To Bead or Not to Bead, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book 4

by Janice Peacock

  Back in my studio, I found the box with Val’s new necklace in it. I pulled the piece from the box. It was beautiful. As I held it up, I realized it wasn’t as I remembered it. This piece seemed lighter to me, and the beads didn’t look quite like what I recalled were in the piece Amanda had given me. I’d only seen the necklace up close when I first received it and again when I put it on my worktable, so my memory of it could be wrong. I wondered if the strand could have somehow been swapped. It had been at my house since I’d gotten it from Amanda. While I was at the hospital it had been transported to the theater, and it could have been swapped out at any point before the auction started. If I were to guess, I’d say Daniel swapped the necklaces the night he broke into my house—assuming I wasn’t simply forgetting what the necklace looked and felt like.

  Ginger curled up in the necklace box—in the most inconvenient place. I had forgotten how silly a kitten could be. I placed her in a spot of sunshine on the other end of my workbench near Gumdrop. Instead of curling up next to Gummie, Ginger jumped on him. He opened a single eye and gave the kitten an impatient glare, then fell back asleep.

  I spotted the gift Mr. Chu had given me sitting on the windowsill. I remembered that he told me it was an opium weight. The words opium weight reverberated in my head. Of course opium had a weight, as all substances do. Sitting next to the opium weight was the tiny whale carving I had found in my great-aunt’s trunk. I recalled Buff’s words, and my frequent advice to Val: You need to look on the inside to find what really matters.

  I recalled Nika had been hesitant to give the necklace to me. I wondered if the difference in the weight of the necklace I had and the necklace Amanda had initially given was because the first one was full of opium. There was one way to find out.

  I called Bev.

  “Do you think we could get into Amanda Greer’s warehouse? I think I know where to find the drugs,” I said when she answered.

  “Jax, we’ve had all sorts of professionals in there. We didn’t find anything,” Bev said.

  “Can you just humor me?” I asked.

  “Sure, hon. Meet you there in an hour.”

  As I got ready to go, I reached in my purse and found the tiny box Zachary had given me. I opened it and peeked inside. I wasn’t sure why Zachary thought I needed it, but he told me to wear it, and I was happy to oblige. I had a little work to do before I left to see Bev.

  • • •

  Bev and I arrived at the Greers’ house at the same time, and we headed to the back gate where the warehouse was located. She unlocked the gate, and soon we were inside the converted carriage house where Amanda stored her beads. Everything looked more or less as it had the last time I was there.

  I headed straight to the small room where I had seen the necklaces with the large beads and where Amanda had pulled the necklace to give to me.

  “See these? If I’m not very much mistaken, this is where we’ll find the drugs.” I picked up a strand of ten beads, each an inch and a half in diameter. They were heavy, as I’d expected.

  I placed the strand on the floor and stepped hard on one of the beads, much like what Nika had done when she’d crushed the mic Bev had given me. The bead popped in half, revealing a sticky white powder inside.

  “That’s the stuff,” Bev said, with a smile. “Thanks for finding it. And now that you have, I want to say it’s been nice knowing you, Jax.” Bev pushed me roughly against the wall, knocking the wind out of me.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Do you have any idea what the street value of these drugs is?” Bev asked.

  “Uh, no, but, it doesn’t really matter, right? Because they’re only going to be evidence in a case against Amanda Greer, Daniel, and Nika, right?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I think we’re going to find the money I make selling this crap to one of my friends on the street is going to mean early retirement for me,” Bev said.

  “You won’t get away with it. Not now that I know because—”

  She pulled a gun from her purse, and placed the barrel under my chin.

  “I’d be thinking otherwise if I were you, hon,” Bev said with a sinister gleam in her eyes. “Now, I’m going to take the gun away, and you’re going to listen to me real carefully.”

  “Okay,” I squeaked.

  “You’re going to help me load all of these beads into my car, and then maybe you’ll live. Or, maybe I’ll have to kill you after I discover you here at the Greer household trying to steal some valuables.”

  “Or maybe, you can drop your weapon.” Zachary stepped through the door with his gun drawn. “Bev, put the gun down. Now.”

  “Hey, my boy Zee,” Bev said. “I discovered Jax trying to steal—”

  “Sorry. It’s not going to work. I heard the whole thing.”

  “Heard it? How?”

  “Like my nice boutonnière? After my last one got crushed, Zachary supplied me with a new one. Of course, I had to decorate it up like the old one.”

  “Crap,” Bev said, slowly setting her gun on the ground.

  “Now kick it over to me,” Zachary said. She did as she was told, grumbling as she did.

  “We’ve been watching you for a while, Bev. So many of your cases were ending up without closure. I’ve been working with the state on an internal investigation. Looks like we were right about you.”

