Chapter 13
13
1:07 p.m. Friday, November 1
P eabody Jewelry was sandwiched between a vape shop and a vegan restaurant in one of Camp Hill’s mini strip malls. Nick eyed the classy gold lettering on the shop window as he put Riley’s Jeep in park, then noted the handwritten Going Out of Business signs.
Riley snickered in the passenger seat. “Uncle Jimmy is offended by the vegan place. He says he doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t eat fish.”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Jimmy. We’re going fishing for a bad guy.”
“Wilfred Peabody doesn’t look like much of a bad guy to me,” Riley said, turning her phone screen to face him.
It was an article from the local paper about Peabody donating a paw print necklace to a local animal shelter’s charity auction. He was a small man with graying hair and a hook nose above a tidy little mustache.
Nick rubbed a finger over his upper lip. He wondered if he could pull off a mustache. Like one of the Top Gun ones.
“I can see it,” Riley said.
“You bouncing around in my brain again?” he teased.
“It’s not my fault you broadcasted mustache thoughts loud enough that I could hear them.”
“Facial hair considerations aside, how do you feel about having a little fun in there?” he asked, nodding toward the jewelry store.
“Why do you think I dressed in disguise?” She gestured at her outfit.
She was wearing a faux leather jacket over a tight Harley Davidson T-shirt with a deep V-neck and even tighter jeans. Nick hadn’t gotten past approving of the fit to notice it wasn’t her usual style. Being dazzled by female curves wasn’t exactly a smart move for a private investigator.
“You didn’t even notice I was in disguise, did you?” she asked with a smirk.
“I’m a simple man. You show off cleavage like that, and I’m bound to get a little distracted.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. She pulled an eye shadow palette out of her purse and flipped down the sun visor to get at the mirror.
A few quick swipes of a brush, the application of one of those little claw hair clips, and he found himself staring at a completely different woman.
“Two can play at that game,” he said, reaching into the back seat and producing a worn NASCAR ball cap. “Let’s go see what our jeweler suspect is up to.”
The bell above the door tinkled when they walked in. The walls were papered in understated gold and decorated with framed black-and-white photos of happy bridal couples with big-ass rings. Waist-height glass display cases ringed the perimeter of the store. At the back was a cash register on what looked like a classy bar.
A chubby tabby cat exited its bed and dug its nails into the thick cream carpet.
“Welcome, welcome!” The greeting came not from the cat but from the man who bustled out of the back room in a navy pin-striped suit. He wore spectacles perched on his hawklike nose and had a polka-dotted pocket square. Wilfred Peabody in the flesh clocked in at somewhere around five feet six inches and one hundred forty pounds.
“Hi there. I’m Toby and this here’s my fiancée, LuEllen,” Nick said in a twangy southern accent. “I just asked this little lady to be my bride.”
“And I said only if the ring is nice enough,” Riley piped up as a chipper, flirtatious LuEllen. “I can’t control the fact that Toby here leaves toothpaste smeared all over the sink like he was using it to ice cupcakes. But I can make sure that I get a pretty little something for my trouble.”
Nick was impressed. He gave her an approving wink before turning back to Wilfred and leaning an arm on a case of watches. “Whaddaya say, jewelry man? Help a fella out?”
“It would be my pleasure. Please call me Wilfred.”
“Wilfred, in your expert opinion, do you think this little ol’ finger would look better with a princess cut or a cushion cut?” Riley asked.
“Well, why don’t we see what your ring finger has to say,” the jeweler said with enthusiasm.
The cat twined itself around Nick’s legs while Riley and Wilfred oohed and aahed over a velvet rectangle display of diamond rings.
“What do you think, Toby?” Riley asked, holding up her hand to show off a ring. Not just a ring. The ring.
Nick blinked and took her hand to get a better look.
“It’s a classic cushion-cut stone with a baguette halo set in platinum,” Wilfred explained.
“It’s, uh, nice,” Nick rasped. It was more than nice. It was fucking awesome.
Why was he suddenly sweating? Why was the ring so sparkly? Was there some kind of spotlight shining down on the ring like it was Taylor Swift onstage?
Get a hold of yourself, dipshit.
He was just having a blood sugar crash. Or a panic attack. Or a small mental break. He was not staring at a diamond ring on Riley’s finger and wanting to actually put it there.
