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Marc took a moment to speak to the prosecutor. While he did this, Maddy and Robbie waited at the defense table. After a couple minutes the two prosecutors walked off toward the back exit. Knowing Maddy was sneakily watching him, Marc did his best to avoid watching the lovely backside of Celia Raines as she walked off. It did not work.

“I saw you looking at her,” Maddy said when Marc sat down.

Marc dropped his chin with a forlorn look which caused Maddy to bust out laughing.

“It is so much fun to tease you,” she said. Maddy leaned forward, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Hey, none of that. This is a court of law,” they heard a very familiar voice say.

“Look what the wind blew in,” Marc said.

Tony Carvelli, an ex-MPD detective, retired, now private investigator came through the gate in the railing.

“Hi, kids,” Carvelli said. He pulled up a chair from up against the railing and sat down.

“Look at how tan he is,” Maddy said. “Where have you been?”

“I just spent a month in Polk City, Florida doing undercover at a Best Buy warehouse and distribution center.

“There was so much theft going on I had to bring in the FBI. The local cops, some of them, were in on it up to their eyeballs. Didn’t you hear about it? They busted over fifty people, including cops and sheriff’s deputies. They had to close the warehouse. Now Best Buy is trying to decide if they want to reopen it or move it.”

“Did you stop in Chicago on your way back?” Maddy asked referring to an assistant U.S. attorney Carvelli was involved with.

“Yeah…”

“What?” Maddy said. “What did you do?”

“It’s not what I did, it’s what she’s been doing,” Carvelli replied.

“Oh, oh,” Maddy said. “Is Paxton… ”

“Seeing someone else? Yes. It’s okay. These long distance things never work. I’ve thought about it and, you know, I love her enough to wish her well. I hope she finds happiness.”

“You’re a hell of a man,” Maddy said. “A lawyer?”

“A judge. A federal district court judge. And, a married one,” Carvelli replied.

“You’re kidding! I’ll call her,” Maddy said.

“Leave it alone. She’s a big girl. Sooner or later, she’ll figure it out.

“So, how are things here?” he asked.

“Robbie, have you met him?” Maddy asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Robbie said.

Maddy introduced them and Marc said, “Okay, the crowd’s gone. Let’s go.”

Marc stood and quietly spoke to Carvelli. “I’m glad you’re back. I’ve got a job for you. Part of our ‘some other dude did it defense’.”

“Okay,” Carvelli said.

By now, Robbie and Blake were almost at the exit of the empty courtroom. Whispering so Robbie and Blake would not hear him, Marc said, “We have a paying client.”

“So much the better,” Carvelli replied.

“Don’t get carried away,” Marc said.

“Relax, I could take the rest of the year off on what I made in Florida.”

“Ahem, ahem,” Maddy said to get Carvelli’s attention. “Next time you have a deal like that, try to remember I’m available.”

“At first, the cops believed the death of Robbie’s mother, was caused by a burglary job gone sideways,” Marc, back at his office, told Carvelli starting his explanation. “I have a list of the items Blake came up with that were stolen.”

While Marc was telling Carvelli this, he was looking through Robbie’s file. He found the list and asked Maddy to open his door.

“Ryan! Got a minute?” he yelled out to the receptionist.

Ryan came into Marc’s office and Marc handed him the list of stolen items .

“Two copies, please and thanks,” Marc said.

“I want you to see if you can track down any of the items on the list. Where you got them and who they came from.”

“That’s a needle in a haystack, but I know the haystack to start looking,” Carvelli said.

“I know you’re busy, babe, but if you can find time to help him…thanks, Ryan,” Marc said when Ryan came back.

“Door open?” Ryan asked.

“Closed, please,” Marc said.

“After the jolt I got from Paxton, Ryan’s starting to look good,” Carvelli said of the good looking, young gay man.

Maddy patted Carvelli on the shoulder and said “You’ll survive. We’ve all been there.”

“Look at what I ended up with,” Marc said speaking of Maddy.

“That was sweet,” Maddy said. “I think.”

Carvelli coughed while saying “Lucky tonight.”

“Could be,” Maddy replied.

“Back to business, for you my love, I’m going to need a couple of subpoenas served.”

The most easily fenced objects on the list of items stolen from Priscilla were five pieces of jewelry. Blake had listed the stolen items, total retail value of thirty-thousand dollars; earrings that went for forty-two hundred; a diamond tennis bracelet valued at thirty-three hundred; an eight-thousand dollar Ladies’ Rolex and her wedding rings. The rings, engagement and wedding band, had set Blake back forty-five hundred, twenty-one years ago.

There was one other item: a sterling silver set of flatware for eight. The original cost was nine-thousand-four hundred dollars. Every item, except for the rings were paid for by Priscilla. The assorted miscellaneous items would push the retail value easily to thirty grand.

Fortunately, Priscilla had sent photos of the jewelry along with sales receipts to the insurance company. Amazingly, Blake had received a full value check less than two weeks after making the claim .

