by Nic Saint
“Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting,” said Brutus, making a face.
“And besides, it’s very unhygienic. All that saliva that’s involved, and those bacteria. There should probably be a law against kissing. It’s a public health risk. I think it would be in the benefit of all of mankind if—say, what are those two doing there?”
She was referring to Dwayne Late and Oscar Godish, seated on a nearby park bench and talking animatedly with a third person, some blonde who looked familiar somehow. And then she had it. “Isn’t that the writer whose book Marge is reading?” She’d seen it lying on Marge’s nightstand.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Brutus.
“So what is she doing with those two guys?”
And then, before their very eyes, suddenly the shortest guy, the insurance man, took out a small box from his pocket, and handed it to the writer, who gratefully tucked it away into her purse!
“Hey, they’re handing the Pink Lady to that author woman!” said Harriet.
“Maybe she’s the Sheikh?”
“Don’t be stupid, Brutus. There are no women sheikhs. Besides, why would a sheikh meet in a public park to exchange diamonds? No, there’s something fishy going on.”
“So what do we do?”
“We don’t do anything. We just make sure they don’t see us, and we follow that diamond.”
“Good idea,” said Brutus approvingly.
Harriet smiled in spite of the shocking scene. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“No, what?”
“That we might be able to best Max at his own game for once.”
Brutus’s face lit up with a smile of such wattage it probably could be seen from outer space. “Oh, my,” he said softly.
It had been far too long since they’d cracked a case, Max usually being the one who found the killer or solved the mystery, in spite of Harriet and Brutus’s best efforts. But not this time!
And so when finally the trio split up, with the insurance guy and the diamond expert going one way and the author lady going another, Harriet and Brutus decided to follow the money—or at least the diamond—and were soon tailing the author through the park, tails high, and making sure they stayed out of sight, just like real detectives would.
Their mission was suddenly complicated—or simplified—by the fact that they spotted another familiar figure reposing on a bench: Marge Poole!
25
Marge, who’d been relaxing with her new favorite book, suddenly started when a loud “Pshhhht!” sounded in her ear, immediately followed by, “Don’t turn around!”
“It’s us,” a second voice chimed in. “Harriet and Brutus!”
“Oh, hey, you guys,” she said as she placed down the book. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger stuff?”
“Don’t look now, Marge, but to your immediate right there’s that woman—the writer of that book you’re reading.”
So she glanced over ever so discreetly, and saw that Harriet was right: there was Loretta Gray, walking past with a certain briskness in her step, not looking left or right.
“Don’t scream, Marge, but she just took possession of the Pink Lady!” Harriet loud-whispered.
Marge had no intention of screaming—in fact it would have taken a lot more than this message for her to start hollering her head off, but still she couldn’t suppress a quick intake of breath. “The Pink Lady? But I thought Odelia and Chase were supposed to give it to the insurance people?”
“They did, and the insurance people just gave it to this lady.”
“So now we’re following her and trying to find out what’s going on,” Brutus added.
This time Marge did glance back, and saw that both cats were hiding in the bushes behind the bench. “I don’t get it. Why would the insurance people hand the diamond to Loretta Gray?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” said Harriet, “but my spider sense is tingling, which tells me that something is off.”
She smiled. “You have a spider sense?”
“Not really,” said Harriet with a shrug. “But I have feline intuition, which is probably even better.”
“Yeah, I have feline intuition, too,” said Brutus, “and plenty of alarm bells are going off in my head right now.”
“Okay, so maybe I’ll follow along with you guys. Cause I have to tell you that I don’t trust this woman either. When I talked to her yesterday she was acting very strange, and I’ve been reading her book, and she knows a lot of stuff that she couldn’t possibly know.”
“Like what?” asked Harriet as she and Brutus emerged from the bushes and the trio got going, following Loretta from a safe distance.
“Like the fact that Laura Burns, the Sheikh’s ninety-ninth wife, wasn’t well-liked by the Sheikh’s courtiers or by his ninety-eight other wives.”
“But why?” asked Harriet.
“Because she was deemed too western. Also, according to the book Laura was the only one of the Sheikh’s wives he actually was in love with.”
“He wasn’t in love with his other wives?” asked Brutus.
“No, he wasn’t. In Khemed the tradition is that families offer up one of their daughters to the Sheikh, and when he accepts, it brings great honor to the family.”
“So he collected wives like other people collect stamps?”
“More or less. Love doesn’t feature into the thing. It’s purely a business transaction.”
“Odd practice.”
“Odd?” said Harriet, peeved. “Medieval, you mean. In some countries people offer their best sheep or cow to the ruler, and in Khemed they offer women. It’s barbaric, that’s what it is.”
“Well, apparently this is all part of the tradition,” Marge continued. “At least it was until the Sheikh met Laura. According to the book he fell in love at first sight, and the feeling was mutual.”
“So a wedding out of love, huh? That’s better already,” said Harriet. “Though I don’t understand why she would marry a guy who already has ninety-eight other wives.”
“So what happened then?” asked Brutus.
