High Strung: A Glass Bead Mystery (The Glass Bead Mystery Series) (9 page)

The police spent the morning with the alley cordoned off. They did a full crime scene inspection, took evidence, dusted for fingerprints, and all the usual things that happen when there’s been a murder. I couldn’t watch. It was too upsetting.

A
detective found me inside Aztec Beads. I was doing my best to look like I knew what to do in the store, and had taken over Tracy’s spot at the front counter. I thought I was faking it really well.

“
Good morning, ma’am, I’m Detective Grant,” said the man, extending his hand. He looked younger than me. His hair was slicked back in an old-school style, and he wore dark heavy-framed glasses, which made him look older than he likely was. He was trying to be a nice guy, but I could see a bit of a snarl in his lips.

“
Nice to meet you, Grant,” I said, extending my hand.

“
Grant is my last name. You can call me
Detective
Grant.” Too bad this guy was so prickly. With a new hairstyle, and maybe a less ugly tie, he’d be cute, in that Clark Kent sort of way. Val’s penchant for makeovers was definitely rubbing off on me.

“
Jax O’Connell, nice to meet you Detective Grant,” I said in return, trying to fix my lack of decorum with a “re-do” by offering him my hand a second time. He opened his leather notebook and declined my second offer to shake.

“
I understand you found the deceased,” Detective Grant said, clicking his pen and starting to write.

“
Yes, I found her in the dumpster,” I said.

“Can you describe how you found the body?”

“I opened the dumpster, and I saw her under some garbage.” I looked toward the classroom, and saw a few people in the audience craning their necks to see what was happening with the police detective in the shop.

“
Can we please go outside? I think having you here in the shop may be causing a distraction in the class going on in the next room.”

“
Did you know Misty Carlton?” the detective asked. We squeezed our way out the back door between racks hanging with hundreds of strands of beads, the displays twirling as we brushed by.

Once outside
, I felt more at ease and able to talk a little louder. It had started to rain again, and we stood under the balcony, trying to keep dry. “I’d talked with her a few times at Fremont Fire. She used to work on the torches in the studio there. And I saw her here at the store.”

“
In the store?”

“
Out in front of it, selling her beads on the street with her partner Nick.”

“At this point we are considering this case to be a homicide, based on the medical examiner’s findings. D
o you know anyone who would have wanted to harm this young woman?”

“
The only person I can think of was in the hospital last night,” I said.

“
How do you know when she died?”

“
I, I don’t know, since I found her this morning, I assumed she was murdered last night.” Suddenly, I was feeling defensive. The detective made me nervous. He looked at me with well-practiced patience, waiting for me to expose a detail of the murder only the killer would know. I was sure he considered all the people he talked to at a crime scene as suspects. I suppose that’s what made him a good detective—if he was one, that is.

It was chilly outside, and I pulled my denim jacket around me.
Did pulling my jacket closed make me look guilty?
I hoped not. I hoped it just made me look cold. I glanced out the gate and down the alley. I couldn’t see the dumpster from where I sat, but could hear a truck rumbling. I knew that meant they were removing the dumpster and that Misty was on her way to the morgue. The thought made me shiver.

“
And who is the person who was supposedly ‘in the hospital’ when Ms. Carlton was murdered?”

“
Rosie Lopez. She owns this shop, and is the one person I can think of who would want to harm Misty.” Was he questioning whether she was actually in the hospital? I’d been there with Rosie, and she’d spent the night. I was her alibi, along with all the doctors and nurses who treated her. Fortunately for Rosie, hospital records would back that up.

“
What time did you go to the hospital with Ms. Lopez?”

“
I don’t know, sometime after 11:00, I think.” I was trying to remember what time it was that Val had said I knocked on her door. One in the morning? Had I been at the hospital an hour? More? I couldn’t figure it out right now in my sleep-deprived state.

“The medical examiner is
setting the time of death at midnight, based on Ms. Carlton’s state of rigor mortis.”

“
But if Misty was killed much later than 11:00, then it couldn’t be Rosie, right? Isn’t there a way to determine the time of death more accurately?”

“
We’ll be doing a toxicology analysis to determine a more accurate time and cause of death, as well as any other assessments regarding the status of the deceased.”

“
Like whether she had drugs in her system?”

