The Jewelry Case

by Catherine McGreevy

  "Get back from the girl, Steve, you fool, you're in my way," Ray growled.

  Steve released Paisley but did not move. His handsome face flushed dark red under the tan and streaks of dirt. "You never said you were going to kill anyone, Ray. You said the fire would give off a little smoke, that's all, just enough to scare her off. But none of it was true. That mast could have crushed her, too. Or Kevin. And you never told me you planned to cut the brakes.... You had no right!"

  "You weakling, Steve." Ray's voice dripped contempt. "I had to get her to turn the jewels over to me tonight, or she would have left with them in the morning. What was that saying we learned in Mrs. Olsen’s French class? You can't make an omelet without cracking les oeufs."

  Steve took an angry step toward Ray. "I don't care about the jewels any more. I looked all over for Kevin, and there’s not a trace of him. If not for you, I'd have called for helicopters, for a search team, had the whole town out there, searching. But no. Because if they found the brakes were cut...."

  "They'd start investigating and eventually find out that you were involved in all the accidents surrounding Paisley this summer?" Ray sneered. "You are a coward. The accident involved a teenager, inexperienced driver, late at night, taking that curve a little too fast.... Most likely, the cops probably wouldn't even have checked the brakes. Not the idiots around here, anyway."

  Ray grabbed the ruby ring from Paisley's palm and shoved it into his pants pocket with less care than she would have expected from someone who had gone to so much trouble to get it. His eyes glittered, and his full lips were smiling, as if he were relishing the excitement. He directed his attention to her. "Okay, lady, rewind to where we left off an hour ago, before you broke my favorite coffee cup over my head: where are the other jewels? I know you didn’t climb back up that oak tree, and I’ve searched your house, so you must have hid them after you left the property."

  “Brilliant deduction. Come on, I'll show you where they are." She moved toward the winery door, feeling a sensation of relief. Anything to get him—both of them—away before a sound, a movement, gave away Kevin’s hiding place. And before daylight broke, revealing Ian still lying helpless among the vines. “They’re not around here,” she continued. “We'll have to drive." She couldn't help adding, "You really don't think you can get away with this, do you? By now there are too many witnesses. You can't kill all of us.”

  Ray fell back to allow her to precede him, the cold muzzle of the gun pressing between her shoulder blades. “By tomorrow I can be out of the country." He sounded relaxed. "Plenty of places in the world a guy can live comfortably on a couple of million dollars. Belize, Costa Rica…. All right, then, where are they?”

  A squeaking sound came from behind them. Paisley's heart sank as her head swiveled, along with Ray's and Steve's. Kevin tottered behind Ray on his bad ankle, a bottle of Merlot raised high in both hands, as if he were about to christen a ship. His face was white. “They're not yours,” he said grimly. “They belong by rights to my family. Now let Paisley go.”

  Ray's mouth curled with contempt as he took a step toward Kevin, but Steve moved to block his burly partner. "No, Ray, this has already gone too far. If...."

  He never completed his sentence. With a snarl, Ray shouted, "Get out of my way!" At the same instant a deafening explosion erupted from the pistol in his hand, and Steve slid to the floor like a bag of cement.

  Screaming at the top of her lungs, Paisley leaped forward and snatched the still smoking pistol out of Ray's grip, sending it spinning into a shadowy corner of the room. He had not expected the move. He turned and struck her in the jaw like a bear swatting a fly, causing her to lose her balance and fall backward. Her head hit the wall with a painful thunk, and the room spun.

  At least she had succeeded in causing Ray to turn his back on Kevin. The teenager took advantage of the older man’s distraction by leaping forward and breaking the bottle of Merlot over his head. Glass shattered, and liquid ran like blood down Ray's bull-like neck.

  Swearing, the older man turned on Kevin. Paisley saw fear on the face of the boy, far slighter than his opponent. As they grappled, Ray backed against one of the heavy wooden barrels, knocking it out of alignment. As it slipped, others became unbalanced, and with a low rumble, like falling dominoes, the heavy containers tipped and rolled into the aisle. One of them brushed against Paisley's bad shoulder, and she let loose another full-throated scream, this one of pain.

  "Shut up!" Separated by the rolling barrels, Ray took a step back and put his hands over his ears, glaring at her. "Shut up, damn you!"

  It was too late. It seemed like the entire world was caving in on them in deafening cacophony. Then, as the chaos slowed, through a blur of pain, Paisley spotted a glint of metal in a corner of the room. She dove for the pistol. Ray saw it at the same time. They reached it simultaneously, their hands closing together on the grip, but her strength was no match for Ray's. He easily elbowed her away and whirled to train the pistol on Kevin, then turned it back on her, as if trying to decide whom to shoot first.

  It was a surreal moment, as the last few barrels bounced and rolled to a stop. The din ended, and there was a moment’s respite of quiet, like the eye in the middle of a storm.

