“I get it, busy work, blending into the scene. And what are you going to be doing while I twiddle my thumbs counting crystals?”
“Sweeping. Be ready to jump down from the ladder when I call you.”
I climbed the ladder and began my ridiculous task. I ducked and turned and watched Jim sweeping right outside the archway in the larger sales room. Five minutes later I heard women’s voices and giggling. I lowered my head again and looked through the archway. The second-floor sales staff, comprised of five ladies, had reported for work and started their tasks of cleaning and polishing.
Jim continued to sweep, and I kept counting crystals. The clock repairman came, and I watched him from the ladder. He knelt in front of the antique clock and fished around in the toolbox at his side. Two minutes passed. He stood, adjusted his cap, closed his toolbox, and shut the door to the clock.
“All finished?” asked Jim.
“Yes, sir, good as new. I made just a few adjustments. I know Mr. Duke’s busy with the robbery and all so please tell him I finished and I’ll send him a bill.”
“Great. But I’ll let you tell him yourself. Drop the toolbox and put your hands behind your head. Bud, get down here. Cuff him and read him his rights.”
I jumped off the ladder and walked up behind the repairman. I pulled his arms down and cuffed his hands behind his back while reading him his rights. I spun him around and for the first time could see the face beneath his cap. The grizzled old man staring back at me was Oscar Packard, the uncle of the Packard twins.
“Know him?” Jim asked.
“Yes, he’s Oscar Packard,” I said and explained his relation to the twins to Jim. I also told him how old Oscar had helped to raise the boys after the death of their dad. By the end of my tale, Oscar’s chin had dropped to his chest.
“I wanted me and the boys to have one more go. Make enough never to have to do this again,” said Oscar.
“That was your ambition but you aren’t the mastermind, are you?” asked Jim. “Someone else is involved, right?”
“No, it was just me. I planned everything out.”
“I don’t believe that, and you know it. I know who it was and I need you to confirm it. You give me the name of the other person, and I will ask the sheriff to go light on your nephews. Maybe drop the charges down to conspiracy to commit burglary, or attempted burglary. I need a name. You don’t give me a name and we arrest him anyway but everything’s off the table for your nephews. If you don’t tell me, I’m certain to find enough evidence to get a guilty verdict. So tell me, makes it easy for me, easy for you.”
“Phillip Cormant, Breckie Duke’s assistant. Phillip’s my wife’s cousin. He planned everything. Talked Breckie into doing this exhibit and convinced the folks in Atlanta to come down and do an event with the diamonds. He worked out hiding the diamonds in the clock, everything. He let the twins in through the downstair's service door yesterday afternoon, and they rode the freight elevator up here to the second floor. They hid up here in a storage area behind some boxes until this morning.”
“Thanks for letting us in on this. We’ll make sure Phillip gets what’s due him, and I’ll make sure the sheriff honors our agreement for your nephews,” said Jim. “Bud, open the toolbox. The diamonds are in there.”
I opened the box and they were inside. There lay the large stone and the two smaller ones attached to a piece of double-sided carpet tape. I held up the strip of tape and showed it to Jim.
“Yep, just like I figured. They lifted the diamonds out of the case with the tape and then stuck them to the back of the clock’s pendulum, down there, behind the pendulum’s brass weight. The additional weight on the pendulum slowed the clock,” said Jim, pointing to the clock’s pendulum.
“So when did you all figure this out?” I asked.
Jim laughed. “Not until the clock struck eight, about fifteen minutes late. I knew then what had happened and knew it would be just a matter of time before we nabbed this guy and found the diamonds. Oh, look at me, I made a pun!” he said, in a shrill voice trying to imitate Breckie.
~
We marched Oscar downstairs, arrested Phillip and returned the diamonds to Chandler Clark. We shared with Breckie and Clark what had happened.
As we marched Oscar and Phillip out of the store Breckie stepped in front of Phillip and said, “I trusted you, Philippe, oh how I trusted you! And this is how you repay me?” Breckie hit Philippe on the chest with the heel of his hands.
“The name is Phillip, and you can stop with all that Frenchy foo foo stuff. Get him out of my way and let’s get on with this,” he said.
Everything was up in the air concerning the sales event for the rest of the week. We left the store to let Breckie and Mr. Clark make those decisions.
Sheriff Tovey walked into Big 12 with us. We turned over the two suspects to booking for them to process.
“Great work today boys,” said Tovey. He walked with us to our office.
“Thanks,” I said, “but Jim here did it all.”
“Not true, we are a team, right? Oatmeal and Grits!”
“Well, you boys did great. I’m going to my office to put up my heels. My morning started early, and yours did too. Take some time. Get out of here for a while.” He turned and walked away.
“So what are you naming this one?” Jim asked. He knew I chronicled our adventures.
“I think I will call it ‘A Time for Diamonds’.”
“And I think it is a time for apple pies, with ice cream on top,” said Jim.
“Beulah’s?”
“You betcha!”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Spearman grew up in Hahira, Georgia, fifteen miles north of Valdosta. He attended Lowndes High School in Valdosta and Georgia Christian School in Dasher, Georgia. He has lived the past ten years in China and southeast Asia and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
He is currently working on his second novel entitled Obadiah-A Ghost’s Story, which will be released later in 2016 and a sequel to Carnies and Wildcats entitled Escape from Oddities due to be released in the first half of 2017.
Other books available by Robert Spearman:
Carnies and Wildcats: Ulciscor
Kindle Format
ePub Format (iPad and others)
Short stories:
General Lee’s Jacket: From the Case Files of Oatmeal and Grits
Kindle Format
A Time for Diamonds: From the Case Files of Oatmeal and Grits Page 3