But He Was Already Dead When I Got There (32 page)

Toomey switched gears to throw Simon off track. “The day after Uncle Vincent died—did you substitute fake diamonds for real ones in the Ellandy vault?”

“Naw, he dint,” Rizzuto interrupted, violating a basic rule of police procedure by answering for the suspect. “He wasn't takin' real diamonds out—he was puttin' 'em back.”

Simon turned as white as Hamlet's father. “How did you …?”

“
Putting them back?
” Toomey asked, not sure he'd heard right.

“How did you, how did you …?” Simon was having trouble completing his sentence.

Rizzuto grinned. “Guessed right, huh?”

“My god, Rizzuto,” Toomey said, awed. “You've solved the case!”

Rizzuto kept right on grinning. “Yeah.”

Simon had recovered. “How did you come up with a fantastic notion like that?”

“What's going on?” Gretchen demanded.

“It's no good, Mr. Murdoch,” Toomey said. “You've given yourself away. Just too many lies—they were bound to trip you up sooner or later. You're under arrest. Rizzuto, read him his rights.”

The only sound in the room was Rizzuto's flat voice intoning the words of the Miranda Code.

“It was Mr. Simon,” Bjarne nodded to Mrs. Polk. Dorrie wailed like a banshee and everyone started talking at once.

Over Simon's protests, Lieutenant Toomey pushed him down into a chair and drew up another one, sitting knee-to-knee. “This is what's going to happen,” he explained in a reasonable voice. “Either I charge you with first-degree murder, or else you tell us what happened here and we try to work out a deal with the prosecutor's office. Either way, you're under arrest. So what's it going to be?”

“He has the right to consult with an attorney,” Malcolm said hastily. “Lieutenant, you can't expect him to make a decision like that without having all his legal options explained to him. Simon, I advise you to say nothing at all until—”

“Malcolm,” Simon said acidly, “
shut up.
”

“Your choice,” Toomey went on. “First-degree murder means premeditated, and I don't think you planned to kill him, did you?” Toomey gestured toward Rizzuto with his head and circled one wrist with the fingers of the other hand. Rizzuto pulled out a pair of handcuffs and clamped them on Simon. Simon held his hands up in front of his face, staring at the cuffs, horrified; Dorrie wailed again. “First-degree carries a lot heavier penalty than the lesser charges, like manslaughter,” Toomey said. “So what do I charge you with, Mr. Murdoch? Was it premeditated?”

“No, of course it wasn't,” Simon answered waspishly, finally accepting the fact that they had him. “It was an accident. I had no intention of killing him or anyone else! I didn't mean to kill him even when I hit him!”

“Ugh,” said Gretchen. “Tacky.”

“Aw, Simon!” Dorrie was still wailing.

“So why did you hit him?” Toomey asked, knowing the answer but content to go through the motions now that he had his man. “Why?”

Dorrie wailed louder.

“Because he pulled a gun on me!” Simon protested. “You saw it! What was I supposed to do, stand there politely and let him shoot holes in me? I just grabbed the closest thing at hand—Dorrie, my love,
do
stop making that ungodly noise!” She stopped. “I saw him taking the gun out of the desk drawer so I just grabbed the statuette and hit him. That's all. There was nothing premeditated about
that
.”

“How did you get in?”

“The same way as Nicole and Malcolm. Dining room window.”

“Where was Uncle Vincent when you got there?”

“Not in the library, you can be sure. I thought he'd gone to bed—the library was dark, I had to turn on the lights. But he was still on the first floor somewhere. I don't know whether he saw the light under the door or if he was coming back for something he forgot or what—I don't think I made any noise. But he came in and found me looking through the file cabinet and … well.”

“Simon killed Uncle Vincent,” Nicole said as if trying to convince herself. “He really did!”

Gretchen suddenly laughed. “And Dorrie dragged him back here and made him go through all …” She trailed off when she saw Dorrie looking daggers at her.

Rizzuto picked up the questioning. “So whyja go back to the library in the first place?”

“To look for the promissory note, of course. Why else?”

Gretchen gave a satisfied little nod. “To protect Dorrie.”

“No, to protect himself,” Toomey said. “It had something to do with those fake diamonds. How would getting hold of the note help? You'd already substituted the fakes for the real thing, hadn't you?”

