2 Big Apple Hunter (16 page)

“You’re the woman from New York,” I spouted. My eyes widened, and I raised my voice slightly. “You’re the woman who knocked me down.” My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “You stole my jewelry!”

“Oh pipe down,
” the woman barked
. She reached into her purse and pulled out a small revolver. “We’re done messin’ around. Where’s the necklace?”

I was suddenly terrified. I couldn’t have cried out to get Angela’s attention even if I wanted to. “What necklace?” I managed to eke out.

Mrs. Ross leaned across the desk to
ward
me, and said, “The jade. You were wearing it at
the theater, so don’t deny
you have it. I want it back … now.”

I was near tears. This was not a nice woman. “Honestly, I don’t have it,” I sputtered. “I did have it, but I don’t have it now. I sent it to someone as a gift.” Mrs. Ross leaned in closer and aimed the gun directly at me. I couldn’t stop the few tears that slipped out of the corners of my eyes. “It’s the truth. I swear. I had the concierge at the St. Regis mail it for me.”

She gave me a cold stare as if to discern the truthfulness of my words. “Get it back,” she s
napped
. “Do whatever you have to do to get it back. Someone will call you and tell you where to take it.” With that
,
Mrs. Ross put her revolver back in her purse, stood up, opened the door, and walked out of the center.

I stood up and walked over to shut
the office
door. I grabbed a Kleenex and held it to my eyes while I quietly cried. I’d been scared before, but I
never knew the kind of fear
facing a gun barrel could bring. I desperately tried to gain control of my emotions. I couldn’t let Angela and Grace see me crying. They would want to know what was wrong, and I had to keep them out of this.

After a few more minutes of crying, I blew my nose. I had regained some of my compos
ure and forced myself to
think rationally about what had just happened. My parents wouldn’t be home from San Antonio until late tomorrow afternoon. I would call Mom and have her send the necklace right back to me. I could give the necklace to Mrs. Ross, or whoever she was, and
this nightmare would be over. Everything would be
fine if I simply did what she said.

By 3:00 in the afternoon, I couldn’t stay in the center any longer. I couldn’t concentrate on work, and I felt like I was suffocating in the confines of my office. Angela and Grace had everything under control and had already signed four of the seven afternoon appointments to free 10-pound programs. With everything comfortably covered, I left the center, and headed for home.

Almost there, I changed my mind and decided to make a quick stop at Martin’s Deli. It had been a week since I’d been in the store, and I needed to pick up a few staples – like corned beef, Swiss cheese and rye bread. I quickly made a U-turn to go back to the last intersection. Five seconds later, police lights were behind me. Crap! I absolutely couldn’t afford any more points on my license. What was a U-turn going to cost me?

My license and registration in hand, I waited for the officer to approach my window. “Susan Hunter, what’s with the U-turn?” a familiar voice asked. I was surprised to see Larry’s cousin, Dick, at my window.

I
gave him a smile
and said, “A U-turn is a perfectly legal turn. I learned it in driver’s ed.”

Dick laughed at my creativity. “Not when you’re making it across a double yellow line,” he countered.

Oops. Busted.

He continued, “The U-turn isn’t why I stopped you, Susan. I saw the car and wanted to get a message to you.”

I couldn’t imagine what he wanted unless it had something to do with the guys running around naked at Larry and Samantha’s. “Ok. What’s up?” I asked him. “And why are you patrolling?”

“Cutbacks,” he said with a disgusted look
on his face
. “I’ll still work the desk at the station, but a few days each week I’ll do some patrolling, too.” He gave me a more serious look and said, “Detective Bentley wants you to come in and talk
with
him sometime this week.”

“Why? What does he want to see me for?” Detective Bentley had movie star good looks and was either a comedian or a smart-aleck. My money was on smart aleck. I had talked with him about a situation involving Mick’s divorce about four months ago, and I really didn’t want to see him again.

“I don’t know,” said Dick. “It was something about New York. He just said if I saw you around town, I should ask you to come see him; otherwise, he’d look you up later in the week.”

Double crap! This was turning out to be an even worse day. Now I just wanted to go home. I didn’t have the desire anymore to go to the deli. “Thanks, Dick,” I told him. “Tell the detective I’ll stop by in a couple of days.”

I pulled away from the curb, looked in both directions, and made a U-turn to head for home. I
glanced
in my rearview mirror and saw Dick standing by his patrol car with his head hanging down, and he was shaking it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My apartment was dark. Someone was knocking at my door.

I hadn’t turned on any lights wh
en
I came
home from work. I
kicked off my shoes, lie down on the sofa, and covered up with the afghan my grandmother had given to me. It only took a few minutes to fall into a restless sleep.

Looki
ng at my watch, I could see
it was
now
7:30. I had been asleep for over three hours. My head was pounding, and it was an effort to sit up. There was another knock at the door followed by a voice calling softly, “Susan. Susan.” It was Darby.

I somewhat staggered to the door and opened it. I didn’t say a word. I padded back t
o the sofa, sat down, and leaned over
on
to
the oversized armrest. I pulled my feet up and dragged the afghan over myself again.

Darby walked to the kitchen and turned on the d
im light over the stove so
we wouldn’t be in total darkness. He came into the living room and sat down beside me.

“Susan, are you ok? Are
you sick?” he asked with
concern.

