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

by Janice Peacock

  I filled Tessa in on my idea that Marco had been killed with a glass knife and that the knife had been destroyed by being thrown in the crack-off bucket and shattered.

  “Jax, you are a genius,” Tessa said. “What does Zachary think of your theory?”

  “He thought it was brilliant. He said the killer’s weapon was ingenious, actually.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “But there’s one problem. Just knowing Marco was killed with a glass knife doesn’t point us to the killer. The M.E. missed the glass the first time she autopsied Marco. That tells me she had a hard time seeing the glass. It could have been clear—everyone had access to the clear glass,” I said. “Which doesn’t help us narrow down the list of suspects. I saw colored glass in the crack off bucket, but I just can’t recall what color it was.”

  “I’ve got samples of everyone’s murrine right here. I was going to make a display of them for my shop. Maybe this will jog your memory,” Tessa said. “Okay…Vance’s murrine are orange. Duke’s are green. Lara’s and Sara’s are black and ivory. Katia’s murrine are purple. And here’s my sample. It’s blue.”

  “Seems like any of those colors would have been easy for the medical examiner to locate in Marco’s body, and it doesn’t help me recall the color. All I know is that it’s a big no-no to put colored glass in the crack-off bucket. I even heard Duke yelling at his assistant about it. That doesn’t get us anywhere,” I said.

  “I’m leaving my shop now and will see you in a few minutes. Why don’t you settle down and I’ll be there soon.”

  I poured myself a glass of milk, and decided one of Val’s chocolate cupcakes would be a good accompaniment. I settled onto my sofa. A message popped up on my laptop, which was sitting on the coffee table. To my surprise it was still logged in to the Seattle P.D. page that Zachary and I had been looking at before we had moved on to more interesting activities.

  Session expiring in five minutes. Press Okay to stay logged in or press Logout to end this session.

  I took a bite of cupcake and pressed Okay. Then I read the autopsy report. I scrolled to the bottom of the report, skipping such gruesome details as the weight of Marco’s liver. I wanted to read about the glass that was found in the wound. And there it was.

  Three fragments of glass two millimeters wide.

  Then I noticed something. A little paper clip icon. There was an image associated with this note. I clicked on it and a photo appeared: three tiny pieces of glass. Pink glass.

  Tessa walked in the back door and headed to the living room. I quickly closed the lid of my laptop. She would most likely not approve of my logging into Zachary’s account without him present. Tessa turned the corner into the living room while I sat on the couch trying to look nonchalant, and took another bite of my cupcake.

  “You look like you are up to no good,” she said.

  “I’ll never admit it, even if I am. But get this, and don’t ask how I know: The glass in Marco’s wound was pink. That’s why the M.E. missed it the first time she looked.”

  “Pink glass! Don’t you remember about the pink glass powder Dez had out the night Marco died?”

  “Right! He kept it locked up because it was expensive.”

  If the glass knife had been made of pink glass, then there were exactly three people who had access to that glass: Abby, Dez, and Sam.

  Sam. It had to be him. But why?

  “Tessa? Did I hear you talking with Dario about blowing glass tonight?”

  “Yes—oh no! If Sam killed Marco, and Dario is out there alone with Sam right now, then—”

  “He could be in danger,” I said.

  “You better call the sheriff.”

  I dialed the sheriff’s number with shaky hands.

  “Sheriff Poole? It’s Jax O’Connell,” I said when he answered, squeezing my eyes tight and waiting for his tirade.

  “Well, well, well. You’ve got some new plan to hoodwink me? Why don’t you ’fess up and tell me what you’ve got cooking, because I’m not in the mood to play any more games with you, Ms. O’Connell.”

  “I’m not calling to play any games. And just so you know, I didn’t have anything to do with what Ryan Shaw did the day he took me away.”

