Free The Family Jewels by Mary Kay Andrews

The Family Jewels
    Loudene Jenkins clacked her dentures with the tip of her outsized pink tongue and thrust a handful of glittering glass under my nose.
    "Them's my mama's diamonds," she said, nodding for emphasis. "Bet you never seen nothing like that before, have you, Miss Julia Callahan Garrity?"
    "No ma'am," I said truthfully. "I never have, Miss Loudene."
    She dumped the jewelry on the battered Formica kitchen table. "Go ahead and look, girl," she insisted. "Real. Sure are."
    The kitchen was dark and airless. It was early October, and still hot in Atlanta, but Miss Loudene kept the windows locked tight, with yellowed shades pulled out against the sunlight and "thievin' neighbors."
    I went to the window and pulled up the shade. Miss Loudene glared but kept her seat
    I picked up a choker with a diamond and sapphire brooch shaped like a peacock's feather. It was a period piece, from the 1920s, probably, the kind of thing a flapper might have worn. There were earrings to match and a bracelet too. The jewelry bespoke the high life; an era of bathtub gin and ostrich feathers and sleek cars. How had such stuff ended up here in Atlanta, Georgia, in a weather-beaten mill village shack owned by 70-year-old Loudene Jenkins, who owned neither a car nor a telephone nor a washing machine?
    Miss Loudene pointed to a delicate lady's watch. It had a platinum mesh band and an octagonal face rimmed with diamonds. "My granddaddy give mama that for her 18 th birthday. See that stone on the watch stem? That there is a yellow diamond. Granddaddy bought that at Tiffany's Jewelry Store up there in New York City. You ever seen the like?"
    "No ma'am."
    There were eight pieces in all, besides the peacock set and the watch, a long string of pearls, two rings, each set with circlets of half carat diamonds, and a gold brooch in the shape of a snarling tiger, with emeralds for eyes and a string of diamonds outlining its curving tail. I'm not a jeweler, only a former cop and a sometime private investigator, but even my untrained eye knew this was the goods.
    "This stuff must be worth a lot of money, Miss Loudene," I said. "Are you sure you don't want to put it in a safe deposit box at the bank?"
    She shrugged, and the moth-eaten brown sweater slipped from her bony shoulder. "Banks cost money. Anyway, Mama always kept the family jewels in a lard can in the pantry. Reckon that's good enough for me."
    "How did your mama come to have such fine jewelry?" I asked. Edna would have scolded me for nosiness, although she'd been wondering aloud on that very subject, ever since she'd discovered Loudene's loot.
    "Mama came from money," Miss Loudene said grandly. "Lived in a fine big house up there in Cincinnati, Ohio. My granddaddy was the Chevrolet dealer up there. Mama, she went off to college over there in Michigan, and that's how she come to meet up with trouble. This particular trouble went by the name of Louis D. Jenkins."
    She saw the look of surprise in my eyes. "Yes. My Daddy. Trouble looking for a place to light The mill had done sent him up there to Michigan to crate up some big looms they was buying for this here Scottdale Mill. They met on a Saturday and by Monday, Mama had packed up all her stuff and followed Louis D. Jenkins down here to Scottdale, Georgia."
    Miss Loudene fingered the diamond watch. "Granddaddy tried to take her back home, but mama, she wouldn't go for nothin. And when she told Granddaddy they had done got married in the Baptist Church, that was the end for him All Mama's kin was hardshell Methodist."
    She scooped the jewelry up and slid the pieces into a faded pink flannel bag. Tying the drawstring, she inserted the bag into a rusted Sno-White Lard can, which she then placed on the top shelf of the tiny closet otherwise occupied by a mop, a broom and two shelves full of potted meat, roach spray, and stewed tomatoes.
    Edna had warned me it might go this way. My mother had been treated to exactly the same exhibit only two nights