The Good Die Twice

by Lee Driver

  Einstein flew over to the perch in back of the sofa. He playfully hung upside down by one foot and held a fruit tree branch in the other.

  “What are you up to, buddy?” Dagger asked as he carried the pictures to the sofa and sat down. He used a magnifying glass to examine the picture closer but it was of little help.

  “Worm is going to see if he can check the studio that made the copies to see if they still have the original.”

  Einstein chattered away with a relentless stream of ear-piercing screeches.

  Dagger turned his attention to the box on the coffee table where he had placed Rachel’s earring after Luke and his boys stole the duplicate. He held up the earring and studied it. The branch fell onto the cushion behind him so Dagger picked it up and handed it over his shoulder at Einstein. But the macaw was more interested in something else.

  The earring was large and black, almost the color of a Brazil nut and it was probably the biggest one Einstein had ever seen. Without any forewarning, Einstein swooped from the perch, snatched the earring in his beak and flew up to the catwalk, where he perched on the railing.

  “Einstein, no!” Dagger jumped from the couch.

  Sara ran to the kitchen and returned with a large can of cheese curls. “Einstein, look what I have for you.” She shook the can.

  Einstein cocked his head to one side. With his toes he grabbed the earring from between his beak and examined his treasure.

  Sara opened the can and held up several cheese curls. “I’ll trade you, Einstein. That earring doesn’t taste good at all. Come on. You know these are your favorite.”

  Einstein gnawed on the earring, mentally weighed the offering Sara held up, and gnawed with his beak again.

  “Einstein.” Dagger snapped his fingers. “No more Baywatch.”

  Einstein looked sharply at Dagger, stared at the trophy and released his grip. He returned to the perch in back of the couch.

  “TREAT.”

  “Here you go.” Sara held out her hand and Einstein gently picked up the cheese curls.

  “You broke it, Einstein.” Dagger held up two pieces—the backing and the stone that Einstein had gnawed free from the prongs holding it in place. He turned the dark stone over. “That’s funny. The black color doesn’t go all the way through. It doesn’t look natural.”

  Sara asked, “What’s wrong with it?”

  Dagger rubbed his fingers across the stone. “The bottom of the stone is pink.” Dagger took the stone outside to the garage where he gently dabbed paint remover on it. After washing the stone thoroughly, he returned to the living room and showed it to Sara.

  “It’s beautiful!” Sunlight glistened off the many facets of the gem. The stone was a soft pink color. Sara held it up and marveled at its clarity. “I think I read about this once.”

  Dagger was fascinated with Sara’s knowledge, attributed mainly to the abundant reading materials her grandmother supplied for her in her home schooling. The bookshelves were stocked with encyclopedias and almanacs. And having been such a recluse growing up, all Sara really had was her grandmother and her resource books.

  Sara handed Dagger the stone and retrieved one of her books. After several minutes she found what she was looking for. “This is a pink diamond. It is the most expensive and rarest diamond in the world.” She pointed to a picture on the page as she explained, “They are produced in Australia, and a one-carat diamond has been valued at over one million dollars.”

  “One carat?” Dagger whistled. Einstein followed suit with a piercing whistle of his own.

  “Einstein, shhhh,” Sara coaxed.

  The macaw fluffed out the feathers on his head and accepted another cheese curl.

  “Damn.” Dagger sat behind his desk and typed on the keyboard. “This sucker has to be at least fifty carats. And the mate is on her body, wherever that is.” He accessed the Internet and typed in diamonds and Australia and let the system do a search.

  “Do you think it’s real?” Sara asked.

  Dagger skimmed through the results of the search. There were travel web sites for Australia and literally thousands of web sites on diamonds. “I’m going to have to narrow the search.” He went back to the SEARCH line and typed in pink diamond, using the required quotation marks. It came back with several hundred hits. The eighth one caught his eye. “I think I found something.”

