MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS (6 page)

****

It was bright and
early when John received a call from Buzzy Rossmore. The old man was pleasant
on the phone, assuring John he had come so highly recommended he was confident
this would all work out beautifully. His voice had the easy charm of old money.
Good manners had probably been bred into Buzzy so early in life, he wouldn’t
know how to behave any other way.

It must be nice,
John thought as he listened to Mr. Rossmore
speak. The archeologist asked John to drop by around three o’clock to meet his
daughter and go over the details of the assignment. John agreed before hanging
up.

He decided to walk
through Central Park on his way to the Rossmore’s East Side town house. It was
a bright, balmy day and the trees were bursting with new, green life, while the
magnolias had begun to bloom all around Belvedere Lake.

John passed
well-dressed little kids running wild through the playground at the foot of the
large, bronze statue of
Alice in
Wonderland
. Jamaican nannies chatted together on park benches while keeping
one eye glued to their tiny charges. In Sheep’s Meadow, private school students
lay out on picnic blankets soaking up the first weak sun of the season. They
gathered in clusters listening to iPods, drinking diet sodas, and smoking clove
cigarettes as they checked each other out from behind dark sunglasses.

He strolled past a
patch of earth where Dutch tulips pushed up insistently in beds of red, yellow,
and orange. They screamed, “Spring is here! Rejoice!” A little Chihuahua,
dressed in a peach angora sweater and matching hat, danced over to the flowers
on his tiny feet and christened them, his proud Park Avenue mommy beaming at
him, exclaiming, “Good baby! That’s a good boy!” in a baby-talk voice that
belied her fifty-plus years.

As he turned onto
Fifth Avenue and left the park behind, John passed the Metropolitan Museum with
its grand, white-columned façade and dancing fountains. Street artists had
their easels out and painted bad Manhattan cityscapes for tourists to buy.

John made a right
onto Ninety-First Street and scanned the elegant row of town houses. He spotted
number 12 about halfway down the block. It was modest-looking compared to some
of the wedding cake homes on the block with their carved stone gargoyles and elaborate
decorative iron fences and balconies. The Rossmore’s house was a three-story
brick building with neat, white trim around the windows. Red geraniums spilled
out of window boxes and sat cheerfully in large cast iron pots by the front
door. John rang the bell and waited.

The door was promptly
answered by an Asian woman in a pale blue maid’s outfit. She looked sleek and
elegant and smiled graciously. “You are Mr. Monroe,” she informed him.

“Yes, I am,” agreed
John.

“Mr. Rossmore is not
home yet. He said to tell you he would be a little detained, but Miss Veronica
is waiting for you upstairs if you’ll follow me,” she said, with a polite bow.

John wasn’t sure if
he should bow back so he just kind of inclined his head a bit. “Thanks.”

The maid led him through
the small but beautifully decorated entrance. It contained a mahogany hall-tree
on which several rumpled tweed jackets and an old trench coat were draped.
These were clearly good quality but in desperate need of a pressing, perhaps
even retirement. A few stray hats and mufflers left over from the winter and a
pile of books on ancient Egypt were also stacked on top of the antique table
beside the hall tree. The floor was worn but highly-polished black-and-white
marble squares. Poised on a small table across from the doorway, a blue and
white porcelain Chinese vase overflowed with an arrangement of fresh cut
flowers which filled the room with the scent of roses and springtime lilacs.

They made their way
up a narrow staircase to the second floor landing and into an old-fashioned
parlor with sliding pocket doors. The room had warm wood paneling and a
pale-green stained-glass Belle Epoque chandelier. Books lay around everywhere
in neat piles and a giant periwinkle-blue Victorian sofa was positioned under the
bay window that looked out onto the quiet street. Ancient maps, yellowed and
fragile looking, lined the walls. The bust of an old Roman bigwig rested on the
mantle of the black marble fireplace, which boasted a cheerful blaze though it
wasn’t the slightest bit chilly out.

