Darkwater Lies

by Robin Caroll

  Beau tapped his pen against his notebook. “That took planning. I mean, I’m no expert, but I would think matching the size, shape, and general color of the sapphire wouldn’t be something that could be done in hours, or even a day.”

  Orlov shook his head. “Het. No. It would take time to find such a stone. The glass in there is close enough to the color to fool most in photographs. I never questioned it, and I am closer to the jewels than just about anyone else.”

  This was definitely a game changer.

  “So, you see, you can return the diadem to me and I will secure it back to Liechtenstein. I can assure you nothing else will happen to it.”

  This could get dicey. Usually, when an investigation was concluded, items logged in as evidence were returned to the owner. One would normally think, in this case, that would be the princess. However, considering that she herself had told them that the crown didn’t belong to her, but to the country . . .

  He needed to call the embassy as well as run it by Captain Istre. “We’ll try to get the crown returned as soon as possible, Mr. Orlov.”

  The older man nodded as he stood. “I will be returning home this evening.”

  Dimitri also stood. “We’ll have someone ready to drive you to the airport as soon as you’re ready, of course.”

  Orlov gave a slight bow. “I have already spoken to the representative of His Serene Highness, the ruling hereditary prince of Liechtenstein, and informed them of my findings. I am to return to our country as soon as I can with the diadem.” He hesitated. “And with Princess Katerina as well. As you can imagine, the royal family is very . . . anxious to speak with her.”

  Oh, Beau could well imagine. He could only hope that his captain would defer the whole thing to Liechtenstein since, technically, the tiara wasn’t an instrument of a crime here. It was just a recovered piece of stolen property that should now be returned to the rightful owner.

  Zzzzzaaaa—

  Addy snatched her cell from the table. “Sorry, apparently my sounds aren’t working.” She stood and walked toward her desk with the phone against her ear. “Hello.”

  “We’ll call you as soon as we get permission to release the tiara to you, sir.” Beau stood and shook Mr. Orlov’s hand. “I’ll see if we can get that processed as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you.” The old man left Addy’s office, walking much faster than expected of a man his age and with his gait.

  “He left too soon.” Addy set her phone on the corner of her desk and stared at Beau, Marcel, and Dimitri.

  “Why’s that?” Beau asked.

  “Because the parade is over, and Sully is on his way back to the hotel with Princess Katerina.”

  32

  Dimitri

  “Here’s some water.” Dimitri handed a cold bottle to the princess, who had just returned to her suite. Adelaide sat beside Katerina on the little sofa, smiling gently. Just her presence would make this hard situation a little easier.

  “Thank you.”

  For a moment, Dimitri felt sorry for the princess. She had to feel alone and isolated without Edmond or Luca or Rubin, and there were four of them facing her: Dimitri, Adelaide, Beau, and Marcel paced the narrow space behind the couch. She had to feel the uneasiness that had settled over the sitting area of the suite. Even Adelaide’s presence couldn’t replace that.

  The smile Katerina offered was weak. “I am very tired, so if there is nothing else, I would like to rest now.”

  Beau sat on the sofa, opposite the end where Dimitri sat. “I’m sorry, princess, we have a few questions for you.”

  “Okay.” Katerina took the lid off the bottle of water.

  “It seems that Rubin Hassler and Jackson Larder planned the theft of your tiara.” Beau’s ever-present pen tapped against the notebook he held in his lap. “Weeks in advance.”

  “That is disappointing.” She blinked rapidly and took a drink.

  “No, it’s premeditation,” Marcel corrected.

  “But if they planned this together, why did your Jackson Larder kill Rubin?”

  Dimitri felt a pang. Their own murdered guard, Leon, seemed to be forgotten in the midst of everything else.

  “That’s the rub.” Beau shifted on his seat. “Apparently Mr. Larder decided to double-cross Mr. Hassler and killed him.”

  She didn’t reply, just took another sip of water.

  “Here’s the thing: we brought your fiancé in for questioning regarding another issue, and he was quick to talk about anything in order to avoid being charged himself.” Marcel went back to pacing. “We knew he wasn’t involved in the robbery because something he wanted was also stolen at the same time. So we made a call a few minutes ago to ask what he knew about the tiara after it was stolen.”

  Dimitri nodded. Edmond had been furious that the Van Gogh had been stolen and messed up his auction because he knew his father would be furious. Seemed ironic that Dimitri and Edmond had both had to face issues recently in efforts to live up to the standards their fathers had set forth.

  Beau picked up the questioning. “Edmond told us that Mr. Larder had contacted you, through him, to sell you back the crown. Edmond wanted to assist, but claims you were adamant that you would have Luca go and make the sale and retrieve your crown. But that didn’t happen that way, did it?”

  This was news to Dimitri. By the look on Adelaide’s face, it was news to her too.

  But not Katerina. Tears filled her eyes, and she shook her head. “No. You must understand, I did not tell Luca to harm your Jackson Larder. He was just angry because Rubin had been murdered. Rubin was his friend.”

  “And you knew that, right?” Marcel stopped pacing and faced her. “You sent Luca to Jackson’s house because you knew he would take care of your problem.”

