Brewing the Midnight Oil Read online

  “Can I drive?” Blanche folded her hands in front of her. “Please? I never get to drive the boat.”

  They stowed gear in a locker that doubled as a passenger seat. “Sure. Point her due east.”

  Blanche gunned the twin engines to life. “No problem. Oh, wait. How do I know which way east is?”

  “Watch the compass,” Ivy shouted over the noise. “Make sure the E is pointed at you.”

  “Aye-aye.” She putted the boat past the slips, trying not to raise a wake. Ivy fussed with the boat’s GPS. It took some figuring, but eventually, she got the coordinates into the system.

  Gusty wind threatened to blow her bun apart, so Ivy hunkered down behind the windshield. There were always boats out off the coast, but not too many on a weekday. It didn’t take long before Blanche throttled up, and the boat skipped and banged across the chop.

  Blanche shouted something. With the wind and the engines, Ivy couldn’t hear. She nodded and smiled. The GPS tracker showed them inching toward the target.

  Ivy felt a building sense of excitement. If her theory was right, she and Blanche were on the cusp of recovering the missing tiara. She noted their course was taking them south of the target. She pointed at the GPS, and the compass. While she shouted, “Aim for that blinking dot!” she doubted that Blanche could hear. But Blanche gave her a thumbs up and cranked the wheel a little to the left. North, Ivy thought.

  As they reached the target, Blanche throttled down. Ivy scanned the horizon. No boats in sight, but the coast was still visible behind them. She struggled into her wetsuit pants. When the engines stopped, the silence shocked her.

  A voice sang out, “Welcome aboard it’s—oh, it’s just you two.” Moira appeared on the forward deck. She wore a white cruise ship uniform, hat at a jaunty angle. Gold strappy sandals, of course. “Where’s Captain Stubing? Where’s Isaac? I need a Harvey Wallbanger.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Moira?” Blanche said.

  “You’re Captain Stubing,” Ivy promoted Moira. More stripes appeared on the ghost’s shoulder. “When we’re underwater, you’re in charge.”

  “I can’t be in charge of a boat. I’m a ghost.”

  “Suit yourself. Blanche, check the depth with the fish finder and plug it into the dive computer.”

  “Aye-aye, oh, crap. What’s all this?”

  Ivy looked over her shoulder. The readouts on the electronics flickered and flashed unreadable symbols. They switched the gear off, waited, and then back on. Still wonky. “Dang it, I broke Harmon’s boat,” Ivy said.

  Blanche shaded her eyes and looked west. “Not like we can’t make our way back.”

  Ivy sighed. “Yeah, but the dive computer…” She opened a cabinet and pulled out an old dive plan book. There were charts in the back. “I’ll check the depth. When was the last time you dived?”

  “Not since last August, I think.”

  Ivy opened the aft anchor locker. She dropped the anchor to water level, and lowered it, counting. “Good, so we don’t have to worry so much about decompression.”

  When she counted to forty-six, the anchor hit bottom. Ivy grabbed the dive plan and ran her finger down the chart. “Okay, we can stay down eighty minutes at forty-six feet.”

  “We should probably do a decompression stop for a few minutes at twenty feet on the way back up,” Blanche squished her boobs into a zip-front wetsuit vest and was good to go. “Just to be safe.”

  Ivy wore the whole deal, from hood to boots. She loved scuba diving, but hated cold water. Even on this balmy late spring day, it would be pretty chilly at nearly fifty feet down. Blanche shook her head at the process. “What are we diving on, anyway, a wreck?”

  Struggling with her swim fins, Ivy grunted. “I’m not sure what it looks like. I am pretty sure whatever it is, it contains the missing tiara. It should be tied to an anchor.”

  Blanche shouldered her tanks. “I hope it’s in a big box. If it’s just the crown, we could be searching for weeks.”

  They did their checks; then somersaulted backward off the gunwale. For a split second, Ivy felt the shock of cold water, but the thin layer between her skin and the neoprene quickly warmed. Weights on her belt pulled her down, and she kicked her flippers. They followed the rope of their anchor. Just like flying, Ivy thought, how can Everett not love this?

