Blackbird 02 - Dead Girls Don't Wear Diamonds (5 page)

Jack raised his eyebrows at me. "Is that the sort of thing you write in the newspaper?"

"No, no. I'll probably write about what Tempeste is wearing—especially her jewelry—and where she's having dinner tomorrow night."

"Which is?"

"Hmm." I considered the question. "She's a big supporter of animal rights. I'll bet she's going to a fund-raiser for the zoo tomorrow evening."

"Will you make a catty remark about her zebra-skin ensemble?"

"That's not my style," I assured him, getting to my feet with a plan of getting back to the party before he wooed me into an indiscretion. "I told you. I'm here to make people look good."

He looked as though he wanted to linger for further gossip in the quiet plane but was too much of a gentleman to propose the idea. He stood up also, and we went to the open cabin door to see guests
come spilling out onto the patio to greet Tempeste. He asked, "Who's the lady in the wheelchair?"

"You haven't met Alice Cooper yet?"

"Alice Cooper?" Jack laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

"Cross my heart. She's Oliver's mother. You haven't met her?"

"We haven't been introduced yet. I get the idea someone's keeping us apart. What's her story?"

"She's harmless. Maybe a bit colorful for Washington these days." I watched the small knot of people surge forward as Tempeste went up the stone steps. "Don't be fooled by her grandmotherly appearance. She is every bit as intimidating as Tempeste. She's from Texas originally. Story goes, she lassoed Oliver's father at a debutante ball in Dallas. With a real rope. While riding a horse. Shall we?"

We left the airstrip and went up the grass towards the house. Ahead of us, the family reunion began.

Alice Cooper, nearly ninety and wheelchair-bound for reasons not discussed by anyone in the family, approached the top of the patio steps with a stiff drink clutched in one clawlike hand. Her other hand, covered in rings and weighted down by a sparkling bracelet, was free to gesture to her companion, a young woman dressed in a white nursing uniform that was ever so slightly too snug to be the genuine article.

"Mama!" Tempeste bellowed when she was close enough to see the wheelchair blocking her path. She took off her dark glasses and peered myopically at the woman before her. We could hear her voice clearly. "Gawd, you look like death warmed over."

"You look like something the cat dragged in," warbled Alice Cooper right back. "Didn't I say you
shoulda had your eyelids done last Christmas, honey?"

"I decided to go on safari instead. The wildebeests were magnificent!"

Tempeste bent and wrapped her long arms around fragile Alice, whose improbably yellow Eva Gabor wig went askew during the embrace. Alice made a grab to save her hair at the last second and said, "Well, I hope you got all the right shots. We don't want any of those African diseases here, you know. Remember Elizabeth Taylor sweating like a pig in
Elephant Walk?"

"That was India, Mama."

"Well, it was very unattractive."

"Hell's bells, where is everybody? Is Oliver in Washington already? And where's my favorite nephew, Flan? Come out, come out wherever you are!"

Jack and I watched the mother-daughter reunion until the nurse pushed the wheelchair into the house, leaving us alone on the patio.

Then Jack said casually, "Looks like Alice has some pretty pricey jewelry on tonight, too."

I sipped my wine and noted Jack's bland expression. "You're intrigued by the family jewels, I notice. Does that interest come from your fashion-editor sister, too?"

Our eyes met. He said, "You want to know what my background information said about the Blackbird sisters? That you were the brainy one."

"I'm stunned that we rated a report. But thank you. Are you putting all your cards on the table now?"

"That depends on how discreet you can be."

"If something's off the record, it's off the record."

He sighed like a man who knew his way around
the fourth estate. "Word is, you can be trusted, so here goes. My job is to make sure Oliver passes the congressional hearings with flying colors. So far, we don't foresee any problems."

"Except?"

"There's the little matter of Oliver's daughter-in-law."

"Laura," I said, guessing which of the four Cooper daughters-in-law had the White House concerned.

"There are rumors," Jack said.

"A
family without rumors is a pretty boring family."

"This rumor says Laura Cooper is a kleptomaniac," Jack said bluntly. "We hear she steals jewelry."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This, I realized, was the information Jack Priestly had hoped to charm out of me from the moment he'd sought his introduction. I said, "That's a very ugly rumor."

"Any truth to it?"

"Surely you have some kind of federal agency that can find out."

Jack looked uncomfortable. "If Laura becomes the target of an official investigation, we're obliged to reveal the results."

"Ooh," I said, "what a tangled web."

"Right." Jack unconsciously lowered his voice. "Look, I can housebreak Oliver Cooper in a few days. We think he's a clean-cut guy, except for his romantic inclinations, which everyone is willing to overlook. He's the best man for a very tough job. But if there's trouble in this henhouse, you can imagine what the media will do. We don't want to be undermined by family problems."

"Families can be chaotic. Sometimes you can't control the way people behave."

Jack shook his head. "Failure is not an option in this case."

For the first time, I sensed the unyielding soldier behind Jack's gentlemanly facade. "Why would it matter? Oliver can't be held responsible for Laura. Unless—no, it can't be possible. Unless he helped cover up her stealing?"

Jack did not respond.

A cabinet post was no place for a man with a tainted background, and paying off his daughter-in-law's crimes was damning indeed. The press would have a field day, and Oliver's moment in the sun would turn very black.

"So?" Jack asked. "What do you know about Laura?"

I weighed my options. Of course, I could tell Jack Priestly everything I had heard about Laura Cooper over the years. But Laura had never stolen from me, and I couldn't spread rumors about her, no matter how attractively I was asked.

And I owed something to Laura Cooper.

