Day 12

“Well, that went well,” I said as I slammed the door shut when Edith and I returned home from a frustrating day at our financial advisor’s and  the 3 banks we’d hoped where Sheamus may have had an account, including our present one.

“That doesn’t sound encouraging,” Lee said wearily, from his seat in the living room, while his mother placed an ice pack on his head.

“Lee?” I rushed toward him, despite the snow on my boots. “Is your head still bothering you? Are you....” I stopped in mid sentence as I saw the bruise on his face, and the hole in his orange jumpsuit made by a gunshot.

“I’m fine. Just haven’t had a chance to change.”

“What happened, lad?” I knelt in front of him.

“O’ Shaunessy. Actually this wasn’t his. It was  an accident. Please, Harry. Not now. I just want to go take a hot bath and relax a little.”

“You’ll make sure he won’t get the bandage wet, won’t you Admiral?” Mrs. Crane asked. “ The ER gave him a plastic sleeve to put over it. It’s over there,” she pointed to the home health kit the hospital had given him.

“You have my word on it,” I answered firmly, picked up the kit,  and escorted Lee upstairs to the bathroom.

“I can do it myself, Harry,” Lee said just outside the door.

“Well, before you dunk in, let me make sure the elastic’s tight, okay?”

“Okay,” he took the kit.

“Harry?” Edith called. “Lee’s on the news.”

“I’ll be right back,” I told Lee as I hurried downstairs.

The  TV news was showing a surveillance video from inside the museum.

“It all began,” the reporter was saying (was it the same one from the police station?) “ when a man later identified as Clive O’ Shaunessy was being rude to a few children who were on a field trip to see the Tiffany glass collection. He was calling them derogatory names, and telling them they should go back home to Mexico and  India. It seems clear from the tape that they were confused as to why or perhaps they didn’t know what the words meant. O’ Shaunessy then grabbed the children’s arms and began to drag them to the exit. That is, until museum employee Miguel Crane stopped him with an uppercut to the jaw. As many of you may know, Miguel is mentally challenged and speaks little if any English, but managed to yell ‘policia!’ ‘vamoose’ and ‘run!’ to the little girls, who rushed away for help.

By now the fisticuffs evolved into a life and death struggle as O’ Shaunessy grabbed a gun from his inside jacket.  As you can see, Miguel put up a valiant fight holding O’ Shaunessy’s forearms and trigger hand tight to prevent him from firing as people screamed and ran for cover. By now the children had already been rushed outside and the police were arriving.

But that didn’t stop O’ Shaunessy who was yelling that he was going to kill the wetback, his words, not ours, as he kicked Miguel repeatedly in the attempt to free himself from Miguel’s grip.

Miguel must have lost his grasp somewhat as the gun fired up  into the air and then into the glass display, but O’ Shaunessy was unable to break free completely from his hold.

A police sharpshooter took aim and fired. But the bullet missed and hit Miguel in the arm instead. O’ Shaunessy looked as if he was going to finish Miquel  off but there were no more bullets. He surrendered  to police as paramedics took care of Miguel.

O’ Shaunessy complained all the while that Boston was no place for latinos and that included Miguel’s adopted brother Captain Lee Crane. Despite their almost identical appearance as you can see from this file photo, the DNA test the two men took, was inconclusive about any blood relationship between them.

O’ Shaunessy has been charged with attempted murder, attempted abduction of minors, and destruction of  more than 2 million dollars worth of Tiffany glass. Bail has not been set, and it’s very likely it won’t be as he’s definitely a threat to Miguel Crane and anyone of ethnic origin.

Miguel Crane was treated for the gunshot wound and has been released. No charges have been filed against him for striking O’ Shaunessy as it was to rescue the little girls from who knew what, though O’ Shaunessy claims he was just taking them out of the building.

And now in other news....”

“And I thought we had a rough day!” Edith said as I suddenly I needed to check on Lee.

By the time I got to the bathroom, Lee had apparently taken things into his own hands, and had managed to secure the plastic sleeve around his bandage. I guess I must have sighed in relief, and decided to let him sleep just a bit longer. (It was an antique tub, the big kind you can really lean back and relax in, though it probably wasn’t a good idea to let him sleep, after all, what if he slipped further down into the tub and drowned.) I was about to rouse him when he opened one eye.

“It’s okay, I’m not asleep.”

“You had a busy day,” I said as I sat on the small footstool by the closet.

‘What about yours? Any luck with the banks and financial advisor?”

“With  finding the will? No. With learning that the gemstones are paste, yes.”

“What? I thought your family had the gemstones removed from the jewels.”

“We did. Right here,” I pulled out a copy of the original valuation that had been in the box. “But, when Edith wanted to take a look, the ribbon holding the velvet tore and they all spilled out, some of them breaking on impact. Including the diamonds.”

“Diamonds? Then...”

“A diamond can be cleaved with special equipment, but it can’t just break when dropped. So..”

“So somebody in the family, or a bank employee, replaced the real gems into the Nelson Jewel’s or they were never removed in the first place.”

“I’ve requested a complete investigation. The bank’s also going to check on all the  financial agents our family’s used since then. People that would have been approved of and given keys to our box. We were going to ask Miss Bates if the museum’s directors who just happens to be a gemologist could check out the earings and bracelet that the thieves didn't get. They might still be paste too. But after what you’ve been through...”

“I don’t need a babysitter. Besides, Mom’s here. And I’d kind of like to come along.”

“Don’t you think Miss Bates might recognize the bruise and a sore arm?”

“Si senor,” Lee grinned.

“Well, I’ll let you relax a little more.”

“Nah, that’s okay, I’m starting to prune up,” he rose and I handed him the towel. I couldn’t help noticing all of the scars he’d earned in his lifetime, most of them in the line of duty.

“You’re not going to get all mushy on me now, are you, Harry?”

“It’s just...you’ve been beaten and battered and wounded so much...”

“Enough already...now, did the bank have any idea where the will might be? You had three banks that you thought Sheamus might have had an account with.”

“All we got from the  banks was that they’d changed ownership too many times to count since the late 1700’s and early 1800’s that several records had been lost by the ravages of time, fire, war, etc., that if any pieces of paper that old survived, signed or unsigned,  they would have been turned over to the next of kin at the time or to a historical society. Maybe even the Smithsonian. Or simply thrown out with the trash. There wasn’t anything from Sheamus in our box and no record of him having an account with any of the  banks.”

“The plot thickens,” Lee sighed. “You know, you may never find out until O’ Malley throws down the gauntlet.”

“I know, but I’d like to be prepared. Well, I’d better go call Miss Bates now. Try to have an uneventful evening, won’t you?
Lee grinned as he padded to his bedroom, and I made the call. Miss Bates was glad to have me come over, and asked me how Miguel was doing and how heroic he’d been. It took me more than 10 minutes to finally end the call.

And so it stand. Tonight we’ll find out if there may have been a family conspiracy or a theft , or if the original gems were fake all along.

As Lee said. The plot thickens.