Death By Diamonds Part 24

"I'll let you know when we need it. Now please keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, how determined Ms. DeLong was that I relate this information at this point in the proceedings.

"Kyle DeLong is aware of the information I'm about to impart. His mother shared that with him at the time her will was altered. Please remember that I'm reading this in Dominique's words. 'Friends and parasites: I met the man I would love until the end of my days some time after my husband, Ian DeLong, and my former friend, Galina Lockhart, had an affair and brought their daughter Ursula into the world.' "

Galina screamed, Ursula gasped, and Ian put his fist through the wall. n.o.body moved to do a thing about his b.l.o.o.d.y fist.

" 'Victor Pierpont,' Ms. DeLong goes on to say, 'is the father of my son, Kyle.' " The attorney looked up. "Jed, the computer?"

There was Kyle's birth certificate flashed on the flat screen TV for everyone to see.

"Ugh!" Ursula said. "I used to think that my half brother was cute!"

"Thank you, I think," Kyle said, looking at Ursula both surprised and repulsed.

"He's not your half brother," I said, thinking I'd been right, she wouldn't be able to spell "motive" if her life depended on it. "Ian is not his father."

"Thank G.o.d," Ursula said, and I half expected her to snap her bubble gum.

"Mr. Pierpont, as you can count, you must realize that your half brother Kyle is your father's eldest son. That information notwithstanding, it was your father's and Ms. DeLong's initial intention to leave the company in your care, so as not to disrupt company stock and hurt the shareholders. But since you fought to separate them in every way imaginable, the couple married without your knowledge and interference." Yacovone nodded at his a.s.sistant. "Jed?"

There it was, Dom's and Victor's marriage license, dated two years before, and signed by a priest from a New York City church, witnessed by Phoebe Muir and Alfred Higgins.

" 'For their service to me,' Ms. DeLong states, 'I leave Alfred Higgins and Phoebe Muir each a quarter of a million dollars, and a vice presidency in DeLong Ltd.' "

Ian put another hole in the wall.

Kyle stood. "Officers, if you would be so kind as to restrain that man?"

Ian swore a blue streak when they did.

"Attorney Yacovone," I said, "please explain what Ms. DeLong's marriage means to Mr. Pierce Pierpont."

"I have a note here from Ms. DeLong for Mr. Pierpont." He picked it up. " 'Dear Pierce. Your father and I chose not to go public with our marriage so as not to rock the company boats, both Pierpont Diamond Mines and DeLong Ltd. We had our images to protect. Playful, free, eternal partygoers. That image spoke about our lives and the lives of those who bought our products. It suited us, this mating game of ours. We loved a party where we danced for the public, then went home secretly together. That was, for us, pure marital bliss.

" 'I could have gone public when your father pa.s.sed. I could have taken the diamond mines away from you, then, but I gave you a chance to redeem yourself. Then I didn't like what I saw and the horror I began to suspect. As the wife of Victor Pierpont, I am now claiming the diamond mines and leaving the company to my son, Kyle DeLong Pierpont, the name my son will soon legally hold.' "

Pierce Pierpont went wild, swearing, furious and mad in the truest sense of the word.

The police stepped in and restrained him, too.

"What are you doing?" Pierce shouted. "I'll have your badges for this!"

"Mr. Pierpont," Attorney Yacovone said. "Dr. Barkley Simmons, the oncologist you paid to falsify your father's death certificate, has confessed to taking your bribe. He admitted that he showed you how to inject a deadly amount of insulin into your father to end his life. He is, what we call in the business, an eyewitness, and he's turned state's evidence."

The police cuffed Pierpont while he looked daggers Kyle's way.

"Pierce," I said. "Don't forget your coat." I threw the black Armani trench coat at him, the coat he wore when he saw Dom switch the jars of body glue, before he gave away her suspicion to the others and arranged for the jars to be switched, again.

"Pierce Pierpont," one of the officers said, "you're under arrest for the murder of Victor Pierpont. You have the right to remain silent . . ."

Pierce's face went a deep ruddy red. "The h.e.l.l you say!"

Forty-nine.

The first time you see everything put together you finally say, "Oh my G.o.d, it works!" Because it has been a long process, when it is finished you think, "Finally, it is done!"

-VIVIENNE TAM I stood up and faced the group. "Before we go any further with the reading of the will, I asked Attorney Yacovone for his indulgence. And if you'd all bear with me, I'll try to make my intentions clear."

