Chapter 6 - The Pawnshop and the Handcuffs
By 1:30 that afternoon, the rain over Cook County had escalated into a driving, relentless downpour that flooded the storm gutters along 4th Street in downtown Chicago.
The showroom of Kaufman & Sons Antique Estate Jewelers sat behind reinforced wrought-iron security grates and two-inch-thick ballistic glass, an oasis of walnut wainscoting, velvet display trays, and the quiet, heavy ticking of antique grandfather clocks.
Dolores Mitchell burst through the security airlock like an escaped convict fleeing a burning prison.
Her four-hundred-dollar salon hair was ruined, plastered across her forehead in wet, gray-streaked strands by the rain. Her beige trench coat was soaked at the hem, splattered with black road grime from the highway. She had left her Cadillac idling at a commercial loading meter three blocks away because her municipal parking pass had been rejected by the electronic kiosk.
“Mr. Kaufman!” Dolores gasped, rushing toward the heavy glass display counter, her breath coming in ragged, wheezing bursts.
Harold Kaufman, a distinguished, seventy-year-old certified master gemologist with silver hair and half-moon spectacles, looked up from his workbench where he was evaluating a tray of unmounted diamonds under a high-intensity jeweler’s loupe.
“Mrs. Mitchell,” Kaufman said, his voice slow, measured, and completely devoid of his usual country-club warmth. “You’re early. I told you on Friday that the spectroscopic analysis on the Colombian stone would take seventy-two hours.”
“I don't need the analysis, Harold!” Dolores cried out, slamming her wet leather coin purse onto the glass. “I need the cash! The twenty-eight thousand dollars you offered me for the center stone! I’ll take twenty-five! I’ll take twenty thousand in cash right now!”
Harold Kaufman didn't reach for the coin purse.
He slowly lowered his loupe to the green felt pad on his desk. He took off his spectacles, folded them with microscopic deliberation, and rested both hands flat against the counter.
“I cannot purchase that stone, Mrs. Mitchell,” Kaufman said softly.
Dolores froze. Her bloodshot eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated panic. “What do you mean you can’t purchase it?! You told me on Thursday that an untreated three-carat Muzo emerald with that level of clarity is virtually impossible to find on the private market!”
“It is impossible to find, Mrs. Mitchell,” Kaufman replied.
He reached beneath the counter and brought up an official, leather-bound document stamped with the blue seal of the American Gemological Society Registry.
“Because that specific stone—cut by Cartier in nineteen-forty-eight, bearing the internal laser inscription VANCE-1950 along the girdle—was registered on the National Stolen Property Database forty-five minutes ago by Detective Marcus Vance of the Chicago Police Department’s Major Financial Crimes Division.”
Dolores took two staggering steps backward, her hip hitting the corner of an antique display case.
“Stolen...?” she croaked, the word dying in her throat like a dry rattle. “No. No, Harold, that’s my family’s ring! My mother left me that piece in her will!”
“Your mother was a school librarian in Peoria who died with three hundred dollars in a credit union, Dolores,” a deep, gravelly voice echoed from the shadowed alcove beside the private viewing room.
Stepping into the light was Detective Marcus Vance.
He wore a dark charcoal suit beneath an open raincoat, his gold detective’s shield pinned to his lapel, his hands resting easily inside his pockets.
Behind him stepped two uniformed Chicago police officers, their heavy utility belts jingling with a sharp, mechanical rhythm against the hardwood floor.
Dolores let out a strangled, animal shriek, spinning toward the heavy front door.
CLACK-WHIR.
The electronic magnetic lock on the bulletproof outer door engaged with a sharp, pneumatic hiss. The green exit indicator turned blood red: DOOR LOCKED BY CENTRAL DISPATCH.
“Dolores Mitchell,” Detective Vance announced, stepping forward with unhurried, rhythmic authority. “Under an arrest warrant issued at eleven o'clock this morning by Judge Evelyn Vance-Holt of the Cook County Circuit Court, you are under arrest for Grand Larceny exceeding ten thousand dollars under Illinois Compiled Statutes 720 ILCS 5/16-1, and Felony Trafficking in Stolen Property.”
“No! You can’t touch me!” Dolores screamed, thrashing wildly as the two uniformed officers caught her by her wrists in textbook control holds.
Her designer handbag slipped from her fingers, hitting the floorboards with a heavy thud, bursting open to reveal her makeup compact, her empty checkbook, and three unopened overdue collection notices from the country club.
CLICK. CLICK.
The cold stainless-steel ratchets of the handcuffs locked around her wrists behind her back, pinning her wet beige trench coat against her spine.
“Craig!” she wailed, her voice cracking into a high, hysterical screech that bounced off the bulletproof glass. “Call my son! Craig will have your badges! He is an executive! He pays your salaries!”
Detective Vance reached down with a gloved hand, picked up the green velvet box containing my grandmother’s ring from the counter, and slid it into an airtight plastic evidence bag.
He looked at the weeping, thrashing sixty-two-year-old woman with an expression of such pure, frozen clinical disgust that her screams died in her throat.
“Your son Craig is currently sitting in Interrogation Room B at the 1st District precinct on State Street, Mrs. Mitchell,” Detective Vance said quietly.
“He was arrested two hours ago in his office for federal wire fraud and identity theft. He has already signed an eight-page confession stating that you were the one who planned the theft of this emerald to pay off your luxury cruise debt.”
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The detective signaled the officers toward the door.
“Take her out through the back alley, boys,” Detective Vance commanded. “The press photographers from the Chicago Tribune are already standing on the sidewalk out front.”
