Without further ado...


It was a drizzly, dreary morning in Haven, as Henry Jones trudged towards the door of his gold-buying shop to open for the day. Business had been abysmally slow this season, since tourism had dwindled and no one needed quick cash. Add to that the fact that Haven Gold Buyers was constantly stealing his customers, with their silly sign-holders dancing on street corners across town. Wearily turning his aged brass key in the lock, he shuffled in the door, the cheerful clanging of the doorbells serving to lighten his mood a little bit.

An hour later, he was nursing a second cup of coffee from the small machine in the back room, carefully arranging the pricier pieces he had for sale in his display cases. They had to be put away at night to deter thieves who might look in the window and see an opportunity, and it gave him something to do to pass the sluggish morning hours.

At about midmorning, the doorbells jangled again, and Henry looked up to greet his potential customer. It was a man he'd never seen around town before, although something about him was extremely familiar. Relative of someone he knew? Some famous but socially-reclusive author maybe? The man was dressed nondescriptly enough, in blue jeans and a hooded Carhartt workman's jacket, but something seemed off, something Henry couldn't put his finger on. Still, he summoned a kindly smile and stood from his chair behind the counter. "Something I can help you with, Sir? Are you buying or selling?"

The man was eyeing a gold pocket watch intently. "Selling." Without looking up, he reached into a pocket, removing a fistful of jewelry and plopping it on the counter. "Damn girlfriend ran off with my best bud, and I don't think a ruby choker would look very good on me."

There was much more than a ruby-encrusted choker in the pile, and Henry was wary, but good-naturedly pulled the small heap across the counter towards himself to separate the expensive-looking chains. "Sure, let me get these sorted and I can give you an estimate in about twenty minutes, if that's okay?" The man merely grunted in assent, before abruptly jamming a finger against the glass counter. "That pocket watch…Do you know where it came from?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but I believe it has a special engraving on the back that it arrived with…We only charge a small fee to remove that if you'd like…" Henry abandoned the small pile of jewelry to unlock the case, pulling out the pocket watch and offering it to the man to hold. "Yep, J. C. S. Dunno if those initials fit," he chuckled quietly, "but your decision, if you like it!"

But the man's expression had turned dark, brows furrowing as his hand clenched around the ornate trinket. "No, no I don't like it. Just wondered a bit about it, that's all. I'll take a look around." He shoved the watch back at Henry before wandering off along the lengthy counter, crouching down to look at some cufflinks.

"No problem…" Henry was baffled by the man's strong reaction to a simple watch, but no matter. He returned it to the cushion it had lain upon in the display case, before relocking the case and turning his attention back to the jewelry.

Among the ruby choker lay several gold chains, a few finely-crafted bangles, and…a silver necklace with a teardrop-shaped sapphire hanging from it. Wait…

Henry darted a glance at the man perusing his counters. He wasn't looking at Henry, who pulled the sapphire necklace back to his desk with a quick "Be right back!" and woke his computer from sleep mode. Keying a few phrases into a search engine, he quickly had the answer to his question.

This stuff was stolen, there was no cheating girlfriend. The sapphire necklace had been familiar to Henry because of a robbery covered on the news. It had been on display as the key piece in a sapphire collection presented by a well-known boutique down in Portland, Maine, and was touted as one of only five that had been created by the designer. The shop owner was interviewed on the news after the robbery, expressing relief that the first four had quickly sold, and only the fifth had been able to be taken during the crime, the perpetrator of which had done nothing to conceal himself.

That's where this guy's from, Henry realized. His mug shot had been shown on the news multiple times during the airing of last night's news that had broken in on his favorite hunting show. His name was Jeff something or other, a well-known criminal who for some reason or another was proving uncatchable, despite everyone knowing who he was and what he looked like and the areas he usually targeted.

Henry's quaking hand reached for the telephone, getting the receiver to his ear before his customer spoke from right beside him. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."


Henry didn't move, only his eyes darted upwards to see the man, Jeff whoever, had apparently jumped the counter and was now standing right above him, glaring daggers at the phone in Henry's hand.

A tinny voice was repeating itself in Henry's ear. "This is 9-1-1, what is your emergency? Hello?"

Henry never voiced what his emergency was, for the connection shorted out as a strong electric shock raced through the receiver and right into his skull.

A gurgling gasp escaped his lips and then nothing else, as he toppled to the floor, dead before he hit it and bringing the entire phone setup with him. The receiver rolled to a stop on the aged carpet a few inches from his slack grasp, the line completely disconnected. His hand and entire arm, as well as the right side of his face and skull, were charred from the intensity of the electric shock. His customer was already gone, the doorbells chiming cheerfully as the door swung shut on the macabre scene.


The call didn't even come in to the police station until several hours later, as no one even entered the gold shop for several hours. Henry's wife had come in herself when he didn't answer the phone, worried he'd had a heart attack or something similar, and instead found a scene much worse than she could have imagined. Her shrieks brought a shopkeeper from the tackle and bait shop across the way, who called Haven police from his own phone.

Dwight responded promptly, his SUV roaring down the quiet streets of mid-afternoon Haven with lights and sirens blaring. He found Mrs. Jones hoarse from screaming, and still unable to form coherent sentences. From the other shopkeeper's explanation, he gathered the time that elapsed since Mrs. Jones arrived, but time of death would be a mystery until the coroner got here.

As he crouched over the body, trying to ignore the stench of barbecued flesh as he leaned closer to examine the fallen telephone receiver, Jordan arrived. A flurry of movement at the shop doorway caught Dwight's gaze, and he straightened up to see Jordan sweeping inside, brushing her hair off her face with a pair of sunglasses she pushed up onto her hairline. "Took your time, McKee."

"Really? I was just taking care of a call out at a front street motel, lady claims several rooms were robbed last night, windows broken, valuables gone, customers pissed off. Says she had only one peculiar guest check in last night, a man who gave some phony – " she glanced down at the body and wrinkled her nose – "-excuse the pun, story about leaving his debit card at home blah blah blah, and could he pay with cash. She just had him sign a register, which of course is gonna have some made-up name on it, but I think this was Forrester. She said he seemed quiet and nice enough, only had one small duffel bag with him and said he was here for business. I've got Stan with a team over there, following up any leads he can get from the motel. What've we got here?"

"Dunno yet. Guy appears…cooked from the inside out, on this one side of his head and arm, and the phone receiver is looking like it shorted out or something. Gotta wait on the coroner to give a time of death, but it looks like he was here alone for a while, shopkeeper from across the way who made the call says that he ran the place by himself while the wife stays at home. Got a guy in the back checking the surveillance system, place like this has got to have some security, hopefully we can see who needed some cash today."

"Think Forrester was cashing in on stolen goods?" Jordan asked, mouth quirking to the side in thought as she scanned the body's position and surroundings.

"Seems likely." Dwight was back to short replies, directing officers to cordon off the entire shop-front and sidewalk, before heading outside to meet the coroner van that had just arrived. Jordan looked over the body one last time, absently fiddling with the fastening on one glove before swinging around and striding quickly out the door with so much as glancing at the distraught widow being gently questioned near the door. She had work to do to catch the culprit.

She passed Dwight talking to the new arrivals, giving them patrol instructions, and mimed holding a phone to her ear at Dwight, mouthing "Call you". Hopefully she'd have something when that call happened. Swinging onto her bike, she double-checked an address on her phone before pulling away from the curb with a roar from the engine.

"Should get some sort of stamp card system going with my supply company," the medical examiner was grumbling, pulling on latex gloves with a glum look in the shop window. "Weeks like this I need more gurneys than the entire city of Portland."


Thanks for reading! ~Bon