  It didn’t take long to reach bottom. Even in the gloom, Ivy saw trash littering the sand. Blanche’s light flickered on, playing across the garbage-strewn dunes. Why were people such douche-bags, she wondered.

  Blanche secured a reel to their anchor. It would serve as a guide if visibility dropped, or let them know if the boat drifted. She swam off along the bottom.

  Flickers like sparks flashed above them: a school of fish. Ivy watched them dart back and forth in synch, only the bubbly sound of her regulator in her ears. A darker shadow followed the school. A predator of some kind, she thought, but not big enough to worry about. She swam along the makeshift garbage dump. It wasn’t like a huge pile of trash, but it was strewn about as far as she could see. She pushed aside her anger and hunted for a boat anchor with something attached.

  The bottom lit up in a rainbow of colors, Blanche using her power to manipulate her flashlight. Ivy swam toward her. Hollow and metallic, amplified by the water, Ivy heard her cousin banging on something. As she neared, she saw a fluke-style anchor half-sunk in the sand. At the end of a chain, she saw a padlock sticking from the bottom.

  Blanche intensified the light until the sea floor was as bright as day. Ivy brushed away sand, making the water murky. In a few moments, she uncovered the corner of a rusting steel strongbox. The padlock secured the chain to the box’s handle, holding it to the anchor. But the box was not watertight. It wasn’t about to float off on its own with or without the anchor.

  Once the box was free of the sand, they saw a cube of steel about eighteen inches per side. Blanche fiddled with the padlock, and lifted her palms upward. What do we do about this?

  They couldn’t easily lift the box and the anchor back to the boat. Ivy followed the chain. It was secured only by the anchor rope. She took the dive knife from a sheath strapped around her thigh. With a couple cuts, the chain was free. Ivy put the knife back and stabbed a thumb upward with her other hand. Blanche lifted the box and swam toward her. After a moment, she dropped it back in the sand.

  Ivy swam over, and together they moved the strongbox, following the reel back to their anchor. Blanche unclipped the line, and they slowly kicked toward the surface. After a few moments, Blanche checked her dive computer. Ivy had bought it for her last Christmas, and was a little thrilled to see her cousin use it. Blanche was much more serious about diving than Ivy.

  Her cousin held up her free hand. They stopped, hovering at about twenty feet down. Given the short time, and the shallow depth, they were probably okay. It was always better to not take chances with the bends.

  Ivy thought getting the strong box up on the boat would be a nightmare, but when they lifted it above the surface, water poured out of it. Blanche spat out her regulator. “You get aboard, and I’ll hand it to you.”

  She stripped off her flippers and tossed them aboard before mounting the ladder. Then Ivy turned and grabbed the handle. With a grunt, she lifted it over the gunwale and set it down on the deck. Blanche’s flippers landed on the boat, followed by Blanche.

  “Still have that padlock to deal with.” Blanche unzipped her vest and hung it on the poling platform to drip dry. It was going to take Ivy at least twenty minutes to shuck the clingy neoprene. She examined the lock. Salt water had already rusted the latch.

  “Might have to cut it off,” Blanche said.

  Moira floated down from the poling platform. “Whatcha got, flower pot?”

  “I think the tiara is in this box,” Ivy said. “The anchor it was tied to matches the one Everett and I found on a suspect’s boat. I found the coordinates in his dive log.”

  She shook the lock. It was solid.

 
“Oh, c’mon, I wanna see it,” Moira said. “Here.”

  The ghost crouched down and passed her hand through the padlock. It moved about a half millimeter.

  “Dang it all,” Moira said. She gave the lock a hard scowl for a moment. This time when she passed her hand through it, the lock shook. The hasp clicked, the body of the lock thunking to the deck.

  “Ohmigosh,” Moira panted. “Holy cow.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “That was tough.”

  “Are you okay?” Blanche stepped forward, concerned.

  Moira became more transparent. Her breathing was still hard. It was weird, because a ghost didn’t generally breathe at all. “Took a lot out of me. I’m dematerializing. C’mon, let’s see it before I fade out.”

