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

  Miles got up and moved to Minnie’s table, taking a seat behind it. He still looked distraught over Saundra’s death. He was limp—limper than usual—and his unfocused gaze seemed to be keeping customers away.

  Minnie was back a few minutes later and sat down next to Miles. They talked for a little while, and he started to perk up. She pulled out her Muppets lunchbox, and he smiled with appreciation. Minnie had been looking despondent about Saundra’s demise as well, but she seemed to be feeling better as she continued talking with Miles. She had a constant stream of customers at her table, not just looking, but making large purchases. Minnie helped customers make selections and wrote up receipts. Then Miles collected payments and wrapped the purchases.

  Minnie made hipster beads. There was no other way to describe them. She covered all of the basic hipster motifs: owls, hedgehogs, handlebar mustaches, candy-colored skulls, and anything else that was retro, funky, cute, or odd. They were not my style, but boy oh boy, there were a lot of people out there who were crazy about her beads.

  She had a lull in business around noon and scampered over to my table.

  “Miles is going watch my booth while I get some lunch for us over at the snack bar. You want me to get you something, too?”

  “What do they have?”

  “Hot dogs and some sort of salad thing wrapped up in a tortilla. At least I think it’s a salad—it’s green. Whatever it is, I guess it might just be moldy.”

  “Geez, such great choices. I guess I’ll have the hot dog.” If it was cooked, maybe the micro-organisms would be dead, at least. I popped ten bucks into her hand. “And a Coke and chips, too.” It was not a day to diet.

  I wondered how Miles was going to be able to eat at the snack bar. There wasn’t going to be much that was edible, let alone gluten-free.

  “Okay, that works,” Minnie said, as she headed off across the show floor, swinging her hips (maybe that’s why she was a hipster), her square-dancing dress swishing side to side as she walked. Minnie strolled down the center of the aisle, waving to her friends in their booths. This was her way of saying that she wasn’t going to stop and chat, or shop, because if she did, it would’ve taken hours for her to get to the snack bar.

  After Minnie left, a woman who clearly had been shopping up a storm, judging by the number of bags in her hands, stopped by and bought one of my beads. It was a pretty bead with a bi-cone shape—a slender cylinder tapering to a point at each end. At its core, there was layer of silver foil with colorful twists of purple and aqua on the surface. This was my first sale of the day, and I realized I had no receipt books, no bags, no tissue paper, no calculator—they were all off-limits behind the crime scene tape.

  “Can you wait one second?” I asked. “I need to grab some supplies.”

  I ran to Minnie’s table. “Miles—help! I need a receipt book…Oh, and maybe a small zip-lock bag.”

  “No problem. I’ve got Minnie’s supplies here. I’ve been processing payments for her all morning.”

  “Glad about that,” I said, trying to hurry Miles along while my customer waited.

  “Yeah, so I organized everything, since she had so many duplicates,” he continued, not getting the hint that I was in a hurry.

  “Whatever you have, Miles, I really need it now. I’ve got a customer waiting,” I hissed, as I looked back at her and smiled sheepishly, holding up my index finger. Just one more minute, and I’d be right back. I thought about giving Miles a finger as well—the middle one.

  “Oh, sure. Sorry. Here’s an envelope of things that were duplicates. I don’t think Minnie would mind if you used them,” Miles said, handing me a manila envelope stuffed with papers and receipt books.

  I hurried in a half-run back to my table.

  “I am so, so, so sorry,” I said, dumping the contents of the envelope on the table and searching through them.

  “Ah, here it is. A receipt book,” I said, trying to act positive and professional.

  I wrote the receipt, found a small zip-lock bag, and some tissue paper. My customer was staring at me impatiently, as I hurriedly wrapped the bead. She had more shopping to do, and I was slowing her down.

  “Thanks for your purchase. And thanks for your patience,” I said with one final smile.

  Wordlessly, the woman took her bead and vanished into the fray of people spending, spending, spending.

