A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2)

by Janice Peacock

  “Can you stay a while?” he asked as he headed for the door. Was he going to block me from leaving?

  “No, I—uh, I told Tessa I’d meet her back up in our room. I don’t want her to worry about me,” I said, struggling to hold two lamps, my purse, and Tessa’s heavy bag.

  “Do you want me to drop the lights off at your booth in the morning?” Vance asked, noticing that I was about to drop everything I was juggling.

  “That would be terrific. Thanks.” I slipped out the door and headed toward the elevator. I didn’t hear Vance’s door click shut behind me. I glanced back and sure enough, he was standing in the doorway watching me. I gave him a small wave and stepped into the elevator. Safe, for now.

  • • •

  I was hit with the stench of Val’s perfume as soon as I walked into our room. Tessa had opened the window, but it didn’t seem to be helping.

  “Why would Val put on so much perfume?” Tessa asked.

  “No idea. Actually, I take that back. I do know. She told me perfume was ghost repellent.”

  “That can’t be true,” Tessa said.

  “Val has some crazy ideas. Maybe she’s right. I haven’t seen a single ghost. But listen to this—you’re not going to believe what I saw in Vance’s room.”

  “That’s probably true. I haven’t believed most of what has happened this weekend was possible.”

  I fell onto my bed. I had to be careful, so that I didn’t crush Gumdrop when I landed. He’d decided to sleep on my pillow, as usual, since he always tries to find the comfiest place to sleep.

  “It was full of bondage gear,” I said, not wanting to elaborate.

  Tessa stared at me in silence.

  “I know, I’m speechless too,” I said.

  “He doesn’t seem like the type. And neither does his wife,” said Tessa.

  “You think they could be bizarre enough to kill someone?”

  “You know, when we decided to come to the bead bazaar, I didn’t think it would be the bead bizarre.”

  “Are we adding Vance and Lin to the suspect list?” Tessa asked.

  Gumdrop decided my lap looked more comfortable than the pillow and curled up on my thighs. My cat thought he was psychic, or more accurately, I thought he was. He once told me I needed to leave Miami and move to Seattle, and for that I would be forever grateful. Other than giving me that advice, he hadn’t been able to help me solve crimes, or any other problems, for that matter. I figured I might as well try and ask him for help.

  “Okay, Gummie. There must be a reason why you’re here,” I said, holding him up by his armpits (front-leg-pits?) so I could look into his giant green eyes. He didn’t look happy, which was usual. “Do you know who killed Saundra?”

  Gumdrop just stared at me. Nothing. Then he wriggled out of my grip.

  “So much for Gumdrop and his telepathic communication,” Tessa said as Gumdrop jumped onto her lap. He clearly wanted to be far enough away from me that I couldn’t reach him and put him into that undignified position again.

  “We’re just going to have to rely on our own brains to find the killer, since Gummie is uncooperative,” I said. “Detective Houston said that if I didn’t cooperate with her—not just cooperate but actually help her—she was going to cuff me and parade me around the bead sale so all my friends could see me being dragged off to jail.”

  Val burst in the door.

  “Helloooo, my darlings,” Val said, as she sank down on the fold-out bed we’d ordered. “Has there been any paranormal activity in here since you arrived?”

  “No, Val, it’s all ghost-free here,” Tessa said.

  “Are you sure?” Val asked, pulling a chrome-colored bottle of perfume from her purse.

  “No. It’s fine in here, still plenty smelly—” Tessa said.

  “What Tessa means is fragrant. It’s plenty fragrant in here to keep anyone—”

  “—any ghosts from bothering us,” Tessa finished for me.

  “Okay, I’ll just leave the bottle here, in case you need it,” Val said.

  “Did you learn anything at the bead bazaar?” I asked Val.

  “I did,” Val said, taking off her high heels and rubbing her feet. “First I went to Dark Star beads.”

  “That would be Lara and Sara.”

