Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Katie and McGaven had discussed the next place to visit before they had to go to the prison in the afternoon.
They had two jewelry stores that had been around for more than fifteen to twenty years.
The Justin Brothers had been in business for more than twenty years and Gold Gems had been around for about fifteen years.
Katie drove up to the first jewelry store, the Justin Brothers. Katie scanned the large windows, which had been treated with something to make it so that you couldn’t see inside the door. There was a small area in the window that had some pretty items to entice potential customers.
“Looks like they are open,” said McGaven.
The detectives entered the store. An electronic buzz emitted when the door opened alerting a salesperson, and an older man came out to greet them; he had gray hair and a trimmed white beard.
“Good morning,” he said, smiling at the detectives. He glanced at their badges and guns. “Is there any problem?”
“We’re detectives Scott and McGaven from the Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department,” said Katie. “And you are?”
“I’m Stan Bateman, the manager.” He seemed to fidget, moving back and forth behind the counter.
“Mr. Bateman,” began Katie. “We’re working a homicide—well, actually, a cold case—and we found some pieces of jewelry.”
McGaven took out his phone and showed the manager photos of both the bracelets and money clip.
“Well, let me see,” he said, putting on his glasses and taking a jeweler’s loupe. He studied the images carefully. “They’re sterling.”
“There’s a marking TM* on each of the pieces,” said Katie.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us anything about it?” she said.
“It does look familiar, but I don’t know offhand,” he said.
“Is it a designer?”
“Yes, it usually means that.”
“Can you tell us anything about it?” said McGaven.
“Well, hmmm,” he muttered. The manager turned around and grabbed a thick paperback and began skimming. He perused the paperback until he found what he was looking for. “Here,” he said showing the detectives. “It could be this symbol.”
Katie and McGaven squeezed together and looked at the image in the book. It looked identical.
“Yes,” said Katie. “Who is the designer?”
“Well, it’s not a designer, per se. It’s actually a meaning: ‘together midnight.’”
“What does that mean?”
“It basically means that whoever purchases these pieces will be together forever.”
“That seems odd,” she said. “Midnight represents darkness, bleakness…”
“Or perhaps a new beginning at the stroke of midnight when things turn back?” Mr. Bateman said.
Katie pondered the description. It didn’t seem to match up or perhaps didn’t mean anything for the buried bodies—except that all the family members had a piece of jewelry from the same designer. It was a frustrating reality of a small lead.
“I can tell you that this designer or company had very few pieces and they just disappeared about seven or eight years ago,” said the manager. “I thought they must have closed their business.”
“Is there any way of finding out how many pieces from them you sold?” said McGaven.
“No. We don’t catalog by designer signage.”
“What about by type of jewelry—the half hearts. There couldn’t be too many?” Katie said.
“Perhaps. Do you have a timeline?”
“Ten to twenty years ago?”
The manager frowned, shaking his head. “It would take weeks or months and there’s no guarantee.”
Katie sighed and took a moment to glance around at all the displays. “What about the distributor that you bought them from?”
“Maybe. It’ll take some research but it will help to identify how many we sold—and connect buyers. I’m assuming that’s what the goal is. We used to do the accounting by hand until we computerized.”
“Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated,” she said.
The other jewelry store, Gold Gems, had moved a couple of times according to the address search, so the detectives had to drive a little ways.
The store was located in a small strip mall and resembled more of a pawn shop than a boutique.
There were two people browsing and two salespeople on either side of the door.
The atmosphere felt different, almost making Katie shiver. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but just knew there was something amiss.
“Can I help you?” a smiley woman with overly processed hair and pink lipstick said from behind the counter.
“I hope so,” said Katie, showing the photos of the bracelet and money clip from her phone.
The woman looked at the photos. She didn’t immediately react, but then she said, “Oh, yeah. A guy came in a couple of weeks ago asking about the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wanted to know if we had those or if anyone had bought or sold anything similar recently, but I didn’t know,” she said, leaning on the counter. “You cops?” She looked directly at McGaven. “I like tall men.”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation. Please, can you tell us anything about the man?” said Katie.
“Let me think. He was tall, medium build, not thin, not fat. In shape, you know. Brown hair, short like he had been in the military. I like military men too. Dark jacket and dark jeans.”
“Anything else?” said Katie.
“Oh yeah, he was wearing cowboy boots. The nice kind with a pointed toe.”