  Minnie came by a few minutes later with lunch. “Here’s your hot dog,” she said, placing it on the table. “And heeeere’s your mustard and ketchup packets.”

  What? No relish?

  “Here’s your Coke. And your chips,” she continued, dropping them next to the hot dog. “Oh, and here’s your change.”

  “Eighty-four cents?”

  “Sorry, the snack bar is expensive.”

  “Thanks, Minnie. At least I won’t starve.” Actually, lunch wasn’t bad. I put every bit of ketchup and mustard on the hot dog and that definitely helped. A few hundred calories can turn my world around.

  I looked down the aisle at Minnie and Miles. They were sitting at Minnie’s table, smiling and eating fries and drinking shakes. Shakes! Fries! Nobody told me those yummy options were available. And Miles—he was eating them, too. So much for his gluten-free, non-dairy existence. He was breaking all his food rules today.

  I looked through the papers and supplies Miles had given me. Price tags, pens, a calculator, and a few receipt books. Among the things were a half-dozen pages with drawings of beads and notes. I shoved them back into the envelope.

  By two o’clock, sales were finally picking up, and I made several large sales in the last hour that the bazaar was open. I knew I’d at least paid my expenses for the weekend. I felt good about that—even if I didn’t sell anything else, I was in the black. What would my sales have been like if I wasn’t using a comforter as a table covering and had an actual lighting system? I would never know. Tessa arrived a few minutes before five o’clock, when the show was about to close.

  “Dinner?” Tessa asked.

  “I only had a hot dog for lunch. I could use some real food.”

  “I’m going to meet up with Adriana and find out where we’re going for dinner,” Tessa said. Adriana was tall and thin with puffy white hair. She reminded me of a Q-Tip. She was a bead shop owner from San Francisco, who often came to sales to buy inventory for her store. Tessa and Adriana were old friends, although they only saw each other a few times a year at bead bazaars like this one. Adriana always knew the latest beading techniques, and Tessa loved to learn them from her.

  Sal shooed the last few customers out of the ballroom. I closed the receipt book for the day, throwing a spare sheet over my table to keep it a little more secure overnight. Miles left with Minnie, only giving me a small wave as they walked out the door, eyes locked on each other, messenger bags strapped across their chests. I didn’t expect to see much of Miles the rest of the weekend, since he had apparently met his dream girl.

  NINE

  “WHAT DID ADRIANA say about dinner?” I asked, sitting down on my bed and thinking seriously about curling up in it and missing dinner. “I can’t stand the thought of going out with a big group of people. I’m still traumatized from this morning, like I have Saundra’s death cooties on me.”

  “We can’t stay in the room for another night of room service,” Tessa said. “Besides, I’m feeling energized. I spent money. That always brightens my mood, at least until the VISA bill arrives. I’m around grownups and not kids who are fighting and—”

  “Uh, Tessa? Let’s forget about your home life for a sec,” I said.

  “Right. A big group of us are going to the Cheesecake Factory. Want to come?” asked Tessa.

  This was not my idea of a good time, except for the dessert. Fifteen people, probably all women, crowded around a table that should only hold ten, everyone talking all at once, utter chaos when the bill arrives, and someone getting stuck paying an extra forty bucks because someone else at the table miscalculated how much they owed on
the tab.

  “Not going,” I said.

  “Suit yourself. No dessert for you then.”

  “What, you won’t bring your best friend back a piece of chocolate cheesecake?”

  “Jax, I know you’re upset about Saundra, but you need to let it go. You did what you could.”

  I said nothing, afraid if I did, I’d start crying.

  “You’re just going to sit around here and think about what happened, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe,” I said. Of course I was going to think about Saundra’s death. I could think of nothing else. In fact, the idea of Saundra, now dead and cold, had haunted me all day. And I had so many questions. What had happened? Had she tripped during the blackout? Had she still been alive after we all left the ballroom, dying slowly and alone in the dark? Had she bled to death from cracking her head open on the shattered mirror?

