Death By Diamonds Part 15

"I apologize for posing as a Wings delivery man?"

"And for stealing the truck?"

"I work at Wings between acting jobs," Zachary admitted. "We returned the truck."

"We?" I asked turning to Phoebe. "Aha! You wore the missing red wig from Dom's dressing room, didn't you, Miss Muir, in my shop that day?"

Phoebe Muir's face got pink. "Yes, yes, it was me." "And you, Mr. Taggart, were my dreadfully overcostumed customer that morning."

"Guilty," Taggart, Dom's former leading man, said with a voice that could rival James Earl Jones. He looked older up close, not quite as perfectly das.h.i.+ng as his publicity photos, though his voice would carry the day in any musical.

"What was the point of that exercise?" I asked the three caballeros.

"Dom said you might be in danger after we got the gown to you," Phoebe said. "I thought we'd stick around to make sure that whoever stole the diamonds didn't follow us."

I straightened. "I'm listening."

Phoebe looked down and toyed with the ta.s.sel on her Givenchy Ombre before she looked up at me. "Something was very wrong around here, obviously, but Dominique wouldn't tell me what. She only told me to get that box to you if something happened to her. I knew she'd worked on the dress. I was afraid she was sending you the diamonds to protect them from being stolen."

I didn't tell them that those were not diamonds on the dress. I would have noticed that right away. Granted, I was sh.e.l.l-shocked, but I know a diamond when I see one.

"Our idea," Zachary said, "was to keep the diamonds out of the thief's hands. Well, thief or thieves."

"Do you know, or suspect, who the thief or thieves might have been?"

"No," Phoebe said, and the two brothers shook their heads. No suspects, then.

I twirled the tie at the neck of Coco's dress. "So you don't know who you were trying to protect me from?"

Phoebe shrugged and by the look of her, she felt foolish. "'Fraid not."

"I'm glad you didn't try to tackle our local detective," I said.

"We could tell you knew him," Taggart said. "He's here with you, right?"

"Yes, he's with my parents. I mean my father and my aunt. Hey, if you're brothers, why don't you have the same last names?"

"We're actors," Zachary said. "Stage names."

Well, that made sense, I thought. "Have you shared your suspicions about the diamond theft with the police?"

"Uh, no," Phoebe said. "There was the matter of Zack borrowing his truck without permission and driving it over a state line."

"I'm sure that Dominique is smiling down on you for a great try. I a.s.sume, since you left the Wings truck, you took the train home?"

"Not exactly," Phoebe said. "Lance and I followed the Wings truck down to Connecticut in Lance's car. After we dropped the truck off, Zack and I took the train home and-"

"I drove up north to visit a friend in New Hamps.h.i.+re," Taggart added.

Kyle caught up with us, shook hands with Lance and Zachary, hugged Phoebe, and put his arm possessively around Eve. "Madeira figured out your little scheme, didn't she?" Kyle said, his gaze skimming the three of them. "I told you she would."

So, Kyle knew what they were up to? Why had he said he couldn't find the gown Dom meant for me, then?

Thirty-one.

Tradition doesn't make for fas.h.i.+on. What matters is the architecture of the garment and that architecture has to be international.

-CHANTAL ROUSSEAU The Pierpont house was a man's manse, a tribute to the arts and crafts movement. Tiffany chandeliers like the Acorn, the Daffodil, and the Curtain Border were perfectly placed, not to mention the Grande Peony floor lamp. The priceless collection set the scene as the lamps accented authentic, antique mission-style furniture, their cus.h.i.+ons upholstered in original earth-toned leathers.

Taupe shutters on tall, churchlike Gothic windows sat open and invited the sun to nourish the larger than life vegetation inside.

Stained-gla.s.s windows flanked the ma.s.sive golden oak front door, arched at the top with straight sides, they filtered light through an entry of hanging wisteria.

Priceless art deco accents complemented the huge rooms with coordinating oriental carpets playing off each other in greens, tans, siennas, and gingers. Art pieces of bronze and copper heralded the wealth of the Pierpont Diamond Mines.

In other words, holding the reception here had nothing to do with kindness and everything to do with showing off.

Maids and butlers circulated with trays of hot beverages and a "light" offering of shrimp c.o.c.ktail, filet mignon, and lobster tails. "I sense that Pierpont would have preferred to serve champagne but doesn't dare because it'll seem more like a celebration than a wake," I whispered to Eve.

Eve looked at Kyle. "Why did Pierpont hire your mother if he didn't like her?"

"Pierpont's father, Victor, hired my mother. Victor died two weeks ago and already Pierce, the son, was closing the show."

Now I understood the closing, but I was beginning to doubt that it was losing money. It didn't matter because when the public swarms a ticket counter and buys the show out, the d.a.m.n thing stays open. Pierpont would be crazy to close it now.

"After last night, he has reason to celebrate," Werner said, thinking along the same lines. "He's gonna make money hand over fist with his new leading lady."

"Speaking of whom." Eve pointed with her fork. "Is that her on Pierpont's arm?"

I raised a brow. "That didn't take long."

Werner sipped his espresso. "Unless their relations.h.i.+p started before Dominique was killed. Mad," Werner said, "add Pierpont to your suspect list."

"Thank you for your guidance, but I'm way ahead of you."

