Beauty to Die For and Other Mystery Shorts (9 page)

“Wouldn’t she have an advisor to suggest investments?” Mac asked, “like I have?”

“Maybe her advisor isn’t as smart as yours,” Ben replied. “It’s not uncommon for rich people, very wealthy and smart people, to have huge chunks, if not all, of their millions stolen by dishonest so-called investment counselors.”

“You’re not going to believe what I just heard.” Catherine came rushing up to clasp her husband’s elbow. “All of Celeste Taylor’s jewelry is fake.”

“Including the Blue Starburst Diamond.” Archie came up on Mac’s other side.

“What’s the Blue Starburst Diamond?” Mac asked.

“Don’t you follow any of the society pages?” Catherine asked him.

“Nope.”

“The Blue Starburst Diamond was given to Celeste Taylor as an engagement ring from her late and only husband,” Archie said. “It was a seven carat blue diamond with a white starburst in the center. Extremely rare. There’s only one like it in the whole world.”

“You certainly weren’t expecting to buy it, were you?” Ben sounded worried when he asked Catherine.

“I only wanted to see it,” Catherine said. “But they just announced that it was discovered that what Celeste’s daughter thought was the diamond was really a fake. Turns out, Celeste has been selling off her jewels and artwork for years and replacing it with fakes.”

“That’s why they’re having this auction,” Archie said. “The estate is broke.”

Further conversation was cut off when Gnarly dragged Archie off toward the open doorway leading to the dining room.

“You’re invitation, sir?” a tall intimidating man in a black suit stopped Mac. Holding out his hand, he demanded to see his invitation.

“Why didn’t you ask them?” Mac demanded to know while taking his invitation out of his inner breast pocket.

The man refused to take his eyes off Mac. “Because I’m asking you.” He snatched the invitation from Mac’s hand and read the front cover. “Your name, sir.”

“Mac Faraday. Yours?”

“Faraday?” A note of congeniality crept into his tone. “As in Robin Spencer’s son Faraday?”

“The very same.” Mac took back the invitation. “And you are …”

“Frederick. The butler here. It is my job to keep out the riff-raff who may only be seeking to gawk at Ms. Taylor’s treasures. I worked for her for thirty years.”

“You must have been close,” Mac said with sympathy.

“Very.”

“Mac! He-lp me pl-le-ee-ze!” Archie cried from within the interior of the house.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mac muttered while dashing around the towering man and running in the direction of Archie’s call. He found her attached to the end of the leash with a hundred pounds of fur at the other end dragging her from room to room. Mac weaved through the crowd to get to her side.

“I see what he’s tailing.” She dared to let go of the leash with one hand to point a finger up ahead.

Mac had to search the throng of people ahead of them before he could see the object that had captured Gnarly’s attention. On what appeared to be a mound of yellow daisies, the blue bird bounced and beebopped on top of woman’s head.

Gnarly was on the hunt.

“Gnarly,” Mac jerked on the leash, “leave the bird alone.”

Still on the trail of the blue bird, the black and tan dog dragged them across the parlor to a row of mannequins set in front of a red cherry china hutch.

“Oh, my!” Archie uttered when Gnarly halted behind the woman who suddenly stopped to stare at a white gown encrusted with diamonds. They all stopped so fast that she and Mac collided and almost knocked over the mannequin.

His eye on the bird, Gnarly barked at the woman in the hat.

Annoyed by the barking dog, several of the patrons glared at the couple trying to shush the dog.

The gowns on three mannequins was causing as much of a ruckus as the barking dog. One gown was red, the other was blue, and the middle was white mixed with other brilliant sparkling colors. The lights around the mannequins caught and sparked off of the jewels that did not appear to have a uniform size or shape.