Still in character, Riley cocked her head and pouted. “Hmm. I think it’s a little too classy. Don’t you, Toby? I think I need a ring that says, ‘Sometimes makes bad decisions but has a damn good time making them.’”
“I’ve got just the thing,” Wilfred promised gleefully.
Riley and Wilfred moved down to the next case. Nick knelt to pet the cat and catch his breath.
He wanted to put a ring on Riley Thorn’s finger. Before her, he’d never even considered things like getting engaged or married or, you know, the future.
They’d only known each other for four months. There was mozzarella in the cheese drawer older than their relationship. Sweat ran in rivulets down his back.
They owned a home together. They worked together. They had a dog together. This wasn’t just another new relationship. This was the relationship. This was it. She was it.
But how the hell was he supposed to pop the question when he’d just blown all his spare cash on a TV? Hell, Griffin had managed to buy her a ring. A real one. Not some diamond chip purchased from the trunk of someone’s shady cousin’s car.
His head felt heavy and woozy. The cat was giving him a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look. Nick wasn’t sure what was wrong. But little pinpricks of light danced before his eyes. Darkness rolled in like the tide, and he decided the carpet looked like an awfully nice place to hyperventilate.
“Toby, honey? You okay?” Riley asked, her voice strained.
“Perhaps try slapping him?” Wilfred suggested.
“No slap,” Nick murmured. He managed to pry his eyelids open and found Riley hovering over him. She was fucking beautiful. And she had what looked like fifteen carats of diamonds on her fingers.
“I’ll call 911,” a worried-looking Wilfred volunteered.
“I’m fine,” Nick grumbled, working his way into a seated position.
“What happened?” Riley asked.
“You know how I get when I don’t get a bag of Sour Patch Kids every few hours,” he said, regaining his feet and his character.
“May I ask how you heard about my store?” Wilfred asked, glancing down at Riley’s diamond-clad finger nervously.
Nick decided to take a gamble. “Griffin Gentry.”
Wilfred jumped like someone had just announced the floor was lava. “You will kindly hand over the jewelry and leave immediately.”
“Now hang on a second,” Nick said, dropping the accent.
“You’re not southern. Is your name even Toby?” Wilfred squeaked and scampered behind the register. With shaking hands, he pulled out a pearl-handled Colt revolver and aimed it at the ceiling. “I am done being victimized by that man.”
Nick stepped in front of Riley, hands in the air. “Let’s take it easy, Wilfred. We’re not here for that. My girl here is going to carefully take off the rings and put them back on the case, and you’re going to keep that six-shooter pointed at the ceiling.”
“Okay,” Wilfred said in a whisper. Sweat dotted his forehead. His mustache twitched.
With Nick as her human shield, Riley slowly removed all four rings and placed them in a neat row back on the blue velvet cloth.
“We’re not here to hurt you or steal anything. We’re here to help,” she said, raising her hands in the air.
“No one affiliated with Griffin Gentry is out for anyone but themselves.”
“He’s my ex-husband. We got divorced because he slept with a coworker; then he fired me and sued me for breaking his nose,” she explained. “I almost went broke because of him.”
Wilfred wavered.
Riley tried to inch past Nick’s shoulders, but he blocked her. “We think he took something from you that’s very important, and I’d like to talk about how we can help you get it back,” she continued.
“How am I supposed to trust you?”
“That’s a good question. How about we start with the fact that your grandfather’s gun isn’t loaded because the firing pin stopped working in the seventies and you don’t even own bullets for it. But we’re still standing here with our hands up because we just want to talk.”
Wilfred dropped the gun. “How did you know that?”
“It’s a long story,” Riley said, sagging against Nick’s back.
“Man, I don’t know about you guys, but I could go for a drink,” Nick said, dropping his hands.
“So you are working for Griffin?” Wilfred clarified as he stared morosely into his Long Island iced tea.
They were sitting at the bar of a divey restaurant. The cat—Elizabeth Taylor—purred happily on the bar in her carrier.
“Technically in the sense that he hired us to find out who’s been threatening him, yes,” Nick said, then took a swig of his beer.
“But we’re not happy about it,” Riley assured the jeweler as the bartender plopped a beer down in front of her.
Wilfred put his head in his hands. “I never should have made those cuff links.”
