Lost Diamond by Parker Avrile

Author:Parker Avrile
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paris April Press
Published: 2019-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

NO MYSTERY NOW ABOUT why she hadn't wanted to file a police report. NOPD didn't search for and insurers didn't pay off on items of mere sentimental value. She should have told me the truth, and I'd have to talk to her again about that, but the day wasn't getting any younger, and I needed to pick which brother to surprise in his workplace first.

It was three o'clock by the time I flashed my badge at the receptionist in the big office on the twenty-second floor of the law firm's Poydras Street office building.

“But you don't have an appointment?” The receptionist seemed to be having a blonde moment. “I'm afraid I can't let anyone see Mr. Guise without an appointment.”

“Would you prefer I came back with a warrant for your arrest for obstructing police business?”

“I would prefer if you came back when you had an appointment.” She was blonde, but she wouldn't be bluffed.

I shrugged and sat down on the wide olive-green leather couch. She glared, then whispered something into her headset. After a minute, a young man in a red tie and no jacket appeared from the back.

“This way, Detective.”

I followed him down a short marble hallway lined with shockingly vivid Expressionist oil paintings. Somebody's idea of a good investment.

The wide office within the mahogany double doors was decorated in shades of dark tropical wood and forest-green leather. Although still abstract, the paintings inside were in colors closer to that of natural land and sky. Michael Guise, determined not to be impressed by the police, sat back in his leather chair with his feet up on the wide desk. The soles of his shoes were utterly spotless, as if he'd never walked a step in his life. His fingers were steepled together over his chest, and his head was thrown back so he could study something far above on the high ceiling.

“You may leave us, Robert,” he said.

The young man vanished soundlessly.

“Lotta wants the ring back,” I said. “You had your fun, ha ha, very fucking funny, but now the joke's over.”

“What makes you think I have Larry's ring?”

“You're in debt up to your eyeballs to the casino next door.”

His jaw tightened, but he continued to look at the ceiling. A trick which meant he didn't have to look me in the eye.

“You need money, and you thought the ring was worth a lot of money, so you took it. I know. It was an impulse. You'd do anything to undo that impulse. Especially now.”

He finally deigned to sit up straight and look directly at me. “Now, Detective?”

“You didn't steal the real ring. You stole a copy somebody in your family had made so they could sell the diamond a long time ago. I imagine it was a shock when you found out. It wasn't worth risking your license to practice law over a few hundred dollars worth of gold and a twenty-buck cubic zirconia.”

I was still bluffing, but Michael Guise seemed to be more bluffable than his receptionist.

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