by Alex Ames
“Cal, please be serious. What can I help you with?” Mundy offered.
I grabbed my things, pushed a stack of files into Mundy’s arms, and locked up. “Read this and tell me what you think. It turns out that the theft at Swan Collins’ party was only the last one in a whole series of music and movie star burglaries in the Hollywood area.”
While we were walking toward the waterfront, I gave him the gist of the story.
“And you think Jeannie Anthony and Swan Collins will see you? I expect them to scratch out your eyes.”
“I think they are a little too cultivated for that. Their agents would hire professional killers instead.”
“Cal, this is the movie business. If they don’t attack you, it’s because they don’t see you as screen-presence competition. I have a reporter friend in the business, and he can tell you inside stories you wouldn’t believe. I could arrange a meeting if you like.”
“I may come back to that offer. Do you want to join me on my interview quest? Tomorrow morning at ten, I have a date with Swan Collins and after lunch with Jeannie Anthony.”
“Unfortunately we have our Thursday deadline for the weekly issue, so you will have to face them alone. Bring me autographs.”
“I didn’t take you for a collector,” I said.
“Imagine the eBay value of a Swan Collins’ autograph given right before she killed the beautiful alleged thief of her beloved diamonds,” Mundy speculated.
“You want it dated, time-stamped, and notarized?”
“Just make sure she spells my name correctly,” Mundy said happily, ignoring my icy undertone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Swan
I had seen the house in the dark on Oscar night, with colorful psychedelic projections against the white stucco walls and super troupers fingering the sky. But even in the daylight, the outside was impressive when I drove my little red sports car up the driveway after a White House-style gate check. The traditional movie legends live in Beverly Hills in large houses on the hill overlooking the valley. As Swan Collins was a third-generation screen legend and had inherited the family mansion, she lived in an utterly large and sprawling estate, right in the poshest location in Beverly Hills. Name any movie legend you like, and you’d be sure to find him or her in Swan Collins’ neighborhood. It was whispered that Aaron Spelling had tried to match the number of rooms when he had built his mansion, but no one could have told him the correct number of rooms because no one knew. Not even Swan Collins, who had taken over her mother’s palace.
The door, if you could call a large, white, polished wooden gate that could serve a whole castle a simple door, was opened by a maid—British, which had to be a Los Angeles first—who brought me into a large room that functioned as an office and a library. And when I say “large,” I mean twelve-hundred square feet, easily.
Swan was sitting at an old antique desk together with an older man, whom I took for her assistant. They looked up.
“Mrs. Calendar Moonstone to see you, Mrs. Collins,” the maid announced me before asking me if I wanted anything special to drink. I just pointed at the arrangement of soft drinks on the coffee table.
Swan Collins got up and excused the older man without introducing him. He left us alone. She gave me a look-over from where she stood. I let her stare for a few moments before it annoyed me.
“Did you expect me to look like a cat burglar? Or are you wondering what I did with your diamonds?”
If nervous, overplay it with aggressiveness.
She did not appear startled or offended by my blunt questions and just gave a small, polite smile. “Neither, Mrs. Moonstone. I find it remarkable that Mr. Finn puts so much hope in you to find my diamonds. You look utterly ordinary … I mean, normal.” It took me a second to realize that “Mr. Finn” was my least favorite British nemesis, Fowler Wynn. I liked her immediately for not remembering that slimy roach.
“I can draw my gun faster than you can blink. I am a black belt expert in various martial arts. My IQ is way over 140, and I am a renowned artist of diamond jewelry,” I said, deadpan.
Swan Collins didn’t move a facial muscle, which told me plenty. She stepped over, and we shook hands. “Please, call me Swan.” She prepared me an iced tea, and we sat down on the comfortable designer sofa. She tucked her feet under her—a pose that could land her a feature in about every magazine in the world except maybe Horse and Hound. Add just a hint of Dachshund, and even that would have been a cover to sell. I had to think of Mundy’s interview with her; she probably had struck a similar pose.