  “Those girls could use a makeover. All of that black. Yuck.” Val was notorious for wanting to fix everyone’s fashion statements, including mine. While she succeeded in helping me embrace my curviness, I was never going to look as glamorous as Val.

  I rolled my eyes. “But did you learn anything?”

  “They don’t like anyone, and they were not being discreet about it. They sat at their table and criticized every single person in the room.”

  “None of that puts them in the running as the killers. Hating everyone is not a good reason to murder a particular person,” Tessa said.

  “But, there was one thing,” Val said. “They were arguing about something, but I couldn’t hear enough to understand what it was.”

  That was mysterious. Those two were alike in every way. At least in how they looked and how they acted. But what about what they thought? They could have different opinions about all sorts of things.

  “I also stopped by Vandal’s booth. There was some geeky guy there with his Asian wife,” Val said.

  “That would be Vandal,” I said.

  “He doesn’t look like a Vandal.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” I said. “His real name is Vance.”

  “I didn’t get much of anything from them. He seemed upset that he had come to the show, like he hadn’t made enough money to make it worth his while. And something about how at least they’d get to take some advertising photos in some of the sketchier neighborhoods in Portland. Whatever that meant.”

  “That’s the thing. You should see all the props they have in their room. They dress up his wife in bondage gear and…”

  “How naughty! I would never have thought that of those two.”

  “According to Vance, all those gizmos are just for the photos, not for anything kinky,” I said.

  “And then I stopped by Minnie’s booth.” Val continued her recap of her sleuthing mission. “Everything seemed fine there. Minnie has a helper in her booth who is super-cute in that hipster sort of way.”

  “Miles? Do you really think so? I thought he looked kind of nerdy,” I said.

  “He’s got a certain style. It works for him,” Val said, shrugging.

  “I always thought it seemed like he was trying a little too hard to look cool,” Tessa added.

  “Minnie and Miles were whispering and smiling a lot, but I didn’t get any sense that either of them was going out and killing people,” Val said.

  “And poor Minnie, when I found her in the bathroom yesterday morning, she was really upset. She told me Saundra was a treasure,” I said.

  “Usually people, whether they’re guilty or innocent, try and make it look like they’re not violent killers,” Tessa pointed out. “Of course she’d be upset, or at least try and act upset.”

  “What about Miles? Saundra was awful to him.” I interrupted myself before Tessa started berating me again for speaking ill of the dead.

  “Saundra didn’t treat Miles well. But that doesn’t mean he’d kill her. After all, without Saundra, he didn’t have a job,” Tessa said.

  “What about Indigo?” I asked. “Her table was near Saundra’s. Did you talk with her?”

  “She was sitting by herself and making a bracelet. It was so pretty, I bought it. See?” said Val, jingling it in my face. “Indigo, she’s too nice to kill anyone. She sold me the bracelet for half price.”

  I needed to remember that I can influence Val by simply giving her a pretty piece of jewelry.

  “I spent a long time with Wendy,” Val said. “That woman is obsessed with polka-dots.”

  “Apparently she’s been that way for years,” I said.

  “I had a super-nice talk with her. She seems really upset
about Saundra. Sounds like they’ve been friends for most of their lives.”

  “Like me and Tessa,” I said.

  “Yes, and like you and I will be someday, after we live next door to each other for the rest of our lives,” Val said.

  “I’m not planning on moving, are you?” I asked.

  “No way, Jax, you’re stuck with me.”

  Val rattled off all the rest of the information she’d gathered. The end result included things I already knew: The Twins hated everyone. Minnie and Miles were experiencing hipster love. Vance and Lin were a strange couple. And Indigo didn’t have any idea about how to make a profit.

  None of that got me any closer to finding a suspect or helping Ryan solve this case. I wanted to help Tiffany, too, but only because she was forcing me to be on her team. And ultimately, we were all on the same team, trying to find a killer before he, or she, struck again.

  “Did you see Sal?” I asked. “He’s the show promoter. He wouldn’t have been at a booth, just walking around like he owns the place.”

