“HELP!” I screamed, hoping the security guard would hear me.
Finally, Ryan came running.
“Here!” I yelled. No matter how quickly he came, I knew there was nothing he could do to save her.
Ryan finally found us and, in an extremely manly move, picked up the table that Saundra was under and threw it out of the way.
“I haven’t taken a class in CPR, so I am not authorized to perform any lifesaving techniques,” Ryan said.
“I think it’s too late for that,” I said, out of breath.
Ryan was already on his radio, asking for help from the hotel staff.
My hands were shaking and balled into fists. My right hand was covered in blood. As I turned it over and opened my fingers, I saw a perfect round bead, glistening with blood. It was one of Saundra’s beautiful Cosmos beads. And then I passed out.
• • •
Ryan’s face was swimming in and out of view.
“Jax? Are you all right?” he said as he crouched above me. I felt like throwing up. Ryan must have moved me, since I wasn’t near my table. I was lying next to the wall at the back of the ballroom with a wet paper towel on my forehead. An emergency technician was kneeling next to me, checking my pulse.
I sat bolt upright.
“You’re okay,” Ryan said, gently settling me more comfortably with my back against the wall for support. He removed the soggy paper towel and brushed the hair off my face.
Down the aisle from where I was sitting, a handful of cops were stringing crime scene tape around Saundra’s and my tables. Tessa was talking with a surly-looking police officer. As soon as she saw me, she broke away from him.
“Jax! Dio Mio!” Tessa shouted as she ran toward me, stopping just short of knocking Ryan over.
One of the cops approached Ryan and called him away, and Tessa took his place at my side. The EMT continued to check my vital signs, taking hold of my arm and sliding a blood pressure cuff on it.
“What happened? Where’s Saundra?” I asked a blurry Tessa, as the blood pressure cuff squeezed my arm, then released.
“The coroner’s team took her away. She’s dead, Jax.” Tessa hugged me tight. I closed my eyes and stopped breathing while I focused on Tessa’s arms around me. Those words, she’s dead, hit me hard. Dead. I already knew Saundra had died, but hearing it said out loud made it all the more real.
“I just, I tried to save her—”
“Shhhh, there was nothing you could have done—that any of us could have done—to save her,” Tessa said. She seemed so calm. Maybe that’s what happens when you become a parent—you get all sorts of super-powers, like remaining calm during emergencies. With her teen girls, I’m sure she got lots of practice at being calm during a crisis.
“Excuse me,” the EMT said, wedging himself between me and Tessa and removing the blood pressure cuff. “Just trying to finish up here.” He took a pen light out of his kit and flashed it across my eyes. The bright light stung, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I was not a good patient. The technician must have seen enough to know I was not injured. He clicked off the light and tossed it back into his bag.
“You’re not feeling dizzy?” asked the EMT.
I shook my head.
“Well then, you check out okay. If you get a headache or have any vision trouble, you get over to Providence Medical Center.” He got up, grabbed his kit, and was gone in a flash.
Sal paced back and forth in front of the tables that were now ringed in yellow tape. He had to be concerned about how he was going to explain what had happened to the dozens of customers now crowded around the doors, ready to come in and shop.
“What happened to my table?” I asked.
“The police aren’t going to let you into that area until they finish their investigation,” Tessa said. “But Sal set up another table for you.”
“Another table?”
“Sal said he had a no-show by the front door. The police won’t let you take your displays or other show gear. But I’ve got your beads. Let’s go look at the new table.”
“But, why—how—can they even continue with the bazaar? That’s crazy.”
“I know, but Sal said the show must go on,” Tessa said, shaking her head. It was outrageous that Sal would want to continue as if nothing had happened. It’s not like this was Hello Dolly. Tessa helped me up and supported me as we walked slowly past a maintenance crew that was setting up temporary room dividers to block the gruesome scene from the view of passersby. We found my new table—my new, completely barren table.
“Tessa, can you go up to the room and get anything that’s not nailed down? We’re going to need to improvise a new table display.”
“I’m on it,” Tessa said, giving me a hug and heading toward the lobby. The surly officer, who I’d seen talking to Tessa just a few minutes before, caught up with me at my new table.
“Ms. O’Connell?”
“Jax,” I said, running a hand through my hair, and trying to seem at least a little presentable.
“I’m glad to see you up and about,” the officer said. “We’ll need to get a statement from you, seeing as you found the deceased.”
“When? Now?”
“Right now.”
“I need to splash some water on my face. You want to walk with me?” The officer escorted me to the ladies’ room, and I was glad he was next to me, since I was still feeling wobbly. As we walked, I told him how I’d found Saundra, and he took notes in a small black book as he listened to me recount what had happened.
“I guess this is as far as you can go,” I said, arriving at the women’s bathroom. I didn’t think he’d follow me in, and besides, I’d told him all that I could.
“I’ve got all that I need for now. Thank you. You’ll be hearing from one of our detectives within the next twenty-four hours so that we can collect any other pertinent information.”
In the ladies’ room, I stood looking in the mirror—I was pale. I splashed cold water on my face and rubbed it vigorously, trying to get the dead-person cooties off my lips. I pulled some water through my hair, too. That helped tame it and revitalize me. I took a sip of water from the tap. I felt a little better, and that was a step in the right direction.
