Perry, Thomas - Pursuit by Perry Thomas

Author:Perry, Thomas [Perry, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781588361455
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2001-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

21

The sign above the building had tiny white lights arranged in elaborate italic script, so the letters sparkled: Rowland’s Fine Jewelry. The painted motto underneath said, “Make her happy as a bride . . . all over again. The anniversary diamond collection by Rowland Limited.”

Along the front was a row of small, square windows like openings into miniature worlds, one where velvet necks were strung with diamond necklaces and velvet hands wore diamond rings, another where posts wore expensive watches, and one where red, blue, and green stones that had tumbled from a treasure chest served as a background for gold chains. But the fourth and fifth were the ones that caught Prescott’s attention. The small engraved signs behind the two glass panes said ESTATE JEWELRY.

Estate jewelry was trade jargon for anything that was secondhand. Most jewelry stores had some of it. But this merchandise was unusual. There was a yellow diamond bracelet with stones that started at chips and went all the way up to two carats. There was a ring in a brand-new setting that had an emerald the size of a dime. People who owned jewelry like that might sell it, but when they did, they probably didn’t come to Louisville, Kentucky, to sell it to Rowland’s. They would have a better market in New York or San Francisco. And most certainly, they didn’t melt down antique settings and put big stones in new ones. It was a fairly common thing to do if the merchandise had been stolen.

Prescott was beginning to feel a sharpening of his interest in Mr. Rowland. The estate jewelry was too good, and there was too much of it for a city this size. Prescott began to entertain the idea that some of it was stolen. If so, these pieces could not have been stolen in the town where he was offering them for sale. It was too risky. That meant Rowland was dealing with some larger group that was capable of buying them in one town and distributing them in places where they wouldn’t be recognized.

Part of Prescott’s resistance to the idea that Wendy Cushner had hired the killer to get rid of her newly rich husband had been that he couldn’t find a reasonable way that she could have found her way to a killer. She had apparently spent all her time taking care of her kids and doing volunteer work. She had no lovers, no male relatives who had been involved in illegal activities, no old boyfriends who might have been able to introduce her to a killer for old times’ sake. When a middle-class woman decided to hire a killer, she couldn’t just look in the yellow pages. In Prescott’s experience, such a woman always needed the help of a go-between. Usually it was a man who had a reason to take a risk for her and knew somebody who claimed to know a man who was in the business of putting holes in people so the blood would run out.

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