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 7.14.2000
The Baby Hope Theft
A mystery in four chapters
This is the first chapter
in an interactive writing and illustration contest sponsored by projo.com,
The Journal's Web site. Chapter one of the mystery was written by Journal staff
writer G. Wayne Miller; subsequent chapters are to be written by readers. Readers
may also enter a contest to illustrate the chapters. See
the rules.
Contest
rules | Contest
entry | Characters
| The plot | Background
on Newport society
By G. WAYNE
MILLER
Journal Staff Writer
 The
call came in like most of them: after hours to my unlisted number.
You probably think that's funny, a private detective keeping his name out of
the book. And you might wonder why I live at the end of a dirt road in the woods
of Foster. The fact is, I'm not looking to make a fortune in this business.
I spend most of my waking hours slogging away at the great American novel, and
I need peace and quiet. I also need to pay the rent.
I go to bed with the birds, so the phone woke me from a sound sleep. I checked
Caller ID but the number was blocked. Everyone's so paranoid these days. The
machine picked up. A woman with one of those Park Avenue accents began to speak.
"Mr. Nolan," she said, "this is Claire Benson Spencer."
She sounded shaky. I knew immediately that she'd been robbed -- of either a
painting or jewels, I assumed.
"You don't know me," Mrs. Spencer said, "but your services come highly recommended,
and I am in need of your help."
Actually, I did know her -- about her, that is, from previous clients, all of
whom are people of means. Claire Spencer was one of the wealthiest women in
Newport, a Doris Duke type who was 68 years old and was rumored to own the most
expensive collection of jewelry in all of New England. What wasn't rumor was
the size of her house: 36 rooms on 27 acres of oceanfront property on exclusive
Bellevue Avenue.
"Nick Nolan here," I said, picking up the phone.
"Thank God," said Mrs.
Spencer. "My secretary wasn't sure this was your number."
"You've been robbed," I said.
Her gasp was audible. "How did you know?"
"I hear the mournful bale of material loss in your voice," I said. I like throwing
fancy phrases at rich folks. They're always extremely impressed.
"My educated guess," I continued, "is jewelry. Most likely, a diamond ring."
I knew it couldn't be cash. These Bellevue Avenue types never keep much of that
on hand.
"It's as if you can read my mind," said Mrs. Spencer.
No, I wanted to say, your friends have big mouths. Claire Benson
may have been a recluse, but everyone in high society Newport knew she owned
the fabulous Baby Hope Diamond: a 22-carat rock said to have come from the same
place in India as the larger Hope diamond itself.
"So how can I help you, Mrs. Spencer?" I said.
"Find my diamond," she said. "It was stolen during a dinner party at my place
tonight."
"Have you called the police?"
I knew she hadn't -- police logs are public records and pesky reporters drool
over them.
"Lord, no," the woman said. "You can just imagine if the press ever got hold
of this."
I could. I'd lived through the von Bulow case. I'd been a reporter myself back
then.
"I don't come cheap, Mrs. Spencer," I said. Actually, I have no set fees: I
decide how much I need to support me through the next chapter of the Great American
novel, and I ask for that. I'd be asking a lot from Mrs. Spencer. I was experiencing
severe writer's block again.
"Money is no object," the woman said.
I did a quick mental calculation and said: "Fifty thousand dollars -- whether
I find your diamond or not."
"You're hired."
"But you haven't heard my terms," I said. "Fifty grand, payable via electronic
deposit direct to my account by tomorrow at 1, when I shall arrive at your place
for lunch. And no foie gras. I hate liver, whether from cow or bird."
"But the banks are closed until Monday."
"Mrs. Spencer," I said, "you are listed on the Forbes 400. Surely your investment
advisers can find a way."
I gave Claire the name of my bank and my deposit-only account number.
"Now if you will forgive me," I said, "I must go. You've already stolen six
minutes of sleep."
 The
next morning, a Sunday in August, found me up at my usual hour, 6 a.m. I made
coffee, checked the Weather Channel, read the Sunday paper and started banging
away at the kitchen table on my Underwood typewriter.
I'm an old-fashioned romantic like that. I own computers, DVD players, digital
cameras, a Palm Pilot, you name it, but when it comes to writing, I need the
clang of old-fashioned keys. They remind me of my earlier self, when I was an
investigative reporter for a big-city daily. I loved newspapering until the
bean counters took over and made the bottom line the bottom line. So I quit.
I wanted to write the Great American Novel, anyway.
