One Grave Less (12 page)

“Gotcha. It’s like that, is it?” said Garnett. “I’ll take Detective Warrick with me to speak with the wife and I’ll talk to the men.”

Diane and David went on to tell them about the calls Thormond had received, and the false e-mails about Diane, and the calls made to Frank about her partying while he was away.

“You mean it wasn’t really from you?” said Izzy. “And here I thought I got lucky.” He grinned at Diane.

“Not you too?” said Diane.

“Me, as well,” said Garnett. “If it helps, I knew right away someone had hacked your e-mail.” He turned to David. “Can you trace those?”

“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see.”

“Don’t worry about this,” Izzy said to Diane. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. Most people know it’s not you.”

“I had a contributor come see me about soliciting her husband. Not all people understand how e-mails can be hijacked,” said Diane.

She and David reluctantly told him about the news story on Gregory Lincoln. They had debated it on the way over. Given their preferences, the two of them would rather handle the whole thing themselves. But they needed help, so they had to be forthcoming.

“Could there be any truth to it?” asked Garnett. “About the Lincoln fellow?”

Both Diane and David shook their heads. “Not Gregory,” Diane said.

“You should see his wife,” said David. “Look up the most beautiful woman in the world and you’ll find a picture of Marguerite. She’s also very nice, very intelligent, and very witty. On top of that, she can cook and ride a horse.”

“You sound a little infatuated,” said Garnett, grinning at David.

“To meet Marguerite is to fall in love with her, even if slightly,” David said, completely deadpan.

Diane cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Gotta meet this woman,” muttered Izzy. “Can she shoot a gun?”

“Marguerite is nonviolent,” said David. “Unless she is in a courtroom, and then her weapons are her sharp wit and keen brain.”

Diane and Izzy smiled at each other.

“We are going to contact Gregory and ask him what this is about,” said Diane. “He might have some information. He keeps in touch with all of us, and he may know what Simone—”

Diane stopped when Garnett’s phone rang. Garnett answered it, listened a moment, then said, “Yes, they are here. I’ll tell them, Andie.”

Diane realized she hadn’t turned her cell phone back on after they left the hospital. Neither had David.

“That was Andie,” said Garnett, leaning forward, resting his arms on the desk. “You have a visitor waiting for you. A Gregory Lincoln from London.”

It had been a little over three years since Diane last saw Gregory Lincoln, though she had corresponded with him by e-mail and telephone regularly. He didn’t look much older than she remembered, a little grayer maybe. He was dressed casually in a sea green chambray shirt, tan chinos, and brown sports coat.

He grinned broadly and stood up when he saw her. He was being entertained by Andie. The two of them were drinking tea in the comfortable country cottage sitting area of Andie’s office. Gregory gave Diane a long hug and kissed her cheek.

“Good to see you, girl,” he said.

“Good to see you too, Gregory,” she said. “I’m so glad you are here.”

Gregory gave David a hug and a slap on the back. “You keeping all the conspirators at bay?”

“You have no idea,” said David.

“This is a nice surprise,” said Diane to Gregory. “You’ve had a long trip. I hope you haven’t had lunch yet.”

She didn’t want to get into any unpleasant topics until after they ate. Gregory obviously needed their help.

“Oh, heavens no. Came straight here from the airport,” Gregory said.

Diane turned to Andie. “Has the restaurant delivered lunch?”

“Just got here. It’s in your sitting room,” said Andie.

Gregory loved American cheeseburgers, and the museum’s restaurant made great burgers. Diane had called ahead and ordered lunch for the three of them to be sent to her office. Andie had the waitstaff set up the meal on the coffee table between the sofa and two stuffed chairs. The food was covered with stainless-steel dome covers. A pitcher of tea sat amid the serving dishes. Diane removed the covers to a table, poured the tea, and sat down on the sofa. David and Gregory each sat in one of the chairs across from Diane.

“Very nice,” said Gregory. “I hope you don’t mind my coming early,” he said. “And Marguerite sends her regrets. I thought I could do some sightseeing, see what kind of prostitutes you have this side of the pond. Guess you heard that story.”