All three gowns were more than beaded. Each of the gowns was ornamented in jewels. The red in what appeared to be rubies. The blue one in sapphires, the white gown in the center was done up in diamonds, emeralds, topaz, and a variety of other jewel colors. The sign in front of the white gown described it as the showcase costume worn by Celeste Taylor during her run on Broadway in the mid-sixties. She had kept the gown, which was designed personally for her by a top designer.

“Gorgeous,” Archie said in awe.

Every guest passing by stopped to gaze upon the gowns with awe while the dog at his master’s feet whined and simpered at Mac while casting longing looks at the bird lady as if to say, “I want that bird. Can you get it for me please?”

“Gnarly, quiet,” Mac ordered the dog while shooting embarrassed grins at the gathering crowd of shoppers.

“Your dog has good taste,” said an elderly lady who was making no pretense of admiring the red gown.

“Yes, they are beautiful,” a young woman with her hair done up in a twist and a serious expression on her face said. “Unfortunately, the gems on these gowns are very good imitations. They are worthless. However, they are valuable in that Celeste wore them on Broadway in her play
Sparkle
for several years.”

“Can you imagine how valuable these gowns would be if the jewels were real diamonds?” Archie asked Mac.

“They do look very real,” the business woman explained. “But I assure you, they’re fake, as is most of Celeste Taylor’s jewelry and artwork, I’m afraid.” She offered her hand to Mac. “Brenda Collins. I’m the appraiser hired by the estate to assess Ms. Taylor’s assets.” She glanced down at Gnarly who was crying loudly. “Is something wrong with your dog?”

“Yes,” Mac answered.

“Mac, can’t you make him stop?” Archie begged.

“He listens to you more than he does me.” Mac snapped, “Gnarly, shut up. Can’t you see it’s a fake bird?”

As if to beg for his master to get the bird for him, the German shepherd gazed first at the bird, and then at Mac and then back at the bird lady a few feet away. He uttered a whimper from the pit of his stomach that seemed to go on forever.

“I’m not getting that bird for you,” Mac said. “So just forget it.”

Gnarly hung his head.

“Let’s get out of here,” Archie suggested. “Maybe if we get out of the bird’s sight it will get out of his mind.”

They dragged Gnarly into the living room where they found Catherine and Ben. She rushed up to them with two paddles that had numbers painted on the flat surfaces. “Okay, we’re all registered.” She thrust one of the paddles into Mac’s free hand. Seeing an apprehensive expression cross his face, she asked, “Have you ever bid at an auction before?”

“No.”

“It’s easy,” Ben explained. “If you see something you want, you hold up the paddle so the auctioneer can see your number and accept the bid. You don’t even have to say anything. Just hold up the paddle.”

“I don’t see anything I want to bid on.” Mac saw that his paddle was number 702.

“Gnarly does.” Archie pointed at the dog staring at the blue bird dancing on top of the head of its owner going into the room where the auction was being held.

The living room of the mansion had been cleared out and rows of chairs set up in front of a desk and riser for the auctioneer and other people running the auction. At a small desk by the edge of the stage, a dark haired man with silver at his temples was on a phone.

The two couples found four seats together toward the back of the room in order to keep Gnarly down and quiet.

Ben explained about the man on the phone. “They’re accepting phone-in bids. The buyer is on the phone until his item comes up. He casts his bid via the phone operator.”

“How do they know what’s here?” Mac wanted to know.

Catherine answered, “Everything was photographed and listed online. It had the catalog number and starting bid.” Shushing them, she noted that the seats were filling up and the audience was becoming quiet as the auctioneer approached the stage.

Noticing that she clutched the second paddle and not Ben, Mac wondered if she had seen something listed online that she had her eye on.

On the other side of the stage set-up, a woman dressed in a pant suit with her red hair twisted up in a bun was eyeing the crowd while conferring with a man clutching a clipboard. Noticing a resemblance between her and Celeste Taylor, Mac wondered if she was the unfortunate heir. He considered his suspicion confirmed when he noticed her chewing on a thumbnail while looking anxiously at the crowd taking their seats.

