“Rachel!” Nancy exclaimed, fighting down her fear. “What are you doing here?”
On second glance Nancy saw that Rachel was as frightened as she’d been. She was still wearing the navy dress she’d had on the day before. Her dark hair was a mess, and she wore no makeup.
“You’ve got to help me,” Rachel pleaded, grabbing Nancy’s arm. “My life is in grave danger.”
Chapter
Fourteen
WHAT ARE YOU talking about?” Nancy asked. “How did you find me here?”
Rachel kept her hand on Nancy’s arm. “I got the address from the guest register at Baxter’s Fine Jewelry,” she said. “Please, you have to help me!”
“Shouldn’t you talk to the police if your life is in danger?”
“You don’t understand. I can’t go to the police. Besides, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even know I was in any danger,” Rachel said. Her eyes flitted around nervously as if she were afraid someone would pop out of the parking lot to attack her.
Nancy stared at the jeweler’s assistant, totally puzzled. “If it weren’t for me,” she echoed. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me why you think you’re in danger?” Nancy suggested.
Rachel took a deep breath before beginning. “I’m the one who replaced the diamonds in Joanna Burton’s necklace with cubic zirconia,” she confessed.
“You?” Nancy said, startled.
Rachel nodded. “I knew it was wrong from the first, but I had to do it.” Her eyes started tearing up, and she wiped at them with the back of one hand before continuing.
“I used to work for Grand Central Studios in Hollywood, in the wardrobe department. It was so exciting, and I got to meet all the stars. One of my favorites was Michael Davis. I idolized him.
“I worked on a movie he was starring in, and one day when I was getting the costumes from his dressing room, I found a fake sapphire ring that Mr. Davis had worn in the movie. They’d finished shooting that day, so I thought no one would miss it. I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.”
Nancy didn’t see what any of this had to do with Joanna Burton’s death or the stolen diamonds, but she listened patiently. “When was that?” she asked.
“About three years ago, just as he was making his comeback,” Rachel replied. “Anyway, it turned out that the ring wasn’t an imitation. The sapphire was real and worth a lot of money, and the ring belonged to Michael!” Rachel’s eyes widened. “Was there ever an uproar on the set when he found out it was missing!”
Rachel pushed her hair out of her face, then took a deep breath. “I was afraid to admit I’d taken the ring, so I decided to sneak it back into his dressing room. Wouldn’t you know his agent walked in and caught me with it?”
“His agent?” Nancy echoed.
“Stephanie Cooke,” Rachel said, nodding. “She saw me with the ring. I tried to explain, and she was very nice about it. I put the ring back, but the next day I was fired. No one mentioned the ring, but I knew that Stephanie had something to do with it. That was when I moved here.”
Nancy felt sorry for Rachel, but she still wasn’t sure what the point of the story was. “What does all that have to do with Joanna Burton or the necklace or me?” Nancy asked.
“I’m getting to that part,” Rachel said, holding up a hand. “I moved to Carmel and got a job with Mr. Baxter. He’s been teaching me how to work on jewelry. One day Stephanie came into the shop with Miss Burton. I hoped that she wouldn’t recognize me, but she did. A few weeks later she called me.”
Tears began to run down Rachel’s cheeks. Nancy opened her purse and handed Rachel a tissue.
“She said she had a job for me,” Rachel continued, wiping her eyes. “Miss Burton had a diamond necklace she wanted to wear, but it was so valuable she didn’t want to wear it in public. She hadn’t yet had time to get an imitation of it made, so she wanted to know if I would take out the real stones and reset the necklace with fakes.”
Nancy was beginning to see where this story was going. “And?” she prompted.
“I didn’t want to do it, but when I hesitated, Stephanie reminded me that Mr. Baxter probably didn’t know about my tendency to take things that didn’t belong to me.”
So Stephanie had been in on the insurance scam with Joanna, Nancy now knew. Still, Stephanie must not know where the real diamonds were hidden. If she did, she would never have asked Nancy about her theories of where the gems might be.