  “Is he the one with a scrawny neck? Looks like an alien from the Star Wars Cantina?”

  “That’s not Sal. That’s Ernie, the electrician.”

  Too bad Val hadn’t been able to talk with Sal. Val and Sal, a match made in heaven. Sal would love Val with her voluptuous curves. In my mind, Sal was the number one suspect, since Saundra cost him a lot of money when she was a no-show at her class in LA. Apparently, in other people’s minds, I was the number one suspect. I was looking forward to proving them wrong.

  “Thanks, Val. You tried, but I don’t think this got us anywhere.”

  “You know, when I was at your booth, I saw the book you were selling. It’s got a bead that looks like a galaxy on the cover,” Val said.

  “That’s Saundra’s bead, the lady who wrote the Celestial Bead Designs book— the one who died.”

  “That’s funny,” Val said, removing a pouch from her gold lamé purse. She pulled open the bag, and a bead tumbled into her hand. “It’s just like this bead.”

  Tessa gasped. “Where did you get that bead?”

  “All the beads that were in Saundra’s booth were confiscated by the police,” I said.

  “I didn’t buy it here. It came from the Saturday Market.”

  I looked closely at the bead. It was nearly perfect, with just a small smudge on one side. It was exactly like the Cosmos beads that Saundra made.

  “Who’d you buy it from?” I asked.

  “A girl, she looked like maybe she was in her early thirties, wearing a striped shirt. I remember that because I was thinking how she’d never learned that she shouldn’t wear stripes and patterns. She had her hair pulled back in a big floral scarf. You know I always judge people by their hair—if she’d had a cute style, it could have made up for her bad fashion choices—”

  “Val, slow down. Did you get a business card? Anything?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t get her name. She wanted cash, and so I gave her forty dollars for it,” Val said. “I thought Rudy would like it—since he loves all the same outer space movies that I do.”

  Someone was making Cosmos beads, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t Saundra.

  NINETEEN

  “TESSA AND I ARE GOING to dinner and karaoke with her friend Adriana. Do you want to join us?” I asked Val.

  “We are?” Tessa asked.

  “Adriana wouldn’t take no for an answer,” I said.

  “Wish I could do it, girls, but I’ve got a date,” said Val.

  “A date? You’ve been here only a few hours and you have a date?”

  “Oh yes, that sexy guy with the cute Australian accent who sells those necklaces in the last row of the bazaar.”

  “No, Val. No. You can’t go out with Luke,” I said, sitting next to her on the fold-out bed and shaking my head. “He’s a notorious ladies’ man.”

  “He’s got this thing that he does. When I was trying on necklaces, he lifted the hair off my neck and draped the necklace around me. His hands caressed my neck as he adjusted the necklace.” Val sighed, closing her eyes. “So sexy. Then he said—”

  “Val, we know what he does. He says you look magnificent, and the necklace is perfect for your perfect face,” I said.

  “Yes, that was what he said,” Val said, astounded.

  “He says that to every woman when he puts a necklace on her,” I said.

  “He sells a lot of necklaces,” Tessa added with a knowing nod.

  “It’s not like I’m going to marry him,” Val said. “And besides, I didn’t buy a necklace from him.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t sell you anything,” Tessa said.

  “I didn’t have to, he gave me this,” she said, holding up a shiny strand of beads made with dichroic glass—a type of glass that has been coated to be extra-sparkly. Dichroic beads shimmer in an iridescent rainbow of colors. No wonder Val liked the necklace. It was the glitziest piece of jewelry at the sale.

  “Wow, that is a nice piece. Wonder what it will cost you later tonight?” I asked, in a tone that sounded like I knew she’d end up sleeping with him before the night was over.

  “Can we talk a little more about dinner and a little less about Val’s love life? I’m starving,” Tessa said.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the bead Val had purchased at the Saturday Market. Where did it come from? Who sold it to Val?

