by Harper Lin
“Did that happen often?” I had trouble believing all that many people really came in to see the ring, but I wasn’t going to argue.
He shrugged. “Often enough.”
I sighed. I had to think of what to ask next. Where were you that night? Did you kill her accidentally or on purpose? Why did the alarm company call you instead of the police?
“Why did the alarm company call you instead of the police?” I asked.
“What?”
“When the brick went through the window, why did the alarm company call you instead of the police? My alarm company calls the police.”
“How do you know about that?”
“That my alarm company calls the police? It’s in my contract. They’d better call the police.” I wondered if I should set off my alarm one night as a test.
“No, that they called me when the alarm went off.”
“Oh, Susan told me.” Dean looked confused, so I explained. “Susan… I don’t know her last name. She’s a customer. She’s the one who told me that Georgina died. She heard about it from someone at the police department.” I could have told him it was Margaret Robbins, the receptionist, but I thought it was best to keep some information to myself.
Dean relaxed a little but still seemed to be on edge. I wondered if I’d hit on something important. “We’d had a few false alarms recently. If you get too many, the cops start fining you. I told the alarm company to call me, and I’d call the police if it was real. I can’t afford the fines, and I don’t want to get on the cops’ bad side.”
It seemed to make sense. But the false alarms were at least something I could verify with my contacts at the police department: Ryan and his boss, Detective Mike Stanton. I realized that I hadn’t seen Mike since Georgina died. I wondered what he’d have to say about my investigation. He was never too enthusiastic about me getting involved with police business. He never really tried to stop me either though.
I brought my mind back to Dean. I didn’t know what else to ask him without giving away my suspicions. I went with the most neutral question I could think of. “Have you thought of anything else I should know? Anyone else who might have had a motive to kill Georgina or to rob you?”
“You don’t believe me that it was Alex? Trust me. It was him. Go talk to him, and you’ll understand.”
“Okay, I will.” I stood up. At least for today, I was done talking to Dean.
“Good. Come see me again after you’ve talked to him.”
I didn’t like the implication that I was working for him, but I smiled. “I will.”
I was halfway out the door when I thought of something and turned around. “Do you have a picture of the ring? I just realized I don’t even know what it looks like.”
Dean’s eyes lit up. “Of course I have a picture!” He went over to the box-covered desk and shifted things around. After several seconds, he extracted a sheet of paper and brought it over. “It’s blown up, of course, but the scale is right there.” He turned the picture around for me to see.
I gasped. It was exquisite, heirloom quality, all the enthusiastic adjectives Dean had used when he described it to me the night before. There was a large oval diamond in the center, surrounded by two rows of bead-set diamonds. To top it off, the band was encrusted with diamonds. It would have been more at home on display at Tiffany’s in New York than it was at Howard Jewelers in Cape Bay. I suddenly believed that people came in just to look at it.
“Two and a half carats,” Dean said. “Completely flawless. Even the little ones.”
“It’s stunning,” I breathed.
“You see why I couldn’t give it up?”
I nodded. “Are you sure someone wouldn’t steal it just because they wanted to have it? I mean, it’s amazing.”
“Fat chance. If someone stole this, it would be for the money.”
I stared at the picture for a few more seconds. I didn’t think he was wrong. The insurance money you’d get for that being stolen could certainly be an incentive—maybe even to kill.
Chapter 9
I was deep in thought the whole way back to the café. My brain swirled with everything Dean had said, the way he’d said it, and what it could mean. I still felt like he was trying a little too hard to convince me of Alex’s guilt. There was something more that he wasn’t telling me; I just didn’t know what it was. I had so many questions. There were so many things I didn’t know.
I needed to know more about Alex and his relationship with Georgina. Dean made it sound as if Alex was a jealousy-crazed lunatic who was more than capable of murder. Sammy made it sound like he was the kind of guy who might come on a little strong but ultimately wasn’t any more dangerous than anyone else. It was possible that they were both versions of the truth, but only one of them could be right about whether he was the murderer.
And then there was Dean. In addition to all the money he’d be making off the ring disappearing in a theft, there was the fact that he’d been arguing with Georgina over something as insignificant as the arrangement of the display cases. Was Dean a hothead, or was Georgina overstepping her bounds that much? Was the ring’s apparent theft the cause of Georgina’s death, or a happy—for Dean—side effect? Or had he maybe seen a way to kill two birds with one stone, one of them literally?
I wondered if I was overlooking any other suspects. I hadn’t even been on the case for twenty-four hours. Was it too soon to feel so strongly about the likely culprit, or was I just demonstrating what Diane had said about finding a suspect in the first forty-eight hours?
And when was I going to pack for Italy? It was already Wednesday, and we were leaving on Tuesday. I didn’t even know if I had everything I needed. And if I didn’t, when was I going to go shopping? I considered actually taking Rhonda up on her shopping trip offer, which brought its own host of problems.