“Only two days earlier,” Simon admitted. “I needed a lot of money in a hurry—”

“You stole from me!” Dorrie blazed suddenly. Everyone looked at her. “What kind of man would steal from his own wife? You knew Ellandy's was in trouble and still you went in and helped yourself to
my
diamonds just because
you
wanted … whatever it was you wanted!
You
want,
you
need, it's always
you
!” Dorrie's voice was shrill and her face had turned red. “You low-down, sneaky, lying, underhanded—”

Immediately Malcolm and Lionel and Nicole jumped in and started the work of calming Dorrie down. They said Now,
Dorrie
and
Don't get excited
and
Take it easy
until she collapsed into a deflated silence. Lieutenant Toomey was astounded; it was the first time he'd witnessed one of Dorrie's flare-ups.

“Darling, listen to me,” Simon said in his most persuasive tones. “I had every intention of returning the real stones within a week or two, believe me! I only borrowed them.”

“Without asking,” Lionel said disgustedly.

“I wouldn't
steal
from you, darling,” Simon assured his wife. “Please believe that.”

“But you changed your mind and put them back the next day after the murder,” Toomey said. “Why?”

“I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I had a change of heart?” Simon asked. “No, I didn't think so. It was Uncle Vincent's little bombshell that made me take them back. He announced he wasn't renewing Ellandy's loan, and Lionel immediately started talking about taking inventory. He and Dorrie and Nicole went in that night to get started—that was a very nerve-racking period for me, you can be sure. While they were checking the stones, I mean.”

Lionel said, “You mean if we'd just stuck to it a little longer, we'd have found the phony diamonds?”

“Undoubtedly. I thought if I could get the promissory note and turn it over to you and Dorrie, you wouldn't need to go on with the inventory. Because once you found the fake stones, I'd be the first one you'd suspect. Lionel, you don't even allow your sales personnel into that vault. I'm the only outsider who's ever been in there.”

“But you couldn't find the note,” Toomey prompted.

“No. So the only thing to do was return the real stones and get the imitations out of the vault.” Simon opened his right hand to reveal the fake diamond he'd been holding all this time. “I must have missed this one.”

“Simon,” Nicole said icily, “I'm glad they caught you! That was a terrible thing to do!”

“Oh, indeed? And have you told Malcolm how you got Dorrie and Lionel to make you a partner?” Simon asked bluntly.

“
I'll
tell him,” Lionel said, and did.

Malcolm was horrified. Wound up, Lionel went on with the story of how the
fourth
partner had maneuvered
her
way in. Then they were all talking at once again, Lionel and Dorrie shouting at Gretchen even more than at Nicole, the two intruders. Mrs. Polk shouted at the others not to shout at Miss Gretchen. Bjarne looked embarrassed.

Toomey and Rizzuto exchanged a long-suffering look and waited them out. Toomey was surprised to learn Gretchen was now a partner of Ellandy Jewels; he'd suspected Nicole of pulling some sort of fast one to get herself a partnership, but he hadn't known Gretchen had weaseled her way in too. My, my, how things had changed. Eventually the furor died down. Malcolm was somehow reconciled to Nicole's duplicity;
in no position to preach
, Toomey thought. Malcolm and Nicole stood in the middle of the room hugging each other.

“Sweet,” Simon remarked.

“One more thing,” Toomey announced in an attention-demanding voice. “You said you planned to ‘borrow' the diamonds for only a week or two,” he reminded Simon, “and that sounds as if you needed money in a hurry. Had something happened?”

“The
Russians
happened,” Simon answered. “When they—”

“Russians?” Gretchen interrupted. “How in the world can you blame this on the Russians?”

“Let me finish,” Simon snapped. “Whenever the Soviets are losing revenue from their oil resources or whatever, they like to compensate by selling state-owned diamonds. If they do it often enough, they'll flood the market and the price of diamonds will drop to virtually nothing and even De Beers will be on welfare. But it hasn't happened so far, and I learned that this month the Soviets were going to release a large amount of rough. It looked like a good chance to make a killing.” Simon blinked. “Unfortunate choice of words.”