  “Tessa, I’ll meet you at the restaurant. It’s Club Arigato. I think it’s on Stark,” I said.

  “Where are you headed?” Tessa asked.

  “To the Saturday Market.”

  • • •

  I ran as fast as I could to the market, arriving at the end of the street where the vendors’ tents were set up. I was out of breath and stopped for a minute, leaning up against a fire plug, panting. The vendors were folding up their tents and packing their handcrafted candles, T-shirts, soaps, and scarves into boxes. I hoped to find out something from my trip down here—find the mysterious woman who was selling Saundra’s beads, or who was making beads that looked just like Saundra’s. But it looked like I might be too late. Everyone was closing up for the night.

  I walked down one aisle, looking for anyone selling beads and jewelry. When I got to the end of that row, I turned and walked all the way back up the next row of booths, now mostly disassembled. By the time I made it back to the fire plug where I had started, it was nearly dark. I was out of luck, and it was time to get over to the restaurant to meet Tessa, Adriana, and all the rest of the people who were crazy enough to sing in public.

  As I turned to leave, I ran into a young woman. She looked up at me, and I saw it: A Cosmos bead hanging on a cord around her neck.

  “Where did you get that bead?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer, just turned and bolted, flipping up the hood on her long sweater as she merged into the crowd of sellers who were packing up the last of their items. She slipped between two pop-up sales tents and out of sight. I tried to follow her out through the tents and into the streets. It was fully dark now, and I walked past street after street, looking down each to see if I could catch sight of the woman.

  Who was she? I’d never seen her before at bead bazaars or classes. Had she made those beads, ripping off designs that Saundra created? Had she stolen those beads from the bead diva? Or was there some other explanation?

  As Val had said, the woman was wearing a floral scarf. But when I saw her, the scarf had slid back on her head, revealing one important way of identifying her in the future: Her hair was green.

  Another thing I was sure of was that I had no idea where I was. I’d gone running off in search of the mystery bead seller and was now so far away from the market that I didn’t recognize any of the street names. I pulled my cell phone out of my handbag. The batteries were dead. I would get no help from the GPS tonight.

  I zigzagged my way back to the promenade by the Willamette River and walked down the silent, broad sidewalk. Since I didn’t think I’d ever be able to fi
nd the karaoke bar, I headed toward the hotel—at least I hoped I was headed in the right direction. As I continued, I heard footsteps behind me, and they were getting closer. And closer.

  I picked up my pace, and the steps behind me followed, faster. I cut across the street—I heard my stalker’s steps quicken and follow me. My best choice was to get out of there as fast as I could. I picked up my pace, jogging.

  TWENTY

  “JAX!”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Ryan, as I stopped running, out of breath.

  “I was just heading to work,” he said.

  “Were you stalking me?”

  “Stalking, that’s a pretty strong word,” Ryan said.

  “You didn’t just run into me by accident, did you?”

  “No, I was just trying to keep you safe. I was tailing you. It’s a police thing. Apparently I’m not doing it well, because if I were, you wouldn’t have known I was behind you.”

  I wasn’t the only one who was stealth-impaired.

  “Ah, that’s sweet,” I said, looking up into his warm mocha-brown eyes.

  “I like you, and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt out here on the streets of Portland,” Ryan said, stepping close to me. I stepped backward until I was pressed against the brick wall behind me.

  “Portland doesn’t seem that scary to me,” I said, recalling some of the scary places I’d visited late at night. Most recently, Tessa and I found ourselves driving up and down The Ave in Seattle, surrounded by all sorts of seedy types. “Of course, I’m feeling lots safer now.”

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  I nodded. Now that I’d stopped running, I realized how cold I was. Ryan took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. His hands were warm, and I was feeling, I must admit, sweaty and tingly all over, but that may have been from jogging.

  “Ah, this feels really good,” I said, pulling the jacket around me.

  “I could show you some other things that might really warm you up,” Ryan said with a sly smile, tugging on the collar of the coat and moving even closer, just inches away.