“Would you like some
jasmine tea?” the maid asked, indicating a beat-up leather club chair for him
to sit in.

“Oh, no thanks,” said
John, trying to get his bearings.

“You might as well,”
said a low feminine voice as an expensive-looking brunette swept into the room.
She was dressed in a white halter dress with a simple, formfitting cardigan.
It was difficult to tell if she was tall or not, because she wore high strappy
shoes that showed off her pearly toes with their soft polish. Her hair was
pulled back behind one ear to reveal a pair of dark blue eyes, lined with a
faint trace of black. Her cheekbones were high but not severe, her skin glowed
like an alabaster lamp, and her softly curved lips shone with pale pink gloss.
She had a timeless face, a beautiful face, but there was something guarded and
unapproachable in her expression. The elegantly old-fashioned scent of
L’Heure Bleue
trailed after her in
tantalizing wisps. She barely looked at John as she slid into a chair by the
fire. “I’m having some and my father won’t be home for a bit.”

She didn’t seem to
want to look at him, but he was sure getting an eyeful of her. It had been a
while since he’d felt such a primal physical attraction to a woman.

He barely noticed as
the maid slipped discreetly out of the room.

“Well, you must be
Veronica,” said John.

She looked up, her
eyes sweeping over him in a cold, detached appraisal. He flashed his brightest
smile, complete with dimples and wickedly sparkling green eyes. She didn’t seem
impressed.

“Oh, don’t
you
tell
me
,” she said, with an arch of her perfectly manicured brow.
Turning back to the fire, she put her hands out in front of the blaze.

This isn’t getting off to a good start.

“I’m John Monroe,”
John rose to shake her hand.

“You don’t have to
get up. I know who you are.” She picked a bit of invisible lint off her
cardigan and tossed it into the fire.

Annoyed, John sank
back down. “I’m assuming you’re Veronica.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t
hear that. Did you say yes?” he asked in the same tone he used to interrogate
the crack dealers and two-bit stoolies who used to make his life hell when he
still worked for the Feds.

She gave him a look,
and sauntered over to his chair. She plastered on a big smile and stuck her
hand out like a robot. “I’m Veronica Rossmore. I’m so pleased to make your
acquaintance. Thank you so much for coming to see us in our home. We are very
appreciative.” She shook his hand mechanically, dropped the smile, and went
back to her chair.

“Nice brooch,” he
observed, ignoring her rudeness. “Looks like…,” he thought about it for a
moment, “Gillot or Cartier, early 1900s.”

She swiveled in her
chair and looked him up and down again. “So, you can do more than point a gun.”

“Where did you get
it?” he asked.

She got up again and
slid onto the arm of his chair, unpinning the glittering brooch from the breast
of her cardigan and handed it to him. He took it gingerly. The piece was
exquisitely made up of diamonds and platinum arranged in the shape of a
charming little bow with two pear-shaped stones hanging like teardrops from the
bottom of each ribbon. The value was not in the quantity of diamonds used,
which equaled less than three carats he estimated, but in the incredible
craftsmanship. He flipped the brooch around and checked out the maker’s mark.
Gillot, just as he’d predicted.

“It was my
grandmother’s,” she informed him proudly.

He handed it back to
her. “Don’t wear it on the subway.”

“I don’t take the
subway,” she said rising, all chumminess gone.

“I was kidding.”

“Hmm.” She settled
back into her chair by the fire and picked up a book.

The maid arrived with
a modern set of ceramic cups and a squat teapot on a matching tray that looked
a little out of place in the old-fashioned parlor.

“Thank you, Iris.”
Veronica ignored the tea and flipped the page of her book.

“Thank you,” mumbled
John as Iris once more slipped out of the room.

He sat uneasily in
front of the tea set watching Veronica lazily read as if she were completely
alone in the room.

“Aren’t you going to
have some tea?” he asked to break the silence.

