“I’m Stan Bateman, the manager.” He seemed to fidget, moving back and forth behind the counter.
“Mr. Bateman,” began Katie. “We’re working a homicide—well, actually, a cold case—and we found some pieces of jewelry.”
McGaven took out his phone and showed the manager photos of both the bracelets and money clip.
“Well, let me see,” he said, putting on his glasses and taking a jeweler’s loupe. He studied the images carefully. “They’re sterling.”
“There’s a marking TM*on each of the pieces,” said Katie.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us anything about it?” she said.
“It does look familiar, but I don’t know offhand,” he said.
“Is it a designer?”
“Yes, it usually means that.”
“Can you tell us anything about it?” said McGaven.
“Well, hmmm,” he muttered. The manager turned around and grabbed a thick paperback and began skimming. He perused the paperback until he found what he was looking for. “Here,” he said showing the detectives. “It could be this symbol.”
Katie and McGaven squeezed together and looked at the image in the book. It looked identical.
“Yes,” said Katie. “Who is the designer?”
“Well, it’s not a designer, per se. It’s actually a meaning: ‘together midnight.’”
“What does that mean?”
“It basically means that whoever purchases these pieces will be together forever.”
“That seems odd,” she said. “Midnight represents darkness, bleakness…”
“Or perhaps a new beginning at the stroke of midnight when things turn back?” Mr. Bateman said.
Katie pondered the description. It didn’t seem to match up or perhaps didn’t mean anything for the buried bodies—except that all the family members had a piece of jewelry from the same designer. It was a frustrating reality of a small lead.
“I can tell you that this designer or company had very few pieces and they just disappeared about seven or eight years ago,” said the manager. “I thought they must have closed their business.”
“Is there any way of finding out how many pieces from them you sold?” said McGaven.
“No. We don’t catalog by designer signage.”
“What about by type of jewelry—the half hearts. There couldn’t be too many?” Katie said.
“Perhaps. Do you have a timeline?”
“Ten to twenty years ago?”
The manager frowned, shaking his head. “It would take weeks or months and there’s no guarantee.”
Katie sighed and took a moment to glance around at all the displays. “What about the distributor that you bought them from?”
“Maybe. It’ll take some research but it will help to identify how many we sold—and connect buyers. I’m assuming that’s what the goal is. We used to do the accounting by hand until we computerized.”
“Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated,” she said.
