Something Missing (2 page)

Exiting the pantry, making sure that the door was relatched, Martin passed through the kitchen and into the adjacent living room, stopping for a moment to inventory the items in the room in the event that the Pearls had added or deleted something since his last visit. A sectional sofa, brown leather and well worn, occupied the center of the room, facing a large, flat-screen television and an enormous fieldstone fireplace topped with a teak-wood mantel, none of which showed any evidence of recent use. In fact, Martin noted that the same four logs were stacked upon the hearth exactly as they had been when Martin first entered this house more than nine years ago.

A Steinway in the northeast corner of the room (Martin took great pride in being able to identify the compass points in every one of his clients’ homes) displayed a number of photographs of Sophie and Sherman Pearl at various locations around the world. A tropical beach at sunset, Cinderella’s castle in Disney World, the front lawn of the Taj Majal, and atop the Great Wall of China were just a few of the couple’s destinations. In each picture, Sherman, a thin, middle-aged man with horn-rimmed
glasses and an incongruous shock of curly red hair was always standing to Sophie’s left, right hand around her trim waist, their smiles almost always identical. Martin doubted that the couple, who had been married for a dozen years, were aware of the photographic pattern into which they had fallen, but concluded from it that this was a couple who enjoyed the safety and stability of their marriage. Based upon their frequent travel, Martin assumed that the Pearls had postponed children in favor of long hours at the office and exciting trips around the world. Sherman was a dentist who operated his own practice over the mountain in Avon, and Sophie owned an upscale and highly successful salon in Hartford, starting out years ago in a strip mall adjacent to a Stop & Shop but recently relocating into the center of town, doubling her business almost overnight. She looked the part of a successful salon owner. Her nails were always perfectly manicured, her dark hair was short and stylish with a streak of blond running through her bangs, and she looked about ten years younger than her actual age. Both she and her husband worked long hours, earned plenty of money, and enjoyed spending it on themselves.

The Pearls’ lifestyle fit perfectly into Martin’s third rule of selecting clients:

Never too rich, never too poor, and never, ever through inheritance
.

Clients who inherited their wealth were out of the question. Martin believed that when individuals become wealthy by means of a parent or grandparent’s prior labor, they often become overly involved with the distribution of this wealth. Sure, they may give a great deal to charity, but they are also able to account for every nickel that leaves their possession, because either they seek to honor their benefactor by using the money wisely or this is the first time the inheritor has had any money and is therefore more aware of its value.

Neither of these client types appealed to Martin very much.

He believed that taking on poor clients was an equally bad idea, as they tended to be keenly aware of everything they owned, since they owned so little.

Martin also believed that wealthy couples made the worst clients, and this is where amateurs often went wrong. He believed with absolute certainty that the wealthier an individual, the more he or she cared about the things that he or she owned. The wealthy had time to enjoy their belongings, to keep track of each item, and since the wealthy often didn’t work for a living, they found gratification and self-esteem through the things they owned rather than the things that they did. These people noticed when something went missing, however mundane the item might have been. This, plus their propensity for security systems, maids, and inconsistent schedules, made the wealthy the worst choice of client.

Upper-middle-class couples, comprised of hardworking and successful individuals, were Martin’s bread-and-butter clients. The ideal client was a two-income couple who earned enough money to own nice things but simply did not have the time to enjoy them. The Pearls were a perfect example. Sherman and Sophie were able to afford a beautiful home with a fieldstone fireplace, but they never had the time to actually use it. They purchased the Steinway about six years ago but had yet to purchase a music book or take a piano lesson. The Pearls were making excellent money, more than a quarter of a million dollars a year between them, but they were simply too busy with work and travel to monitor or enjoy their
things
, and this made them one of Martin’s most reliable couples.

Of course, Martin knew all this and much more because he had screened the Pearls for more than five months prior to signing them on as clients, and he continued to remain as informed as possible about their lives.

Martin did not believe in skimping on research.

