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

  A BEAD IN THE HAND

  A Glass Bead Mystery

  JANICE PEACOCK

  Booktrope Editions

  Seattle WA 2015

  Copyright 2015 Janice Peacock

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Inquiries about additional permissions should be directed to: [email protected]

  Cover Design by Greg Simanson

  Edited by Ellen Margulies

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  Print ISBN 9781513705613

  EPUB ISBN 978-1-5137-0612-2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918711

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  DEDICATION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOKS IN THE GLASS BEAD MYSTERY SERIES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CONNECT WITH JANICE PEACOCK

  MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE

  For Mom

  ONE

  THE WEEKEND GOT OFF to a bad start when I stepped on Gumdrop. It went from bad to tragic when I held a woman in my arms and knew there was no way I could save her. She was already dead.

  • • •

  I was standing on my tallest stool, reaching to grab the last tray of beads from the top shelf in the guest room closet.

  “Almost…got…it,” I said to my cat Gumdrop, who was watching me from the bed.

  Finally, I hooked my fingernails on the edge of the tray and pulled it slowly off the shelf, careful not to spill the contents of the shallow box. In preparation for an upcoming sale, I had placed each bead into its own separate spot in the grid of compartments in the tray. I took a slow step down one of the rungs of the stool, then another. Relieved that I was almost down, I took my final step toward the floor and realized—too late—I’d stepped on Gumdrop. The ear-piercing screech of a pissed-off cat threw me off balance—that, of course, and the fact that I was not stepping on the floor, but instead on the body of a cat who was attempting to flee. I tried to regain my balance, but it was a lost cause. With one last futile leap, I tried to stick a perfect 10-point landing, gymnast-style, holding the tray above my head. I saw myself falling in slow motion, the tray of glass beads still in my hands, as I plunged to the floor. The beads left the tray and went flying through the air. It was bad enough that they were falling, and possibly breaking, but it was a real insult that they were pelting down on my head like hail.

  “Dammit, Gummie, why are you always in the way?” I yelled at Gumdrop, who had run from the room as fast as his fat body could carry him. I’d find him later, likely jammed under a pillow on the sofa, to sleep off the scary experience.

  “Ouch,” I added to no one but myself, feeling for lumps on my head.

  Searching the Oriental carpet in my office-cum-guestroom, I tried to find all of the beads that had been flung from the tray by my not-so-graceful fall. When I squeezed under the bed, a swirl of cat hair drifted past me. I made a mental note to run the vacuum cleaner under here the next time I tackled the housekeeping in my half of the duplex.

  After examining each bead, I replaced it into its cubby in the tray. These were glass beads, ones I had made myself in a torch by melting different colors of glass together. Fortunately, all the beads seemed to have made it, having been cooled properly overnight after I’d completed each one. I’d found twenty-three of the beads, but there was one empty spot left in the tray. Where had that bead gone? Under the desk? No. Still in the closet? No. In the carpet’s fringe? No.

  The doorbell rang. Brushing Gumdrop’s hair off my jeans, I trotted to the door. I needed to get out the duct tape and give myself a once-over to get rid of the fluff, but didn’t bother. I didn’t want Val to have to wait. A quick glimpse in the mirror confirmed that my mop of light brown hair was sticking out in every direction, as usual. Then I noticed something strange—a large blue bead, wedged tightly in my cleavage. The missing bead. What a relief to spare Val from seeing that. It spared me, too, from getting teased by her for weeks to follow.

  I pulled open the front door.

  “Eh uh en geh de doo ohen,” my neighbor Val said, while holding a green glass pitcher of margaritas in one hand, two stemmed glasses with a bowl of guacamole teetering on top of them in the other, and a bag of Tostitos held in her teeth.

  “What?” I said, grabbing the bag of tortilla chips from her mouth.

  “I said, ‘I couldn’t get the door open.’ So I used my elbow to ring the bell. Glad you didn’t take much longer, Jax, because I was about to drop this pitcher of margs and that would have been a true tragedy.”

  “I’ve already dropped enough glass things for today. I just dropped an entire tray of beads. None of them broke, fortunately. I need that inventory for the Bead Fun sale in Portland.”

  Val set down the glasses on the kitchen table. “Salt?” she asked. “For the rims of the glasses?”

  “Sorry, I only have table salt.”

  “Jax, honey, when are you going to learn how to properly stock your pantry? Really, you can’t always rely on me to bring you snacks and drinks.”

  “It’s worked for me so far,” I said, shrugging.

  “Here, let’s open these chips, and we’ll just suck the salt off them before drinking our margaritas, okay?”

  “Sounds good.” I admit I let Val take care of me. It makes her feel good to think she is taking care of an artist who is able to make pretty things but needs a lot of help with just about everything else—especially eating, drinking, and shopping for clothes.