Let me tell you about this book. It revolves around the perfect crime -- and
how this onetime newspaper reporter, obsessed with the challenge of such a nefarious
deed, conspired to pull it off. Art imitating life, I guess you'd call it --
or is it the other way around? Anyway, my novel abounds with witty observations
on the human condition; it features myriad of subplots and intriguing secondary
characters, and it even offers a dash of irony for more sophisticated readers
and the New York critics. If only I could finish it, I'd have a bestseller.
One reason I haven't is, I'm easily distracted. That morning after Claire Benson's
call, for example, I banged out a few sentences, immediately detested them,
ripped up the paper, and retreated to my garden, where I checked on the tomatoes,
onions, sweet red peppers, basil, and oregano. They make a fabulous spaghetti
sauce.
I was distracted, of course, by the Baby Hope Diamond.
I hadn't asked Claire for the details, but I knew she'd probably hosted a dinner
party for eight -- an earlier client had confided that's the most she believes
can properly interact at one table, and Claire never wavers from her beliefs.
I guessed that Claire's best friend, Lucy Hamilton, a widow who lives on Providence's
East Side, attended -- and also probably her son, independent filmmaker Charles
D. "Charlie" Baxter III, and Charlie's fiancee, the beautiful actress Gloria
Rodriguez. You know these artistic types: they never really can support themselves.
Having a rich mommy sure comes in handy.
After watering the tomatoes, I went on line. I read my E-mail and confirmed
Claire's deposit -- it had been recorded at 12:13 a.m., less than an hour after
we'd spoken. The old girl was all right. It would be a pleasure working with
her.
By now, it was 9 o'clock. I went upstairs to wake my daughter and only child,
Nancy Nolan.
 "Rise
and shine," I said, snapping the shade open. "We've got work to do."
Nancy rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed. She'd been out until 2 in the morning
with her friends, but at 23, you can keep those hours. A youthful metabolism
is a wondrous thing. So is a good-natured daughter.
"Is the coffee on?" she said.
"Is the Pope a Catholic?"
I went back downstairs and a few minutes later, Nancy joined me. Over coffee,
I filled her in on Claire Spencer.
You may think a 23-year-old is an unlikely partner for a private investigator
who's never failed to solve a case, but you don't know my daughter. I raised
her alone after her mother died of cancer -- Nancy was 5 and she's turned out
to be the best. Smart, athletic, and pretty, Nancy is possessed of an unusual
perception. She sees things in ways a middle-aged guy can't, and I'd be lying
if I claimed she was anything less than the secret to my success. Valedictorian
of her high school class, Nancy decided to take a year off before college: wanted
some "real-life experiences," is how she put it. Well, one year stretched into
five, she traveled the world and then came home, and now she's decided she wants
to write. I've tried to talk her out of that, but the truth is she has talent
-- more than her old man.
"Do you know Charlie Baxter?" I said.
"By reputation," said Nancy. "He's only my age, but already a director in his
own right -- he's also worked with the Farrelly Brothers as a second unit director
or something. I hear he has a problem with cocaine."
"What about his girlfriend, Gloria Rodriguez?"
Gloria was a Trinity Repertory Company actress. Twenty-seven, she'd already
played lead roles in half a dozen productions, most recently an awesome Laura
in The Glass Menagerie .
"She's clean, as far as I know," said Nancy. "Sings for a rock band on the side,
I forget the name. Grew up in Central Falls but lives now in Pascoag, of all
places."
"What about Lucy Hamilton?" I said.
"Get real, Dad. How would I know her -- she's, like, 100 years old."
"Actually, she's 68, same as Claire Benson," I said. "Anyway, honey, please
get dressed for Newport. We're lunching at Bon Soir today."
We
drove in my 1966 Corvette Stingray convertible, which puts out 425 horsepower
and top ends somewhere past 140. This car is my most precious possession, with
the exception of my Underwood, so it ought to speak volumes that I was letting
my daughter drive. I do whenever she asks.
Claire Spencer hadn't given me directions, but they hardly were necessary. Bon
Soir has the longest wall on Bellevue Avenue -- and the widest ocean frontage.
Also, an electric gate with a video surveillance camera and a call box. We buzzed
inside, identified ourselves, and the gate opened. We proceeded down a tree-lined
driveway that I clocked at four-tenths of a mile in length to a house that almost
took my breath away -- it's one thing to say 36 rooms, another to see what they
come packaged in. Built of ivy-covered stone, with porches on three sides and
two indoor swimming pools -- one saltwater, one fresh -- Bon Soir stands apart,
even in Newport.
"How much are we getting paid for this one?" said Nancy.
"Fifty grand," I said.
