“Thanks,” Tessa said, retrieving her credit card, then reaching over the counter and grabbing a box and a cup of coffee. I did the same.
• • •
Tessa and I walked slowly down the street back to the glass studio.
“I know what I saw last night was real. Marco is dead, Jax,” said Tessa. “As for Dez, I’m a little worried about what has happened to him, too.”
“You think he could’ve killed Marco?” I asked.
“Or he was killed by the same person who killed Marco.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“I think we should wait until the sheriff gets here. Maybe he’ll be able to tell us what he’s found out about Dez. Maybe he’ll have been at a bar, and we can stop worrying about him.”
“And Dez can tell us what happened last night with Marco. But if Dez was the culprit, I bet we’ll never see him again,” I said.
We slurped down the rest of our coffee and tossed the cups in the can by the front door of the studio.
“We’ve got muffins,” Tessa said as we entered the kitchen. Vance was tinkering with the coffee maker while the Twins sat at the table with a dozen packets of black Swarovski crystal beads, stringing them into long strands along with some of their own handmade glass beads, which were shaped like crimson spiders and ivory skulls.
“We’ll have coffee any minute. I think I’ve finally got it working,” Vance said, plugging in the Mr. Coffee and flipping the switch.
Everyone gathered in the kitchen while Tessa and I passed around the muffins.
“Unfortunately, until we find Marco de Luca, we’re going to have to postpone class. When we find him, we’ll call you. Make sure I have a cell number for you,” Abby said.
I didn’t think there was any chance of finding Marco alive, if we were able to find him at all. It seemed to me that whoever killed him had succeeded in cleaning up and hiding the body. Somehow, I doubted we’d see Dez again, because he was either on the run after killing Marco, or worse, he was also dead.
Clearly angry that the class had been delayed, Duke headed for the door. A tall dark-haired woman stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.
“Where is Marco?” she asked, as Duke barged past her.
SEVEN
“Violetta! What are you doing here?” Abby asked. “I didn’t think you were getting in until later today.”
“I used a little persuasion to get on a flight that hadn’t left yet. It was delayed, like me, and they let me trade my ticket in,” Violetta said.
“When did you get here? Did you take a shuttle?” Abby asked.
“Last night, very late, in that terrible storm. I rented a car and found my way out to this awful little motel. What is it? Cascade Corners? It’s not a nice place. Only disgusting people would stay there.”
Katia gave Violetta an indignant glare.
Violetta was beautiful in a severe Italian way, with sharp features and short, stylish hair, right off a Milan runway. While Val wouldn’t approve of Violetta’s harshness, she would definitely approve of her fashion sense and style.
“Where is Marco? It is time for the start of class,” said Violetta, checking the gold watch on her slender wrist.
“We don’t know where he is right now,” Abby said. I couldn’t believe how fervently Abby wanted to believe Marco was going to walk in the door at any moment.
“Tsk, Marco, he’s always mad at me for being late, and now here he is not even ready for class. He’s probably with some woman, so typical of him,” said Violetta. She spotted Katia. “You, you spent time with Marco last night?” Violetta asked.
Katia glared fiercely at Violetta, who had, in the span of thirty seconds, offended her by insulting her choice of hotels and making assumptions about her choice of sleeping partners.
“I’ll have you know, I did not take Marco up on his offer to walk me home,” Katia said stiffly.
“He must have found someone else. He’s not picky,” Violetta said, infuriating Katia even more.
“Have you been in touch with Marco since you arrived?” Abby asked.
“No. I didn’t want to call him so late last night. Besides, I didn’t want to interrupt him while he was taking advantage of some hot glass girl who had her sights set on a superstar glass artist twice her age.”
• • •
Sheriff Poole showed up a few minutes later. He nodded at Tessa and me, acknowledging he remembered us from the night before.
“I drove past the two local bars, but they weren’t open yet. There weren’t any cars parked in the lots, but I can stop back by around happy hour,” the sheriff said. It occurred to me he might be stopping by because he was going to take advantage of the happy hour drink specials, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Sheriff, there was most definitely a dead body here last night. My friend Tessa is not making this up,” I said, walking into the hot shop. “Shouldn’t this be a crime scene?”
“Well, little lady,” the sheriff said. “I don’t see any crime to turn into a scene. I came over after I talked with you girls last night and the place was quiet. You must’ve imagined seeing something in the dark. It happens in unfamiliar territory, but it was nothing to worry about. I suggest you all go back to having your class, and I’ll keep looking for Dez.”
“I saw a corpse in this studio!” Tessa said, nearly vibrating with frustration because no one seemed to be listening to us. “How do you explain the fact that two people are missing?”
“Well, now, if you were from around here, which you are not, you’d know our buddy Dez, he likes to drink a little bit. He can disappear for a couple of days sometimes and no one worries about him. Isn’t that right, Abby?” Abby nodded and grimaced. Even if this was typical, I’m sure Abby still worried about her husband when he went AWOL for days at a time. “What we’ve got here are two men on a drinking spree, until further notice.”
“But what if they’re not? You’ve got no proof they’re even together, let alone alive,” I said.
