Family Jewels

Chapter 14

I hung around while the forensic guys did their job, watched as they took fingerprints and samples. Closely. Noel Almond did too.

When they were gone, and a coffee-seeking, caffeine deprived Noel Almond himself was out the door later that morning, I set out in search of Dylan. I didn’t have to look far. Big Eddie had him doing a shitload of work again today. As far as I could see, the only ‘security’ Dylan was providing for Eddie Baskin was securing that he’d get lots of rest and relaxation. Poor Dylan had been vacuuming, cleaning, painting, mowing lawns, trimming hedges — you name it — while Eddie enjoyed the free time.

And sure enough, as I headed toward Complex C in hopes of finding Dylan, I watched Eddie heading toward the lake’s driving range.

Yes, his he-vage rode down too low and his pants rode up too high. And yes, he was smiling as he headed out to play golf. But I saw it … that fixed grin was just a little bit strained as he made his way to the driving range.

And apparently, Big Eddie was feeling a little off his game this fine morning for within the ball-filled mesh bag that he carried in his left hand, a glowing orange ball stuck out like a … well, like a glowing orange ball among a whole bunch of white ones.

Big Eddie needing some of his own magic spin on that ball, perhaps? Not so very confident in his own drives and slices? Little shaky these days?

Good.

Fan-freaking-tastic!

I wanted him rattled. Rattled men make mistakes. (Not to be confused with that other well-known maxim, men are rattlesnakes.)

~*~

I found myself checking things over as I approached Complex C where Dylan was working again today. You know, a pat to the hair, a tug to the shirt, stomach in chest out kind of thing. But no, I wasn’t primping. Well, not a lot. And certainly not for Roger Cassidy, who with a scowl and muttering a slew of four-letter words, met me in the doorway on his way out. Well, kind of met me in the doorway. More like on the step as he slammed the door closed behind him when he saw me aiming to enter.

I watched him storm off in a huff.

Dylan knew I was coming, but he wasn’t hanging around the entryway waiting for me, nor did I expect him to be. We were still undercover. For awhile yet, I was Dix Dodd, erotica queen of the north, (that in itself was telling — Almond knew my real persona, Almond was keeping it mum) and he was Dylan ‘heavy-on-the-har’ Hardy.

I met a few other grumpy people in the hallway. Grumpier, of course, when they saw me. Grumpier still when they saw my fuck-you smile. But that was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary in my line of work. I sloughed it off.

I knew I’d find Dylan in the supply room in the basement. I’d like to say that was a brilliant deduction on my part, but we’d prearranged the meeting spot.

Dylan was mixing paint when I arrived. Well he was kind of mixing paint. The can was definitely open. There was a wooden stir stick in it. There was a roller brush in the unspotted tray.

He dropped the ah-shucks, thick-as-bricks persona the moment he saw it was me rounding the corner. “You look different, Dix.”

Those first four words threw me back a bit. What had he noticed? A glow to my skin from the Florida sunshine? More lightness in my blond hair from the same? A lightness to my step? Roses in my cheeks? A sparkle in my eyes? A —

“Oh, it’s your shirt,” he said, nodding. “Your mother ironed for you.”

What can I say? The guy knew me.

There were two stools in the work room behind the long laminate-topped counter. I took a seat on one of them. Dylan sat down beside me. He half leaned, half pivoted as he reached for the two coffees on the shelf below.

Yes, he did know me. I’d jacked up on caffeine before I’d left Mother’s, of course, but this was a welcome bonus. I grabbed my cup from Dylan, and our knees touched as he swiveled a bit to touch his Styrofoam cup to mine in a salute.

And yes, this small knee-to-knee contact did send a little thrill shooting through me.

Okay, more than a little thrill. Compared to Almond … well, there was no comparison. And yeah, I swallowed down the wee bit of guilt I felt over the other night’s date/non-date thing.

What was it with Dylan Foreman? What was it with me?

Dylan didn’t move his knee away. I waited to see if he would, half wondering if I should edge away myself. But I didn’t and he didn’t, and the moment passed when either of us could have done so without awkwardness.

My mind drifted to the other night when Dylan and I had gotten more physical. Closer than just touching knees….

Did I say drifted? My mind shot back to that memory like it had been launched from a rocket.

