The Diva Wore Diamonds

by Mark Schweizer

  Nancy pulled out her pad and read. “I pulled these two over just outside of town,” she said. “I happened to see them loading up some stuff in the parking lot at the Baptist church. Then they failed to come to a complete stop before pulling out. James Tinsdale and John Perdue. James was driving. Truck is registered to a Charles Tinsdale. No insurance card. I didn’t want to book him till you had a chat with them.”

  “Which one of you is John?” I asked. The tall, good-looking black kid stood up and stuck out his hand. His grip was strong, and he looked me right in the eye. Confident. The other boy stood up as well, following John’s lead, but didn’t offer his hand and was staring at his scuffed cowboy boots.

  “I’m John Perdue.”

  “Chief Konig,” I replied, then looked at the other kid, a scrawny fellow with long, light brown hair, wearing a faded, black Charlie Daniels Band t-shirt and almost-new jeans. “Then you must be James. Or is it Jimmy?”

  He glanced up at me, then back down at the floor. “Yessir,” he muttered. “Jimmy.”

  “C’mon in,” I said. “I just have a few questions for you.”

  They followed me into my office and sat down in the two chairs facing my desk.

  “You want a drink or something?” I asked. “We have some coffee. Or I can send Nancy to get you a Coke.”

  “No, thanks,” said John. Jimmy shook his head.

  “You heard about the murder that took place at the Bible Bazaar?”

  John looked scared. “Yes, sir, we did.”

  “We weren’t there, though,” said Jimmy hurriedly, relief flooding his face.

  “Hmm,” I said. “I thought you were.”

  “You were the tax-collector, weren’t you?” asked John.

  “Yep. And, according to my list, you two were the Roman soldiers.”

  “That’s right,” said Jimmy, now looking at me. “But we’d already left.”

  I thought back. These two had been in the crowd, standing off to the side, nearest the church.

  “We were there at the beginning,” said John. “But we had band rehearsal at five o’clock. Miss Kendrick said we’d be finished before then, but everything was running late. It was after five when the play started.”

  I remembered the hostile takeover.

  “We stayed as late as we could, but after it began, we snuck off,” John said. “We only heard later about what happened.”

  Jimmy nodded, a bit too enthusiastically. “You can check with the rest of the band.”

  “I’ll do that.” I shuffled some papers on my desk for a moment. “What kind of music do y’all play?”

  “We’re on the praise team at church,” said John. “I play keyboard and guitar and violin. Jimmy’s the lead singer in our new group. We’re practicing down in Boone for the ‘Battle of the Country Bands.’”

  “You write your own stuff?”

  John gave me a big grin. “Some. I’m not as good with country songs.”

  I returned his grin tooth for tooth, then turned to Jimmy. “Say, you don’t have any drugs in that truck, do you?”

  It was a question out of left field and had the desired effect. John looked at me with a confused expression, but Jimmy went white as a ghost and dropped his gaze immediately back to his boots. His left hand started shaking, and he gripped the armrest hard, trying to stop it. I’d bet a box of donuts that there was some pot in the truck, tucked in a Baggie and stuffed down in the seat cushion or locked in the glove box.

  “Here’s the thing, Jimmy,” I said. “You’re what? Eighteen? Nineteen? You get arrested on a drug charge, you’re going to be looking at time. We don’t take kindly to that sort of thing here. Not only that, but John would be going to jail with you. You want that?”

  It wasn’t exactly true. Kids’ parents had expensive lawyers, and most were quick to come to the defense of their misguided but headstrong offspring. Still, Jimmy looked like the kind of kid who might be shaken out of this kind of behavior. Besides, even if I wanted to, we couldn’t search the truck without a warrant or probable cause at least, and we didn’t have either.

  “No, sir,” muttered Jimmy, still not looking at me.

  John was looking at him, incredulity written all over his face.

  No more good cop. Now, I was bad cop. “Here’s your one chance,” I growled. “You go get your stash and you give it to Lieutenant Parsky there at the desk. You do that, and you walk out of here with a warning. That sound fair to you?”

