Jewels in the Juniper - Dale Mayer Page 0,52

to contact other jewelers, gem setters, and jewelry makers to let them know when things are stolen. Because, once they’re stolen, then they can become a whole different item. And, of course, they should be returned to the police.”

“Interesting,” Doreen said. “I don’t suppose you have any of those old alerts, do you?”

“Maybe,” he said, his tone curious. “But they’re yours legally, aren’t they?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Do you have proof?”

“I’d like to see your alerts first,” she said.

“Give me your email, and I’ll send them to you. I really am interested in buying them.”

“You can get jewels anywhere, so why do you care so much about these?”

“I’d like the emerald in particular. I figured I’d have to buy the whole lot to get it.”

“Why that one?”

“Because according to the person who told me about it, it looks to be a match to one I have that I bought for my wife a long time ago. We ordered the second one, but it never came in.”

“Who did you order it from?” she asked calmly, but she waited with bated breath.

“Johnson and Abelman,” he said.

“That must have been a long time ago.”

“Yep,” he said. “We’ve been married a lot of years, and I’ve always wanted to get it for her.”

“You’ve been hanging on to the first emerald this whole time?”

“Yes,” he said. “This was supposed to be a match for hers.”

“Does she care now?”

“She cares,” he said. “She cares a lot.”

“Send me the alerts, and let me take a look.”

“Sure,” he said. “Remember. If it’s one of those, then by rights the police have to be informed.”

“Don’t worry about the police,” she said. “It’s already been cleared.”

“Interesting,” he murmured. “Like I said, I still want it.”

“I hear you,” she said, “and I want those alerts.”

“I just sent them to you. Call me.” Then he hung up.

Chapter 18

Monday Early Afternoon …

As soon as Doreen walked into her house, she sat down before her laptop. Overly full, and definitely not needing anything else to spike her energy, like coffee, she brought up her email. Sure enough, she had a new message. As she opened the file, she found a scanned copy of a page from a long time ago. Somebody must have kept them. This was an alert about the Johnson and Abelman Jewelers robbery and quite a few jewels that had gone missing. There was a brief description of the types of jewels and an ugly blurred image on the top of the page. Of which could describe what she’d found—or rather some of it could match up.

There was no follow-up on it, but then it was possible Zachary wasn’t sending everything to her. Maybe some of these alerts were sent from the jewelry company itself? Hoping to nudge someone into handing over the gems? As she looked at the page, she noted it came from Hobart’s Insurance Company. So, if the boxes coming from Mangus had something similar in its files, there could be one saying some of the jewels had been found.

She printed this one off and, at the same time, forwarded the email to Mack. Her phone rang right away.

“This is interesting,” Mack said.

“Why would the police have returned the jewels to your mother if they matched those in the theft? And, no, I don’t know that they did, but the image I forwarded to you got me thinking.”

“The most important reason would be they couldn’t prove the jewels came from that theft,” he said. “I’m still looking for the case file on that.”

“Yeah,” Doreen said, a note of suspicion in her voice. “This is getting a little hinky.”

“Don’t start making assumptions,” Mack warned. “Remember. We do better than that.”

“You do,” she said, “but I’m still stuck wondering about the hows and the whys.”

“Interesting that he contacted you.”

“The appraiser, Jeremy, called Zachary,” she said. “Jeremy’s the one who picked up the big emerald and checked it over.” As she was talking to Mack, more emails came in from Zachary. “Hang on,” she said. “He’s sending me more stuff. And, indeed, one is a scanned copy of a handwritten order for the emeralds. Then a follow-up note from the jewelry store, showing the delivery of the first one and the second one on order. I’m forwarding these to you,” she said in excitement. “It backs up Zachary’s story.”

“And yet,” Mack said, “why and how did they end up at my parents’ place?”

“I’m pretty sure, based on what Mangus assumes,” and she put careful emphasis on that word, “that Aretha’s first husband was