“Well, he kept at it after the police and sheriffs said there was no hope. No one else was giving me anything. And he showed me pictures. Awful pictures of grown men and little girls.”
“Was Amy Elizabeth in the pictures?” I asked.
“I couldn’t tell. A father sees his princess doing what they had those babies doing, you think he could make himself recognize her?”
“Did you see the pictures, Mrs. Metrano?”
“I wouldn’t let her,” George jumped in. “No mother should see that.”
“This girl, Pisces, was never used that way,” I said. Metrano took a deep, shuddery breath. Color began to return to his face.
“I ask again,” I said. “If this is Amy, where has she been?” Mike cleared his throat, and I looked over at him.
“Sorry,” I said. “Was I messing in your territory?”
“You’re doing just fine,” he said. “Nice of you to bring me along.”
“Now what?” I asked.
Mrs. Metrano sat upright. “We want to take our baby home. She’s never even had a memorial service.”
“I’m sorry,” Sharon Yamasaki said. “I can’t release her until we have investigated further. You understand our need for caution.”
“We’ve waited so long,” the mother sighed.
“You have to understand,” Mr. Metrano said, tears in his eyes as well. “We accepted a long time ago that our Amy might be dead. But until we know for sure, we can’t move on. If my wife feels in her heart that we have found Amy, then I believe her.”
“We haven’t eliminated any possibilities, sir,” Mike said. “But I caution you not to get your hopes up too high.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Metrano,” Yamasaki said gently, “why don’t you go on home now. I’ll call you personally if anything comes up.”
Mr. Metrano lifted his wife’s chin and tenderly kissed her. “She’s right, Leslie. The kids are waiting for us.”
She nodded and rose with him. They started for the door. “One more thing,” Mike said. The Metranos stopped and turned to face him.
“Who called you?” Mike asked.
“Someone from the coroner’s,” Mr. Metrano said.
“I’m certain you are mistaken,” Yamasaki said. “Our office called no one.”
“That’s what he said,” Metrano insisted. “A man called about three o’clock and said he was from the county coroner’s office. He said we should come and identify our daughter. We used to get a call like that every week or so in the beginning. But it’s been a long time.”
Mike made a note in his case book. “He actually said, ‘Come and identify your daughter’?”
“Yes. That was different, come to think of it. They used to drive over with a snapshot and say, ‘Do you know her?’ or ‘Can you identify her?’ Now and then they would have us drive all the way up here, just to make sure. They’re real careful about what they say.”
“You drove up here from where?” Mike asked.
“Where we live. Down in Long Beach.”
CHAPTER 6
Long Beach. If I had ever given Long Beach a thought, and I cannot imagine why I ever would, I would have assumed that the city was to Los Angeles what the flats of Oakland are to San Francisco. That is, a backyard in which to stash some less than-lovely utilities: harbor, shipyards, downscale housing. I was right. And I was very wrong.
After some telephone tag, Mike had managed to locate the owner of Rainbows Jewelry. It was late, nearly ten o’clock, but the man had agreed to meet us. He gave Mike directions to his shop in the Belmont Shore section of Long Beach.
All the way down from L.A., Mike told me cop war stories. They were good stories, well told; he kept me laughing. I knew what he was doing, though. Sometimes when he has something on his mind that might be difficult for him to say, he busies the air talking about other people until he feels ready to get to the real stuff. I was in no hurry to hear what was on his mind.
Until the night before, I hadn’t seen Mike, or spoken to him, for six months. I needed some time to get over the initial physical hum of being with him again before we got into “So, now what?”
We exited the freeway and drove along a dazzling oceanfront city skyline of post-modern high rises, posh hotels, a new concert center, and a vast yacht harbor. Downtown ended in a strip of million-dollar mansions with a million-dollar view across the water toward Catalina Island.
Belmont Shore was a few miles farther down the beach, a quaint neighborhood and shopping area surrounded on three sides by water. Something like a flat version of Sausalito.
Second Street, the main thoroughfare, was jammed with Saturday-nighters. The crowd assorted itself into thickets: around the Keg and Panama Joe’s, rowdy youth in need of gutters to barf in or dark nooks for some postgrad Anatomy 1A spilled into traffic; toward the east a more sedate, upscale parade convened around Cafe Gazelle and Belmonte, and strolled in and out of trendy boutiques.
We found the jewelry store easily enough, but a place to park posed a challenge. After ten minutes of cruising, circling around through alleys and trying again, Mike spotted a Porsche about to leave a choice space in front of the sports bar across the street from our goal. He got into position and, with the skill born from years of city living, wedged the big Ford into the tight space. I was impressed.
Rainbows was closed for the day, but as we crossed the street, we could see a light inside and the owner watching for us behind the window. Mike showed his ID through the glass, and the man unlocked the door to let us in. And bolted it again after us.
“I’m Dennis,” the man said, switching on more lights. “I was afraid my directions had led you astray.”
“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.”