Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 06 - Behind the Walls Read Free Page A

other cash he could lay his hands on. And some people wonder why I don’t trust easily.
    I walked back into the living room and looked at the pile of jewelry. I appraise houses, not jewelry, but even with my limited knowledge I knew this could be some serious booty. I had no thought of keeping it. Even though I had bought the small bungalow at a tax sale, I did not think something seemingly this valuable should fall under the finders-keepers-losers-weepers code of conduct.
    Any appraiser worthy of the job keeps a digital camera close at hand, so I dug mine out of my purse and separated the individual pieces to get better photos. When held as a group, the three gold bracelets were heavy. One was just a quarter of an inch wide and was limp. Another was very wide and stiff. It reminded me of something I thought Roman soldiers wore, except there was a kind of feathered pattern. The third looked like a bunch of tiny squares strung together and was not as shiny as the other two.
    The two that weren’t gold were a color between cinnamon and rust, and at first I thought they were hard plastic. The more I looked at them the less I thought they were typical plastic. I shrugged and photographed them separately.
    After I photographed the bracelets I lined up the diamonds by size, smallest on the left. There were nine of them. The one my ex-husband gave me for our engagement was half a carat. Robby later hocked it and convinced me I must have lost it, which had me apologizing and crying for weeks. I judged two or three of these to be roughly the same size and a couple smaller. The others were larger, perhaps as much as a carat. I took several pictures of them, and in each one there was a glare on some of the diamonds. I gave up on snapping one without any glare.
    The more I thought about it the odder it seemed that there were so many loose diamonds. They could have been removed from older pieces of family jewelry, but it seemed unlikely. The words jewelry heist came to mind and I almost giggled.
    I took a closer look at the canvas bag. It was similar in size to a cosmetics pouch or the plastic case of drill bits that Aunt Madge has in her tool box. The bag wasn’t ancient, but it wasn’t new, either. I turned it over, wishing it would have the name of a jeweler on the other side, so I would know how to start looking for the former owner. Nada.
    I was about to take a picture of the bag when my cell phone chirped.
    “May I speak with Joe-Lee Gentle?” the man’s voice asked.
    When people mangle the pronunciation of my name it’s a clue we don’t know each other. “This is Jolie Gentil,” I said, pronouncing it correctly.
    “Gosh, I guess I said that wrong.” He laughed.
    No kidding.
    When I didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m thinking of buying some property in Ocean Alley, kind of a hurricane bargain thing.”
    I fumed inwardly. The vultures swarming the shore to take advantage of the despair some people feel are no different than carpet baggers after the Civil War. I still didn’t say anything.
    In my mind I saw a cigar-smoking, middle-aged guy with a ten-gallon hat, feet propped on a huge wooden desk.
    He seemed to sense I did not like what he said, because his voice became less certain. “So, uh, I wondered if you could show me around town?”
    I let his words hang there for about three seconds. “I think you may have me confused with a real estate agent. I’m an appraiser. After you sign a sales contract, the prospective mortgage company hires me to establish what the property is worth.”
    His tone became impatient. “I know the difference. I was told that you were a go-to person, someone who could help me know if a property’s a steal, or if it’s priced too high. Real estate agents collude on prices, you know.”
    “Somehow I missed that. Let me give you the name of someone who knows this market like barnacles know boat bottoms.” The man sputtered a little while I recited Lester Argrow’s name and number,