Diamond Solitaire

by Peter Lovesey

  The car moved on a couple of blocks before anyone followed up the remark, and then it was Stein who spoke. "So why would a good company man like Leapman risk everything on the eve of their big announcement by putting out a contract on a British detective?"

  "You mean what made me a threat?" said Diamond.

  "No, I mean what made the little girl a threat? You're just a pawn in the game."

  Such offensive remarks were best treated with indifference, in Diamond's experience. "I think it has to be connected with this drug, doesn't it?" he said without betraying the slightest resentment. "PDM3 could be the jackpot of all time, as David Flexner made clear. Leapman is pushing like mad to get it licensed. We don't know yet how big his personal involvement is, but it's possible that he's seen this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and invested his own capital in the company. He must have been shattered when the Chairmanship of Manflex was bequeathed to David Flexner. As I see it, he uses his inside knowledge to get a big payday as compensation."

  "Are you saying this could be a scam, this whole thing about the drug?" asked Stein.

  "No, I think it would be difficult to fool so many people. There are all kinds of safeguards in the drugs industry. They must have had some very promising results from the preclinical trials. They couldn't fake them. But the timing is amazing, isn't it? They're ready to go public on the miraculous properties of this drug now, just when Manflex is nose-diving. The stuff has been around for twenty years."

  "He explained that," Eastland pointed out. "They didn't know it was useful until the professor started work on it."

  "But he's been working on it for some years."

  "You think they sat on it until now?"

  "I'm just trying to account for Leapman's behavior—if he really is the villain. Of course it may be that Manny Flexner knew about PDM3 and wasn't so convinced as his Vice Chairman. Manny may have put the brake on it."

  "If there is anything suspect about the drug, it won't stay secret for long," said Eastland. "Like you said, every drug company in the world will want to know the formula and scrutinize the results, not to mention the analysts who advise the stock market."

  Diamond wouldn't be shaken from his conviction that the decision within Manflex to press ahead with PDM3 had triggered the crimes they were investigating. "Yes, the results so far must be watertight, or they wouldn't risk publishing them. Let's accept that everything we've heard about the drug is true, and that it's the most exciting discovery since penicillin. Then isn't it certain—as sure as God made little green apples—that the criminal fraternity will have got to hear of the payday in prospect?"

  "The mob?"

  "The barons who run crime in this city of yours, from whatever community. They could be calling the shots."

  "Maybe," said Eastland. "Maybe." After a moment he admitted, "It's plausible."

  Sergeant Stein said wistfully, "It's a terrific payoff."

  Eastland then followed up his double "maybe" by commenting insensitively, "This is all very neat except that we're investigating a missing kid, not a killing on the stock exchange. The only link we have is that the kid's mother happens to be sponsored by Manflex."

  Of all people, Diamond didn't need reminding about Naomi, but he wasn't going to be shaken from the point he'd made. "Come on, there's ample evidence that professional crooks are involved. Mrs. Tanaka's was a contract killing. And the people who attacked me weren't amateurs."

  "So why was Mrs. Tanaka killed?" asked Sergeant Stein.

  "My guess is that she was given a job to do and she failed. They considered her untrustworthy."

  "She was expendable."

  "Just a pawn, like me."

  "How about the kid?" said Stein. "Is she expendable, too?"

  "No," said Diamond, quick to dismiss the unthinkable. "If they'd wanted to harm Naomi, they'd have done it long ago."

  "I may be dumb," said Eastland, "but nobody has explained to me yet how one small, mentally handicapped girl is so important in this case."

  Diamond had no answer. He'd long since reached the conclusion that Lieutenant Eastland was anything but dumb.

  Leapman's house was one of six in a cul-de-sac north of Hoboken, spacious two-story wooden buildings with attached garages owned (Diamond guessed) by the kind of people who couldn't yet afford a prime position overlooking Manhattan, but had their hopes. They had plaster geese on their porches and flagpoles in their lawns.