“See, here’s the thing. We can’t call this a homicide. There’s no body to examine. No body, no crime.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” I said. I could think of plenty of gangsters who were thrown off bridges with concrete shoes, and while their bodies were never recovered, there most certainly had been a crime committed. “Someone should at least look for evidence that a murder occurred. Even without a body, a detective can—”
“We don’t have a detective out here, but I can do a respectable job investigating. When you figure out what I need to investigate, you let me know.”
“Want a muffin?” Abby asked, offering one to the sheriff. “Did everyone else get a muffin?”
As Harvey pawed through the box, I could see why Abby wanted to make sure we’d all had one. After he had all he wanted, the box would be empty.
“I know everyone has gotten all ruffled up and confused about whatever it was that happened here,” the sheriff said. “We’ll start searching for this guy—”
“Guys—plural,” Tessa said.
“Right. Two guys. So, in the meantime you all should keep your eyes peeled for the dead guys,” the sheriff said, holding back a grin. Tessa and I were not amused.
“I wish I had seen a dead body,” Lara, or possibly Sara, said.
“Yes, so macabre. So gruesome,” said the other.
“Have either of you ever seen a real dead body?” Tessa asked the women.
“We like to watch horror films, the more disgusting the better,” said the first. The second nodded in agreement. “Last week we saw one with zombies who were eating all these people—”
“But it wasn’t as grisly as the film with the killer poodles,” the other added, with a wicked smile.
“But that’s not real. You get that, right?” Tessa asked. The
fact these two dim-witted Goth chicks couldn’t seem to understand the difference between fictional movie gore and real life murder was sending Tessa off the deep end.
“Whatever,” they replied in unison. Tessa stood there, quietly simmering.
“I’ll take one of these for the road,” Sheriff Poole said, grabbing another muffin, to add to the one he had in his other hand. “And if I see either of your dead guys, I’ll be in touch.” The sheriff sauntered out the door, clearly with no intention of investigating. More than likely, he was going to sit behind the Robin’s Nest Café in his speed trap and eat his muffins.
Duke returned to the kitchen after having stormed off. He stood at the edge of the group, looking like Gumdrop often did, his gray eyebrows furrowed in disgust. Finally, he spoke up.
“What kind of amateurish place are you running here, Abby?” Duke asked. “Your instructor’s a no-show. No class today? What a waste of my time. I could be back in my own studio making things to sell.”
“Listen, we’ll get things back on track in no time. In the meantime, do you want to blow some glass here?” Abby asked Duke. “How about this? You can keep whatever you make.”
Duke grumbled and nodded. “Okay, seems fair. I’ll need an assistant.” He scanned the room, looking at each of us with disapproval. “Where’s Sam?”
“Sam!” Abby yelled. Moments later Sam came in from the utility yard.
“Starting to rain again,” Sam said. “You need me?”
“I need you to assist me. You get to be my punty boy,” Duke said.
“Is that a thing? Sounds obscene,” I whispered to Tessa. The two men started to consult with each other on what they were going to make as we followed them into the hot shop.
“It means Sam is going to be helping out Duke. He’s going to do some of the work with the punty. You remember that long rod for holding hot glass? Sam will bring Duke some bits of molten glass on the end of the punty. Get your mind out of the gutter,” Tessa said.
Sam took a punty over to the furnace. Katia ran to his side and opened the small door. The light from inside the furnace burst out through the opening as she slid the door open. Standing a couple of feet away from the furnace, Sam slid the punty into the molten glass within and brought out a walnut-sized blob of glass. A little molten glass dripped off the blob and hit the floor. Sam kicked it aside with this work boot.
“You call that a gather of glass? It’s puny! Try again,” Duke said, examining the hot glass Sam had brought him.
“You don’t need to be such a jerk—”
“I thought you knew how to blow glass after all these years. If Dez were here, he’d know what to do,” Duke said, not backing down.
“Guys, guys, there’s no need to get angry. Sam, why don’t you help Violetta get her things from the motel. I’m sure she has a lot of beads she needs to bring in,” Abby said.
Sam took the punty and thrust it into a bucket of cold water. The clear glass crackled and began to break away from the shock of being cooled so quickly. Then he calmly headed out the door with Violetta right behind him.
“I guess I’m going to have to pick a helper from one of you,” Duke said. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had said “one of you losers.” He was eyeing Vance, who was as inexperienced as I was.
Katia stepped forward.
“I’m sure I can handle whatever you need,” she said in an even, firm tone. She didn’t want to be taken lightly.
“You’ll do,” Duke said, although what he really thought was likely the opposite.
Katia went to work gathering glass for Duke, and they seemed to work together well. Glassblowers and their assistants communicate in subtle ways: nods, hand gestures, and short words like “stop.” The assistant is supposed to anticipate the glassblower’s every request. It was like watching a surgeon and a nurse: scalpel, forceps, sponge—or, in this case, various glassblowing tools: punty, shears, tweezers.
