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I nodded as I looked over his shoulder at the wide-eyed male clerks behind the counter.
“Is everyone OK back there?” I said. “They didn’t lay hands on anyone, did they?”
“You don’t need to talk to them,” petite Ellie Santanella said, barking at me even more rabidly than her husband. “Why are you even in here? You need to get out and find the damn thieves. Can’t you understand how serious this is? You think this is…what? Shoplifting at Walmart? These animals made off with over three million dollars of our finest diamond jewelry!”
“I can leave if you want, Mrs. Santanella. It’s completely up to you,” I said, laying my card on one of the few un-smashed glass cases. “If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.”
“Wait! Where are you going? That’s it?” Santanella cried as if he’d just been knifed. “Now you’re leaving? What about my diamonds?”
I let out a breath. I’m usually pretty tolerant with citizens, especially still-emotionally-sore victims of crimes. But this wasn’t getting anywhere. The couple seemed much more interested in yelling at everyone and being ridiculously dramatic than anything else. But then I suddenly thought of a way I might be able to get them to be more constructive.
“OK, let’s try this again, Mr. Santanella,” I said. “Tell me, did the thieves hit the safe in the back?”
“Are you stupid?” the lovely razor-tongued Mrs. Santanella said, pointing at all the shattered glass. “Are you blind? They just took what was in the cases.”
“Even so, I really think we should check the safe,” I said, nodding patiently. “You never know with thieves of this caliber. They could have tampered with the safe without you knowing. While I’m here, why don’t we all just go to the back, open the safe, and take a detailed inventory just to be sure?”
I stood there and watched as the couple exchanged a worried look.
Of course they were worried. I’d been on jewelry heist cases before and knew that diamonds were a pretty funny business. Dealers often kept on hand what were known as black diamonds, aka black-market diamonds that were bought and sold off the books to avoid taxes. No way did Santanella want me looking in his safe, let alone taking any inventory.
“That’s OK—Detective Bennett, is it?” Santanella said, suddenly less dramatic and much more reasonable. “I’m sorry for being so rude. I let my emotions get the better of me sometimes.”
“Happens to the best of us,” I said.
“Don’t worry about the safe,” he continued. “I already checked it. It’s, eh, fine. Very secure. Nothing missing. Is there anything else besides the security footage and jewelry list that you will need for your investigation?”
“That’s all for now, Mr. Santanella,” I said as I turned for the door. “Thanks for being so cooperative.”
CHAPTER 58
BACK OUTSIDE ON THE street, a burly Asian patrol sergeant hurried up and told me Detective Williams was looking for me. He quickly led me north up Trinity and then turned left onto an extremely narrow street called Emeric J. Harvey Place.
In the middle of the alleylike street, we stopped before a brick warehouse that looked old enough to have rented a storage locker to Alexander Hamilton.
“He’s waiting for you up top,” the First Precinct sergeant said, thumbing at the building’s old-fashioned tilting fire escape, which had been lowered to the sidewalk.
I pulled on a pair of rubber gloves before I climbed up the rickety ladder and the zigzagging cast-iron stairs to the seven-story warehouse’s roof. Off the roof’s terracotta rim, there was a clear view of the new World Trade Center’s busy construction site. Too bad I wasn’t there to sightsee. Across the tar paper and around the base of a rocketlike wooden water tank, I found Williams standing in the open doorway of the interior stairs.
There was a pile of clothing, green coveralls and traffic vests and yellow hard hats, piled at his feet.
“Security guard just called it in,” Williams said. “They must have come up here, lost the outfits, and then went down through the interior of the building and out the front door looking like anyone at all.”
“Tell me there’s a building security camera?” I said, toeing one of the helmets.
Williams shook his head.
“Disabled since yesterday. Looks like they had a good escape route already worked out. I hate to admit it, but these guys are good.”
Back down on the street, there was now another cluster of newsies on the north end of Trinity Place setting up cameras on tripods behind the crime scene tape. A quick-thinking female talking head from NBC turned and knifed a microphone at my face as Williams and I passed.
“Detective, does this robbery look like it’s related to the string of heists in Brooklyn and Connecticut?” she said.
“Too early to tell,” I said.
“Do you have any leads so far?”
“No comment,” I said as I passed by, and almost kicked myself when I realized that with my luck, they would probably edit out the word comment.