“And who are you really?” she asked, sipping her white wine with ice.
“Probably just a friend of Nicole Berg who got trapped in strange circumstances and is now struggling to get out of the mess.”
“A friend of Nicole Berg,” Swan mused. “You were her companion after her split with what’s-his-name last week.”
I nodded. “The circumstances are absolutely out of the ordinary for me. Even befriending someone like Nicole or sitting in your living room is a very strange experience for me. Bizarre. I feel like Hugh Grant’s character in Notting Hill.”
“Your behind definitely looks better than his.” Swan glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece. “You have about one hour, and then star duties are taking over again, I am afraid.”
“It won’t take that long, I assure you. Thanks for giving in to Fowler Wynn’s blackmail. He can be a prick sometimes.” We both had to smile. “Why am I here? I’m trying to get a background feeling for the case, something that is not yet in the files and could give me a clue where to look for the stones.”
“Just to get this straight: you are trying to find my diamonds and the thief in order to stay out of jail yourself?” Swan asked curiously.
“If that is not motivation, I don’t know what is,” I admitted.
“And your expertise comes from the fact that you are a renowned specialist in gems and gem craft. That qualifies you to retrieve my jewels? Are you a detective, too?”
I shook my head. “It gets admittedly thin at that point, and I would appreciate it if you would ask no further to spare me embarrassment. But I can tell you this much: Fowler Wynn thinks that I have the required resources.” I shrugged and said nothing more.
“Okay, your floor,” Swan said.
“Tell me about the diamonds that were stolen,” I asked. “The history, the value to yourself, how you lived with them, when you wore them.”
“I presume this is the renowned artist of jewelry speaking and not the martial arts expert?”
“I may have laid it on thick with the first talents,” I admitted timidly.
“Okay. My diamonds. Do you know anything about me?” Swan Collins asked superfluously.
“Daughter of screen legend Laura Collins and Senator James Broker, one Oscar for leading actress.”
“Very good. My heritage in a nutshell. My mother was an avid collector, you know—of men, wisdom, and expensive jewelry. When she died five years ago, I inherited her collection … the jewelry, not the men. Personally, I like jewelry, and I like to wear nice stones, but I am not a manic collector like my mother used to be. Additionally, I do not entertain leagues of gentlemen who present me jewels on a regular basis. I had decided to auction off most of the ‘regular’ stuff with Kingston a while ago. So I employed a curator who assisted me in determining what to keep and what to sell. Among the pieces that I kept were some prized possessions of my late mother, some pieces that may qualify as family jewels, and some really famous ones.”
“The two diamonds stolen belong to the latter category,” I stated.
“Both not only famous but very famous.” Swan got up and fetched a file folder from the desk at the window. She opened it and got out some photos and magazines. “Let’s start with the ‘Metro Imperial’. One of the last studio moguls of Hollywood, Mr. Donald Metroikidis, gave it to my mother after she had won her first Oscar for her role in They Rode Alone in 1962 as a present. It is a 45 carat,
almost perfect clarity, VS1, if you must know. The cutter had to give it an extraordinary cut because of a slight asymmetry.” The official insurance photo showed the Metro Imperial in all its fire and beauty draped on black satin and good lighting. It was just the diamond; there was no setting whatsoever. For such a stone, everything else was just superfluous dressing.
I spoke in a hushed voice as to honor the beauty. “From its prominence and heritage probably among the top ten famous diamonds in the world.”
Swan studied my face and was surprised at the dedication she saw there. “Yes, many critics and specialists certainly named it as one of the top ten. It was on display in many famous exhibitions of the seventies and eighties. Mother wore it on many Oscar nights, always accompanied by two bodyguards. For the gem, that is.” She pointed out the famous Time Life cover of 1972 where Laura Collins beamed between Warren Beatty and Gregory Peck at the after-show party in Robert McDougal’s home. The Imperial Metro diamond sparkled, a definition of brilliance around Laura’s neck, as two huge hunks loomed in the background.
