Who Killed Tiffany Jones? (17 page)

she said. She ordered an apple martini, took a deep breath, and dug into her briefcase for her notes.

“So what’s up, super sleuth? You’ve been worked up ever since this Tiffany thing—what’s the deal? I thought you gave this crap up once you started hanging out with the beautiful people.”

“Believe me, I thought I had too. Seems there are some things I can’t get away from.”

“Okay, I can understand your concern over the deaths of your friends, and, truthfully, the series of events seem a little peculiar to me 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 120

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also. In fact, I checked out the coroner’s report on Tiffany’s death myself.”

“Yeah, did you find anything out of the ordinary?”

“Well, nothing conclusive. But there’s certainly room for speculation. It was a diabetic seizure all right—set off by low blood sugar.

Hypoglycemia, I think they call it. But it could have been caused by a number of things. Not all of them natural. An insulin overdose or, according to the coroner, even a drug like Pentamidine Isethionate could have set it off. The trouble is that the hypodermic needle that Tiffany carried was clean, no trace of any suspicious drugs, and Tiffany’s husband claimed the body before we could do a truly thorough examination. As you know, he’s got a lot of connections, and he used them. You also know she was cremated, right?”

“Yes, I was at the funeral.”

“And unfortunately, since that rapper Cheeno died in L.A. and the other shooting occurred in Atlanta, there’s not a helluva lot I can do about it. Not unless you’ve got something else—something that ties them together.”

The bartender, a good-looking twenty-four-year-old black man who reminded Kim of Rick Dupre, set the martini before her and smiled suggestively. Probably another jive actor, she thought. Ignoring him, she turned back to Lt. Jackson.

“Until this morning, I didn’t know squat—just a hunch, but as I told you this afternoon, I got a strange call from a reporter in London.

She’s convinced that there’s some kind of plot going on. Something that goes way beyond Tiffany, Cheeno, and the English dude, Brixton.

She’s also talking about Lester Bennett, the jazz musician, and Renee Rothchild, the club owner in Paris.”

“Yeah, I read about them,” Lt. Jackson said, “but none of the papers indicated that those were suspicious deaths.”

“I know. Still, there’s something strange happening, Maurice.

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Remember back in the day when we talked about coincidence and how you should always question it.”

“Of course, but we also discussed how you had to get inside the chain of events and discover some logical motive that explained it.

What do we have here—a plot to kill off black artists and return pop music to white folks?” He smiled condescendingly. “A little far-fetched, ain’t it?”

“According to the reporter, it’s not just music. There’s more, much more,” Kim said. She paused and, sipping the martini, considered just how much she should share with Lt. Jackson. The reporter had mentioned Ruff Daddy and Klaus, but she didn’t want to cast any suspicion on them unless she was absolutely sure. Still, she had to give him something if she wanted his help.

“So, spit it out!” he said.

“Well, you ever heard of a hood named Kees Van derVall, from the Netherlands?”

Lt. Jackson shook his head no.

“He had his throat slit in a seedy hotel a few days after Tiffany died.

This reporter, Mariana Blair from the Globe, thinks he’s involved somehow. After I spoke to her, I did some research on-line. De Telegraaf, the Amsterdam paper, ran a long story on him. It seems that he was under investigation for everything from assault to drug peddling and murder. And Blair says he was also cozy with the mob here in the States as well as some American music honchos.”

Lt. Jackson took a slug of his drink, then stared at the glass, a quizzi-cal expression on his face. “So, you think the death of this guy Kees is somehow connected to the deaths of the entertainers?”

“I’m not sure, but . . . yes, I do.”

“You got anything else, any evidence besides . . . your hunch, and the reporter’s suspicions?”

“Nothing I could go to court with . . .” she paused, rubbing the top 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 122

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of her glass with an index finger. “But something’s wrong, Maurice, I’m sure of it. And that reporter, I believe she’s on to something. She sounded desperate.”

Lt. Jackson grinned and slowly shook his head. “You know, I was always able to tell when you were holding something back. That’s okay, you must have your reasons. But you gotta understand that I can’t do anything officially with this kind of, ah, evidence. Look, if you’re right—if the mob is involved in this and it’s some international crime syndicate scheme—I’d have to go to my superiors and get the Organized Crime Control Bureau involved. And right now, with what you have, my boss would laugh and show me the door. You know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yes, I know. But that’s not what I’m asking.” Kim smiled and touched his shoulder. “You have resources that I don’t have. What I need is for you to discreetly check out any information the OCCB has on Kees, find out who he knew in the States. And . . . well, see if he was smuggling anything besides heroin and guns.”

“Like what?”

“. . . Gems, specifically, diamonds.”

Lt. Jackson raised his eyebrows and stared at her. “Sure you don’t want to tell me more about this?”

“Maurice, when I’m certain, I will. You know that.” She rose and, again, touched his shoulder. “Do this for me, okay?”

She turned, excused herself, and walked through the narrow aisle leading to the rest rooms near the rear of the restaurant. The cozy indoor room at the back, decorated with African paintings and sculpture, was nearly filled, and the canopied outdoor space was packed.

She nodded at a couple sitting inside and waved at a young actor who sat alone at another table. As usual, the upscale crowd was dotted with entertainers. The Sugar Bar was owned by Ashford and Simpson, the recording and song-writing team, and legendary performers like Isaac Hayes and James Brown were known to drop in occasionally. It was not 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 123

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only one of Kim’s favorite restaurants but also an excellent spot for networking and getting the skinny on any hot, new performers. Tonight, however, she had other things on her mind. She entered the ladies’

room without stopping to speak to anyone.

When she returned to the bar, Lt. Jackson had finished his drink and sat fingering an unlit cigarette—something Kim had only seen him do when he was disturbed or struggling to solve some puzzle.

