A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) (23 page)

“I swear I didn’t know it was your design. Saundra said she invented it, and I trusted her. She was my mentor, why would I think she was lying?” said Miles.

“The Cosmos design was
mine
,” Minnie said, throwing another book at Miles. He dodged it, and it went flying over the edge of the dock. “I showed her some pages of notes—these notes—six months ago at a bead retreat.” There were loose pages of drawings and notes on the floor that I recognized as the ones I had just given back to Miles. Minnie stomped on them with her floral army boots. “She said the design was okay, but she didn’t think it would sell very well. I was discouraged and didn’t make any more after that.” Minnie started to deflate as she heard herself admit her own failure in giving up so easily. Miles stood a little taller, precariously close to the edge of the dock, kicking books off his chukka boots.

“When I saw the pages of notes that Jax had, I recognized your writing. I watched you write receipts for three days, so I know how you write, like some of the girls I knew in junior high, the loopy words with hearts dotting the i’s,” Miles said.

“I don’t dot my i’s with hearts,” Minnie said, dropping a pile of books on the floor for emphasis. The noise reverberated through the warehouse. “At least not very often.”

“When I brought those pages back to you, I didn’t really understand what they meant. But I get it now, those were the drawings of your design,” Miles said.

“Cosmos was my design, and Saundra stole it. When I saw the beads on the cover of her book, I just lost it. How could she do that to me? Why didn’t she even talk with me about how she wanted to make something similar?”

“You could have made your designs anyway,” I said. “She wasn’t the only one who was allowed to make beads that look like a starry night sky.”

“And have everyone say my work was soooo derivative of Saundra’s? That I was copying
her
, when really it was the other way around? That woman was vile and deserved to die.”

“You killed Saundra?” asked Miles.

“No! What? No, I didn’t kill her. Seriously, I wanted to kill her, but really, I wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be right,” Minnie said.

“Why does it matter that I had the notes?” I asked. “Saundra was dead, and if you didn’t kill her, the notes don’t matter.”

“But they do matter. I didn’t want anything to connect me to Saundra—I didn’t want to be accused of killing her because she’d stolen my design.”

“After I told you I had some of your papers at the Cheesecake Factory, did you realize what I had and try to get them back?” I asked.

“I did, but obviously, I wasn’t successful. There was always a security guard watching the door to the ballroom, so I couldn’t check to see if you had my papers in your booth. The only place I could look was in your room.”

“Did you trash my room looking for your notes?” I asked.

“When I got to your room last night, someone had already been there. There was a security guard standing at the open door. His face was red, his nose looked like a…a…strawberry. The place was upside down—but I didn’t do it. When I saw the guard, I just kept walking down the hall,” Minnie said. She had described Carl Shulman, the guard with the ruddy face and the bulbous nose.

“You’ll have to tell that story to the police. I’m sure they’ll want to hear it, especially since that security guard was found dead in a stairwell last night,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! But I know this—I can’t go to jail. Do you know how it would be in there?”

“I imagine it would be pretty awful,” I said.

“They wouldn’t serve kale—or quinoa. I’d have to wear an orange jumpsuit, which would be fine, except everyone else would be wearing one too. There’d be arts and crafts using yarn and wooden beads. Trust me, I know how it is…”

“You’ve been in prison,” I realized. “And you don’t want to go back.”

“My parole officer has been looking for me. I really don’t want the police to track me down—I’ll end up back in prison.” Minnie rushed toward me, hands out, trying to push me off the end of the dock. “Let me show you how serious I am about you keeping your mouth shut.”

And while a drop of four feet wouldn’t kill me, I didn’t want to crack my head open. I’d had enough of people doing that this weekend, and for the rest of my life.

“Jax!” Tessa called out to me from across warehouse.

The cavalry had arrived.

THIRTY-SIX

WITH HER GUN DRAWN
, Detective Tiffany Houston swung into the warehouse and ran toward the edge of the loading dock where I stood with Minnie and Miles. Tessa, Val, and Ryan were right behind the detective. “Everyone, I want your hands where I can see them,” she shouted.

Minnie spun around to face the detective. We all put our hands up.

“Jax, you can put your hands down,” said Tiffany, through gritted teeth.

