CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"All right," Miles said, looking at the names Marshall had provided. "Eleven jewelers who made pieces for Rothschild's collection. Let's start cross-referencing them against Williams."
Kim pulled up Williams's financial records and ran a screen share so Miles and Vic could see them. "I've got credit card statements going back five years. I’ll do a quick scan for jewelry purchases."
Miles watched as she scrolled through pages of transactions from a laptop in DC. Williams had expensive tastes across the board. Designer suits, high-end restaurants, luxury hotels. The man spent money like he was trying to prove something.
"Here," Kim said, coming to a stop with the scrolling. "Whitmore Auction House. Two years ago. There’s a charge for sixty-two thousand dollars."
"That's the watch," Vic said. "Marshall told us Williams bought it there."
"Right but look at the description on the receipt." Kim enlarged the image. "Rolex Daytona, platinum, purchased from existing inventory. It wasn't custom-made."
Miles leaned closer to the screen. "So, he bought it off the shelf. Or off the display case, anyway."
"Well, yeah…remember what Linhart said. Rolex manufactures their own platinum pieces," Vic said. "You can find the exact model online. I'm looking at it right now. Retail price is around sixty thousand. So, that matches what Williams paid."
"So, the watch wasn't bespoke," Miles said. "Which means the connection to Rothschild isn't through a shared jeweler who custom-made both their pieces."
Kim was already running another search. "What about the wedding band? Fiona said he had it plated in platinum three years ago. Let me see if there's a record of that."
Kim started scrolling again, digging through Williams's credit card history for that year. There were charges to various jewelers but nothing that specifically mentioned platinum plating.
"He could have paid cash," Vic suggested.
"Maybe,” Miles said. “Or maybe it's too small a charge to stand out among everything else he was buying." Kim kept searching. "Wait. Here's something. A charge to a place called Ashford Fine Jewelers. Five hundred dollars, dated three years ago this month."
Miles felt something click, his brain dredging up something he’d seen recently. He grabbed the jeweler list and scanned down the names. "Ashford Fine Jewelers. That's on Marshall's list. They made one of Rothschild's pieces."
"Which piece?" Vic asked.
Miles checked his notes from the Whitmore meeting. "A necklace. Forty-carat diamond set in platinum filigree. Marshall said the craftsmanship was extraordinary."
Vic was already typing furiously. "Let me look up Ashford Fine Jewelers. See what I can find."
A few seconds later, she had pulled up several news articles. "Okay, this is interesting. Ashford Fine Jewelers was an ultra-exclusive Manhattan establishment. Family-owned, been around since the 1950s. But they went out of business two years ago."
"Why?" Miles asked.
"Fraudulent practices,” Kim called out from her screen, having also gone down that same road.
“According to this article, the owner was caught selling conflict diamonds and misrepresenting the origin of gemstones.
When clients found out, they sued. The business went bankrupt and shut down.
" Kim scrolled through more results. "There's a whole scandal here. Lawsuits, criminal charges, the works."
Vic looked up from her laptop. "So, Rothschild had a custom piece made by Ashford before they shut down. And Williams might have had his wedding band plated there around the same time."
"We can't confirm Williams used them for the plating," Miles said. "The charge is vague. But the timing fits."
Vic pulled up another article, this one with a photograph. It showed an elegant storefront on Fifth Avenue with gold lettering on the windows. The caption read: Ashford Fine Jewelers closing after 65 years following fraud allegations.
"They catered to the wealthy," Kim said. "Look at this client list that came out during the lawsuits. CEOs, celebrities, socialites. Everyone who was anyone in Manhattan had jewelry from Ashford."
Miles studied the photograph. "And then they got caught cheating their clients and the whole thing collapsed."
"The owner went to prison," Kim said, reading from another article. "Claudia Ashford. She got five years for fraud and racketeering."
"What about the employees?" Vic asked. "What happened to them when the business shut down?"
Kim searched for more information. He watched her working feverishly "I'm not seeing specific names. But if the business went bankrupt, everyone would have lost their jobs. Jewelers, designers, salespeople, everyone."
Miles walked to the whiteboard and wrote "Ashford Fine Jewelers" in the center. He drew lines connecting it to both Rothschild and Williams. As he did, Vic moved the spare laptop a bit so that Kim could see what he was doing, too.
"Let's think about this," Miles said. "Ashford made high-end platinum jewelry for Manhattan's elite. Then the owner gets caught in a fraud scandal and the business collapses. Everyone loses their jobs. Clients lose their trust. The whole operation falls apart."
"And someone who worked there blames the wealthy clients," Vic said, following his logic. "Maybe he sees them as corrupt people who were willing to buy conflict diamonds without asking questions."
"Or maybe just resents them for having the wealth to buy platinum jewelry in the first place," Miles said.
"Kane's disciples always have some personal grievance they've twisted into a philosophical justification. They’re unpredictable, sure, but there are also a few ways that they’re pretty paint-by-number. "
Kim was typing again, the sound tiny from the laptop screen; it was almost like the scuttling from insect legs. "I'm searching for employee records. If Ashford was incorporated, there should be business filings that list key personnel."