  Sara peered over his shoulder. The web site materializing on screen described the history of the Williamsburg Collection, a stunning choker necklace of twenty pink diamonds with a huge oval diamond suspended from the middle. The matching oval earrings were identical to the one Dagger had sitting on his desk.

  “It can’t be the same,” Sara gasped. “Can it?”

  Dagger scrolled down the page, reading, “The complete set is valued at four hundred million dollars. It had once belonged to the Duchess of Williamsburg and is displayed at the Argyle Museum in Argyle, Australia.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Dagger did his best thinking with a hammer in his hand. The framework was in place for the Florida room; the cement was set. The pre-fab structures available these days saved time and money. Dagger had twelve windows on order and was nailing the frames for the windows to the studs. Sweat trickled down his tanned chest. He lifted his baseball cap, ran his forearm across his forehead, and tugged the cap back down.

  He had called Padre to fill him in on his trip to the retreat. Padre had one of his men tailing Eric, but so far Eric Tyler hadn’t done anything the least bit suspicious.

  There wasn’t too much daylight left and the mosquitoes would soon be searching for someone to nibble on. With each whack of the hammer, Dagger added up pieces to the puzzle. Did Luke or Eric pose as Rachel’s brother? Could Luke by chance been in Australia around the same time as Rachel? Sara had called the museum curator and left a message on the recorder. Dagger wasn’t sure what time it was in Australia but he had a feeling their time zone placed them one day ahead of Indiana.

  He caught a glimpse of Sara behind the screened patio door. Her young eyes looked tense, absorbed. It was classic Sara. One bare foot was curled on top of the other, one hand was clenched, the other had found its way to her mouth, probably a fresh knuckle that hadn’t been chewed on yet.

  “What’s wrong, Sara?” Dagger had to catch himself sometimes. According to Simon, the inflection in Dagger’s voice sounded more like he was asking, ‘What’s wrong, now, Sara.’ Having her around was like owning a cat. She would slink around corners, silently watching him. Was easily startled if Dagger made too sudden a move.

  Dagger gathered up his tools and tossed them in his toolbox. He was ready for a shower anyway. Sara backed away when he entered through the patio door. He went right to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

  “Worm called. Sheila asked him to check on who owns the title to my property.”

  Dagger took a long pull from his beer and shrugged. Sara kept chewing on her knuckle. The thumb and index fingers on her right hand looked deformed from the swollen bumps. She pulled her hand away and clasped both tightly. Dagger didn’t understand it. There were times Sara could be so confident and bold, like when Luke and his guys broke in. Then there were times she looked and acted like a helpless twelve-year-old.

  “She did say she was interested in buying the place. But it’s not for sale.” He turned saying, “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Twenty minutes later Dagger found Sara sitting on the living room floor surrounded by reference books. He pulled his damp hair back behind his ears and peered over her shoulder.

  “What are you looking up?”

  “Titles and trusts. I don’t have a title to this property,” Sara confessed. “It was in grandfather’s name.”

  “I’m sure your grandmother left it to you in her will.”

  “She didn’t have a will.” There was a hard edge to her voice, which wasn’t what Dagger was used to.

  “Sara, why didn’t you say something?” He reached over to pick up one of the books
.

  “I can handle it.” She pulled the book from his hands and tossed it on the stack.

  “Okay.” Dagger retrieved another beer from the refrigerator and plopped down on the couch, draping his legs on the coffee table. Simon had told Dagger he was too hard on Sara, expected too much, and in subtle ways made her feel useless and ignorant. Even Einstein was quiet, as if he sensed an undercurrent in the air and was ducking for cover.

  Sara had a law book pulled onto her lap as she leaned against the couch, legs crossed at the ankles, layers of thick hair drifting over her arms and down the front of her dress. Her lips moved as she read like a third grader struggling with the pronunciation of strange words. One knuckle was making a subtle move to her mouth. Dagger could be a cold-hearted bastard sometimes, but at this moment, for the first time, he understood the term heart-wrenching. He pulled his legs off the coffee table and rested his elbows on his knees.