  She saw Kevin cowering in a corner. Steve’s body lay crushed under one of the heavy barrels. Wine poured from its broken staves, flooding the previously immaculate concrete floor, its strong odor filling the air.

  Paisley dropped back, the floor sticky under her bare, bruised foot. "Give up, Ray." She tried with difficulty to keep her voice steady. “It’s over.”

  "Over?" Broken glass glittered like diamonds in his rumpled hair and red wine trickled down his broad face, giving him a crazed look like Carrie in the scene from the Steven King movie -- minus the prom dress, of course. Another surreal touch.

  "It won't work," she repeated, raising her voice. "How many people are you willing to kill? I told you, there are too many witnesses by now. And believe me, if you harm a hair on my head, Ian will not stop until the police catch you."

  She saw a series of emotions cross Ray's face. Once again, he swung the pistol from her to Kevin, as if trying to make up his mind what to do. Then he turned and took in Steve’s crumpled body. An odd expression crossed his face.

  "Will someone tell me what the bloody hell is going on in here?" A loud voice barked from the doorway. Everyone froze.

  Paisley’s eyes shifted to the door, her heart lifting. “Officer Smith!" she breathed.

  Behind the policeman’s stunned figure crowded a group of more dark-blue uniforms, all brandishing drawn guns. The colorful beams of a police car's light bar pulsed in the background. In the center of it all stood Ian, looking slightly worse for wear with his battered jaw and tousled hair, his eyes wide as he took in the scene.

  She had briefly forgotten Ray. Still holding the pistol, he pointed the barrel again, first on her, then on Ian, then on Kevin. Last, in disgust, he held it against his temple and fired.

  Chapter Eighteen

  "It was the scream that did it," said Officer Smith, slamming the back door of the police cruiser and getting behind the wheel. "My Irish grandma woulda sworn it was a banshee. Sent chills up my spine. Never heard anything like it in my life. Carried clear across the fields. Then, when we got closer there was a whole lot of clattering and banging, like an earthquake. We thought the whole place was falling down."

  "Oh, that scream? That was nothing," Ian said, ignoring Paisley's blush as he put an arm around her shoulder. "You should hear her sing Carmen after getting out of the shower. If you're talking about sheer volume...!"

  #

  On the way to the hospital in Davis, Ian explained to Paisley what had happened after leaving him in the field. He had managed to drag himself back to the Explorer, somehow missing Ray, who was blundering around the field looking for them. Using the keys Paisley had left in the trunk lock, Ian drove straight to the police station. While he was guiding them back to where he had last se
en Paisley, the group heard her scream and rushed to help, finding the lurid scene in the winery.

  "Everything will be fine," Ian told Paisley, tightening his grip around her shoulder.

  She tried not to wince. It was worth it to feel his protective arm around her. There was so much she hadn't had time to tell him yet ... the falling mainsail, or the brilliant place she had hidden the jewels. They were in the most public spot imaginable, visible to everyone, yet the one place no one would think to look for them: the pirate’s treasure chest onstage, mixed with the cheap, faux trinkets used as props.

  "Nothing’s wrong with Kevin except a few bruises, and a sprained ankle," Ian went on comfortingly. "He'll be performing in the play tomorrow … er ... tonight." He glanced at his watch. "It’s after midnight. But I do think you'll need to find someone else to play the Major General."

  After answering the policemen’s questions, Kevin slept the remainder of the night at Paisley’s house, under an old comforter in Esther’s childhood bedroom upstairs, while Ian stretched out on the couch downstairs. In the morning, as the males slept in, Paisley telephoned Barry Klein and asked her lawyer to find out if she could have guardianship of the boy until he turned eighteen, only a few months away. She’d tell Kevin about her request later. Somehow, she thought he would be okay with that.

  Someday, she’d even talk to him about how they’d been wrong about Steve, that he had in fact tried to be a good guardian for Kevin, even if he had failed in so many other areas.

  Paisley marveled at the resilience of teenagers: Kevin, leg in a cast, hid whatever emotional trauma he had experienced the previous night so well that it might never have happened. He insisted, vehemently and repeatedly, that the show must go on, until finally Shirley, who had listened wide-eyed to the entire incredible tale, gave in.

  That night the auditorium was packed. A bus brought a full load of passengers from Sunny Acres, and a pink-cheeked Georgiana spotted her and waved from her seat between Hugo and Walter, the chess-playing friends from the senior center, who had removed their battered golf caps and donned matching checkered button-up shirts for the occasion.

  Even Alix, Quinn, and Rusty, Ian's work crew, sat in the center, near the front. Alix had put on a denim skirt and taken her hair out of its usual ponytail. Rusty was looking down at her with a bedazzled expression, as if he had never seen her before.

