A Time for Diamonds: From the Case Files of Oatmeal and Grits

by Robert Spearman

  A Time for Diamonds

  a short story

  From the Case Files of Oatmeal and Grits

  by

  Robert Spearman

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought this, and tell your friends about it.

  Thanks for your support.

  Special thanks to Brenda C. for her invaluable input.

  Copyright © 2016 Spearman Robert

  All rights reserved.

  Bored.

  I sat making a rubber band ball from the rubber bands in my desk. Jim Miller sat across from me at his desk working a crossword puzzle in the Florida Times-Union. Jim had finished the one in the Valdosta Daily Times during our breakfast at Beulah's Homespun, our daily breakfast place.

  Jim’s my partner. He moved from up north several years ago and the sheriff partnered us as uniformed deputies. Jim's first day on the job, he tried grits for breakfast and hated them and stated he preferred oatmeal instead. Everyone called him Oatmeal, and since I was his partner and a local boy, they called me Grits. Everyone still ribs us about it to this day.

  Most days now I call him Professor. Jim’s tall, wears glasses and doesn’t say much, but smart as a whip, though. I guess you could say he’s the brains and I am the brawn.

  The new sheriff promoted us to detectives five years ago when he took office. Lowndes County is a quiet and peaceful place so Jim and I spend most of our days doing nothing. I play with stuff at my desk—rubber band balls, paper airplanes, paper clip models—and Jim works crossword puzzles.

  I heard a door open from the office along the back wall and looked up from the last layer of my rubber band ball. “Tovey,” I said. “And he’s heading our way.”

  Jim closed his newspaper and put it in his desk drawer. He smoothed his tie and straightened in his seat.

  “Afternoon, Sheriff,” I said. “What brings you over to our neck of the woods?”

  Jim Tovey looked more like a college quarterback than a sheriff, square jaw, muscular build, square shoulders with jet black hair.

  “I have a meeting tomorrow I need you to attend with me. You think I could convince you to give up breakfast at Beulah’s tomorrow morning and join me instead at The Grill? We’ll walk over to B. B. Duke’s after we finish eating.”

  “Sure thing boss,” I said. “We’ll be there.”

  “With bells on,” Jim said.

  “Good. See you both in the morning. Eight-thirty.” Tovey spun on his heels and walked back to his spacious office. His office stretched the full width of Big 12’s back wall. Big 12 was the home of the sheriff’s department and jail, with the sheriff’s offices on the first floor and the jail on the second. They finished construction and opened the building in 1912 and gave it the nickname Big 12.

  “With bells on?” I asked. “Sometimes you crack me up. I never know when you will open your mouth and when you do you say something like that? Looks like we get to sleep a little late tomorrow since we are keeping sheriff’s hours. Almost as good as banker’s hours.”

  “Speaking of banker’s hours, what do you say we cut out a few minutes early?” asked Jim.

  “Sure, is your watch ready?”

  “Yes, he called earlier and said it’s finished. I feel naked without it.”

  Jim rubbed his left wrist.

  “I’ll drive and then drop you off,” I said. We shared our unmarked car and alternated weeks, like a kid when the parents have joint custody. It was my week to have it.

  We stopped by the watch shop and then I dropped Jim at his house in Remerton.

  “Pick you up tomorrow, eight-fifteen,” I said.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Yes, with bells on,” I said, laughing. “Don’t forget them bells.”

  ~

  We arrived on time. The sheriff sat at a table in The Grill and was talking with Joe Piney, the owner.

  We waited for Piney and the sheriff to finish chatting and then took a seat across from the sheriff.

  “Hey boys, what’s it going to take for you to make this your regular joint instead of Beulah’s? She’s making a killing during lunch. You guys need to spread some of that coin around,” said Piney.

  “We’ll see what we can do about that,” I said, looking around. “But from the looks of things, business is good here.”

  “Could be better if I had the both of you every morning. What are y’all having? The sheriff’s having his usual.”

  Jim and I placed our orders with Piney, and he handed our orders to a waitress to take to the kitchen. She returned a few seconds later with three cups and a pot of coffee. Piney walked away and chatted with customers seated at the counter.

  “So what’s up at Duke’s?” I asked.

  “You like to get right to it, don’t you?” said the sheriff.

  “Yes, sir. No sense in slacking off while we wait for our breakfast.”

  “I agree. Here’s what’s up. Duke’s is having a big sale this weekend and they are having a special event to draw customers into their store.”

  “Okay, nothing unusual about that. Don’t they have sales all the time? Where do we fit in?” I asked. B. B. Duke’s was a high-end lady’s boutique and gift store in the middle of town and across the street from The Grill. Jim sipped his coffee and listened.

  “This time it’s a little different. Some promotion guy from Atlanta sold them on an idea to show a big diamond called the Wheppe’s Diamond to generate traffic for the store.”

  “Wheppe’s Diamond? Never heard of it,” said Jim.

