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

by Janice Peacock

  “To Gumdrop, and his safe return,” toasted Allen.

  “To Gummie, I miss you.” We clinked glasses as Allen stepped closer to me, looking over the top of his glass with a smile. He stopped to admire the pendant I was wearing. He picked up the bead from my chest, pausing just a little longer than I was comfortable with, to examine piece closely. I tried to look calm, but inside I was hyperventilating. I was really out of practice with how to do this dating thing, so I broke away before I grabbed him, which I didn’t think would be an appropriate move so early in the evening.

  “Sooooo, let’s get dinner started,” I said, moving past him. “This is an ancient AGA stove. It is tricky to use but just too lovely to get rid of.” Aunt Rita’s old stove was a cheerful yellow enamel color, and solid as a rock. I had planned to learn to cook well enough that I’d be able to do more with my oven than bake a potato, though I’d not made much progress so far. I hoped, as well, that someday I’d be able to remodel the whole kitchen around this stove. For now, all I could afford was a new coat of paint, provided that Rudy stopped watching old sci-fi movies with Val long enough to give me a quote.

  Allen made a wonderful dinner: a lovely piece of sautéed salmon with dill and lemon sauce, a crisp green salad, a crunchy loaf of bread, and a tiny box of truffles for dessert.

  We brought the last of the wine and the truffles over to the sofa.

  “Do you want a truffle?” Allen asked. What a silly question. I’d never said no to chocolate in my whole life.

  “Absolutely.”

  From a golden box, Allen extracted a truffle, covered delicately with cocoa powder.

  “Open your mouth.”

  Oh dear. He was going to feed me a truffle. I couldn’t say no, so I acquiesced, trying to chew as sexily as possible. I waited until I’d swallowed before I spoke, as my mother had taught me.

  “Delicious,” I said, and just as the words came out of my mouth, he reached right over and kissed me. I hadn’t expected that.

  “Oh yes, very delicious,” Allen agreed, pulling me close. “Want another?” I wasn’t sure if he was asking if I wanted another truffle or another kiss.

  “No, I’m fine, I’ll have another a little later.”

  I could have said yes. Why didn’t I say yes?

  “Show me the beads you made the other night,” Allen requested, changing gears and standing, knowing he’d been rebuffed, although I hadn’t meant it.

  “Oh, right, I haven’t looked at them yet,” I said, changing direction right along with him. “It always delights me to see how my beads have turned out when I pull them out of the kiln. There are always surprises, usually good ones.”

  I spotted Allen’s messenger bag under the table as we got up to go to the studio. I thought we’d better not leave it unattended, in case Stanley woke up and decided it looked like a good snack.

  “I’ll just pick this up,” I said reaching under the table and fumbling for the strap. “We’ve got a dog staying here right now who likes to chew on fine leather goods.”

  As I started to pick up Allen’s satchel, he ran over to take it from me. As I lifted it, the strap caught on the bottom of the bag, and its contents came spilling out. Several large glass beads fell out and scattered across the hardwood floor.

  They were beads from many different beadmakers—the beautiful pieces from Rosie’s special necklace, and several of my beads too.

  “Where did you get these beads?” I asked.

  Immediately Allen was down on his hands and knees. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said, frantically picking up the beads, and scooping them back into his bag.

  “I don’t know what it looks like to you, Allen, but to me it looks like someone has been stealing beads.” I yanked at the strap of his bag.

  “It’s not like that. I can assure you,” he said.

  “And these beads of mine—they’re from the bracelet I had on at the party.”

  “I can explain. Really.”

  “Let’s hear it,” I said, standing over him.

  “I found the beads when I was cleaning up after the ambulance left,” Allen said. “I was trying to take care of them, to keep them safe.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone you had them?”

  “I didn’t think they mattered. I thought I’d hold onto them until Rosie was out of the hospital.”

  “They’re needed for a police investigation.”

  “Police investigation? Because of Rosie’s accident?”

  “The detective thinks what happened to Rosie might not have been an accident,” I said.

