High Strung: A Glass Bead Mystery (The Glass Bead Mystery Series)

by Janice Peacock

  “And that creative mind is what makes you such a fabulous glass artist.”

  “Artist?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks. It’s been a long time since someone told me that,” I said, quietly. Jerry had said it once.

  

  I’d go down to the scientific glass blowing shop in the basement of our research facility at Clorox to watch Jerry work. His job was to make custom glassware for research and product development projects. At times, he’d be working with a small torch attached to his workbench, making precise parts for a distillation system. At other times he’d be working at a huge lathe, which spun glass tubes around while a giant ring of flame heated the glass from all sides so it could be formed into larger-scaled scientific apparatus. Visiting Jerry while he was working with hot glass in the lab was the most exciting part of my day. I loved going down and watching him work. I never knew what he’d be making, but no matter what it was, it always fascinated me.

  One day I was watching Jerry make some small cylinders. He was doing something he called “pulling points,” and was forming inch-long, clear, pea-pod shapes in the torch from glass tubing. A pile of them sat on his workbench.

  They looked like soap bubbles, and I’d thought it would be fun to make a necklace out of them.

  “Can you make those into beads, you know, with a hole at each end?” I asked Jerry.

  “Sure, that’s easy, it’s one the first things you learn to do in scientific glass blowing.”

  “Make beads?”

  “Make holes in glass tubes.”

  “Can you add colors to these glass pods?” I asked, picking one up to admire it.

  “I suppose so,” Jerry said, trying to humor me while concentrating on his work.

  “Can we try it sometime?”

  “Ah, Jax, always an artist, trying to figure out new ways to be creative.”

  …

  Tessa pulled me back from my memory. “Jax? Earth to Jax.”

  “Sorry,” I said, jumping up.

  “Let’s get out of here. I need to get things back to normal at Fremont Fire after yesterday’s demos. Craig’s dropping Izzy and Ashley off there so they can help us.”

  I stuck my head in the back door of the shop. Judy was starting the next workshop of the day. She looked as sweaty as ever. Her gray bangs hung like damp curtains across her forehead, and her bifocals were sliding down her nose. With Rosie in the hospital and Tracy gone to visit her, Judy was left to keep the classes moving along.

  “Okay, everyone,” said Judy waving her clipboard around, and fanning herself at the same time, “right now we have a demo with Indigo Martin. She’ll be showing you how to create this lovely necklace, made from her own handmade glass leaf beads.”

  Could Judy have tried to strangle Rosie? She was at the party—it was one of the most important events of the weekend, with a dozen fellow JOWL members in attendance. But, what about Misty? Was there any reason Judy would want to kill her, too?

  “I can hear you thinking,” said Tessa. “And no, I don’t think Judy had any reason to kill Misty, or Rosie.”

  “Are you sure? Menopause can make someone do crazy things.”

  “True, though I would not know from personal experience,” Tessa said with a laugh.

  I waved at Judy as she turned things over to Indigo, to let her know I was taking off.

  Judy waved back and smiled, and we headed out the front door and back to Fremont Fire.

  EIGHTEEN

  “The first thing I want you to do is to put all of the chairs back in the storage room.” Tessa was addressing her two teen daughters. Both girls looked at their mother, and sighed with contempt, their arms crossed, not moving.

  “Go!” Tessa shouted.

  The girls knew their mom meant business and figured they couldn’t resist any longer. They started pulling on chairs, legs scraping and screeching across the floor as they dragged them into the closet.

  “Girls! Please pick up the chairs and carry them,” bossed Tessa.

  Izzy rolled her eyes and lifted a chair. She carried it into the closet and dropped it loudly. In the storage room, Izzy and Ashley bumped shoulders, each crying “OW!” as they passed. I am pretty sure they had bumped shoulders on purpose to injure each other.

  Ah, siblings, can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em. Or something like that. It had certainly been a problem with my sister Connie and me. We’d fought all the time, over stupid things, like who got to sit on which side of the car. Not who got to ride shotgun, but whether sitting behind the passenger’s or the driver’s seat was better. It would get so bad at times my mother would take off her shoe and threaten us with it from the front seat. This wasn’t intimidating, since she was wearing flip-flops most of the time.