  “I don’t even understand legal mumbo jumbo, Sara. The bottom line is, either someone can buy it out from under you or it reverts back to the Interior Department or the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the specific tribal council.”

  Sara remained silent, studying the words on the pages in front of her.

  “Sara, this isn’t like you. Stop being a baby.”

  He regretted it the moment the words spilled out of his mouth. She turned on him with fire in her eyes, shoved the books off her lap, and stormed upstairs to her bedroom.

  “Jezzus…women.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “You certainly have my attention, Mr. Dagger,” came the accented speech of J.C. Kinnecutt, the curator at the Argyle Museum in Argyle, Australia, the heart of diamond mining. Dagger pictured him gray-haired with bushy sideburns and a pipe sticking out of his mouth.

  It was nine in the morning and they were on a conference call in Skizzy’s basement. He was videotaping the diamond Dagger had found and transmitting it over the Internet to Mr. Kinnecutt’s office.

  Dagger asked, “What can you tell us about the Williamsburg Collection?”

  “It is made up of the finest quality pink diamonds ever discovered,” J.C. began. “It has a delightful history. Amory Beaumont was a diamond hunter commissioned by Britain’s Duke of Williamsburg to find a fitting gem for the Duchess. Beaumont discovered a mine in Perth, Australia in 1851 and brought back a seventeen-hundred-carat diamond. The Duke refused to let the diamond out of his sight and insisted the finest cutter from Amsterdam be sent to Australia to cut and polish the gem. It took the cutter close to a year to finish the job.”

  J.C. spoke quickly, the excitement in his voice growing as he continued. “In the meantime, Beaumont was instructed to return to the mine and blow up the entrance to keep others from finding a diamond bigger and making the Duke’s diamond pale in comparison. But the Duke was a clever chap. He sent his men to make sure Beaumont didn’t make it out of the mine. He didn’t want someone else commissioning Beaumont.”

  Skizzy made a few more adjustments. “Are you ready?”

  Dagger stood, legs apart, hands on his hips. He had tried to apologize to Sara for last night but she acted as if it never happened. She could be a lot more forgiving than he could.

  The sounds of squeaking wheels could be heard over the computer microphone. Sara leaned forward, mesmerized by the technology that allowed someone thousands of miles away to see a diamond lying on a swatch of black felt right in front of her.

  An image of the diamond appeared on the screen. There was unexpected silence from the curator. “Good lord,” J.C. moaned. “Um, listen. Can you get one of your experts out your way to check…no.” J.C. hesitated. “Show me more of the earring. And can you zoom in?”

  Skizzy rotated the camera, giving the image an almost three-dimensional look.

  “Wait now. Let me load my photos.” Within a few minutes the computer showed a split screen, a picture of the earrings from the Argyle Museum records and the image of the earring lying on Skizzy’s table. “I don’t believe this.” J.C. gasped. “It has to be the most excellent forgery I have ever seen.”

  Dagger crossed his arms and rested a fist under his chin. The jewelry on the screen looked identical and someone went through a lot of trouble to make a duplicate. Rachel couldn’t have died because she had a duplicate. She had to have had the real ones. “J.C., how do you know yours are genuine?”

  “Well,” J.C. cleared his throat, “I guess I just know. It has been in a locked display case under constant video surveillance. You don’t just leave a four-hundred-million-dollar collection unprotected.”

  “Four hundred million?” Skizzy gasped, his eyes jerking to the monitor and back to the earring on the cloth.

  “I’m investigating a murder, J.C. And I think the earrings had something to do with it.”

  There was the longest silence while J.C. digested what Dagger had said. Skizzy straightened up from where he hovered over the camera. Sara remained mesmerized by the images on the screen.

  “Let me check something out,” J.C. said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Dagger paced the length of the room. The ceiling was low and another few inches and his head would be scraping the support beams. Metal shelving lined the walls and Dagger couldn’t help but notice some of the bottled water was dated six years ago.

  “Gentlemen,” J.C. said as he returned to the microphone, “do you have the other earring by chance? And what about the necklace?”