“Well, the wedding was an amazing affair, it lasted ten days, and people came from all over the world to celebrate with the Sheikh and his wife.”
“Wives, plural,” said Harriet.
“And then things turned sour, right?” said Brutus. “The Sheikh locked her up and started treating her bad?”
“No, on the contrary. As the days passed, they grew ever closer together, and there was even talk that the Sheikh would send all of his other wives away, out of respect for Laura, which would have been revolutionary. She became pregnant very quickly, and gave birth to a lovely baby girl with curly golden hair, and it completed the happiness of the newlywed couple.”
“And then what happened?” asked Harriet eagerly.
“Then you came sneaking up on me from behind and told me to spy on the writer of the book,” said Marge with a smile.
“But you have to tell us how it ends!” said Harriet.
“Why don’t you ask that lady we’re following?” Brutus suggested. “I’m sure she’ll be able to tell you all about it—including why she took that diamond and what she’s planning to do with it.”
Loretta Gray had left the park, and was now walking along the sidewalk, Marge and her two cats still in tow, and gave no indication of being aware that she was being followed, which was just as well, as Marge was no professional detective, and she had the feeling that if Loretta just turned around, she would spot her immediately.
But lucky for her, the authoress just kept on walking, and soon was crossing the street. Marge decided to stay on her side of the street, and suddenly said, “I think I know where she’s going.”
“Where?” asked Harriet.
“The Star hotel.”
And lo and behold: the Star came into view, and as Marge had expected, Loretta entered the hotel.
“Do you think we should follow her in?” asked Brutus.
“If you want to, w
e can take it from here,” Harriet suggested.
“No, two cats will stand out like sore thumbs, no offense.”
“None taken,” said Harriet, though her expression told a different story. No one calls a Persian a sore thumb.
“What I mean is, everybody who sees you walk in can’t help but notice you, Harriet.”
“Oh, of course,” said Harriet, her tail, which had gone half-mast, now rising swiftly again.
“Maybe I better call my brother and tell him what we discovered.” But as Marge reached for her phone, suddenly she had a better idea.
26
Kenneth Cesseki may have lived in Boston once upon a time, but these days he had opted to move a little farther afield and now resided in lovely Thailand.
Odelia probably wouldn’t have minded going all the way to Thailand—she had, after all, fond memories of the time she’d participated as an undercover candidate on Passion Island, the well-known reality show—but thankfully modern technology made that unnecessary, and so we all sat in front of Odelia’s screen in her new home office, and found ourselves looking at Mr. Cesseki in person, dressed in a colorful T-shirt and ball cap, seated outside on what looked like a nice beach. There were even palm fronds waving at us from time to time, as if extending a formal invitation to visit soon.
Mr. Cesseki was a man of indefinite age. He could have been fifty, but he could also have been in his early seventies. He had one of those ruddy faces you get from spending half your life in hot climes with not a lot more in the form of protection against the sun’s rays than a hat and sunglasses. His skin had that leathery look that some crocodiles like to show off with.
“Hi there,” he said good-naturedly. “So you’re Odelia Poole? I’ve read your articles, Miss Poole.”
“Mrs. Poole,” Odelia corrected him with a smile. “I wasn’t aware I was famous all the way down to Thailand, Mr. Cesseki.”
“Just call me Ken. Well, Craig lived in Hampton Cove all his life, and he was a big Gazette reader, and I guess it rubbed off on me. It’s nice to keep up with the home front. When you’re living as far away from home as I am these days you tend to get homesick, and reading about daily life in such a nice and cozy place like Hampton Cove makes up for it to some extent. Almost like you’re there!”
“Thanks, Ken. That’s probably one of the nicest compliments anyone has ever paid me.”
“Well, it’s true, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way.”
“So the reason I’m calling you—I talked to Craig’s daughter Caroline, and she told me to get in touch with you.”
“Sweet Caroline. Did you know I used to dandle that little tyke on my knee once upon a time? I guess she’s all grown up now.”
“She certainly is.”
“So what did you wanna know?”
“I don’t know if you’ve followed the news, but a famous pink diamond turned up on our beach the other day. The Pink Lady.” She waited to see if the name rang a bell, and wasn’t disappointed. The man’s eyebrows shot up into his cap and practically knocked it off his head.
“The Pink Lady, huh? Well, I’ll be damned.”
“So you have heard about that particular diamond?”
“I’ll say that I have, Mrs. Poole.”
“Odelia, please. So Caroline told me that you and her dad used to work several projects around the world, and one particular project was in Khemed.”
“Oh, I remember it well. Fall of 1986 and Craig and I had been summoned by the Sheikh of Khemed. He wanted to build a dam on the Nabataean River to provide electricity to the countryside. So we landed there and we’re set up at one of those fancy hotels, the name of which escapes me right now, and set to work. Only we soon discovered there was a fly in the ointment in the form of the Sheikh’s right-hand guy, who had a little side project he wanted to interest us in.”
“A side project?” asked Odelia.
“This guy sure likes to talk, doesn’t he, Max?” Dooley commented.