  “Really, Jax, I had no idea,” Allen said. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t have given the beads to someone at the bead shop. You could have left them there today.”

  I thought about what Detective Grant had said. The beads were evidence he needed in order to find the person who strangled Rosie. Could Allen have stolen the beads to hide evidence?

  “Are you trying to protect someone by keeping these beads from the police? Or, maybe you’re the one trying to avoid being implicated in Rosie’s attempted murder.”

  “Jax, that’s just crazy, why would I want to kill Rosie? I don’t even know her.” Allen stood up, gripping his bag’s strap tightly.

  “Leave the beads here. I have officially confiscated them. I’ll be calling Detective Grant in the morning to let him know you’ve been found with crucial evidence.”

  He scooped the beads out of his messenger bag and put them on the table, leaving several lying on the floor. He slung the bag onto his shoulder, and walked out the door, not looking back.

  I carefully placed all of the beads in a Ziploc bag and left them on the coffee table. I wanted them to be safe until I could call the detective in the morning.

  Did Allen have any reason to hide evidence? Could he have something to do with the attack on Rosie? Or Misty’s murder? Was Allen just a thief? Or a murderer?

  Seconds later, there was a knock on the front door.

  “Look, Allen—,” but it wasn’t Allen. It was Val.

  “Geez, Val. Get in here,” I said ushering her in.

  “I see you were entertaining a man here tonight.” Entertaining made it sound like I had my tap shoes on, and was singing a show tune.

  “Yes, I was,” I said, noticing my jaw was clenched tight. I tried to loosen it by rubbing my cheek and opening my mouth a little.

  “But I’m confused. He just left, and you slammed the door. And, it’s only ten o’clock. That’s not usually how these evenings end,” Val said.

  “That’s not how they end for you, Val. For me, that’s how this one ends.” Pretty much every other date I’ve had recently has ended in a catastrophic way.

  “Oh, darling,” Val said, “I’m so sorry.” She gave me a big hug that nearly crushed me. That girl didn’t know her own strength.

  “I caught him stealing. He had beads from Rosie’s necklace, and a bunch of my beads too.”

  “Oh goodness, honey, I didn’t think guys stooped so low as to steal beads. Did he explain himself?”

  “He tried to, but I’m not sure I believed him.”

  “Let’s just relax and finish this wine,” Val said picking up the bottle. “Oh, zinfandel, my favorite.” Every kind of wine was Val’s favorite, especially when she didn’t have to pay for it. “Ohhhh, and truffles! We’ll bring those with us, too.”

  “Do you mind if we sit out back?” I asked. “I need to cool down.”

  Val and I walked through the house and out to the patio behind my studio. We sat at the little bistro table, wrapped in the fleece blankets I kept out back to use on chilly Seattle nights like this one. “Cheers!” I said, once we’d gotten settled.

  “Back at ’cha,” said Val, taking a sip and settling into her chair.

  When the wine was gone, Val went home, as usual. I crawled into bed but couldn’t sleep. I didn’t have Gumdrop to snuggle with. I remembered I needed to check my email an
d see if anyone had responded to the Craigslist posting about Gumdrop. I grabbed my laptop and flopped back onto the bed. As long as Marta was visiting I didn’t have my office to work in, so my bed would have to do. I logged in. I didn’t have any mail, except for spam offering to increase my penis size (unlikely) and another message requesting me to send large sums of money to an African country (unwise).

  As I sat there looking at the laptop’s screen, I thought about Andy. My geeky brother Andy. He’d gone to school at the University of Miami and gotten a degree in computer science in just three years. Then he went out to California to get a PhD to take his level of genius a step higher. These days he was the founder of a randomly named software company called Pook that specialized in cyber-security. The best thing about having a family member who works in the Internet security business is that they can do hi-tech snooping for you.

  I called him up.

  “Hey, little brother. How are you?”

  “Yeah. Hey, Jax.” He sounded groggy.

  “I hope I’m not calling too late.”