By the time I got back to the café, I had a million questions on my mind, and I didn’t think I could have made a decision about even one of them if my life depended on it. I pulled open the door and walked in, barely glancing around at the tables to see how busy it was. Rhonda was there, and I was sure she had everything under control.
I was three steps from the back room when she called out to me.
“Fran!” She stepped toward me with her hand out to grab my arm if she needed to.
I stopped and looked at her with what I’m sure was a pitiful look. I really hoped she wasn’t going to ask me anything more complicated than “Where are the napkins?” And I wasn’t sure I could even manage an answer to that. But it turned out she didn’t have a question at all, which should have been a relief.
“There’s someone here to see you. In the back.”
I looked at her, not sure what kind of reaction to have. It was like when someone said, “Guess what?” without giving you any clue what you were supposed to be guessing.
“I didn’t want you to be startled.” She dropped her hand and gave me a half smile.
Well, that didn’t sound good. I took a deep breath and walked into the back room to see who it was.
“Hi, Franny. I’ve been waiting for you.” He sat in the desk chair, holding his standard complimentary to-go cup of coffee in one hand. The chair was turned so he couldn’t miss me walking in the door, and I couldn’t miss him. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, and he looked pretty comfortable sitting there with one ankle crossed over his knee.
“So I see. How’re you doing, Mike?” I couldn’t say I was surprised to see Detective Mike Stanton of the Cape Bay Police Department sitting in my office, especially since I’d just been thinking about how I hadn’t seen him yet. I wasn’t exactly excited about the conversation, but it could have been worse.
“I’m doing well enough, considering the circumstances. Have a seat, why don’t you? And shut the door while you’re at it.”
It felt weird being ordered around in my own shop, but I did as I was told. “How’re Sandra and the kids?”
I knew he hadn’t come on a social ca
ll, but I didn’t think that was any reason not to be friendly. Besides, we’d grown up together, and the only reason we weren’t friendlier was that I kept nosing around his official investigations, which he didn’t appreciate too much. I did have it on good authority, though, that his objection was mostly perfunctory, based on his general belief that citizens should stay out of things and let the police do their job.
“They’re good.” He took a sip of his coffee. I could see the steam still coming out of it, so he must not have been waiting too long. “Kids are growing up fast.” I saw the corners of his eyes crinkle up in a slight smile.
“How old are they now?”
“Six and eight.” The pride was obvious in his voice.
“Playing any sports?”
“My little guy’s playing football—flag, not tackle. Sandra’d never let him play tackle.” He chuckled a little. “My girl’s all dance all the time. She’d wear a leotard and tights to school every day if we’d let her. We tried to sign her up for soccer a couple years ago, but she cried through every practice until I couldn’t take it anymore and told Sandra we had to let her quit. She wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. Her teacher says she’s got natural talent, so we’ll see.”
It was sweet seeing big, tough Mike go all soft talking about his kids.
“But I didn’t come here to talk about my kids, did I?” He shifted in his chair and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Well, I don’t know, Mike. Maybe you did. Nothing wrong with coming by to have a chat with an old friend.” I smiled at him. I knew that wasn’t why he was there, and he knew that I knew. But I couldn’t let him off the hook that easy.
“Well, no, there’s not. But it’s not why I’m here.” He smiled benevolently.
“No?”
He shook his head and took another sip of his coffee. “You know it’s not.”
I laughed and shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t going to volunteer for the Inquisition.”
“Fair enough.” He looked at me for a few seconds, presumably waiting to see if I was going to volunteer anything. Of course, I wasn’t, so eventually he gave in. “So you were down at Howard Jewelers talking to Dean just now? Presumably about the Rockwell murder?”
“How do you know that? Did Rhonda tell on me?”
He shook his head. “No, I saw you go in.”
“You did?”
He nodded.
“How?”
“I was watching the place, keeping up with who was coming and going.”
So Dean hadn’t been totally off base looking around for people spying on him. “Where were you hiding?”
He smirked. “Well, if I told you, it wouldn’t be a very good hiding spot anymore, would it?”
“I guess not. Since you already know, yes, I was talking to Dean. About Georgina’s murder.”
“Murder, eh? So you don’t think it was accidental?”
“You just called it a murder!”
“Did I? Huh. Must need more caffeine.” He took a big swig from his cup. It had clearly cooled off pretty significantly since he didn’t even flinch. Either that or it was a technique he’d honed over years of police work to intimidate the criminals he was investigating—not that that would have surprised me with Mike.
“Besides, isn’t it considered a murder whether or not it was an accident if it happened during a robbery?”
“Yup. Felony murder.” He took another swallow of his coffee. “So you were talking to Dean about Georgina’s murder?”
“Yup.”
“Does that mean I have a civilian trying to work my murder case again?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m trying to work it.”
“What would you say then?”