  No lights showed at the windows of the end house, but that wasn't remarkable considering that it was already 1:15 A.M. Two households were watching TV and the others were dark.

  The police car glided to a stop in the street outside the Leapman address. Diamond reached for his door handle and gasped with pain. His right arm still hurt.

  "I don't think so," Eastland told him. "You've seen enough action for one night. We have our procedures. Ready to go, Stein?"

  Submissive for a change, Diamond remained in the car and watched them approach the house, guns drawn, moving with stealth. At the front door, Stein stood well to one side when he pressed the bell, probably mindful of cops who had been shot through doors.

  The chimes were audible from the street.

  No lights went on.

  Eastland moved around the side of the house, leaving Stein, who sounded the chimes several times more without response.

  When a light did appear, it was only Eastland's flashlight bobbing around the other side, past the garage entrance. He pointed it through a front room window and beckoned to Stein to join him. They stood together staring inside for what became to Peter Diamond an unbearable interval.

  Diamond told the driver, "Blow this for a lark. They've spotted something. I'm going over."

  The action of removing himself from the car gave him another uncomfortable reminder of the strains he'd put on his physique that night. No catlike movement across the drive for him. He hobbled.

  Lieutenant Eastland turned and came towards him.

  "What have you found?" Diamond asked, but Eastland walked right past him and used the radio in the car.

  "What is it?" He was addressing Stein now, but the question was superfluous.

  Michael Leapman's front room looked as if it had stood in the path of stampeding buffaloes. The moving flashlight picked out a unit lying tilted across a sofa, with books and ornaments strewn across the floor. The television set was faceup, smashed. A chair lay across a table.

  "Is he in there?"

  "We can't see," said Stein, still with his gun drawn. "We don't know."

  "Shouldn't we go in?"

  "The lieutenant wants a backup."

  "I can provide that Have you checked all the doors? The windows?"

  "Don't get me wrong, but he wouldn't want backup from you."

  "Why not?"

  "Do you have a piece?"

  "No."

  Stein gave a shrug that said he wouldn't want backup, either, from a man without a piece.

  "Any signs of a break-in?" Diamond asked.

  "No."

  Eastland came back and reported that the Emergency Service Unit was on its way. "The perps could still be inside. I'm taking no chances."

  Diamond awaited his opportunity to sidle closer to Sergeant Stein, from whom he learned that a perp was a perpetrator. The common language had its pitfalls.

  A van was with them in six minutes, followed soon after by two cars. Armed men were sent around the side of the house. Lights were set up. There were dog-handlers and men in white overalls who spoke briefly with Eastland and then forced open the front door and went in.

  Diamond stayed close to Eastland and followed the search of the interior as it came over the personal radios. The house was unoccupied, they learned, but there were more signs of violence, including blood spots on the wall in one comer of the living room. There were bloody fingerprints on the phone, which was pulled from its socket and lying upside down on the floor. A bloodstained baseball bat was found beside it.

  "Looks like someo
ne used the phone after the victim was struck," the voice reported.

  "Or tried to," said Eastland. "Have you checked all the rooms now?"

  "Yeah. No disturbance anywhere except the living room. This doesn't look like robbery to me, Lieutenant. The drawers and cupboards are closed."

  Then a crackle of static was followed by the voice of the other searcher. "I wouldn't bet on that. His car isn't in the garage."

  "They took the car," said Easdand. He turned to Stein and asked him to get a computer check on Leapman's license plate number.

  Diamond groaned in frustration. "Can we take a look for ourselves now?"

  "Not yet. Crime Scene has to go through."

  "How long before they get here? Look, I'm not asking to tramp through the room where the assault took place. I'd like to see the rest of the house."

  "What exactly is your problem?" asked Eastland. "Not satisfied with the search?"

  "I'd like to take a look for myself, that's all."

  "There's no evidence that the perps went anywhere except the living room."