“Yes,” said Diane. She looked at David. They were both a little puzzled.

He took a bite of his burger. “This is good. You Yanks are always first class on the burgers. You don’t have to put me up. I can stay at the local inn.”

“You aren’t here about the rumor?” said Diane.

“What? Heavens, no. I’ve hired detectives to sort that out,” said Gregory. “I’m here for the wedding. I realize I’m early . . .”

“Actually, they haven’t told me when it is,” said Diane.

Gregory stopped with his burger halfway to his mouth.

“You are going to have to explain that one,” he said.

It was David who did the explaining.

“Diane wants to go to a judge and have it done within five minutes. Vanessa—she’s told you about Vanessa—wouldn’t hear of it, nor would any of Diane’s friends, and they discovered that they didn’t really need her cooperation to plan her wedding. I know more about it than Diane does.”

Gregory looked from one to the other. “That’s not just his peculiar sense of humor, is it? He means it.”

“ ’ Fraid so,” said Diane, munching on her own cheese-burger.

“So what are they going to do? When it’s time, your friends will climb in your window and carry you off? Sounds rather tribal.”

“Presumably they will let me know in a reasonable amount of time,” she said.

“I see,” said Gregory. “Well, should I spoil the surprise?”

“Please do,” said Diane.

“You have less than a fortnight to set your affairs in order,” he said.

Diane sighed.

“Marguerite would have liked to come. Did I tell you she is pregnant?” he said.

“No,” said Diane. “You didn’t have to leave her to come to my wedding!”

“Marguerite is rather odd, verging on alien in her approach to pregnancy and childbirth. She prefers to be alone. She won’t have family in the delivery room—she barely allows the medical staff. On our first, I was going to be there. You know, cut the cord, bond. She looked at me the way only Marguerite can and told me that I could bond by changing nappies, teaching him cricket, and paying for public school.”

“Still,” said Diane.

Gregory shook his head. “She told me not to come back until things are sorted out by the detectives and she has killed all the reporters.” He looked at his watch. “Tomorrow she’ll be having an ultrasound. She told me not to come back at all if it’s not a girl. So I may be looking around for a spot of real estate.”

Diane smiled. “She doesn’t think you . . . ?”

“Consort with prostitutes? Of course not. It’s a mystery to me where this came from. WAI has always had its share of the political types taking aim at us, but this is taking it too far—and it appears to be only me.”

“We may be able to provide a clue,” said Diane. “It’s been happening to David and me too.”

Gregory stopped eating, put down his burger, and stared at them for a long moment. “The two of you? I didn’t expect this.” He shook his head. “Is it the same prostitution nonsense? Do you know who is behind the rumors?”

“Apparently I’m the prostitute—no, that’s not right. It seems I don’t charge. I solicit men through e-mails and we party at my fiancé’s house when he’s not at home. And both David and I were involved in drug trafficking while we were in South America.”

“That’s preposterous. Do you have any idea what this is all about?” he asked.

“David has a notion,” said Diane.

The two of them told Gregory about the attack at the museum, about finding Simone, about her parents’ reaction this morning. When they finished, Gregory sat openmouthed.

“I’m glad I came early. We will have to get to the bottom of this,” he said. “If the two of you were dealing in drugs, then so was I.” He shook his head. “Is there anyone else from among our associates to whom this is happening?”

“None of the people I’ve gotten in touch with are having any problems,” said David. “I haven’t spoken with everyone yet.”

“There is a more disturbing aspect to it,” said Diane. She told him what Simone had said before she lapsed into unconsciousness.

“‘It was one of us,’ ” whispered Gregory. “That could mean many things, none of them good.”

They discussed all the possibilities that occurred to them, but when everything else was eliminated, they were left with the massacre. That was the biggest event in all their lives.

“I’m going to have to think on this,” said Gregory. “For so long I’ve been trying to put it out of my mind.”

