Jewel of a Murderer

by M. Glenn Graves

  “Yeah?” Fred yelled back.

  “Come here.”

  Fred slowly got up from his metal chair and approached.

  “You finished with the Gs yet?” she said.

  “Not quite. Into them, but not finished.”

  “How about GL? You that far along?” she asked Fred.

  “Lettme check,” he said and left.

  “Fred’ll check,” she said to me.

  “Mind if I follow him?” I said.

  “Your call,” she said.

  I followed Fred deep into a row of the metal shelving. Now and then there was a break in the shelving units, and I could see the walls of the warehouse on one side. There were rows and stacks of boxes against the wall. Boxes on top of boxes reached upward toward the ceiling, a good twenty feet high.

  “What are those over there?” I said to Fred.

  He turned and looked in the direction I was looking.

  “Boxes,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Evidence boxes. We haven’t got to them yet.”

  “Been at this a short while?” I said.

  “Seems like we just got started good. Maybe, gee, I don’t know. Hard to say…at least a few years now.”

  He said it with a straight face. Where was Sam when I needed some sanity around me.

  He stopped in front of a shelving unit. There was a small ladder close by. He moved it and climbed to check the boxes.

  “What was those letters again?”

  I began to ascertain some of the issues for these workers.

  “GL,” I said.

  “Naw, we ain’t got quite to GL yet. This one’s GR.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “I said this box here is GR as in GREEN. Not to the…what did you want?”

  I started to give him the letters again but thought better of it.

  “Goodall,” I said. “Jeffrey Allan Goodall.”

  I watched him move some boxes around. He mumbled some names to himself. Finally, he yelled at me without needing to. I was standing not more than three feet away.

  “Found it,” he yelled. “You want me to drag it out and get it down?”

  “Unless the union won’t allow you to do that,” I said.

  “What union?”

  “Precisely. Yeah, hand me the box, please.”

  “Careful, lady. It’s a little heavy,” he said as he handed me the box that weighed less than five pounds. I wanted to shoot him.

  Fred left me alone in the stacks and returned to his friends, food, and fellowship. I estimated that it would be at least two or three more years before they would arrive at the Ss. I was hoping that some luck was with me and that someone had placed that dark red stone in the Goodall file box.

  I found a shelving unit that someone was assembling nearby and used it as a table to search the contents of Goodall’s box. I had no idea which of the three murdered victims would house that last red stone Sam had found at the bus stop years ago.

  A shot in the dark. Needle in a stack of hay. Luck of the draw. Whatever you call it, I had it. Jeffrey’s box had the stone that Sam had discovered along with one of the two clear crystal trinkets he had uncovered.

  I removed the securely packaged red stone and took the evidence box back to its location. I didn’t want Fred to get upset with me for shelving a box in the wrong location. Heaven forbid such a thing.

  I walked back towards the front, passing the party table.

  “Find what you wanted?” the lady in charge asked. Fred was now sitting next to her eating voraciously.

  “I did. Thanks for your help. You too, Fred,” I said.

  “Hope you put things back in the right place,” Fred said to me.

  “No one will ever know,” I said.

  Fred paid no attention to me. He was heavily involved in the food at hand.

  I returned to Officer Joe Snead knowing that what was about to happen would be yet another adventure in this morning full of wonder and surprises. And some genuine luck.

  “I need to sign this out,” I said to Joe while holding up the still secured evidence bag from the box.

  “You got the name and number of the box?”

  “I do.”

  “Fill out this form,” he said as he opened one of his lower desk drawers and studied its contents for a few seconds. He flipped through some files without pulling anything. He then opened another lower desk drawer. He moved some boxes, opened a couple of them, and threw them back into the drawer without apparently finding what he wanted.

  “Hang on,” he said.

  I was hanging.

  He searched all of the remaining desk drawers. No success. He looked on the top of his desk.

  “I know it was here…someplace. I had it just the other…,” he failed to finish what he was mumbling to himself as he lifted the paper plate full of crumbs and bits of white icing leftovers from his nourishment of the morning.

  Underneath the plate was the form. I know this because he almost exclaimed when he saw it.

  “Ah,” he said to himself.

  “Good find, Joe,” I said.

  “That’s Officer Snead to you, lady.”

  “Got it,” I said in a voice at least an octave or two lower than my usual alto. I restrained myself from saluting. That was a hard restraint.

  He frowned but didn’t know what to say to me. He shoved the paper toward me abruptly.

  “Fill this out.”

  It was mostly wording with three blank lines. Two of those blank lines were for the number and the name on the evidence box for the item I was taking. The other line was for my name. I took it to be a signature line. I scribbled Sam Evans on the line. It was a test.

  He took the form I handed him and looked it over with great scrutiny. A few more minutes of my life passed while he read the brief document.

  “Something’s not right,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Your name’s not Sam,” he said. “You told me you were…,” he stopped to think.

  I waited.

  “Clancy. That’s your name.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Bingo?”

  “You got my name right,” I said.

  “But you signed Sam Evans. Who is Sam Evans?”

