Page 13 of The Last Dance You Saved
A waiter was at my elbow before I could even pick my menu up, reciting the specials and asking if he could get a drink started for me. Once he’d darted away with our coffee order, I looked over at Lorenzo to find him slowly assessing me, and it sent a hint of trepidation through my veins.
He asked how I was enjoying Las Vegas, if it was my first time there, and what my plans were. Innocuous talk about nothing. Pleasantries that had me returning similarly mundane questions about his life in Vegas that he evaded answering as if I was asking top-secret information.
There was something smooth and not quite normal about the way he moved and talked. Every action he took seemed almost imperceptible, as if he was somehow doing it all without even flexing a nerve. I wasn’t even sure he’d blinked the entire time we’d been sitting there, and I found my nerves jangling even more.
After our breakfast had been delivered, and I’d cut into the savory crepe, he said, “After you reached out to me, I dug into the old family albums to see what I could find, and then I discussed the situation with my great aunt.”
“And what did you find?” I asked, excitement automatically seeping into my voice.
This entire adventure to the West Coast had been prompted by things I’d found while sorting through Uncle Phil’s attic after he died. I’d carefully gone through over a century’s worth of debris, researching and pricing each item so the family could decide what to do with them.
When I’d gotten to the trunks of old movie props our Great-grandma Carolyn and Great-grandpa Harry had brought back from their time working in a Hollywood studio, I’d almost just tossed it all into the donation pile. But something had stopped me. Maybe it was simply the idea of them giving up their dreams to return to Tennessee, raise a child, and work at the family bar that had hit too close to home. Regardless, it had me spending time on each of the items in the trunk.
When I’d found the velvet bag with the set of jewels my family had always considered well-designed pastes, I’d done the same thing I’d done with all the items. I started with a reverse-image search.
It was the tiara and not the layered necklaces, bracelets, or earrings that had gotten a hit. I hadn’t been surprised to find it in an article entitled “The Most Fabulous Jewels of Iconic Movies” as Gemma had loaned the tiara to a movie crew when they’d been filming in Willow Creek. Whathadsurprised me was finding the entire set had also been worn in a movie back in the 1940s. Below the image of the glamorous ’40s film star draped in the diamonds was a footnote that listed the gems as rare California diamonds on loan from a private collection.
While the note about Gemma’s tiara had the same note about a private collection, seeing it on a movie that might have had Great-grandma Carolyn working on it had made the hair on the back of my neck raise as if someone had walked over my grave. With a sinking feeling, I’d wondered if the jewels were actually something much more than we’d ever imagined. Something that should have been in a safe instead of a velvet bag tucked in an attic trunk.
I’d taken them to our local jeweler, and he’d practically twittered with excitement. He said the stones were priceless yellow and white diamonds from a rare California mine that was no longer in existence. In their platinum and gold Art Deco settings, the gems were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
After the shock had worn off, my mind had started reeling with ideas for what we could do with the money if we sold them. Things we could do for our town and our community. Ways we could celebrate our heritage. Ways Great-grandma Carolyn and I might both get back a piece of our dreams we’d given up.
But my ideas had been followed by doubts. How had Great-grandma Carolyn afforded the jewelry? It wasn’t like the McFlannigans were millionaires. And if she’d had something worth so much money, wouldn’t she have sold them to help out in the lean times we’d experienced?
Those doubts had me digging through old family albums, Bibles, and documents, trying to find out more about her and Harry. I hadn’t been able to find a single legal document on Great-grandma Carolyn. Not a birth certificate or driver’s license. Not even her marriage certificate to Harry. It was pure chance that the back of one of the old photos of her had listed her maiden name as Puzo.
I’d reached a dead end on what I could do on my own, and still not wanting to take it to the entire family yet, I’d gotten Gia involved. My sister-in-law used her old resources from her NSA days to scour the internet. They’d helped us narrow down a list of Puzo families Great-grandma Carolyn might have been related to who’d also lived in and around California in the thirties and forties. Unfortunately, the bulk of those Puzos were in Las Vegas and were part of a mafia family who’d run the town from its inception.
With possible ties to such a notorious crime family, it had made Gia and I wonder if Carolyn had actually been a jewel thief. Someone who’d stolen incredibly priceless gems from a movie studio set while they’d been on loan.
That had turned any joy, any hope I’d had of selling the jewelry, into ash. We’d have to find who they really belonged to and return them. Except, I hadn’t wanted to tell Mama her grandmother had been a thief tied to a mafia family—not without proof anyway.
So, I’d set out to find the truth, regardless of Gia’s warnings.
I wasn’t sure meeting with the current head of the Puzo family was the way to get answers. But I had to try. And if Great-grandma Carolynhadbeen related to them, they might know who the jewels belonged to. They might even belong to them. Regardless, they might be able to tell me why she’d never even mentioned her family to anyone in Willow Creek.
Lorenzo scrutinized me the entire time I swung back and forth between excitement and dread, waiting for him to tell me what he’d found out about Carolyn.
Finally, he tossed me a bone, saying, “It seems we did have a great-aunt named Carolyn who disappeared in the early ’40s.”
Butterflies banged around in my chest. “We couldn’t find a birth certificate for her in any of our belongings or on any of the government sites.”
“Many women in those days gave birth at home. Immigrants, who weren’t sure of their legal status, didn’t always fill out the appropriate paperwork.”
“Did you find out anything more about her?” I asked.
“My great-aunt told me she dreamed of working in the movie business and ran off to Hollywood.”
My heart leaped. It had to be her. The coincidence of being in Hollywood was just too great. But why had she left California? Had Great-grandpa Harry missed his family and wanted to return to Tennessee, so she’d gone with him? Had they been as wildly in love as the stories I’d heard? And why had she never reached out to anyone in her family here in Las Vegas ever again? Were the jewels why? Had she really stolen them?
“And that’s it? No one saw or talked to her again?” I asked.
“Something distasteful happened, it seems. Aunt Ada said her name wasn’t to be mentioned. In those days, it typically meant a woman got knocked up outside of marriage or ran off with the wrong type.”
I couldn’t help bristling. “I don’t think my great-grandfather was the wrong type.”
His lips barely twitched. “Why is this important to your family now?”
