Read Online The Diva Wore Diamonds by Mark Schweizer - Free Book Online

Raw diamonds. I collected nine in the hour I spent in the pit. These matched thirteen other stones I had found in a cave on Quail Ridge one month earlier. I have sent those thirteen stones to a colleague in Charlotte for confirmation. The nine I found here, I leave in this box.
    I never looked again. These were days of trial for St. Barnabas, and the discovery of a diamond mine at the site of the church would have demanded more temperance than I believe the church, or even the town, could have exhibited. St. Germaine would have followed the hasty progress of so many boomtowns, and I saw the ruination of everything we’d worked to accomplish.
    And so I keep my secret. God forgive me if I’ve done wrong.
    Yours very truly,
    Fr. Simon Faulks

    Ruby looked at Billy, who was holding the leather draw-string bag. He worried it open and, after a long moment, poured the gemstones into his hand. Nine unassuming rocks, the size of marbles, tumbled out and rested in his outstretched palm.
    “ Are they big?” asked someone from the back.
    Billy shrugged. “Don’t look that big to me, but I don’t know nothin’ about diamonds. I’ll take ‘em into Boone and see what’s what.”
    “ Quail Ridge,” said Nancy. “That’s Noylene’s place.”
    “ Yep,” I said.

Chapter 6

    Meg was spending the night at her mother’s house. I took this as an opportunity to smoke one of my Cuban cigars, put on my new recording of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder , and try out a new beer, Sprecher Black Bavarian Style Lager, that Pete had picked up in Asheville. I settled behind my typewriter, listened to the bass voice of José van Dam fill the house, then slipped a piece of paper behind the platen, gave a few clicks and started writing.

    •••

    “ My name is Constance,” said the apparition. “Constance Noring. And I need your help.”
    “ I can help,” I said. “It’ll cost you two Cs a day plus expenses.”
    “ I don’t have that kind of money,” she suddenly blubbed, turning on the waterworks, like that guy who, you know, turns on Niagara Falls for the tourists every morning. “My mother’s living at the bus station and she needs her medicine…”
    “ Knock it off, sister,” I grunted. “You’re not talking to some schlemiel with a heater who doesn’t keep score. I know exactly who you are and why you’re here.”
    The tears dried up as fast as Hillary’s campaign contributions and were replaced by eyelashes flapping so hard I could feel my nose-hair beginning to part.
    “ Now how would you know that?” she mused, musing in a bemused fashion.
    I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out the July issue of Hymns and Hers magazine. It fell open to page 64, and there she was, in all her peeled and pagan glory, directly across the page from the article on the use of the dudelsack in Lenten services. Constance Noring. Diva. Miss July. Originally from Australia. Turn ons: Long walks on the beach, snuggling, Reformation hymnody, Philip Glass concert arias, dispensationalist theology, and puppies.
    “ I see you have it bookmarked,” she said, grinning like the puppy that ate the dudelsack. “Maybe you’d like a first-hand peek?”
    “ Maybe I would, toots. Maybe I would.”

    •••

    The next morning, I found Billy Hixon in the parish hall, sitting at one of the tables, having a cup of coffee with Meg, Elaine, and Bev. Meg gave me a smile that I could feel down to my toes. I walked up and returned her smile with a smooch. A loud one.
    “ Oh, get a room,” said Elaine, rolling her eyes in mock-disgust.
    “ Yeah,” added Billy. “What if Elaine and me made out every time we saw each other?”
    “ Probably do you two some good,” said Bev. She held up her empty cup and gestured toward the coffee pot. I took the cup from her hand and walked over to our new, state-of-the-art, industrial coffee maker.
    “ Grab a cup for yourself, too, and pull up a chair,” said Bev.
    Billy would be outside mowing as soon as the