Off the Beadin' Path, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book 3

by Janice Peacock

  “I took the time off from the salon, why couldn’t he simply do the same?”

  “Because he can’t leave someone’s house torn apart while he goes on vacation.”

  “I know, but still! You wouldn’t want to go to festival with me, would you?”

  “Sorry, I’m not a sci-fi girl.”

  “Oh, I know, I’m just disappointed. I was looking forward to going.”

  “I understand. We’re disappointed with what happened with the class we’re taking, only in our case, it’s tragic. The class was canceled. The corpse you saw by the river? That was our teacher.” While I was extremely distressed Marco de Luca was dead, I was not at all disappointed about the canceled class. I’d realized soon after we started that glassblowing was not for me.

  “That was so awful! What were you doing down there?”

  “We were searching—”

  “For a specific dead guy, or trying to see what dead guys you could find in a river?” Val asked.

  “We were looking for the instructor of our glassblowing class. He disappeared, and we thought we might find him in the river.”

  “Why did you think he’d be there?”

  “I don’t know. There was nothing else around. The river runs right behind the studio. It seemed to me if you were trying to hide a dead man, you’d take him down to the river and hope the current would carry him away.”

  “Good thinking, Jax! Way to think like a killer!” Val said. While this was supposed to be a compliment, it felt strange to be told I excelled at such evil thoughts.

  “What’s up with you? Why are you here?”

  “Do you have any Tabasco sauce?”

  “You’re not going to try and make another one of your exploding spicy chocolate cakes again, are you?”

  “No, my visitor would like some.”

  “Your visitor? Why are you being so secretive? Are you finally ready to tell me what’s happening at your house?”

  “No.”

  “No, what? No, you’re not done being secretive, or no, you’re not ready to tell me what’s happening at your house?”

  “Can you repeat the question?” Val asked, her red hair bouncing from side to side, as she shook her head.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I, uh, well. I have a friend staying with me.”

  “Are you hiding someone over there?”

  “I’m not exactly hiding him. That makes it sound like he’s a fugitive.”

  “So, he’s not a fugitive. That’s a step in the right direction. Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “He’s a man,” Val said, sounding like she was giving up a huge piece of the secret.

  “Yes, I figured that out because you are calling the person ‘him,’ using a male pronoun.”

  “Oh, poo. I guess I did give that one away.”

  “Anything else you’re going to tell me?”

  “He’s a member of my family.”

  This took me totally by surprise. Of course, almost everyone had family members, even if it was only a mom or a dad. I’d never thought about Val’s relatives other than the fact she felt like a member of my family, since I saw her so often.

  “You didn’t go out and get married or anything crazy like that, did you?” I asked. I doubted this was what she meant by a member of her family, but I never knew what Val would do, so a quick elopement wasn’t out of the realm of reality for her.

  “Of course not! I’ve said enough. I should go,” Val said, trotting toward the door as quickly as she could in four-inch stilettos. She made a quick detour to grab the Tabasco from my fridge.

  I found Tessa sitting at the bistro table on my back patio, talking on the phone. She finished and filled me in.

  “My contractor was not available. I left him a message. I hope I wasn’t too intense.” She probably was. She can come across as pushy whenever she’s stressed. “Then I called my mother-in-law’s house and talked with Joey.”

  “That must’ve have cheered you up. Did it?”

  “Oh, a little. Joey seemed glad to talk with me, but you know, he’s not really the chatty type. Then I called Abby to see how things were going for her. She can’t seem to figure out whom to call to inform about Marco’s death. His phone is locked and she doesn’t know the password on his computer, so she can’t get to his contacts.”

  “What about Violetta?” I asked.

  “Violetta was going to send some emails, but I haven’t heard back from her. I’ve texted her, but she’s not answered my messages,” Tessa said.

  “Wasn’t Sheriff Poole going to talk to the Italian embassy? Maybe they can find his family?”

  “Maybe, but, I…”

  “What’s up?” I asked. She sniffled a little. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “I know how to find Marco’s brother.”

  THIRTEEN

  Tessa made some calls and finally tracked down her Uncle Guido. Through a mixture of English and Italian I understood that Marco’s brother, Dario de Luca, was somewhere in California. She hung up the phone, an exasperated frown on her face.

  “We’ve got to go see my Uncle Guido.”

  “But you talked with him a second ago.”

  “He says I owe him a visit. He’s going to give me the scoop on Dario and tell me how to find him.”

  “Where’s your uncle?” I asked.

  “San Francisco.”

  “We’re going to San Francisco?”

  “Yes, we are,” Tessa said. “We’ve got to do this. Dario needs to know his brother has passed away.” Tessa paused and crossed herself as she often did when speaking of the deceased. “I want to be the one to tell him, and I want to tell him in person. He’ll need to make arrangements for his brother’s burial and tell his family.”

  “Tell me why we need to see your uncle? You’re sure you can’t call Dario?”

  “Uncle Guido is sort of old-school. He does me a favor, I do him a favor.”

  “What favor are you doing for him?”