  And was this an accident, or something far worse?

  “Tessa, you saw the crime scene tape and those police officers milling around behind the dividers that the hotel put up,” I said.

  “Wait—you’re not thinking this was murder, are you?” Tessa asked. “Maybe there was something else going on, like someone stole Saundra’s change fund, or some of her beads.”

  “Why would there have been so many police officers around if it was just a theft or an accident?”

  “I can’t believe it was murder. But even if it was, what are you going to do—stay here and hope that Saundra’s killer doesn’t come and find you here alone? Or are you going to stay here without an alibi in case someone else gets murdered?” Tessa was laying on the false concern pretty heavily now. She thought she could manipulate me. And, I admit it, she could.

  “I’ll go, I’ll go,” I said, relenting. The best way to find out if anyone else was thinking that Saundra had been murdered would be to eat dinner with a bunch of women who’d been drinking too much.

  And besides, I could have a piece of chocolate cheesecake.

  • • •

  We took the frigid elevator down to the lobby. I was quiet as we descended, still fragile from this morning’s events and uneasy with Tessa’s complete denial of Saundra’s demise being something more than cracking her head open. Tessa broke the silence.

  “It must have been such a shock for you to have discovered Saundra. It’s a huge loss to the bead world,” said Tessa, crossing herself.

  “I don’t know if anyone from the bead world will miss her—she was pretty condescending to me and everyone else. Even you didn’t like her pompous attitude when she visited your studio a few months back.” In April, during a Weekend of Education, Enlightenment, and Design—we tried not to laugh when we called it WEED—Saundra had demonstrated how to make a leopard print glass bead. Tessa had had a hard time managing Saundra because she acted as if she were the star of the show, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  “She made gorgeous glass beads. She promoted the heck out of herself, and by doing that, I think she helped teach the general public about beads,” said Tessa.

  “Seriously, that makes her wonderful? She would never give me—or you, for that matter—the time of day. You mean that Saundra?” It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that someone had killed her. People may have admired—or tolerated—her, but most disliked her as much as I did.

  “But we don’t speak ill of the dead,” Tessa said, crossing herself again, and saying something in Italian. She could become extremely Italian and Catholic at times, and talking about death was one of them.

  “Just because she’s dead doesn’t change who she was,” I said. “I tried to save her life, but that doesn’t make me suddenly believe she was a saint.”

  “But, Jax, someone must have loved her. She must have family members who care about her, who will miss her now that she’s gone to heaven.”

  “Heaven? You think she’d go to heaven?”

  “Yes, heaven, Jax. Don’t you believe in heaven?”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” I said, realizing that this was not the best response. “I just don’t believe—”

  “You know what, Jax? I’d think you of all people could understand that this person, although maybe not a nice person, shouldn’t have died the way she did. And I believe, and I have taught my children to believe, that each of us is special, and each of us is good,” said Tessa, glaring at me.

  “Save your preaching for someone else—“ I interrupted myself. “I’m sorry, I’m just so frazzled, I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

  Tessa’s phone started dinging, as a flurry of text messages arrived. Izzy and Ashley must have been fighting again.

  “Geez, Tessa! Your phone—it’s driving me crazy. Can’t Craig handle the girls? Don’t let all that drama at home make matters worse.”

  “No, Jax, you’re driving me crazy,” Tessa said, rummaging in her purse for her phone, finding it and gasping at what she saw on the screen. “I need to call home,” Tessa said over her shoulder as she hurried away.

  “I think I’ll feel better if I have some dinner,” I said, but what I was really thinking about was dessert and the healing powers of chocolate cheesecake. I yelled after her, hoping to lure her back. “Or maybe I’ll go find Ryan. I’ll bet he’s on duty guarding the ballroom. No one will ever get past him. You should have seen him this morning. He wouldn’t let me onto the show floor even a minute before eight o’clock. He’s a real stickler, but kind of cute.” She pushed through the rotating front door and was gone.