  “Oh, no, Jax, it’s okay. I’m doing some late-night coding for a new software release we have coming up. I must’ve fallen asleep on the keyboard judging from the million letter Y’s typed across the screen and the keyboard-shaped dent on my forehead.”

  This wasn’t the first time I had called Andy late at night and found him working.

  “I have a favor to ask. Can you check up on a guy named Allen Sinclair? I have some suspicions about him, and I’m trying to figure out if I should trust him.” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. “Bro?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry, I’m still dazed. Go ahead.”

  “He lives in Seattle, mid-forties, works at the Seattle Times. I don’t have much to go on other than that.”

  “What kind of crimes are we talking about?”

  “He’s a jewelry thief.”

  “You mean like diamonds and rubies?”

  “Glass beads. But they’re still precious.”

  Andy seemed disappointed to hear we weren’t talking about a heist of millions of dollars in gems.

  “Or it is possible he’s a murderer,” I added.

  “Now that would be more exciting than someone who steals beads,” Andy said. “Let me do some checking and see what I can find out. Too bad he has such a common name, that’ll make it harder to find him. Oh, and Jax, you might not want to mention this to anyone, because some of this, strictly speaking, falls outside of what is considered legal.”

  “Got it. Oh, and call Dad. The last time I talked with him, he said you never call.”

  “One favor at a time, Sis, one favor at a time.”

  I laughed and hung up the phone, hoping he was as much a wizard at digital breaking-and-entering as he claimed. And now, finally, I could sleep.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I was jolted awake by the phone. Tessa’s name blinked on the screen as it rang and rang.

  “Tessa, I’ll call you in the morning,” I said sleepily into my pillow, not answering the phone. Then it stopped ringing.

  Thank God.

  And then my phone started ringing again. This time I answered.

  “Tessa?”

  “Jax! We can’t find Izzy. She said she’d be home at 10:00.”

  “What time is it?” I said squinting at the alarm clock. Its red numbers glowed: 10:45. I hadn’t been asleep for more than a half hour. “Why didn’t you call her and tell her to get her butt home?”

  “I’ve called her a million times. She’s not answering.” I could hear the panic in Tessa’s voice.

  “Don’t you have a fancy GPS thing in your minivan?”

  “I do, and for the last hour the dot on the map in program shows the van hasn’t moved.”

  “That’s good news, right? You know where Izzy is.” That wasn’t entirely true. We knew the location of the van, but we didn’t know if her daughter was with the van or not. Next time, Tessa was going to have to strap a GPS unit directly onto her teenage daughter.

  “Why isn’t she answering her phone? If she’d just answer, then I could get some rest, knowing she was okay, or I could rescue her if she needed help.”

  Finally, I was awake enough to think about this clearly. “Tessa? You confiscated her phone. It’s locked in a drawer at your studio.”

  “Che casino! Dio mio!” Tessa had slipped into Italian, and that only happened when she was extremely upset or drunk. It was a side-effect of all the years she’d spent in Italy after she graduated from high school.

  “What’s ‘casino’? ‘Dio’ what? Tessa! Speak English!”

  “Oh, Jax, this is a mess. What are we going to do?”

  “Let’s focus here,” I said in my calmest voice, although on the inside I was panicking nearly as much as Tessa was. “Where does the GPS say Izzy is?”

  “Next to Schmitz Park.”

  “Where’s Craig?” I asked.

  “He’s on his way out to the park to see if he can find her.”

  “And he left you at home?” I asked, puzzled that she wouldn’t have gone with Craig.

  “It seemed like I should stay home in case she showed up here.”

  “It seems to me that the more people who are looking for her, the better. Besides, if she shows up at home, Ashley can call you. You haven’t lost her, right?”

  “No, you’re right. Why didn’t I go with Craig? Mama mia—”

  “Tessa? Tessa?” I urged her to listen before she slipped into Italian again. “Hold on a minute. I’m going to come and get you. We’ll go and look for her. It’s better for more people to search—more people to cover more ground.”

