The Wicked Wife (Murder in Marin Book 2) (22 page)

Allard was pleased to oblige. Immediately, he cleared two other works from his schedule and focused solely on the creation of Willow’s new pieces.

On the Monday afternoon prior to the Belvedere Ball, Willow, Sylvia, and Julia gathered at Pamela’s for a planning meeting on the McKegney Field benefit event, which was scheduled for early November.
 

Unfortunately, because of her always-busy workweek, Holly was unable to attend.
 

After the business portion of their meeting concluded, Willow shared with the other four women how excited she was about attending her first Belvedere Ball, which was now less than a week away.
   

Willow boasted proudly, “In keeping with the tradition that Pamela first told me about, regarding wearing our finest pieces to the ball, when I was last in Paris I asked my favorite jewelry designer to create two new pieces just for the event. I’m looking forward to showing them off.”

The other three women all expressed excitement about seeing these new pieces and repeated their stories about wearing, as Pamela explained, “The same old, same old.”
 

“But, Pamela,” Willow said in protest, “I think those pieces you showed me were all lovely. Oh, Sylvia, I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten a good look at Pamela’s heirloom pieces, but they are lovely.”

As Willow had hoped, Sylvia expressed interest in seeing the pieces. “Jewelers today do beautiful work, but I do love the classic designs.”

While the women nibbled at their cookies and sipped their tea, Pamela rose from her chair and proudly headed off to her bedroom to prove Willow’s kind words.

When they heard her blood-curdling scream, all three of the women simultaneously leapt out of their chairs and raced in the direction of Pamela’s bedroom. On the floor of the walk-in closet, they found Pamela sitting on the carpet, looking wild-eyed and mumbling, “They’re gone!”
 

“What?” Julia shouted. From the look on her face, she must have been wondering about the safety of her own jewels, which sat in a similar unsecured pocket panel behind her closet.
 

Sylvia went down on her knees and placed her arm around the sobbing Pamela.
 

“This is impossible. I can’t believe they’re gone,” Pamela moaned.

“Could it be your maid?” Julia asked.

“No!” Pamela snapped. Not that she’d admit it, but three months earlier, in one of his belt-tightening moods, Peter declared that a weekly maid service was no longer needed. “The children are grown and gone.” Pamela knew he would also add, “And you do nothing all day!” But he didn’t dare.
 

Julia suddenly announced that she was late for an appointment with her eye doctor. In truth, she was headed straight home.
 

The scream she let loose minutes after walking into her home was remarkably similar to that of her friend’s. “Son of a bitch!” she shouted, standing alone in her empty house.
 

She was tempted to call Pamela, but waited an hour, giving herself the time to return from her imaginary eye doctor’s appointment.
 

After spending a good part of the night comforting his wife, the next morning Judge Peter Botherton came into his chambers and asked his longtime friend, Marin County Sheriff, Jack Canning, if he would be so kind as to put his best man on the case of their home burglary.
 

Eddie was less than thrilled to be dealing with one more hysterical Marin County socialite who had suffered the indignity of being robbed. It’s not that it happened all that often, but when it did, in their eyes, it was always part of the social decay threatening to undermine civilization.
 

Having learned that Julia was also a victim of this daring jewel thief, Pamela wasted no time in calling Sylvia.
 

“Sylvia, when is your next deadline?”

“Tomorrow. Why?”

“Because we have a major crime wave going on in our safe little community!”

Sylvia was amazed to hear that Julia’s jewels were cleaned out as well. Headlines raced through her mind with, “Peninsula Jewel Thief Terrorizes Tiburon Residents,” being the one she settled upon.
 

When Eddie arrived at Pamela’s home, both she and Sylvia greeted him.

“Sylvia writes for
the Standard,
” Pamela declared, reasoning that would put Eddie on his best behavior and increase his attention to her case.

Eddie turned to Sylvia. “You work for Rob?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Oh! You know Rob?”

“I should, I was the best man at his wedding.”

“So, it’s okay with you if I write a story about your investigation?”

“Sure. I’m not a private investigator. I work for the people of Marin County. A free press is an important part of what makes the system work.” Eddie was pleased with how well his sentiments regarding a free press were received. In truth, Rob was the only journalist he ever trusted. His years of being a detective did little to change that point of view.
 

Eddie knew that local politicians and real estate agents hated to see stories about high-end homes being burglarized; politicians, because they didn’t want to hear that they were not budgeting enough for public safety; and realtors because burglaries in wealthy enclaves can have an adverse effect on home values.
 

