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“Are you all right, Mrs. Bianchini?”
This was her chance. Maybe, if Patrick had sold some of his possessions, he’d given up making money here in Derby and had moved on. If she could know for sure ... “The man who sold you this ... what can you tell me about him?”
He hesitated, tugging nervously at his collar. “No offense, ma’am, but I don’t make a habit of talking about customers.” He said it like the people who skulked into his shop were as worthy of dignity as the ones who patronized perfume counters in high-end department stores.
She’d have to give him some reason, mixed with as much truth as possible. “Please, I ... think I might know him from Boston, and I would not like to meet him again, if he’s in town.”
Her words and the genuine anxiety in her voice seemed to settle the matter. Mr. Maloney indicated a height a few inches above his own. “Tall fellow, dressed nicer than most I get inhere, but that’s nothing too unusual. Brown hair, scar by his chin, slightly crooked nose.” He shrugged. “Does that help?”
Any doubt she had went away instantly. Though she would choose different phrases—Mr. Maloney, it seemed, hadn’t picked up on the Errol Flynn swagger and good looks that a woman would notice immediately—it sounded like Patrick, but a physical description alone wouldn’t give her the information she was looking for. “It might be.”
Mr. Maloney leaned back against the display case, his frown deepening. “To tell the truth, I didn’t like the cut of his jib.” Noticing Martina’s confusion, he added, “Forgot you were from away. In Maine-speak, I didn’t like the look of him.
“Understand,” he went on, “in here I mostly see folks at their worst. Desperate, lonely, in some kind of trouble. You’ve got to look a little harder to see the good in them when they’re beaten down like that.” His eyes wandered to the stack of biographies behind them on the counter. “Charlotte taught me that.”
Before he could tear up again, Martina quickly asked, “What do you mean by the look of him?”
“His sort, I check any bills a little closer, if you know what I mean. He kept trying to get me to pay top dollar for his things, too. Real smooth talker.”
That was Patrick, all right. “Did he sell anything else?”
“A suitcase and a gold watch chain. And...” He rounded the display case, pulling open the glass door to remove a tray with jewelry arranged in a neat row. But it was the simple gold necklace he pointed to that made her heart nearly stop beating.
“This one. Told me it was inset with real turquoise.”
Martina reached for the crucifix, the body of Jesus vague from generations of wear, four small blue stones at each point to indicate his wounds, the clasp that took several minutes to fix properly. Her crucifix.
She’d given it to Patrick when he’d confronted her in thechurch back in Boston, all she had with her of value. She hadn’t even told Mamma, she’d felt so much like Judas, betraying her Lord, not for silver but for the momentary promise that Patrick would leave her alone.
Had he kept it this long out of superstition? Sentimentality? Had he used it for prayers of his own?
“I’ve got a jeweler’s loupe and enough training to know real gems from glass,” Mr. Maloney went on, his chin still tilted down at the velvet tray, missing her reaction entirely, “but that foreign turquoise, well ... I don’t do much dealing in that. So when this fellow countered my price, I told him I’d bring it to an appraiser, and to come back in three days when I knew what it was worth.”
She had a feeling she knew the ending to this story. “He took the lower price, didn’t he?”
Mr. Maloney nodded. “Either it was a fake and he didn’t want to be caught out, or he needed cash right away. Maybe both.”
“When was this?”
“Just yesterday.” Mr. Maloney shook his head. “Tried to get me to set the coat aside in the back room, saying next week he’d be able to buy it back. Got angry when I said I couldn’t do that. Bad business model, you know. I’m used to folks insisting they’ll strike it rich and return for their goods. They rarely come through.”
Martina frowned. “He said he’d be rich in a week?”
“Sure. Don’t they all?”
Strange. That didn’t fit with her theory that Patrick needed money for wharf-side drinking, or that he’d hit hard times and needed to move on.
Still, except for the crucifix, there was nothing wrong with Patrick selling some of his things—hadn’t she been the one to recommend it? Even his comment about coming into money could be his usual empty bragging.
“Think it’s the fellow you used to know?”
The question pulled her from her thoughts. Yes, it was the same Patrick ... and also not the same. He had always been a bully, but whoever he’d connected with after leaving the navy had taken him into something darker. What, she couldn’t say, but it gave her an uneasy feeling all the same. “It’s possible. But please don’t worry about me. Just ... tell me if he comes back, if you would.”
From his expression, Mr. Maloney wasn’t fully convinced. “Are you sure you’re all right, Mrs. Bianchini? If you need someone to walk you back to the library...”
“It’s nothing, really.” Her hand went to her purse, with its few bills and coins. “But I’d like to buy that crucifix.”
For once, Martina was glad the core room required only endless repetition.