  The fighting lessened eventually, especially when our little brother was with us. We were so busy adoring Andy we almost forgot to fight with each other. I supposed Izzy and Ashley were like that as well, when their little brother was around.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, finally perking up from my last round of coffee.

  “It would be great if you could put away all of the extra supplies and tools we used yesterday. That way, we’ll be back to business as usual around here.”

  I looked around Tessa’s studio. What a terrific place. I’d spent a lot of time here since I’d moved to Seattle, and Tessa had taught me so much. When I first arrived, I only knew how to work with borosilicate glass. It’s what Jerry used at Clorox, and what he eventually taught me to use. Tessa taught me how to use a completely different kind of glass from Italy. The Italian glass was amazing, available in almost every color you could imagine. I loved the way this beautiful glass moved in the flame when I melted it with my torch.

  And for Tessa, glass flowed in those Italian veins of hers. She’d been born in Italy before moving to Florida, where I met her when we were both six. She’d moved back to Italy again for a while after high school. Her parents wanted to make sure she got an American education, she said to me on more than one occasion. I think her parents had hoped that when she moved back to Italy after high school, she’d stay there for the rest of her life. They didn’t plan on Tessa meeting the love of her life, darling Craig. Tessa’s parents had hoped she’d find a nice Italian boy to settle down with, not an American who just happened to be visiting Murano when he met Tessa. Within a year of meeting, they’d fallen madly in love, and moved to Seattle to be close to his family.

  Tessa loved living in Seattle, one of the best cities in the world for art glass. It was home to Dale Chihuly and to many other amazing glass artists. There was a glass museum, countless galleries, and one of the best glass schools in the nation, if not the world. Some would say Seattle was more significant to the glass world than Venice, with many leading-edge artists and designers pushing the limits of what can be created with glass. Although Tessa was here in Seattle, I knew her heart still belonged to Venice.

  “Mom! Izzy’s not working, she’s texting,” complained Ashley, from the storage room.

  We could hear an argument brewing.

  “MOM! Izzy called me the ‘B’ word,”

  “Izzy, bring me your phone,” Tessa said, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “What? No way! This is my phone.”

  “Did you buy it with your own money? Do you pay the monthly fees?”

  “No,” Izzy said, defiantly.

  “Then would you say that it is your phone?”

  “No,” said Izzy, deflated. “Don’t read my messages, okay?”

  “I won’t read your messages. Just put it in this drawer.” Tessa slid open the drawer under the cash register.

  Izzy’s phone dropped with a clunk into the drawer, and Izzy gave her mother the “look of death” as she passed by her.

  Back in the storage room, Izzy and Ashley continued working, with only minor grumbling.

  We did the last little bit of cleanup and were ready to go.

  “
All right. Excellent job,” said Tessa. “I want to get back over to Aztec Beads to watch some of the classes. I need to learn something this weekend, and not just how to avoid being the next victim of the notorious necklace strangler.”

  “Actually, Mom, I was hoping I could use your car,” said Izzy. “You know, like maybe Jax can give you a ride home?”

  “You want my car?” Tessa asked, hands on hips.

  “Yes, please,” said Izzy, smiling sweetly and, frankly, unconvincingly, trying her best to look like an angel.

  “What are going to do with my car?”

  “Drive around, go to Dick’s Burgers, shop at Northgate mall,” said Izzy, as if she was trying to explain something as natural and simple as breathing.

  Ashley stood there looking darkly at her sister knowing she had to babysit again tonight. Tessa had magnanimously offered to keep Benny for the rest of the weekend after Rosie’s accident, or, following her attempted murder, depending on your point of view.

  “I am not going to pick up any boys,” Izzy promised. I was sure there were only a few boys who would have wanted to drive around in a ten-year-old minivan, especially one that needed to be blasted with a pressure-washer, inside and out. But, I suppose, if there was a cute sixteen-year-old girl in the van, that could overcome all sorts of obstacles.

