Page 51 of Gem Warfare
“It’s possible but I’m still leaning towards son,” I said. “Let’s go back to the kid for a moment. There were no IDs for him so… they couldn’t have been on the run. The boy didn’t live with him and I’m sure we would have known if there was a teenaged boy being homeschooled in the neighborhood.”
“He probably lived with the mom. Dad dropped in and out of his life, kept them out of it.”
“So there should be a record somewhere of our John Doe keeping his original name. He would hardly tell the boy to call him by some other name. Imagine if our parents did that. It would be hard to wrap our heads around. Plus, he must have made provisions for him somehow if he were paying towards his upkeep. Mom recognized the school badge. She said the school was expensive.”
“It’s likely Smithson used his real name for his close personal interactions, but until a name pops up, we don’t know what that is. I’m hopeful the autopsy turns up something.”
“Any news on when that will be?”
“I’m still waiting for the ME to call. C’mon. I’ll give you a ride back to the office, then I’m heading to the station to talk to my captain about these jewels.”
“What about them?” I asked, hopeful there was news.
“He wants to know who owns them. Funny that because me too.” Garrett laughed.
He dropped me off at the agency, declining to come inside, but with the insistence to call him if anything turned up.
I crossed my fingers and hoped something would because the forgery lead had been utterly disappointing.
When I reached the office, Solomon and Delgado were sitting at the table in the boardroom. Solomon stepped out, asking, “How’s it going?”
“Dead end,” I said. “The forger recognized the driving license and admits to supplying him with forgeries but didn’t have any more to say. Garrett’s hopeful that the autopsy might turn up something useful. So far, the body is our best lead.”
“Where are you at until then?”
“Mom had a lot of background information for Garrett and me and we might have an identity.”
“Already? That’s great!”
“It would be if we didn’t suspect it to be false. Lily and I got some correlating information from Elsie Greenberg’s house so I’m going to work on that. Perhaps something will turn up,” I said, wondering if I sounded as despondent as I felt. There were so many jigsaw pieces to complete the puzzle, but I felt like we had three puzzles and all the pieces were jumbled up while the crucial ones were missing.
“Pull Lucas in if you need the manpower.”
Solomon’s phone rang. He glanced at it then put it to his ear. “Solomon here,” he said, turning away.
As I opened my laptop, I remembered in the commotion I’d forgotten to search the school my mom had mentioned. Now I called up The Walsingham School, navigating to the past yearbook pages. There were decades of entries. How long ago did my mother think Joe Smithson had lived in the end house? If the Singhs had moved in during my sophomore or senior year, that narrowed down the time frame. I started with my senior year and scrolled through the photos, disappointed by the time I reached the end.
My junior year yielded the same lack of results.
Disappointed, I hit thebackbutton and moved the cursor to my sophomore year, my chin in my hand as I pulled the cursor down.
Halfway down, I stopped and scrolled up.
A boy with dark hair in a uniform smiled at the camera.
Yes, that was the boy in the photo but the smile… the mouth was what I recognized.
Of course he was older when we met, his features more defined, his youthful good looks having grown into handsome.
Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any weirder, it gave me my nemesis, the thief, Ben Rafferty.
Chapter Twelve
The last time I’d seen Ben Rafferty he’d happily escaped me and arrest.
Handsome, charming, and very clever, he’d outmaneuvered me, even used me to steal jewels from an exclusive ball thrown by the woman who had engaged us to catch a thief.
To make matters worse, I’d actually liked him.