  “You know what it’s like to have worked all your life doing something you don’t care about only to realize you’ve not even made any decent money at it? It sucks, knowing I’m facing retirement and have little to show for it.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about retirement anymore,” Zachary said. “Time to go.” Zachary picked up the gun from the cement floor and guided Bev into the back seat of his black sedan.

  “Nice work, Jax. Can you stick around until my backup team can get here and secure those beads with the drugs inside them?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I wandered back into the carriage house to wait for the police to arrive. Walking between the rows of tables, I ran my hands over the strands of beads. They were beautiful. I wondered what would happen to them. I thought about Vega. Although she had severed ties with her parents, I supposed she would somehow be involved in her parents’ estate at this point. I wasn’t sure what would happen to Amanda. A lot would depend on whether she was truly uninvolved in the drug smuggling operation.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Vega called me a few days later to let me know she’d finished the glass light fixture she’d made me, and we set a time for her to come over. She arrived with a cardboard box, and I took her into my attic.

  Vega looked around the new, improved attic. “Hey, your room turned out really nice. I think this light is going to work great in here,” Vega said, pulling out the glass dome light. It was perfect. The mottled colors of purple, blue, and green glowed brilliantly even without being illuminated. “I think I’m going to have to make some more.”

  “Oh! It’s gorgeous,” I said, marveling at the colors. “Thank you.”

  “You want me to put it up for you?” Vega asked.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ve got a contractor coming over to finish up my attic renovation. He can install it. What do I owe you?”

  “No charge. You did a lot to help figure out what had happened to my father. Think of this as a thank you,” Vega said. She spotted the bin of broken glass that had once been her spectacular chandelier.

  “Ah, hell. I know what that is,” Vega said.

  “Yeah, it’s the remains of your chandelier.”

  “What are you going to do with all these pieces?” She asked, picking up a shard to examine it.

  “I haven’t quite figured that out yet, but I was thinking about making a mosaic backsplash in my kitchen, if that’s okay with you. This was your work, before it got destroyed. I wouldn’t want to do
anything with it you didn’t approve of.”

  “I hope something beautiful comes from all those bits and pieces. Let me know when you’ve finished your project. I’d love to see it. I think it’ll be a little like my life—you know, it’s been broken to pieces, but I’m hoping to reassemble it into something beautiful and unexpected.”

  “I hope so, too. Can you tell me what happened?” I asked. “I feel like I’m still missing some pieces.”

  “Look, I’m not entirely sure. No one is talking to me, other than my mother. It seems she was pretty clueless about what was going on. She and I had a long, tearful reunion. I’m sure it’s just the first of many conversations we need to have. And we need each other for support, especially now that my father is gone.”

  I was glad to hear Vega had reconciled with her mother and I hoped that together they would be able to put their lives back together.

  “Nika was bringing the drugs into the country in the larger finished necklaces, right?”

  “Yes, and she only gave my mother the clean beads to work with,” Vega said.

  “So, you mother is innocent?”

  “Looks like it. She’s going to have to figure out if she can make ends meet by selling her beads and her jewelry. My mother has promised to get some treatment for her agoraphobia. She’s got some tax trouble, but we’re working on figuring that out. I think we’ll be able to find a way for her to stay afloat. We may not have to sell the Chanticleer Theater, but we’re thinking about converting it into low-income housing. There’s some water and smoke damage, so it’s time to renovate, and we might as well do it right.”

  “I’m sure the Homeless Advocacy Team would be excited about that,” I said, taking a seat on the top step of the attic stairs. Vega joined me.

  “I agree. It’s better than any donation we can give them.”

  “Do you know what happened to the drugs once Nika got them?”

  “Looks like she sold them and then deposited the money into my parents’ account, telling my mother how successful she’d been at selling the beads to her avid buyers. My mother didn’t question it. She was just happy her bead importing business was doing so well. Daniel Owens took the donations from my dad when the theater was having cash flow problems. Dad spent it on all sorts of things—like buying that chandelier and then donating it. He wasn’t evil, just clueless. Nika was really the evil one in all of this. She’d done so much to manipulate my mother. In my mind, she’s the one who was the culprit. And you brought her down—so, thank you.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The next day Rudy was scheduled to come over to wrap up the attic renovation. There was a knock at the door, and I was surprised to discover Ryan standing in front of me with tickets in one hand.

  “Ryan! What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I wanted to invite you and Zachary to the opening night of Hamlet,” he said, passing me the tickets.

  “Hamlet? I thought it was canceled. Isn’t the Chanticleer Theater closed due to smoke and water damage?”

  “It is. We decided to do what you did with the auction and move the show out to the bandstand in Yesler Square. The cast and crew salvaged what we could of the set and the costumes. Our first show is tomorrow evening. I’m hoping you’ll come.”

  “Oh, sure, Ryan, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Maybe I can bring Val and her new boyfriend, too,” I said as I realized he’d given me four tickets.