Dylan taking the glass from my hand, hauling me down on the bed. His body so solid and exciting against mine. His mouth on my mouth, his hands on my body. Oh, God, his mouth on my….

“Still, thinking about Big Eddie, Dix?”

My sexually-charged, rocket-launching mind pulled a 180 and came crashing right down to earth.

“Er, yeah. Big Eddie. That’s right. He’s the one responsible for the thefts, Dylan. I know it.”

I did know it. All signs pointed to Eddie Baskins. More importantly, my intuition was screaming and pointing the bony finger of blame at him. But the way he acted when I accused him, how easily he accepted the search of his the premises…. Now, that baffled me. How could he be that cocksure that the jewels wouldn’t be found?

He couldn’t be. Unless they were no longer on the premises.

But Eddie said he’d not been off the grounds for weeks. Had no need to. No extra money to be spending these days. And it happened that no-one had left since Roger’s broach was stolen. But the small tool/charm Dylan found in the hallway, the opportunity, my clamoring intuition….

“So, who is his accomplice?”

Clearly Dylan had gone over this same ground in his own mind and reached the same conclusion I had.

“It has to be someone on the inside,” I said.

“Right.”

“Someone close to him, obviously. And someone who wouldn’t raise the suspicions of the residents.”

He nodded. “For sure.”

“Someone he trusts.”

“Someone he’d take off to Cuba with, you think?”

Huh? Where had that come from? “Maybe,” I said. “But really, Dylan, what does that have to do with….”

From his back pants pocket, Dylan hauled out a piece of paper. A photocopy. I quickly unfolded and read the document. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Dylan agreed. “Kind of puts a rush on the situation, huh?”

Rush wasn’t the word for it. We were way past rush — rush was yesterday. The page Dylan handed to me was a copy of a travel agency itinerary from Ridley Travel. Apparently, Eddie Baskin was heading to Cuba, via Cancun. Tomorrow evening. Flying first class.

“Where’d you get this?”

He smiled. “I found it when I was dusting Eddie’s apartment.”

“Dusting?”

“Yeah,” he said “My favorite. I got the pleasure of dusting Big Eddie’s place — I’m sure the first time in years. Anyway, Eddie left me alone there while he did some errands. And well, he had a ticket for Cuba that just needed a good dusting.”

“He left this out in plain sight.”

“Hell, no, but dust gathers on the inside of locked drawers. In envelopes marked ‘confidential’. Even the ones that need to be carefully steamed open.”

I smiled at my apprentice. I’d never been so proud.

“And while there is only one ticket here. The credit card receipt that I also, ah dusted off. Is for double the total on the ticket. Exactly. Big Eddie is flying first class. And he’s not flying alone.”

“Leaving with his accomplice?”

Dylan nodded. “That would be my guess.”

“Tomorrow….” I looked at the itinerary again. “That doesn’t leave us much time.”

“It’ll be enough.”

God, I hoped so. But there was still so much work to be done yet. We had to figure out who Eddie was working with, and fast. “So Big Eddie has a ticket,” I mused aloud, perusing the itinerary closer. “One way, first class.” I raised an eyebrow as I read further. “He must have been stealing these jewels for awhile. I mean, apart from the Dodd diamond, if he fenced everything, it wouldn’t fetch more than a few thousand dollars. Enough for a first class ticket, sure. But enough to skip town on?”

“I know. Makes you scratch your head, doesn’t it?”

I looked the pages over again. “This is good investigative work, Dylan. Fine work. Brilliant, in fact.”

“Just brilliant?” He cocked his head and smiled. “Come on, Dix, give me a six letter word for it. I know you want to. Starts with G.”

“Pfft.” Dylan and I were far too competitive for me to dub him the genius of our duo.

“Come on, Dix. You gotta admit it was sheer genius the way I came in here posing as Dylan Hardy. The way I snuck around, did all this damned grunt work just so I could get closer to the unsuspecting suspect.”

“Work?” I snorted a contemptuous laugh. “Why, look at this place. It’s a mess.” I ran a finger over the counter and held it up for inspection. “You call this clean? You call this dusted? Why I’ve seen cleaner counters in my—”

Dylan saw it the same time that I did — the little grains shiny on my fingertips.

“I call it sand,” he said.