I thought for a moment and decided to apply my best PR spin to it. “I’m reaching out to my fellow citizens who have been affected by the recent tragedy of Georgina Rockwell’s apparent murder so that we can discuss our thoughts and feelings in an effort to understand the event.”
Mike gave me a look that seemed to be a cross between skeptical and amused. Then he sighed and put his coffee cup down on the table. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He folded his hands in front of him.
“Listen, Fran…” I swallowed hard in dread. “If what you’re doing is talking to people to comfort yourself or to satisfy your own curiosity, that’s fine. As long as you don’t interfere in my investigation—you don’t damage or destroy or plant any evidence or try to affect what anyone says to me—I don’t care what you do. But this is the thing. You are a private citizen, acting on your own without any encouragement or direction from me or anyone else in the police department. If you become aware of some piece of information that may be relevant to my investigation, I expect you to bring it to me, as I would expect any private citizen to do. But—and I can’t stress this enough—” He paused and looked into my eyes. He had brought his pointer fingers together and was using them to emphasize his point. “You are not an agent of the police, nor are you acting as one. If you were working for me—even if you weren’t a sworn law enforcement officer—you would be bound by all the rules of law that bind me. If you did anything that violated those laws, anything that came out of it would be thrown out in court. It could completely torpedo my case. So I’m telling you this again. You are not working for me, and under no circumstances are you to suggest to anyone that you are. Do you understand?”
I nodded, a little intimidated by the intensity of his speech.
“Please say it out loud.”
“I understand.”
“As long as you don’t go breaking any laws or getting in my way, you’re a private citizen, and there’s nothing I can do to stop you from talking to whoever you want. And honestly, you probably wouldn’t listen if I told you to mind your own business, would you?”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Probably not.”
“That’s what I thought.” He leaned back in his chair and picked his coffee back up. “Moral of the story: don’t screw up my investigation. Don’t get any ideas in your head that you’re working for me. But if you find anything out, don’t keep it from me. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” He stood up and shoved his coffee-free hand into his pocket. “So are we good? You got any questions for me? You haven’t already solved the case, have you?”
I thought for a second, partly to consider whether I’d learned anything worth telling and partly to screw with Mike. “Nope.” He started for the door, but I stopped him. “You’re not just looking at this as a robbery, right? You’re considering the possibility that someone wanted to kill Georgina?”
“Of course. This isn’t my first week on the job, Fran.”
“Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure.”
He eyed me. “Why? Have you heard something?”
“Dean thinks her ex-boyfriend, Alex something, may have come after her.”
“Yeah, he mentioned that.”
“And you’re looking into it?”
“Like I said, it’s not my first week on the job.”
“Thanks.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope, not today.”
“I’ll see you around then.” He headed again for the door. “I’d say, ‘bon voyage,’ but I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again before you and Matt head out of town.”
“As much of my coffee as you drink, you’re probably right.”
“You got me there.” He wiggled his cup in his hand before opening the door. “Hey, Rhonda! I get free refills, right?”
“Sure do!” Rhonda called back.
“All your drinks are free, Mike,” I said to his back. It had been my family’s policy since my grandparents first opened Antonia’s: police and fire eat free.
“And I appreciate that,” I heard him say. Then he must have gone over to the display case because he was out of my line of sight and talking about food. “You got anything new I should try? I didn’t have m
uch for lunch.”
“Monica brought over a fresh batch of ladyfingers this morning,” Rhonda said.
“Do I look like the kind of man who eats something called ladyfingers? I’ll have a piece of tiramisu.”
“You know there are ladyfingers in tiramisu, right, Mike?”
“Don’t ruin it for me.”
I shook my head and walked over to the chair Mike had just vacated. I sat down and drummed my fingers on the desk for a minute then grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I needed to make a list of everything I was thinking about Georgina’s murder and my vacation. Two incredibly different subjects, but I wasn’t going to get anything done on either of them if I didn’t get organized.
I scribbled down all the questions that had run through my mind on my walk back to the café after talking to Dean and then made notes about what I’d learned so far. When I looked at it, it didn’t look like much. I was working on a hunch and a couple of conversations with someone who quite possibly had every reason in the world to lie to me. It wasn’t nearly enough to either satisfy my curiosity or consider the case solved.
I tried to start thinking about what I needed to do next and who I needed to talk to, but my mind kept flitting to my Italy trip and everything I had to do to get ready for it. Deciding I was never going to make any progress unless I cleared my mind, I grabbed a second sheet of paper and started making a list of everything I had to do before leaving for Italy. I knew I wasn’t going to remember everything—no matter how organized I thought I was, at the last minute, I always realized I’d forgotten something like shampoo or deodorant or shoes—but at least having a list would make me feel a little less scatterbrained.
When I’d written down every last thing I could think of, including things like checking the weather and making sure the next supply order was placed for the café, I pushed the piece of paper aside and sat back in my chair. I looked at my notes on Georgina’s death and realized what I needed to do next.
Chapter 10