  “I hadn’t either until two days ago. It’s a ten carat blue diamond and once belonged to the Wheppe’s family out of Atlanta, worth about five million dollars. Two smaller diamonds are traveling with it, and they are worth a million each.”

  “Let me guess,” said Jim. “They want the sheriff’s office to provide security.”

  “Well something like that I guess,” said Tovey. “I’m not sure. We’ll find out after we meet with Breckie Duke.”

  Piney and his waitress delivered our meals. My order was wrong, the eggs arrived fried and not scrambled. Jim squirmed in his chair; something was not right with his order either, but he kept his mouth shut and choked it down. The Grill would not be getting our repeat business.

  We finished eating. The sheriff paid, and we walked across the street to B. B. Duke’s, where they, “put the fun in fine lady’s fashion” and have “giftware for the girls and guys.”

  ~

  B. B. Duke’s store was at the corner of Patterson Street and Central Avenue. Built as one of the first buildings in Valdosta in the early 1900s, it was a simple two-story building with plate glass windows. The store had one defining feature, a three-sided turret on the second-floor corner of the building.

  The turret looked out of place, like an afterthought of the architect who designed the building. “Oh, let’s make it look a little like a castle. Put a turret here on this corner, three-sided, and give each side it’s own little window.”

  It was nine-thirty, but the store didn’t open until ten. Sheriff Tovey tapped on the glass door, and I heard someone unlock it. Tovey led the way into the building. Standing on the other side of the door was the owner, Breckie Duke.

  Breckie Duke was my age, forty-five. We attended school together and graduated in the same cla
ss at Valdosta High. The Duke’s had money and had sent him to some hoity-toity college up north. He returned and took over the family business.

  Breckie was round, a little taller than his waist size which made him look like an oversized balloon. He sported a pencil-thin mustache and wore pince-nez style glasses, the ones which have a nose clip but no earpieces. These attached to a gold lanyard which threaded into a button hole in his suit’s lapel. His graying black hair was a comb-over style, combed over from the side to cover his balding head.

  Sheriff Tovey started with the introductions. “Mr. Duke,” he said, “these are my two detectives Bud Hammontree and Jim Miller. I’ve asked them to join me here today to meet with you and the event planner concerning your security concerns for the upcoming event.”

  Breckie shoved his hand in my direction and said, “Bud, it’s been a while.” His voice, high and screechy, sounded like the violin of a student taking his first lesson. His limp handshake then moved to my partner. “Mr. Miller, nice to meet you.”

  “Is the event planner here yet?” asked Tovey.

  “He’s waiting in my office with Philippe. Follow me please.”

  Breckie led us through the darkened maze of ladies dresses to his office in the back of the store.

  Unlike Breckie’s meticulous attention to neatness his office was a cramped mess. His littered desk sat in the center of the room. Unfiled paperwork and fashion magazines had taken over the desk's top like weeds in a garden. Breckie pulled extra chairs into the office to accommodate everyone in the meeting which made it more cramped. A younger man, who I recognized as Phillip Cormant from high school days, greeted us as we walked into the office. He wore a gray business suit and carried a clipboard in one hand.

  “Philippe, oh do be a dear and grab me some coffee,” said Breckie. “Gentlemen, do you care for a cup?”

  We all declined including the gentleman seated in front of Breckie’s desk. He rose and turned to greet us.

  “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Chandler Clark from Atlanta. He is the kind man who brought this event to us, and he is the overseer of the diamonds. Mr. Clark, this is Sheriff Tovey and his two detectives Mr. Hammontree and Mr. Miller. So, let’s get started, shall we? Please have a seat, and we’ll let Mr. Clark begin.”

  “Let’s have a seat gentlemen. As Mr. Duke has stated, I am the event coordinator and overseer of the diamonds. The event will begin tomorrow and will last through the weekend. The central diamond is the Wheppe’s Diamond. It's a ten carat blue diamond. There are two smaller stones that accompany it in this collection, five carats each. The total value of the collection is seven million dollars.”

  “That’s a pile of money. What do you do for security? Or is that why we are here?” said Tovey.

  “Sheriff, that’s precisely why you are here. We provide a security team, and they will be near the diamonds twenty-four hours a day. The diamonds are inside a vacuum-sealed glass dome attached to a four-foot pedestal. The pedestal is a self-contained burglary-alert device. If there is a shift in the dome, or if the glass breaks, an alarm will sound from the pedestal signaling the guards an attempt is being made to steal the diamonds.”

  “When you say ‘twenty-four hours a day’ what does that mean? Can I assume you move the diamonds into a safe or vault at the end of each day?” asked Jim.

  “No. Once the security pedestal and dome is in place we don’t move the diamonds again until the event is over at the end of the week.”

  I think the sheriff, Jim and I all cringed together. “You’re meaning to tell me you’ve got seven million dollars in diamonds sitting out overnight with nothing more than security guards and a piece of glass protecting them?” asked Tovey.

  “Precisely.”

  “They're insured, right?” asked Jim.

  “Yes, insured to the appraised value.”