  “You certainly did benefit from his shenanigans, didn’t ya? The main thing is, you never trusted me to do a decent job on the investigation. You came out here and acted like you were smarter than me. And you know what—”

  “Excuse me, Sheriff Poole? I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think something terrible is about to happen—or may have already happened—at the glassblowing studio. I believe the instructor is in danger, the new instructor, that is.”

  “Right. And I’m supposed to go out there and see what’s happening, all because you’ve got some paranoid idea about the scary things that can happen out here in the sticks.”

  “There was a murder, so I’m not paranoid. Do you suppose—”

  “I could rush over to Old Firehouse Studio? Maybe I will, but not because you’ve got some far-fetched idea in your fluffy little head. But I will tell you this: If I find you trying to be a hero, I will arrest you for obstruction of justice —and your little friend, too!” He hung up.

  I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.

  “We’re going to Carthage?” Tessa asked.

  “We just need to make sure Dario is safe. We don’t have to be heroes, let’s just get him out of the hot shop.”

  And I hoped we didn’t get caught by the sheriff…or the murderer.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We tromped along the river’s edge toward Old Firehouse Studio. I’d parked the Ladybug a few hundred yards away so my car wouldn’t arouse the suspicions of anyone working in the hot shop or the sheriff, if he happened to drive by. It was unusually dark. The stars were obscured by the cloudy sky—a sign that more rain was imminent. We crept up the slope into the utility yard behind the building, trying to keep low, behind the bushes. Peeking in the back windows, we spotted someone moving through the studio, illuminated only by the light of the furnace.

  As we turned the corner, the door opened, and Sam confronted us.

  “Hello there,” he said with a smile that made my skin crawl.

  “Uh, hi, Sam,” I said, trying to act casual while crouched on the ground. Sam yanked me up to a standing position.

  I brushed myself off. “I lost my keys around here somewhere,” I said, looking on the ground. “Tessa, do you see my car keys?”

  Sam pulled my purse out of my hands and rummaged around inside, ready to prove me wrong. He removed his hand from my purse, a key ring with a purple handmade glass bead dangling from his index finger. “You mean these?”

  “Oh, great. Thanks. My purse is so messy; I didn’t realize they were in there. I guess I need to be going.” I tried to grab my handbag from Sam. He didn’t let go.

  “Come on, Sam, give me my purse.”

  He threw my keys into the field.

  “No, I don’t think I’ll do that. In fact, I’d like you to come along with me.” Sam grabbed my forearm. Tessa turned to run, stumbled, and hit the ground. He caught her by the wrist and pulled her up forcefully, then pushed us into the hot shop, locking the door behind him.

  “First, let’s get rid of that phone. It’s too tempting.” Sam opened the furnace door and chucked my phone in. I watched helplessly as it melted into the molten lava before he closed the door and turned back to me.

  “Where’s Dario?” Tessa asked.

  “He’s down at the motel. He said he needed to take care of some personal business, but I think he may turn out to be as much of a womanizer as his brother. He’s off with Katia, I bet,” Sam said. “Marco wanted her, and you know what? He couldn’t have her, because she belonged to me.” I wondered if Sam and Katia had ever had a relationship—other than teacher and student—or if that was jus
t wishful thinking on Sam’s part.

  I was relieved to hear Dario was out of danger, and I wished we could say the same for ourselves.

  “People don’t really belong to other people. You know that, right? Now, let us go, we haven’t done anything wrong,” Tessa said.

  “Wrong? You’ve been wrong all along—you, Marco, Dario, and Violetta—you stuck-up Italians. You come in here acting like you own the place—so important. So much better than everyone else.” Sam grabbed Tessa and pushed her backward onto the glassblower’s bench. She cracked her head on the corner of the bench and hit the floor. She was out cold.

  Sam turned to me. “And you, you’ve had a difficult time this week, frightened of this big pot of molten glass. How pathetic. I think you’re going to have a tragic glassblowing accident, since you’re unaccustomed to being in a studio where real glass artists work. That would be such a shame. Then again, it would be a bigger shame if you went blabbing to everyone that I’d done something wrong.