“Was there ever a setting for the Metro Imperial once upon a time?” I asked, pointing at the picture.
“Your late colleague, Holly Leander, did a great job in creating a removable setting in 1965. It was easily applicable by two almost invisible locks, and then the Metro Imperial hung on a white gold neck chain. I still have the removable setting.” She shrugged sadly. “The stone is gone. Probably for good.”
“It must be a great loss for you,” I remarked sympathetically.
Again, a small, resigned shrug from Swan. “It is a piece of great beauty and has a large personal value for me. But, after all, it is only a diamond—and well-insured, as Mr. Finn probably told you.”
“That is one of his major motivations in employing me,” I said. “He wants to avoid paying you.”
“Well, considering the value, he may as well try anything.” Swan put some other photos on the table. “This is the second piece that was stolen. Much smaller, 25 carats, perfect round cut, and flawless clarity.”
“The ‘Acura,’ I heard of that one during my apprenticeship,” I told Swan.
“Named after Howard Hughes’ favorite aircraft. My mother was named personally in his last will to receive it from the estate. The Acura, too, went around the world in exhibitions, and even though it is much smaller than the Metro Imperial, it excels by its perfection. There are only two or three other stones in the world who can match the completeness.”
“It is regarded as the perfect example for the quality evaluation of a gemstone,” I agreed. “Especially underlined by the simple classic cut.”
“You know your diamonds, I see,” Swan smiled.
“I like to work with simple and perfect things. That’s why I became a jewelry artist.”
We looked through some more photos of the two amazing examples of perfect diamonds.
“You are sure that they were stolen during the after-show party?” I asked.
“Back on track, eh? I am sure. I had the safe open after I fetched my jewels for the night. The small boxes were in there.”
“But you didn’t open the boxes to check the contents?”
Swan shook her head. “I usually don’t. I mean, I open that safe maybe once a day when I am in Beverly Hills. The bedroom was locked, and the alarm for the room was activated. The house was full of caterers and event managers, and it was mandatory that the private quarters were secured. I mean, this wasn’t the first big event here. During the party, I had been up to my bedroom once and had not noticed anything out of the ordinary.”
“Your private quarters have a separate alarm? That is unusual,” I said.
“Not if you consider the size of this palace. It is impossible to secure the whole mansion at once. We have it divided into security zones, the highest level of security in my bedroom and this office, the most valuables being in these rooms.”
“And no tampering had been detected?”
“No, the alarms were working throughout the Monday of the ceremony and during the party. Except for me and my maid, no one entered the private quarters. The safe was unharmed. How did the policeman Mr. Graves put it? ‘Opened cleanly.’”
I nodded. “I read the reports. No scratches or markings on the safe. No visible tampering of the alarm system. Clearly the work of a professional.”
We were discussing some aspects of the layout, and she even gave me a quick tour of the bedroom and showed me the safe and some of the security measures. A state-of-the-art affair safe, hard to open. But then, only ‘hard to open,’ not ‘impossible’ for a specialist. I didn’t tell Swan that.
When we were back in the library, I took a peek at my notebook. “Mr. Wynn and I speculate that a collector of diamonds ordered the theft. Did you have any serious offers lately for either of the two stones?”
“I think the diamond collector world gave up a long time ago because the answer has been and will be always the same,” Swan smiled. “Anyway, I checked with my curator, and he had no offers either.”
She was right, of course. No collector in the world would ever part with those two diamonds. I thought about anything more to ask, but nothing came up. I thanked my hostess, and she walked me to the door of the large room. I noticed that she didn’t show me out but to the end of the room, where a maid was already waiting for us after Swan opened the large door to the hallway.
“Oh, one more question,” I said. “Though maybe the police asked it, too.”