“Did you get a name?” said McGaven.
“Nope. Sorry. How about your name?” She eyed McGaven.
Katie looked around the area and saw several video cameras. “Can we look at your video footage from the day the man came in?”
“You could, but we don’t keep archives for more than a week,” said the woman, still eyeing McGaven.
“What about outside?” she said.
“Not here, but there might from the mall or another business.”
“Thank you for your time,” said Katie.
Outside, the detectives looked around for any security cameras, but couldn’t spot any. They decided to walk around. McGaven went right and Katie walked to the left.
There was a used-clothing store, a coffee place, and an empty space.
Katie didn’t see any cameras. It amazed Katie that many businesses still didn’t have working cameras.
She surmised that this particular area didn’t have many burglary issues, but a jewelry store or rather a pawn shop should have cameras.
She wondered if the woman had lied, and if so, why.
Disappointed, she turned around and walked back toward the car. McGaven was coming around the corner. Katie could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t find anything useful.
“What do you think?” she said. “Wouldn’t there be a camera out here somewhere?”
“I don’t see anything. It does seem strange. I don’t know, but I think the jewelry store worker was lying about only having footage archives for a week.”
Katie nodded in agreement. She looked up the street where there was a large power pole and what appeared to be a city camera. “Hey,” she said and walked across the street. “I think that’s one.”
McGaven followed her, craning his neck. “Yep.” He pulled out his cell phone and called his contact at the city to try to get the webcam footage for this section.
Katie looked around as he did so, hoping they’d be able to complete his request. She decided to investigate some more.
She wondered why the person asking about the bracelets would come here.
Was it because it was more out of the way?
Or did he have some information that Gold Gems could help him?
Katie’s instincts told her there was something specific about this mall that had attracted him.
She decided to go into the coffee shop. A wonderful aroma hit her senses as she walked in. It was a cute place, small, but filled with all types of artwork, mostly with the theme of coffee.
“Hi, what can I get for you?” said a young woman behind the counter with a nametag with flowers that read: “Lori.” She had blonde hair pulled back in a long ponytail.
“I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”
“Sure,” she said.
“I’m Detective Scott and I’m looking for someone who might have come in here.”
“Oooh, a police case. I’ll try to help if I can.”
“This would have been about two weeks ago.”
“Okay.”
“He would have been dressed in black, jacket and jeans. Medium height and weight. Short cropped hair like the military. Does that sound familiar?” said Katie.
The young woman thought about it. “Yes!” she said enthusiastically.
Katie almost laughed at her response. “Do you remember someone like that?”
“I remember him because he didn’t fit in like most people who come in here. It was on a Thursday, I think… because that’s when I do the dusting of pictures and the shelves.”
“Do you remember anything else? What he said? Any tattoos? The way he spoke?”
“Not really. He just ordered a black coffee with a ton of sugar. Who orders just black coffee anymore?”
“Not many,” said Katie. Her mind was reeling, trying to figure out what all this meant. “Too bad no one has security cameras.”
“What do you mean? We have something better,” she said.
Lori walked over to one of the shelves that had a small laptop computer.
Katie didn’t notice it due to the fact there were plastic flowers piled all over several narrow shelves.
“We use this to video the area so we can stream it on our website. The owner wanted security, but he chose to use this method,” she said.
“See.” Lori showed Katie the memory sticks.
“And here’s from the past two to three weeks. ”
Katie couldn’t believe her luck. “Would it be possible for me to take that to try and find the man and then bring it back?”
“Of course. I’m sure Mack, the owner, would be fine helping one of our finest.”
“Here’s my card. If he has any questions, he can call me.”
“Great! Glad I could be of some help.”
“And can I get two large lattes to go?” said Katie.
Katie left the coffee place and met back up with McGaven.
“Hey, I thought you left without me,” he said.
“I thought about it.” She handed her partner a coffee.
“Thanks. I need this especially before going to the prison.”
“Look what I found,” she said waving the memory stick.
“What?”
“It turns out the coffee place uses a laptop to record real-time on its website. And… the barista remembered the guy in black coming in the same time he went to the jewelry store.”
“Home run.”
“Maybe we can learn more about this guy. I would love to be able to put him at the location where I saw the dark-dressed cowboy.”
“Let’s swing by the construction site and swap out the trail-camera cards and see what we have,” he said.
Katie realized they were going to have to up their game if they wanted to catch a killer before they found more graves.