While I’m no sand expert, this was just too coincidental. Fine sand at mother’s condo; fine white sand right here. And when I looked closer, there wasn’t just a dusting of it on the counter, there was a trail of it. Leading all the way to the cabinet in the corner.

Dylan and I stared at each other. Then did a double take back to the cabinet. It was padlocked.

“Got the combination?” I asked, not even trying to keep the please please please out of my voice.

Dylan frowned. Obviously the answer was no. Then that I’m-so-smart look crossed his handsome face. He grabbed a screwdriver and started working on the cabinet’s hinges.

“I would have thought of that,” I said.

I wouldn’t have thought of that. If I’d picked up a screwdriver, it would have been for leverage to pry the damned door off. Or a chisel and hammer to beat the lock off it. But leaving the cabinet and lock intact made so much more sense.

“Were you present when Almond’s team searched in here?” I asked him.

“I was in the room, but not over here. Had my ears open. No one noticed anything out of the ordinary. It’s just sand, after all.”

Sixty seconds later, the left side of the cabinet door was off. Among the expected stuff — the pile of girlie mags, the florescent paint (presumably for the magic golf balls), duct tape, more duct tape, six rolls of quarters and two rolls of dimes — there was something else. Filled half way with fine sand, was a child’s plastic beach bucket.

“Didn’t the bucket of sand strike anyone as off when they searched in here?”

“Apparently not. Of course, lots of places use sand in their outdoor ashtrays. Probably no one would have given it a second look.”

Not even Noel Almond?

Dylan stuck his hands in and began sifting through the sand.

“What the hell?” Dylan mused. We both felt it … the anticipation … like when you’re a kid and plowing through the Styrofoam popcorn to find the Christmas gift hidden inside the big box. “Nothing.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why keep sand under lock and key.”

I didn’t have the answer.

But I knew this was the question.

Oh, and then there was another question in the room. “What the hell are you two doing?” Big Eddie Baskin asked.

“Boss!” Dylan said, reverting to his security guy persona. He pulled his hands from the sand as if he’d been caught with them in the proverbial cookie jar and wiped them on his pants.

How much had Big Eddie Baskin heard?

“I didn’t expect you back so early, Boss,” Dylan said. “How’d you make out playing golf at the lake? Get a hole in one?”

Golf balls pinged and bounced on the floor like angry white punctuation marks as Big Eddie threw the bag down.

“What the fuck’s going on here?” He growled.

Dylan spoke quickly. “Miss Dodd here,” he gestured to me as if Eddie needed direction as to which Miss Dodd he was talking about, “bet me I couldn’t get into the cabinet.” He smiled widely. “Guess I showed her, huh?” He turned to me again. “Pay up, lady!”

I didn’t have my purse with me, but pulled a folded twenty from my pants pocket and put it in his hand. “Guess you were right, Dylan.” I looked to Big Eddie, smiling to piss him off all the more.

He was thinking things over. Wondering how much I knew … just what I’d figured out so far by my access to the cabinet. His eyes shifted from Dylan to me, and back to Dylan again. But he wasn’t jumping down Dylan’s throat, so apparently he believed him.

Dylan was still grinning like a fool. “Twenty bucks!” He turned to Big Eddie. “It was only supposed to be ten, but when she found out I didn’t know the combination, she doubled it! Guess I showed her,” he repeated, pocketing the money, still grinning.

The guy deserved an Oscar.

If I was reading Eddie’s glare correctly, it was me he wanted to tear to shreds.

He said. “You’ll find no jewels in there. Don’t you think you’d be better off hunting to see where your mother stashed the ring?”

“What’s the sand for, Eddie?” I asked.

“Building castles.”

“That ring meant the world to my mother.”

“Then she shouldn’t have lost it, Dodd.”

“I know you took it.”

“Prove it.”

“Oh, I will.”

He chewed on that a moment. Then he kicked me out — out of the maintenance room, out of Complex C. And I could hear the reaming out he was giving his poor, simple “security guard” even as I walked away from the building. But I wasn’t worried about Dylan. He could handle Big Eddie.

The sand. I clutched tightly the handful I had in my pocket. Sand is sand? Well, I’d seen enough CSI shows to know things aren’t always as they appeared.

I didn’t yet know who Eddie’s accomplice was, but I was getting closer to fingering him. I didn’t yet know what the sand was for.

But soon enough I would.