Staying as close as possible to the west wall so as to avoid the picture window that faced the street, Martin made his way through the living room to the stairway leading to the second floor. Before ascending, he popped his head into the dining room to his right, doubting that the Pearls had changed this sparsely furnished room in any way (since it appeared that the room went virtually unused), but wanting to be sure nevertheless. An unused dining room was another sign of a couple who had no time to spend enjoying their home. Dinners were often eaten in the kitchen, in a restaurant, or in the car. The dining room, with its black-lacquered, handcrafted Italian table, was as unused as the Pearls’ fieldstone fireplace and dusty Steinway.

Satisfied that the dining room was as sterile as ever, Martin climbed the stairs slowly and methodically, authenticating his purchase on each step before ascending.

Years ago, Jim, Martin’s only real friend, had been reading from a book of lateral-thinking puzzles over pizza and beer when he offered this puzzle to his friend:

A man calls 911 from a home, saying that he is injured and needs help. The police and ambulance arrive, and he is taken to the hospital, where the man is later arrested. What is the man arrested for?

As the solution to the puzzle had dawned on Martin, his heart quickened and his face flushed. Was his friend of almost thirty years aware of Martin’s true career? Was he using this puzzle as a means of broaching the subject, or had this simply been a coincidence?

Martin and Jim had met over a game of Chutes and Ladders a couple weeks into their kindergarten year, when it had become clear to both of them, even at their young age, that no one else was interested in playing with them. Alone in a new world of shiny linoleum, tiny chairs and desks, and inflatable letter people, the two were forced into a friendship that had lasted for almost their entire lives. Though Jim had escaped the isolation of kindergarten and gone on to a more normal life of marriage and children, he had always made room in his life for his friendship with Martin. And for Martin, Jim was one of the only people in the world, perhaps the only person in the world, with whom he was at ease. Therefore, as he solved Jim’s puzzle, he worried that he had slipped in some way. It’s difficult to bluff someone who has known you longer than you’ve been able to read. If anyone could uncover his secret, Martin reasoned, it would be Jim.

After hearing Martin’s solution to the puzzle, Jim had quickly moved on to another, more difficult one, hoping to stump his friend and leaving Martin to believe that the choice of puzzle had been merely a coincidence. But it had also left Martin with a cautionary tale that he took very seriously. As he climbed the stairs to the second floor landing, he was exceptionally careful of his footing on each stair. Only an amateur would allow himself to get arrested by breaking a leg in the midst of a client visit.

At the top of the stairs, Martin turned left, passing by a bathroom and guest room on his way to the end of the hall, where the master bedroom was located. He had been in this room many times, during each visit to the house in fact, but this time would be different. He wouldn’t simply be inventorying
Sophie Pearl’s jewelry box as he had done for the last seven months. Today he would finally be taking something.

Exactly seven months ago, Martin had acquired an earring from Sophie Pearl’s jewelry box, a 1.3-karat diamond stud, leaving its twin behind. He had chosen this earring after a yearlong inventory of the jewelry box that was based upon time-lapse digital photography. For a year, during each visit to the Pearls’ home, Martin would photograph Sophie’s jewelry box with his Cannon Sure Shot and download the photos onto his computer at home. After examining the chronological, photographic history of the jewelry box, Martin was able to identify the best item to procure.

First, Martin noted that the diamond earrings were absent from the box only once during the entire year, which included at least one inspection each week. Other than their one disappearance, the earrings were always located in the same spot, the southeast corner of the bottom tray (based upon the jewelry box’s customary position on the bureau). This was not the case for many other items in Sophie’s box, a clear indication that certain items were being worn and returned quite often but this pair of earrings was not.

There were also some items in Sophie’s box that were never missing, but Martin had no intention of touching these. A pair of infrequently worn diamond earrings might go missing without concern, but a family heirloom, put away for a future daughter’s wedding day, would probably be noticed immediately.

The earrings in question were also frequently covered by Sophie’s string of black pearls, so as to not be visible by their owner. In fact, for a three-month stretch, the pearls had covered the earrings on every visit. This indicated that Sophie was unlikely to notice the disappearance of the earrings, since she rarely saw them for long stretches of time. Martin guessed that
Sophie probably wore these earrings with a specific dress and otherwise forgot about them for the rest of the year.