  But they wouldn't permit Diamond to step inside until an hour and twenty minutes later, after the crime scene people had been through. The possibility that Eastland was exacting some kind of revenge for the liberties Diamond had taken at the murder scene in the Firbank Hotel did occur to him at the depth of his frustration while he was waiting, but probably he was wrong. They had their procedures and they observed them rigidly. Nevertheless he was hunched and resentful as he limped about the drive.

  He was unsure what he might find, if anything. He just felt driven by some inner force. Maybe, he reflected, he'd taken to heart that advice from the librarian, to unlock his sixth sense, or right hemisphere, or whatever the man had been rabbiting on about. It wasn't easy to recall on a chilly morning.

  Eventually, the Crime Scene Unit passed on the word that, apart from the living room, the house was open to inspection. Leaving his new sneakers on the doorstep, he stepped inside with Eastland.

  "You're looking for evidence that the kid was here, aren't you?" the lieutenant said.

  "I'm keeping an open mind."

  "Yeah?"

  The lights were on all over the house. It was very much the bachelor businessman establishment, with the feel of a furniture showroom rather than a home. Leapman seemed to be a man of tidy habits who favored light oak and muted colors. The pieces of furniture had their functions, and there was little in the way of ornament, and certainly no clutter.

  "Want to start upstairs?" Eastland suggested.

  "The bedrooms."

  It wasn't entirely Diamond's sixth sense that was motivating him. If Naomi had been kept here for any appreciable time, it was likely that she would have been confined in a room out of sight of the neighbors.

  At the top of the stairs, they glanced into a couple of rooms, getting their bearings. A guest bedroom attracted Diamond's attention. It was small and it faced the back of the house. However, there was nothing to suggest anyone had occupied it. The duvet was positioned foursquare on the divan, the pillow plumped and tidy. Eastland went systematically through the chest of drawers and found only some spare bedding in the bottom drawer.

  "Satisfied?" he inquired of Diamond.

  "Almost." Intuition was prompting him strongly now, spurred on by something Julia Musgrave had said. He told Eastland, "Autistic kids quite like to hide things, toys and so on, objects that they value. If I'm right, it's just possible mat she used a hiding place she once favored before, in another place." He crouched by the bed. "It was this side last time." He slipped his hand between the mattress and the spring box of the divan with a sense of anticipation little less than Lord Caernarvon's at the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb. His fingertips had touched something solid. He took it out in triumph: a ballpoint pen. "I would say that it's ninety-nine percent certain that Naomi was here."

  "You knew it would be in there?" said Eastland.

  Elated, Diamond risked more strain on his battered body by pulling up the mattress. There may be something to intuition, but good luck is a deception. There was no drawing pad lying under the mattress. Not even a sheet of paper.

  Cause for celebration: Naomi was alive—or had been at the time she hid the pen here. Cause for concern: the trail had gone cold again; there was no telling who was holding her now. The forensic tests might provide clues, but the men in white coats always take days to report their findings.

  "Did Sergeant Stein get anything on the stolen car?" he asked Eastland.

  "Leapman's car? It was a dark blue Chevy Citation. We have the license plate number from Central. Every radio car in New York has it"

  There was nothing to detain them any longer. Knowing that he would keel over if he didn't get some sleep soon, Diamond asked for a lift to his hotel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  One can only guess at Lieutenant Eastland's thoughts next morning when he arrived at the station house to find his office occupied by Peter Diamond wearing just an unbuttoned shirt and red jockey shorts. The fat Englishman was standing with the phone anchored between his shoulder and his fleshy jowl. The desk was heaped with clothes, some discarded, some obviously back from the cleaner. Judging by the clutter of phone books, notepads, pens and screwed-up tissues, he had been installed there for some time. "Beef, for a start," he was saying. "Have you got beef? ... Right. What else? Liver, I should think. Lamb, yes ... Well, as much as you can manage at short notice ... Excellent. How soon? ... Oh, give me strength! I'm talking about lunchtime today. . . . Yes, today ... Right, I know you will. I'll call you back around noon.... One o'clock, then. No later." He put down the phone. "Morning, Lieutenant. Did you oversleep?"

