Then I remembered the detective I’d spoken to outside Westin’s. Detective Lewis was not with the Beverly Hills Police Department, but with LAPD, and his wife was a fan of the station. I decided I’d try my luck. If LAPD had responded to the robbery, perhaps they had a different story to tell concerning this morning’s incident. After all, Detective Lewis had said it was the third jewelry store robbery this month. There had to be something more he could add, if not about the robbery in Beverly Hills, then maybe the others. I called LAPD’s robbery-homicide division and asked to leave a message. Detective Lewis returned my call within the hour.
“It’s your lucky day, Ms. Childs. We were just about to issue an alert concerning a possible suspect when I got your message. I put your station at the top of the call list. Maybe because you were there this morning or KCHC is my wife’s favorite radio station, either way I’ll start with you.”
I grabbed my notepad. “What have you got?”
“Understand, Ms. Childs, LAPD doesn’t regularly get involved with things in Beverly Hills. But it just so happened I was following up on a previous incident in West LA when I caught a report on the scanner that there had been an explosion inside Henry Westin’s. I raced over there, and I’m glad I did. Looks like we caught a break.”
“Like what?”
“We got a picture of a possible suspect on videotape. Middle-aged. Well-dressed. With the exception of her hair color, she looks a lot like a woman we have on tape from some of the other robberies we’ve been following. We’re calling her the Wigged Bandit.”
“The redhead, right?”
Lewis paused. In the background, I could hear him shuffling through papers. “You know something?”
“Not enough,” I said. I explained I’d spoken with Churchill at the hospital and that he had told me he thought his assistant, Ms. Pero, might have been waiting on a customer. “He described her as having red hair, and that she left immediately after Carmen Montague dropped off a necklace.”
“Anything else?”
“I assume you know Carmen was a courier?”
“And did Churchill happen to tell you what it was Miss Montague was delivering?”
I was beginning to feel like I was on the wrong end of an interrogation, and I didn’t like it. But I was willing to exchange information for anything I could use in my report.
“He mentioned an eyeglass case. But I assume you already know that.”
I could hear the shuffling of papers again and figured Lewis was making as many notes of our conversation as I was.
I asked the next question. “Do you think Carmen might have been a target? That someone was trying to kidnap her, maybe hold her for ransom?”
“We’re investigating a lot of different possibilities.”
“But if someone wanted to rob the store and was following her, she could very likely be a target.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Childs, that’s not something I can comment on. I did you a favor, calling you first, and now I’ve got a lot on my plate, so unless there’s something else—”
“Wait, before you go. Maybe there’s something I can do for you. Kind of as a thank you for putting KCHC at the top of your list. Doesn’t have anything to do with the case, but sounds to me like you’ve been working hard and you’ve mentioned a couple times how your wife’s a fan of the Kari Rhodes show. Any chance you might like a couple of free tickets for one of her Rhodes on the Road shows?”
It was a long shot, but I figured why not? If Lewis’s wife was a fan and I could get him to continue to favor KCHC with police reports, it was worth a try. Once a month, Kari liked to get out of the studio for a remote broadcast. Usually it was from a coffee shop or some place of interest where she could meet up with her fans and dish the dirt on Hollywood celebrities in front of a live audience. The upcoming show had been a hastily scheduled affair. A recent burst of Santa Ana winds had damaged the Grove’s Christmas tree, decapitating the top six feet like a giant sickle from the sky, leaving what remained of the tree to look like an overdecorated stump. Tree surgeons had been called in for reconstructive surgery, and Kari wanted to make certain she was on hand for the festivities. The event had been scheduled at the last minute, and show tickets were easy to guarantee.
“We’ve got one coming up the day after tomorrow, a special holiday promotion at The Grove on Fairfax.”
“Free, huh?”
“Absolutely. We give them out on the air all the time. If you like, I can put a couple aside for you at our VIP table.”