“What cuff links?” Nick asked.
The jeweler sighed. “A few months ago, Griffin came into my shop and told me he wanted to design a pair of custom cuff links. He was going to wear them at some local daytime TV awards ceremony. I was ecstatic. I thought it would be great exposure for the store. We’ve been struggling since the rent went up at the beginning of the year. We were falling behind. I just needed to hold on until our December trunk show, which always brings in three months’ worth of revenue in one weekend, but it was becoming apparent that we might not make it until then.”
“So you agreed to make the cuff links,” Riley filled in sympathetically.
Wilfred nodded. “It was a $25,000 job. I set aside all other paying jobs and worked night and day to get them done.” He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his phone. “They were perfect.” He thumbed through his photos and turned the screen their way.
They were something all right, Nick noted. Ridiculously over the top, ostentatious. They didn’t whisper “I’m wealthy.” They screamed it.
“They’re art deco emerald-cut canary diamonds. Some of my best work,” Wilfred said. “And I’ll never see them again because Griffin Gentry is a crook.”
Riley paused midsip. “What happened to the cuff links?”
“He showed up the day of the event to collect them. When I took him to the register to ring him out, he said that he was running late and would settle up with me later. He left the store with the cuff links, and he’s avoided me ever since. After several phone calls and letters, I finally received a letter from his attorney saying that the cuff links were a gift from me and that any further attempt to collect payment would be met with legal action. Legal action I can’t afford.”
Elizabeth Taylor let out a mournful meow in her carrier.
“Is that why you’re closing your store?” Riley asked.
“I have no other choice. I had to let my staff go. There just isn’t enough revenue coming in. And even if some miracle occurred and he returned them, it’s not like I could find someone else willing to spend $25,000 on a set of cuff links.” Wilfred took a morose sip of his drink. “Three generations of my family have run this store, and now I’m the one to drive it into the ground.”
Riley met Nick’s eyes over his head with a can-we-please-help-this-guy look on her face.
“Let’s get this part out of the way,” Nick said. “You pulled a gun on us. What’s to say you wouldn’t do the same to Griffin…even though he deserves it?”
Wilfred sighed. “It’s my grandfather’s gun. My parents kept it in the shop as a deterrent. I kept it for nostalgia. Like LuEllen…er, Riley said, there are no bullets because the firing pin is broken. The best I could do would be to throw it at a robber.”
“Okay. Easy enough to verify. Now, let’s talk about where you were yesterday between noon and one thirty.”
“My mother watched the store for me while I went to a twelve o’clock Pilates class with my friends. Afterward, we went out for crepes.” Wilfred took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Do you have any reason to do harm to Griffin Gentry?” Nick asked.
“What would I gain from that? He already won. He can afford better lawyers than I can. Besides, with my luck, if he gets himself murdered, he’ll probably be buried with my cuff links.”
“I feel awful,” Riley groaned when they got back in the Jeep.
“It’s not your fault Gentry is a selfish, entitled shit,” Nick pointed out. “I didn’t catch any nose twitches. Nothing from the spirit guides?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t pick up on any homicidal tendencies. Just an overwhelming sense of despondency, which seems to have seeped into my brain, and now I’m sad and I want ice cream.”
“My girl wants sad ice cream, she gets sad ice cream,” he said, patting her knee.
He’d just reversed out of the parking spot when his phone rang. He answered it on speaker phone. “What’s up, Gam Gam?”
“You better get over here. We’ve got a Code Cold Burrito,” Mrs. Penny barked. It sounded like women were screaming in the background.
Nick thumped his head against the driver’s seat. “I don’t care about your leftovers.”
“I’m not talking about leftovers. I’m talking about a Code Cold Burrito. Don’t you read the memos I leave on your desk?”
“I haven’t seen the top of my desk in weeks. Just tell me what a Cold Burrito is so I can regret knowing.”
He glanced Riley’s way just in time to catch her nose twitch.
“Uh-oh,” she murmured.
“There’s a stiff in the shrubbery at Gentry’s. A Cold Burrito. I suggest you get here before the cops.”
“Christ. Who did you murder?” Nick said, accelerating out of the lot.
“I can’t hear you over the dipshit twins trying to out-scream each other. People act like they’ve never seen a stiff before.” With that, Mrs. Penny hung up.