None of this was of great concern to Eddie. “They can give the whole county back to the Indians for all I care,” he once groused to Rob after a particularly difficult case.

Pamela took him back to where the jewels had been hidden. Eddie did a thorough inspection of the closet. He then walked around the house, checking every ground floor window and the front and back doors.

“I see no evidence of forced entry, and there’s not a mark on any of your windows or entry doors. You say you have no maid or cleaning service?”
 

“That’s correct.”

“When was the last time you saw the jewels?”

“When I brought Willow Adams back here to show them to her.”

“Isn’t that the model who married William Adams?”

“Yes, of course!” Sylvia said.

“Well, the wife of a billionaire is an unlikely suspect,” Eddie said, giving a short laugh.

“Do you have any photos of these pieces? And did you ever get them appraised for insurance purposes?”

Pamela gave a thoughtful nod of agreement to both questions. “I’ll look for both, and call you when I find them,” she promised.

Eddie looked around for another few minutes, then slipped one of his business cards from his pocket and asked her to call him as soon as possible.
 

Sylvia asked, “Detective Austin, will you be heading over to Julia Hassie’s home?”
 

“Yes. You’re welcome to follow, if Ms. Hassie doesn’t mind your being there.”

“I’ll call her now. I’m sure it will be fine. I’ll meet you over there.”

“By the way, call me Eddie, please. Any friend of Rob’s is a friend of mine.”
 

As Sylvia suspected, Julia was every bit as devastated as Pamela by the loss of her jewels.

“Your arrangement, with the hidden panel inside the walk-in closet, is so similar to that of your friend, Mrs. Botherton. I’m just curious if one of these secret nooks inspired the other.”

“Yes. I got the idea for mine from Pamela’s. Why would that matter?”

“It might mean nothing. I was curious because, perhaps you had the same carpenter do this that did Mrs. Botherton’s pocket space.”

“In fact, we did.”

“Could you look up the date it was done, as well as the contractor’s name, and send it to my email?” He handed her his business card.

“Of course, I’d be happy to. But you don’t think that someone with the carpentry firm might have done this, do you?”

“I have to check all the possibilities. One thing you also have in common with Mrs. Botherton is no noticeable points of forced entry. I looked at the doors and windows, both at her home, and now at yours. Neither home has any signs of a break-in, not to mention the other important fact, which is, to the best of your knowledge, nothing else was taken, damaged, or moved. In other words, whoever did this seems to have gone straight to the spot where these gems were kept. That’s rare. Burglars, generally, will take anything of value they can lay their hands on.”

“It’s frightening to think that I had a jewel thief here in my home!”

“You’d be surprised the number of times we find out that a trusted person has a prior arrest, often for the same crime. To help me in the recovery of your jewelry, send me any names and contact information that you have of any cleaning service, maid, maintenance, and repair workers who have been in the house in the past few months.
 

“I’ll pull that list together for you by tomorrow.”

“Remember, to help me help you, consider carefully when you last saw or wore your jewels. Mrs. Botherton told me she rarely wore hers.”

“I’m the same way. I often go for months without checking on these pieces. But I did show them to Mrs. Adams a month or so ago. That’s the last time I can say with certainty that I knew they were there.”

“Fine. Look at your calendar and see if you can pinpoint that date. It will help us to narrow our search for the thief. Oh, don’t forget to send me any photos you have of the pieces, alone, or with you wearing them.”

Julia bid Sylvia and Eddie a tearful farewell. Sylvia gave her a reassuring embrace and promised to call later.
 

Once outside, she asked Eddie the question that was uppermost on her mind. “How odd that Willow Adams was, in both cases, the last person to see the missing jewelry.”

“It is, and that would make her my number one suspect, if she wasn’t in the position to buy any piece of jewelry she wanted.”

“Oh, I agree! I’m sure it’s just a strange coincidence.”

That coincidence was discussed in detail later that same day when Pamela and Julia met for tea and sympathy. Joining them was Sylvia, who brought along a printout of the first draft of her story for the
Peninsula Standard,
entitled “Jewel Thief Strikes Two Peninsula Homes.”

Both Pamela and Julia agreed that they did not like seeing their names in a story about something so sordid as “home break-ins,” but they understood the importance of the story. As Eddie pointed out to both of them, publicity about the robberies puts jewelry dealers in the Bay Area on notice that several valuable heirloom pieces might soon be appearing in the marketplace.