The Jewelry Case (19 page)

"For fun. And it's pretty." She held out her foot, flexed the toes, and admired the vivid results of her pedicure. Her calves had gained muscle tone, and her smooth skin showed the beginnings of a tan. Even the scar was somewhat less noticeable. All that walking
had
been good for her. She'd almost forgotten about her plans to find a car.

She started on the other foot. "So tell me more about that
last
suspect, Sherlock."

He had to think for a minute. "Who? Me?"

"In a way,
you
could be the prime suspect," she said thoughtfully. "You knew the story of the jewels, and I've given you free run of the place. You wouldn't even need a key. Who knows what you're up to all day while I'm gone?"

His thin lips compressed slightly. "That eliminates my motive for breaking in, doesn't it? And may I remind you of my actions when I did found something promising?"

"You immediately handed it over to me," she admitted, regretfully abandoning her interesting idea. "You didn't even look to see what was inside. There was no way you could have tampered with that old tape without my detecting it." She'd never really considered Ian a possibility, for reasons that ran deeper than mere facts. Maybe it was that Jimmy Stewart-style integrity that radiated from him. Or maybe it was something else, which she still wasn't ready to admit, even to herself.

Then she thought of the shambles she had discovered earlier that evening, and of the fact that a stranger had stood in this very room and gone through all her possessions. She shuddered again, and her hand sent a streak of hot pink across her little toe.

"Think," Ian said, frowning. "Have you done anything, said anything, that would make someone think you had run across proof the jewels existed and that they could be easily found? Besides Ray, I mean."

Paisley considered. "I may have said something to Shirley, but that's all. Good heavens, I've hardly gone around town chattering to everyone I met about it. I intended keeping the topic of jewels to myself until
…
" She broke off, her face growing hot.

Ian chuckled. "So you
are
a believer. I knew it! But why does it matter? Surely Jonathan left you financially well enough off that you don't need to sell a few non-existent baubles to get by." She didn't answer, but he didn't notice, intent on following his line of thought. "Besides, if even if the jewels did exist, they would belong to you, as Esther's only heir. There would be no need to be secretive. You'd have every right to...."

This time he was the one who broke off. A funny expression came on his face, and his eyes narrowed. "Let's back up a little," he said slowly. "You're not
broke are you?"

Her chin rose proudly. "My checks haven't bounced, have they?"

Her momentary hesitation had been enough. His lips pursed in a silent whistle. "I knew that you've been living simply and that you wanted to spread out the payments for the repairs, but I just assumed...." He glared at her. "This search for mythical jewels isn't just some hare-brained hobby you're pursuing in your spare time, after all. You really hope to find them. Badly enough to move out here and dedicate your summer to.... But why, Paisley? Did Jonathan gamble? Put all his income in bad investments? Surely he couldn't have left you high and dry, not with a flourishing career like his...."

She drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. "You're wrong. That's not why I came out here." She hesitated, a fraction of a second. "Not really. Besides, whether or not I need the money from the jewels is none of your business. I'm perfectly capable of paying you for your work, and that's all you need be concerned about." Too late, she regretted what she had said. Their relationship had progressed beyond a professional one some time ago, and they both knew it.

He picked up on her implication immediately, however.

"Back to an employer/employee relationship now, are we?" He pushed away his empty breakfast plate, his brows lowering until they met above the bridge of his nose. "Well, I'm not concerned about your ability to pay for my work. Believe it or not, I don't depend on your measly paychecks. I'm on full scholarship, and I've been offered a paid position as a teaching assistant next year. However," he added, standing up, "you're right. It's none of my business." He stomped toward the door.

She was caught off guard by his reaction. It was their first real fight, and it was all her fault. Had she been looking for some excuse to push him back, uncomfortable with how rapidly their relationship, however it might be defined, was developing?

Paisley didn't waste time analyzing the situation. Instead, she hurried after him. "I'm sorry, I was out of line. By the way, where's your work crew? I didn't see Alix, Quinn, or Rusty."

He wheeled, and she saw with relief that the flush of anger was already leaving his cheeks. "It's Saturday, silly. We don't work weekends."

Saturday? In the excitement of the burglary, she had lost track of what day it was. "Then why are
you
here?" she wondered.

"I forgot. I came to give you this." He pulled from his pocket two pieces of paper, which had been folded together. The top one was the blue aerogramme from Esther's childhood treasure box. Paper-clipped to it was a piece of lined notebook paper, the kind used by students. It was covered with unfamiliar, slanted handwriting, in English.

"You got Adelajda's letter translated!" She grabbed the papers, forgetting their argument.

"Sure did." Ian watched as she unfolded them. "One of my friends is a foreign language major with a specialty in eastern-European dialects. I'm pretty sure the translation is accurate."

"Have you read it?"

He looked down his nose at her in an exasperated glare. "I learned that you're not the kind who shares. Of course I read it. Go ahead."

She promptly returned to the couch and devoured the letter's contents. When finished, she looked up, disappointed. "It doesn't reveal much, does it?"

He crossed his loafers on the coffee table. Now that they had cleared the air, it was clear that he intended to stay a while longer, and although she wasn't sure why, she was glad. Ian annoyed her, and yet his goading made her feel more awake and alert, less ready to feel sorry for herself.

"It's no more or less than what I expected," he said, gesturing toward the letter. "Aunt Adelajda was writing to alleviate her young niece's fears. That's all it is: a note of comfort, reminding young Esther that her loved ones in the old country had not forgotten her. Nothing about any jewels," he added.