“Stephanie brought me the paste, the fake stones, that had been in Joanna Burton’s old necklace,” Rachel continued. “She told me to take the real diamonds out of the new necklace and replace them with the fakes.”
“Is that the way it’s usually done?” Nancy asked.
Rachel shook her head. “Usually the paste and the original are two separate pieces. I’d never heard of taking apart an original and making it a fake,” Rachel said. “But I didn’t feel that I had much choice in the matter. I like it here in Carmel. I’m trying to stick it out with Mr. Baxter until I learn enough.”
“So you replaced the diamonds with the fake stones,” Nancy said. That explained why there were scratches on the necklace—Rachel wasn’t very experienced as a jeweler. “Didn’t you wonder why you were asked to do it?”
“Of course,” Rachel replied, “but with Stephanie threatening me, I figured it would be better not to ask. I did all the work when Mr. Baxter wasn’t there. He wouldn’t have liked me doing work without its going through him first.” She shook her head and added, “I must have been out of the store when Miss Burton brought the necklace in to have Mr. Baxter appraise it. I didn’t know he had found the fakes until you and your friends came in pretending to be customers.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police then?” Nancy wanted to know.
Rachel glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Stephanie called me from L.A. on Thursday night. I was still in shock about the whole thing then and hadn’t decided what to do. She told me that you were investigating the gem switch. She said that if I told anyone about my part in it, she’d make it look as if I was behind the whole scam.”
Suddenly another piece of the puzzle fell into place for Nancy. “So that’s when you sent me that smashed cuckoo clock, to try to scare me off the case.”
A blush came to Rachel’s cheeks as she nodded. “After I heard about Miss Burton’s death, I was scared. That clock had just come in for a customer, but I sent it to you instead. Cy will kill me when he finds out.
“And when I saw that picture of Michael Davis yesterday, I really panicked. It’s not mine. I know Stephanie left it for me as a threat. That’s when I decided to talk to you and tell you the truth. I guess I was hoping you could help me decide what to do. I called you first at the inn. The woman there said to try the Café de Carmel. When I got down by the beach I saw a big rock tumbling down toward you. I knew it wasn’t an accident because I saw someone running away.”
“You saw the person?” Nancy asked, grabbing Rachel’s arm. “Who was it?”
“I wasn’t close enough to tell, but I think it was a man. Anyway, I got out of there as fast as I could. I’ve been driving around in my car all night, too afraid to even go home. What if someone’s waiting for me there?” Rachel said in a voice edged with panic.
A man, thought Nancy. Morgan Fowler? He seemed to be around when anything was happening in the case. Nancy recalled his sudden appearance outside Marcia’s store and the way he had popped up in the video store.
Now that she thought about it, there was something else suspicious about him. He’d asked about her fall from the rocks. How could he have known about that unless he was there? Nancy hadn’t had the impression that Bess or George had told him—she’d have to check with her friends.
Nancy tore herself from her thoughts. Giving the jeweler’s assistant an encouraging smile, Nancy said, “Rachel, it’s important that you go to the police with this information. From what you’ve told me, I don’t think you’ve done anything really wrong.
And the police will definitely go easier on you if you cooperate with them. Your information will probably help them catch Joanna Burton’s killer.”
Rachel hesitated only a moment before saying, “I guess I should. Will you go with me?”
Nancy was torn. She hated to leave Rachel alone, but she simply couldn’t wait any longer to search Joanna Burton’s house. “There’s something I must do now. Why don’t we meet back here?” Nancy looked at her watch. “At noon.”
Rachel reluctantly agreed. Finally Nancy was able to get into her car and leave.