  Collapsing into one of the giant vinyl chairs that lined the walls of the lobby, I dropped my head into my hands. I examined the white half-circles on the top of my Chucks and the swirls of floral carpet that headed off in all directions below my feet. If Val had seen me wearing Converse high-tops out in public, she’d have been extremely disappointed in my fashion choice, and she wouldn’t have been shy about telling me. But she wasn’t here, so she’d never know. Besides, they were bright green—one of my favorite colors—and not too dirty. And they were comfy.

  A pair of feet appeared in my field of vision, toe to toe with me. Perfectly manicured bright pink toes. Sky-high patent leather sandals. Could it be Val, coming to haunt me because of my poor choice in footwear? That was not possible.

  But it wasn’t Val, just my guilty conscience playing tricks on me. I scanned the body standing in front of me. Ankles, bare knees, bare thighs, and a red mini skirt. That was followed by a skin-tight T-shirt, boobs that had possibly been surgically enhanced, a thin tasteful silver chain around her neck, and finally a face. The woman’s blond hair cascaded past her shoulders. I had no idea who this was. She was clearly not a bead lady based on the fact that she was not wearing a gigantic beaded necklace.

  “Are you Ms. O’Connell?” the woman said, her shiny badge flickering into my field of vision.

  I jumped to my feet, a little too quickly to be graceful.

  “Uh…yes,” I responded eloquently. The surly police officer had told me that a detective would want to talk to me. This must be her. I needed to sit back down, but I somehow felt the need to stay standing, like a poor rookie being stared down by an army sergeant.

  “I’m Detective Tiffany Houston, Portland Police Department.”

  Tiffany Houston was not the best name for a police detective. There wasn’t much gravitas in a name like that. And she should seriously reconsider her fashion choices—she was dressed to party, not to interrogate me.

  “I’m off-duty right now. Trust me when I say that this is not what I usually wear when I’m working on a case,” Detective Houston said, clearly catching my head-to-toe sweep of her getup.

  I nodded mutely. I was still trying to reconcile what a detective should look like with who was standing here with me. The only detective I’d ever spent any time around, Zachary Grant, always wore a suit and tie. If Val were here, she’d remind me that Zachary—or Zach, as he’d allowed her to call him—needed a consultation on choosing ties that were less ugly.

 
“You were involved in an incident here at the hotel?” asked Detective Houston.

  “I was,” I said. “Uh, detective, that incident you want to talk about, do you mean a theft? The blackout? An accident? Murd—“

  “Let’s have a little chat in the morning,” said the detective, cutting me off. She wasn’t going to tip her cards.

  “Please don’t discuss anything that has happened with regard to Ms. Jameson. I’ll find you in the ballroom tomorrow,” the detective said. With a thin smile, she handed me her card.

  “Got it. See you then,” I said, pocketing her card.

  Turning on her shiny heel, she walked briskly through the revolving door, as Tessa had done moments before.

  TEN

  I PULLED OUT MY PHONE to call Tessa and apologize for being so insensitive. She was right, you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and she was also right that it’s best to avoid being alone when you’ve been freaked out by a dead person. In fact, Tessa is correct ninety percent of the time. Me? I’m correct the other ten percent.

  I was already late for dinner. The Cheesecake Factory was only a couple of blocks away. I headed for the restaurant, leaving a message for Tessa as I trotted. Maybe I’d find her at the restaurant. And maybe I’d still be able to do some questioning of my beady friends about what they had seen in the last twenty-four hours.

  The restaurant was immense. Twenty feet above my head, oversized cone-shaped art glass chandeliers hung from frescoed ceilings. Floor-to-ceiling columns covered in sparkling mosaics flanked the sides of the main dining room. The place was over-the-top—a vast gaudy cavern with dozens of tables.

  I found the table where my friends were sitting. As expected, ten people were sitting hip-to-hip at a table meant for eight.

  “Sorry, sorry, I’m late,” I yelled, trying to get someone’s attention.