Paisley re-read the passage, sensing the fear Esther's aunt must have concealed in her carefully selected words.

"Don't worry, my little darling, all's well here in Warsaw. Don't let the stories in the newspapers frighten you. Had a fabulous dinner party at Babka's yesterday
—
the golabki were as delicious as ever. The only thing that diminished our pleasure was your absence. Take care not to lose the coat grand-mama sewed especially just for you, and remember to be a good girl for your Auntie Henka and Uncle Borys. Don't forget how kind they are to take you in...."

"How stupid," Paisley said soberly, "that we've been sitting here worrying about what young Esther did with a bunch of hypothetical jewels, when something much more profound was going on in her life. I wonder if she knew she'd never see her family again?"

"Esther wasn't entirely alone," he reminded her gently. "She had Aunt Henka and her American relatives."

"Yes." Paisley looked down at the letter again through stinging eyes. Then she blinked away the tears and held the aerogramme closer, rereading one of the sentences.

"What is it?" Ian asked.

"Listen to this." She read aloud the line: "'Take care not to lose the coat that Babka sewed especially just for you.'"

He nodded. "My friend told me
Babka
is a Polish word for grandmother. Of course Esther's grandmother wouldn't send her on a long trip to a new country in the middle of winter without bundling her up."

She looked up at him, eyes big. "True. But it could be more than that. What if it's a clue that the jewels really did exist?"

He shook his head. "Esther denied it, remember?"

"Maybe she just didn't want anyone to know." She clasped the letter, thinking out loud, like Ian often did. She was picking up several of his habits. "Let's just accept the premise for a moment that the jewels existed. If so, her family might want to smuggle them out of Poland, to a place where they would be safe. Anyone at the time could see that conditions in Europe were deteriorating. The Nazis were looting anything they could get, stealing artworks and property from Jews."

"Well, yes." He put his feet off the table and leaned forward, listening. "That's the basis of the legend, isn't it? That the jewels ended up here."

"Well,
how
would the jewels have been smuggled out? Couldn't they have been sewn into the lining of her coat? That would explain why her aunt made a point of asking about it."

"Possibly," he admitted. "That was a common practice. But the reference might just as easily mean nothing at all. It's hardly proof."

Setting down the letter, she lifted her hands and let them drop in frustration. "You're right. We've been going about all this backward. Somehow, we need to establish if they were real or not. If they did, there must be some solid evidence, somewhere. Then we'd know there was a point to going forward."

"What kind of evidence?"

"Something more tangible than rumors, anyway." She looked up as an idea occurred to her. She wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. "A photograph, maybe. Back then, people dressed up in their best clothes for portraits. Surely she would have wanted to display her best adornments, wouldn't she?"

He shook his head. "There's no pictures of her on the Internet, I've already looked. Maybe the Nazis destroyed what they could find, since she was Jewish. A lot of records are missing that way."

For a moment she felt discouraged. But something pressed her onward. "Maybe through secondary sources, we can find something that remained: a reference to an old newspaper, or an out-of-print biography, or something." She frowned. "It's too bad Henka and Borys Perelman didn't keep a scrapbook, or a photo album from the old country."

"How do you know they didn't?" he asked, cocking his head like a bright-eyed robin.

She sighed. "I've been through the entire house. Nothing. The Perlemans must not have been very sentimental. They didn't keep any mementos except for those family photos hanging in the hallway. But surely someone in the fifty years before the Second World War must have seen Ruth's jewelry, if the rubies were as spectacular as they were rumored to be. Admirers would have commented on them in ... in letters, or diaries, or something."

Ian looked doubtful, but at least he was listening to her arguments, taking them seriously, something that Jonathan rarely did.

"Without traveling to Poland, I don't know how you'd start finding those kind of documents," he said. "Even so, it would be like finding a needle in the proverbial haystack, only worse, since as you said, most of the records would have been destroyed during the Holocaust."

"But has anyone really looked? For proof of their existence, I mean? Aunt Henka never needed proof; she already believed in the jewels, enough to dedicate her life to searching for them."

Ian tapped his fingers on his thigh thoughtfully. "I suppose it's worth a try. You said you've already looked on the internet, right?"

She nodded. "All I found was a paragraph in Wikipedia on Ruth's brief career as a singer. Nothing about a famous set of rubies and diamonds, a Russian count, or anything that we're interested in. I guess she was pretty much forgotten after she retired. That was before recordings, and she never achieved the status of a Jenny Lind or Caruso."

He ran a hand through his sand-colored hair until it stood on end like that of a scientist who had been experimenting with electricity. "Maybe I can help. I'm driving back to Berkeley this afternoon to see some other friends. Maybe I can spend some time at the historical library, if I can get there before it closes. They'll have stuff that isn't posted on the internet. Most of the documents deal with early California, but they might have some information relating to 20th century Europe, too. Who knows? Something useful may turn up." He paused. "Want to come along?"

"No thanks. I have a date." Tonight was her long-awaited dinner with Steve. But Ian's offer had reminded her of what Shirley had said several days ago, and she asked him about it.

"That old car? The VW has been in the garage since I was in high school, but sure, you can have it if you want. It ran okay the last time I took it out." He grinned, making his face look like that of an overgrown leprechaun. "Now that I know you're broke, I'll sell it cheap. We paupers have to stick together."

She fought down a retort
—
she must remember that Ian was an ally now
—
and they agreed on terms.