Lurleen plopped down on my oversized chair next to the fireplace. It was late, but she didn’t look the least bit tired. She loved delivering news no one else seemed to know.
“What have you heard about the stolen necklace?” I asked.
“According to Chris, he arrived back at the apartment this morning and found the door locked. When he went inside, the safe was wide-open and empty except for a few documents. Savannah claimed Quinn had put the necklace in the safe, and Chris said the safe was closed before the party started—he made it a point to check on that before strangers entered the condo.”
“But, Savannah was wearing the necklace all evening,” I said.
“The necklace you saw was actually a fake,” Mason said. “I can tell you that much—that will be in tomorrow’s edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Savannah Evans typically wore copies of her more expensive jewelry at gatherings when she didn’t want a lot of security around. She usually kept her more valuable jewelry in a safe deposit box at her bank.”
“So why did she keep this necklace in a home safe?” I asked.
Mason shrugged.
I stared at him. “You knew about the necklace being stolen and didn’t tell me. Why?”
“You know I can’t talk about an active investigation. I could see your mind working overtime when I mentioned the drug issue. This is a police matter.”
“How did you get so much information, Lurleen?” I asked.
“When I called Chris to see how he was doing, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it. He was upset about Quinn, naturally, but he seemed more concerned that people might think he was the one who’d stolen Savannah’s necklace.”
Mason rubbed a hand over his bald head. “I don’t want you two involved in this.”
“But, we are involved, Mason,” I said. “Both Lurleen and I were there. Won’t someone want to interview us?”
Mason nodded. “They will. I’m surprised they haven’t called you already. Specific information about the drug hasn’t been confirmed yet. They may be waiting on that. I’m not next on the roster, so I won’t be working the case, thank goodness, and it hasn’t been designated a murder. It’s a suspicious death and a robbery at this point. Do either of you actually know something about the necklace?”
“I do,” Lurleen said. “A pearl and diamond necklace. Edwardian, I think. The diamonds were enormous. The necklace was easily worth two hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps what I saw was a very good fake—I was never close enough to Savannah to check that out properly.”
“Since when do you know so much about vintage jewelry?” I asked.
“I watch the Antiques Road Show, and then, of course, there was Jerome.”
Mason gave me a blank look.
“It can only be an old boyfriend,” I said. I didn’t add that it was probably an imaginary one.
“Very old,” Lurleen said. “Jerome was too old for me, really, but such fun. He insisted on teaching me the trade. He was a diamond cutter in Paris and was always bringing me little baubles when he visited Atlanta.”
I’d never heard of Jerome or seen any baubles, but I rarely challenged Lurleen about her exploits or her history. They always made for a lively story, and what she said about Savannah’s necklace was most likely true. Lurleen knew jewelry in the same way she knew fashion and expensive furniture. She studied fine things with a passion—not because she wanted to own them—more like a hobby, the way I studied new recipes to try.
Danny knocked on my front door and then poked his head inside. “I thought I’d find you here, Lurleen. You’re discussing the case, aren’t you? I just got back from headquarters, and that’s all anyone is talking about.”
Danny used to be a plain-clothes cop with Atlanta. He got tired of the bureaucracy. Now, as a private investigator, he could pick and choose his cases and help the police or lawyers when they needed some outside assistance. He was still good friends with many of the people in the department.
While Danny made himself comfortable on my red sofa, Hermione wandered into the room. She was happy to go to bed early with the kids, but she didn’t like to miss the action. She jumped up on the sofa and settled her head on Danny’s lap.
“We were just discussing the missing necklace, Danny,” I said. “Mason told us the one Savannah wore all evening was a fake.”
“That’s right,” Danny said. “According to Savannah, Quinn asked her to wear the original just for him in the afternoon. She claims she did that to please him and then left it with him to put in the bedroom safe before the party started. She wore a fake for the party, as she usually did when she didn’t want a security detail around.”
Lurleen nodded along with Danny and spoke when he’d finished. “Chris told me he was the one who brought Savannah home from the hospital this morning, and that’s when he discovered the original necklace was missing.”