  “He wants to see me. That’s the favor. He says he never gets to see his favorite niece, and if I want to know how to find Dario, I’m going to have to come down and see him in person.”

  “It’s far too late to get a flight to San Francisco today,” I said. Tessa had an intense look in her eyes. I’d seen it before a million times. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. Defeated, I grabbed my laptop from my room and checked the flights on Alaska Airlines. Tessa saw the flight she wanted and pecked at the screen with her index finger.

  “That’s the one, right there.”

  “Tessa, that flight leaves in two hours.”

  “Perfect. We have enough to time to drive to the airport, park, and run to the gate. We can do this. We’ve got to do this.”

  “We could wait until morning,” I said, hoping I could talk some sense into her. Tessa grabbed her handbag and my keys and headed for the back door. “No luggage?” I asked.

  “No time.”

  • • •

  Tessa climbed in the driver’s seat of my car.

  “This is my car, shouldn’t I be driving?” I asked, as I reluctantly climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Pshh, you’re always so protective of the Ladybug.” That was true. Tessa drove like a maniac, and I didn’t want my car to get banged up. “We’re heading straight to the airport. We can make the next flight to San Francisco if we hurry.”

  “We’re seriously going to California? Aren’t I usually the one with the outrageous plans?”

  Without a word, Tessa jammed her foot down on the Ladybug’s accelerator. Off we went, speeding toward the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. As we drove down my street, a patrol car turned the corner and followed us.

  “Che casino, there’s a cop behind me!”

  �
��You weren’t speeding, were you?”

  “No, I—” Flashing lights spun across the dashboard. Tessa found a gap between parked cars and pulled over slowly and carefully.

  For the second time this week, we’d been pulled over. I prayed it was not Ryan. But, sure enough, it was.

  “Do you know how—” Ryan said, tipping his head to look in the driver’s side window.

  “Do I know how fast I was going? No, but I’d say it was only a couple of miles above the speed limit,” Tessa said.

  “Tessa? I thought it would be Jax driving,” Ryan said. “And, no—that’s not the question. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you?”

  “I don’t know! How long have you been waiting to catch me speeding again—” Tessa replied, assuming Ryan was still talking with her. “Oh, wait, you mean Jax.”

  “I think it’s really creepy that you’re lurking around waiting for me,” I said.

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Apology accepted. Now, may we please go? We have a plane to catch.”

  “I’ll call you!” Ryan said, as Tessa pulled away from the curb. It was strange that Ryan had gone from ignoring me to stalking me. I didn’t like either of those behaviors. When I met him in Portland, he was nice, sexy, and very interested in me, but he seemed like an entirely different person now that he was in Seattle. I needed to ask Val for some lessons on how to deal with Ryan. However, I’d have to be patient and wait until she stopped hiding out with her mystery man next door.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” I asked, clutching the door handle, as she took the freeway on-ramp at a roller coaster’s pace. I held on for dear life as we zipped down I-5 to the airport.

  “No, I’ve got this,” Tessa said, gripping the steering wheel with a look of intensity on her face.

  “This airline ticket is going to cost us a million dollars,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, Uncle Guido said he’d take care of it. We’ve got to do this. It’s the right thing to do.” I was certain Tessa was excited, or nervous, to see Dario after all these years, but she’d never admit it. Tessa was convinced the most important thing she could do was to tell Dario about his brother, and once Tessa had something set in her mind, there was no stopping her.

  • • •

  We bought our tickets, miraculously breezed through security, and sprinted to the gate for final boarding. The plane was so full that Tessa and I had to sit rows apart. Fortunately, the flight was short, and we soon found ourselves at the rental car counter in the San Francisco International Airport.

  “We’ve got you in a Ford Escort,” said the clerk who was helping us, his black and yellow vest matching the Hertz sign above his head. “But for an extra fifty dollars we can put you into something sporty.” Tessa was resigned to a boring compact car, but perked up as soon as the agent said ‘sporty.’

  “We’ll take it,” she said.

  “Don’t you want to know what it is?” I asked Tessa.

  “No, I—”

  “It’s a Fiat,” the clerk replied, as he continued typing on his computer keyboard.

  “My dream car! I’ve always wanted a Fiat, but in Venice, there are only canals, no roads. No roads, no cars. And once I got back to the United States, I needed a family car.”

  “All right, here’s the contract. Whoever is driving, please sign where it’s highlighted,” the clerk said. I reached for the clipboard, but Tessa snatched it away.

  “I am driving for this trip. I am,” Tessa said.

  “No arguments from me.”

  Soon we were on the road. After a short trip on the freeway, we began winding our way through the streets of San Francisco. The first stop on our adventure was Uncle Guido’s restaurant in North Beach, the Little Italy of San Francisco, where each lamppost had been painted with stripes in the colors of the Italian flag: red, white, and green.

  Looking for a place to park the car, Tessa circled the blocks near the restaurant a dozen times, passing the Condor strip club, Italian delis, quaint outdoor cafés, and the City Lights Bookstore. I caught a glimpse of the verdigris-colored Zoetrope building and the Transamerica Pyramid as Tessa zoomed up and down the hilly streets, grinning like a fool. We finally found a parking spot and wedged the Fiat into a space between two driveways. We walked down a steep street to the restaurant, pushed through the door, and found ourselves face-to-face with Uncle Guido himself.

