Ring Of Deception

First there’d been a handshake and congratulations about yesterday’s collar. He and Dan had put in two months working on a dozen cases of home-invasion robberies and finally caught the vicious SOB who’d been busting into the homes of the elderly, stealing whatever he could, and beating up the frail victims just for kicks.

“Good job, Sloan,” McDowell said, to start their meeting.

Then he motioned Luke to a chair and made what was supposed to be some meaningful small talk along with lots of serious eye contact.

The lieutenant, like most of the bosses, had taken a management seminar on how to encourage subordinates to feel like part of the team. The looking-deep-into-the-eyes thing was one of the techniques.

Luke knew that because he’d leafed through a syllabus he’d found lying around.

Lieutenant McDowell wasn’t particularly good at the deep eye contact. He’d come to the department from the mayor’s office, and if he had something to tell you, he had a tendency to yell and get red in the face.

That he wasn’t even raising his voice, but was doing this by the syllabus, made Luke nervous.

Then he offered Luke a cup of coffee. Starbucks, by the taste of it, and one thousand percent better than the sludge they brewed in the squad room.

“Cream?” the lieutenant asked, and that was when Luke knew that whatever came next would not be pleasant.

“No,” Luke said politely, “I’m fine.”

“Sound a little husky, Sloan. Got a cold?”

“I do, yeah.”

“My wife swears by horehound drops. Might want to try some.”

A polite invitation, coffee, an offer to add cream to that coffee, and now some fatherly advice. No, this was not good.

“I’ll do that,” Luke said, and waited.

McDowell sat back in his chair and tented his fingers under his chin. “Well,” he said, “you must be wondering why I called you in today.”

Luke said nothing. Back when he was a marine, he’d learned the drill. Keep your mouth shut and wait. You’d find out what was going on sooner or later. That worked in a cop’s world, too.

McDowell cleared his throat, rose from his desk and walked to a wall map of Seattle. He stabbed a finger at the northwestern section of the city and raised an eyebrow at Luke.

“Some very expensive real estate up here,” he said.

Luke muffled a sneeze. “Uh-huh.”

“I guess you’ve heard about the robberies in the area the last few months.”

Now they were getting down to it. Luke began to relax. Maybe he’d misjudged things. Maybe McDowell was the victim of another management seminar, this one on issuing summonses to his office that didn’t sound like summonses.

“I heard something about a cat burglar doing his thing.”

“At first. But our perp’s gone from playing it cool and careful to strong-arm tactics. Comes in when he knows somebody’s home, frightens them half to death, roughs them up if they don’t move fast enough.”

“Sounds like a real nice guy.”

“Uh-huh. His taste is good, too. He takes only what they call estate jewelry, meaning it’s old and expensive.”

“What more do we know?”

“Well, we had a report of one of the missing pieces possibly turning up on the market.”

“Possibly?”

“Yeah. And not in your usual kind of market, Sloan. This wasn’t a pawnshop.”

“What was it, then?”

The lieutenant sat down behind his desk. “Ever hear of the Emerald City Jewelry Exchange?”

“Sure. Big place, expensive by the looks of it. On a street over in Belltown.” Luke cocked his head. “Wait a minute. Are you saying somebody at Emerald City is fencing stolen jewelry?”

The lieutenant allowed himself a quick smile. “I’m not saying a thing. Not yet.”

“But?”

“But a lady called last week, all upset. Said she’d just come from there and swore she spotted a necklace that was the duplicate of one stolen from her. It was lying in a corner of a display case.”

“And?”

“Let’s put it this way. The lady in question is ninety-three, wears a hearing aid in each ear and glasses thick as Coke bottles. During the original interview, she told the detective who took the squeal that she’s being pestered by aliens from outer space who talk to her through her Persian cat.”

Luke grinned. “Uh-huh.”

“The detective paid her another visit, chatted with a maid who said the old girl’s okay most of the time but, well, every now and then she has a little trouble with reality.”

“Not the world’s most reliable complainant,” Luke said with a nod.

“On the other hand, the maid was with her that day. She says when the old woman gasped and pointed at the corner of the case, she looked, too, and she thinks maybe it really was the necklace.”

“Maybe?”

McDowell shrugged. “‘Maybe’s’ about it.”

“Did they say anything to anybody in the store?”

“No, not a word. They went straight outside and phoned us.”

“So, what we’ve got is an old lady with a screw loose, and a maid who thinks maybe she saw something . . . and maybe she didn’t.”

“Exactly. That’s why we have to move carefully on this.”

“I assume somebody checked the display case in the store.”

“Sure. The detective went in, she took a look, didn’t see a thing.”