  “Fine,” Tessa said. “Then you can do me a favor. Drop your sister home for me. Your dad took Joey and Benny to the aquarium, but I am sure by the time they get back, he’s going to want a break. Ashley’s on babysitting duty tonight.”

  “Okay,” Izzy said, grabbing the keys from Tessa’s hand. Ashley was unhappy about the situation, but she knew there was no way she’d be allowed to go with her sister tonight.

  “And no stopping!” Tessa yelled, as the girls headed for the door.

  Izzy stopped and turned around. “Not even at the stop signs? Mom, I don’t think that would be safe!” she said sarcastically.

  “Smarty pants!” I yelled at them with a smile.

  My phone rang, but I didn’t recognize the number. Maybe it was Rudy, finally calling to give me an estimate on painting the kitchen.

  “Hello, Ms. O’Connell.” I recognized the stiffness in the caller’s voice immediately. “This is Detective Grant, Seattle PD. I’m trying to locate Tessa Ricci. Do you know how I might reach her?”

  “She’s standing right here next to me,” I told him. “And Detective, have you thought any more about Rosie? That what happened to her may have been more than an accident? Because I think—”

  “Ms. O’Connell. I am the investigator on this case. I am investigating,” Detective Grant said, as he shut me down.

  “Oh. Okay. Right,” I said, ready to hang up the phone.

  “Ms. O’Connell? May I please speak to Ms. Ricci? Now.”

  Tessa’s eyes were popping out, alarmed that the detective was calling for her

  “Oh, yes, sorry. Here she is.”

  “Yes, hello,” said Tessa, trying to act calm, cool, and collected. Fortunately, Detective Grant couldn’t see Tessa’s bulging eyes, which looked, at that moment, like the eyes of Rosie’s little dog, Tito.

  “Of course, yes,” Tessa continued. “Okay. Yes. Yes.” It was hard to tell what was happening from Tessa’s side of the conversation, other than she was being agreeable. She hung up the phone.

  “Jax, this is not good. Detective Grant wants me at his office right now.”

  “Is he going to arrest you?” I asked.

  “No, silly, but he does want to talk with me, and was really intimidating.”

  “Why you? Does he think you have something to do with Misty’s murder?”

  “Who knows, but we better get down there.”

  We dashed out the door and onto the street.

  “Where’s the Ladybug?” we both said simultaneously.

  “GAH!” again simultaneously.

  We both came to the same realization at the same moment: We had sent the girls off in Tessa’s car. Our only form of transportation.

  The Ladybug was back at my house. Neither Tessa nor I had gotten enough sleep last night and were not thinking clearly.

  “Tessa, you just gave away your car,” I said.

  “How could I be so stupid? I’m not running on all cylinders! How are we supposed to get to the police station?” Tessa asked. “We could walk. It would take an hour. Or the bus?”

  “I’m calling a cab,” I decided. “It worked for me last night. But I had to give the driver one of my best necklaces for cab fare, since I didn’t have my purse.”

  “You gave away the red necklace? You loved that piece,” said Tessa.

  “I loved the idea of getting home last night even more,” I told her. “I can make another one.”

  The taxi rolled up in front of Fremont Fire a few minutes later. The driver rolled down her window.

  “You again?” It was the same hefty driver from last night. She looked at my necklace, a tiny glass ladybug on a silver chain, scoping it out to see if I might want to trade.

  “Sorry, I’ve got real money today, so I don’t need to barter.”

  “That’s a damn shame, b’cause I really am liking the necklace you gave me,” the driver said.

  “Well, enjoy it,” I said with a sigh, as I swung myself onto the sticky back seat next to Tessa.

  “Where to?”

  “Downtown Police Department,” Tessa said, getting down to business, in her usual direct manner.

  “You sure you’re not in trouble? Because last night I was sensin’ trouble, and now you’re going to see the cops.”

  “No,” said Tessa, with a snip in her voice. “We just have some, uh, business to take care of.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know that kind of business. I’ve bailed out my cousin a couple times down there at the station.”

