Bombshell (AN FBI THRILLER) by Catherine Coulter Page A

Freestone—Delsey had all sorts of memories of that wild time, but now they didn’t even piss her off, particularly. “I was married to a creep for longer than I should have been after I graduated from UCLA. He’d just gotten a master’s degree in civil engineering. He was smart and awesomely ripped, and I fell hard for him. I really liked his cool name—Alexander Freestone. Sorry, Griffin, but I was tired of being saddled with Hammersmith.”
    Dix said, “Seems to me
Freestone
is just as much of a mouthful as
Hammersmith
.”
    “
Freestone
’s more a musician’s name, at least it is to me,” Delsey said, then laughed at herself. “So I kept it, no matter that Alex turned out to be something I didn’t see coming at all.”
    “What, did the fool cheat on you?”
    “No, not that. He wasn’t a horn dog. He was a jewel thief. Two different women called me out of the blue after the wedding to tell me they’d had jewelry go missing after he’d broken up with them. I told both of them he hadn’t broken up with me, he’d married me, and besides, the only good jewelry I had was the wedding ring he gave me.” A laugh spurted out. “I’d forgotten about Grandmother Aladonna’s jewelry, all very expensive, all very beautiful. Since I hadn’t let him move in with me, he had to marry me if he wanted to explore Grandmother’s jewelry box. Yeah, yeah, I guess I told him about the pieces and it was enough to make him see himself drinking rum cocktails on a beach somewhere. I reported him when I discovered my grandmother’s diamond brooch gone, the same day I filed for divorce. I think he served maybe eighteen months.”
    “Did you get your grandmother’s diamond brooch back?”
    “The cops tracked it down and the pawnbroker had to cough it up. It’s once again snug in my jewelry box. I’m sure Alex returned to his light-fingered ways after he got out of prison, only in a different city or state. Poor women.” She laughed. “The wedding ring he gave me belonged to one of the women who’d called me. I gladly returned it to her.”
    “I don’t think I’d want to keep the jerk’s name,” Dix said, “not after all that.”
    “I did go back and forth for a while,” Delsey said, “but then I decided to think of Freestone as his parents’ name, with Alex an unfortunate offshoot, and they were nice people.”
    Dix shook his head at her. “Do you have her jewelry box in your apartment?”
    She nodded. “Oh, no. What if that was their target?”
    “Let me check that out right now.” Dix turned to call one of his deputies. “We’ll know in a few minutes. I wish we had more to go on, Ms. Freestone. If the jewelry box is missing, that would mean the break-in was a burglary and one of the thieves came to a very bad end right there. I think I’ll also see if Mr. Freestone is still in prison. Who knows?”
    “Nah, even though Alex was ripped and looked all sorts of heroic, he was a wuss. He’d take on any jewelry box, but not a person who could hurt him.” She sighed. “Freestone—such a lovely name.”
    Dix said, “I’ll send Miss Mavis to see Anna, but I’d like to hear how you describe the dead man first.”
    “He was older than you, Sheriff Noble, somewhere in his early forties. He was stocky, dark and swarthy, I remember. It was such a shock to see him there, and I was screaming—I can’t seem to focus on his features. It was horrible. Why ever would someone put him in my bathtub?”
    Griffin said, “If the jewelry box is missing, then the thieves could have been in Maestro this past week looking for targets for break-ins. This party at Dr. Salazar’s would have presented the ideal opportunity. On the other hand, why pick a graduate student’s place rather than a well-to-do faculty member’s? And why didn’t they trash your place?”
    Delsey said, “I haven’t advertised my grandmother’s jewelry, not after Alex. Anna and I are the only ones here who even know about it, as far as I