Chapter 21:
Mrs. Debbie Jenkins
“Good Morning, Mr.
Carter.” Max greeted me with a smile when I approached him.
“How is she?” I
asked while looking at the old lady standing in front of the antique store.
“Nothing’s changed.”
He answered with a shrug “But I got the information you need.”
I went here the
other day, two days after I met Max and the old lady, to start helping them
both. But the old lady ignored us all day, and didn’t answer any of our
questions. She kept pointing to the store and whispering the word ‘earrings’. I
asked Max if he could gather any information that would help us know what the
problem of the old lady was.
“Her name is Debbie
Jenkins, Sixty-three years old, and I think she is looking for the earrings
that her grandmother passed on to her mother and then to her.”
I looked at him
wondering how he got all those information, and he smiled.
“I followed her when
she visited her daughter’s house last night, and I heard her talking to her
daughter. She promised her that she would get the earrings back.” He explained
proudly
“You think the
antique store have those earrings?”
“There’s only one way
to find out.” He grinned and started walking towards the antique store.
Max told the old
lady we were coming in when we passed by, but there was no reaction from her.
“Shit,” I hissed
when I bumped into the antique store’s door. I followed Max and forgot that I
couldn’t go through walls. Damn.
“Good Morning. How
may I help you?” The man behind the counter greeted cheerfully.
“Good Morning,” I
smiled nervously while trying to think what to say next. I should have made a
plan first before entering the store. “I… I… I’m looking for the earrings that
used to belong to Debbie Jenkins. I believe it was sold here, probably three
years ago, and I am here to buy it.”
“She’s a family
friend.” I quickly added when the man looked at me as if I had two heads or something.
“These are all the
earrings we have.” The man pointed to the earrings that were being displayed on
one corner of the shop.
I nodded and
pretended to look at them while waiting for Max to finish checking if Debbie’s
earrings were one of them. After a couple of minutes, Max shook his head with
disappointment.
“Are you sure?” I
whispered in the softest way possible.
“Yes.” He answered
with confidence.
“Did you find what
you are looking for?” The man asked me when he got back from attending to one
customer.
“I’m afraid not. Do
you have any more inventories?”
He shook his head
“Maybe it was already sold.”
“Um, Mister…..”
“Clark. My name is
Ronald Clark.” He supplied the information with a small smile.
“Ronald,” I said
while nodding and extended my right hand to him “I’m Nick Carter. Is there a
way to know if the earrings were really sold here by any of Debbie’s relatives?
Maybe I’m looking at the wrong antique store, you know.”
“Oh my God! Nick
Carter?” A young woman, probably on her early twenties, came in from the back
door of the store.
“You know him?”
Ronald was a bit surprised
“Of course, Dad. He
is Nick Carter of THE Backstreet Boys.” Then she turned to me “What are you
doing here? How can I help you?”
I gave her one of my
thousand watts smile while telling her what the problem was.
“Oh, we actually
have pictures of everything that became part of our inventory. I call it ‘The
Book’, I can help you look for the earrings there, and if we’re lucky the
information about the buyer would be there.”
“Really? Thank you!”
I gave her a seductive smile. Being a Backstreet Boy sure comes handy
sometimes. I remember when Brian said that the most effective pick-up line was
to tell the girl you are a Backstreet Boy, and now I believe him.
After almost two
hours of scanning three record books, we found nothing. I was starting to lose
hope while Max was outside trying to convince the old lady to speak up.
“What kind of
earrings are you looking for again?” The girl, whose name was Carol, asked me
after a minute of silence.
“Um,” I looked
around and was relieved to see Max behind me “You’re asking what the earrings
look like?” I had to make sure Max heard the question.
“Yes.”
“Well….”
“They are gold and
have big blue-ish oval gem.” Max whispered to me as if Carol could hear him. “I
saw Debbie wearing them on one of her pictures.”
I repeated what Max
told me “I’m sorry. I’m not good at describing jewelry.” I added.
“Wait. Who sold the earrings
to us again?” Her facial expression reminded me of those cartoon characters,
where a light bulb suddenly flashed above their heads when they remembered
something.
“The owner of the
earrings is Debbie Jenkins, but I’m sure it was not her who sold the earrings.”
“Now I remember, you
must be looking for the earrings with gorgeous aquamarine oval gem. It was sold
here by an old man three years ago at a very low price because he said he
needed the money to get his wife out of the hospital.”
“Then why are they
not on our inventory list?” Ronald butted in when he heard what Carol said
“Well, Uncle Joseph
was here and fell in love with the earrings right away. He said it was the
perfect anniversary gift for Kate. He bought it with his own money.” Carol
explained and then turned to me “I am not sure, though, if those were the one
you are looking for.”
“The old man
actually came back after two weeks, he wanted to buy those earrings back but
Uncle Joseph was in Texas. I told him to come back after a week but he never
did.” Carol added.
“Is it possible to
talk to your Uncle Joseph? Maybe he still have those earrings.”
“Uncle Joseph moved
to Texas when Kate broke up with him. I am not sure if Kate returned those
earrings to him when they broke up. You can try asking Kate, she owns a
bakeshop three blocks from here. If she tells you that she returned those to
Uncle Joseph, then come back here and I’d help you call Uncle Joseph.”
“That’s great.
You’ve been really helpful.” I kissed her cheeks and hugged her tight which
made her blush.
“What’s the name of
your Uncle’s ex-girlfriend again?”
“Kate. Kaitlyn Harris.”
***