It was well past dinner by the time they arrived at the mall. Morrison had wanted to come over immediately but Petrosky had resisted—he didn’t want that prick Beckwith to be right. He’d relented after three more jewelry stores had yielded jack shit.
They entered through the glass doors, the solid white linoleum echoing under their feet as they approached the building map. Across the way, music blared from some teenybopper store with mannequins wearing torn, but new, jeans.
Petrosky jerked his head at the dummies. “That’s fashion now, California?”
“It is.”
“I should sell my old work jeans. I’ll make a fucking fortune.”
Morrison found the dot for Forever Memories on the store directory, and they took the escalators to the second floor, skirting gaggles of teenagers punching buttons on their phones. “Look, California, it’s your people!”
Morrison glanced at them, then back at Petrosky. “Nah, I like to look at you when you talk.”
“Watch it, California. I’m not your type,” Petrosky grumbled.
Forever Memories boasted T-shirts and novelty key rings out front. In back, it was set up like a jewelry store, with cases of necklaces, silver tongue rings, and belly rings running the length of the back wall. In the middle of the floor in front of the cases were multi-tiered stands adorned with silver picture frames, silver flasks, and cheap pocket watches just waiting for someone to come along and grind initials into them. Half of them already bore sappy romantic bullshit like “Always” or “I Love You” or lame example initials like anyone would forget which tool had brought a pocket watch to a party.
A sales clerk approached—bottle-blond hair and a nose ring—wearing those new, but torn, jeans and a new, but faded, tank top. Looked like Petrosky could sell his worn-out undershirts too.
“Can I help you?” A metal tongue stud glinted in her mouth like she was chewing on a bullet.
Petrosky flashed his badge. “We need to see the manager.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Um … kay. Hang on.” She headed for the back of the store, where a door proclaimed Employees Only in red block letters.
Morrison elbowed Petrosky in the ribs. “I think you scared her.”
“She’ll live.” Unlike Walsh or Julie or—
The door opened again, and a lanky man emerged; not much older than the girl, but with far less metal attached to his face. He pushed huge green-rimmed glasses up a beak-like nose, brown eyes darting from Morrison to Petrosky as if unsure who to address.
Petrosky cleared his throat and the guy turned his way.
“How can I help you, sir?”
“Your name?” Petrosky said.
“Um, it’s Gerald.”
“Last name?”
“Last name?”
His head throbbed. “Yeah, genius, pretend your parents weren’t the only ones on the planet to use the name ‘Gerald.’”
“Oh, um, Kent. Gerald Kent.”
Gerald Kent. Pretentious but not near as pompous as Reginald Beckwith III. “All right there, Mr. Kent, we’re looking for a man who purchased some jewelry items to be engraved a couple years back. This guy.”
Morrison showed him the sketch.
Kent examined the image, wrinkling his nose, then finally shook his head. “Doesn’t look familiar, but we get tons of people in here and two years ago … I mean … that’s a long time.”
“Do you guys sell silver heart pendants?”
Kent nodded far too vigorously—like a nervous Chihuahua. “Lots. This way.”
They followed him to the right back corner of the store, where he opened a glass case and produced two boards that looked like they were made of black plastic or shiny card stock. Four hearts of various sizes, all on chains, lay along the middle of one board. On the other, smaller hearts were attached to bracelets. All were silver. Any could have been the one Ms. Nace described.
“These are our best sellers, but we have a catalogue in the back where people can order specific things from the warehouse for engraving.”
Petrosky squinted at the pendants. “How often do you change the types of hearts you carry?”
“Not often.” He pointed to the ones on the left. “We’ve had these since I started here three years ago.”
“You keep records of purchases?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll need to see those. We’re looking for a specific engraving—the number one, either alone or with the pound sign in front of it.”
Kent cocked his head and his glasses slid again. “The pound sign?”
“Hashtag,” Morrison said.
Kent’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that. Yeah, we can look at the computer.” He scampered ahead of them to the other corner of the store where a register was set up next to a flat screen.
“Hashtag?” Petrosky whispered.
Morrison shrugged with one shoulder.
“We need to have a serious talk, Surfer Boy.”
Kent typed frantically on the keyboard, shoulders hunched like it was his dream to be the next Quasimodo. “All right, it looks like I have seven necklaces with that particular inscription. All purchased within the last”—he scrolled, clicked a few keys—“two years or so.”
Jackpot. But … seven. Dear god. He glanced over at Morrison. The kid’s jaw was tight, his pen frozen over the notepad.
Petrosky’s heart raced. “Were they paid for with a credit card?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell.”
His arm tingled, throbbed. “We’ll need to meet with the employees who sold the merchandise.”
Kent shook his head so fast Petrosky thought it might fall off. “Can’t tell who did it. Here’s what I got.” He turned the screen toward them, pointing to the left column. “Here’s the date on the far left. Then this column here is the code for the actual piece itself, the next is the cost, and the last is the engraving.”
Petrosky squinted at the tiny type. “So you keep track of the item and the engraving itself but nothing on the people who purchased it?”
“It’s a marketing thing, looking for patterns.” Kent swiveled the monitor back to its original position. “We stock a bunch of pieces already engraved. Some people are really impatient, just want to grab something that says “I love you” or “With all my heart” or whatever, instead of waiting to get it personalized. If we know what people are engraving, we can tell what others might want and put it out there.”
Fucking romantic. What woman wouldn’t want a piece of shit jewelry with some stranger’s words scrawled on the front? “We’ll need to speak to all the employees who were here during the time of those purchases.”
Kent winced. “Well, there’s a pretty high turnover. It’ll be almost impossible to—”
“We’ll need the sales records too. All the necklaces and charms. A place like this has to have a way to track purchases of their jewelry, even if it isn’t in your nifty little chart.”
“But—”
Petrosky whipped out a card and planted it on the glass case next to Kent. The keyboard chattered as Kent jumped.
“Lives may depend on your cooperation, Gerald. This needs to happen today.”
“I—I’ll call corporate in the morning. As soon as they open.”
“You work tomorrow afternoon, Gerald?”
“Yes … yes, sir.”
“You call me in the morning or I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to bring you down to the station, got it?”
Petrosky turned on his heel and stalked out the front door. Across the linoleum, a shoe store was pulling down barred gates over the plate glass.
Morrison fell into step beside him. “If only they kept records as thorough as mine, Boss. We’d be in much better shape.”
Better shape, but not good enough to save Lisa Walsh. And there was no note-taking that could have saved Julie. Pain radiated through Petrosky’s arm in time to his footsteps and he rubbed at his chest. His hand was shaking again. “If only.”