A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) (22 page)

This was the mystery bead seller I’d been searching for. Brynne wasn’t trying to engage me, her potential customer, but was instead focused on her phone. I thought I’d start out slow, with some basic questions to see what I might learn from her without arousing her suspicion.

“These beads are really unique. Did you make them?” I asked, picking up a Fenestra bead, another design I recognized as Saundra’s, with tiny window-like portals that you could look into to see the bead’s colorful center.

“They’re handmade from Italian glass. I create all these beads using a torch.” She was talking, and she didn’t recognize me. This was a start.

“I make glass beads, too,” I said. “But mine aren’t as nice as these.”

“Cool, thanks.” She returned to looking at her phone.

“Did you take classes around here?”

“I learned on my own from books and YouTube. Oh, and then I learned a lot working with this guy, Miles.”

Miles. He was the connection. Somehow Miles linked this woman to Saundra, but I didn’t know how or why.

“Did you ever meet him?” she asked. “He’s a beadmaker. Pretty cool guy. I met him at the Urban Sea Monkeys concert. They’re an obscure band with a retro-folk-synth sound—you’ve probably never heard of them. I listened to them back before anyone else did. But now, they’ve just sold out to the commercial market.” No wonder she liked Miles. They shared that hipster desire to listen only to esoteric bands and to bad-mouth musicians who achieved any level of commercial success.

Should I tell her I knew Miles? Should I tell her my name?

“No, sorry, I haven’t met him,” I lied.

“You want to buy a bead, or what?” she said, looking up at me.

As we made eye contact, she jumped up from her stool and backed away from me. “Hey, you’re the lady who was following me last night. Who are you, an undercover cop?”

Oh no! My cover was blown. She’d recognized me. So much for Val’s costume. Maybe I should have kept the wiglet clipped to the top of my head.

“I’m not a cop.” Brynne was looking from side to side, trying to figure out what her escape options were. “Look, you can’t run away and leave your beads behind. Just sit still and talk with me.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Brynne said. “And by the way, that’s a really sucky disguise you have on.” I decided I’d let the insult slide.

“I need your help. Someone killed Saundra Jameson.”

“Look, I barely even knew that bit—”

“Your beads, they look just like some of Saundra’s.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to sell them at the market. They were supposed to be hers, but they didn’t turn out so well, so I didn’t sell them to Miles.”

“You were selling beads to Miles?”

“Yeah, he’d give me the designs, and I’d make them,” Brynne said. “It was an easy way to make bank each month.”

Saundra wasn’t making her own beads? What a crazy idea: A beadmaker who didn’t make beads. I knew she was able to make them, having seen her demo a few months back at Tessa’s studio. Now I knew why Saundra’s studio was so neat—nothing was ever made there.

I also understood now what Saundra’s brother, Bruce, meant about the people who came to visit Saundra. There was a woman who didn’t look like the other bead ladies—because she had green hair.

“Do you know why anyone would want to harm Saundra?”

“I’ll tell you this, I made a lot of money in this deal. I wouldn’t kill her. I didn’t like her, but I liked her money.”

“What can you tell me about Miles?”

Brynne started closing up the cigar boxes that held her beads, clipping the lid of each box in place with its square metal clasp. I was running out of time.

“Saundra didn’t treat Miles very well, but he kind of needed her. He told me once he couldn’t get another job. Not sure why.”

“Can I buy a few of your beads?” I asked. “How much for these three?” I might need them later, although I wasn’t sure why.

I paid Brynne, and she placed my beads into a little woven bag, then put away the cigar boxes in her backpack. She folded up the tablecloth she’d been using and stuffed it in as well.

“Hope you catch your killer,” Brynne said, slinging her backpack onto one shoulder.

“Hey Brynne, any way I can get in touch with you?” I called to her as she left.

She glanced back at me. Without a reply, she slipped into the crowd and was gone.

THIRTY-THREE

WHEN I GOT BACK
to The Red Rose Hotel, I went straight up to our room. I didn’t want anyone seeing me in this getup. As I slid the key card into the lock, I heard a loud howl from the other side of the door.