“Yes,” she said,
without moving at all.

John looked at the
steaming pot and looked at her. If she was waiting for him to serve her, she
could wait forever.

She licked her thumb
and flipped another page.

“Can I pour you
some?” he asked.

The book was raised
up higher now covering most of her face and she had turned even more toward the
fire on her swiveling chair.

“No, thanks,” she
answered after a moment’s pause, as if he had dragged her away from some fascinating
sentence and she needed a moment to compute what he had asked her. She waved a
hand from behind the big armchair, fluttering fingers toward the tea tray.
“Feel free to pour yourself a cup,” she advised him.

Grudgingly, he gave
into temptation and poured a cup.

Five minutes or so
passed and he observed, “I feel like I’m in the waiting room of a really
expensive shrink’s office, or maybe the dentist.”

She smiled in genuine
amusement, whether at his wit or the uncomfortable position she was putting him
in he couldn’t tell, but she put the book down. “I suppose I should be straight
with you.”

“I would like that.”
John placed his cup on the table now that they were getting down to business.

“I’m sorry you’ve
gone to the trouble of coming here, but I have no intention of allowing anyone
to babysit me. My father insisted I meet you and see how harmless and
unobtrusive you would be, but it doesn’t matter. I’m a private person.” She
looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t like people hanging around.”

“You’re kidding?”
John snapped sarcastically.

“You can wait for my
father, if you like, and we can go through the charade. I promise you, though,
after you leave, I will let him know in no uncertain terms that I am not
interested in…”

But she stopped
midsentence at the sound of the door closing downstairs. John and Veronica
stood awkwardly as Buzzy Rossmore climbed the steps to the parlor.

The archeologist had
a bright, welcoming smile on his face as he entered the room. His manner was
warm and jovial. John liked him on sight. Buzzy was clad in an older style,
gray flannel suit with a crisp white handkerchief poking out of his breast
pocket, which nearly matched the shock of hair that stood out on his head. His
sparkling blue eyes radiated intelligence and had a certain childlike innocence
to them.

“Well, John, I’m so
glad you could make it!” exclaimed Buzzy, as if they’d been buddies for years.

“I’m glad to meet
you,” said John politely.

Buzzy kissed his
daughter on the cheek. “Hello, sweetheart.” Veronica lifted her brows and threw
herself down on the couch, apparently resigned to the ordeal ahead of her.

“Please make yourself
comfortable.” Buzzy sunk into the seat by the fire which Veronica had vacated.

John accepted the
invitation and sat down.

“So, you’ve had a
chance to meet Veronica.” The old man smiled in his daughter’s direction.

“Yes,” John said, not
knowing if he should elaborate.

“Well, Lillian says
you’re a retired FBI man. Though I must say, you look pretty young to be
retired. You must have been doing something right!” He laughed at his own joke
and continued. “Anyway, Lillian said before you left the FBI, you specialized
in catching jewel thieves.”

It took John a moment
to figure out who Lillian was, until he caught on that the old man was talking
about the First Lady. “Yes, I followed the Ghost around for several years. It
didn’t get me very far though. He’s still at large.”

“But you captured
several other notorious thieves,” Buzzy commented, enthusiastically.

“I did help bring a
few people down,” admitted John.

“Well then, what we’d
like you to do should be child’s play for someone with your background. We
don’t want you to catch any thieves, just make sure no one gets their hands on
any of Veronica’s treasures.”

John looked over at
Veronica. She sat tight-lipped with her arms crossed over her breasts, her
Gillot brooch shimmering like fairy dust in the late afternoon sunlight.

“I’d like to help
you, Mr. Rossmore,” John said, trying to be polite. “But your daughter says she
doesn’t want a bodyguard.”

“It’s true, Daddy,”
she said quickly. “If you’d just spoken to me about this before dragging…,” she
looked at John, obviously trying to remember his name.