She had always seemed a little desperate to me. Desperate to be accepted by a society that didn't care if she came from a good Charleston family, the famous Hayfoots. Desperate to have a career despite the Cooper family's tradition of putting the wives in charge of philanthropic and entertainment matters. I'd heard she'd gotten a part-time job with a prominent construction company, but her architectural degree had been ignored and she'd been reduced to choosing bathroom fixtures for spec houses.

She'd chosen the wrong Cooper, too. Flan hadn't quite grown out of his college-boy exploits. The other brothers worked hard for the family business while Flan appeared only for the golf games and Christmas bonuses. Flan was least likely to follow his father's footsteps to glory and the financial stratosphere.

And Laura avoided me. I sensed that she feared
my relationship with her husband. Or maybe she figured I was the only person who knew she'd made a mistake.

I understood Laura's desperation. I knew how difficult it was for wives to truly see into their husband's hearts.

So I said to Jack Priestly, "I'm not in the best position to know. Laura and I are not exactly friends. Before she married, her husband and I—"

"Yes, I know. You and Flan Cooper were college sweethearts. Does Laura hold that against you?"

"I have no idea," I said calmly. "Our paths rarely cross."

"Has she ever—?"

"Has she stolen from me? No. I don't wear jewelry."

His gaze traveled to my grandmother Blackbird's sapphire ring on my right hand.

I said, "I don't have any jewelry except this."

If he knew the whole saga of the Blackbird family and my parents' recent fall from grace, Jack had the good manners not to bring it up while our flirtation was going so swimmingly.

"I see," he said, studying my face for a moment for signs of weakening. Then he smiled. "Well, this dog has obviously barked up the wrong tree."

I suddenly wondered if I hadn't convinced him of my discretion at all. Maybe I'd just made myself look secretive instead.

Chapter 3

But there was no time to correct the impression I might have communicated to Jack Priestly. At that moment we were interrupted by Flan himself.

I saw him shouldering his way through the French doors like a rampant bull in Pamplona. He headed in our direction with a grin on his wide and friendly face.

"Nora! You've been hiding from me!"

He gathered me up in a hug, clumsily bobbling his drink in the process.

"Flan," I squeaked.

"Sorry." He cheerfully released me from his powerful embrace and stepped back from the puddle of bourbon he'd left on the flagstone. He laughed at his own ham-handedness.

"Flan, have you met—?"

"Jack!" Flan wobbled on his feet and tried to focus. "They're asking for you at the front door. The governor just arrived, and Dad thinks you ought to be there."

Jack turned to me. "Duty calls. It's been a pleasure, Miss Blackbird. I hope to see you again later."

"I'll look for you," I promised.

He departed and left me with Flan.

Flanders Cooper, the object of my most passionate twenty-year-old affections, had been a handsome
devil with an instinct for finding the best parties. The ringleader when it came to playing prep-school pranks, he'd always conned the right student to crib from and allowed his father to pay when he "borrowed" someone's sports car and inflicted some damage. He'd grown up burly like his father, but not as smart as his mother. Now, in his early thirties, he looked like a well-fed aristocrat. His rosy skin had that steam-bath shine to it, and from the strength in his upper body, I guessed he still rowed, although probably in an expensive health club instead of on the Schuylkill.

He'd been fun to date. But he'd been lousy as a partner in a real relationship, full of games when substance was in order.

"Pretty in pink." Flan gave me a once-over that made me feel like filet mignon. "But then, you'd look good in any color. How're you doing, Nora? Where've you been keeping yourself?"

"I don't know how you can miss me. I go to half a dozen parties every week. And you never miss a party, Flan."

He laughed and slugged back the remains of his drink, then tossed the ice cubes to the flagstones. He ignored the mess. "Yeah, I heard you were working with Kitty Keough. What's with that?"

"Some of us have to make a living," I said lightly. "Congratulations are in order for more than just your father, I suppose. Which of you Cooper brothers is taking over as keeper of the family store?"

He grinned sheepishly. "It won't be me, that's for sure. Life's too short to work hard. Live fast, die young and leave a good-lookin' corpse, right?" · It was a thoughtless remark, considering what had happened to my life, but I didn't wince. "How's CanDo Airline?"

Flan might have been a dilettante from the time he could hold a bottle, but he had his noble side, too. The son of an aircraft mogul, he'd found a way to make use of all the planes that his family collected the way old bicycles gathered in other people's garages. Flan had organized his pilot friends into a cadre of volunteers capable of flying cancer patients to treatment hospitals around the nation. They flew youngsters from small towns and rural communities to the finest urban cancer centers, taking no money for their efforts and allowing Cooper Aviation to buy the fuel and pay expenses.

Of course, I'd always wondered if the whole idea for CanDo Airlines had been Flan's or that of his mother.

Flan shrugged off his accomplishment. "It's doing okay. We're busy."

"Your father spoke about CanDo on television the other day. I saw him on the
Today Show."

"I
heard about that," said Flan.

"He's very proud of you, Flan," I began, but there was no use getting past his determination to make light of his charitable side. So I said, "I'm glad your father is getting this wonderful opportunity."

"Yeah," Flan joked, "we're just hoping he passes the multiple-choice exam."

I smiled. "Think he'll get through the confirmation process without throwing one of his famous temper tantrums?"

"Probably. Hey, I need another drink. C'mon."

Grabbing my already-sore hand, Flan led me off the patio and into the house. He turned left and pulled me past the kitchen and away from the party. I bumped into a waitress in the shadows, but Flan only laughed and didn't release his grip. I tossed an apology over my shoulder.

Moments later, he shouldered open a door and flicked on a light. Then I found myself being dragged into an unoccupied powder room.