Chapter Thirteen --
“Let me see,” the teenager demanded, sticking her hand out for the photo. My brother placed it in her hand, his arm protectively around her shoulder as he pointed out the important points in common.
“Same hair, same eyes, even the same smile.”
That was the kicker. One moment Jenny was smiling and happy, and the next, the color drained from her face. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
“Excuse me.” That was all she said before she hurried out of the room.
“Nice going, Bur!” I hissed at him.
“I was just stating the obvious....”
I didn’t bother hanging around to listen to his excuses. I scurried out into the hallway, determined to explain things to Jenny, but she was nowhere to be found. I knocked at the powder room door, but I knew she wasn’t inside because the door was open a crack and the light was off. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the library either. Had she vanished again? I didn’t think she’d left the house on her way to the summit, considering the stormy weather outside, and I was fairly certain she wouldn’t desert Mozzie, not after all he’d been through. Was she hiding from us, overwhelmed by the sudden shock of coming face to face with her paternal grandparents? Where could she be?
It took me fifteen minutes, but I finally found her on the third floor, sitting cross-legged on the carpet by the far side of her bed, out of sight, with a small shoe box open before her. She was digging through it, searching for something.
“Here it is!” she cried. “Look!”
I took what she offered me, a tattered, black-and-white photograph, now yellowed with age. A young man, not much older than Jenny, was sitting in a swan boat, that familiar Boston tourist experience.
“Jenny....” Where should I start? If only Kenny was here. He was the one who knew the details. He should be the one sharing her unknown past with her.
“This is my father, Scarlet. See? It’s written on the back. ‘Jimmy at the Public Garden, Boston.’ I always knew I looked like him.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, figuring that if she wanted to talk, I would listen. I sat in the long silence while the girl studied that face in the photograph. At last, she sighed and stood up.
“Might as well find out what’s going on,” she decided. So calm, so collected. Did that mean she was glad to finally find her long-lost relatives?
“Would you like to wait for Captain Peacock? He seems to have all the answers.”
“No. He can tell me later. I just want to show them this.”
“Whatever you say, Jenny.” It had to be her decision. It wasn’t my place to interfere with such an important matter of the heart. We made our way to the staircase and I let the teenager lead the way.
“I can’t believe I have a family.” That was said with wonder. It didn’t seem to matter that Tony and Maria showed up now, out of the blue. Jenny, stunned though she was, was already feeling connected to these strangers.
“I just want you to know one thing, kiddo. Whatever happens, we’ll always be here for you.”
“Oh, Miz Scarlet,” the teenager cried, wrapping her arms around my shoulders as we came out of the landing of the second floor, “you’re the best.”
Everyone assembled in the living room gazed up when we returned. I saw Kenny across the room, his eyes concerned. I gave him a slight smile in return.
Jenny rushed up to Maria and handed her the treasure from her past. The fingers that took it from her seemed to shake slightly.
“My father, Jimmy,” said the teenager.
The moment her grandmother recognized the subject in the photo, unbidden tears sprang forth and trickled down her cheeks. Her hand went involuntarily to her mouth, to stifle a small gasp.
“Jaime!”
Tony crossed the distance in three long strides and peered over his wife’s shoulder. A moment later, he was overcome with emotion, unable to speak. When Jenny saw these two adults speechless, it seemed to awaken a protective feeling in her.
“Would you like some water?” she wondered.
“Yes, please,” Maria replied, hand at her throat, staring hungrily at the image of her long-dead child in Boston, an image from the life he hadn’t been able to share with his parents. Jenny poured from the pitcher on the bar table, adding an ice cube.
“Come on,” Kenny urged me. “Let’s give them a few minutes to find themselves. What’s for dinner?”
“What’s for dinner?” I wiped away the tears that had welled up in my eyes as I watched that poignant scene.
“Yes, Miz Scarlet. I’m starved.”
Kenny and I worked side by side in the kitchen. We could hear the chatter coming from the living room. I pulled the lasagna out of the oven to let it rest a few minutes. The tossed salads were arranged at each place setting in the dining room just as the doorbell rang. Myrtle and Willow had arrived.