  Despite his bandaged foot, Kevin ruled the stage. “After all, Long John Silver only had one leg, right?” he'd quipped to the cast before the curtain went up. It was true that using a crutch to hop about the stage with bombastic arrogance, he made a charismatic and hilarious Pirate King. When it was over, the audience gave him a standing ovation, refusing to stop until he came out and bowed several times.

  The boy had been right to insist on carrying on with the play, Paisley thought with satisfaction, listening to the waves of applause. For three hours, he had been able to shut out his nightmarish memories of the previous night. As the curtain dropped the final time and he turned to laugh and joke with his actor friends, however, Paisley saw a new maturity in the teen’s dark-brown eyes and around his mouth.

  Tonight, though, was for celebration. Volunteers pushed together two tables in her back yard to hold all the food for the cast party. Pleased, Paisley looked around at the people crowding into the repainted living room and kitchen and out onto the porch. Soda pop flowed as freely as the conversation, and hip hop music thumped from the stereo’s ancient speakers. The tall redheaded kid set himself up as DJ, and the kids drifted outside to dance, Kevin and Chloe among them.

  Paisley made a circuit from kitchen to refreshment table, making sure everyone's glasses were filled, accepting congratulations, and pausing for brief conversations with friends. Finally she went out on the brightly lit front porch to check on the guests who had congregated there, several of them sitting on the railing with their drinks and plates of food. Ian sat on the porch swing, talking animatedly with Shirley.

  Paisley watched them with a peculiar pain in her heart. Friends. That's what they were, these dear, familiar faces who crowded her house and her life. And she would likely never see them again.

  She was thinking of the airline ticket she had purchased when Ian looked up from his conversation and saw her hovering in the doorway.

  "Oh, there you are," he said, beckoning her to join them. "Time to stop working and join the celebration." He pulled her down to sit beside him on the swing and casually bent over to kiss her on the lips. When he raised his head, he was smiling, light-gray eyes sparkling. "We make lousy detectives, you and I. If not for that infernal cat, we never would have found the jewels.”

  She shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it. Oh, Ian … I was wrong about Steve. He wasn’t an evil guy, just a weak one, doing the best he could. He didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Don’t think about it. Whatever happened to him, he brought it on himself.” Ian paused, to allow her a moment to grieve, then gave her arm another gentle squeeze. “So, my lovely heiress, what do you plan do with your loot? Keep it or sell it?"

  "Neither.” Paisley had spent all night awake, thinking about it. She knew what Esther would have wanted. “It's Kevin's. I think I know why Esther left me the house.” She decided to leave out part of what she thought: Esther had been trying to play matchmaker, bringing Ian and her together. Instead, she said the other part of what she had concluded. “I think she wanted me to watch over Kevin. She knew he was in danger. And I’m sure she would want the jewels to go to him." Paisley held up her hand, letting the ruby ring flash under the porch light. "But maybe Kevin will let me keep the ring, if I ask nicely," she added wistfully.

  Ian brought the back of her hand to his lips. The gesture reminded her of the Russian courtier from one of her dreams, although with his jeans, T-shirt, sticking-up hair and outsized ears he could not have looked less suave. "Very honorable of you, my lady. What do you think your nephew will do with the jewelry? He certainly isn't going to wear any of it."

  "I'll advise him to auction them off to finance his education. Maybe a museum will buy the collection, considering the jewels’ unique history. And with the cash that’s left over…." Her eyes brightened. "You know, the other day Kevin was telling me this town really needs a decent theater. With what’s left of his inheritance and a few community fund-raisers, we could build something here that could rival the Moldavi Center or that place in Ashland, Oregon, where they put on a Shakespeare festival every summer. Maybe you could design the building, Ian! People would drive all the way from Sacramento or San Francisco to see our productions, right here in the heart of wine country. The restaurants and shops around here would benefit from all the increased tourist traffic. We could name it the Ruth Wiegiel Center, and blow up that photograph of her wearing the jewelry, frame it to hang in the lobby....

  His hands tightened on her wrist. "'We?' Then...."

  She thought again of the ticket she had bought, and at that moment she knew there would be an empty seat on the plane to New York in the morning.

  "Yes, darling. I'm staying.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Catherine McGreevy lives in Folsom, California. She has a husband, three children and two cats, Storm and Jinx. A former teacher and newspaper reporter, she is an omnivorous reader and historical enthusiast with particular interest in Gold Rush history. She has been known to don period clothing to reenact the past with the Sierra Nevada Mormon Pioneers in settings such as Sutter’s Fort and the gold discovery site at Coloma. Catherine is the daughter of a foreign service officer and spent much of her childhood in Spain, France, and Morocco. She holds a degree in Communications from Brigham Young University. Look for upcoming books in her favorite genres, including suspense and historical.

  Visit the author’s web site at: catherinemcgreevy@blogspot.com

 

 
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