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I shook my head. “I suspected her for a long time, but that’s something you’ll have to find out. I mean, at least talk to the cops who took the original police report from when she reported it missing. I’m sure there was one.”
The two detectives exchanged a glance before turning back to us. “Yeah, that’s where we’ll start. Her insurance company would have needed that to consider paying the claim,” Cassidy said. “We’re also going to talk to Aston now that we have some background on him and his possible involvement in this case. Is there anything else you can think of?”
“We think that the theft of the Mulberry diamond is tied into the missing ruby,” Raven said.
Cassidy frowned, thinking hard as if trying to figure out what Raven was talking about. “The Mulberry diamond? Wait. Are you talking about the case where you and Miguel first met?”
“That’s the one,” Raven said.
Cassidy looked down at his cold coffee before signaling the waitress. She started walking over, and he said, “It looks like we’re gonna need more coffee.”
“Amen,” Mike said.
Chapter Two
RAVEN
Miguel and I spent another hour at the diner recounting how we thought the Flores ruby and Mulberry diamond were connected. We told them what Sutter had shared about the smuggling operation the rogue CIA cell was involved in. And how they’d stolen a cache of jewels. They’d meant to be used to pay off warlords who wouldn’t take the paper currency the U.S. government was offering in exchange for intelligence about terrorists who were operating in Afghanistan. A Pakistani broker had stolen the jewels from the cell and shipped them to the States, later claiming they’d been stolen, but he’d been murdered by Mendez in a fit of anger. It only made sense that jewels were being sold in black market auctions arranged by Rosina Cassanova’s wealthy contacts.
Finally, we’d told them about the mysterious hand-delivered letters Mr. Flores had been receiving at his office, and how we suspected they were meant to scare him enough to give up the pigeon’s blood ruby. They’d found that aspect of the case very interesting, not only because Mr. Flores had received several such letters, but also because Aston claimed his investigator had fingerprinted the envelopes. However, the writer must’ve been using gloves because there weren’t any fingerprints.
They’d finished off their coffee, promising to get back to us with any developments in the case, and left with a ton of notes in Mike’s pad. They’d made us promise to be careful as long as we were insistent upon continuing this recovery.
We really had no choice but to continue. We still had bills stacking up, and Aston and his client still wanted us on the case, running down the ruby. As I drove to the office, I couldn’t get the thought of Dave Reynolds out of my head. I never spared much thought about my own death, but I was sure that I’d never want to be murdered in a dilapidated, vacant building so nasty that my body remained undiscovered, unburied, and decomposing on the cold, hard ground. That was just too horrifying.
In Navajo culture, the old ones believed that achindi—evil spirit—could follow a dead person into the afterlife unless several customs were followed. Some of these existed to this very day, like washing, wrapping, and burying the body with important objects which had belonged to the person. In ancient times, warriors were buried with their horse because they would have need of it in the afterlife. I liked the idea of the washing and wrapping which was also traditional in current Muslim culture. Men prepared the bodies of other men while women did the same with women before burial.
“What do you think about retracing Dave Reynolds’ footsteps? We could learn whatever he’d found out that got him murdered. That might give us a huge lead in finding this ruby.”
I felt Miguel’s gaze burning into me. “Are you crazy?”
I turned to look at him. “No. Why?”
“Well, first…hello, he was probably murdered for what he found out, but not only that, Cassidy and Mike sure as hell wouldn’t like us trampling on their homicide.”
I hadn’t thought about Cassidy and Mike, although the idea that trying to figure out what Dave Reynolds was working on could prove dangerous had. I nodded. “You’re right.” I sighed, trying to think of where to start. “Well, since Cassidy and Mike are going to be visiting our client and her attorney to ask questions about the investigator, why don’t we do a little bit of background on Mancuso?” I pulled into our office parking lot.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Miguel said, looking over at me as I parked in our space. “We probably should have told them about him.”
“I didn’t think about the bodyguard until after we’d left. Let’s see what we can learn about him before calling them. They have a lot of leads to follow to start off with.”
He nodded. “It’s not a bad idea, Raven. We can pass on whatever we find out about him. But you’re right, it sounds like they’re going to be busy with their homicide for the foreseeable future.”
I took his hand, kissing it before smiling. He grinned back as I dropped his hand. We got out of the truck and walked upstairs to the office. Judy was sitting at her desk, and she smiled as we walked in. She tore a few pink papers off her message pad and waved them at us.
“Good morning! I have good news,” she said, handing three phone messages to Miguel. “I’m pretty sure one of those is a new client.”
Miguel read the messages and then smiled, turning to me. “Good news.”
“We could sure use a new client. I was getting concerned.”
“Feeling unloved?” Judy asked, coming around the desk. She patted me on the bicep. “Don’t worry. Things will pick up and the news of your brilliance will spread, especially if you’re successful at recovering the ruby.”
Miguel nodded, obviously as touched as I was that she had faith in our business. “I agree. Do we have coffee?”
“I made a single cup for myself. I didn’t know when you’d be in since you were stopping for breakfast,” she said, walking toward the small kitchen at the back of the office. “Let me make a pot of coffee.”
“Thank you and then would you do me a favor and check someone out for me?” We followed her down the hallway into the small room.