  “I do not understand.” She set the bottle on the end table.

  “Come on, Princess, we already know what happened.” Marcel sat on the arm of the empty chair diagonal to the loveseat.

  Dimitri had an idea, based on everything they now knew, but he hadn’t heard the private conversation the two detectives had had prior to Katerina’s arrival. Beau had told Adelaide that the police captain had talked with the embassy and had directions, but hadn’t had opportunity to offer more explanation. Or maybe they weren’t able to say more yet.

  “What do you know?”

  Beau set down his notebook. “We know that you orchestrated Rubin Hassler contacting someone at the hotel to arrange the theft of your tiara. We know that Rubin worked with Jackson Larder, then Jackson double crossed Rubin, killing him. Jackson then came to Edmond to make the offer to you to sell you back your tiara, but you never wanted that to happen, so instead you told Luca that Jackson had killed Rubin, knowing that he would retaliate.”

  Katerina gave a nervous smile. “Interesting theory, Detective, but there is no proof of any of this.”

  Marcel shook his head. “Oh, but there is. We have copies of phone records that prove Rubin and Jackson planned together. We have Edmond’s statement that Jackson contacted him about buying back the tiara, but that you told Luca to handle it. We have Luca’s prints at the murder scene at Jackson’s house.”

  “None of that has anything to do with me.” Only she didn’t look so confident anymore.

  “Perhaps not.” Beau leaned forward. “But we have Luca.”

  Her face paled a little. “Even if what you say is true, Luca would never betray me.”

  “Really?” Marcel crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Who exactly do you think Luca is more loyal to? You or his country?” Beau leaned back again. “It seems the royal family is sending their own person here to sit in on the questioning of Luca. They are interested in the truth.”

  Her face paled even more. “Why would I have been involved in my diadem being stolen at all?”

  “Because, as Mr. Orlov proved to us today, you had already stolen the sapphire from the setting.”

  Her face went totally ashen, and Dimitri was afraid
she would faint. He handed her the water bottle from the side table. She gave him a most pleading look, but he couldn’t do anything.

  Like his father, she had acted on her own bad decisions and now had to face the consequences of those choices. He could only listen and watch the destruction unfold.

  Addy

  Princess Katerina looked as if she was going to be sick.

  Addy could understand—she felt sick just hearing it all. She wanted so badly to empathize with the princess, but Leon had been an innocent bystander in the scheme and was now dead. Addy needed desperately to understand. She owed getting an answer for Leon, to honor his memory at least. She glanced at Beau, the unspoken request in her eyes.

  He understood and gave a little nod.

  She turned back to the princess. “I just don’t understand the motive here. Why would you take the sapphire from your own tiara?”

  Katerina’s eyes glistened with tears. “I needed a very large amount of money and could not explain to my family why I needed it. Selling the jewels was the only option I believed I had at the time.”

  Addy leaned forward, closer to the edge of her seat. “I think we all want to understand but are having a hard time grasping why a princess would need such a large amount of money quickly.”

  Katerina slowly shook her head. “You do not understand the diplomatic relations of my country.”

  “You’re right, we don’t, but we want to understand.”

  Beau, Dimitri, and Marcel were all silent, which seemed to allow Katerina a moment to organize her thoughts. The princess hauled in a deep breath, then nodded. “To understand, you need to know some of the history of my country. After World War II, what was then Czechoslovakia confiscated property belonging to my family. Not just a little bit, but almost ten times the size of our current holdings. It was mostly farming land and forests in Moravia, but also included some of our family palaces and the accompanying land parcels.”

  She paused, taking a long drink of water before continuing. “My family has declared that we were neither German nor Nazi collaborators during the war, but Czechoslovakia continuously refuses to reopen their past. My family knows Czechoslovakia stole not only some of Moravia’s finest castles but also one and a half thousand square kilometers of our land.”

  Addy might not understand minute details of diplomatic relations, but stealing the royal family’s property, castles and land alike, had to cause a rift. “I can see how that would be a problem between your family and Czechoslovakia.” Still, that didn’t explain why the princess would steal her own crown’s jewels.

  Katerina clasped her hands together in her lap. “Because of this situation, my country did not recognize, in the legal sense, the Czech Republic or Slovakia from the end of the war until near the end of 2009, when Prince Hans-Adam II made political decisions that allowed my country to resume diplomatic relations with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. While most of the ramifications with this dispute affected few personally, there are a few exceptions.”

  The princess reached for her water bottle, tightening her grip until the plastic popped against the pressure. She released it and took a sip, then set it back on the table. “Some years ago, I met a family who had been separated because of the dispute. Half of the family was living in the Czech Republic and the other half was in my country. They desired to be reunited, but lacked the money to pay for either side to relocate and join the other.” She paused to take another sip of water.

  “A friend of a friend came to me and told me about the tragedy that had befallen this family. The woman who lived in the Czech Republic had become quite ill. Physicians said she would not live long. It was her dying wish to see the grandchildren and her daughter she had left back in my country.”