  Ivy threaded the hasp through the latch and threw the top open. She reached in, pulling out a small crown that glittered in the sun. A pinkish, orangish gem glowed. Wet silver and gold filigree hurt the eyes with sparkly reflection. Except…

  “All that effort,” Moira panted, “for a fake.”

  Chapter 12

  By the time they got the boat back in storage and loaded the truck with dive gear and a heavy strong box, the sun was setting.

  “I still don’t get it. Who the hell would go to all the trouble of sinking a fake tiara in the middle of the ocean?”

  Ivy started the truck and buzzed the windows down. The warm cab actually felt kind of good after a day on the water. “Not only did he sink it, he kept track of where he sank it. That leads me to believe that the sinker thought the tiara was the real deal.”

  “It’s got freakin’ rust on it. Gold doesn’t rust.”

  She headed toward Light House. “It probably wasn’t rusty when it went in the drink.”

  They drove in silence for a while. As they approached the city, Blanche complained. “The smell of this thing reminds me of Daddy’s cooking. I’m starving, but I don’t wanna eat left over fish and chips. You wanna grab something?”

  “I have to get this over to Everett.”

  “Really? A fake tiara? Where does that put your case?”

  Ivy shrugged. “No idea. That’s why I’m taking it to Everett.”

  “Hey, there’s a Jersey Mike’s on the way. I can place an order on my phone and we can pick it up.”

  Dang it all. Blanche really knew Ivy’s weak spots. “Order me a Number Five,” she groaned.

  “Mike’s way?” Blanche swiped on her phone.

  “Is there any other way?”

  Ivy didn’t realize how hungry she was, but she ate half the drippy sandwich on the way to Light House. They hosed off the gear and hung it to dry. She ate the other half on her way to Everett’s office.

  The reception room was officially a jungle now. She fought down panic and hauled the strong box into the inner office.

  “I thought you were gonna call me when you closed shop.” Everett didn’t look up from his computer. Ivy sat down the strong box with a thump that made him jump. He gave Ivy the hairy eyeball, and then the box. “Tiara’s inside.”

  “Kinda,” Ivy said.

  “A fake.”

  Dang it all! “How did you know?”

  “Just guessing. I ran down the license plate of that Beemer in the Beranger’s driveway. You’ll never guess who it belongs to.”

  Ivy sat in the visitor’s chair. “You’re right.”

  “Lola Beranger.”

  Ivy’s brow creased in thought. “Would that be Gus’ first wife?”

  “It would, and that would explain why Gus’ daughters aren’t much younger than the current Mrs. Beranger.”

  An idea lit up Ivy’s brain. “Mrs. Beranger—we’ve never heard Tanner call Bronwyn that. He must’ve been talking about Lola.”

  “A good bet.” Everett folded his hands on his desk. “But that puts us no closer to the real tiara.”

  “It still means someone stole this fake tiara,” Ivy said.

  Everett nodded. “Someone, in fact, like Susan Miller-Day and Johnny Starling. I took a peek at Susan’s finances. Illegally. She writes regular checks, and fairly high dollar checks, to Linda-Lou Starling.”

  Ivy sat back, thinking. “So Johnny must’ve let his sister in on it.”

  “And she’s blackmailing Susan.”

  “Explains the Mercedes in the garage,” she thought aloud.

  “The way I figure it, Susan and Johnny were in cahoots. He probably walked into the vault after the last exhibit, and swapped the real tiara for the fake one before it went into the safe. Hey, presto, no computer record of him opening that particular safe, and he’s perfectly legit being in the vault. I don’t think it would be tough to prove Susan got him a position on the security staff.”

  Ivy followed along. “She made a connection to him, maybe through some shady decommissioned military stuff, and found a partner willing to steal the tiara.”

  “Be my guess.”

  “Then he sank it, because if he owned the tiara, he’d suffer the curse. But he did anyway. The freak garbage truck accident.” Ivy found herself running out of theory.

  “I don’t think that’s why he sank it.” Everett said. “He couldn’t put it in a safe deposit box, because there would be a paper trail. He couldn’t keep it himself, because it wasn’t secure enough, as we found out with Martin Castro. Instead, he and Susan were using the Atlantic Ocean as a letter drop.”