“
Yes, it’s is a routine test, especially in situations like this in which we have a homeless person who—”

“
I’m not sure she was homeless,” I said, trying to explain Misty’s situation. “Just not fully-homed.”

Detective Grant looked at me skeptically over the top of his notebook as I continued.

“She is—was,” I corrected, “an artist, and young. Sometimes it’s hard making ends meet.” I was thinking about Dylan, and how hard he worked just to pay his rent.

“
Do you know what she was doing back there in the alley?” Grant asked.

“
No idea. There were appetizers on the patio during the party. Maybe she came by to help herself to leftovers after the party had ended.”

“
Or maybe she came to score some drugs in the alley, and ended up dead.”

“
I think I like the idea of looking for food better.”

“
So, this person you think could have killed Misty, what’s her name? Rosie?”

“
Rosie Lopez,” I said, hating to say her name out loud while she was in the hospital, and having come so close to death herself just hours before.

“
And Ms. Lopez, if she wasn’t able to kill this girl on her own, could she have forced someone else to do it?”

Could Rosie have
coerced Tracy to kill Misty? It was too painful to imagine.

“
Her daughter, Tracy. You should probably talk with her,” I said as I held back tears.

“Who else are you aware of who knew the deceased
?” The detective pressed on.

“T
he only other person I can think of is Dylan. He knew Misty from the Fremont Fire studio. Oh, and Nick, Misty’s partner. But, I don’t think either of them would have killed her.”

“Ah, yes, Fremont Fire. That’s Tessa Ricci’s business. Ms. Ricci was with you when you found the body, correct?” asked the detective. “I’ve talked with her, and she has assured me she will pass on the contact information of those individuals to me. Most likely it isn’t anyone who knew the girl, just some random junkie who wanted her drugs or money. These drug-related murders are a low priority for us, so you shouldn’t expect any closure on this any time soon.”

“
Did she have drugs on her?”

“A few grams
of cannabis. Not illegal here in Washington, but it certainly means the circumstances of her death are clouded by this discovery. She also had a great deal of pale powdery substance under her fingernails. Most likely it’s methamphetamine. We’ve been seeing a large number of meth deals gone wrong recently, and someone often ends up dead.”

“
Detective, do you know about last night’s accident here?” He looked at me blankly, and I filled him in on what had happened to Rosie.

Grant listened, but
he didn’t take any notes.

“
Maybe Rosie’s fall wasn’t an accident,” I said. “Maybe someone was trying to murder her, too.” All this talk of murder had made me wonder about what really happened last night with Rosie on the balcony.

“
Miss, what we have here is the killing of a drug addict, and a woman who slipped on some wet stairs and choked when her necklace caught on the bannister. Frankly, I think you’ve been watching a few too many crime shows. Now, unless you have any additional information, I need to get back to the real world here.”

Finding a dead girl in a dumpster, that fe
lt pretty real to me.

“
Okay, I’ll be in touch if I think of anything else.”

“You’d better be,” he said menacingly. He wrote down his phone number, ripped it from his notebook, and handed it to me.

The police department must have cut their business card budget. I s
tuffed the scrap in my pocket and found the bead I’d bought from Misty. I pulled it out and admired it. It was full of creative beauty, as Misty had been.

The
detective closed his notebook, a sure sign he was done with me. I watched him walk back down the alley, and duck under the crime-scene tape.

“
Detective, can I ask you one thing?” I called out, as I watched him saunter down the alley.

“You can ask, but it doesn’t mean I’ll answer,” he said over his shoulder, still walking. Too bad he was such a jerk, because he had a cute butt.

“How did Misty die?”

“
She was strangled with some sort of a flat cord.”

I closed the gate so Rosie’s dog wouldn’t escape. I hadn’t seen that little monster this morning. He was probably upstairs hiding from the chaos. Tessa came up behind me and I could smell the coffee she was holding. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I felt like drooling. I think I may have a serious coffee addiction. “I zipped out and got you some coffee,” she said handing me a large latte.

A thick mist was pressing down on us
, in typical Seattle style. We sat on the steps under the balcony so our butts didn’t get wet sitting at the table on the patio.

“
What’s going on?” Tessa asked, taking a sip of her espresso.

“
The detective,” I said nodding in the direction of the alley, “not that nice.” I took a big gulp of coffee. Hot and sweet, just the way I liked it.

