Fleeced

by Carol Higgins Clark

  The caption under the picture read: “Mystery writers gather today through Sunday to hear experts in all aspects of crime fighting share their expertise. Bestselling mystery writer Nora Regan Reilly is chairman of the convention. Daughter Regan is no stranger to law enforcement. She is a private investigator who jetted into town from her Los Angeles home to attend the lectures and seminars, and, of course, the festivities.”

  Los Angeles home! Regan thought. A one-bedroom apartment. Jetted into town! Coach class on a flight that served ice-cold bagels. Whoever said it’s all an illusion wasn’t kidding. At least the picture was pretty good.

  Regan, classified as Black Irish thanks to her dark hair, light skin, and blue eyes, had her arm around her mother who, at five feet three inches tall, was three inches shorter than Regan. They looked like mother and daughter, although Nora was a blonde. Regan had inherited her coloring from her father, whose hair was now a distinguished silver but had been dark in his youth. Luke was six feet five inches, so Regan’s height favored neither parent’s lineage. Since she was an only child, Regan was the sole result of the blending of their genes. Talk about the quintessential crapshoot.

  “That coffee smells great.”

  Regan turned to see her mother standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a pale pink silk robe wrapped around her slender frame. Her face, devoid of makeup, had a serene beauty. She yawned and reached for a china cup and saucer in the cabinet next to her. There was something about staying in the New York apartment that made Nora always want to use the good dishes. Regan thought it might be the view of the park that did it. When you drank from a china cup early in the morning, you felt as if you could be in a glamorous movie from the forties. Not a plastic cup or beer can in sight.

  “Anything interesting in the paper?”

  “If you think we’re interesting, then the answer would have to be yes.”

  “Huh?” Nora peered over Regan’s shoulder.

  Regan pointed to the picture. “Mommy and me.”

  Nora laughed. “How sweet,” she said as she squinted and leaned down to examine it. “That’s good publicity for the convention. I want to get down to the Paisley this morning before ten. I’m sure there’ll be late registrants straggling in.”

  The Paisley was an old, midsize hotel off of Seventh Avenue in the mid-fifties that had clearly seen better days. But it had a certain musty charm and was the perfect size for the convention. It was big enough to handle all the seminars, but small enough to be cozy. Nora had made a deal with the hotel that included free coffee and as many folding chairs as there were behinds to fill them.

  The phone rang. Regan glanced over at the clock on the mantel. “It’s not even eight o’clock yet. I wonder who that could be?”

  “I hope it’s not bad news,” Nora said anxiously as she straightened up and reached for the phone on the kitchen wall.

  We’re so Irish, Regan thought. What was that line? The Irish have an abiding sense of tragedy that gets us through the good times. Which meant that any phone call before 8:00 A.M. and after 11:00 P.M. could only mean big trouble. It was never even considered that it might be someone who wanted to talk when the rates were cheaper.

  Regan watched the expression on her mother’s face. As soon as Nora recognized the caller, she relaxed and smiled.

  “Thomas, how are you?”

  Thomas who? Regan wondered.

  “That’s all right. You’re not disturbing us at all…”

  Oh sure, Regan thought. Our hearts only skipped a few dozen beats. And that extra surge of adrenaline when the phone rang gave me a needed boost.

  “Yes, Regan is right here. Let me put her on…” Nora handed Regan the phone. “It’s Thomas Pilsner.”

  Regan’s eyebrows raised. “Oh,” she muttered with surprise. Thomas, a lovable eccentric, was the latest president of the Settlers’ Club down in Gramercy Park. He and Regan had become fast friends when she attended a Mystery Writers dinner with her mother there last fall.

  “Hi, Thomas,” Regan said cheerfully, picturing his baby face and mop of light-brown hair that looked like one big wave. It seemed to Regan that he could step into a snapshot from a hundred years ago and not look out of place.

  “Regan! Oh my God, Regan!” Thomas cried hysterically, apparently having kept his real feelings from her mother.

  “Thomas, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ve barely slept all night. Then I saw your picture in the paper when it was delivered at six o’clock this morning, and I waited as long as I could to call you. Oh God!”

  “Thomas, calm down. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Last night two of our elderly members died.”

  “I’m sorry,” Regan said, thinking that the Irish intuition about phone calls before 8:00 A.M. had for once proved to be true. She could just hear her grandmother crying triumphantly, “I told you!” “What happened to them?” she asked.

  “One of them had a heart attack in front of a bus and the other slipped in the tub last night. But if you ask me, something smells about the whole thing.” Thomas’s voice was trembling, but his words came tumbling out in a torrent. “Not just smells. Reeks! I just had lunch with the two of them yesterday. They told me they planned to sell four valuable diamonds and donate the proceeds to the club. It would have meant about four million dollars for us.”

  “Well, won’t that still happen?”

  “The diamonds are missing!”

  “Missing?”

  Thomas relayed to Regan the story of everything that had happened the day before. “And the red box with the diamonds is not with the rest of the jewelry. It’s gone.”

  “What do the police say?” Regan asked.