Toomey asked, “Couldn't you have converted some of your real estate holdings?”

“Not in time. I needed capital fast. I believe I told you once before, Lieutenant, that any merchant in the world would give his right arm for a steady source of diamonds that De Beers didn't control. So when Lionel failed in London, it looked as if the Russian diamonds were my best bet. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to follow through—thanks to Uncle Vincent.”

“Aha!” Lionel pounced. “You
did
know about London ahead of time!”

“Yes, Lionel, we both know I knew about it ahead of time,” Simon answered with exaggerated patience.

“So why did you lie?” Gretchen asked. “Why pretend not to know that Lionel had visited De Beers?”

Simon was silent a moment, trying to think of a convincing lie. He couldn't, so he told the truth. “That was a mistake, I see that now. I should have just said that you misunderstood me, Gretchen. But when you were telling me about Lionel and De Beers, at lunch yesterday—I didn't know yet that the police had set the time of death between ten-thirty and eleven. The last I'd heard they were still asking questions about when the fire went out and when rigor mortis set in and all that.”

Gretchen frowned. “I don't get it.”

“I do,” Lionel said. “He means he didn't know three of us had an alibi.”

“Simon!” Dorrie cried, shocked anew.

“Not you, darling,” Simon said hastily. “Never you. Lionel was the one in hot water with Uncle Vincent, and it seemed logical that he'd be the one the police suspected.” He glanced apologetically at the other man. “Nothing personal, Lionel.”

Lionel's mouth dropped open. “
Nothing personal!
”

“Well, that should do it,” Toomey said, standing up. “Unless … Rizzuto?” The Sergeant shook his head.

“Did you hear what he said?” Lionel asked Bjarne. “
Nothing personal!
” Bjarne clucked his tongue.

“Just a minute, Lieutenant,” Malcolm said officiously. “Why are you bothering to charge him? It's clearly a case of self-defense. Simon, I'm not a criminal lawyer but I can recommend someone who—”

“Malcolm,” Simon said tiredly, “I don't like you. I have never liked you. What's more, I can say with full confidence that I won't ever be proved wrong—I will never like you. Just don't talk to me. Ever. Again.”

“You're upset,” Malcolm said, and heard Gretchen snicker. “Lieutenant, the case won't even go to trial. You'll—”

“Oh, it'll go to trial, all right. You don't steal diamonds and kill a man and just walk away.”

“Self-defense,” Simon muttered.

“He put the diamonds back,” Dorrie said, fully recovered from her snit. “What if we don't press charges?”

“We'll press charges,” Lionel said firmly.

“Even if you don't,” Toomey said, “stealing diamonds was the commission of a felony in connection with a homicide, and that means it's not up to you to decide whether to press charges or not. It's up to us. Pleading self-defense might work, though. But you're going to prison,” he said to Simon. “We've got you on other counts. Felony theft, breaking and entering, interfering at the scene of a crime, withholding evidence, making false statements to the police, falsely incriminating an innocent person—”

“And runnin' a stop sign,” Rizzuto added. Toomey just looked at him, not asking. “When I was tailin' him and Dorrie,” Rizzuto explained, “when they threw that airline bag off the bridge? He ran a stop sign.”

Toomey couldn't think of a thing to say to that. Instead, he told Simon again that he was going to prison. Then the Lieutenant laboriously squatted down and started stroking the cat. “Thanks for your help, Godfrey. I'm sorry we have to take your sparkly new toy away—how would you like to have a green latex froggie to play with instead?” Godfrey purred.

“Well,” Gretchen said, staring at Simon. “I don't know what to say.”

Nicole did. She put her arms around Malcolm's neck and announced, “I've made up my mind. I want to get married.”

“What?”

“Married. You know—here comes the bride and I do and all the rest of it?”

Malcolm gave a small whoop of pleasure and scooped her up in a bear hug.

“I want to buy a house,” Nicole said over his shoulder, “with huge grounds and a swimming pool. I want to have a child. Maybe we could get a dog. And a parrot.”

Toomey laughed to himself as he stood back up. All along he'd thought Malcolm must have a wild streak that appealed to Nicole, when it turned out
she
had a conservative streak that appealed to
him
. Nicole had only tiptoed to the sound of a different drummer.