  Eastland regarded him with glazed, red-lidded eyes.

  Diamond told him, "My clothes came back."

  "So I see."

  "There's just time to get down to the Sheraton Center."

  Eastland said, "This used to be my office."

  Diamond announced in the same up-lads-and-at-'em tone, "The conference opens at eleven."

  "Conference?"

  "Manflex. Remember? This is the big one, when they unveil the wonder drug. David Flexner will be there and so will Professor Churchward. We've got to be there."

  "Who do you mean—weT

  "You and I. Sergeant Stein as well if you want."

  Eastland ran his fingertips down the side of his face as if to discover whether he'd shaved yet "The Sheraton Center, you said?"

  "Seventh Avenue and Fifty-third."

  "I know where the Sheraton is," Eastland said in a growl.

  "Snap it up, then."

  "Diamond, you have all the finesse of a sawed-off shotgun."

  To be charitable to Eastland, he hadn't seen Diamond so animated before. The Englishman was unstoppable. Within three minutes they were in a car heading downtown.

  "I've been turning things over in my mind," Diamond said, as if to explain the transformation. "Last night, the scene at Leapman's house seemed all wrong."

  "Wrong?"

  "What we found."

  "The ballpoint?"

  Diamond stared in surprise at the lieutenant. "No. The ballpoint wasn't wrong. That was a genuine find. Just about everything else was wrong."

  "For instance?"

  "The damage to the front room. It looked impressive at first, as if there'd been a fight, but what did it amount to in breakages? One smashed TV screen. The shelf unit had tipped across the sofa and some books and things were on the floor, a chair was overturned and lying across a table and that was it"

  "The phone was pulled from its socket," Eastland added.

  'True—but it wasn't damaged. To me, the scene looked as if it had been staged by a rather fastidious owner who didn't want to damage his living room more than was necessary."

  "You think that was staged?"

  "I think it's more than likely."

  "Aren't you forgetting the bloodstains?"

  "No, I haven't forgotten them. First, consider th
e state of the bedroom where the child was held. Immaculate—apart from the ballpoint There was no other evidence that Naomi had ever been there. Not so much as a hair on the pillow. Wouldn't you expect some sign that she'd been removed from there in a hurry?"

  "Maybe she was already downstairs when the fight started," said Eastland.

  "Dressed in her coat and shoes and everything? They're not in the house."

  "Whoever took the kid must have taken her things."

  "Picked them up with his bloodstained hands and helped her into her coat? Does it sound likely?"

  "Do you have a better explanation?" asked Eastland.

  "Then there's the matter of the car," Diamond continued as if the question hadn't been put. "How did the assailant—what do you call him, the prep?—how did he travel to the house. On foot? If he came in a car, where is it, because he couldn't have driven two vehicles away from the house after the attack."

  "Two perps," said Eastland doggedly. "One drove his car, one drove Leapman's."

  'Taking Leapman with him?"

  "Yeah."

  "All right—then why was it necessary to take Leapman as well as the child?"

  "Maybe they killed him. There's enough blood, for sure. They got rid of the body."

  'To hinder your investigation, do you mean?"

  "Sure," said Eastland. "They carried him to the garage, loaded him in the car and then opened the garage door and drove out with the body in the back. That way they avoided carrying him out into the street in the view of the neighbors."

  "And that's how you see it?"

  "Do you have a better explanation?" Eastland asked for the second time.

  "Let me take you back a bit," said Diamond. "Leapman definitely took the child to his house at some stage. We found the ballpoint where I said it would be. We agree on that, right?"

  "Uh huh."

  "Look at this from Leapman's point of view. Yesterday when David Flexner arranged to meet me at the ferry, Leapman was listening. Either the office or the phone was bugged. He has links with organized crime and he alerted his criminal friends and asked them to meet me and dispose of me, while he created a smoke alarm diversion at Manflex Headquarters to delay David Flexner. Is that a reasonable inference from the facts as we know them?"