  “Well, I’m not completely sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I fainted.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It was so embarrassing. When I came to, they brought me downstairs to my apartment, and the doctor gave me a sedative and told me to get a good night’s sleep. I was in shock.”

  “But you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Lord, no! After a couple of hours I was wide awake again. It’s bad enough to think that Nat and Ben are both gone, but I’m convinced that someone is trying to get away with murder and theft. The police think Nat just hit his head, but I think someone came in here and killed him and stole the diamonds.”

  “You don’t have anything in writing about their intention to give the club the money from the diamonds?”

  “No. This all came up just yesterday. It was going to be made public on Saturday night at our one hundredth anniversary party.”

  “But you saw the diamonds?”

  “They were sitting next to my Cobb salad during most of lunch. Every once in a while they let me open up the box and stare at them. They were so beautiful.”

  “Could Ben have taken the diamonds home with him?” Regan asked.

  “That would be bad too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his wallet was missing by the time they got him to the hospital. If he had the diamonds on him, they would surely have been taken along with his wallet. Luckily his Settlers’ Club card was found in his pocket.”

  “That red box could be hidden in the apartment somewhere.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Nat mentioned at lunch that he was glad he wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting the combination to the safe anymore.”

  “Why did they own the diamonds together?”

  “They were both jewelers. They were part of a group of four jewelers who played cards together every week for fifty years in Nat’s apartment. They called themselves the Suits, after the spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds in the deck. Of course the diamonds were their favorite. Way back when, they’d each brought the most beautiful, valuable diamond they owned to one of the games. They made a pact not to tell anyone about these jewels-except for Wendy, Nat’s wife, who was in the apartment
that night-and the last one alive would get to keep all four diamonds. Survivor takes all, they called it. Well, two of them died last year before I started this job. They belonged to the club too. With the centennial anniversary coming up, Nat and Ben decided to do some good with the diamonds and not wait until just one of them was left alive to enjoy the money. But now they’re both dead!”

  “I wonder what the police are thinking?” Regan said.

  “They probably think that I took them!”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I knew about them.”

  “But you brought it up to them. Didn’t you say the diamonds’ existence had been pretty much a secret?”

  “Word had definitely leaked in the club. There were cries and whispers, Regan. Cries and whispers! People heard about the plans for Saturday. Maybe it was the waiter, I don’t know. If I hadn’t brought it up, and they’re not donated to the club, people would ask where they are! It would look like I was hiding them for myself.”

  “I see,” Regan said.

  “Could that make me a suspect?”

  Regan cleared her throat. “Thomas, the police always take a look at everyone who might have had the motive or the opportunity to carry out a crime.”

  “That’s why I need you, Regan.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Regan, please come stay here. Help me solve this mess. Help me get back those diamonds. Help me clear my name. Help me secure the future of the Settlers’ Club!”

  Is that all? Regan wondered. “Thomas, I’m only in town for a few days. I have to get back to Los Angeles on Monday. I’m in the middle of a case.”

  “I don’t care! Come for the weekend then. See what you can figure out in the little time you have.” He paused and said plaintively, “I need you, Regan. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Regan looked over at her mother, who was sitting at the table, studying Regan with a quizzical look.

  “Okay, Thomas,” Regan said. “I’ll come stay with you. I can be down there by about ten.”

  “Regan, I knew you were the one to call. You’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “I hope I don’t disappoint you, Thomas. I’ll do my best.” When Regan hung up the phone, she turned to her mother. “You always said you wanted me to work in New York City.”

  4

  Here we are, Princess of Love,” Maldwin Feckles declared as he carried a tray with hot coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, and flakey croissants into his employer’s darkened bedroom. “Time to rise and shine and fix people up.” He placed the tray on a table next to the king-size bed and opened the drapes.

  Lydia ’s eyes fluttered as she groaned. “What time is it?”

  “It’s 8:00 A.M. The time you instructed me to serve you breakfast.”

  “Was I dreaming, or did what happened last night really happen?”

  Maldwin sighed. He was a short man with rigid posture, tufts of dark hair that given half a chance would be sprouting willy-nilly from the sides of his head but were held in place by industrial-strength gel, and a face of baby-smooth white skin. “I’m afraid our neighbor Nat did in fact pass over.”

  “‘Pass over’ isn’t the word,” Lydia said as she sat up. “He departed this planet in a most dramatic fashion.” Her mouth broke into a wide yawn as she reached for the pink feather bed jacket that went over the top of her pink silk nightgown. Ever since she inherited two million dollars from an elderly neighbor in Hoboken she’d not only moved into a penthouse apartment in New York City, but she’d also launched a full scale dating service, aptly named Meaningful Connections, with matchmaking parties held in her own elegant home. She’d also decided that she must always dress the part of the Princess of Love.

  It was all so hard to believe.

  At the ripe old age of thirty-eight, Lydia ’s wildest dreams had come true. She’d gone from living in a little studio apartment on the wrong side of the tracks to having a butler who was devoted to her. All because she’d run some errands for Mrs. Cerencioni, who seemed as if she didn’t have enough money to pay the light bill.