  “We are not trying to get someone out of jail,” Tessa insisted.

  “We are trying to keep someone out of jail,” I said to Tessa quietly, as I poked her in the arm.

  About twenty minutes later, we were sitting in a small stuffy conference room at the Seattle Police Department. It was decorated with early-seventies orange chairs and mustard-yellow carpeting with dark brown stains here and there. They were coffee spills, no doubt. Thinking about coffee just made me want a cup. After just a few hours of sleep, coffee sounded really good right now. Well, coffee sounds good to me almost any time.

  The detective let me stay in the conference room with Tessa as long as I didn’t say anything. Clearly, he didn’t know me, because if he did, he’d have known it was impossible for me to keep quiet for any extended period of time.

  Detective Grant took a seat, looking at us with half a scowl. I felt like I shrunk in my seat when he stared at us across the table.

  The detective started with a really good question.

  “Where is the necklace that Ms. Lopez was wearing last night?”

  “I don’t know,” Tessa said. “The last time I saw it, Rosie was wearing it. When Jax was trying to save Rosie, a friend of hers cut the wire that held the necklace together, and the beads scattered everywhere. I guess they were swept away when everyone cleaned up.” I stayed quiet, as instructed, but mostly by clenching my lips together.

  “Isn’t that strange? These nice beads, they must have been valuable,” Detective Grant mused.

  “Yes—” I started, but before I could continue, I felt a sharp pain on the top of my foot as Tessa stepped down hard on it.

  “Yes, they’d be worth maybe a thousand, or fifteen hundred dollars. But, really, they were priceless, because it would be nearly impossible to replace all of those beads. They were handmade, each by a different artist.”

  “I wonder if someone would steal them because their fingerprints were on the beads—fingerprints of the person who tried to kill Rosie Lopez,” pondered Grant. “Perhaps by stealing them, the person was covering their tracks.”

  “Everyone touches—” I started, and again Tessa stomped on my foot.

 
“Detective, you see,” said Tessa trying to figure out how to say what I had tried to blurt out. “People who love beads, they all touch each other’s necklaces. They don’t really ask, they just come up to someone and admire their jewelry by picking up a bead on a strand and examining it closely. It happens all the time.”

  Detective Grant looked at Tessa like she was a crazy person. “This means there would be many different sets of prints on the beads?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even your own?”

  “I didn’t touch the necklace last night. Since one of my beads was on the strand, that one might have my fingerprints on it,” Tessa told him.

  Dammit. I most definitely had admired the beads on Rosie’s necklace. I’d picked up a few to examine them closely. In a strange way, it was good those beads went missing. Otherwise, I might have been the next one being grilled by the detective.

  “Tell me,” said Detective Grant, “are you unhappy Ms. Lopez opened her shop so near to your studio?”

  “No. I am not unhappy,” Tessa answered. “Which is really like saying, that yes, I am happy. Well not happy, but not not happy. Just sort of neutral.”

  Geez, Tessa was starting to sound like me, not able to put together a complete sentence when under stress.

  “According to Tracy Lopez, your shop carries items that are similar to items in Aztec Beads.”

  “What?”

  “Miss Lopez indicated she was in your place of business yesterday, and she saw many items in the front window that were nearly identical to what is carried in her mother’s new store,” Detective Grant explained.

  “No, actually, it’s not that way at all. I’m really glad they opened,” said Tessa, through tight lips. She sounded guilty, although I knew she wasn’t. “We complement each other. I carry handmade lampworked beads, and when someone buys something at my studio, I send them to Aztec Beads to buy what they need to finish their jewelry project by purchasing additional beads, clasps, and other components like wire, that I don’t carry.”

  “But you saw them as competition?” said the detective, prodding her.

  “Well, no, not really. I suppose they have some things that I have, but…” Tessa trailed off. I tried to send her my best psychic signals, telling her to stand up for herself. Too bad Gumdrop wasn’t here—he could have sent her messages with his psychic abilities.