  “Zio Guido!” Tessa said, hugging him and kissing him on each cheek.

  “It has been too long since I’ve seen your pretty face,” Uncle Guido said, pulling Tessa into view. “And this? Who’s this?”

  “This is my best friend in the whole world, Jax O’Connell.”

  I extended my hand to shake, and instead he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed my right cheek, then my left. “Any friend of Tessa’s is a friend of mine.”

  “We’re famished!” Tessa said. “It’s been a long day. Is it possible to get dinner?”

  “Of course, of course! Come right this way. I’ve got a lovely booth here by the window.” We slid onto the enormous red vinyl seats, facing each other.

  “You still like polpette? I’ve got some fresh,” asked Guido.

  “Si, prego. I’d love some,” Tessa said.

  “And you, miss, what would you like?”

  “Geez, ah, I haven’t had time to look at the menu. I guess I’ll have what she’s having,” I said.

  “Two orders of polpette, coming up,” Guido said.

  “Are you going to tell me what the situation with Dario is?” I asked Tessa. “When you said things didn’t end well, what did that mean?”

  “My family wanted me to marry someone in the glass world. You know, my grandparents, they were prominent in Venice. They wanted to make sure I married someone who also had a strong Italian connection to glass, and that was the de Luca family. My grandparents had hoped that the two families coming together would ensure the future of them both and the future of Venetian glass.”

  “It seems like a lot to place on your shoulders.”

  “It was. I broke my grandparents’ hearts when I married Craig and moved away. They wanted me to stay in Venice, to marry a nice Italian man, and raise my children there.”

  “And that was Dario? He certainly can’t be upset with you after all this time. Why don’t you give him a call?”

  “He’s the kind of guy who would take off before we got there so he wouldn’t have to confront me.”

  Uncle Guido arrived with a basket of hot garlic bread and a big white bowl, which he placed in front of Tessa. It was pasta topped with what looked like tiny tentacles.

  “Enjoy! I’ll go get Jax’s plate,” Guido said with a little bow.

  “What are those?” I asked Tessa.

  “Polpette—little baby octopi on a bed of linguine. I was surprised you ordered them too.”

  “I didn’t know that’s what they were! I thought polpette were meatballs,” I said, my voice raising a few octaves.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Jax…”

  Guido bustled toward us with another white dish. I closed my eyes when my meal arrived, scared to look inside the bowl. When I finally peeked, I was amazed to see meatballs and pasta.

  “I thought you’d prefer this kind of polpette,” Guido said, with a wink.

  “Thank you very much, Guido,” I said, relieved he’d sized me up as the kind of person who wouldn’t want miniature cephalopods for dinner. After eating the entire bowl of pasta, some crispy garlic bread, and a piece of tiramisu to die for, I couldn’t eat another bite.

  Uncle Guido joined us at the table, bringing a cappuccino for each of us. He sat down next to Tessa, pushing the cup in front of her.

  “And my dear niece, how are you? How are your children? How is that American husband of yours?” While Uncle Guido peppered Tessa wit
h questions, I drank my coffee and then stepped outside to call my brother.

  FOURTEEN

  “Hey, big sis!” Andy said, answering his phone. “What’s up?”

  “I’m in San Francisco with Tessa. We’re on a mission to find a friend.”

  “Any friend, or someone in particular?”

  “Very funny.”

  Tessa joined me at the curb, smiled, and flashed a business card with a note written on the back.

  “We’re trying to find a man who Tessa knew many years ago in Venice,” I told my brother. “We’re headed to…where are we going, Tessa?”

  “Napa,” she replied, reading the note on the card she received from Uncle Guido.

  “Not a good idea,” Andy said, hearing Tessa’s answer. “Do you have any idea what the traffic will be like this time of night going over the Golden Gate Bridge, through Marin County, and up to Napa? It’ll take you hours.”

  “Hours?” If we were going to find Dario, looking for him late at night didn’t seem like the best idea.

  “Come stay with me. I have a terrific new apartment, and I actually have some free time.” Andy’s start-up software company, Pook, had kept him working all day, every day for the past year. All his hard work had paid off, so he was doing well financially, certainly better than I was. “We released a new version of our software last week and I don’t have much to do right now until we start working on the next set of features.”

  “Hold on, let me check with Tessa,” I said, covering my phone. “He’s invited us to stay with him for the night. What do you think? Can we wait until morning to find Dario?”

  “It is getting pretty late, and besides, who wants to sit in traffic when we could be speeding along in our little Fiat in the morning? Fiats are meant to be driven fast.”

  “We’ll take you up on your offer,” I said. Andy gave us directions to his apartment, which was located in a neighborhood called Dog Patch. The area was much nicer than the name implied. Andy lived in a brick building that had clearly once been a warehouse, but had been renovated into elegant, modern apartments. He buzzed us in when we arrived, and we took the stairs up to the second level. He was waiting for us in his doorway with arms open wide.