We kept the conversation light as we ate dinner, talking about birds, gardens, and the weather. By the time we were ready for banana cream pie and coffee, we felt like old friends.
“Bur, help me with the clean-up. Jenny and her grandparents are going to have a talk in the library,” I informed my brother. The Googins girls, including Cousin Myrtle, retired to the living room for aperitifs. Willow pitched in with the dinner dishes. She and I caught up on the local news while Bur fetched us a couple more glasses of Shiraz in between clearing the table.
Mozzie was restless, missing his mistress, so Willow took the dog out of his crate and checked his wounds, to make sure the ointment was doing its job. I grabbed Huckleberry and January for a quick walk. We headed out for a loop around the neighborhood on the sidewalk in front of the house. Kenny caught up with me by the Taylor house.
“Hey,” he smiled, planting a kiss on my lips. “I missed you.”
“Me, too.”
“I thought I’d catch you up on developments. Bobby has been returned to the State of New Jersey. He took a plea deal.”
“What?” Appalled, I pulled away to study Kenny in the faint glow of the streetlights.
“It turns out that the supposed abuse of the dog was the result of a really bad grooming technique. Mozzie lost part of his ear when the boys decided to shave the dog, and the long hair on the ear got caught in the shaver.”
“But the cuts....”
“Same deal. Mozzie’s hair got tangled, so they accidentally gouged him trying to get the shaver free.”
“I’d still like to throttle the little bastards!” I growled. “Of all the dumb ass things....”
“I know, I know. Look at it this way, Miz Scarlet. Bobby’s father used to be a DA in Ohio before he switched sides and went to bat for white collar criminals. When he heard what his son was involved in, he arranged a solid plea deal for the kid that was based on his full cooperation. It turns out the kid was seventeen at the time it all happened, so he was still a juvie. Bobby is sharing his tale with the New Jersey State Police as we speak. They’ll round up the jewel thieves and curtail their little gift basket business. It looks like, collectively, they’ve stolen more than $2.4 million in cut and uncut stones.”
“That’s a lot of organic soap,” I commented. Kenny squeezed my hand and laughed.
“It sure is. And no one would have ever known if Jenny hadn’t grabbed those five bars.”
“You’re not condoning what she did, I hope.”
“No, I’m saying that it’s funny how things work out sometimes. You can’t always predict how the bad guys are going to fall, or even if they will.”
“But why that house in Bay Head? Who is Hinson, anyway?”
“The cops are still trying to figure that out. Hinson only seemed to exist on paper.”
“Like he was made up as the fall guy?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Well, Jenny said that house was completely gutted. I know a lot of real estate on the Jersey Shore was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. What if the jewel heists were part of somebody’s plan to reb
uild the family manse?”
“Or to finance one by finding the capital to renovate a distressed property.”
“Maybe the money from the jewels is helping to pay for the reconstruction and the purchase, Kenny.”
“The old ‘double dip’ game? Could be. If Hinson flips the property to a new buyer, folks will assume he did the work on speculation, for total profit. That would explain his interest in investing in the house, to make money.”
“Was Richie involved in the building trades?” Don’t ask me why, but that question popped into my head. “Maybe the gang was taking advantage of the opportunity to get a foot in the Bay Head door, and they needed lots of financial backing to get it done. Most of those homes are selling for over a million dollars, aren’t they?”
“Even after the storm. You might be right, Scarlet. If that’s the case, the gang is more local than we thought. They might even be from Point Pleasant, or Brick, or even....”
“There would still have to be someone who was knowledgeable about jewels, though, like the assistant manager who wound up dead at Rikers,” I said aloud, more to myself than Captain Peacock. “What kind of information would non-professionals need in order to know how to successfully rob jewelry stores of loose stones?”
“That’s just it, Miz Scarlet. They only want loose, unmarked stones, and they only want them because they’re an easy commodity to sell.”
“So, what if the inside man not only tipped them to the availability of the stones, but he bought them back for his store in small quantities? If he’s dead now, what will the gang do? Won’t they need a new fence?”
“Probably. That could be a big monkey wrench to gum up the works, and maybe a motive for Richie’s murder. If the gang has to take on another partner, it cuts into their profit margin.”