“And a good thing, too,” I said. “Imagine if he didn’t want to talk. It would make our job a lot harder.”
“So what did he want?” asked Odelia.
“Well, so the guy comes to our hotel room one night, okay? And so we figured he wants to talk numbers. You know, look at the project and maybe get the ball rolling a little faster by cutting through some of that bureaucracy and red tape. But no, he had something completely different in mind. Turns out the Sheikh had recently gotten married to his hundredth or two-hundredth wife or something, and this guy clearly wasn’t happy with his boss’s choice of life partner. So he pretty much asked us to talk to the lady, and maybe try to convince her to come back with us.”
“Come back with you? I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, that makes two of us. Or three. We didn’t get what the guy was driving at either. But then it all became clear. Crystal clear, in fact. He wanted me and Craig to meet the lady, and have a chat with her at the hotel, ostensibly about the dam, but also about her home country. Turns out that even though she’d grown up in Khemed, her folks were actually American, and she’d gone to college in New York. And so the Sheikh’s man said the lady would love the pleasure of our company for some innocent reminiscing. You know, shoot the breeze a little, and talk about the good old days when she was a student in the West. So we said sure, send her along, and he did. The whole thing felt a little off, though, if you know what I mean, but then when you’re doing business in a country like that everything feels off, so it’s very hard to know if things are really off, or if that’s just the way they do things down there.”
“So you met Laura Burns?” asked Odelia, her attention riveted, as was ours, I have to say. The guy was a very good raconteur.
He now took a sip from an umbrella cocktail and continued. “So about an hour or so later the lady drives up—yeah, Laura Burns her name was—only the receptionist called up to our room—we were sharing a suite at this point, Craig and me—and said there was someone in the lobby who wanted to see us. So we said send her on up, figuring this was probably the Sheikh’s wife. And it sure was, and she was even more beautiful in person than in the pictures I’d seen.”
“And so what happened then?”
“Well, nothing happened, really. We talked about the States, and she asked us what was going on with this and that, and a good time was had by all. We talked about an hour or two, and then she left, very graciously thanking us for our time, and so we figured that was that. Another notch on our belts for the mutual benefit of the project. Cause there wasn’t a hair on our heads that thought anything untoward had happened.”
“Just a friendly conversation between two foreign contractors and the wife of the Sheikh.”
“Exactly! So we went to bed feeling pretty good about ourselves, only to be woken in the middle of the night by a persistent banging on the door of the suite. And even before we managed to open the door, it was busted open and an entire contingent of cops or soldiers or security people or whatever they call it down there came bursting into our room, and before we could ask what the hell was going on, they’re wrestled us to the floor, handcuffed us, put bags over our heads and were carting us off!”
“You were arrested?”
“Arrested, tried and kicked out of the country, all in the space of an hour, and in the middle of the night, no less.”
“But why?”
“We were hauled in front of some kind of judge, and as far as we understood from the court-appointed lawyer we were being charged with insulting the Sheikh. Turns out that it’s illegal for a so-called commoner to talk to any of the Sheikh’s wives. And not only had we talked to Laura, we’d been alone in a room with her, with not a single other person present, which was considered a crime. For a moment it looked as if we might be hung, drawn and quartered, but in the end the fact that the Sheikh really wanted that dam built saved our hides, and so we were exiled instead. Exiled never to set foot in Khemed ever again.”
“My God, t
hat must have been terrible.”
“We used slightly stronger language to describe the experience, I can tell you.”
“But didn’t Laura know that it was illegal for her to associate with you?”
“She must have known, but either she threw caution to the wind, because she was so eager to talk to a couple of Americans, or she was misinformed. But that’s where our Khemed adventure ended, and not a high note either.”
“So what happened to Laura?”
“Well, it wasn’t long after that she died.”
“Jeez.”
“Yeah. So I have no idea if she was sick, but I can tell you that when we met her she was in great shape.”
“What was the official cause of death, do you know?”
“Nothing was communicated as such, but we heard through the grapevine that she’d suddenly gotten very ill, was taken to the hospital and died within a couple of hours.”
“Died from what?”
“No idea. You have to understand that Khemed is one of those countries where everything is hush-hush. So whatever really happened to her, we’ll probably never know.”
Odelia chewed on this for a moment while Ken took another sip from his umbrella drink. “So the thing is, Ken, that I’m investigating the Pink Lady, specifically how it ended up in Hampton Cove.”
“Oh, that’s right. You wanted to ask me about that diamond, didn’t you?”
“Yes, turns out that Craig kept it in a safe at the bank all these years, until the bank was burgled and the diamond was stolen, then lost again, only to be found by a little girl playing on the beach. Now I talked to Caroline, and she was as surprised as anyone that the Pink Lady would have been in her dad’s safe. He’d told them the safe only contained some old documents and work stuff.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So do you have any idea how a diamond that used to belong to the wife of the Sheikh ended up in your colleague’s safe?”
Ken took off his ball cap and scratched his scalp at this point. “Well, now, that is a darn peculiar story, Odelia. And for the life of me I can’t tell you how Craig got his hands on that diamond.”