Chapter 11
The bell over the door on Main Street jingled and the heat hit me first. It was the kind of old jeweler's shop that still had carpet and a humming air conditioner and trays of watches ticking behind glass.
I had the toddler on my hip. She'd fallen asleep in the car seat on the drive over and now she was warm and heavy against my champagne dress, which I'd never had time to change out of. The dress was wrinkled now. My beige pumps clicked on the thin carpet.
The man in the tuxedo held the door for the stroller I didn't have. He'd changed out of the bow tie but not the suit. He looked wrong under fluorescent lights.
"You didn't need to come," I said.
He slipped his hands in his pockets. "I did."
The jeweler was older, maybe seventy, with glasses low on his nose and a loupe already around his neck like he never took it off. His nameplate said HAROLD. He didn't look up from the counter at first.
"What can we do for you folks?" he asked.
I set the gold oval locket on the black velvet pad. I didn't open it. Harold picked it up without asking, turned it over, and his thumb found the filigree.
He put the loupe to his eye. For a long time the only sound was the air conditioner and my daughter's breathing against my shoulder.
"Well," he said finally. He turned the locket again. "This isn't estate sale inventory."
The man in the tuxedo leaned forward. "What do you mean?"
Harold set it down gently. "See this scroll work? This depth? This is hand-chased. Custom. Whoever did this wasn't stamping these out for a case. This is one of Alvin Greer's."
"Greer?" I asked.
"Retired now. Lives over by the water tower. He did all the real engraving in this county for forty years. This style — the tight rose in the corner, the way the border catches the light — that's his signature. He wouldn't do this for a mass seller. Someone commissioned it."
He looked at me. "How long you had this?"
"My mother gave it to me," I said. My throat was dry. "A long time ago."
Harold nodded like that tracked. "This is twenty, twenty-five years old at least. Gold's worn soft on the back where it was worn. Plating would've chipped by now if it was newer."
The man in the tuxedo had gone very still. He pulled out his phone.
"Can you prove who commissioned it?" he asked.
Harold wiped his hands on his cloth. "Alvin keeps ledgers. Every piece. Name, date, what they paid. Old school. He kept them even after he retired because his wife made him. I can call him."
He dialed on the shop phone, an actual corded phone behind the counter. He spoke quietly, turned away. I bounced the toddler without thinking, feeling her cardigan against my wrist.
Harold came back and held the phone out. "He wants to know the name inside?"
I opened the locket. The little color portrait was still there, tucked under the glass. I hadn't looked at it since the ballroom marble.
"My mother's name was Diane Keller," I said. "Date would be spring, maybe 1999. Or 2000."
Harold repeated it into the phone. We waited. The ticking of the watches got louder.
Then Harold's eyes widened. He grabbed a pen.
"Say that again, Alvin? Yeah. Yeah, I got it." He wrote on a receipt pad. DIANE KELLER — MAY 12, 1999 — OVAL LOCKET — DAUGHTER PORTRAIT — $240.
He hung up. He slid the receipt pad across the velvet to me.
"He has it," Harold said. "May 12, 1999. Diane Keller. Paid cash. Said it was for her daughter's first birthday. He even wrote 'add extra hinge, for small hands' in the notes."
My eyes blurred. I didn't wipe them because my hands were full.
The man in the tuxedo stared at the receipt. His jaw moved once.
His phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and his expression closed off. WOMAN_B, I assumed. He answered on speaker before I could tell him not to.
"Where are you?" Her voice was bright, controlled. Gala voice.
"Jeweler on Main," he said. "With the locket."
A pause. Then, smooth: "Honey, I told you — I bought that at the Whitmore estate sale last year. Tell him. There's a card in my clutch, probably fell out."
Harold frowned. "Whitmore estate didn't sell filigree like this, miss. Lot of costume stuff, but not Greer's work."
Another pause, shorter this time.
"Well then I must be misremembering," she said, her voice still light. "I found it. At the venue. Coat check had a lost and found box after the rehearsal dinner. No one claimed it. I was going to turn it in."
The man in the tuxedo didn't answer right away. He looked at me, then at the locket, then at the gray carpet between our shoes.
"Lost and found at the ballroom?" he said slowly.
"Yes. It was just sitting there."
"When was the rehearsal dinner?" he asked me, not her.
"Thursday," I said. "We both checked coats. The attendant put mine in cubby twelve. She was right behind me."
He ended the call without saying goodbye. He stood there for a second with the phone in his hand.
"She checked her coat at eight," he said, more to himself than to me. "She was early. Coat check is right by the staircase. Unattended after ten when the staff rotates to the bar."
He finally looked at me again, and for the first time since he'd pulled the magenta-gown woman off my wrist on the marble, his doubt tipped.
"She had opportunity," he said quietly. "All night."
May you like
Harold cleared his throat and folded the receipt carefully in half and handed it to me with the locket. "You keep this together," he said. "Ledger and locket match. That's provenance."
I tucked both into the diaper bag and zipped it while the toddler slept on, her white mary jane kicking once against my ribs.