As she drove, something Rachel had told her came back to Nancy. Rachel had said that Stephanie called her on Thursday night from Los Angeles. The drive to Carmel from L.A. had to be five or six hours long. Stephanie must have gotten up awfully early on Friday to arrive at ten A.M.—unless she had lied about when she arrived in Carmel. Nancy recalled the two coffee cups on Joanna Burton’s terrace. Could Stephanie Cooke have been the actress’s visitor? Also, how did Stephanie know Nancy was investigating? Joanna Burton didn’t know. Someone else must have told her. Another accomplice? A third person involved?
Nancy hoped to find some clues at Joanna Burton’s. She drove to the overlook near the actress’s house without any idea of how she was going to get inside the fence. Climbing over it with her sprained ankle would be impossible.
When Nancy got to the black iron gates, she was amazed to see that one of them was slightly ajar. Had the police been so careless as to forget to check it?
Nancy slipped through the narrow opening. As she walked down the drive she spotted the yellow police tape across the front door.
“What’s this?” she murmured to herself. The garage doors were open!
Nancy’s hair stood on end. Were the police there again? She didn’t see any patrol cars. Peeking inside the garage, Nancy did a double-take. Stephanie Cooke’s silver sports car was parked inside.
Of course! The agent was probably there searching for the diamonds!
Nancy darted forward and pressed her face against the car window. Immediately she spied a gold charm bracelet lying in the change bin between the two front seats. The bracelet was spread out, and it was easy to see there was a gap between two charms.
Nancy quickly took in the other charms—a lone cypress, a spouting whale, and several others. But there was no sea otter. Nancy let out a low whistle. So Stephanie had pushed Joanna Burton down the balcony stairs!
Nancy’s mind raced, trying to fit together all the pieces of the case. Chances were that Stephanie was the person who’d been drinking coffee with Joanna Burton. That meant the agent had come up from L.A. earlier than she claimed.
Still, Nancy couldn’t understand why Stephanie would kill Joanna when they were on the brink of closing a big deal. There was one person who could answer Nancy’s questions, but Nancy had the feeling Stephanie wouldn’t be cooperative.
“I can’t leave without testing my theory about where the diamonds are,” Nancy whispered out loud.
The police seal on the door leading from the garage to the house was already broken, Nancy saw. Stephanie was probably still inside. If Nancy could sneak in undetected, she could call the police from inside and look for the diamonds.
Nancy held her breath, trying the doorknob. It turned easily. Slipping inside, she paused to listen. The only noise she heard was that of her own pounding heart.
She tiptoed down a long hall to the kitchen, which was just off the living room. Nancy immediately spied a telephone hanging on the wall near the sink. She started toward it, then went to the refrigerator instead.
She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing Trish Tottenham’s search for the diamond in Diamond Deceit. Nancy opened the freezer door and took out the single tray of ice, just as she’d watched Trish Tottenham do.
Carrying the tray to the sink, she turned on a thin stream of hot water and held the tray beneath it. She watched as the cubes slowly melted.
“Wow!” Nancy exclaimed softly. Her eyes opened wide as she stared down at a tray studded with a dozen sparkling diamonds.
Chapter
Fifteen
NANCY’S HEART was pounding as she carefully scooped the diamonds out of the tray. She could hardly believe it—she had found the gems! Joanna Burton had hidden them in the exact same place as the detective she had portrayed in the movie.
Keeping the diamonds carefully grasped in her hand, Nancy hurried to the kitchen phone. As soon as she lifted the receiver she heard Stephanie’s voice on the line.
“I tried everywhere, but—” The agent broke off suddenly. “Someone’s in the house. They picked up an extension,” Nancy heard Stephanie say.
“You know what to do,” a man’s voice responded. It was Morgan Fowler! So there was another accomplice.
Adrenaline shot through Nancy as she realized she’d been found out. She slammed the phone down and searched frantically for the nearest way out. She headed for the terrace doors she and George had used the day before and frantically pulled on the doorknobs. They were locked.
She was just opening the lock when Stephanie’s icy voice spoke up from behind her. “Ms. Drew, how nice of you to drop by!”