  I’ve lived next door to Val for nearly three years now, and they have been some of the best in my life. Val is enormous in every way—big red hair, pushing 6 feet tall, big bones (I say with the utmost tact), and big jewelry—the glitzier, the better. She’s a hairdresser, and I am constantly surprised that any new client who comes into the salon doesn’t turn and run. She’s beautiful, but somewhat scary until you get to know her.


  She and I live in a Craftsman bungalow in Seattle that my Great-Aunt Rita split down the middle a dozen years ago to create a duplex. I live in the right half, and Val and her series of good-for-nothing boyfriends live in the left half.

  After Great-Aunt Rita died, the house became mine, and I decided to move away from the golden sunshine and giant insects of Miami. My mom and dad still live there, and are constantly bugging me to move home before I die from mildew poisoning due to the damp weather in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. It’s gorgeous here, but a different kind of beauty than Miami. In fact, it’s the opposite of Miami in every way imaginable: wet, cold, rocky beaches, fewer Cubans (which unfortunately means fewer Cuban restaurants), gray skies instead of blue skies, better coffee, and better drivers.

  When I moved to Seattle, I left behind more than the sunshine and my parents. I’d broken up with my boyfriend Jerry. He was more interested in watching sports, drinking a little too heavily, and eating take-out food than he was in having a meaningful relationship with me. He was upset when I left, but like he’d lost a nice watch, rather than a partner. I was not bitter. Okay, I was bitter, but only in a good, healthy way.

  I’d left my job at Clorox, too. It was there I’d met Jerry, a scientific glass blower, who was the first person to show me how to work with molten glass. When my department needed a special glass part for an experiment, we would call our in-house glass blower, and he’d make a vacuum tube, or condenser, or even custom test tubes. The best part of my job was going into his workshop in the basement of the building, with its enormous lathe and the soft hum of the ventilation system. Jerry showed me it’s possible to make fancy glass components for experiments, but he also taught me how to make beautiful things in the flame by melting glass. He shaped it in all sorts of ways while it was still molten: slender tubes, perfect spheres, and complex containers. Even after our relationship had fizzled, my love of glass continued burning strong.

  Val and I settled down at the old oak kitchen table and filled our glasses. “What are your big plans for this weekend?” Val asked.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow for a bead bazaar in Portland,” I said, with probably too many chips in my mouth to be considered polite.

  “Oh, that sounds like fun—or is it just bizarre?”

  “Bazaar, Val, not bizarre. It’s going to be terrific. It’s like a flea market, you know, with people selling their beads and jewelry in booths and at tables. I’m going to stop and pick up Tessa on the way. We’re rooming together at The Red Rose Hotel where the bead sale is being held. It should be fun.”

  “The Red Rose Hotel?”

  “It’s the only Red Rose Hotel I’m aware of. Why?”

  “It’s supposed to be haunted,” Val said, knitting her perfectly-plucked eyebrows. “I’ve heard perfume will keep ghosts away. Do you want to borrow some of mine?”

  “No, Val. No. I’m sure it’s not haunted.” Where did Val get these ideas? I scooped up some guacamole on a chip and popped it in my mouth. Having tried some pretty terrible dishes from Val’s kitchen in the past, I’m usually wary of her concoctions, but I could always count on her for excellent Mexican food. “Val, your guac is the best I’ve ever tasted,” I said, swiping another chip through the bowl.

  “Thanks, doll. I’ve been working really hard to become a better cook,” Val said, pouring herself the last margarita. “You and Tessa are going to have fun. Maybe you’ll meet a guy.”

  “I seriously doubt that. These shows are full of bead ladies, and even the guys are bead ladies, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I definitely do not know what you mean.”

  “The guys who are into beads are usually frumpy. They’re definitely not boyfriend material. And besides, the men are few and far between. I guess I should get into model airplanes or boxing if I want to meet some men.”

  “Or you could just call that hot Seattle police detective—what’s his name?”

  “Zachary Grant,” I told her, because if I didn’t, she wouldn’t stop pestering me until I did, so I just skipped over the part where she pleaded with me.

  “Oh, yes. Zach.”

  “No, apparently he doesn’t like to be called Zach, only Zachary.”

  “He seemed okay when I called him Zach last week when he stopped by.”

  “What? He was here?” I was surprised the serious detective had come to see me. During the time I’d known him, he’d been stern with me and had only shown signs of kindness in my last conversation with him a few months ago.

  “Oh, yes. I left you a note. Didn’t you get it?”

  “No, Val, I didn’t.”

  “He said he was in the neighborhood,” Val said, looking me up and down. “And Jax, you’re looking good today in that V-neck T-shirt. It shows off your ta-tas.”

  “Thanks,” I said, looking down at the front of my shirt and trying to brush off some cat hair.