I put them down and moved away from Minnie and Miles. If Tiffany was going to shoot, I didn’t want to be in the line of fire.

“Minnie Dean, you are under arrest for the murder of Saundra Jameson,” Tiffany said.

“But—I—I swear it wasn’t me,” Minnie said. “I’m a vegetarian, I can’t even think about killing an animal. How can you think I could kill a person?”

“I ran your name through our police database, and it appears that you have quite a colorful history—don’t you, Minnie? Sergeant Anderson, your parole officer, has been trying to find you,” said the detective. “And Miles, you’ve had a bit of a checkered past as well, haven’t you?”

Miles stood at the edge of the dock, still holding his hands above his head.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Miles said. “And it happened a long time ago.”

“Come on, Miles, you need to tell us what you know,” I said.

“Jax, let me clear something up with you,” said Tiffany. “There is no
us
. There is just
me
. Thanks for playing along, though.”

“I told you she couldn’t be trusted,” Val whispered in my ear.

We all stood silently, waiting. Miles looked over at me, and I nodded slightly, encouraging him to talk.

“I was at U of O for a while, an art major. I got involved in some student protests, mostly about budget cuts and tuition hikes. I would bring my ukulele, and we’d sing protest songs during the rallies. I was good at playing ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ in a completely non-ironic way.

“One time when we were out in front of the administration building, a bunch of campus police officers came by, and they started harassing us, roughing us up a little bit. A big cop moved toward me, and someone pushed me from behind. The sign I was holding bashed the cop in the face. They cuffed me and took me away. A felony attack on an officer. After that, I couldn’t get a job. Any job that required a background check, which is pretty much any job, I would fail because of the arrest. But Saundra, she said she’d take me, as long as I kept her secrets. And I did.”

“And what secrets would those be?” Tiffany asked.

“Let me see if I can explain it,” I offered. “Miles, if I get something wrong, you can jump in. Saundra wasn’t making her own beads. Someone named Brynne made them.”

Miles looked at me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. “How did you—”

“I found her at the Saturday Market. She was selling beads that she shouldn’t have been selling. I haven’t figured out why this was going on, but it most certainly was. And I have the evidence here to prove it,” I said, pulling the beads I’d bought from Brynne out of my pocket. “Miles, you introduced Brynne to Saundra. Brynne was making Saundra’s beads, and it was a good financial arrangement for Brynne, and you too, I imagine. Have you got anything to add, Miles?”

“That’s not illegal,” Miles objected.

“No, but it certainly does make me wonder what other secrets there were between you and Saundra. What would make you want to kill her?”

“Are you kidding me? I didn’t kill her. I worked for her. If she died, I would have no job.”

“But you set up transactions between Saundra and Brynne. You sold beads that were not made by Saundra and claimed that they were hers,” I said.

“They were her designs. She could do whatever she wanted with them.”

“In the case of the Cosmos bead design, it didn’t belong to Saundra, it was Minnie’s,” I pointed out. “That makes Minnie seem awfully guilty. She certainly had a motive, and she did have a table near Saundra that would have placed her close enough to hit Saundra with a thousand volts straight into her spine.”

“I had no idea that Minnie killed Saundra. That was a terrible thing to do, Minnie,” Miles said, standing up to his full height.

“I didn’t kill Saundra!” Minnie yelled.

“But what about Miles? How did he fit into your plan?” I asked Minnie.

“What plan? I didn’t have a plan. I met Miles, we had a little sex. And I mean a little,” Minnie said, with a disappointed glare at Miles. “He worked in my booth—he was useful. Then I realized Mister Brilliant here,” nodding at Miles, “had gone and given you the drawings of
my
beads and basically framed me for the murder of
The Great Saundra Jameson
.”

“Giving those papers to Jax along with the rest of the supplies was an accident. I was trying to be nice. You should try that some time,” said Miles. I could see that Miles’s and Minnie’s relationship, or whatever it was, was on the rocks.

“I think it’s time to go, Minnie,” said Tiffany, clipping a single handcuff onto her wrist.

Miles blew out a sigh of relief, like he thought Tiffany was going to let him go.

“And you’re coming, too,” the detective said to Miles, grabbing his wrist and cuffing him to Minnie.