I went to stand before Rainbow Joy, who I'd psychically envisioned being coerced into partic.i.p.ating in Dominique's murder, because I wore her robe by accident, or by universal design, or by Dom's design.

Rainbow, the ace up my sleeve, had had tears falling down her cheeks through this whole procedure. She trembled when I stopped in front of her. Yes!

"Rainbow, you were the first one to get to Dom after she collapsed onstage. Will you please tell us what happened?"

She began to weep. "When the curtain closed, I saw how purple, blotchy, and painful Dominique's face looked, so I took the diamonds off her to relieve her pain, but there were people all around us and I don't know what happened to the diamonds."

"I'm more interested in why you took the diamonds off her, first thing, no gla.s.s of water, no cool towel for what looked like a burn . . ."

"She was in so much pain, and she couldn't breathe."

"Why couldn't she breathe?"

"Because she was allergic to peanuts."

"Before you say anything more," I warned Rainbow, "you should know that Dominique intended for you to have the same bequest as Phoebe and Higgins, but you and I both know why you shouldn't get it, don't we?"

Rainbow shook her head and covered her face with her hands.

I watched the other three murderers: Ian, Galina, and Lance Taggart. Tense faces, sneers, tics. Straight backs. Held breaths.

"What happened to her, Rainbow, to Dominique, the woman who thought of you as a daughter? You didn't want to do it, did you?"

Rainbow glanced up at me then with a questioning look.

"You think people don't talk?" I asked. "You think they don't try to point fingers to take the blame away from themselves?"

Okay, so I was lying. For a good cause.

"I warned you to go back to Connecticut!" Rainbow snapped.

"I know you did with a frightening phone call." I caught Werner's eye. "Tell me what happened, Rainbow. Dom deserved better than she got, especially from you."

Rainbow wiped her face and told us every detail: about being coerced, her head being pushed down and forward by Ian, about the peanuts being left in the body glue overnight for their oily poison to taint the glue, then how they sorted it into small, lethal jars the next morning for spares and for Dominique to use that night. Rainbow also told us who else partic.i.p.ated in the plan to put peanuts in Dom's body glue.

Ursula fainted when her mother's name was mentioned. Each of the other murderers, Ian, Dom's ex; Galina, her rival; and Lance, her leading man; got cuffed as Rainbow named them.

"What do you think happened to the diamonds?" I asked Rainbow.

"I can fill in one puzzle piece," Nick said as Rainbow got cuffed, as well. "Gregor Zukovski caught wind of the plan, kept his mouth shut, had an ambulance ready, grabbed what he thought were the diamonds, and had friends of his pretend to be paramedics and move Dominique to the ambulance. That was their getaway," Nick said.

"Zukovski was working independently of the murderers. The rest of them expected Galina to put the diamonds on Dom's seafoam gown and mail it to you, Mad."

I focused on Galina. "Why didn't you tell your partners, the three people with whom you were going to split the value of those diamonds, that they'd disappeared before you could affix them to the seafoam gown?"

"They're murderers," she said.

"So you were afraid for your life?"

"Of course."

"Guess what?" I said. "You're a murderer, too. And you're going to prison for a long time. No diamond cigar bands in there, Ms. Lockhart."

"Do you think they'll give us each a quarter of a sentence," Galina asked, "since we each put a quarter of the poison in?"

Attorney Yacovone looked at her over his gla.s.ses. "I'd like to be there when you ask your lawyer that question."

I could barely look at the people who took my friend's life. "Pierce's motive for killing his father was greed. He wanted to own the diamond mines. He didn't want his father to marry, because if he did, his stepmother would get the mines. Makes sense. But the four of you; what did Dom ever do to you?"

"Happy," Ian said through clenched teeth. "She was so d.a.m.ned happy all the time-" He stopped and looked around.

"And you wanted to wipe that smile off her face and get your hands on her half of your partners.h.i.+p," I said. "Jealousy and greed."

"As for the others, Dom's part in Diamond Sands might have gone to you, Galina, right?"

"It was promised to me."

"Rainbow, what did you do, get caught up in the excitement, the glamour? Different from being the daughter of flower children, wasn't it?"

The girl nodded and lowered her head.

"Lance, you're a puzzle," I said.

"I want my lawyer," Lance Taggart said.