  “Yessir,” said Jimmy, now visibly shaking.

  “And I’ll be keeping an eye out for that truck. You so much as miss a turn signal, and we’ll pull you over and search that thing top to bottom. Even bring in the drug dog. And I guarantee we’ll find something. Do I make myself clear?”

  Jimmy shook his head in the affrmative, probably unaware that our drug-dog status was “imaginary.” I glared at John who was, in turn, glaring at Jimmy, his expression having passed unbelief and quickly heading toward anger.

  “Now get out of here,” I said.

  Jimmy left the office as quickly as he could without sprinting. Nancy hid a smile as he disappeared out the front door. He was back inside in a matter of seconds, sliding a little plastic bag across the counter toward Nancy. Then he was gone again. John, on the other hand, stood and watched him, then offered me his hand again.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t matter whether you know or not. You watch yourself, John.”

  •••

  “You really want a drug dog?” asked Nancy. She held up a dime bag of marijuana, twenty dollars worth on the street. “I’ve got one we can use.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been training Sassy.”

  I laughed. “Sassy’s a chihuahua.”

  “All the better. She can get into those little places that big dogs can’t.”

  “Sassy’s an obese chihuahua. She weighs twenty-five pounds. She can barely get into a Pizza Hut.”

  “Hey, let’s not get into personalities.”

  “Okay, sure,” I said. “Let’s give her a try. It should give us a lot of street cred. I presume you’ve trained her to not eat the drugs if she finds them?”

  “Of course. By the way, Jeremy and Jenny Thatcher own a little craft store in Valle Crucis.” She flipped through a couple of pages in her notebook. “Crab Orchard Crafts. You want me to go talk to them?”

  “Yeah. I don’t think they’re good for this, but run on over there and see what they have to say.”

  Nancy grinned. “Tomorrow morning first thing. I’ll take Sassy with me. She likes to ride up front on the bike. And who knows? That craft store may be a front for a meth lab.”

  “By all means,” I said. “But they’d have to be stuffing the drugs inside burritos for Sassy to find them.”

  Chapter 14

  I hadn’t been to Lizard Lick since the National Convention of aught-two when I had been called in to solve the murder of the foremost benediction composer Hirohito Origami, who had just completed his magnum opus —the world’s first 54-fold Amen. It was an open and shut case, and I was done and gone, my fat fee folded like a crane and tucked in my 1662 prayerbook, before the last “amen” bounced off the stained glass. Still, something haunted me, haunted me like that ghost in the movie where Patrick Swayze gets killed in a mugging, but he’s still in love with Demi Moore, and they do that thing with the wet clay while “Unchained Melody” plays on the jukebox, but not him—the spooky ghost in the subway. Back in aught-two, the murmurings had already begun, murmurings of a “Creation Museum,” the kind of murmurings that linger like the stench of a dead chipmunk in an organ pipe and strike fear in the heart of every evolutionist with a dinosaur bone hip replacement. The only thing slowing the project was a lack of cash. I’d seen the plans. Building a full-scale replica of Noah’s Ark, complete with live hippos, would take a lot of skinny.

  I wasn’t back in my office two minutes when there was a knock at the door. I
t was Constance. Watching her walk in was like watching two fat bulldogs that had treed a scrawny yellow cat at the top of a flagpole that for some reason had decided to sprout volleyballs.

  “I was just down at police headquarters,” she said in a sing-songy voice that reminded me of Pat Boone’s rendition of “I Was Just Down at Police Headquarters.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Detective Hammer said that Wiggy was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?” I said.

  “That’s what Hammer said.” She slid onto the sofa like an extra-greasy fried egg onto a plate of hash. “Now, come sit next to me and we’ll decide what to do next.”

  Her bosom roiled like piglets, and as I gazed deep, deep into the limpid brown puddles that were her eyes, I knew she could become my soulmate if I could move beyond one question: What was that thing on her lip?