  I pointed to the dog who was still sitting on his haunches staring at Officer Snead.

  “You can’t sign the dog’s name.”

  “You want him to sign?” I said.

  He handed me another form. I filled it in like the other except this time I signed my name.

  “This is serious stuff. Police business. You can’t go ’round not taking this seriously,” Joe was doing his best to chastise my humor. I was having none of it.

  “Been a pleasure,” I said to Joe Snead while I waited for him to find his keys and unlock the padlock he had used to stop Sam from entering his official domain.

  Sam and I headed toward the exit.

  “Hey,” Officer Joe Snead voiced in my direction. “Your middle name really Bingo?”

  I had nothing more to contribute.

  Chapter 52

  I took the ruby-red stone to a jeweler I had known almost as long as I had lived in Norfolk. He owned and operated a jewelry store not far from my apartment building. He and his wife had run the small shop for a number of years. Now and then I had need of his expertise on items I came across in some of my cases. He seldom failed to get me to spend my money on jewelry which I would never wear. It was my way of thanking him since he wouldn’t take any money for the work he did for me. Besides all that, he had a crush on me. I loved the flattery.

  “Ah, the lovely and lanky Clancy Evans comes once more to my humble establishment,” Bart Biel said to me as I entered.

  “Shalom,” I said to him. “And how are you Mister Biel?”

  “Healthy as a bear and lonely as a wolf without a pack. You still considering my marriage proposal?” he said and laughed.

  His wife, Rebecca, had died several years a
go. Since that time the two of us had exchanged witty, suggestive remarks with each other. I knew it was his way of coping with great pain. It was also his way of flattering me with embellished comments about my looks. Flattery will get you everywhere.

  “You’re asking a lot of a Gentile girl, you know. I was raised Baptist. You think we could come to terms with that?”

  “For you, my love, I would be Buddhist.”

  “Don’t kid a kidder, Mister Biel. I know you better than that.”

  “Okay. But I would consider Baptist. Aren’t there some Baptist Jews around?”

  “Probably,” I said. “There seems to be every other persuasion of Baptists. Makes perfectly good sense to me.”

  He laughed.

  “You are quite lovely, you know. Today you tend to be glowing.”

  “Must be the hair. You know that at times it radiates.”

  “Love that hair, Miz Clancy. Breathes fire and passion.”

  “For you. You don’t have to take care of it. The subject at hand, Mister Biel.”

  “Ah, the reason you come calling, besides the physical attraction between us,” he said.

  “Besides that, yes. I need your expert opinion concerning a stone,” I said as I took the sealed package from my pocket and handed it to him.

  “Oh my,” he said. “This has all the markings of official police business. You come by this legally?”

  “You should ask,” I said.

  “I know, I know. Mind my own business. Just wanted to be sure that I handle it with the proper security methods,” he winked at me.

  “It’s all official. I simply need to know if that stone is a ruby.”

  “Okay. That will be one of the easier tasks of my day, I can assure you.”

  Mr. Biel was slightly slumped due no doubt to osteoporosis from his aging and life experiences. I guessed Bartholomew Biel to be somewhere in his eighties. He might even be older than that. I recall that he once told me that he and Rebecca were about to celebrate their sixty-third anniversary. I couldn’t recall the year of that achievement.

  “Look around, my love. See if you spot something you can’t live without. I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. Let me go to the back and check on this stone. You got time to wait? I won’t be long!”

  “I’ll lust after some of your adornments,” I said. “Waiting on you, well, it’s been my whole life, you know.”

  I winked at him but wasn’t sure he could see that I had done so.

  “You’re a jewel yourself, Clancy. You know we could live together without marriage.”

  “Shame on you, Mister Biel. The Torah would shame us both in that endeavor.”

  “You know too much, Clancy Evans. But for you, I would consider…,” his voice trailed off. He headed back to his work area that sported more concentrated light and some lenses that amplified whatever he was viewing.

  I walked around his shop and imagined some items on my fingers and wrists. Only imagination. The real truth was that there was nothing in his business that I couldn’t live without. Jewelry was not something I craved. I cared for Bart Biel more than anything he had on sale in his shop. I don’t do a whole lot of accessorizing. Still, I owed him much and buying a piece of useless jewelry could only help him.

  “Sam with you?” he called out to me from the back.

  “Outside in the car,” I said.

  “I need to speak to him,” he said.

  I brought him inside and he trotted on back to Bart’s workstation. I continued my walk around the shop all the while listening to two of them talk. Mr. Biel would speak kindly to him and Sam would whine and occasionally bark once or twice in answer to whatever the old man said. I saw him feed Sam some treats he kept on hand for such occasions as this. Sam was most appreciative. Bart spoiled him more than I did.

  Bart spoiled the both of us. It was always my joy to come see him.

  I stopped in front of a beautiful red broach that reminded me of something long ago. I was busy searching for a lost memory while staring at the old-fashioned jewelry. I didn’t notice that Mr. Biel approached.

  “You like that?” he said.

  “Reminds me of something from my past.”