“Got to go,” he said; “I’m on duty very early tomorrow.” He stood and reached for the check.

“No way,” Kim said, “I know what they pay you guys. This is on me.”

“I’m not arguing with that,” he said as Kim paid the check.

Outside, standing near his unmarked car, Lt. Jackson offered her a lift home but she declined, saying she wanted to walk. When she turned to leave, Lt. Jackson shouted to get her attention.

“Hey! There is one thing you might like to know. But first I want you to promise that you’ll keep me updated on this whole thing. I got an uneasy feeling about it myself, but, like I said, I can’t do anything officially with what’s on the table now.”

“You got it,” she said. “But what is it you wanted to tell me?”

“For what it’s worth—and I’m not sure it means anything—after you left the Apollo the night Tiffany died, her husband came back. He wanted to take Tiffany’s jewelry, the rings and the huge diamond pendant she was wearing. We told him that nothing could be removed from the body at that time, and he went off—pitched a bitch then stormed out again, you know what I mean. Later, I heard that one of the detectives who knew a little about precious gems had looked at the pendant and insisted it was a fake. But Klaus went to the coroner’s office the next morning and got the jewelry. He had permission to pick up her belongings. It just struck me as peculiar that anyone would be that interested in retrieving some worthless cut glass.”

“Yes,” Kim said, fighting to conceal her real concern, “more than strange.”

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Lt. Jackson smiled and stared at her until she averted her eyes.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” he said, “and I know you’re not telling me everything. It’s okay—for now, but don’t let this get out of hand. I’ll see what I can do. Call me tomorrow, and be careful.”

Kim crossed the street, turned at Broadway, and began the long hike back to 99th Street. Nearly all her thoughts revolved around Klaus Svrenson. Could he be a key player in some worldwide scheme involving diamonds? Was he involved in his own wife’s death? How well did he know her friend Ruff Daddy? And where had he gone?

Maybe tomorrow she would get some answers from Mariana Blair, she thought, as she wove through the pedestrians who still streamed along Broadway on this humid Manhattan night.

Further uptown, at the corner of 119th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, a hefty, balding man with shining ebony skin turned out the lights, locked up, and placed a closed sign on the glass door of the Old World Music Shop. As Clarence “Mojo” Johnson peered out at a group of teenagers loitering on the corner across the street, his towering frame, draped in a blue West African shirt-suit, all but blocked the doorway. Moments later he looked at his watch, turned, and made his way back through the darkened store.

He didn’t need lights. He knew the contours of the room like he knew his own body. He didn’t trip or falter as he eased around bins and boxes crammed with LPs and old 78 and 45 platters. Most people thought of his shop as a shoddy secondhand store—nothing more than a blemish on Harlem’s rapidly gentrifying face. In fact, it had been exactly that up until about a year ago.

While Mojo had done little to improve its outward appearance during the past year, he had radically upgraded and expanded the store’s inventory. It was now a treasure chest of unusual, extremely rare recordings, which had been shipped to him from locations throughout America as well as from points in the West Indies and Africa. Discern-16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 125

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ing music collectors knew that Mojo owned many priceless vinyl singles and albums—original gospel, reggae, world beat, blues, and jazz recordings that had experts shaking their heads with wonder. And during the day, it was not unusual to see a stream of well-heeled downtown patrons mingling with Harlemites who browsed through the stock or stepped into the back room to confer with Mojo. No one knew exactly how he had managed to obtain them, but Mojo had somehow acquired vintage phonograph records that many had claimed no longer existed.

At the rear of the store, he pushed through the door leading to the small stockroom and office. He locked the door, brushed past the desk and safe, and moved to the far wall. Behind a heavy curtain was a second door; Mojo opened it and stepped into the hidden space behind it.

He bolted the door before switching on the single overhead light.

Although somewhat larger than the stockroom, it was a cramped, unkempt space with a dirt floor and, except for a wooden shelf with about three dozen bottles on it, bare cement walls. Inside the bottles were exotic oddities such as dogs’ fangs, alligators’ teeth, crushed glass, and parrots’ beaks. A brown rooster strutted back and forth in a wire cage in the corner to Mojo’s left and, in front of him, adjacent to the rooster, were three glass cages. The first contained two tarantulas: one male and one female. An iguana sat motionless in the second cage.

The third was empty. At the rear was a heavily bolted door.

Mojo smiled, closed his eyes, and silently began to pray.

Moments later, he heard the coded pounding on the rear door. The members and new recruits had arrived. Mojo opened the door and stepped back, allowing the dozen or so men who stood outside to enter. He greeted the members, each of whom had brought a recruit, as they filed inside. Frowning, he stepped outside and scanned the empty lot and two crumbling, abandoned buildings that surrounded it.

A few addicts huddled in one of the buildings to the left, but no one was visible. Angrily, he slammed the door, double-bolted it, and turned 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 126

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toward the men who had entered. They stood at attention, awaiting his instructions.

“Welcome, brothers,” Mojo said, “let us pray.”

The men kneeled in a circle at the center of the room, bowing their heads. Within minutes, most drifted into a meditative, trancelike state.

Twenty minutes later, the silence was interrupted by another knock at the door. None of the new arrivals moved. It was only when the pounding became more insistent that Mojo stirred, slowly opening his eyes and exhaling. He rose, quietly stood up, and moved toward the bolted door.

Waiting outside was a slight, sinewy man with long dreadlocks. It was Martin Latrell, second in command in the sect. His rimless glasses were perched low on his nose, and, despite his cream-colored wool trousers and tan turtleneck, he seemed cool and relaxed.

“Where have you been, brother?” Mojo said sternly. “You knew what time we started.”