  •••

  I met Meg for lunch at The Ginger Cat. As I sipped my cup of Euthanasian Asperigo Latte or something that sounded just as ridiculous, she skimmed my latest chapter, the one I’d finished this morning after she’d left for work.

  “Oh, really!” she huffed. “Her bosom roiled like piglets? What does that even mean?”

  “A genius never elucidates his creations,” I said. “Each reader will glean what truths he or she can accept. This is the way of all true artists. Did James Joyce ever have to explain his unreadable prose? Or Marcel Proust?”

  “Good point,” conceded Meg. “And you are the Proust of Appalachia. Okay, Monsieur Artiste, what are you having for lunch?”

  “Something with mustard.”

  “I’m having the Pasta Puttanesca. It’s today’s special.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Harlots’ pasta. It sounds spicy.”

  “Harlots, eh? Well, if it’s good enough for harlots, I guess it’s good enough for me.”

  “Can I pull up a chair?” We both turned and saw Noylene standing a few steps from the table. Cynthia was coming up behind her, hurriedly scribbling something on her pad.

  “Sure,” said Meg. “Sit down. We were just about to order.”

  Cynthia finished writing, dropped a check down on the table next to us, and seemingly conjured a glass of water out of thin air for Noylene.

  “Y’all ready to order?” she asked.

  “I’ll have the Harlot’s special,” said Meg. Cynthia looked at her blankly. “The Pasta Puttanesca.” Cynthia smiled and wrote it down.

  “I’ll have my usual.”

  “Right,” said Cynthia, still writing. “A mustard sandwich. You want anything else on that? Ham, maybe?”

  “Yeah. Ham.”

  “Tomato? Lettuce? Maybe a pickle on the side?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Swiss cheese? Some potato salad?”

  I nodded happily.

  “Rye bread okay?”

  “Just right,” I said.

  Cynthia finished writing and turned to Noylene.

  “You got any soup? I’m not feeling too perky today. Morning sickness.”

  “Sure, hon. We’ve got mushroom or enchilada.”

  “Better give me the mushroom,” said Noylene.

  “Would you like some chervil on that?”

  “What?” said Noylene, not at all sure that she’d heard correctly. “Gerbil?”

  Meg, who was unfortunately taking a sip of water, snorted some of it out her nose in a most unladylike fashion. I managed a cough.

  “Yes,” said Cynthia without a blink. “Gerbil. I could give it just a gentle squeeze to see if you like it or not. If you do, I’ll take it back and give it a real yoink.”

  “Umm,” said Noylene. “Okay, I guess.”

  “May I have a yoink of gerbil on my sandwich?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Cynthia with a sniff. She spun on her heel, still writing, and went to turn in our order.

  “So,” I said to Noylene, “what’s up?”

  “I heard that Russ Stafford found some diamonds on my land.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Word gets around,” said Noylene.

  “Sorry I’m late,” said Nancy, walking up and taking the empty chair. “I talked to the Thatchers. They have a cute little store over there in Valle Crucis.”

  “What’s it called?” asked Meg.

  “Crab Orchard Crafts,” said Nancy.

  “Oh, I’ve been in there,” said Meg. “Mother and I stopped by a few weeks ago when we went over to the Mast General Store. It’s darling.”

  “Did you order me anything to eat?” asked Nancy.

  “Nope,” I said. “I never know what to get. You might want to try the gerbil soup.”

  Nancy looked puzzled for a moment, then chose to ignore me and continued. “Nice couple. Two little kids. They only started going to New Fellowship Baptist a month ago. They haven’t even joined the church. Jenny Thatcher says they’re still ‘church-shopping.’ Her exact words.”

  “So they have no vested interest in whether New Fellowship gets sued or not,” I said. “Not really.”

  “Not that I can see,” said Nancy. “And neither one of them seems like the murdering type.”

  Cynthia arrived at the table with Noylene’s bowl of soup, Meg’s Harlot pasta and my mustard sandwich with all the trimmings. She set them down with a waitress’ practiced efficiency.

