Bombshell

“Why would he have broken into my apartment? Who would have killed him?”

Dix wondered for a moment how he would have reacted had he been in her shoes.

Delsey got herself together. “Like I told you, Anna had waited on him several times at Maurie’s Diner. Maybe she knows his name. She’s really friendly to everyone, plus she’s way more visual than I am, too. She’s done some drawing herself. She should be the one you do the sketch with.”

Dix nodded and turned away to call his wife.

After he slipped his cell back into his shirt, Dix looked from Agent Griffin Hammersmith to his sister. “You two really do look a lot alike, almost like twins.”

“Nah,” Delsey said. “Griffin’s better-looking.”

Griffin said, “Even if you’re right, it’s only because you’re still in your twenties. I’m hoping you’ll improve once you hit thirty.”

Dix smiled, brought it back. “Does anyone else know you’ve remembered the dead man, Ms. Freestone?”

“Dr. Hayman left before I remembered anything.”

Griffin saw the shock and fear still mirrored in her eyes. He took her hand again. “Why don’t you tell the sheriff why you’re Freestone and not Hammersmith?”

Dix said, “Yeah, I was wondering that.”

Hadn’t she already told someone about why she had a different last name? She couldn’t remember. Freestone—Delsey had all sorts of memories of that wild time, but now they didn’t even piss her off, particularly. “I was married to a creep for longer than I should have been after I graduated from UCLA. He’d just gotten a master’s degree in civil engineering. He was smart and awesomely ripped, and I fell hard for him. I really liked his cool name—Alexander Freestone. Sorry, Griffin, but I was tired of being saddled with Hammersmith.”

Dix said, “Seems to me Freestone is just as much of a mouthful as Hammersmith.”

“Freestone’s more a musician’s name, at least it is to me,” Delsey said, then laughed at herself. “So I kept it, no matter that Alex turned out to be something I didn’t see coming at all.”

“What, did the fool cheat on you?”

“No, not that. He wasn’t a horn dog. He was a jewel thief. Two different women called me out of the blue after the wedding to tell me they’d had jewelry go missing after he’d broken up with them. I told both of them he hadn’t broken up with me, he’d married me, and besides, the only good jewelry I had was the wedding ring he gave me.” A laugh spurted out. “I’d forgotten about Grandmother Aladonna’s jewelry, all very expensive, all very beautiful. Since I hadn’t let him move in with me, he had to marry me if he wanted to explore Grandmother’s jewelry box. Yeah, yeah, I guess I told him about the pieces and it was enough to make him see himself drinking rum cocktails on a beach somewhere. I reported him when I discovered my grandmother’s diamond brooch gone, the same day I filed for divorce. I think he served maybe eighteen months.”

“Did you get your grandmother’s diamond brooch back?”

“The cops tracked it down and the pawnbroker had to cough it up. It’s once again snug in my jewelry box. I’m sure Alex returned to his light-fingered ways after he got out of prison, only in a different city or state. Poor women.” She laughed. “The wedding ring he gave me belonged to one of the women who’d called me. I gladly returned it to her.”

“I don’t think I’d want to keep the jerk’s name,” Dix said, “not after all that.”

“I did go back and forth for a while,” Delsey said, “but then I decided to think of Freestone as his parents’ name, with Alex an unfortunate offshoot, and they were nice people.”

Dix shook his head at her. “Do you have her jewelry box in your apartment?”

She nodded. “Oh, no. What if that was their target?”

“Let me check that out right now.” Dix turned to call one of his deputies. “We’ll know in a few minutes. I wish we had more to go on, Ms. Freestone. If the jewelry box is missing, that would mean the break-in was a burglary and one of the thieves came to a very bad end right there. I think I’ll also see if Mr. Freestone is still in prison. Who knows?”

“Nah, even though Alex was ripped and looked all sorts of heroic, he was a wuss. He’d take on any jewelry box, but not a person who could hurt him.” She sighed. “Freestone—such a lovely name.”

Dix said, “I’ll send Miss Mavis to see Anna, but I’d like to hear how you describe the dead man first.”