‘Beverly, sweetie,’ he replied in an Aussie accent, ‘it’s twenty dollars in uncirculated condition. This penny looks like it’s been through a stretchy machine at Fun Land. And cleaning it makes it worth less, not more. I’ve told you that.’

‘Twenty dollars,’ she repeated.

‘Sweetie, I can give you two dollars and a cup of decaf, and that’s because I’m in a good mood.’

The old woman continued to argue. Howard ignored her. He saw the owner shoot him a wink and a grin.

Howard slipped reading glasses onto his face. He bent over the long counter crammed with one-off jewelry items, and the glasses slipped down to the end of his sweaty nose. He tried to stay focused. After a while, the jewelry all looked alike. The same stuff week after week, most of it cheap paste.

He checked the tag on each item. Ring – four hundred dollars. Necklace – seventy-five dollars. Elvis tie tack – ‘priceless’. The owner had a sense of humor. Each piece was nestled in a velvet sleeve, and when Howard had surveyed the entire counter, he moved on to the next one.

Watches. Earrings. Murano glass charms.

But again – nothing.

It had been nothing all day in the other shops. It had been nothing every month since he began his search years ago.

He’d hoped today would be different because of the gun. The police had finally found the gun that killed Jay Ferris, years after the crime. The same gun had been used in a murder in West Duluth the previous month and in a Chicago robbery shortly before Jay’s death. No one could explain it.

Howard didn’t know how or why this particular gun had made its way from one crime to the next, but he felt vindicated. He’d been right all along that Jay’s own gun had played no part in the shooting. This was something different. This was what you’d expect from a home invasion, just as Janine had insisted. A stranger came to the door. Killed Jay. Stole the jewelry. Disappeared, along with the gun.

Now the gun was back.

Where had it been for eight years? Howard didn’t know, but he was willing to bet that wherever the gun had been hidden, the missing jewelry had been hidden there, too. If someone had used the gun, then it made sense that the jewelry might show up at the same time. The truth was coming to light.

‘Howie!’ the owner bellowed at him. His name was Caffy, which was short for his last name, Cafferty. ‘Mate!’

Caffy loomed on the other side of the counter like a brown bear. Wheat Penny Lady was gone, clutching two dollars in one fist and a styrofoam cup of Green Mountain Nantucket Keurig coffee in the other.

‘Want an old penny?’ the owner asked, flipping it in the air with his thumb and catching it in his giant palm. ‘Only twenty bucks.’