Gumdrop was unhappy. He was not going to be happy until he was home. I opened the door slowly. My cat was sitting on the plush white sofa, now covered in long gray fur. He let loose another long howl. His green eyes were slits in his otherwise fluffy face, and his front claws were extended, gripping the sofa cushion. I sat down on the sofa next to Gummie and gave him some long strokes down his back, and a vigorous scratch under his chin. He kneaded his paws in my lap.

“Ouch! I’m going to clip your nails when I get home. You scratched Ryan yesterday, you know,” I said to the cat. He looked up at me with his grumpy eyes and let loose a plaintive, “Yellloooo.”

I pulled off Val’s clothes and slid into my own jeans and back into the red ribbed T-shirt I’d had on earlier. Val’s makeup remover was on the bathroom counter, and I used it to take off the makeup she’d slathered on me. I slipped on my red clogs and was down at the bead bazaar in a matter of minutes. Tessa was working at my table, as she had been for much of the last few days. She was writing up a sale when I arrived.

“And here are your beads,” Tessa said with a big smile. “Thanks for your purchase.” I sat down behind the table with Tessa. She handed me the receipt book, and I flipped through the pages.

“Looks like sales have picked up a little,” I said. Things had been slow earlier in the day. Buyers were now zipping through the bazaar one last time to pick up any items they’d been thinking about, but hadn’t purchased earlier.

“I’m really happy for you Jax, you deserve it. I didn’t do much. People just love your beads.”

“Thanks, Tessa. You’re not angry I’ve been gone for so long?”

“I’m okay. Glad I could help my best friend make a ton of money. You’re buying me dinner this week, of course, to make up for all my hard work,” Tessa said.

“Absolutely. Any restaurant you want. You want me to take you to Ray’s Boathouse?” That was one of Tessa’s favorite places, near her house on the Shilshole Bay. We’d spent many afternoons drinking white wine on the upstairs deck, watching the sun sink over Puget Sound.

“That sounds great,” Tessa said, giving me a big hug. “Did you find the mystery bead seller?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Her name’s Brynne,” I said. “And after talking with her, I have some serious questions for Miles.”

“What does he have to do with all of this?”

“It looks like Miles asked Brynne to make beads for Saundra. He’d bring her designs, and she’d make the beads. At some point in the process, Miles would pay Brynne and deliver the beads to Saundra.”

“So you’ve uncovered a pretty unethical way of doing business. You don’t think it’s illegal, do you?” asked Tessa.

“No, as long as the bead designs belong to Saundra, she could do what she wanted with them, including have someone else make them.”

“Really? Because that just doesn’t seem right,” she said.

“What I want to know is how Saundra’s murder fits into a scheme in which Brynne, a beadmaker no one knows, makes beads for one of the most well-known glass bead artists,” I said.

“If someone murdered Saundra to hide this scheme, could they also be after Miles or Brynne?”

“If someone was after Brynne, they’d have trouble finding her.” She didn’t want to be found, but I wasn’t sure why.

And what about Miles? Was he in danger? Or was Miles a mastermind who had created a plot that had ultimately led to Saundra’s death? After all, Miles had been near Saundra when she died. Why Miles would want to kill Saundra was another question entirely, other than the fact that she treated him badly, which didn’t seem like a reasonable motive for murder.

Time to track down Miles, and, to use Tiffany’s expression,
have a chat
.

THIRTY-FOUR

MILES WASN’T AT MINNIE’S BOOTH
, where he’d been most of the weekend. So much for him helping me at my table.

“If you see Miles, send him over, okay?” I asked Tessa as she sped away to shop one last time, worried, I was sure, that if she didn’t leave now, I’d ask her to man (woman?) the booth for another hour or two.

“Can I get those extra books back from you?” Miles asked when he showed up at my table a few minutes later.

“Did Tessa tell you I wanted to see you?”

“I haven’t seen her. Look, I just need to get those books. A bead store is coming by the loading dock to pick them up. I promise I’ll come right back.” He reached under the table and grabbed the box of books.

“Miles. Sit.” Miles perched on the chair next to me, the books in his lap. “Are you okay? I’ve been a little worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” said Miles. He wasn’t giving me anything to go on.

“Nothing’s bothering you?”

“No, I’m cool,” Miles said, adjusting the vintage watch on his wrist.

“And how’s Minnie?”