  “A letter drop?” Ivy didn’t get it.

  “John Starling sank the tiara in a heavy box and saved the coordinates. That way, when he and Susan found a buyer, or a fence, it could be retrieved by the buyer with no connection to either one of them.” Everett unfolded his hands. “That’s one mystery solved. In theory, anyway.”

  “But it’s been a year. Why didn’t Susan sell it, or fish it out for herself?”

  Everett held up a finger. After shuffling through the paperwork on his desk, he came up with a sheet of paper. “This is an amended insurance document for the tiara. When I first received the paperwork relating to this case, I only had the original. That listed the loss payment at one point five million.”

  Ivy took the sheet and read through the gobbledy-gook until she came across a figure. “It’s insured for five million dollars now?”

  “Based on the offer to sell the tiara, I’m sure,” Everett said. “Note who processed the request.”

  “Susan Miller-Day.” Ivy thought it over. “That means that Susan, who claims to have nothing to do with the Grand Odditorium, knew about the sale.”

  “After she and Johnny stole the thing, it would take time to find a buyer who was both unscrupulous enough to purchase stolen merchandise, and trustworthy enough to give the coordinates to. I believe whoever made the offer to buy the tiara was who Susan planned to go to after the insurance paid off and everything settled down. Or, perhaps the pending sale brought out a competitor who wanted the tiara but didn’t want to shell out twelve million dollars.”

  Ivy thought it over.

  “Susan meets Johnny over some weapons deal. She gets him hired as a vault guard. Johnny steals the tiara, and dumps it. While they’re looking for a buyer, Johnny gets eaten by a garbage truck. Then an offer is made on the tiara for big money, and Susan has her buyer.”

  “That about sums it up,” Everett said. “Except for one major piece of the puzzle that’s still missing.”

  “Where the heck is the real tiara?”

  He nodded. “Let’s go over it again. Someone stands to gain the most from the tiara.”

  It was a confusing list. Ivy thought it over. “Gus Beranger. He can both claim the insurance, and then sell the real one. He walks away with seventeen million bucks.”

  “From our perspective, that seems like a lot of money.” Everett made a steeple of his fingers. “Beranger Imports makes more than fifty million annually. Why lose your business and go to prison over the thing?”

  “Okay, Bronwyn Beranger. She prompted hiring you. Us. Whatever. After the settlement, she divorces Gus with an additional six million
in their assets. Afterwards, she sells the real tiara and lives the rest of her life in Gus-free luxury.”

  Everett shook his head. “Florida law splits divorce assets down the middle. But an old cuss like Gus doesn’t marry a young hottie like Bronwyn without a pre-nup. She’d get a settlement, a percentage. Plus, there’s a lack of access. Bronwyn says she’s never even visited the museum, and I’d guess the business end of the house is off limits to her. Motive, maybe, opportunity, no.”

  “What about Tanner? The butler put the finger on Mrs. Beranger, and we now assume he was talking about the first Mrs. Beranger, Lola.”

  “That divorce has long been settled.” Everett lifted a thick file. “She wouldn’t benefit in any way from the sale or the insurance.”

  “Wow, that’s one huge file,” Ivy eyed the documents.

  “Contentious divorce, no pre-nup, Gus got taken to the cleaners, learned his lesson, yadda, yadda, yadda.” He handed it over. “But it’s twenty years done. No more Beranger money for Lola.”

  Ivy flipped through the document. “Jeeze Louise, so nobody has a motive to steal the tiara? Well, I guess Susan wanted the money, but, wah-wahhh,” she sang the loser song.

  “It’s a big pain in the ass, but we’re back to square one.” Everett slumped back in his chair. “We don’t know who stole it, when they stole it, or even why. I just fall back on the fact that the tiara is worth a lot of money.”

  “Why.” Ivy let the word hang in the air. She found a report from a PI in the divorce documents. Photos of Gus and an even younger Bronwyn Beranger, nee St. George, in a no-tell motel parking lot. She handed it back to Everett.

  Everett looked it over and side-eyed her. “You’ve got a theory.”

  “Maybe we’re thinking about this all wrong.”

  “So make me think all right.”