Mac imagined how many family heirlooms to which she had formed an emotional attachment had been put up for auction in order to settle the estate.

For a man who doesn’t like shopping, Mac found the auction more enjoyable than a shopping trip. Instead of trudging among merchandise, items were brought to the front of the stage, with a couple of minutes for potential buyers to inspect each treasure before returning to their seat in order to allow the bidding to start.

As Mac had guessed, Catherine did have her eye on a set of Wedgewood Christmas herringbone china with gold trim that had once belonged to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. While his wife bid over a thousand dollars against a young woman at the front of the audience, Ben was more interested in a man in a suit up toward the front studying the catalog and the man on the phone at the desk.

Mac didn’t think he could be so laid-back about writing a check for over a thousand dollars for a bunch of old plates, even if they were trimmed in real gold and had once belonged to a former first lady.

Plates are plates. You eat off them. At over a hundred years old, they’re old plates to boot. Who in their right mind pays over a thousand dollars for used plates?

Archie was oohing and ahhing over each item as it went pass. But, when Mac asked if she wanted him to bid on something for her, she would decline. Such was Archie. While she enjoyed the finer things in life, he had found that she was not a big shopper, which was one of the things he liked about her.

Appearing to be bored with the affair, Gnarly fell asleep on top of Mac’s feet at the end of the row next to the aisle … until the bird lady entered the room.

As the bird lady passed the sleeping dog, he awoke with a start and sat up.

At this time, the mannequin donning the diamond rhinestones was brought up to the stage.

The auctioneer announced into the mike, “We now have Celeste Taylor’s diamond gown worn onstage in the wedding scene in
Sparkle
when she appeared on Broadway.” He went on to read the catalog number which was drowned out by Gnarly’s barking at the blue bird in the chair in front of him.

The man on the phone covered one ear while listening with the other.

The man in the suit in the front row was sitting at attention. While shooting a glance back at them to settle the dog threatening to jump up to snag the fake feathered fowl, he thrust his paddle up in the air.

“We have a bid of five thousand dollars,” the auctioneer announced. “Do we have fifty-five hundred?”

“Gnarly, quiet,” Mac hissed while jerking on the leash.

Crying, Gnarly laid down with his eyes on the hat up above him.

When the man on the phone raised the bid to fifty-five hundred, the man in the front seat countered with six thousand, to which the call in bidder upped it to seven thousand.

Ben suddenly found things interesting.

Gnarly refused to be thwarted in his capture of the bird. With his eyes on the prey, he continued to cry. His ribs quivered in his frustration at it being so close while he was unable to touch it. It danced in front of him every time the woman turned her head to make him even more anxious.

Thinking that Gnarly’s anxiety would be eased if he was unable to see it, Mac lifted the paddle to block the dog’s view of it.

“We have a bid of twelve thousand from number seven-oh-two.”

Instead of quieting down, Gnarly stepped over to look around the paddle to continue gazing up at the bird. Letting out a long painful whine, he pawed at the back of the Bird Woman’s chair.

The woman turned her head to cast a perturbed glance at the dog.

While Catherine tried to pretend not to be with the party with the crying dog, Archie and Ben glanced around to see who had joined in the bidding.

Casting an angry glance at the new bidder behind him, the man in the front row raised the bid another thousand, to which the phone in bidder raised it to fifteen thousand.

Meanwhile, Gnarly retaliated to Mac’s lack of action in getting the bird for him by trying to climb into his lap. In the struggle, Mac raised up his hand holding the paddle.

“Seventeen thousand!” the auctioneer declared. “Seven-oh-two has bid seventeen thousand.”

The phone in bidder raised the price to eighteen-thousand.

The bidder in the front row raised it to nineteen-thousand.

While Gnarly cried out insistently at the blue bird mocking him by showing no intimidation, the two bidders battled it out until the price went up to twenty-five thousand.