"Dom didn't return your affection, did she? You weren't used to being rebuffed. Ever."

"It was all Taggart's idea," Ian shouted. "He s...o...b..red all over Dom when he was drunk, and he's hated her since she and Victor maligned his manhood in public one night."

Lance Taggart scoffed at Ian. "Yes, and Ian, that was the night you proposed this scheme, but I see now that you had a lot more to gain than we did."

Then you're stupid for not seeing it sooner, I thought.

Galina backed up Taggart's statement that they started to hatch their plan the night of that particular party. "Dom wasn't particularly friendly to any of us that night. It was all Victor, Victor, Victor."

Kyle shook his head. "I remember that party. They'd just found out that my father, Victor, was cancer free. No wonder they had eyes only for each other."

Nick approached the perps. "It was you, Taggart, who broke into my house, or tried to, on three separate occasions, looking for the seafoam gown and diamonds, right?"

"Lawyer," Lance said.

"I figured," I admitted, "that Taggart went looking for the gown after Phoebe and Zachary took the train back here from Mystic, right, Lance? And Ian, you followed Werner and me to the police station last night after the fas.h.i.+on show because I had the gown. It was stupid of you, by the way, to jump up to catch the rhinestones like that."

"Rhinestones? d.a.m.n it," Ian snapped. "Then who got the diamonds?"

"n.o.body knows," I said. "Dominique wore cubic zirconias to do her last show and Zukovski got them."

Attorney Yacovone cleared his throat. "If you'll all be patient and wait to discuss loose threads later, like the location of the diamonds, there are only two bequests left."

The police waited, their prisoners cuffed, and I sat down. "Proceed," I said.

"Thank you, Miss Cutler. This is also in Ms. De-Long's words: 'I leave all my worldly possessions to my son, Kyle, except for my doll collection, which I leave to my dear friend, Madeira Cutler.' " The attorney stood and packed his briefcase. "That's my part in the proceedings done."

"Now that I hadn't expected," I said as he left. "Dom left me her fas.h.i.+on dolls and her Velvalee d.i.c.kenson dolls?"

"The dolls," Kyle said. "And everything in them."

Werner frowned. "What's a Velvalee d.i.c.kinson doll?"

"During World War II, Velvalee d.i.c.kinson had a doll shop here in New York on Madison Avenue. A spy for j.a.pan, she used to s.h.i.+p the dolls with coded messages in them giving away United States secrets. They called her the Doll Woman after she was convicted of espionage and went to prison for seven years. Dom and I both collected her dolls, among other fas.h.i.+on dolls. Velvalee owns an unenviable place in the history of World War II, but her dolls were beautiful."

I went to the cabinet, shook each doll, and found two that were not empty. I brought them to Kyle. "May I?"

"They're yours," he said, "as is anything inside."

I took the first doll apart and caught a handful of bling. "The diamonds." I looked at them s.h.i.+ning in my hand, opened Kyle's fist, and let them fall like twinkling stars from my palm into his. "Your mother sparkled like that inside and out. Sell them and split the money between the Keep Me Foundation and St. Anthony's in your mother's name."

"That's extraordinarily generous of you, Mad, but do you understand how much money you're giving away?"

"Dominique died for those diamonds. They have to do some good to redeem themselves."

"I think she died to avenge my father's death," Kyle said, "but we'll never know. And given this turn of events, Mad, you've solved a big problem for me. Mom's vintage clothing collection. I can't go through the agony of selling it, and I can't bear having it around. It's yours. Do what you want with it. I know she wanted you to have Coco's dress, anyway."

"Coco's dress belongs in a museum, also in your mother's name. I'll take care of it."

"Thanks, Sis." Kyle hugged me.

"What dress couldn't you find," I asked him, "that was supposed to go to me? You mentioned it that first day."

"I made that up for Ian's benefit. He would have been too nosy about why you were here and involved, otherwise. Bottom line, Mom trusted you to see that justice was done."

I sighed. "I just don't understand why your mother didn't go to the police when she thought she was in danger," I said, not for the first time.

An officer stepped forward. "Ms. DeLong tried. She messengered a tainted jar of diamond glue to us, smudged fingerprints and all. But the messenger got into an accident, the package fell apart, and it took several days to reach us. Bottom line: She probably thought she was temporarily safe after having switched jars of body glue. If we'd gotten it the day she sent it, she might, or might not, be alive today."