Duke was sitting at the glassblower’s bench rolling the blowpipe back and forth on a set of dual rails that ran on each side of the bench. Katia handed tools to him as he needed them, using wooden paddles to shield his hands from the intense heat rising from the glass vase he was making. When the piece got too cold, she reheated it in the glory hole, a cylindrical bucket-o-fire set on its side. Holding the punty, Katia thrust the piece into the glory hole to heat it to the point that it was pliable enough to work with.
Katia was doing a good job for Duke, and we watched as she competently passed the blowpipe back to him after reheating the piece.
Violetta and Sam returned and were setting up the beads in the break room, so Tessa and I wandered in to see what she had brought. I was certain Tessa was hoping to snag the best beads before anyone else could. Although I wasn’t as aggressive as she was in my mission to buy beads, I was curious.
Duke shouted my name from the hot shop. I ran from the kitchen and skidded to a stop a few feet from Duke and Katia.
“Jacks!” Duke was yelling at Katia.
“Uh, did you want me?” I asked.
“What? No! What I want is for Katia to get me my large jacks!” Glassblowers use jacks, a tool that looks like a pair of giant tweezers, to create a groove in the glass before removing it from the blowpipe.
“Oh, sorry. I thought you said Jax,” I said, backing out of the way while Duke continued to rotate the hot glass vase in front of him. Katia rummaged around in a bucket of equipment, finally found the large jacks, and handed the tool to Duke.
“Finally!” Duke said, yanking it out of her hands. “Now the piece is too cool. Reheat.” Katia did as she was told, a look of stern determination on her face. She was handling his poor treatment well, much better than I would have been able to do in the same situation.
Violetta entered the studio. “Anyone who wishes to view the antique Venetian beads I brought with me, they are ready now,” she said.
We all gathered around her magnificent display of antique Venetian beads on the break room table. The entire table was covered in strands of beads in every color of the rainbow, and in all of the traditional Italian styles. The ones we were most interested in were the millefiori beads, since they were what we were making in class. But other than those, there were some spectacular examples of beads with silver and gold foil, wedding cake beads, red and blue chevrons, and sparkling hollow orbs. Each of us took a seat and gazed in awe at the fascinating treasures before us.
“As you can see in this strand, the designs are particular to the Venetian style. And here you can see the different complicated flower patterns that create the millefiori design,” Violetta said.
“Wow, some of these colors are amazing,” I said, picking up a short strand in olive and purple tones.
“Yes, those are very beautiful and rare,” said Violetta. “I have put a good price on those. They are much more valuable than I am asking for them.” I flipped over the price tag. The strand of seven beads, a large centerpiece and six more in gradually smaller sizes, was four hundred dollars. Four hundred dollars.
I gently placed the beads back down on the table. Too rich for my blood.
• • •
At noon, Tessa suggested we find a place to eat for lunch.
“Do you want to try to find Meat and Eat?” I asked.
“Sure. Who wants to come with us?” Tessa asked the other students.
“We’ll come,” Sara and Lara said. “We’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Sure,” Vance said. “Katia and Duke told me they want to keep working. I’ll ask them if they want me to bring them back anything.”
A few minutes later, Vance had Katia and Duke’s lunch orders, and we were off to find Meat and Eat. Vance and the Twins followed us in his car, while Tessa gave me directions using the map on her phone.
Meat and Eat was a funky old building filled with picnic tables that had red and
white checked vinyl tablecloths stapled to them. The floor was covered in peanut shells, with baskets of nuts ready to eat in the middle of each table. There were exactly three sandwiches on the menu: meat, meat and cheese, and cheese. I assumed the last one was a recent addition given the growing number of vegetarians in the region.
As we waited for our lunches, Tessa and I chatted with Vance and the Twins. I asked Vance why he was taking this class.
“I want to get into glassblowing more. I like making beads, but I think some of my designs would look cool in a larger size. We’ll see how I like it. I’m keeping an open mind. What about you?” he asked me.
“Geez, I guess I always want to learn new things. I’m not sure how I’m going to use the techniques. Heck, I’m not even sure I’ll ever be able to master anything in the hot shop, but I love taking classes, and when Tessa told me about this one, I said yes.”
“What about you two?” Vance asked the Twins.
“We want to convey our ephemeral existence with a full meta-vocabulary,” one twin said.
“You basically want to be able to make different things to express yourselves?” Tessa asked.
The Twins nodded in agreement. Kudos to Tessa for being able to decipher what they said.
A restaurant employee at the pickup window called our order number, and Vance retrieved our food. He brought a stack of napkins, along with the largest submarine sandwiches I’d ever seen. Each hoagie must have been five inches tall.
“How am I supposed to eat this?” Tessa asked.
“Food is like art, sometimes it requires deconstruction,” one twin said, pulling the top of the sandwich off, along with half its contents, creating an open-faced sandwich. She passed the top half to her friend and started eating what she had left.
All of us followed her lead.
“Why do you think Duke is taking this class?” I asked, between bites of sandwich. “It seems like he has a lot of experience. He wouldn’t need a class to learn these techniques.”
“He said it was time for him to learn some new tricks and get out of a rut. He thought some new work might sell better,” Vance said.
Off the Beadin' Path, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book 3 Page 6