  “Is that the gerbil soup?” asked Nancy. “I’ll have that and a ham and Swiss on rye.”

  “Will do,” said Cynthia. “I’ll be back to refill your drinks in a sec.”

  “Can we get back to the diamonds?” said Noylene.

  “What diamonds?” asked Nancy.

  “The diamonds that Russ Stafford found on Quail Ridge.”

  “Oh, those diamonds,” said Nancy.

  “Well,” I said, “Brianna has some raw diamonds that looked a lot like the ones that were in the time capsule. But whether Russ found them on Quail Ridge or somewhere else is anyone’s guess.”

  Noylene gave me a smirk. “I guess that he found them on Quail Ridge. That’s why he wanted to buy it so bad.”

  “You’re probably right, but there’s no way to prove it, Noylene. The diamonds legally belong to Brianna.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m just asking ’cause Wormy’s been up there from morning till night for the past two weeks, looking for that cave. I’m gettin’ worried about him.”

  “If he thinks those diamonds are up there, he may be at it for a while.”

  Noylene’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think I killed Russ, do you? ’Cause I didn’t. He may have been a snake, but I didn’t kill him.”

  “I’ll bet you thought about it, though. He was going to steal Quail Ridge from you.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Relax, Noylene,” I said. “I know you didn’t kill him.”

  Meg looked over at me with a quizzical expression. Nancy hid her surprise, but waited for the explanation.

  “We took that rock in for analysis the next day. There wasn’t anything on it. No fingerprints, no DNA. Nothing.”

  “So?” said Noylene.

  “That afternoon, you’d just come over from the Beautifery. You were still blowing on your nails. They weren’t even dry.”

  Noylene smiled. “Passionella Pink.”

  “So you couldn’t have done it,” said Meg happily. “There would have been nail polish on the rock.”

  “Some trace of it, anyway,” said Nancy. She turned to Noylene. “I’m glad you’re in the clear. I would have hated to find someone else to cut my hair.”

  “Me, too,” said Noylene. “I wouldn’t have had any problem killing him, though. No problem at all.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Meg and Nancy nodded their agreement.

  •••

  “Have you found the children a musical yet?” asked Meg, after Nancy and Noylene had finished their lunch and headed back to their respective workplaces. “You have your first rehearsal tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock, isn’t it?”r />
  “Ten o’clock to eleven thirty. And, as a matter of fact, I have. Something that will make us both happy. It’s a miniature oratorio by Henry Purcell. A companion piece to Saul and the Witch at Endor, otherwise known as In Guilty Night.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s one of the compositions that Purcell enthusiasts would select as touchstones of his genius. It’s really a musical dialogue in the Italian style, about twelve minutes long.”

  “Touchstone, eh? I love it when you start quoting from your music appreciation lectures. What’s this companion piece?”

  “Here’s the exciting part. It’s a newly discovered work. There’s mention of it in the literature, of course, but no one has ever found the score.”

  “And?”

  “And, I just got the word from Geoffrey Chester. Apparently, the score has been discovered in the library of St. Catharine’s College at Cambridge among Henry Purcell’s grandson’s papers. They’d been left to the college when he died in 1765, but he was a minor musician at best, and no one paid them any attention.”

  “It seems remarkable that a composition by Henry Purcell could have been overlooked for all these years,” said Meg, with more than a hint of skepticism in her voice.

  “And yet,” I said, “it was.”

  “And the name of this masterpiece?”

  “Elisha and the Two Bears,” I said. “We’ll be doing the American premiere. The world premiere will be at St. Catharine’s in two weeks. We’ve got to hurry, though. There will be plenty of early music groups vying to be the first to perform it over here.”

  “How can we get the music?”

  “I already have it,” I said with a smile. “Geoffrey got a copy from the organist at the college and faxed it over this morning.”

  “I don’t know the story. Are there children in it?”

  “A children’s chorus, a tenor, and two basses. Twelve minutes long, start to finish. A miniature opera.”

  “This could be just the thing to jump-start our children’s choir,” said Meg.

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”