Lewis said he’d like that, talked for a moment about how much overtime he’d been working and how it would get him out of the doghouse. I hung up thinking I’d made a little headway. If not with the LAPD, at least I felt like I had everything I needed for Kari’s show. She’d be salivating. The story had everything she could possibly want. A high-profile celebrity acting as a courier for her estranged husband. A bombing. A murder. A mysterious jewel thief the police were now calling the Wigged Bandit, and a missing little black case that might be worth millions.
At five o’clock my doorbell rang. Sheri and Clint were standing on my porch, their eyes barely visible above the grocery bags they held in their arms.
“I thought I was making dinner.” I stood back and opened the door.
“Store-bought lasagna isn’t my idea of cooking.”
Sheri pushed past me and headed for the kitchen. She unloaded the bags and directed Clint to put the ice cream in the freezer. Looking over at Charlie on the couch, she announced she’d made her famous killer double chocolate chip brownies. Reaching into one of the bags, she produced a warm Saran-wrapped plate of freshly made gooey-in-the-center chocolate squares and passed it beneath Charlie’s nose for approval.
“I would have thought after this morning you’d had enough chocolate.”
“Carol,” she looked at me sternly, “there is no world I ever want to be living in where there’s too much chocolate.” She returned the plate to the counter and reached for an empty wineglass. “Or wine, for that matter.”
I filled her glass from an open bottle of red wine I had on the bar and sat down, while Sheri, in full chef-mode, grabbed an apron from the pantry and began prepping for dinner. Comfort food, she called it. One of my favorites: roasted rosemary chicken stuffed with onions and lemon with a side dish of small sea-salted potatoes with garlic.
“I’ve been thinking about this morning, Carol, and I have a theory.”
“Really?” I took a sip of my wine and watched as she began peeling the garlic, smashing it with the flat side of a big carving knife.
“Eric couldn’t possibly be carrying on with Carmen. She’s too…” Sheri stopped mid-sentence, raised her eyes to the ceiling as though she were looking for the right word, then said, “Hot. Oh, not that Eric’s not hot. But think about it. Carmen’s connected. Internationally. The only reason he’d be with her is because something’s happened and he’s working undercover.”
She paused and looked at me.
I shrugged, lips tight. I wasn’t about to say anything. I couldn’t. But I knew given enough time Sheri would come to the only logical explanation available. The same conclusion I had.
“And for whatever reason, they just happened to be coming out of Henry Westin’s just before the bomb went off. I don’t know why, but I’d bet that plate of brownies you do.”
I glanced over at the boys. They were watching TV.
I whispered, “The police think she might have been carrying diamonds for her ex.”
“Her ex?” Sheri took a sip of wine, rolling it around in her mouth as though she were sampling it, then swallowed. “Of course. Umberto Diaz de la Roca.” She let his name roll off her tongue like some verbal exercise.
I shook my head. I wasn’t getting any mental pictures of the man.
“He goes by Diaz. He’s the polo player, you remember him?”
>
I didn’t follow the jet set, and beyond seeing Carmen’s photo in the paper with a number of good-looking men, I had no idea which of the various international playboys Sheri was talking about.
She prompted me, “They used to, or maybe still do, own a big ranch out in Simi Valley. Los Caballos Grandes?”
She waited for some sign of recognition. I surrendered, hands up.
“It was in the news,” she said. “Maybe ten years ago now. When they first got together, Carmen completely redid the place. Made it look like a Tuscan villa. It had an enormous barn for his horses. The barn alone had to be the size of Versailles, and the price tag was in the millions.”
I vaguely remembered the story. It was long before I’d started working as a reporter.
“Then a couple years ago,” Sheri said, “he skipped out on her with one of his horse trainers. Somebody he’d brought back from Europe with him. Certainly you remember? She looked exactly like Carmen, only younger, dark hair, big tits. You know the type, starlet wannabe. Anyway, Carmen and Diaz split and he went back to Europe, and the estate, for all I know, is empty. Used for Hollywood shoots and special events.”