  “Soon you’ll be asking to borrow one of my stretchy wrap around tops.”

  “You know I can’t wear fabric like that in the studio, only natural fibers. You don’t want me going up in flames, do you? You don’t want polyester melting onto me like molten lava, right? But I’m glad you like the top,” I said. Val had done a lot to help me embrace, or at least accept, my curviness. “In fact, you’ll never guess what I found in my cleavage just a little while ago.”

  “I do not want to know what was in between your boobs,” Val said with a grimace. She spotted the stack of bead trays and bags in the hallway. “Are you almost ready to go?”

  “I’ve got hours of work before I leave tomorrow morning,” I said, placing the pitcher and glasses in her hands. “I’ll return the rest when I get back. Thanks for the drinks, guac, and chips. They were yummy. I owe you one,” I said, shooing her toward the door.

  “Bring me back something sparkly from the show.”

  “How about one of my beads?”

  “Sorry, not sparkly enough,” she said. “Honey, when you get back, I want you to meet my new boyfriend, Bruno.”

  “Sounds like a dog’s name.”

  “Oh...yes. He is an animal, if you know what I mean,” she said with a wink. “Woof!”

  I didn’t want to know what that meant.

  “Out. Out. Don’t forget to feed Gumdrop while I’m gone. And keep him away from Stanley,” I said. In the last few months, we had made several adjustments in our lives after adopting a Bassett hound. My cat didn’t like sharing attention with Stanley, or anything else about the dog for that matter.

  “Okay, sweet cheeks, see you in a couple of days, and try to stay out of trouble. Don’t forget to take some ghost-busting perfume.”

  I packed six full trays of my best beads, including some cute ladybugs I’d been perfecting, a bunch of earrings, some seed bead kits, and a big bag of bargain beads. With the current state of the economy, the bargain beads would probably be my biggest money-maker. Renting the table at a bead bazaar was expensive, and the hotel room wasn’t cheap either, even though Tessa and I were splitting that cost. I’d need to move some inventory to break even.

  Along with beads, I had the rest of the paraphernalia needed to set up a little store for one evening and three days of sales at the bead bazaar in the hotel’s ballroom: bags, wrapping material, displays, tablecloths, and lights. I tossed it all willy-nilly into the trunk of The Ladybug, my lovely red convertible VW, and sat on the trunk’s lid to squish everything in. I hadn’t brought much to wear, but if I wore a special necklace each day, people wouldn’t notice I was wearing different combinations of the same shirts and pants all weekend long.

  It was two in the morning when I fell asleep. Gumdrop, who had finally emerged from his hiding place, had snuggled up next to me. Seven o’clock arrived mercilessly early. Gently pulling back the covers, I tried not to disturb Gumdrop, who had moved to the foot of my bed. I was thankful I’d finally taught him to stop sleeping on my head. I dragged myself out of bed and walked stiff-legged and vacant-eyed into the shower, feeling like a zombi
e. I needed not just a cup, but a bucket of coffee this morning.

  I picked up Tessa at Starbucks, near her house in Ballard. It’s the coffee shop on the left side of the street at the corner of NW Market Street and 22nd Avenue NW, not the one on the opposite corner. Seattle is called the Emerald City—not because of how lush the landscape is, but because of all the green Starbucks signs everywhere you look. Tessa bought my usual for me, the biggest non-fat latte Starbucks makes—a Venti—and she had her usual single shot of espresso. I’ve never understood how she can function on that little caffeine in the morning.

  Tessa has been my friend since we were in kindergarten, after she’d convinced me to eat a glob of paste by telling me it tasted like a mint Lifesaver. She was one of the reasons I’d decided to come to Seattle. I knew I would have at least one friend here. When I first arrived and was trying to figure out what to do with myself, Tessa invited me to her studio and there, I watched her make beads for hours. It reminded me of Jerry, and how watching him work transfixed me.

  Tessa runs the local glass studio, Fremont Fire. She has an impressive classroom full of torches and often hosts classes, inviting beadmakers from all over the world to come and teach. She also sells her own earrings and necklaces as well as the work of other jewelry designers in her shop.

  But Tessa wasn’t selling at the Bead Fun show this weekend; she was buying. She was looking for beads and supplies that she could sell at her studio, and planning to visit with friends and see what was happening in the world of beads. Since she didn’t have all her show gear, she was traveling light. She handed me my latte and tossed her bag in the back seat. I put the top down on The Ladybug, so we could take in the crisp morning air.

  “Are your kids all sorted out for the next few days?” I asked between gulps of hot coffee.

  “Craig promises to make sure everyone eats at least a couple of times a day, and that the kids don’t play in traffic.” Craig was Tessa’s husband, a big huggable guy she had met when she lived in Italy. He was not Italian but an American—he’d swept her off her feet and away from Venice to Seattle, where they were now raising three kids.