  Addy’s heart ached. While her own mother had been a drunk and the least maternal person she’d ever encountered, she knew how close Beau and his mother had been before she’d been killed by a drunk driver. Family dynamics could be the best . . . and the worst.

  In spite of everything, Addy found herself softening toward the princess as Katerina continued. “Since my own mother had died when I was young, it broke my heart to think this woman would die without seeing her daughter again, or have the opportunity to meet her grandchildren. I knew I needed to help this family.”

  The princess took another drink of water and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. “I inquired through various people the possibility of my royal family giving financial assistance to this young woman and her children to travel to the Czech Republic for their family to be reunited. Despite the resuming of diplomatic relations, there were still hard lines between my country and the Czech Republic. My inquiries of possible assistance were met with disapproval. There would be no happy reunion, at least not on Czech Republic soil. Had the family been able to reunite in my country, the royal family would likely have assisted financially, but the woman was too sick to travel.”

  Addy had a feeling she knew exactly where this was going, and her mouth went dry.

  Apparently, so did the princess’s. She took the nearly empty water bottle and drained it. “I was—how do you say it—ill equipped to argue for the right to help and unable to direct funds to provide assistance, but I knew I needed to help this family. I sought advice from friends and trusted advisors, and no one provided me with any workable solution. I needed to figure something to do to help.”

  “What did you do?” Beau’s voice was barely audible.

  “I figured out how much money it would take to get the daughter and her three children out of my country. It was not just the travel provisions, it was being able to support them once they arrived in the Czech Republic. I knew they would need to have very substantial funds in order to get settled and live, and to take care of the ailing woman, medical charges and living expenses, for a good period of time. I did not want this young woman to worry about how to pro- vide for her children as she took care of her mother during this end- of-life time. This would be much more money than I have access to or could acquire.”

  Addy nodded, her chest tightening.

  “My family had just had the appraisals concluded on the royal jewels, and I had easy access to the tiara.” Katerina shook her head. “I am not proud of what I did. I know it was wrong, but I had no choice. Or I thought I did not.” Her big blue eyes pooled with tears.

  Addy reached over and squeezed Katerina’s hands.

  “The person who was willing to give me the money I needed wanted the sapphire. I tried to talk him into one of the other stones, one of the smaller ones that would not be as noticeable, but he was adamant. I did not have the choice to find another person I could trust to keep the agreement, so I took the tiara and let him replace the sapphire with an imitation. He paid me the amount we had agreed upon, and I gave the money to the woman, and she and her children were able to go to the Czech Republic and be reunited with her mother. They are comfortable and happy and have the financial stability to live out the rest of their lives together and in peace, so I do not regret assisting them.”

  She locked stares with Addy. “But I knew that the annual inspection of the diadem would come in April, and there was no way I could deceive Mr. Orlov. He would know, and I would be exposed and disowned and so many other things.”

  She had the room’s attention. Everyone remained quiet, although Beau’s pen scraped against the notebook.

  “I thought the easiest solution would be if the diadem was stolen, but there was no way for that to happen in my country. I began to try and think of ways to get it out of Liechtenstein before April. When Edmond mentioned he would be planning a trip here in February for the carnival, I saw this as my opportunity.”

  Still no one spoke as Katerina continued. “I begged Edmond to let me join him, and he relented. I made plans immediately and, as you figured out, had Rubin hire someone here to steal the diadem from the hotel so the blame would not be on us.” She looked at Addy. “I am sorry.”

  Addy wanted to n
od and smile, reassuring Katerina, but she just couldn’t. Leon had died. Rubin and Jackson had died, and although they were by no means the innocent in this situation, like Leon, they still didn’t deserve to die.

  And yet that woman hadn’t deserved to be separated from her mother because of political issues either.

  Life was complicated. And messy. And definitely challenging at times.

  Katerina sighed. “No one was supposed to get hurt. I did not expect Jackson to turn on Rubin and kill him. The plan was for him to steal the crown, remove the jewels, and sell them all separately. He got greedy and wanted it all.”

  “Or maybe he didn’t want to go through all the hassle of selling everything piecemeal.” Marcel stood and started pacing again, as was his way of thinking, Addy had figured out.

  “I’m guessing he didn’t know you were behind the idea. He didn’t know you’d already removed and replaced the big sapphire, did he?” Beau asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “So he would, naturally, assume you would pay to get the crown back. Less work and more money, and no time delay.” Marcel sat back on the arm of the chair as if he didn’t really know what to do.

  The princess’s eyes filled with tears, but no one reached out to comfort her, so she continued. “When Edmond told me Jackson had called him, I panicked. I told Edmond that I would have Luca handle it because I did not want him involved.” She nodded at Beau. “I did tell Luca that Jackson had killed Rubin. I am not proud of this, but I thought it was the only way to keep you from finding out.”

  “And it was perfect for you that Luca doesn’t speak or understand English.” Beau’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Yes. When he did not find the diadem, I did not worry. I thought if it was ever recovered later, everyone would assume that Jackson had taken the sapphire. Nothing could link it back to me.” She lifted a shoulder. “Well, not that I knew of. I thought everything had been resolved and no one would ever be the wiser for what I did.”