Nancy turned around slowly, holding the diamonds behind her. As inconspicuously as possible she eased the stones into the back pocket of her jeans. She didn’t like the way Stephanie was looking at her—as if she were a trapped mouse.
“Have you finished your little investigation yet?” the agent asked pleasantly.
Nancy knew what Stephanie was getting at. She wanted to know if Nancy had found the diamonds.
“I was hoping that maybe I’d run across the diamonds,” Nancy replied just as pleasantly.
“Don’t waste your time. I’ve scoured this place from top to bottom. They aren’t here.” Stephanie eyed Nancy slyly. “Where were you thinking of looking?”
Nancy shrugged. “No place in particular.”
“Come on, Nancy. You’re a better detective than that.”
“I’m good enough to have figured out your little scheme,” Nancy said, stalling. With Bess at the restaurant and George playing golf, it could be hours before they got the note saying where Nancy had gone!
“Is that right? Do tell,” the agent said sarcastically.
“The reason the diamonds were replaced with fakes was to get insurance money to finance the movie that would give Joanna Burton her big comeback break,” Nancy began.
“Very good,” Stephanie said, impressed. “The only way Joanna could get a part was to buy her way in. Since she didn’t have any money, I convinced her that we could sell her jewelry. The sentimental old fool didn’t want to get rid of the diamonds her dear, departed husband had given her. I had to figure out a way we could get the money and still keep the diamonds. Not a bad plan, eh?” Stephanie said proudly.
“What I can’t understand is why you murdered her,” Nancy said.
For a brief moment Stephanie’s eyes showed a flicker of sadness. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” she said quickly. “Joanna was going to back out of the scam when she heard that Marcia might be arrested for theft. She said she didn’t realize that someone else might be hurt. Even though it was the middle of the night, I got in my car and drove up from L.A. I didn’t get here until after two in the morning. I tried all night to talk some sense into her. I told her I’d take care of it, but she fired me!”
“So you pushed her?” Nancy guessed, keeping her voice calm.
“I didn’t mean to,” Stephanie said, “but I was tired and angry. As Joanna was walking away from me, I took her by the shoulders and tried to shake some sense into her.” Stephanie pointed out the French doors. “She was standing there at the top of the steps.”
The agent’s voice took on a faraway tone. Nancy could tell that she was reliving the awful moment. “When I let go, Joanna swayed for a moment. I reached out to try to catch her,” Stephanie went on, her voice rising. “I caught hold of her beach wrap, but the seam tore. She grabbed at my
arm but missed and tumbled down the steps.”
“Then what happened?” Nancy asked gently.
Stephanie’s eyes flitted wildly around the room. “I—I panicked. I ran out to my car and drove away. Then I remembered that the diamonds were still in the house. I wanted those stones. I turned around and drove back, but you were already here.”
Nancy felt fear rise as Stephanie glared at her. While the agent was talking, Nancy stood with her back to the terrace doors. With her hand behind her back she was trying to find the catch to unlock the doors. She knew she had to keep Stephanie’s attention focused elsewhere until she had the lock open.
“What about your new client, Morgan Fowler? What does he have to do with this?” Nancy asked.
“Morgan. I’ll use part of the money from the sale of the diamonds to help his movie career. He’s shown me just how loyal and helpful he can be,” Stephanie said.
Suddenly the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “He must have left that picture for Rachel. He could have sneaked in there. And he must have pushed that rock at me on the beach yesterday.”
“Right again,” Stephanie said, smiling. She didn’t seem at all nervous that Nancy had pieced it all together. “He’s wanted to make it as an actor for so long. He knows I can help him, so he’s willing to do almost anything for me.”
“You certainly had me fooled. You practically ignored him when you arrived here yesterday,” Nancy said, still trying to turn the lock.
“I couldn’t have people thinking that I had time for an unknown like him,” Stephanie said.
“He must have given you the security code to Miss Burton’s gate so you could get in today,” Nancy said.
Stephanie nodded. She tapped her lips with one finger, studying Nancy. “What am I going to do with you?”