  “It should. It’s quite old. Likely something that your grandmother might have worn.”

  “Maybe that’s it. Something from Grandma Clancy.”

  He looked puzzled. “Don’t you mean Grandma Evans?”

  “Well, well. Something you do not know about me. Imagine that.”

  “My love, there is so much I long to know about you. Why do you think I continue to wait on you to marry me and allow me to die a happy old man?”

  I smiled at Bart. He was the jewel, to be sure.

  “The name Clancy was from one side of the family, my mother’s side. Evans was my father’s side, of course. Hence my name, the merger of both sides. Mamaw Evans would never have worn anything quite like that. On the other hand, Grandma Clancy was well off and could have had such an item. She loved to go about all decked out.”

  “I see. Well, this would make a lovely bridal gift for whoever might marry an old man,” he said longingly.

  “Bribe your way to entanglements,” I said.

  “For you, I would gladly do it.”

  “What’d you find, Mister Biel?” I asked, shifting his attention back to the issue at hand.

  “Please call me Bart.”

  I smiled.

  “It’s not a ruby,” he said. “I can see why someone would say it is. Lovely jewel, no doubt about that. But no ruby.”

  “I had my suspicions,” I said.

  “You know jewels?”

  “Not the way you do. That’s why I needed an expert’s word. Your expertise as usual is invaluable.”

  “Don’t flatter an old man. I do my job.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “No, no. Say it isn’t so, Clancy Evans. When I tell you that you are beautiful, I speak only of the truth. I still have good eyes for beauty like yours. Come away with me.”

  He was a great charmer. I wanted to laugh at his lines of favor, but I dared not risk insulting him. I kissed him on the cheek.

  “There’s a line from a book you do not read,” I said. “The quote is ‘Almost thou persuadest me’.”

  “You do an old man’s heart much good,” he said.

  “Mine as well.”

  “And what is this book you say I do not read, my love?” he asked.

  “The Christian’s holy book.”

  “Ah, you think you know me so well. You might be aghast at what I read and do not read. I know the book from which you quote,” he smiled at me. “I think it comes from the Acts of the Apostles, found inside of what the likes of you call that New Covenant.”

  “You do surprise me, my old friend. I should’ve known better to assume that you do not know other works of faith.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” he whispered. “Easy to forgive you, my dear.”

  He held out the stone for me to take a closer look.

  “No ruby, but it’s a jewel none the less. A garnet stone, Clancy Evans.”

  “My, my,” I said.

  “That mean something to you?”

  “I certainly hope so, Bart. Thanks.”

  I took the package from him and put it back into my pocket.

  “Come on, Sam,” I said and headed towards the door.

  “I remain continually indebted to you, Mister Biel,” I said. “Thank you again for your help.”

  “Miss Clancy,” he said after me, “a garnet stone has its own intrinsic value. Does it not?”

  I turned and smiled at him. Such a lovely man. Why couldn’t I have found such a man as this when it could have mattered to me?

  “Indeed, Bart, indeed.”

  Chapter 53

  When I entered the apartment, Rogers had a message from my friend Roosevelt Washington waiting for me. Rosey and I had been close friends in high school, but our paths diverged when his studies caused him to travel to other
parts of the globe after his four years at the University of Virginia. Then there was his stint in the U.S. Navy, then he became a S.E.A.L., then he did goodness-knows-what for some of the agencies of the Federal Government. We finally reconnected years later. It was good that he was back in my life.

  “You didn’t record the message?” I said in mock displeasure.

  “I was enthralled.”

  “Good thing I controlled the number of allurements when I was putting you together.”

  “You did me a great disservice. Perhaps one day you could put this marvelous mind inside of a robot…a full-functioning robot. Moveable parts besides my processor.”

  “That’s a scary proposition if ever I heard one,” I said. “When’s he coming?”

  “Later tonight. Said he’s landing at NAS around twenty-one hundred and plans to come on over once he clears the bureaucracy of the Navy.”

  “Where’s he flying in from?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “I was enthralled with his voice and my imagination drifted off once I knew it was him. Didn’t even think to ask.”

  “Probably wouldn’t have told you anyway.”

  “He is Mister Secret and all, for sure. Do you know what he does for the military?”

  “Rather not. Used to ask, years back. Gave that up since he said he couldn’t divulge. My clearance only goes so high,” I said.

  “And just how high does your clearance go, Clancy Evans?” Rogers said.

  “About five feet ten inches.”

  “Unofficially, of course.”

  “Yeah, everything is unofficial around here. So, with Rosey coming by about eight-thirty or nine this evening, I have time to actually to do something nice for myself.”

  “Bubble bath and soothing music?” she said.

  “Not in this lifetime. Sam and I will go jogging. I have time for a good long run as well as the need for one.”

  “You find anything in your digging around in those old police records?” she said.

  “Yeah. You were correct. Starnes made a mistake in identifying the gem as a ruby. Bart, my go-to jeweler, told me it was a garnet stone.”

  “That old incurable romantic?”

  “The same.”

  “He propose to you again?”