Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

“Directions were fine,” Mike said. “Nice of you to come out so late.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled. “You saved me from a rather dull dinner party. It took some persuading to keep them all from tagging along. They made me promise to come back for dessert and give a full report.”

I liked him right away. He was tall and slim, soft-spoken, very intellectual-looking but with a flash of humor in his eyes. The jewelry cases he leaned against were empty for the night.

Mounted on the walls there were enlarged photographs showing wonderfully imaginative pieces, unusual combinations of gemstones and precious metals.

“Is that your work?” I asked.

“Most of it is,” he acknowledged with the quiet pride of a person who knows he is very good at what he does. “How can I help you?”

Mike brought out the opal ring that had been found on Pisces’ body. “Do you recognize this?”

Dennis nodded as he took the ring. “It’s my design. A nice piece for a young person. We made it up in several ways, various stones, different finishes on the metal. I had to rework the prongs to set an opal in it, cast them up higher to protect the stone. Opals are relatively fragile. They can shatter.”

“Do you know who bought the ring?” Mike asked.

“I can’t look it up.”

We followed him into his office at the back of the store. Sketches and jeweler’s tools littered the desk. He pushed aside a box of purple wax sticks and turned on a computer. When he punched in a code name from memory, a short list scrolled on the screen.

“We sold four of this design with opals. I have the names and addresses of three of them.” He looked up at Mike over his wire-rim glasses. “If a customer pays with cash and declines to give a name or address, I don’t push it.”

“I understand,” Mike said, with a just-us-guys grin on his face. “The ring is engraved to Hillary.”

“That helps,” Dennis said.

He opened a drawer of file cards and thumbed through them. Then he wrote a single name and address on a notepad, tore it off, and handed it to Mike.

“For Valentine’s Day this year, Randall Ramsdale bought two rings from me: an opal for his daughter, engraved ‘Hillary’ with a heart, and a two-carat, emerald-cut diamond engraved `Randy Forever.’ He paid with his American Express card.”

“Do you know Randall Ramsdale?” Mike asked.

“Not well. He’s something of a neighborhood character. More money than brains.” He tapped the card and smiled. “But obviously fine taste. I haven’t seen him around for a while. Maybe a couple of months. He was supposed to have gone off to Europe with a waitress from the bar across the street. Something must have happened, though, because she was in here shortly after he bought the ring, trying to sell it back to me.”

“You wouldn’t know her name, would you?” Mike asked. “Oh, sure. Lacy. I see her all the time. She still works over there.”

I asked, “Was the diamond an engagement ring?”

“Maybe a premature one. Randy already has a wife.”

“What about Hillary?” I asked. “What can you tell us about her?”

He frowned as he thought about it. “To be honest, I can’t answer that with any certainty. The Shore is a fairly close-knit community. A lot of kids hang out on Second Street. I don’t have the sort of store they cruise through, but after a while you come to recognize faces. You see the same ones in the ice cream stores, or looking around in The Gap, renting tapes at the Wherehouse. I might recognize Hillary Ramsdale as a familiar face, but I’m sure I couldn’t point out a girl on the street and say that’s her, that’s Hillary.”

Mike took out the Polaroid of Pisces that had been made in the morgue. I stayed his hand before he could turn it over. It didn’t seem right to me that this nice man should be exposed to her dead face. Not that the picture was especially grim: she had been hosed down, and her hair combed back from her face. The slash across her neck looked like no more than a thin black cord. I guess I thought that showing her face in death was an invasion of both her privacy and his peace.

“I can make a better still from the videotape,” I said. “Can’t it wait?”

Mike looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

I said, “Lyle sent the tape. It should be delivered first thing tomorrow. As soon as it comes, I’ll take it over to Guido’s and get some nice full-face prints made.”

“I don’t get you, Maggie,” Mike said. “We’re here now.”

“Please,” I said, looking up into his eyes. That was taking cruel advantage. Every time I looked up into Mike’s eyes his jaw sort of went slack and his cheeks took on a glow.

“I don’t mind taking a look,” Dennis said. In fact, he seemed eager. I backed off and Mike showed him the picture.

Dennis studied the pale, scrubbed face, then shook his head. “Sorry. Maybe with her hair done…”

“We’ll bring you a better picture later,” Mike said, sounding a bit grumpy. And sarcastic. “A nice still made before she got all mussed.”

I patted his arm.

“What about Mrs. Ramsdale?” I asked Dennis. “Hillary’s mother, that is.”

Dennis shook his head. “Again, I’ve seen her around. The Ramsdales are part of the yacht-club set. You might ask over there.”

“Do you know the Metrano family?” Mike asked.

He thought that one over, too.

“Amy Elizabeth Metrano,” I said.

“Ahh.” He nodded. “I haven’t heard that name for a long time. And the answer to your question is no. That I would have remembered.”

“Thanks for your help.” Mike extended his hand to the jeweler. “We may be back.”

“Anytime.” Dennis smiled at me. “Next time, come during business hours so I can show you my work. I’m especially proud of my rings.”

“Bye,” I said. I wouldn’t even look at Mike. I have a good nose for danger zones, and we were fast approaching one. Things had been going so well between us. Why mess it up with the old argument? I walked straight to the door and waited for it to be unlocked.

When we were back outside, Mike caught my arm and turned me to face him. “He mentions rings, you get all panicked. You have a phobia maybe? Ringaphobia? How about bellsaphobia?”

“How about shut up?” I said.

“I like this.” He grinned. “It’s like finding a new tickle spot.”

I glared at him. “Are we going to try to talk to this Lacy person now?”

“Yeah. You going to let me show her the picture?”

“Of course. I’m sorry about that, Mike. What can I say?”

“Forget it.”

We elbowed through the crowd on the sidewalk around the sports bar and made our way inside. The bar was dark, noisy, and full of cigarette smoke. A baseball-game replay ran on several large screens, but no one seemed to be paying much attention to it. The clientele was a mix of singles on the make, heavy-duty drinkers, casually dressed couples out for the evening.

“Need a bullhorn to talk to anyone in here,” Mike yelled in my direction. He signaled to a passing waitress, a young, buff blond dressed like a basketball referee.

“What can I get you?” she asked. She had to shout.

Mike showed her his police ID. “Is Lacy working tonight?”

“No, sorry. She called in sick.”

“Know where I can find her?”

“The boss does. Is she in trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

Mike pulled out the morgue Polaroid and handed it to her. She held it up to the light reflecting from the closest TV screen and looked at.

She looked up at Mike. “It’s Hilly. Is she back? My God, she looks sick.”

“Back from where?” he asked.

“Somewhere in Europe, I think. Ask Lacy.”

Mike put the picture back into his pocket. “Hilly is Hillary Ramsdale?”