“That’s our job,” Rainer objected. “Dammit, you gotta stop this. I thought that was the whole point of this meeting. You let us do our job, and you do yours.”
“This is my job. I’m working for the Hilliards. They’re entitled to know the value of this item they’ve voluntarily surrendered to police and entitled to know if their son came by it legally. If he didn’t steal it, they should get it back when this is all over. I’m taking a photograph so I can take it around to some local appraisers and history types, see if they’ve even heard of such an item.”
“Is that all you’re doing?”
“For now. The Hilliards would like me to prove Bobby isn’t the person who attacked Shawn Hayes, Jim Yeager’s nattering to the contrary.”
“What, they think they’re going to cash in on some big lawsuit?”
“Bobby’s dead,” Tyner said. “And therefore can’t be libeled under the law. Yeager’s death doesn’t make him an ideal defendant, anyway, although I suppose one could pursue a claim against his estate. But, no, the Hilliards aren’t trying to cash in on their son’s death. They want to know the truth, even if it’s ugly.”
“Speaking of ugly”-Rainer’s smile was malicious, an effect heightened by the poppy seeds caught in his teeth-“you haven’t asked me about our eyewitness, the one who saw Yeager killed.”
Tess centered the bracelet in the frame, checked the view on the back of the camera, clicked the shutter. “You said they had a date. I guess I assumed it was someone from the local escort service, the little wifey in Washington notwithstanding.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’d get that kind of date with this gal. They say it’s a small world, but what are the odds that the person who saw Yeager killed happened to be one of the last people he ever interviewed?”
“You mean-”
Rainer nodded, enjoying her consternation. “Cecilia Cesnik was waiting for Yeager on the corner. And don’t think the cops assigned to the case won’t be looking hard at that happy coincidence.”
“But I got a phone call-”
“Yeah, you got a phone call. People get them every day. And for all we know, you were set up to get that phone call so we wouldn’t look at all the possibilities. But not to worry. Your buddy Tull is the secondary on Yeager, so I’m sure you’ll get all the scoop you need.”
“You don’t think Cecilia-”
“I don’t gotta think. It’s not my case, and I want it to stay that way. Jim Yeager was on the television, screaming about how Bobby Hilliard’s killer was a hero, that we should pin a medal on him, so why would that guy want to kill him? The way I see it, there’s no end of people who wanted to shut Yeager up. Start with the guest list from that night’s show. Or maybe Jim Yeager was assassinated by the fairy patrol, the Gay-Antidefamation League. Hey, that spells GAL.”
He laughed at what he mistook as wit, while Tess and Tyner shared a covert glance of dismay. It wasn’t just the horrible phrase Rainer had used, it was the way something brightened in his face, the joy he found in the slur.
“So,” Tess said, putting away her camera, “take care of these things, okay? Especially the bracelet.”
“We always do.”
“Really? Then how did Yeager end up with Bobby Hilliard’s datebook?”
“He didn’t. He asked me if he could see it, and I said no. He asked me what it looked like, so I told him. Plain black datebook, the kind you can get in any stationery store. He bought one to hold up on TV, but it was just a prop. We got the real thing, and believe me there’s nothing in it but his shift schedule. No clues. He made that up.”
“Sleazy bastard,” Tess said.
“Yeah, but if you start executing journalists because they got no ethics, it’s gonna be hard to put out the local paper.”
What could Tess say? She agreed.
Chapter 23
The silver-haired man who was behind the counter at Gummere Brothers, one of downtown Baltimore ’s few remaining jewelry stores, shook his head at the photos Tess showed him the next morning.
“I couldn’t possibly date an item from a photograph, much less speak to its historic authenticity,” he said. “What kind of stones did you say?”
“Emeralds to my untrained eye, but they could be pieces of a Rolling Rock bottle for all I know. Can’t you tell me anything? Is it plausible, at least, that this could have belonged to a rich woman from the early nineteenth century?”
“Well, I suppose it could be part of a parure,” he said, squinting again at Tess’s photograph. He had large pale-blue eyes, rounder than most, and it was easy to imagine they had gradually been reshaped over the years by the jeweler’s loupe he wore on a velvet cord around his neck. “I mean, it would make sense that Betsy Patterson Bonaparte would have been presented with one. But I’m speaking strictly hypothetically”
“What’s a parure?”
“It’s a set of matching jewels, something only someone of the highest station would have had,” he said. “Probably a tiara, choker, necklace, and usually two bracelets.”
“And such a thing would be valuable?”
“Very, depending on condition, of course, and whether it could be authenticated. I never heard that Betsy Patterson Bonaparte had a parure, but then again, I never heard she didn’t have one. Some descendant may have had financial reverses and sold it to make ends meet. It happens in the best of families.”
“It’s funny, I don’t think of Patterson as being one of the classier names in Baltimore, not like Carroll or Calvert,” Tess said. “After all, Patterson Park is where chicken hawks prowl for young boys, and Patterson Park High School has always been one of the more troubled campuses in the city. Funny how things change. But I guess it’s back to the Pratt and more reading.”
“There are worse ways to spend the last day of January,” the Gummere brother observed.
“Usually I’d agree with you, but I’m restless today. I feel the need to keep moving.” Tess did not permit herself to dwell on how this need for motion might be related to the feeling that lingering anywhere, for any reason, made her vulnerable to an enemy she had yet to meet. “Besides, there’s a snowstorm in the forecast and a lot of the city agencies are shutting down early and letting employees take liberal leave. The library’s probably closed by now.”
“Well, if it’s a shortcut you want, you could probably get a crash course on Patterson-or just about any other woman from Maryland’s history-at the Mu-sheum.”
“Mu-what?”
“It’s a museum set up to honor Maryland women, open by appointment only. The lady who runs it is good on the domestic details of women’s lives. Not just jewelry but how they set their tables and the kinds of wall coverings and window treatments used at various times.”
Tess remained skeptical. She was well schooled in Baltimore oddities; if one had eluded her this long, it couldn’t possibly be of interest. “You’re not sending me on a wild-goose chase, are you?”
He pressed a buzzer beneath the counter, granting admittance to another customer, a prosperous-looking gentleman who seemed impatient, as prosperous-looking gentlemen so often do. Time is money, and this man had broadened the concept: He seemed to think Tess’s time was his money as well. Tess had never actually seen someone in a monocle before.
“I can’t say whether it will be a wild-goose chase, because I don’t know what you hope to find out,” the jeweler said, as he turned his attentions to this more promising customer, who kept clearing and reclearing his throat, like a PA system dispensing static before an important announcement. “But I can promise it won’t be an experience you’ll soon forget.”
The personal obsession masquerading as a museum is something of a Maryland tradition. The University of Maryland had a dental museum that had proved to be one of the Beacon-Light’s perennial slow-day feature stories, as had the private home devoted to the history of the lightbulb. The Dime Museum, a salute to the nineteenth century’s oddities, was the most recent. There was even a museum dedicated to the history of feminine hygiene, down in Prince Georges County.