“I’m
not sick, but I’m not ok either,
”
I said.
I didn’t offer any other information to him.

“Susan, something terrible has happened
,” he said
.
“
Armand called ear
lier today. Do you remember
I told you Bernardo never showed up for our meetings yesterday, and Armand didn’t know where he was?” I nodded. “They know now. He was murdered. Gunshot to the back of the head. They found him floating in the Passaic River in New Jersey.”

I burst into tears.

Darby moved closer beside me to pull me upright and put his arms around me. “Susan, what’s wrong? I know this is upsetting
, but you didn’t know the man. Y
ou didn’t even like him.”

I was crying hard, but managed to get the words out, “The woman who ran me down in Saks and stole my jewelry showed up at Slimmers today. Darby, she was vile, and she pointed a gun at me!”

“What?!” He looked shocked and pulled me closer to him. “What did she want? What did you do?”

I made Darby wait until I could fight the tears back and speak coherently. “She wants the necklace. She has two of them, but s
he wants the jade necklace
I sent to Mom.”

“Does she kno
w your mom has it?” he asked,
horrified at the thought.

“No
,” I said with a sniffle
.
“I
told her
I’d
mailed it off as a gift, and she pointed the gun at me and told me to get it back. Dar
by, I don’t know that I’ve ever been so scared like that
in my life.”

“Susan, you have to get it back,” he said earnestly. He looked frightened. “As soon as you do, you have to give it to Detective Bentley.”

“Why? Why is he involved in this?” I asked. “Dick stopped me on my way home
this afternoon and told me
Detective Bentley wants to talk
with
me sometime this week.”

“He does
,” he said
.
“
I’ve been down at the station all afternoon. Bentley won’t give me any information, but I found out a lot from Armand when he called me about an hour ago.” Darby looked at me and then
glanced
around the apartment. “Wait a minute, Susan. Let’s get some light on in here.”

He
stood
up
and
t
urned on the living room lamps.
“Sh
ould
I make some hot tea? Or do you want something stronger?”

“Hot tea sounds good,” I told him. I repositioned myself to sit cross-legged on the sofa with the afghan around my shoulders.

He put
a
kettle of water on and set tea bags and mugs on the counter. Darby was at home in my kitchen and knew where everything was. I
felt
comforted having him here. Five minutes later
,
we were facing each other on the sofa with our tea.

Darby spoke first. “Armand told me that not only have the police been in the store to inform him about Bernardo’s death, but the F.B.I. has been there, too. Bernardo was involved with jewel thieves from Singapore, a
nd unbeknownst to Armand, he’d
been fencing pieces through the store. The F.B.I. has taken all of the store’s records, but they’re also
looking for other records
they believe Bernardo had in his possession. It would be something with inventory records of stolen items, shipment information, and pickup schedules. They’re looking for the U.S. contacts
who
took the items and information to Bernardo.”

I loo
ked at him with eyes wide. “
Indiana Jones and Mrs. Ross, the lady today with the gun.”

Darby nodded his head and said, “That would make sense. If they can find them, they believe they can find the information to the bigger ring of jewel thieves. Armand is obviously an emotional wreck over all of this, but he truly seems to not know anything about it. I believe him. He thought the man and woman were simply suppliers of merchandise. He’s cooperating with the F.B.I.”

I looked up
from my mug of tea and asked, “Why did Detective Bentley want to see you?”

“Susan, I’m sorry to tell you this
,” he said
,
“
but we were two of the last people to see Bernardo alive. Because we saw him over the weekend, the F.B.I. wants to talk to both of us. Detective Bentley is gathering preliminary information until they get down here from New York. I didn’t have much information for him because I didn’t see Bernardo very much, but you saw him and his men. I know he’ll want descriptions and anything else you can remember to tell him.”

“Unfortunately, I not only saw them, I heard them,” I said. I leaned my head against the sofa and closed my eyes trying to remember. “Wha
t were the words I told you
I heard?
Singapore
for one. That’s obviously where the stolen goods are coming from.
Shipment
– they must have been talking about a specific shipment, but unless they were referring to t
he box of jewelry the clerk
started to put out in the store, I don’t know what that would mean.
Bitch
– I can only assume they were talking about me running off with their necklaces.
River
– Oh, Darby, this is bad. I bet I overhead t
he man threatening Bernardo
if he didn’t get the necklace back, he’d wind up dead in the river. Do you think?” My eyes opened wide, and my mouth hung open for a second. “And then I showed up wearing it! The man who threatened him was the man who was staring at
my chest. It’s obvious now
he was staring at the necklace. He was probably shocked to see it on me. When he went to move toward me, Bernardo put his ha
nd up and stopped him and said ‘
I
ntermission
.’
If I hadn’t slipped out when I did, I don’t know what they would have done to me.”
The thought caused a shudder to run down my spine
.

“You said you heard somethi
ng else, something about Armand,
” Darby prompted me.

“Yes. I very clearly heard Bernardo say,
‘
Armand doesn’t know
,’” I told him. “
That should be important to the F.B.I., don’t you think?”

Darby nodded and finished his tea. “When will you go down to see Detective Bentley?”

“I want to talk
with
my mom first. My parents won’t be home from visiting
friends
in San Antonio until late tomorrow afternoon Texas time. I’ll call and have her send the necklace back to me right away. After I talk
with
her, I’ll
see
Detective Bentley and ask him what he wants me to do.”