“Wow! That’s dedication. And your professor’s name is?”
“Lewen. Kathryn Lewen. What does this have to do with my cousin?”
“Do you mind if I sit down?” Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed the chair near D.C. and turned it around so that she could keep all three of them in view. Then she said to Billy, “Why don’t you introduce me to your study mates.”
Billy inclined his head towards Carrottop first. “Mark Dillinger.” And then pointing to the girl, he added, “Carla Mason.”
“Nice to meet you,” Fiona said. Then she turned her attention to Billy. “What can you tell me about Amanda Hemmings?”
“Not much. She got in touch with me a couple of months ago. We’ve gone out together a few times.”
He was smart, D.C. thought. But not a good enough actor to make his speech sound unrehearsed.
“We were supposed to meet today for an early lunch. When I went over to her place, her landlady told me that she’d been mugged. I called all the hospitals in the area until I found her. The nurse only let me see her for a moment. Amanda didn’t recognize me.”
Neat story, D.C. thought. He didn’t doubt for a minute that Billy Franks knew how to dot his Is and cross his Ts.
Fiona let out a sigh. “Well, that explains it. I was wondering how you learned that she’d been hurt. There hasn’t been any mention of it on the news.”
“You’ve been on the news. You’re investigating that attempted robbery at the Smithsonian, aren’t you?” Billy asked.
“I’m looking into it.”
His eyes narrowed as if a sudden thought had struck him. “Is my cousin Amanda involved in that?”
The question was better than the little speech, D.C. noted.
Fiona widened her eyes. “Do you have any reason to believe she might be?”
He shook his head. “Not really. But she couldn’t stop talking about that diamond.” He glanced at his friends. “She was close to obsessed with it.”
Carla and Mark nodded in unison.
“She was doing some volunteer work at the Mall,” Billy continued, “and she said she’d been in to see it several times. When I visited her apartment, she had this file of all the stories printed in the newspapers. She was going to make a scrapbook.”
“How about you?” Fiona asked. “Have you been to see it?”
“No. Diamonds aren’t my thing.”
Fiona turned to Carla and Mark. “How about you two?”
“No,” they replied in unison.
“Where were all of you yesterday?”
Carrottop and the girl turned to Billy.
D.C. bit back a smile. They hadn’t seen that one coming.
“We were here studying together until around three. Then we took a break and went out,” Billy said.
“Where to?” Fiona asked.
“Professor Lewen had a gathering of students at her place, sort of a Christmas open house for those of us who didn’t go home for the break.”
“Could you give me her address and phone number so that I can verify that?”
“Sure.” Billy rattled them off and D.C. made notes.
“Thank you.” She glanced at D.C. “Do you have any questions for Billy?”
“No.” D.C. flipped his notebook shut. “I’m good.”
They were at the door when Billy said, “My cousin. Is she going to be all right?”
Fiona turned back. “The doctors say that she’s stable.”
“What about her memory?” Billy asked.
“I don’t have any information on that.”
Fiona waited until they were in the stairwell before she said, “You were a very good boy in there. Thanks.”
“You were the one who was good. He didn’t see your question about their activities yesterday coming. FYI, he was researching amnesia on the Internet.”
“Which he would have explained away as concern about his cousin. If we go with the theory that Amanda isn’t faking the amnesia, then it had to have come as quite a shock to Billy.”
“And if she is faking it, the visit gave Amanda a chance to fill Billy in.”
Fiona pushed through the door to the street. “My gut tells me the three musketeers are involved in the robbery.”
He opened the passenger door, then circled the car and climbed in beside her. “My gut’s in agreement with yours, but I’ve got a little more than that. Bobby, the security guard I was talking to at the gallery, described one of the young people wearing Santa hats as also wearing thick-soled boots that laced up to the knees.”
“Carla.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Fiona pursed her lips. “It’s not proof. We won’t even be able to get a search warrant on that alone.”