"I think you're getting soft in your old age."
"I may be. If only I'd seen this place first."
We parked the 'Vette next to three gray Mercedeses and walked up to the house,
where a butler answered a door so big and oaken it could have graced Notre Dame
cathedral.
"Mrs. Spencer is expecting you," he said. "Please have a seat while I tell her
you are here."
He showed us to the drawing room, which was larger than my garage -- and featured
an enormous marble fireplace, Louis XIV furniture, antique Egyptian and Chinese
vases, and oil portraits of six or seven generations of her ancestors.
"Carrara marble," I said, pointing to the fireplace.
"What makes you so sure?" said Nancy.
"Those beautiful flecks of gold give it away. And that vase -- it's Ming dynasty."
"How do you know?"
"I saw it in a Sotheby's catalogue. My source told me Claire Benson bought it
-- for a cool three million."
"What's the Baby Hope worth?" said Nancy.
"It's priceless -- literally. I know, because no company would insure it if
she insisted in keeping it anywhere but a safe deposit box. She wouldn't: 'Something
so dear to my heart must never leave my side,' she supposedly said. Now you
understand the magnitude of the predicament Claire Benson Spencer has gotten
herself into."
A moment later, the woman walked in.
She was tall, honey-blond, and she had a pointed nose. She wore a large yellow
straw hat, a flamingo-pink dress -- and an exquisite pearl necklace. "Delighted
to make your acquaintance, Mr. Nolan," she said, extending her hand.
"Likewise," I said. "Meet my daughter, Nancy. She assists me on all my cases."
"My pleasure," Mrs. Spencer said. "Shall I show you the safe where I kept the
diamond?"
"Just as soon as we finish lunch."
"Whatever you wish. You're the boss."
I love it when rich folk talk to me that way. My Irish ancestors would be proud.
We followed Mrs. Spencer into the smaller of her two dining rooms, where the
table had been set for four. Lunching with us today, she explained, would be
her secretary of 15 years, Helen Washington, and a weekend houseguest, Richard
Lombardo, Rhode Island's Republican congressman. Political bedfellows, Lombardo
and Mrs. Spencer went back many years. Word was Lombardo had romantic interest
in this woman who was 10 years his senior, now that Claire had divorced her
third husband.
"I'll have Ted set a place for your daughter," said Mrs. Spencer. "The rest
of our party shall be with us shortly."
Lunch
was perfect in every regard: mesclun salad with vine-ripened tomatoes, cream
of asparagus soup, cold poached salmon, chocolate cheesecake for dessert, and
no foie gras.
"So this is where you were when the diamond disappeared last night," I said.
"From eight until eleven-thirty," said Mrs. Spencer. "We were all at this very
table."
"That's an awfully long dinner," said Nancy.
"On the contrary," said Mrs. Spencer, "with five courses, it was just the right
length."
"A dinner for eight," I said.
"No, we had seven," said Mrs. Spencer, explaining that one of her guests had
canceled at the last minute.
"Okay. Let's see if I have this straight." I ticked off the names of Mrs. Spencer,
Charlie Baxter, Gloria Rodriguez, Helen Washington, Richard Lombardo, and Lucy
Hamilton.
"You forgot Chips Morton," said Mrs. Spencer.
"That's her second husband," Lombardo said. "A real loser. Lives in squalor
on a houseboat in Newport Harbor and distinguishes himself solely with his drinking."
"Now, Richard."
"She feels pity for him," Lombardo persisted. "The rest of the world considers
him a worthless toad. You need look no further than him for your chief suspect."
"Chips would never do such a thing," Mrs. Spencer said. "He may not
have much, but at least he has class."
I darted a glance at Nancy. She was taking everything in.
"Well," I said, finishing my chardonnay. "Shall we see the safe?"
Lombardo and Washington rose -- as if to join us.
"If you don't mind," I said, "we need to be alone. Detective-client privilege,
you understand."
 We
rode the elevator to Bon Soir's third floor, where Mrs. Spencer unlocked a door
that seemed to belong to a closet -- but actually was a large, windowless room
filled with enough clothing to outfit a Broadway theater company. It smelled
of mothballs and cedar. I saw no sign of a safe.
"My Newport wardrobe," Mrs. Spencer explained.
"Your secretary has a key?" I said.
"Yes -- she and no one else."
"Not your son?" said Nancy.
"Why would he?"
"I thought I saw some of this stuff in Dumb and Dumber ," said Nancy.
That's another thing I love about my daughter -- her quirky sense of humor.
Mrs. Spencer evidently had no clue what Nancy was talking about. She let it
pass.