  Of course, Lydia had unfortunately hooked up with a gold-digger who was her boyfriend for about five minutes before she managed to shake him loose. But he still left messages on her machine and sent love notes in the mail. It was wildly embarrassing.

  But now things could get even worse. After all the money she’d invested into fixing up the apartment and setting up her business, there was the danger that the club might have to close its doors and sell the building. Just when she and Maldwin were getting their respective businesses on track, she’d have to find a new place to live and work. And to think the club could have been saved by the diamonds they’d heard all the gossip about last night and that now were among the missing.

  “All that confusion and death,” Lydia said as she picked up her orange-juice glass and tapped it with her long red fingernails. “Do you think people might be afraid to come to my parties now?”

  Maldwin fluffed the pillow behind her dyed blond hair. “It was excitement that can only help. No one will ever accuse you of throwing parties that are dull. After all, matchmaking should have an air of mystery.”

  “But what if the papers report that some of my guests were disturbed by the arrival of the police?”

  “As long as they spell your name right. And the name of my butler school,” Maldwin sniffed. “Miss Lydia, remember what we decided when we joined forces.”

  “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “Exactly.” Maldwin walked to the door of the bedroom.

  “But Maldwin, I’m worried.”

  Maldwin waited.

  “If we have to find a new place to live, it’ll be very expensive. My stationery cost a fortune. And people get used to coming to a certain location for these parties. Being in Gramercy Park gave them a certain je ne sais quoi.”

  Maldwin flinched. He couldn’t stand it when she threw in her schoolgirl French. Her accent was awful.

  “I know, Princess,” he said. “But we must go on. Tomorrow night’s party should attract new members to the club. And hopefully, those diamonds will be recovered and we can continue on as we are now.” He smoothed back his hair and adjusted his pinkie ring. “My students are arriving soon. We’re leaving for a field trip to a town full of antique shops in western New Jersey. I expect we’ll be back later this afternoon.”

  Lydia grumbled. “And I’m going to exercise class. Don’t forget. Tonight we have to go to Stanley ’s studio for the interview. He wants to air the special on the club and us this Sunday night. How many viewers does he have on that cable show?”

  “I’m afraid neighborhood free-access channels do not draw the masses, Princess of Love. But it’s a start.”

  “I’ve come a long way from my studio apartment with no closet space,” Lydia mused. “And Maldwin, I don’t want to go back.”

  “We will make our businesses flourish, Miss Lydia,” Maldwin said formally, “at any cost.”

  They laughed nervously together. He gave a short, courtly bow and shut the door.

  5

  Regan stepped out of the shower, dressed quickly, and dried her hair. She turned off the hair dryer, placed it on her dresser, and heard her cell phone ringing.

  It was Jack. Regan smiled at the sound of his voice. She pictured his face with its hazel eyes and even features, framed by sandy hair that curled at the ends. He was six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and an undeniable charisma. Keenly intelligent and quick-witted, he also had a sense of humor that had developed from growing up in a large family. Thirty-four years old, Jack had been raised in Bedford, New York, graduated from Boston College, and had surprised his family by following his grandfather into the field of law enforcement.

  Jack’s grandfather had been a New York police lieutenant. In the twelve years since college, Jack had risen through the ranks from patrolman to captain and head of the Major Case Squad. He had also picke
d up two master’s degrees, and his goal was to become police commissioner of New York.

  “How was your dinner last night?” Regan asked.

  “Let’s just say I would rather have been with you. I heard a lot of boring speeches, then drove back to the city from Long Island. I didn’t get home until almost two.”

  “Well, you’ll never believe what I’ve gotten involved in.”

  “I was about to say the same thing.”

  Regan sat on the bed. “You first.”

  Jack paused. “I have to fly to London tonight. There’s a case over there I have to take a look at for my buddy at Scotland Yard. But I’ll be back by Sunday.”

  Regan felt a sharp stab of disappointment. I guess I’ll get to enjoy more expectation and anticipation, she thought, but said, “I’m leaving Monday.”

  “I know. I’m coming with you.”

  Regan laughed. “Oh really?”

  “If you’ll have me. I get a few days off and I want to be with you.”

  “I want to be with you too,” Regan said. “ L.A. on Monday sounds great.”

  “What did you get yourself involved in?” Jack asked. “There’s not another man, I hope.”

  Regan laughed. “Another guy called but it’s not anything to worry about.” She relayed to him the conversation with Thomas.

  “So you’re on the job this weekend too. Let me pick you up and take you down to Gramercy Park,” Jack said quickly. “I can’t wait until Sunday to see you.”

  “I was about to say the same thing.”

  Jack laughed. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Regan hung up the phone. There is a God, she thought.

  6

  Thomas Pilsner sat at his desk in his office on the first floor of the Settlers’ Club, wringing his hands. Normally the sight of his Oriental rug, faded leather club chairs, and handsome rolltop desk soothed him. But not today. His mind was racing, and his heart was beating at a rate that would only have been acceptable if he had just finished a run around Gramercy Park.