"Start with master jewelers," Miles said. "Anyone with the technical skill to do electroplating work. We're looking for someone who would know how to work with platinum at a sophisticated level."
"On it."
Vic stood and joined Miles at the whiteboard. "So, our working theory is that the killer worked at Ashford. Lost their job when the business collapsed. Developed a hatred for wealthy people who wear platinum jewelry. Started targeting them."
"It fits Kane's pattern," Miles said. "Personal trauma combined with elemental symbolism. Platinum is incorruptible, but the people who wear it are corrupt. Or so this killer believes.”
"Why wait two years though?" Vic asked. "Ashford shut down two years ago. Why start killing now?"
"He could have been planning. Learning the craft, perfecting the technique. Or maybe something triggered him recently. An anniversary of the business closing, running into a former client, something that reignited the anger."
A few seconds later, Agent Kim called out from her laptop screen. "I've got something, guys—business filings for Ashford Fine Jewelers list three master jewelers who were working there when it shut down: Thomas Brennan, Daniel Hartley, and Rebecca Voss."
Miles wrote the names on the whiteboard quickly in a sloppy, slanted scrawl. "Awesome. Start pulling background on all three. Criminal records, current employment, financial status. Anything that might indicate resentment or instability."
"Already on it," Kim said.
Vic was looking at her phone, stirred by the reveal. "I'm texting Linhart. We need to know if the ME found a wedding band on Williams's body. If he wasn't wearing it when he died, the killer might have taken it."
Miles thought about that. The platinum Rolex sitting on the bathroom counter.
The jewelry arranged at Rothschild's scene.
If the killer had also taken Williams's platinum wedding band, that was another piece of evidence they needed to account for.
The question would be, of course, why take the wedding ring and nothing else from either victim?
“Okay, here we go,” Kim called out. “Looks like Brennan moved to New Jersey after Ashford closed. Voss relocated to California last year. But Hartley’s still in NYC from the looks of it.”
"It doesn't mean he's our guy," Vic said. "But it's worth checking out."
"Daniel Hartley, age forty-seven,” Kim said. Mile sand Vic huddled around the laptop, listening in as Kim did what she did best. “He worked at Ashford for fifteen years before it shut down. He was one of their senior craftsmen.”
"Do you have a listing for a current employment?" Vic asked.
Kim scrolled through her search results. "Nothing recent. The last W-2 on file is from three years ago, after Ashford closed. He worked briefly at a medical device laboratory but that ended after six months. Since then, nothing. He could have moved, and there’s just no record of it."
"So, he's been unemployed for over two years," Miles said. "That's a long time to go without work in a specialized field."
"Maybe he's doing cash jobs," Vic suggested. "Under the table repair work, private commissions."
"Or maybe he's been doing something else entirely," Miles said. He looked at the whiteboard, at Hartley's name written beside the other two former Ashford employees. "Kim, can you find a current address for him?"
"Give me a minute."
Miles walked back to his desk and looked at the photographs from both crime scenes.
The precision of the platinum coating, the careful staging of the bodies, the symbolic use of the jewelry.
This was someone who understood the craft, who had the technical knowledge and the patience to execute these murders flawlessly.
In other words, maybe someone who specialized in the field.
"Got it," Kim announced from DC. "Daniel Hartley. His address is listed as being in Brooklyn. Want me to send it to your phone?"
"Please," Miles said.
As he waited, he felt the investigation narrowing, focusing. They had a name, a connection, a motive that made sense within Kane's twisted framework. It wasn't proof but it was a hell of a lot more than they'd had an hour ago.
The sound of a phone buzzing caught their attention; this time it was Vic’s. She checked it, read a message, and then said: "Linhart just confirmed that there was no wedding band on Williams's body. Tan line on his ring finger shows he wore one regularly, but it wasn't there when they found him."
"So, the killer took it," Miles said.
"Why take some pieces but leave others staged?" Vic asked.
"Maybe the watch was more visible. More obvious as a status symbol. The wedding band was personal, hidden. The killer took it as a trophy. Or, as we already mentioned maybe Williams just left it elsewhere when he was about to willingly and eagerly cheat on his wife.”
Kim was still typing. "I'm pulling everything I can find on Hartley. Social media, property records, known associates. Anything that might give us leverage."
Miles checked his watch. It was coming up on 10:30, so it was too late to knock on Hartley's door tonight, especially without probable cause.
But as far as Miles was concerned, they would pay him a visit tomorrow.
But for now, he thought Ashford was the core they needed to circle around—particularly Claudia Ashford.
"Let's keep digging tonight," Miles said. "I want to know everything about Daniel Hartley before we approach him. Background, financials, any connection to Kane's network. If he's our killer, I don't want to spook him."
Vic nodded and returned to her laptop. In between them, on a screen from DC, Kim also kept searching databases.
And as Miles took a seat behind his laptop while still gazing at the whiteboard, he wondered if they had finally found the man who was turning Manhattan's elite into platinum-coated corpses.