“If it’s on you, it’s a deal,” Donna said. “I’ll call Tess. We’ll meet you there in what? About an hour?”
“Sounds good. See you soon.” I ended the call and then reached out to Detective Pierce.
“Pierce,” he answered.
I tried to sound chipper. “Hey, it’s Anna.”
“I know.” Then he was quiet.
Okay, he was in one of those moods. I lost the fake cheerfulness. “How close are you to charging Nick?”
“I’m not,” Pierce said quietly. “I just got the case a week ago, but so far, it’s not looking good for Basanelli.”
Not what I wanted to hear. “Everything you have is circumstantial, and you know it.” Not that a good circumstantial case couldn’t send a guy to prison. “What else do you have that you’re not telling me about?”
“If I have something I’m not telling you, there’s a reason I’m not telling you.”
“You know, I don’t know how you can be smooth and curt in the same sentence,” I observed.
He obviously didn’t have an answer for that because he didn’t give one.
“Tell me something. Anything,” I prodded.
His silence held weight. “All right. I have Wayne Wilson, Imogen Wilson’s widower, coming in tomorrow morning so I can make the notification before the press gets ahold of it.”
More likely so Pierce could watch his reaction. I quickly rearranged tomorrow’s schedule in my brain. It would be busy, but I liked a day of snooping and finding answers.
“Is there anything else?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. I heard a rumor from our wonderful local reporter that the Cupids gave most of their bounty from the Clumsy Penguin robbery to the women’s shelter. Is that true?”
Pierce sighed. “You’re a witness, Albertini. You’re not investigating that case.”
“I’m just curious. Trying to put pieces together, and I won’t get in your way, I promise.”
“Huh.” He didn’t sound convinced. “All right. They did give probably three quarters of the jewelry they stole to the animal shelter and probably about the same amount of stuff from the Clumsy Penguin to the women’s shelter.”
I sat back. “They kept a quarter of the loot for themselves?”
“Yeah. We’re checking pawn shops in all the outlying areas and have ongoing online searches for some of the jewelry taken.”
“They took jewelry off patrons at the Penguin?” Thank goodness they hadn’t tried that with Nick or me. Nick would’ve gone to the mat for that ring.
Papers shuffled loudly across the line. “They also took cell phones,” Pierce said.
“How much cash did they get at the Clumsy Penguin?”
“About five grand, and they donated three of it.”
So they weren’t so charitable. “They kept the cash,” I murmured. “Interesting. Any line on who those guys are?”
“Just Lenny, and I don’t have anything on him so far.”
I bet Thelma would find out more about the guy than Pierce’s detectives. “Do you know what he did before he retired here?”
“Yeah,” Pierce answered. “He worked as an assemblyman in a factory in California. Something to do with bolts used on engines. He retired here about five years ago.”
“Huh. So, no connection between him and any other crimes?”