Kenny and I turned around and headed back, a sure signal to Huck and January that it would soon be treat time. The little tails were wagging as the dogs trotted towards their destination.
“If the soap is tucked away in gift baskets, it means the thieves hold onto the soap until it’s time to send it to the buyer, right?”
“Right. My guess is they’re stored on the shelves as they wait for the opportunity to sell the jewels openly. The buyer would have to create records that suggest the stones were legitimately purchased. That might explain the need to go slowly, so as to not arouse suspicion.”
“But if the mastermind was sending out gift baskets on a regular basis as part of the cover, he or she would need a legitimate reason to have them around.”
“A corporate gift business for clients? The baskets are packaged, but when it’s time to send them out, the mastermind removes the loaded soap and substitutes another bar?”
“It would just be a matter of knowing which baskets have the jewels, so the wrong clients don’t wind up with unexpected pirate booty.”
“But they’d probably use the same supplier to make up the gift baskets, to avoid suspicion.”
“And the supplier of the gift baskets might be one of the gang member’s relatives. A wife, a girlfriend, or even a mother...someone with a legitimate business and a routine of shipping packages. It might even be a home-based business.”
“Interesting theory, Miz Scarlet, but at this point, it’s all speculation.”
“How do we prove it?” I asked him, already prepared to visit every gift shop on the Jersey Shore in search of the potential leads.
“I’m sorry. Did you say, ‘How do we prove it?’, because I’m pretty sure....”
“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy, Kenny! You’re worse than Larry! Do you believe she wouldn’t let me go up to White Oak Hill with Jenny?”
“I do!” His lips brushed my ear and I felt his hot breath against my skin. “I love that you’re feisty, but I prefer my heroines alive, Miz Scarlet. No more sleuthing for you! I don’t want the jewel thieves to decide you need killing.”
“You’re no fun!” I grumbled. Even as I said that, I decided I would not be stopped from delving into this mystery. After all, I’m a smart woman. I should be able to locate a gift basket business on the Jersey Shore that shipped organic products, shouldn’t I? And what harm could there be in providing the New Jersey State Police with a list of potential suspects? The sooner this business was over, the easier it would be to stop worrying about Jenny being a target. I said as much to Kenny.
“Oh, I don’t think she’s much of a target, Scar. Not at this point, anyway. Bobby’s rolling over on the guy who hired him....”
“But someone murdered Richie,” I reminded him, “and dumped his body at sea.”
“Maybe it had nothing to do with what happened at the Hinson house.”
“Yeah, right. Or maybe it had everything to do with what happened at the Hinson house.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because that girl stole five bars of organic soap. She said something about Paolo claiming it had healing powers.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” We paused on the sidewalk in front of the Four Acorns Inn.
“I know. I’m trying to remember what she told me when I asked her. Something about Paolo saying the soap cleanses the aura. Jenny was desperate to change her life and the soap was supposed to purify her. That sounds rather mystical, doesn’t it?”
“Crystals for healing. That would be good cover for jewel thefts. Most investigators would focus on traditional jewelers, not the fortune-telling variety,” Kenny pointed out. “Is there such a thing as organic jewelry?”
“More like spiritual healing, I should think.” That spurred another wild idea and I let it gallop out into the open. “What if the gang has a reason to buy that home in Bay Head? What if they’re trying to get in with the moneyed crowd? Don’t a lot of property owners in town come from wealthy families?”
“Sure. Old money, new money.”
“Paolo sounds like someone working the carnie crowd, doesn’t he? Part fortune teller, part con artist.”
“He could be the guy drumming up business with the rich ladies,” he replied, opening the front door for me. “It will be interesting to see what Sarge makes of all this.”
“You’re going to just leave it for Sarge?” I was aghast. After all, this was more intriguing than ever. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Captain Peacock?”
“I checked on the way out of Princeton University, Miz Scarlet,” he teased. “I’m a civilian now.”
“Brother!”
“You called?” Leave it to Colonel Grey Poupon to show up at just that moment. Curses. Foiled again.
Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery) Page 13