THIRTY-SEVEN

“BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME,”
Tiffany said to Ryan, patting his face sharply, then pulling Miles and Minnie across the warehouse and down the hall.

“I hate that woman,” I said. “Val, you were right. She wasn’t what she appeared to be. And definitely
not
a team player.”

“You’ve got to look at the inside of a person. That’s what I always say,” Val said.

“No, Val, that’s what
I
always say.”

Tessa, Val, and I had a group hug, and Ryan hung back, not knowing what to do.

“Ryan, get over here, you need a hug too,” I said, squeezing him tight, and then reaching up, grabbing his sweet face, and giving him a kiss.

Tessa and Val stood there looking at Ryan and me, mouths agape.

“Get a room, you two,” said Val. “This is a hotel, after all.”

Tessa’s phone buzzed, and she answered.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no,” Tessa said. There was a new crisis at home.

Ryan took me aside. “You go and take care of your friends. Please don’t leave without saying good-bye.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you,” I said over my shoulder, as I walked down the hall flanked by Tessa and Val.

Tessa covered the phone with her hand. “It’s Ashley. She says that Izzy shaved the hair off one side of her head. Joey’s locked himself in his room with Stanley—” Tessa stopped in the middle of her sentence. “Wait a minute. What is Stanley doing at my house?”

Val didn’t have a chance to explain.

“Ashley, put your dad on the phone!” Tessa demanded. Her conversation with Craig continued in half-Italian and half-English, until finally she hung up the phone, tossed it dramatically into her purse, and zipped it shut. Tessa was giving her phone, and all the people on it, a big time-out.

“I think you both should take off,” I said.

“I want to be here for you, but I’m worried about how out of control things have gotten at home,” Tessa said.

“Your family needs you,” I told her. “Val, can you give Tessa a ride back up to Seattle? And take Gummie with you. He’s miserable.”

“I’m so sorry I brought Gumdrop. I just didn’t know what else to do,” Val said. “Don’t you need us here?”

“There are only a couple hours left of the sale, then I need to get everything packed up. I won’t be far behind you. Gummie needs to get home as much as Tessa does.”

“I suppose so. But what if Bruno comes back and threatens me?” Val asked.

“Pick up Stanley from Tessa’s,” I advised. Tessa glowered at me. She clearly didn’t like the thought of Stanley at her house, adding to the mess and destruction that was occurring at the moment. “And if Bruno comes back, you just tell him you’ve got your attack dog ready and that you’ll unleash him if Bruno doesn’t leave immediately.”

“Stanley doesn’t look ferocious,” Val said.

“Do you know that if you say ‘speak,’ Stanley will bark?” I’d discovered this last month, but had yet to use it to scare someone. “Just get him to bark through the door at Bruno, and I expect he won’t stay on your doorstep for long.”

“What a super idea. I knew there was a good reason to keep Stanley. I always thought he was a guy magnet, which he is. But I also like that he can be a guy repellent,” Val said.

“All right, you two. Get packed up and get out of here. Adriana’s watching my booth, and I need to get back there before the show closes,” I told them. “Are you two going to be okay heading home without me? Do you think you can handle Gumdrop?”

“We’ll be fine once we’re on the road, and I can put on some classical music,” Val said.

Tessa gave Val a confused look.

“I’ll explain it on the drive home,” Val said. “If we get hungry, we can stop at Taco Bell. And I’ll drop you off at your house. That way I can pick up Stan—”

“Val, maybe you should be going now.” I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring up Stanley again.

THIRTY-EIGHT

I HOPED I HADN’T
left Adriana alone too long in the ballroom.

When I finally got back to my table, she was holding court, telling stories about the good old days in the bead world to a rapt audience of other vendors. Virtually all the customers had gone home, as often happens in the last hour of a sale like this.

Finally, we heard the announcement we were waiting for. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bead Fun sale is now closed. Please make your final purchases and proceed to the exit.”

I pulled out my cash box and flipped through the money I’d collected and the receipts I’d written from my sales this weekend. I’d done well. Very well. Deciding to treat myself to a small splurge, I walked to Indigo’s table. Her canvas-lined trays were full of nature-inspired sculptural beads. I especially loved the autumn-colored leaves. There were only a few of those left.