  “Have you done something wrong?” I asked, trying to sound calm and backing away from him as he pressed toward me.

  “Me? No. I think I may have made the world a little better place. And now, you—I’m going to make you a better person. Why don’t I teach you a lesson? You’re going to get a gather of glass from the furnace.” Sam thrust a punty into my hands and opened the door to the furnace. The heat blasted me, more intensely than I’d ever felt.

  “Get yourself some glass,” he said, grabbing me by the back of the neck. Squinting against the heat, I pushed the punty into the furnace and then pulled it out quickly. A fist-sized blob of glass hung from the end of the punty. Sam slammed the furnace door shut and dragged me to the tool bench. He grabbed a pair of over-sized tweezers and pulled the now-cooling glass into a sharp point while I stood there, too terrified to drop the punty, helpless. There was no escape. The rolling door was padlocked, and I knew I couldn’t overpower Sam. Even if I could escape, I would never leave Tessa behind.

  “Now, look at this remarkable point. You know what’s so lovely about it? You can go right over to a person, and plunge a glass knife through their chest, and they die. Bam! They’re dead. And it’s so clean, there’s no blood, because the heat cauterizes the flesh as you stab right into a body. It worked really well on Marco, that pompous—”

  “Come on, Sam. Let us go. We didn’t have anything to do with what you thought of Marco.”

  “You know, he didn’t even remember me from Hillside Studios.No, I was only the lowly punty boy. I gave him my T-shirt, literally gave him the shirt off my back. I thought he’d like it since it said Ciao. He shows up here wearing the shirt and didn’t even recall I gave it to him. He didn’t remember me at all.”

  “It was a long time ago—”

  “Don’t make excuses for him. He was a liar. He used people to get what he wanted. He told me I was special and talented when we were at Hillside Studios. We partied together, you know? I was thrilled knowing he would help me become famous like him. Then, after he left Hillside, I didn’t hear from him again. But I waited. I knew he’d come back to me. I was so excited when Abby invited him to come to her studio. I thought Marco would finally see me as his peer when he arrived. Instead, he came in here and treated me like crap, and he treated Abby like crap as well. So insulting! All I wanted was for us to teach together—to be together—like we were supposed to be.”

  “Oh, Sam, that must’ve have been really hard—”

  Sam cut me off. “And then, he put the moves on Katia. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “But, she said no to his advances.”

  “Oh, but he would have changed her mind. Trust me—he had a way of getting what he wanted. Once he was gone, I thought everything would be fine, we could all move on. But then you went and got his brother. I could have taught the class. We didn’t need another cocky Italian in here acting like God’s gift to glassblowing.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you could’ve taught the class. How could any of us have known?”

  “You should have known. Everyone should have known about me. I’m important, you understand,” Sam said, holding the glass spike inches from my face. I could feel its radiant heat. He was going to burn me, or worse. Sam glanced at Tessa, unconscious on the floor. “Really, though, it’s Tessa’s fault, too. She’s Italian, from some sort of big-name family. She was strutting around here. All those Venetians, acting like they’re better than everyone else, just because they were born in Venice—that crappy tourist trap of an island.” He thrust the spear at me, stopping short of touching my chest. I inhaled instinctively, trying to avoid the hot glass. There was a terrible, sick gleam in Sam’s eyes.

  “I know Tessa, and she’s not like that. Tessa has never strutted a day in her life. She’s the most down-to-earth person there is. I don’t know the rest of them any better than you do, but they’re decent people.”

  “Shut up! Just shut up! It’s time for her to go. If she wakes up, it’ll be the two of you against me. Even if she’s small, she’s smart.” Sam dragged me to Tessa and pushed the punty into my hands. “And after you kill her, I think it’ll be your turn to die. You had to go off and find Dez. I thought I’d taken care of him. I guess I’ll have to try harder next time, because I won’t let him tell the world what I did.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam. Let’s just stop and talk about this. Calmly—“

  “Come on, time for your final lesson, before the glass is too cool,” Sam said, standing next to me, his hands holding the punty inches in front of mine as he guided the point of the hot blade toward Tessa’s chest.