“Anything,” Swan said, raising an eyebrow. She couldn’t help it; she was an actress, after all.
“Why did you keep the two most prized possessions you have in your jewelry box in your safe in your home, instead of at a bank?” I asked.
She pointed at a spectacular drawing in the hallway. “Recognize the artist?”
“Picasso?” I guessed.
“Right on. An original Picasso. Valued around ten million dollars.”
“It is beautiful,” I said, meaning it. The drawing showed a sleeping girl, drawn in few strokes of genius. Simplicity and serenity.
“There you have your answer,” Swan said, waving me goodbye before handing me over to the maid, to show me out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Pretty and Jeannie
The Hollywood movie or TV star of the current millennium did not live in Beverly Hills or Malibu anymore. In order to be a member of the star elite, you had your main home somewhere in Homeland America, like a ranch in Montana, a waterside residence in Miami Beach, or a penthouse in New York. In modern production conditions, you spent more time in Prague, New Zealand, or Morocco than in the back lot of the LA studio system. So all you needed in LA-LA-Land was just a pied-à-terre.
Jeannie Anthony’s LA foot on the ground was a cozy and roomy beach house overlooking an endless blue sea and a semi-private strip of sand. It was a gated community; the houses had no names on their mailboxes and looked quite normal from the outside, giving the appearance that every regular, well-off family could live here. The inside was a different matter, as I found out when the Hispanic maid showed me to the living room where a girl was sitting at a desk overlooking the Pacific and typing on a small laptop computer.
As the maid hadn’t announced me, I cleared my throat to indicate my presence. When the girl turned around, my blood froze. This was not Jeannie Anthony; this was Pretty McAllister. And I wasn’t sure whether she was plain mad at me or was rehearsing for the female version of Hannibal Lecter because she surely had a mean gleam in her eyes. Her colleague Swan Collins had the aura of an untouchable star, and my friend Nicole Berg represented the actress of the people for the people. Pretty McAllister gave the impression of a rich parent’s spoiled brat. She had an annoying way of turning to other things in the middle of a sentence and twisting a lock of hair around a finger—and she was famous in the Hollywood press for throwing tantrums in public places. Well, all that plus some shopaholism, an occasional temporary visit at Betty Ford, and a string of Hollywood
’s leading men. She was not Tinseltown’s number-one scandal producer, but she surely was a runner up. Pretty got up and came over toward me in a model-style cat walk, one foot in front of the other. She took her time, eying me suspiciously.
“My lawyer said,” she interrupted herself to give a high, crazy giggle, “that under no circumstances am I to slug you.”
I was taken aback. “That’s….” I was looking for a non-offensive remark. “For once, that’s good advice from an otherwise despicable profession.”
She giggled again. “But then, he said, if I did, I shouldn’t leave any marks.”
“But I can assure you: I would! And your skin is worth more than mine. Where is Jeannie?” I asked carefully. With this raving mad lunatic, maybe the hostess was already sleeping peacefully in the freezer.
“Are you afraid to be alone with me?” Another crazy giggle. “You better be! Jeannie is in her bedroom on the phone. She’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“I think I will wait outside. Don’t want to upset you,” I proposed lamely and took some steps backward from her.
She shrugged and sneered. “Okay by me. When Jeannie told me that you were having a date, I was dying to meet you. I have never seen a real burglar before. A female, too. Intriguing. As for me personally, I think that you are a stealing bitch.”
“I think it is hopeless to try to convince you that I didn’t steal your necklace,” I said dryly, trying not to get a red face.
“You are right; it is hopeless. You are here to ask Jeannie some questions, are you? Have something to ask me while we are at it?” She twisted her hair again, put more gleam into her eyes, and wiggled her hips impatiently.
Might as well. “Who accompanied you to the party?”
“John Berg, from the series. We came together but lost sight of each other at the party. Why? Do you suspect him?”