  “No and no.” Dagger jammed his hands into his pants pockets and glanced at Skizzy. What had J.C. been doing all that time? Checking out the authenticity of his set? If so, J.C. was remaining non-committal.

  “J.C., when was the last time the Williamsburg Collection was out of its display case?”

  J.C. explained how the jewelry was used during a photo shoot five years before. The collection was returned to the museum immediately. “Matter of fact,” J.C. added, “I believe I have a picture from the photo shoot.” Papers rustled in the background and a minute later, J.C. returned to the computer. “Yes, here she comes.”

  Within a few moments, a picture of Rachel appeared on the screen wearing a white glittering evening gown and the Williamsburg Collection.

  Dagger’s mind started to play out a scenario. Maybe Rachel was unaware she had the real ones. Or maybe she did steal them and tried to cut her partners out. He stared at the fresh, innocent face on the monitor. Rachel Tyler did not look like a thief.

  J.C. stammered a bit, cleared his throat and started again. “I beg your silence for a short time until I can come to the states and see the diamond for myself. I am embarrassed to say that our country would be in a rather awkward situation if it were to get out that the Argyle Museum has lost one of its most prized possessions. Of course,” he cleared his throat again, “not to mention the loss of my job. It isn’t something that would look tidy on a job resume.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “I want my money, NOW.” Mince tossed the paper on the table and stalked over to the window. “Tyler is late.”

  “I’m meeting Tyler alone. I think it’s better that way.” Luke gathered up the papers and dumped them in the garbage. “You two go downstairs and have a drink. Give me about thirty minutes.”

  “I don’t like that idea,” Mince protested. “We’re in this together and I want to hear every damn word that’s said.”

  “Yeah.” Joey’s dark eyes flashed. Apart, neither one would take on Luke, but together they felt stronger, more confident, more cocky.

  Luke jammed his hands on his hips and scowled. “I’m not even supposed to have hired you two but if you want to be the ones to explain to Tyler how you fucked up and killed that woman, be my guest.”

  “We’re working on it,” Joey sneered.

  “And we also have another offer for Tyler,” Mince added. “So we ain’t going nowhere.”

  There was a knock at the door. Luke regarded the two men briefly, then opened the door to Edie Tyler.

  Edie paced, billows of cigar smoke drifti
ng up to the ceiling fan in Luke’s hotel suite. She stopped, glared at Joey and Mince, and then jammed the cigar into the ashtray.

  “I have better ways to spend my afternoons.” She dropped down onto the love seat, crossed her legs, and draped her arms on the armrests. “Exactly why should I pay you two idiots anything?”

  Joey followed the curve of her calf up the shapely legs exposed by the long slit on the side of Edie’s white skirt. “Because we went through a lot of trouble and our time is valuable.”

  Edie laughed, and flashed her green eyes at Luke. “You hired them, you fire them.”

  Mince sat on the edge of the couch toying with a nail clipper. He patiently worked from one finger to the next, not paying much attention to Edie but watching more intently on Luke’s reaction. Nail clippings were flying.

  “Do you mind,” Luke said. “Do that in your own room.”

  Mince shrugged and shoved the nail clipper back in his pocket. He looked quickly at Joey whose gaze had reached Edie’s cleavage.

  “Well, Joey and me,” Mince started, “we figure our time and silence is worth about a hundred thousand each.”

  “WHAT?” Edie shot out of the love seat and looked quickly to Luke who shook his head.

  “Ten thousand each,” Luke said evenly. “That was the agreed upon price.”

  Edie reached for a cigarette and tapped the end of it on the coffee table before accepting a light from Luke. She glared at him and blew out the first puff of smoke in his face. “You need to fix this problem…now.”

  “Fix this problem?” Joey laughed and walked over to retrieve two beers. “What do you think we are? A flat tire?” He handed a beer to Mince.

  Mince took a long swig. “Joey and me, we got something more valuable than that earring.” The two conspirators grinned.