That story I did remember. It had run in the LA Times a little more than a year ago and been boiled down to a two-inch report. Los Caballos Grandes, estimated to be worth nearly forty-five million dollars, was for sale, and Carmen Montague was suing her husband for abandonment.
“But I’m not so sure they were ever divorced,” Sheri said. “The story just kind of went away.”
“Don’t they all.” I raised my wine glass in a mock toast.
“But if Carmen was at Henry Westin’s and she was carrying diamonds, my bet is she’s still in bed, so to speak, with her ex. Whether he’s her ex or not. And not with Eric.”
I smiled.
“Which is why,” Sheri said, “Eric has to be working undercover.”
I took a sip of my wine and considered what Sheri had said about Carmen. It was nice to know my best friend had come to the same conclusion I had about Eric. That he couldn’t possibly be with Carmen. But after learning Carmen was a courier for her husband—or her ex—and a likely target by whoever had robbed Westin’s, the woman was becoming infinitely more intriguing. I was becoming obsessed. Not only was she some pampered young Beverly Hills socialite, a predator in pursuit of wealth and social status, now she was a woman of international intrigue and mystery. She was a modern-day Scarlett O’Hara with an hourglass figure, raven-dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and dimpled cheeks, and, for the time being, on the arm of my boyfriend.
“I suppose Carmen’s little delivery service might explain her very exorbitant lifestyle,” I said. Even for a successful Hollywood star, Carmen’s lifestyle was over the top. Her picture was frequently in the society section of the Beverly Hills Courier and she was always at fancy galas that must have cost a fortune to attend.
“It has to help,” Sheri said. “There’s no way someone like Carmen Montague lives like she does without somebody underwriting her celebrity status. It takes money, and lots of it, to do that.” Sheri reached for her wine, leaned back up against the counter, and, holding the glass eye level, said, “I should know. I’m one of the lucky ones. I made mine the old-fashioned way. I inherited it and dammit, it’s still not enough, not in this town.”
I nearly laughed out loud. Sheri never took herself seriously. It was why I liked her. She was a member of the silver-spoon set but had no trouble telling people how fickle she felt the financial finger of fate could be.
Chapter 7
The next morning, I went directly to the news booth inside Studio A, where Kari Rhodes was in the middle of an interview with Mimi. With special guests, Kari enjoyed setting the stage, insisting tea or coffee be served. In truth, I think she liked the sound effects of the clinking cups while she visited with her guests, giving her broadcast a more intimate conversational tone. It was a little like eavesdropping on friends. This morning I noticed Kari had chosen a holiday red china pattern and ordered up a plate full of cranberry scones, which she picked at in her traditional bird-like manner.
I slipped quietly into the news booth, a small closet-sized room separated from the studio by a large plate glass window, and listened. With my headphones on I could hear the broadcast as Mimi, looking like a young Elizabeth Taylor, talked casually about what she planned to wear for the upcoming awards show. She described her gown, a one-of-a-kind vintage emerald green silk chiffon affair, designed by Pierre Cardin.
“Of course, the pièce de résistance is the necklace Henry Westin’s agreed to loan me for the event. It goes perfectly with my gown.”
With long manicured fingers, Mimi played with a simple strand of pearls that hung around her neck as she described the necklace, called La Peregrina. It was no wonder Westin’s had agreed to loan it to her. Mimi’s resemblance to the iconic star, with her dark hair and piercing violet eyes, contacts or otherwise—was remarkable. Mimi and La Peregrina together would no doubt result in a good photo op that would appear the following day in papers all around the world.
“Of course, it’s not the famous Taylor-Burton diamond. But I think it’s equally as stunning. Richard bought it for Liz’s birthday when they were filming Cleopatra. It’s a pear-shaped pearl, maybe the biggest in the world. It belonged to the King of Spain and was worn by Queens Margarita and Isabel. Liz later had Cartier set it with diamonds and rubies and wore it for a publicity shot for Anne of Thousand Days, a role she never played. The director thought she was too old. Can you believe that? But she later wore it when she filmed A Little Night Music.”
