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ALEX TOOK THE JEEP down A1A, turned west onto 202 then headed southbound on 295. We’d hoped to catch Julie Sanders at the Gem and Mineral Society since she seemed to be the only person not missing.
I turned to Alex. “I wonder how the hell Jayray ended up with Carla.”
“We can’t be sure it was him,” she said.
“Of course it was him.”
“Maybe Carla’s been playing all sides. Turned on Philip...turned on Frank. Jayray would’ve known what Frank was up to the whole time.”
“When we were at Carla’s, Frank’s holding the gun on Carla. Jayray’s playing it kind of a little too cool. The most he did was pistol whipped me, cracked me right on the side of the head. Otherwise...the more I think about it, it makes sense it was all for show. He just happens to escape, leaves Frank for dead on the ground.”
“You think he’d been working with Carla all this time?” Alex said.
I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
We pulled down the road leading to the Gem and Mineral Society’s building and Alex slammed on the brakes as we turned the corner, the building within view. There were three vehicles from the Sheriff’s Office and an EMS vehicle backed-up toward the front door.
I stood up inside the Jeep and looked through a pair of binoculars and watched someone get wheeled out on a gurney. “It’s Annie, the old lady.”
Alex spotted a friend of hers, Chris Carson, an officer she’d gone through the police academy with. He was standing at the front of the building. “I’ll go ask him what’s going on,” she said as she stepped down from the Jeep and walked toward the crowd.
I followed after her. Officer Chris Carson stared at us as we walked toward him.
“Alex? What are you doing here?”
She turned and looked at me before she answered. “Uh, we were just driving by. Henry’s actually a member, so he was concerned it might be someone he knows.”
Chris gave me a look that said he wasn’t buying Alex’s answer.
I nodded. “I’m a big collector.” I looked toward the gurney, saw that it was Annie—the old lady—being pushed into the back of the EMS vehicle. I nodded toward her and said, “What happened?”
Chris took a moment before he answered. “She fell down the steps out back, trying to get away.”
Two other officers walked out with Julie Sanders, her hands cuffed behind her back. She gave me a look, her eyes narrowed. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
I didn’t know what to say to her.
Chris turned to me, squinting his eyes. He folded his thick arms at his chest. “Are you going to tell me what she meant by that?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “I have no idea.”
Alex said, “Can you tell us what happened?”
Chris slowly started to nod. “She’d been stealing jewels from members...replaced whatever she took with fakes.”
Alex said, “Is it okay if we go inside...have a look around?”
He paused a moment. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth? You weren’t really just driving by, were you...”
Alex gave him a slight smile. “We’ll only be a few minutes.”
He looked around and took a deep breath. “Make it fast. And don’t touch anything.”
We walked through the open door. A couple of officers stood around talking, but didn’t seem to be doing much else. Another officer in plain clothes with a badge on his belt watched us as we walked in. A woman who appeared to be in charge told two younger officers what to do as they carried cardboard boxes out the front door.
I looked for the wooden crate but didn’t see anything that even resembled what Carla and Dominic had dropped off.
Alex walked ahead of me and slipped through a doorway. She said, “Henry...in here.”
Alex was in a small room reaching under a long table. She pulled on a blanket and revealed the wooden crate.
“Is that it?” I said.
She looked back at me over her shoulder and lifted the wooden top off the crate. She reached her hand inside and pulled out a black velvet bag. It was tied tight with a gold string.
She handed it to me and I untied the string. I looked inside. “Are these diamonds?” I reached inside the bag and showed her what I’d pulled from the bag.
Alex reached inside the crate and pulled out another velvet bag.
I looked behind me at the door and made sure nobody was coming in the room. “Should I close the door?”
She shook her head. “That’ll attract attention.” She struggled to slide the crate out from under the table, just enough to get her head over the top. She looked inside. “There must be twenty more bags like this.”
“How do we know if they’re real?” I said.
Alex didn’t answer but grabbed the bags from my hands and stuck them back in the crate. “Let’s cover this up before someone walks in.”
“They’re cleaning this place out. They’re going to take them,” I said. “We should keep a bag. I don’t mean we keep the diamonds...but see if—”
One of the officers stuck his head in the small room. He looked back and forth at me and Alex. “Who the hell are you? What are you two doing in here?” His hand was close to his holster.
“I’m Henry Walsh. This is my associate, Alex Jepson. We’re with Walsh Investigations.”
The officer took a step closer, his eyes moving down toward the crate under the table. Alex had already slipped the blanket over it.
“I don’t give two shits about who you’re with. I asked you what you’re doing. This here is a crime scene, under investigation by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.”
I opened my mouth to speak as officer Carson stepped in behind the young officer. “Everything okay?”
“I caught these two snooping around. No idea how they even got in here. I think we ought to—”
“They’re okay, officer. They have permission to be in here.” Chris was a big man who towered over the shorter, younger officer. “Why don’t you go help officer Knox move the rest of those boxes out to the truck?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. The officer turned and left the room without saying another word.
Chris was quiet for a moment, his eyes down toward the table. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Alex shook her head. “We were just talking...came in here so we could discuss something in private.”
Chris gave an unconvincing nod. “Well, we’re done here. Recovered what was reported stolen.” He looked down at the blanket covering the crate. “Please keep yourselves out of trouble.”He turned to leave the room and stopped just outside the doorway. “Come on, we gotta lock up.”
Alex and I gave each other a look then followed him out of the building.
Outside, I said, “Chris.”
He stopped in the driveway and looked back at me.
“What was Julie Sanders involved in? Do you know what it was she was stealing?”
Chris looked over at the boxes being loaded into the truck. “Rare gems...worth quite a bit of money.”
“You know the name?”
“The name?”
“Who she stole from?”
He shook his head. “No. We received an anonymous call.”