  “Sam, please, we don’t have to do this,” I said, pulling back. His hands slipped an inch down the punty, but the searing tip remained dangerously close to Tessa. Tessa stirred and reached up to touch her head.

  “Tessa! Don’t move!” I needed to do something—anything—before she died the same awful way Marco had.

  I closed my eyes, and with all my weight, pulled backward, falling away from Sam, the punty sliding through his hands until all he grasped was the searing-hot glass spike. Screaming, Sam released his grip and I landed on the floor a few feet away. I scrambled up, still holding the punty with the spike on its end.

  Sam came toward me, screaming in pain. “Give me that thing!”

  I looked around the studio. I needed to get rid of this glass spear before Sam could grab it from me. I ran to the water-filled crack-off bucket and plunged the hot glass in. It sizzled and exploded. The blade was gone—broken into a million pieces.

  Sam reached for me with his blistering red hands. I turned and used the punty to hit the padlock on the roll-up door, trying to break it. Finally, the lock popped open, and I heaved the rolling door up.

  “It’s over, Sam,” I said.

  He collapsed onto the glassblower’s bench. Whimpering, all his anger seemingly burned out of him, he examined his ruined hands, in shock.

  I ran to Tessa. “Are you okay?”

  “What happened?” Tessa asked, her eyes, unfocused.

  “Stay still. I’ll get help. Sam killed Marco, and he was about to kill you. But I put a stop to it.”

  Tessa pulled herself onto her elbows and spotted Sam anguishing over his hands. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  A black patrol car sped toward us, skidding to a stop a few feet from the rolling door. It was Sheriff Harvey Poole, who leapt from his car, hoisting up his belt and drawing his gun. I never thought I’d be so glad to see that man again.

  “You’ll find the murderer of Marco de Luca inside,” I said.

  “You mean it’s not you?”

  “Sorry, no. I think you’ll find Sam is willing to confess, but he may need a trip to the emergency room first.”

  Tessa came to my side and gripped my hand for support. Together we watched the sheriff attempt to cuff Sam, before giving u
p and guiding him to the patrol car. The sheriff turned on the cruiser’s siren and lights and headed off into the darkness.

  Tessa and I sat on the long bench in front of the studio.

  “What now?” I asked. “I can’t drive the Ladybug. Sam threw my keys out into the field and he tossed my phone in the furnace.”

  “Come on, I left my purse in the car. We’ll get my phone and call Val,” Tessa said.

  “Before we do, I want to check something out.”

  We walked along the side of the building and passed through the utility yard to the double rolling doors. We slid the right door open and peered in. Inside were stacks of bags of glass, racks of tools, and glassblowing equipment. We rolled the left door open and found a pickup truck. I couldn’t be certain, but I’d be willing to bet this was Sam’s truck. And I wondered whether his front bumper had recently been replaced. It certainly looked newer than the rest of the beat up chassis.

  I would make sure to share the news of this discovery with Zachary.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I stopped over at Tessa’s a few days later to give her a box with gifts for her daughters. It was fantastic to see everything was back to normal.

  “Come on up, and I’ll show you the new bedroom.” I followed my friend up the stairs.

  The renovated attic was perfect. Where there once had been a plywood floor, there was now gleaming hardwood. The rough framing on the walls had been newly sheet-rocked and painted, and the open-beam ceiling added an airy touch to the room.

  I noticed two twin beds placed side-by-side, one under each dormer.

  “Why are there two beds up here? I thought only one girl was going to move.”

  “When it was time to move Izzy into her new room, the two girls got all weepy on me. It turned out that the concept of having separate rooms was more appealing than actually being apart. But there is a lot more space for them to share.”