“Well, I do hope you have a chance to wear it, Mimi. Have you heard anything from Westin’s about the robbery? Do we know if it was stolen?” Kari picked up her cup. The sound of fine china tinkled in the background.
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard a thing.”
Kari turned to me, her cup still in her hand. This was my cue. “Carol, have you heard anything? Do we know any more than we did yesterday?”
“It’s still not clear exactly what or how much may have been stolen. The Beverly Hills Police Department is reporting yesterday’s robbery was a failed attempt. However, a source close to the investigation, who asked not to be identified, has told me the robber made off with several million dollars’ worth of loose cut stones and diamonds.”
“Well, that is a big difference.” Kari’s green eyes loomed like saucers behind her round eyeglasses.
“Oh, I do hope Liz’s necklace wasn’t one of them,” Mimi whined like a spoiled child. “It would be such a loss. Please tell me that’s not the case.”
“If it was stolen, Mimi, I’m sure Henry Westin’s will issue a revised statement very soon. But there is some good news. The police tell me they believe yesterday’s robbery was not an isolated incident, but part of a series of robberies they’ve been following over the last six weeks. In fact, they suspect they’re looking for a serial thief. A woman they’ve nicknamed the Wigged Bandit.”
“A woman?” Kari laughed, the trill of her laughter like that of an ascending scale. “Isn’t that unusual?”
“The police have pictures of her as a blond, a brunette, and a redhead. But they haven’t been able to get a shot of her face. She’s always wearing glasses or hats and appears to know where the cameras are. What they do know is that whoever she is, she’s a master of disguise.”
“Well, I should hope so,” Kari said. “If it’s a woman who’s got to compete in a man’s game of robbing jewelry stores, there’s no excuse for not having style. She’s certainly got to up her game.”
I let Kari’s sarcastic remark pass and wondered if she was spiking her tea with something other than the stacks of sugar substitutes lined on the console in front of her.
“But there is more,” I said. “Mimi, I apologize if you’re hearing this for the first time, but the police believe your sister, Carmen Montague
, was in the store just prior to the explosion and may have been—”
“Wait a minute.” Mimi adjusted her headphones and glared at me through the glass separating the studio from the news booth. If looks could kill, she was sending daggers. “I hope you’re not saying that you think my sister Carmen had something to do with this.”
“On the contrary. The police believe Carmen may have been working for her ex-husband Umberto—”
“Ex-husband?” Mimi said flatly. “Umberto Diaz de la Roca is her husband. Not her ex. And I know where you’re going with this. You’re about to say Carmen was making a delivery, dropping off jewelry for him. It’s a side business, all very legit and—”
“I’m sorry,” Kari interrupted, her hands waved wildly above her head. “I’m missing something. I thought Carmen and Diaz were separated. He’s a polo player, right? And now you’re telling us he’s in the diamond trade business?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Kari.” Mimi narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “You think there’s money in playing polo? With his lifestyle?”
Kari glanced over at me, her eyes squinted. I could see she wasn’t quite following. I explained that in addition to his polo ponies, Diaz had a reputation as a high-end trader of gems and jewelry, most of it coming from liquidation sales in Europe where he would collect rare one-of-a-kind items and stones and bring them back to the U.S. to sell.
Kari jumped in, “So then, Mimi, do you think your sister was doing a favor for Diaz and—”
“What I think is that places like Henry Westin’s don’t expect their priceless heirlooms and jewels to arrive via UPS. Trusted sources—like my brother-in-law—make deliveries. It’s not exactly common knowledge, but if Westin’s was robbed, it’s probably because my sister was carrying a package to the store for him. Diaz is in the country for a polo match, and no doubt someone was following Carmen. In my opinion, she’s just lucky she wasn’t killed, and I can only hope the police are really looking into this.”
Without a Doubt Page 4