“So we don’t actually know when the theft occurred or if it had anything to do with Quinn’s death,” I said. “It might have been someone taking advantage of a chaotic situation.”
“That was the big discussion at headquarters,” Danny said. “There was a lot of coming and going that afternoon, people bringing in food and drink for the party, then cleaning up afterwards.”
“It’s a current case,” Mason said. “No one should be discussing it publicly.”
“I know, I know,” Danny said, “but you can bet if I’m hearing about it, others will hear as well.”
Danny had none of Mason’s reservations about talking to us. “The nephew, Chris, has a key, and he claimed he locked the apartment up after the clean-up crew was finished. Savannah asked him to do that.”
“I thought there was a live-in housekeeper,” Mason said.
“There is, but she was on vacation. That’s what Scottie told me.”
“Scottie?” Mason asked.
“You know Scottie,” Danny said. “He’s new on the force and my main contact there these days. He’s happy to give me information if I do the same for him.”
Mason grumbled something about police security, and we all let it pass.
“The safe wasn’t blown open or anything?” I asked.
“Nope,” Danny said. “Nothing like that, and according to Savannah, only she, Quinn, and Chris had the combination.”
“Chris knew the necklace was in the safe when he locked up the condo?” I asked.
Danny shook his head. “He knew the safe was closed before the party started, but he didn’t check the bedroom or the safe when he locked up. It was Savannah who claimed the necklace was in there and the safe closed.”
“Then we really do have a second mystery,” I said. “Who had access to the apartment?”
“The concierge, the housekeeper,” Danny said. “They both have keys, but the housekeeper is in Florida with a verified alibi.”
“Any of the neighbors have a key?” I asked.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Danny said. “The neighbors knew about the party—especially the ones living on the floor below. The building isn’t as sound-proofed as they would like, and that’s caused some bad blood between the Evans-Nelson folks and everyone else. Savannah and Quinn like big bashes and don’t like to be told to keep the noise down. However, the neighbors claim they didn’t hear anything after the party ended and the ambulance left. The condo takes up the entire third floor so there weren’t any next door neighbors to see people coming and going.”
“And the concierge?” I asked.
“Asleep in the back room,” Danny said. “There is a recording of people entering and leaving—that’s being examined as we speak.”
“How exciting this is!” Lurleen said. “You know those closed room murders? A dead man is on the floor, and the room is locked from inside.”
“Only this time the man died at the hospital,” I said.
“You know what I mean. We know just enough to make things intriguing and seemingly impossible.”
“We don’t know anything,” Mason said, “and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Poor Mason. He was sounding curt, but I knew it was simply because things were churning out of his control. Once Lurleen latched onto a mystery, there was no hope of loosening her grip.
I tried to calm the waters. “Don’t you think we should at least tell you what we saw?”
Danny nodded. “It makes sense, Mason. You and I both know it’s better to hear the story from witnesses as soon as possible.”
Mason sighed. “It’s better to let the investigators do their work without interference, but I can see when my advice will be ignored. May I have some coffee and some more of those cookies you baked today?”
“The white chocolate oatmeal ones? Absolutely,” I said.
“Got enough for the rest of us?” Danny asked.
I nodded. I put a dozen cookies on a plate and returned to the living room. I left water to heat on the stove.
“You have a nose for this, don’t you, Danny?” Mason said.
“Ditie’s cookies or the work?” he asked as he grabbed the largest cookie he could find. “Great,” he said appreciatively after taking two bites. “Lurleen talked my ear off about the party last night and then again after she heard about Nelson’s death.”
Lurleen reddened. “Talked your ear off?”
“Sorry,” Danny said. “A figure of speech. A bad one.”
Lurleen would have pouted longer, but here was a new case. “I forgive you. Now, let’s go over what you and I saw last night, Ditie.”
“I give up,” Mason said. “You gonna keep notes, Danny? We’ll pass them along to the detective on the case, but there’s going to be hell to pay at headquarters.”
