He showed us the photographs-two lovely double-strands of round diamonds. He laid out a black velvet cloth, and Lefebvre gently placed two small sections of the necklace that were still united and twenty-six loose diamonds onto it. At my look of puzzlement, Lefebvre said, “We found most of them under the bodies and in the crevices of the trunk.”
They were in a range of sizes, and Mr. Belen spoke to us as he quickly sorted them. “There should be one hundred and twenty of them,” he said.
“We collected forty-one.”
Mr. Belen raised a brow.
Lefebvre said, “I won’t tell you that our evidence control is always perfect, but with something this valuable, and in a case like this, we are extremely careful. These diamonds were collected under the highest security possible.”
“Could some of the diamonds still be in the car?”
“Every inch of that car, and everything in it, has been searched and sifted through. We’ve gathered much more minute evidence than diamonds.” He turned to me. “That is not for publication.”
“No, why should I tell anyone you’re doing your job?”
Mr. Belen went back to sorting diamonds. Before long, it was clear that most of the missing stones were from a middle section, the part that would hang lowest-and which had the biggest diamonds in it.
“Maybe whoever killed her grabbed the necklace and yanked down,” I said, “and kept whatever he still had in his hands. Stuffed a few more in his pockets.”
“In a hurry,” Lefebvre agreed.
“And took them after he killed her,” I said.
“How could you know that?” Belen asked.
“If she had been alive, I think he simply would have made her take them off and hand them over. The loose stones wouldn’t be in the trunk.”
“They won’t be hard to identify if the killer still has them, just as he took them,” Belen said, “but I suspect he has had them recut. This style of diamond cutting is passé. The newer ways of cutting disperse light in the stone in a way that makes them brighter.”
Lefebvre and I both took photos when Belen had the diamonds laid out in the order they belonged. Belen gave Lefebvre copies of the photos he had taken in December 1957, and looked at me apologetically.
“I’m sure Detective Lefebvre won’t mind making copies for me,” I reassured him.
Detective Lefebvre ignored me as he studied the pictures. “I have some photos of her wearing the diamonds at the party,” he said, “but none of just the necklace itself. Thanks-this will help.”
We left not much later. I mentioned to Lefebvre the Chesterfields and the lighter Jack had given to Katy. He took notes. I thanked him for bringing me along to the jewelry store and told him I’d see him later that night. I had just enough time to have dinner with Dad and Aunt Mary.
As I drove home, I thought I saw someone following me in a dark car. I made a few unnecessary turns to get to streets that were emptier, where it would be harder for a tail to hide from me. Nothing.
I told myself not to let myself get spooked so easily and kept driving.
38
A S O’CONNOR STEPPED INTO THE FOYER, THE LAST OF THE FOUR TO ENTER the Ducane home, he felt himself surrounded by ghosts. The house was much as he remembered it. He thought of the four murder victims-of Katy, Todd, and the baby, but most especially of the nursemaid, whose blood he had seen on that rainy evening more than twenty years ago. He thought of all that had happened that evening in so short a space of time, and much of it centering around this household.
He recalled the urgency with which Jack had insisted he look for Katy that night-how Jack hadn’t cared about his own injuries (or sending O’Connor out into the rain) half as much as he cared about Katy. He remembered now that Jack said something had been troubling her. He remembered the note to Jack, asking if Mitch was her father, and wondered if that was what had disturbed her that evening. He felt sad for her, thinking of her now from nearly the same age Jack had been, while she had been about the age Max Ducane was now.
When Max turned on the lights, the cleanliness of the house only emphasized its emptiness, made it into a well-kept museum, and added to O’Connor’s feelings of disquiet.
He watched Irene and Lefebvre. As Lefebvre looked around, nothing in his facial expression gave away his thoughts or feelings. He had a large brown envelope in his hands-crime scene photographs, he had told them. Irene, he thought, should never let anyone talk her into getting into a poker game. She was bothered, he could see-by the thought of what had gone on here twenty years ago, or perhaps because the house seemed frozen in another decade. She had a small camera with her, the one she had brought to the groundbreaking ceremony, hanging by a strap around her neck. She wasn’t using it.
“I thought you said this place has been empty for twenty years,” she said to Max. “There’s no dust.”
“Lillian has paid someone to keep it clean,” Max said. “Weird, huh?”
“Seriously weird.” She glanced uneasily at O’Connor. “I mean… Lillian seems to have moved on with her life, but then there’s this house, sitting here.”
He thought of his protectiveness of Maureen’s room, how hard it had been when his eldest sister had moved into that room. “The families of the missing can’t live in the same way other people do. If you know what happened to someone-that the person moved away, or died, or chose to be with someone else-your mind can let go, even if your heart takes a little longer to do the same. When a person you love is missing, inexplicably gone, perhaps you want to cling to anything associated with them, anything solid and normal, any reminder that they were here. If you keep a place for them, they might return. You worry that if you stop remembering them-and memories do fade-then the missing person will disappear in a more final way. That seems as if it would be a horrible betrayal, and so you fight it. And besides, the physical gives you something to focus on, other than the endless questions.”
He became suddenly self-conscious, and especially aware of a change in Lefebvre’s scrutiny.
Irene said, “Max, you’ve lived away from Las Piernas, so you probably don’t realize that O’Connor is kind of famous around here for all he does to help families of missing persons, and to help find the identities of John and Jane Does.”
“You were going to show us the house, Max?” O’Connor said quickly.
“I suppose we should start upstairs,” Max said, and led them up the large, curving staircase.
“Check out the phone,”he said to Irene, pointing to one that sat on a small marble-topped hall table.
The phone would have been an old one when Katy lived here; it was made of black Bakelite, and had no dial on it.
“An extension only,” O’Connor said.
“So is this place exactly the way it was the last time you were here?” Irene asked.
“No,” Max answered, before O’Connor could reply. “Lillian hired someone to repair the door off the kitchen, and she’s had the place painted. I think…well, a new floor was put in the nursery. Let’s go there first.”
As he led them into it, he said, “At least I can stop wondering if this used to be my room.”
“Did you wonder?” Irene asked.
“Not really,” he said. At the doubting looks of the others, he moved over to the empty bassinet and ran his fingers lightly along its rim. “I mean, everyone who is adopted has that fantasy at some point in his childhood-you were always the kidnapped prince, of course, and never the abandoned pauper. Warren seemed so certain that I had once been this little prince, I asked myself if it could be possible. But if you mean, did I ever have some mystical experience in here, some faint memory from infancy? No.”
O’Connor thought of the way the room looked that night-really looked. Not this sanitized shrine.