  “How long have you been doing this? Showing these diamonds like this with this type of security?” asked Tovey.

  “Five years.”

  “And no problems?” asked Tovey.

  “We had a snatch and grab a few years back in Charlotte. They broke the glass and snatched the diamonds out but our guards apprehended them immediately.”

  “Okay then. You say you want us here for security, but you have worked out all the answers. So, I ask again, what do you need us for?”

  “Two things. Our insurance company requests that the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the area submit a statement saying that your department inspected the venue and the security is adequate. We require a statement such as this on file for each event we do.”

  “I will draft a statement to that effect only after Bud and Jim complete an inspection. Provided they say everything is okay my statement will only read that the security is sufficient for the business conducted at this building. I will not guarantee that building's security is sufficient for an event showing seven million dollars in diamonds,” said Tovey. “You said two things. That’s one, what’s the other?”

  “To provide us with a couple of deputies to act as a backup to our security force,” said Clark.

  “That’s my doing,” said Breckie. “I would just feel so much better knowing our local boys were around if something happened.”

  “I understand,” said Tovey. “And we can do that. What say we look at where you plan on showing these diamonds? Then the boys and I will do a look around so I can write that letter you need.”

  “The event will be in the gift department’s round room on the second floor. Follow me, everyone, and Philippe you come too and take notes.” Breckie jumped up from his chair, and like an overweight flamenco dancer he threw his arms in the air and motioned with a twist of his hands for everyone to follow.

  ~

  Breckie Duke led us upstairs to the second floor of B. B. Dukes. China dinner sets lined one wall. Small tables, lined in rows in front of the wall, showed the gift registries of future brides. Store clerks were getting ready to open and were polishing the silverware and glassware on the second floor. Silverware sets were open and gleamed underneath the two massive chandeliers of the second floor.

  “Welcome to B. B. Duke’s giftware department,” said Breckie. He twisted his hands with a flourish. “Now follow along. I’ll show you where we are going to show the diamonds.”

  We followed Breckie to a curved arch which opened to a round room about eight feet in diameter. On the left side of the arch was a grandfather clock.

  “That’s beautiful. Is it an antique?” asked Jim Miller, pointing at the clock.

  “Oh, yes it is and aren’t you such a dear for noticing. And it keeps perfect time. I wind it every Monday at the same time. It's the only item in the whole store that isn’t for sale. It belonged to my grandfather Breckenridge Duke, and I like to refer to it as my grandfather’s clock. Get it? The grandfather clock is really my grandfather’s clock.” Breckie laughed.

  “Oh bother, talking about the clock distracted me. Gentlemen, please step into the round room here. This area looks like a turret from the outside. It was originally my grandfather’s office. He could sit at his desk and look up and down Patterson Street and Central Avenue without leaving his chair. We will display the diamonds in here. Our customers will come up the stair and come through the gift shop. They will enter the round room and circle the display while viewing the diamonds, then exit back into the gift shop. Oh, it shall just be spectacular.”

  “Where are you going to station your security guards? There won’t be much room in here for them,” said Tovey.

  “One stationed at the archway on the right side as you enter the room, the other on the inside.”

  “And at night?” I asked.

  “One will sit at the archway outside the room, the other at the top of the stairs while the third guard sleeps. They rotate every six hours. We'll have a motor home parked on Central Avenue so they can rest. If the alarm sounds they’ll hear it, everyone within six blocks will. We ask that you provide us with two deputies at night to
help us patrol the store. You can station them wherever you think best.”

  Jim was in professor mode. He ignored our conversations and stared at the chandelier in the round room. He left the round room and gazed at the two chandeliers in the main showroom.

  “Oh, forgive me, gentlemen. Philippe, I almost forgot. Please call the carpet people at once and have them come to replace this hideous red carpet with something blue, royal blue I think will be grand.”

  Philippe made a notation on his clipboard and excused himself from the group.

  “Sheriff, detectives, that’s about all I know to share. Sheriff Tovey, please drop off your insurance statement at your earliest convenience. The diamonds will arrive tomorrow afternoon by armored car, and then we’ll spend the rest of the evening setting up the displays and alarm system. I’ll need your deputies here to help us with additional security by eight PM. Thanks again for everything.” Chandler Clark shook our hands, walked out of the round room and down the stairs.

  ~

  Jim, the sheriff and I spent the rest of the morning examining the doors and windows of B. B. Duke’s. The security seemed standard for a department store. The glass front doors had a deadbolt; the back supply room door had a knob lock and a deadbolt above. A padlock on the inside secured the access hatch leading to the roof.

  We walked back over to The Grill for lunch. Jim and I couldn’t argue since the sheriff was paying. After ordering, we settled into a brief conversation about the morning’s meeting.

  “Jim,” said the sheriff, “you’ve not had much to say about all this. What’s rolling around in that head of yours?”

  “I think it’s a mistake. I don’t care how long you’ve been doing this and how much security you have if you’re traveling with something that expensive you are asking for trouble.”

  Two nights later Jim’s words proved right.