Danny took out a pen and notebook.
“Go ahead. We’re listening,” Mason said after he’d munched his way through a second cookie.
Lurleen and I told Danny all we knew.
“So, if the safe was found open in the morning, any of the staff might be involved,” Danny said. “Maybe Quinn didn’t close the safe completely when he put the necklace back, and someone saw this as a crime of opportunity with both Savannah and Quinn gone in a rush.”
“What about Chris insisting it was closed before the party started?” I asked.
“People do lie,” Lurleen said. “I mean I like Chris and all that, but he certainly plays up to Savannah. Sometimes it feels a little fake. Maybe he didn’t close the safe after he stole the necklace, and then Savannah found it open before he could shut it in the morning.”
“Or maybe more people had keys to the apartment and knew the combination to the safe,” I said.
The kettle was whistling. I took coffee orders, drip version, and Lurleen distributed the cups when they were ready.
“Do you think someone created a diversion with Quinn in order to steal the real necklace?” Lurleen asked as she settled beside me.
“I’m not sure there would have been any diversion if I hadn’t noticed how sick Quinn looked.”
“You’re right, Ditie,” Lurleen said. “I thought he was just tired and needed a good night’s sleep.” She sipped her coffee. “I wonder if Quinn was given the bad medicine during the party.”
“Poisoned at the party?” I said. “That would take some nerve. If he’d died on the spot, everyone in that room would have been a suspect unless it looked like another heart attack.”
“Did you see their medicine cabinet?” Lurleen said to me.
We all looked at Lurleen.
“No,” I said, “and why did you?”
“Oh, don’t be such a goody deux chaussures.”
“Goody Two Shoes? You made that up,” I said.
Lurleen ignored me. “I had a headache. Too much of that fabulous wine. So I went looking for an aspirin. Mon dieu, do they have medicines! At least ten bottles with his name on them. I would have written them down if I knew we were going to have a case to investigate.”
“You do not have a case to investigate,” Mason said.
“It sounds like an inside job,” Danny said. “Someone had a key and the combination to the safe.”
“You didn’t see how the guests acted,” Lurleen said. “They all looked suspicious if you ask me.”
“Were we at the same party, Lurleen? To me, everyone seemed friendly. A few people did appear to know each other and Savannah. But, only one of them acted aloof—the cousin James Bradshaw. He kept to himself and seemed more interested in the alcohol than the conversation.”
“There you are,” Lurleen said, “motive and opportunity.”
“I can see the opportunity—maybe,” I said. “But, what was the motive?”
“You have to admit there was no love lost between Bradshaw and Savannah,” Lurleen said.
“It did seem odd,” I said. “One, to have a cousin in the competition, and two, that they didn’t appear to like each other. No warm greetings or hugs. I don’t think they even talked to one another the whole evening.”
“They didn’t,” Lurleen said decisively. “Not until the ambulance arrived, and then Bradshaw was all solicitous—a big show if you ask me.”
“The motive would be James Bradshaw didn’t like Savannah, so he killed her husband and stole her necklace?” Mason asked.
“Ce n’est pas si simple. But, it’s clear that Bradshaw didn’t like Savannah, and the feeling was mutual. That’s a start. That’s worth looking into.” Lurleen had made her final assessment on the matter. She pointed a slender finger at Mason. “There’s a lead for you.”
“Remember, I’m not on the case,” Mason said.
At that moment his cell phone rang. He got up and took the call in the kitchen. A moment later he returned. “Gotta go. I am on the case. A preliminary drug screen showed a high dose of a chemotherapy agent in Nelson’s system with no record he was being treated for cancer.”
“What drug?” I asked.
“Possibly doxorubicin,” Mason said, checking his notebook. “Apparently Quinn’s urine was red and not from blood. That tipped one of the nurses off, so they’re confirming the drug through more specific tests.”
“The Red Devil. It’s a chemotherapy drug used to treat aggressive cancers. It’s given intravenously, as a drip,” I said. “There’s no way he got that drug during the party.”