“
I talked with him earlier,” she told me. “He doesn’t think anyone here for the weekend’s events killed Misty, but he does want to talk with Nick and Dylan.”

“
Right, in fact he thinks she was killed in a drug deal. What do you think, could she have been trying to score some drugs?”

Tessa looked me straight in the eye, as certain as I
’ve ever seen her. “No, Jax. She wasn’t using drugs, at least not anything more than pot. I helped Misty and Nick. A lot. I made it clear to them I wouldn’t support them in any way if they were going to do any serious drugs. And I believe they respected that rule.”

I didn’t doubt it for a minute.
You did not want to cross Tessa. Her fiery Italian attitude kept almost everyone in line, except for me. She didn’t try too hard to keep me in order, because she’d given up trying.

“So it doesn’t it
make sense to you that Misty was killed in a drug deal?”

“
No. Not at all.”

“What about Nick? Could he—?

“Could Nick have killed her? No, I can’t imagine it,” Tessa said. “He cared about Misty. She’d helped him get focused and turn his life around. And, for all his tough exterior, he really is a great guy.”

“
What about Dylan?” I asked.

“
There’s no reason to suspect him that I can think of. He knew Misty from my studio. I never saw any tension or arguments between them,” said Tessa tipping back the rest of her drink.

“
Maybe there was something there we don’t know about? Maybe Dylan and Misty had a relationship.”

“
Misty and Nick were partners. I can’t see Dylan involved in some sort of a love triangle, can you? Besides, Dylan had known Nick for a long time, so it’s hard to imagine Dylan would have wanted to ruin that friendship.”

“But Dylan did come in the back gate last night. He was in the alley around the time Misty was killed.”

“I don’t like where you headed with this, Jax.”

“
The detective said Misty was strangled,” I said. “Dylan did have a belt on last night, you know. Val gave it to him to wear to the party. It was a strap that could have been used to strangle Misty.”

“
I’d say at least half the people at the party had belts on, Jax. I doubt we can rule out anyone wearing saggy pants as the murderer.”

Tessa was right
. It could have been anyone at the party, or it could have been, as the detective believed, a stranger who killed Misty for drugs or money.

Tessa, shifting away from my ridiculous belt theory, continued.
“Frankly, the biggest suspect I see is Rosie. She was completely irrational about Misty and Nick being in competition with her. I wish she could have seen them as two decent people trying to survive, and not trying to undermine her business,” Tessa said.

“
Rosie was in the hospital with me last night. There’s no way she could be the killer,” I said. “Maybe Grant—”

“Detective Grant,” corrected Tess.

“Whatever,” I growled. I was starting to sound like Izzy and Ashley. “Maybe the police haven’t correctly calculated the time Misty died. The detective did say he was going to do some additional tests. They’ll be able to pinpoint the time she died more accurately, and that will help them figure out what happened.”

I gazed out at the
gray sky, in hopes of seeing a ray of sunshine, perhaps one that might shed some light on our puzzling and tragic situation.

“
Tell me what happened last night with Rosie.”

I paused a long time before I answered,
visualizing what I had seen when I found Rosie and Tracy. I wanted to make sure I got it right.

“
It was dark on the balcony. The only light was coming from below, and from the sparkling lights that had been hung in the trees. When I came around the corner from the kitchen, Rosie was on her back, feet-first down the staircase. Her head was at a strange angle, not touching the top step—suspended.” I took a deep breath. “Her arms were moving, grabbing above her head,” I said, closing my eyes and trying to remember every detail. “I saw Tracy next to Rosie, trying to help her mom up. No one else there. Tracy was screaming, but the music below us was so loud, no one could hear her.”

Tessa
was quiet. She squeezed my hand, knowing that small gesture was a way to comfort me, and a way to tell me she was listening, as I tried to relive the painful moment.

“
At first I couldn’t see the necklace. It was too dark. Rosie was reaching for something, and then I finally saw the strand. I tried to unhook the necklace from the balcony’s railing, but it wouldn’t budge. When Allen arrived and cut the wire, Rosie’s head hit the top step as the tension that held her up was released. All the beads went flying. She slid down a few steps, and by then everyone on the patio had realized something was wrong and had gathered at the bottom of the stairs.”

“
I can’t believe she fell like that. Those stairs must have been really slippery.”

“
They didn’t seem slippery to me.”