Two other items in Sophie Pearl’s jewelry box fit this criteria for potential targets: a heart-shaped gold locket worth very little and an antique diamond ring, more than three karats of diamonds in all, that was probably worth a lot. Martin chose the earrings because they were of substantial value to make the acquisition worthwhile but not so much as to cause great concern to a successful couple like the Pearls if their disappearance was discovered.

On February 17 of this year, Martin had taken one of the earrings during a visit, and then he waited. When he returned to the home two days after the procurement, he looked for signs that the earring’s absence had been noticed. The jewelry box looked nearly identical to the picture taken on procurement day. A similar pair of gold hoops, smaller and slightly oval, had replaced a pair of large, gold hoop earrings, but otherwise there were no noticeable changes. There was no evidence that Sophie Pearl had emptied her jewelry box in search of the missing earring.

The disappearance had gone unnoticed.

An amateur would have taken Sophie’s other diamond stud at that point, but Martin knew that this operation would require more finesse. Sophie would eventually notice that the earring was missing. He knew this because she wore this pair on occasion, though infrequently, and if she found both gone, she might, just might, suspect theft. But if a single earring was missing, then Sophie would almost certainly assume that she had misplaced the other, since no conceivable thief would think of acquiring just one earring, and so she would begin a search. On a day in mid-June, Sophie had conducted just such a search.

Martin was sure of this because on the Wednesday of that
week, he had found Sophie’s jewelry box in disarray. Items that hadn’t been touched in months had been moved to new locations, and it appeared that the bottom tray of the box had actually been removed, probably in order for Sophie to inspect underneath. Martin knew this from the thin piece of tape that he had placed between the bottom tray of the jewelry box and the box itself on the initial day of procurement, a piece so thin that it would go virtually unnoticed if someone were to lift the tray, but quite noticeable to a professional like Martin. On that day, the sliver of tape was gone, and after a few moments of searching, Martin had actually managed to locate it, lying between Sophie’s clock radio and a stack of
Real Simple
magazines atop the bureau. This confirmed in his mind that Sophie had conducted her search and had found nothing.

So Martin waited again, knowing that patience and professionalism would eventually win the day. He wanted to be sure that Sophie wasn’t taking measures to replace the earring, by taking it to the jewelry store where it was purchased, for example, and matching it up with a new twin. Martin waited three months for a new earring to appear in Sophie Pearl’s jewelry box before deciding that today, September 17, would be the day to acquire the second. After removing the earring from the jewelry box and sliding it into a small plastic bag, he placed the bag into a Velcro pouch sewn into the inside seam of his baseball cap. If he were arrested, he did not want to be caught with the earring, and after experimenting for years with false-bottomed shoes and hidden coat pockets, and considering the possibility of placing stolen jewelry in bodily cavities (a concept Martin could never stomach), he had settled on the baseball cap, deeming it the last place a police officer would look and the easiest item of clothing to ditch in the case of police pursuit.

Pleased with his new acquisition, Martin photographed Sophie’s jewelry box again, scanned the bedroom for any recent
changes, and then backtracked to the second floor bathroom, where he acquired two bars of Dove soap from the neat stack of eight in the cabinet underneath the sink. Martin also took a moment to photograph the inside of this cabinet after noticing a large supply of toilet paper and two new bottles of Scope mouthwash. Although the theft of either or both of these items would probably go unnoticed by the Pearls, and though he knew that his own supply of mouthwash was running low, Martin never acquired items that did not appear on his original shopping list. Instead, he would photograph the items while in the house and later use the digital photos to plan his next visit, calculating the value of the items taken from the home over the past month, as well as the time these items had spent on the shelf, before deciding which items were safe to acquire. After all, Martin had plenty of other clients, so if he wasn’t able to stock up on toilet paper at the Pearls’ house, there were always others available to meet his needs.