"So where's the safe?" I said.
"Behind here," said Mrs. Spencer. She parted a rack of fur coats to reveal an
ancient Mosler safe -- one of those two-ton jobs that kept legal tender dry
for almost a century after the Titanic went down. I got on my hands and knees
for a good close look while Nancy dusted it for fingerprints that I would send
for analysis to a good buddy I have inside the FBI. Like most of my sources,
I met him during my reporter days.
The safe was locked. I could find no evidence it had been jimmied.
"You're sure the Baby Hope was here before your party," I said.
"Positive," said Mrs. Spencer. "I opened it to take out this pearl necklace
I'm wearing now -- and I locked it again immediately. No one was with me. I
took nothing else out."
"Your secretary doesn't know the combination," I said.
I was stating fact, not asking a question. There are some things these folks
won't entrust even to longtime employees -- safe combinations and Swiss bank
account numbers, for example.
"Helen does not," Mrs. Spencer confirmed.
"Does anyone else besides you know it?" asked Nancy.
The woman seemed suddenly flustered. She broke eye contact with me and my daughter.
"Only perhaps Chips, if his poor memory held," she said in a near-whisper. "He
watched me open this the last time I wore that ring. It was the night we were
married."
"When was that?"
"Eleven years ago," she said.
"Has anything else disappeared in that decade?"
"Not one thing. To be honest, I hardly ever wear jewelry anymore. I only brought
this necklace out to please Congressman Lombardo. He's been pestering me for
weeks."
Mrs. Spencer noted my studied interest.
"He is the last person who would commit such a terrible crime," she
quickly stated. "He is the most honorable person in all of Washington."
"I believe that's called damning with faint praise," I said.
"Excuse me?"
"Just a little joke, nothing worth repeating."
Nancy shot me a look that shouted SHUT UP. She knows how indiscreet I can be.
"Now Mrs. Spencer," I said, "about last night's dinner. Was there anyone in
this house besides you and your guests?"
"Only Ted. I gave everyone else the night off."
"The gate and doors were locked?"
"At all times."
"Have you examined the tape from the surveillance camera?" Nancy asked.
"Ted did -- and found nothing."
"No funny noises or lights."
"None."
"During dinner," said Nancy, "did anyone leave the table?"
"Of course -- everyone did, at one time or another," said Mrs. Spencer.
"To answer the call of nature, I presume." I knew she would appreciate how delicately
I'd phrased that.
"Exactly," she said.
"Did they answer the call alone or together?"
"Alone, as I recall -- all except for Charlie and Gloria. But of course they're
all but joined at the hip, they're so in love with each other."
After
interviewing Lombardo, Washington and O'Hara -- all denied involvement, of course
-- we left Bon Soir.
"Any hunches?" I said to Nancy. I had to shout -- we had the top down and the
radar detector on, and we were zipping up Route 6 at 129 miles per hour. I was
driving this time.
"Definitely not Chips Morton," said Nancy.
That surprised me.
"Why not?" I said.
"Because he's still madly in love with her -- and she, I suspect, with him.
Stealing the crown jewel would hardly be the way to demonstrate affection, even
if he is a drunk."
See what I mean about Nancy's perception? It's especially keen on matters of
the heart.
"And I'd feel funny about that congressman dude, except he's too obvious," my
daughter said.
"What about Claire Benson Spencer herself?" I said.
"What would she have to gain?"
"Notoriety."
"But she hates publicity."
"Maybe she doesn't want that kind of notoriety. Maybe she's desperate for attention
from her own circle."
"Seems far-fetched."
"Stranger things have happened. Or perhaps she's trying to frame someone --
her son's girlfriend, for example. Maybe she wants Gloria Rodriguez out of Charlie's
life. The Central Falls background can't win her any points."
"There are easier ways, Dad. You're starting to sound like a bad Ellery Queen
story."
"These folks are funny -- all that money does something to them. They see the
world different than you and I."
"Well, duh. So what's our next move?"
"Gloria Rodriguez," I said. "We need to pay her a visit. But first we need to
find out more about her. Do you know anyone inside Trinity Rep?"
"Plenty of people," said Nancy.
We were pulling into our little dirt road now.
"Go work your magic and let's regroup first thing tomorrow morning," I said.
"I've got work to do. I feel sudden inspiration for this chapter that's been
tormenting me so."
What happens next? It's up to you. See
the rules for this interactive writing contest. Deadline
for entries for Chapter Two -- to be written by a reader -- is Aug. 1; the winning
chapter will be published Aug. 13.
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