  As I talked with her, I hopped on one foot and then the other, juggling the phone as I pulled on jeans and sneakers. I grabbed my purse and a sweatshirt and jumped into the Ladybug. The sky was clear, and I put the top down, hoping the chilly Seattle night would keep me awake, although with the amount of adrenaline coursing through me, I probably didn’t need to. I sped toward Tessa’s house.

  As I drove, I couldn’t stop thinking about the delicate wrist with the tiny tattoo I’d seen in the dumpster earlier today. Misty was someone’s daughter, and she was dead. That couldn’t be undone. I pushed away the thoughts of Izzy in danger. Izzy was going to be fine.

  Tessa was waiting on the curb for me, wrapped in a big sweater, her arms crossed to keep out the night’s chill. She got in my car and we sped off to find Izzy.

  Schmitz Park was a rambling recreation area close to downtown Seattle. While it wasn’t wilderness, it did have enough trails and secluded areas to make it an unsafe place for a girl to be late at night.

  “Maybe the minivan broke down. She’d just flag someone down for help.” As soon as I said it, I realized I shouldn’t have.

  “Oh yes, some homicidal maniac would pull over to help her.” Tessa’s voice cracked as she started rummaging through her purse, looking for something. “Or worse!”

  “Worse? What could be worse than a homicidal maniac?” I asked, but again, I thought I was leading this conversation in the wrong direction.

  Tessa pulled out her phone. “I can look at the tracking device on the van and see where she is.” Tessa was taping on the phone’s screen. “Here’s the map, let me just zoom in. Okay, see the blue dot that’s flashing? That’s where the van has been for the last hour.”

  I hated to be the one who kept making things worse, but I needed Tessa to think about what we knew, and what we didn’t know. “Tessa, we know where the minivan is, not where Izzy is. She could be with it, or she could have left the van.”

  “What do you mean ‘left the van?’” Tessa was nearly hysterical, grabbing the collar of my sweatshirt and pulling me close, as if the closer I was, the clearer I’d be.

  “I’m thinking maybe she just stopped for, I don’t know, a burger,” I said, back-pedaling from a scarier scenario, and pulling myself away from her so I could drive safely.

  “At 10:45 at night?” she asked.


  “I don’t know. All I’m saying is there could be a completely reasonable explanation for what has happened to Izzy.” I was grasping at straws, I had no idea where Izzy was, or what she was doing. All I knew was at this moment she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.

  “If this is some crazy thing Izzy decided to do for fun, she will be grounded for the rest of her life.”

  I didn’t doubt it.

  As I sped along toward the park, I thought about Tessa and me, best friends for as long as I could remember.

  

  I had called Tessa as soon as I’d made my decision to move to Seattle. She’d moved there after returning from several years in Italy, newly married to Craig, the most non-Italian guy I’d ever met. And she met him in Italy. He’d been an intern at the American Embassy when they met, and the rest is history.

  “Tessa, you’ll never believe it. I’m moving to Seattle.”

  “That would be great, Jax,” she said, nearly shouting. “That would be amazing.”

  “You remember Great-Aunt Rita?” I asked.

  “Of course, she made all of those wonderful quilts,” Tessa said.

  “When she passed away, I inherited her house.”

  “Where is it?” Tessa asked.

  “I haven’t seen the house, and I’m really curious about it. Apparently it’s located in the Queen Anne district. What do you think? Is that a scummy neighborhood?”

  “No, Jax, it’s a terrific area.”

  “Can you drive by and check it out? I want to make sure it isn’t a burned-out building. I don’t want to give up my entire life here in Miami to move to the other side of the country and live in a falling-down shack.” I’d already told Mr. Prescott I was coming, but I supposed I could back out if the house was truly uninhabitable. Then the lawyer would sell it, and donate the money to charity. And I’d be stuck here in Miami. I hoped Tessa would call me back with good news.

  “Sure. What’s the address?”

  Tessa called back forty-five minutes later. She must have left immediately after our phone call, and sped over there and back. She was a notoriously fast driver, and between that and her disaster of a van, she was hell on wheels.