond. Marcia had been kept in the dark as to who else was involved in the conspiracy. Richard kept mum as to who recruited him to be the carrier of the diamond. Jennifer vehemently denied any knowledge of the jewel theft and expressed dismay that her “dear Kiki” could have murdered anyone. Apparently she was secure in the knowledge that her assistant would continue to protect her, even at the risk of her own life and liberty.