“She’s fine too.” I needed some lessons on how to interrogate someone. I wasn’t sure what questions to ask Miles, but I didn’t want to alarm him, or have him think I was accusing him of anything. Asking questions like “Did you kill Saundra?” and “Do you know who did?” were right out of Tiffany’s playbook, not mine.

One of Minnie’s bead trays crashed to the floor, and Miles looked over as she scrambled around picking up beads. Miles looked at me with sad puppy eyes. He reminded me of Stanley the Basset hound, minus the bloodshot eyes and droopy lids.

“Go on, go help her. I’m fine,” I said. “Here, take this envelope back to Minnie. It’s everything I borrowed this weekend, plus twenty dollars to pay her for the supplies I used.” There weren’t going to be many more sales this weekend. I held on to a partially used receipt book, in case there were some last minute buyers.

“I promise we can talk a little later,” Miles said, dashing off to help his new girlfriend, the manila envelope resting on top of the box of Saundra’s
Celestial Bead Designs
books.

I recalled what I’d found in the envelope the day Miles gave it to me. There were detailed sketches of a design that looked like one of Saundra’s beads, and several pages of notes, written in a round-lettered handwriting that many girls in middle school tried to perfect. Saundra had told me she was unveiling new designs in the
Celestial Bead Designs
book at Bead Fun. If that was true, why did Minnie have Saundra’s notes and drawings? Had Minnie stolen them from Saundra?

Tessa had given me Saundra’s book, and I found it on the floor under my tote bag. It had a big, gorgeous image of the new Cosmos bead design on the cover. I wondered if this book would ever be worth much. I wasn’t sure if I could even bear to keep it, since I’d just as soon forget about this weekend. I opened the cover of the book. Saundra’s spidery signature was scrawled across the first page. Ostentatious until the end.

The signature looked nothing like the writing on the note pages I’d seen in Minnie’s envelope. Saundra’s writing was jagged and sweeping. The pages of notes had looping round letters. If that wasn’t Saundra’s writing on those note pages, whose was it? Minnie’s? And if they were Minnie’s notes, what did that mean?

I looked over at Minnie’s booth. A sheet had been thrown over the top of her display. She was gone, and so was Miles. Minnie had left her beads and her show gear on her table, so I knew she’d be back, but I couldn’t wait until then. I was worried about Miles—had he gotten caught up in something he couldn’t handle?

Miles said he was headed to the loading dock, and it was possible that Minnie was with him. Adriana was wandering from table to table, making some last minute purchases, perhaps trying to see if any vendors were willing to give her some end-of-show discounts.

“Adriana!” I shouted to her. “Can you help me for a few minutes?”

“Sure. No problem,” Adriana said, sliding behind my table. “What do I need to do?”

“Just sit here and make sure no one steals anything. If a customer wants to buy something, just have them pay in cash. And if anything complicated comes up, call me. Thanks!”

I trotted down the aisle, dodging dazed customers who were wrapping up their weekend of frenzied bead buying. At the back of the ballroom, I passed the utility room, then sprinted down an industrial gray hallway. I skidded around the corner and smacked into the side of an orange forklift at the back of a large warehouse.

THIRTY-FIVE

FROM MY HIDING PLACE
behind the forklift, I could hear Minnie shouting. Her words, echoing inside the cavernous warehouse, were punctuated by the sound of a thrown object meeting its target, followed by a small squeaking sound.

“YOU (thunk squeak) GAVE (thunk squeak) THOSE (thunk squeak) PAPERS (thunk squeak) to JAX (a final thunk, but no squeak).” Minnie must’ve missed Miles that time. “I was in the clear. Nobody needed to know what happened.”

I peered around the front of the forklift. Miles was standing at the edge of the loading dock, his hands protecting his head. Minnie was ten feet away with a half-dozen books in her hands and an empty box next to her. Books surrounded Miles, covers open and pages torn. Minnie had been throwing Saundra’s books at him, and some of them had caused him damage, judging by the red welts on his face and arms. I couldn’t stand seeing poor Miles abused like this. Against my better judgment, I decided to rescue him.

“Cut it out, Minnie. You have no right to treat Miles that way,” I said as I ran to his side at the edge of the loading dock.

“No right? No right! I most certainly have a right. He worked for that monster. She stole my design and put it on the cover of her book. How could you let her do that, huh, Miles? How could you?”