“I’ve been going over the days leading up to the massacre,” said David, “trying to remember anything I overheard, or saw, anything that could have a different meaning from what I placed on it at the time. But . . . nothing. I’m just drawing a blank here.”

“Maybe if we go over those days, something will jog our memory.” Gregory looked over at Diane. “Would that be all right with you?”

Diane nodded.

Andie poked her head in. “I know you don’t want to be disturbed, but I have two things. First, I contacted Frank, and it is okay for you to invite Mr. Lincoln to stay at the house.” She grinned. “See what a good assistant I am? I anticipated that you would want Mr. Lincoln to stay with you, but you would need to ask Frank. Now it’s all taken care of.”

Diane smiled. “Indeed you are a good assistant, Andie. Thanks. What’s the other thing?”

“Garnett is on the phone and would like to speak with you.”

Diane reached for the phone on the end table beside the sofa. Garnett and Janice Warrick had been on their way to interview the Brooks when she and David headed back to the museum to meet Gregory. She was eager to hear what Garnett had discovered. David put down his food and leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees.

“Garnett,” she said into the phone.

“We spoke with the family,” he said. “Interesting.
Controlling
doesn’t begin to describe the mother. She tried to stop me from having separate interviews with the father and brother. I thought for a moment Janice was going to handcuff her. Bottom line is they got a call from someone who said he was a friend of Simone at the detective agency where she works. The caller told them that Simone was working on something at your request and that it had to do with covering up things you and David were involved in during your time in South America.”

“That’s not true,” said Diane. She felt her face flush, felt the need to defend herself when no defense should be needed. “Damn. What is this about?”

“Mrs. Brooks was adamant about blaming you for her daughter’s condition,” said Garnett.

“What is her condition?” asked Diane.

“She’s in a coma. The doctors have no idea when or if she will come out of it.”

“Poor Simone,” whispered Diane.

“The brother, Pieter, said he didn’t believe the caller. For one thing, his sister wouldn’t go along with any kind of cover-up. His father agreed. And second, Pieter likes you and David.”

“Did they have any idea what Simone was investigating?”

“Pieter told me Simone had finally opened some of her dead fiancé’s effects a couple of months ago. Apparently it would have been their anniversary had he lived. He was killed in that massacre your . . .”

He didn’t say
your daughter
. Most everyone still tiptoed around Diane about Ariel. She was glad they did. She only talked about her with people she was especially close to.

“Yes,” said Diane, “Oliver was killed at the mission. As you can imagine, Simone was devastated. As were we all.”

“Pieter said she found something among the fiancé’s effects that got her all worked up. She wouldn’t say what it was. But whatever it was made her
determined
—was the word he used. He said at first she seemed puzzled by what she had found, but after a while developed a sense of outrage.”

“And he had no clue what it was?” said Diane. “He has such detail about her emotions throughout her discovery process. How did he know? They must have discussed something.”

“I asked him just that. He said she told him she discovered some information and things she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t tell him what it was. He said that his sister tended to be secretive. I noticed he was embarrassed, and I pushed. His sister didn’t really trust him with information that she thought their mother would dig out of him. I got the idea that Pieter is a bit of a mama’s boy. Simone trusted her brother, I think, but only to a point.”

“I see,” said Diane. “I wonder if the things we found in the museum were from the box of Oliver’s effects. If they were from Simone. I’ve assumed they were, but I don’t know. Can we examine Oliver’s effects?” asked Diane.

“I asked,” said Garnett. “Pieter has no idea where they are. Apparently his sister is as good at hiding things as she is at keeping secrets. Janice told me the mother bought into the caller’s story. She wanted me to arrest you and David.”

“I wonder why she was so quick to believe some stranger over the phone?” said Diane.

“The father said that when Simone visited them during the holidays—when she was living in South America—all she could talk about was how she admired you and your work. Her mother was jealous of that. She wanted her daughter away from that place and job and she saw you as keeping her daughter there.”

Diane sighed. “I had no idea. Thanks, Garnett. I was hoping for more answers than questions, though.”