A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(66)
Jane searched harder now, examining every part of the basement for anything else that might be hidden. She checked the oil furnace, then tugged on the aluminum air ducts to see if one made a suspicious rattle or had a joint that came apart easily. That was one of her favorite hiding places in the old house where she had grown up. Nothing.
She used the flashlight to take a panoramic view of the basement. There were the standard sewer pipes, a water heater and copper pipes, the work bench, the washer and dryer, a couple of stationary tubs. There was an old refrigerator in the corner. She opened it, found about a case of Molson’s Golden, and a few diet colas. She lifted each to be sure none was heavier or lighter than the others. She opened the freezer, but found it empty.
In another corner of the basement were a snow blower and a double stack of twenty-five pound bags of rock salt. Nick Bauermeister had undoubtedly used the salt to melt ice on the steps and the blower to clear the long driveway in the winter. As she moved the flashlight beam again she noticed something and brought it back. The top two bags and the bottom two bags were identical, but the two in the middle seemed thinner.
She came closer, removed the top two bags, and examined the middle pair. As soon as she touched the first bag she knew she had something. The seam of the bag facing the wall was just folded over. The two bags had been opened from the bottom. She opened the first bag and felt inside, then pulled out a clear plastic Ziploc bag. Inside were a ring with a diamond of at least three carats, five pairs of stud earrings with colored stones, and a woman’s Cartier tank watch with a sapphire on the stem. The next bag had three men’s watches—two Rolexes and a Tag Heuer. There were a few other bags that held only one or two items—a spectacular cocktail ring, a necklace, or a pin. She laid them out and took pictures with her phone’s camera, and then put them back in the salt bag. The next salt bag had some odd things—about twenty gold coins in the small cardboard coin holders with plastic windows that collectors used, and a fancy pocketknife with a handle of inlaid opal, onyx, and coral. There was a set of heavy gold cuff links and tie tack with blue stones she guessed were lapis lazuli. She photographed these too and returned them to the salt bag.
She tried to interpret what she had just found. What it looked like to her was not the proceeds of one burglary. The trove seemed to be small, choice items from a number of burglaries. But a professional burglar wouldn’t hold on to a cache of distinctive traceable jewelry for very long. If the pieces were insured, then the insurance company would have pictures. A pro would want to move the jewels quickly, usually to a fence who would break them up, reset them, and melt the original settings down. The fence would at least sell them in another part of the country. Burglars didn’t want to build up collections of stolen jewelry. What they wanted was cash.
Bauermeister’s hoard brought to mind one of the hazards of holding on to loot. It made the burglar a potential robbery victim. But the one who had killed Bauermeister hadn’t come after the jewels. He had simply shot him and left without ever coming inside. Maybe Bauermeister had been working with a partner, or even a crew, and had gotten into the habit of pocketing an especially valuable item now and again. That might make a colleague kill him. It was true that nobody had come for these hidden jewels, but if there were a colleague Bauermeister had cheated, maybe he didn’t know about these items. Maybe he had caught Bauermeister stealing something else.
Theories kept occurring to Jane as she searched the basement, but she couldn’t find evidence to make her settle on one theory, and she found nothing else. It was very late, and she had been in the house too long. She went up the steps to the kitchen and returned the flashlight to its drawer, then went through the darkened basement to the cellar door, climbed out, and closed the doors. She put the hasp and padlock back, then reinserted the screws and tightened them with her pocketknife.
She stepped to the garage and opened the door. There were two vehicles inside, a small old Mazda and a newer black Dodge pickup. Jane did a quick search of the Mazda and found little except the sorts of things Chelsea might be expected to have left—gum, hairbrush, bottled water, hand lotion, sunscreen, pens, receipts, a yoga mat. Chelsea was apparently a woman who used her car as a big purse. There was nothing in it to tell Jane anything about Nick Bauermeister.
The pickup was next. The flatbed was empty; the glove compartment held only the manual, registration, insurance receipt, and a pocketknife. On the floor was a bar for locking the steering wheel that had its key in it. She popped the hood and searched for hiding places, looked beneath the truck and under the seats, but found nothing.
She searched the garage, but found nothing else that was of interest. There could be more, she thought. But then she realized where it might be, if there was anything. Nick Bauermeister had worked at a storage facility.
Jane left the garage, closed the door, and made her way across the dark field and along the road to the gas station to retrieve her car. She got in and drove along Telephone Road, then stopped after a mile, checked her printed sheets to be sure she had remembered the address correctly, and went on.
When she reached Box Farm Personal Storage it was after 4:00 am. As she drove by she studied the complex. A seven-foot chain link fence with four strands of barbed wire strung along the top enclosed it. Inside were four long, low buildings, each consisting of nothing but a double row of storage bays, one after another. There was also a two-story building, which seemed to have smaller storage bays on the ground floor and an office with big windows on the second floor. In one of them she could see a man sitting at a desk. She caught a glimpse of a row of television monitors on the wall above him. That meant there were security cameras mounted on the eaves of the buildings or on the light poles above the parking lot.