Pierpont and Ursula, Dom's former understudy approached us. "Care for a tour of the house?" the new star of Diamond Sands asked, acting like the hostess with no complaint from Pierpont. Do tell.

"Let's start upstairs," she said. "I love our suite."

She wanted us, Dominique's friends, to know that they, the show's backer and understudy, were sleeping together. Weird kind of misplaced pride that showed how dumb she was.

Well, maybe it was just the little girl from the wrong side of the tracks acting like she'd won the lottery.

Pierpont would have to rub that s.h.i.+ny new-money glow off Ursula and fast, introduce her to a little social grace, or she'd tarnish his perfect, old-money patina.

Their suite was indeed spectacular, I thought as we finished the tour. But after the second floor, I wanted more. "What's up those stairs?" I asked.

Pierce winced. "My father's rooms. They're a wreck."

"I haven't met him yet," I said, playing dumb.

Pierce looked pained but he was a bad actor. "For the simple fact that my father isn't with us any longer."

"a.s.sisted living?" Eve asked, as if we'd rehea.r.s.ed.

"No, Ms. Meyers, my father pa.s.sed away."

"Quite recently," Galina Lockhart said. "Wasn't it like last month or something?"

"Two weeks ago," Ian DeLong corrected, having tagged along for the tour. "I remember because Dominique needed consoling after Victor's death."

I scoffed beneath my breath, which Ian heard and seemed to take as an insult.

Again, he was telling a half-truth, except that there was more, and less, to it. Dominique was inconsolable, I knew from being inside her skin, and Ian would not have been her choice of consolation in any case.

Kyle's expression said he agreed with my a.s.sessment, while Ian tried to take Ursula from Pierpont and failed. Weird that.

"What did your father die of?" I asked Pierpont.

"Cancer. He fought the good fight for twenty years, but it got him in the end. It came more as a relief that he was out of pain than a surprise."

Kyle's lips firmed. I'd have to ask him why later. "Can we see the top floor?" Eve asked.

"I'm afraid not. My father's rooms are in the midst of being brought back to life."

"Too bad the same can't be said of your father," Kyle muttered, and Pierpont gave him a look so filled with venom that even Ursula stepped back.

So, I thought, there was bad blood between Victor's son and Dominique's son. Perhaps that's why they kept their feelings to themselves.

Thirty-two.

Accessories are what, in my opinion, pull the whole look together and make it unique.

-YVES SAINT LAURENT We'd collected quite a group of interested celebrities during the course of the tour, so it wasn't hard for me to slip into a bathroom and pull Eve inside. I wouldn't be missed for a while.

"Now what are you up to?" Eve asked, as she checked her hair in the mirror.

I refreshed my lipstick. "I want to take a look upstairs."

Eve finger-plucked her hair spikes. "I think it's pretty clear Pierpont doesn't want us up there."

"Which is exactly why we should go, don't you think? You are my a.s.sistant sleuth, are you not?"

"Only when it's convenient. Werner and Kyle will notice that we left the group."

"Fine, so they can keep each other company. Shh." I held my hand in front of my lips and kept it there while the group walked back down the hall toward the stairs to the main floor. "They're gone," I whispered and cracked the bathroom door open.

Looking both ways, we sprinted across the hall and up the forbidden stairs. We wouldn't have wanted to go up there quite so badly, if Pierce Pierpont hadn't spent so much time explaining why we shouldn't.

All the doors off that hall were closed, so we opened them one by one. I laughed. "A bathroom with avocado fixtures. Sixties/seventies," I said. "I prefer harvest gold myself."

"My parents still have a blue bathroom upstairs," Eve said, "and a gray one down. Everything in the Meyers house was bought on sale after the color went out of style. It's my mother's way."

"I love your mother."

"So do I. Hey, this room has a bar in it with a collection of vintage bar signs, German beer steins, and a pool table. Wanna play?"

"No, we have to snoop," I said.

"Shh. Werner will hear you. Do you think this gorgeous old jukebox works?"

"If it doesn't, Tunney could fix it."

"Our meat cutter fixes jukeboxes?"

"Yep. He's a man of many talents."

Eve opened another door. "Oh," she said. "I'm going cross-eyed."

"What is it?"

"You've heard of the robe of many colors? Well, this is the den of many colors."

I caught up to her, but I stopped before I entered the room. Deja vu all over again.

We were standing in the Mod Squad living room from my vision in the theater, the one in which Dominique had been wearing the gold-and-brown brocade Victorian gown and talking to Deep Throat, who I surmised to be exercising with a Hula-hoop around the corner there.

Striped walls in blues, lime, and mauve, a modern half sofa covered in huge, almost-bouncing 3D-type polka dots and rings in nearly the same colors.

Up close, the combination nearly made me seasick. I rounded the infernal corner beyond which I was unable to see that day, and that's where I found the exercise equipment. Hanging on the wall, Hula-hoops, two of them. Above them hung needleworked plaques. One said "Dom's" and one said "Vic's." Seemed more like a lifetime love, someone to grow old with.

It was the comment about stealing the diamonds that didn't make sense to me anymore, especially now. Victor owned the diamond mines. Why steal them? No wonder Dominique had scoffed.

Wait, if Deep Throat was Victor, he said his cancer was gone. Had he been fooling himself? Or had someone used his cancer as a cover-up for his death?

Had Victor, like Dominique, been murdered?