  “Great. Well, I hope to see you tomorrow. Oh, and bring your own chair since the square doesn’t have any seating.” Ryan sauntered off, as sexy as ever. But, he was not tempting to me in the least. I loved Zachary. And that was a surprising feeling to have, and one I’d not expected to ever feel again after breaking up with Jerry while I was still in Miami. I hadn’t told Zachary how I felt yet, but I knew I needed to. And I hoped he felt the same way.

  I busied myself in the studio, thinking about Zachary and all that had happened. I was looking forward to getting back into my routine of making and selling handmade glass beads, now that the gala and its chaos was finally over. Rudy arrived as I was packing up the beads I’d made him.

  “So, what do you think of the finished room?” he asked, as we admired the newly renovated attic.

  “It’s perfect. Thanks so much for working on it. You and Dylan did a superb job,” I said, handing him a pouch full of tiny alien and spaceship beads, part of his payment for remodeling my attic.

  “Hey, thanks. You know, Dylan’s going to work out really well for me. I may have to steal him from Tessa.”

  “Don’t you dare. She’ll never forgive me.”

  Rudy laughed his deep rumble of a laugh, as he gathered his tools together to take down to his truck.

  “Oh, hey, I found this when I was working on your floor. It was wedged under one of the loose floorboards I had to remove.” Rudy handed me a slender cedar box. “Sorry, I forgot all about it, what with you ending up in the hospital, the auction, and the fire at the theater—too many things going on.”

  I took the box. It had a small keyhole on its front side, and I had a feeling I had the key for it nestled inside an ivory carving of a whale. I couldn’t wait for Rudy to leave so I could open the box. He grabbed the last of his tools and headed out the door.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said, closing the door behind him. I dashed to the windowsill and grabbed the tiny whale carving. Joined by Gumdrop and Ginger, I headed up the attic stairs. My new attic, which had revealed these treasures in the first place, was the right place to open the box. I sat down on the floor, and I laid the box in front of me. I pulled the tail from the small sculpture, and the key dropped from its hiding place into my hand. Slowly, I pressed the key into the lock, and the box popped open.

  I carefully pulled a yellowed paper from the box and unfolded it on the floor next to me. It was a deed for a property near Port Angeles, Washington.

  I’d never heard my great-aunt talk about any property other than this one. Did she own land on the Olympic Peninsula at the time of her death? If so, did that mean it was mine? And why would she have kept it a secret? I didn’t have any answers, but I was certain I would find them, along with other treasures along the way.

  Gumdrop crawled into my lap, with Ginger wedging herself in, too. In my glorious new room, these two cats, my friends, and my family were my most valuable treasures of all. I didn’t need to hunt any further, at least not today.

  Acknowledgments

  and Notes from the Author

  This book is dedicated to my brilliant and beautiful daughter Kiera. She and I spent most of our spare time at a local community theater while she was in her teens. Some of the inspiration for this story comes from my work at the theater, though I can assure you no one died from a chandelier crashing down upon them during my tenure.

  Perhaps you have wondered how I came up with the name Gumdrop for Jax’s cat. One of Kiera’s many nicknames is Gumdrop. Yes, I named a fictional cat after my daughter, though their personalities are quite different. Gumdrop was inspired by my beloved Willow Cat as well as a fluffy-footed gray chicken we once had.

  I’d like to give a round of applause to all the early readers of this book. I couldn’t have done it without their insightful feedback when I needed it most.

  My talented editor, Ellen Margulies, deserves a standing ovation for her attention to detail, her humor, and her ability to push me toward the best story I can write.

  And last, but certainly not least, a humongous thank-you to my husband, Jeff, for his unwavering faith in me, as well as the chocolate chip cookies he bakes during times of stress.

  About the Author

  Janice Peacock decided to write her first mystery novel after working in a glass studio full of colorful artists who didn’t always get along. They reminded her of the quirky and often humorous characters in the murder mystery books she loves to read. Inspired by that experi
ence, she combined her two passions and wrote High Strung, the first book in the Glass Bead Mystery Series featuring glass beadmaker Jax O’Connell.

  When Janice isn’t writing about glass artists-turned-amateur-detectives, she creates glass beads using a torch, designs one-of-a-kind jewelry, and makes sculptures using hot glass. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, the Glass Museum of Tacoma, WA, and in private collections worldwide.

  Janice lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two cats, and an undisclosed number chickens. She has a studio full of beads...lots and lots of beads.

  Connect with Janice Peacock

  www.JanicePeacock.com

  jp@janicepeacock.com

  blog.janicepeacock.com

  www.JanicePeacockGlass.com

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  More Books in the Glass Bead Mystery Series

  HIGH STRUNG

  Glass Bead Mystery Series

  Book One

  After inheriting a house in Seattle, Jax O’Connell is living the life of her dreams as a glass beadmaker and jewelry designer. When she gets an offer to display her work during a bead shop’s opening festivities, it’s an opportunity Jax can’t resist—even though the store’s owner is the surliest person Jax has ever met.