Carvelli had worked burglary for many years as a detective with the MPD. Of course he had been out of it for a long time. A quick call to a detective he knew brought him up to date on where to look. Most of them were people and places Carvelli knew well.

He had been to two pawn shops in Minneapolis that were operating on the edge of legitimacy. Both were being operated by the same shady guys who had been there for over thirty years.

Even though Carvelli was retired, he still knew how to put fear in their hearts. Marc, along with the list, had provided him with the jewelry photos. Both pawn shop owners convinced him they had not seen any of the pieces and MPD cops had already been around with the same photos.

Carvelli made his third stop later that same evening. Conveniently there was a parking spot in front of the place. Located in Northeast Minneapolis on Central Avenue, two miles from downtown, he stopped.

Arties Café was both a bar for reprobates of lesser scumbag notoriety such as gamblers, small-time crooks and people with information and a family restaurant. Carvelli was a regular.

“Well, look what the wind blew in,” a bit of a heavy-set, bottle-blonde hostess at the front door said when Carvelli strolled in.

“Be still my beating heart,” Carvelli replied.

“Aww! How sweet. Isn’t that Shakespeare?” the woman asked.

“Ah, not sure. I think I saw it on the wall of a men’s room somewhere,” Carvelli answered.

“Always the romantic,” she said. “Give us a hug, you big galoot.”

Carvelli hugged the woman and kissed her cheek while saying, “Hello, Jean, my darling, how’s Floyd?”

“He’s fine. I’m still waiting for the heart attack,” Jean said of her ex-cop husband. “I just make sure to keep the life insurance payment made.”

“Now, who’s the romantic? Who’s in the bar?”

“Who you looking for?” Jean asked .

“Marty Collins. Have you…”

“He’s here. In the back room. He’s got a game going.”

“Okay, I’ll stop in and say hello,” Carvelli said.

On his way through the bar to find Marty Collins, Carvelli stopped to say hello and chat almost ten times. He finally reached the door with a PRIVATE sign on it. He knocked a couple of times then went in.

In the middle of the room that was used for storage, was a round table with five men and one woman sitting around it. Three of the men were known to Carvelli as was the woman. At the opposite side of the table sat the man Carvelli was looking for.

“Well, look what we have here. Private investigator, Anthony Carvelli,” Collins said.

Marty Collins was married three times and divorced three times with no children. Marty had once been an up and coming attorney, long ago, in the state attorney general’s office. He hated every minute of it. That’s when he learned to play poker from a man he had help prosecute in a busted gambling ring prosecution.

Now in his mid-sixties, the five-foot, seven-inch dapper Irishman was in his fourth decade of making a very good living at poker as a card player. If need be, dealing blackjack when necessary. Every card player in the Twin Cities knew him and knew he was a shark. That made him more attractive. A player others wanted to take on and try to beat.

Grayish brown hair and a three-piece suit made Marty look like everyone’s favorite uncle. Until they sat down at a table with him.

“To what do we owe the honor?” one of the men Carvelli knew asked.

“Well, Senator,” Carvelli said to long-time State Senator Lucien McCabe, “I stopped to have a chat with Mr. Collins.

“You know, there’s no smoking indoors in a public place anymore,” Carvelli said.

“That’s why there’s a sign on the door that says private,” the lone woman said while she puffed a cigar.

“I was wondering, Mary, thanks,” Carvelli replied .

“Your timing is impeccable, Tony,” Collins said as he tossed his cards into the discard pile on the table. “I’m taking a break,” he said.

“Good idea,” others agreed.

“Let’s step out back,” Collins said as he slipped into a two-thousand dollar cashmere overcoat.

“It’s still winter out there,” Carvelli said.

“Privacy, come on, be a man,” Collins told him.

Outside, Collins lit one of the five Marlboro Reds he allowed himself every day.

“You’re here about some missing jewelry I think,” Collins said. “Stolen from the site of a homicide for a client of Marc Kadella.”

“You read the paper,” Carvelli said.

“A lost art,” Collins replied. “You have photos?”

Carvelli had 5 x 7 photos of the jewelry in a manilla envelope tucked into his slacks against his back. He retrieved them and showed them to Collins.

“With the Sterling silver flatware, approximate value around thirty grand. Has the insurance company paid?” Collins asked while flipping through the photos. “Never mind. A homicide. People just have no values, no ethics, no class these days.”

He handed the photos back to Carvelli and asked, “You know Rudy over in St. Paul? Capitol Pawn on University near the Capitol Building?”

“Yeah, I know him.”

“A little birdie told me he knows something. He may have grifted some black kids, teenagers for a grand for some of this. Now ask yourself, how could some black kids, teenagers, in St. Paul be in Minneapolis doing a home burglary and a homicide?”

“Shit,” Carvelli muttered.

“It’s cold out here. Why didn’t you tell me?” Collins said. “Let’s go back in.”

He took one last hit on the Marlboro Red then flipped the remnant away.