Tessa continued, ignoring me.
“It could have happened to any of us, falling on the stairs like that.”

“
I suppose you’re right.” And while I agreed with her, that anyone could have fallen, all I could think about was that the stairs had not been slick. I’d been down on my knees helping Rosie, and my legs weren’t wet when I stood up. It had been raining earlier, but an awning covered the stairs, so they were dry.

“Tessa
? What if it wasn’t an accident? Two people have been strangled just a few hours apart.”

“
That’s just a coincidence, Jax. Nobody here is a killer.”

“
But if Rosie’s ‘accident’ was really an attempt to murder her, then we’d be looking for two killers.” I swirled the last of the coffee around in the cup. Like a mystic reading tea leaves, I wondered if I could read coffee grounds. I doubted it.

“
Suddenly we are looking for killers? We? As in, you and me?” asked Tessa incredulously.

“
Yes.
We
, because, as you can see, Grant—or Detective Grant, or whatever his official name is—doesn’t seem to be looking for any killers!”

“
And maybe we shouldn’t be looking for any either,” said Tessa, being annoyingly rational. “Maybe you should slow down that creative mind for a minute and consider that the detective might actually be right. Rosie was injured in an accident, and Misty died in a situation completely unrelated to us.”

“
You’re right. I’ve got a pretty wild imagination,” I said, taking the last sip of now-cold coffee from the bottom of my cup.

“
And that creative mind is what makes you such a fabulous glass artist.”

“
Artist?”

“
Absolutely.”

“
Thanks. It’s been a long time since someone told me that,” I said, quietly. Jerry had said it once.



I’d go down to the scientific glass blowing shop in the basement of our research facility at Clorox to watch Jerry work. His job was to make custom glassware for research and product development projects. At times, he’d be working with a small torch attached to his workbench, making precise parts for a distillation system. At other times he’d be working at a huge lathe, which spun glass tubes around while a giant ring of flame heated the glass from all sides so it could be formed into larger-scaled scientific apparatus. Visiting Jerry while he was working with hot glass in the lab was the most exciting part of my day. I loved going down and watching him work. I never knew what he’d be making, but no matter what it was, it always fascinated me.

One day I was watching Jerry make some small cylinders. He was doing something he called
“pulling points,” and was forming inch-long, clear, pea-pod shapes in the torch from glass tubing. A pile of them sat on his workbench.

They
looked like soap bubbles, and I’d thought it would be fun to make a necklace out of them.

“
Can you make those into beads, you know, with a hole at each end?” I asked Jerry.

“
Sure, that’s easy, it’s one the first things you learn to do in scientific glass blowing.”

“
Make beads?”

“
Make holes in glass tubes.”

“
Can you add colors to these glass pods?” I asked, picking one up to admire it.

“
I suppose so,” Jerry said, trying to humor me while concentrating on his work.

“
Can we try it sometime?”

“
Ah, Jax, always an artist, trying to figure out new ways to be creative.”

…

Tessa pulled me back from my memory. “Jax? Earth to Jax.”

“S
orry,” I said, jumping up.

“
Let’s get out of here. I need to get things back to normal at Fremont Fire after yesterday’s demos. Craig’s dropping Izzy and Ashley off there so they can help us.”

I stuck my head in the back door of the shop. Judy was starting the next
workshop of the day. She looked as sweaty as ever. Her gray bangs hung like damp curtains across her forehead, and her bifocals were sliding down her nose. With Rosie in the hospital and Tracy gone to visit her, Judy was left to keep the classes moving along.

“
Okay, everyone,” said Judy waving her clipboard around, and fanning herself at the same time, “right now we have a demo with Indigo Martin. She’ll be showing you how to create this lovely necklace, made from her own handmade glass leaf beads.”

Could Judy have
tried to strangle Rosie? She was at the party—it was one of the most important events of the weekend, with a dozen fellow JOWL members in attendance. But, what about Misty? Was there any reason Judy would want to kill her, too?

“
I can hear you thinking,” said Tessa. “And no, I don’t think Judy had any reason to kill Misty, or Rosie.”

“Are you sure? Menopause c
an make someone do crazy things.”

“True, though I would not know from
personal
experience,” Tessa said with a laugh.

I wave
d at Judy as she turned things over to Indigo, to let her know I was taking off.

Judy waved back and smiled, and we headed out the front door and back to Fremont Fire.