As I was drying my hands and face with a paper towel, a whimper came from the stall behind me. I stood still and listened. Maybe it wasn’t a whimper, maybe it was just my stomach growling. Then I heard it again, the tiniest, sad sound, just a few feet away. I looked down to see whose feet might belong to those pathetic sounds. No feet. What was I to surmise from this? That the person crying in the stall was a double amputee? I didn’t think so.
“Hello,” I said softly. “Hello? Can I help you in some way?”
The whimpering stopped.
“I know you’re in there. I heard your sniffles.”
Still silent.
I peeked in the gap between the stall door and its frame. Minnie was sitting on the toilet seat with her legs pulled up to her chest, her eyes red and teary. In true hipster style, she was wearing a pink checked square-dancing dress with leggings that made her look like she was eight years old.
“Minnie? What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding. I don’t want anyone to see me crying.”
“Oh, I know, Saundra—”
“Saundra, she’s, just, uh, such a treasure. I read all her books, she was so talented, and to lose her now…”
“I know, it’s hard,” I said, trying to comfort her through the door. Maybe Minnie had never known anyone who had died.
“You found her. What do you think happened?” Minnie asked with a sniffle.
“She must have tripped and fallen on a cord during the blackout. I guess she cracked her head open. There was blood—”
“Right, right, right. You’re right,” said Minnie, hyperventilating, still inside the stall.
“Come on, Minnie, let’s go. The doors will open any minute. Pretty soon this place will be filled with customers.”
“Can’t I just stay in here a little while longer?
“You don’t want to miss out on sales, do you?”
“I just can’t face people right now.”
“Get your butt out of that bathroom stall before I slide under the door and pull you out. It will not be pleasant,” I said with what was probably too much force. I was channeling my inner-Tessa.
And with that, poor Minnie slid the lock open, peeked out through a crack in the door, and made a dash for it.
I followed Minnie out of the ladies’ room, and looked across two aisles to where my table used to be.
Passing by the room dividers that masked the crime scene, now decorated with festive posters about upcoming sales in Tucson and Santa Fe, I decided to take a peek. A piece of yellow crime scene tape was wrapped around two tables—mine and Saundra’s—and there was a thin dusting of powder—fingerprint powder, I assumed—all over everything on the tables and even the floor. Saundra’s body was gone. A crime scene investigator, in her white protective suit, was using tweezers to pick up bloody fragments of mirror from the concrete floor and placing them in a plastic evidence collection bag.
Sal came around the end of one of the room dividers and found me looking at the scene. He ran a hand over his unnaturally inky-black hair and looked me up and down, giving me a full body scan. A woman died on this very spot and he could still stand there looking at me lasciviously.
“You doing okay? Sorry you lost all the things in your booth, but glad you still got your beads.” He was standing just a little too close. The remains of his breakfast toast still clung to his black goatee. “Oh, yeah, we found you this nice place by the front door. So don’t come asking me for a refund or anything.”
“Thanks, Sal.” I was feeling stronger now, and ready to get to work and sell some beads. I needed to set aside what had happened and focus on work. I could fall apart later.
“You need anything, you know where to find me. If you need to rest, I got a bed in my RV out in the back parking lot, you know. I could even give you a little massage, if you wanted.”
Sal was scum through and through.
EIGHT
TESSA WAS STANDING in front of my new table, giving it some final adjustments.
“You read my mind,” I said, admiring the display that Tessa had created from things she had found in our room.
“What do you think?” asked Tessa.
“Is this my bedspread?” I asked, fingering the fabric covering the tabletop.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is,” said Tessa.
“And, this is?” I asked, looking at the pretty white dish that held all my earrings.
“Stole it from our room service tray.”
“And this little platform?”
“Three Gideon Bibles wrapped in a pillowcase.” Tessa was proud of her creativity, standing a little taller than usual, and she wasn’t that tall to begin with.
“Tessa, you’re a genius. Thanks so much for this,” I said, bending over the table and giving her a big kiss on the cheek. It would never be as terrific as my original table display, but it certainly looked better than an undraped plastic table with some beads lying on it. Unfortunately, there were no lights to make everything shiny and sparkly. Unless someone miraculously had some spare lights, this was as good as it was going to get.
A grim-looking Miles shuffled toward me with a box of books. He was wearing his skinniest black jeans, a white shirt with a bolo tie, and a gray porkpie hat, another hipster fashion statement. I looked at Tessa to get some clue about why he was here.
“I told Miles he could share your table.”
“The cops won’t release Saundra’s beads for me to sell. But I’ve got all these books that were in her room. She had autographed them and everything.”
“Sure, Miles, you can sell them here,” I said.
“Thanks, it will help with the money situation.”
“What money situation?”
“Saundra hasn’t paid me in a long time. I can do really well selling my handmade wood carvings and felted iPhone cases, but it’s not really enough for me to live on, even in a house with three other guys. She said her money was all tied up in this book, and she’d pay me after this weekend. But now I guess I won’t get paid.”
“Let’s try and sell the books. Maybe you can hold onto the money you make from the sales,” I said. These books were, strictly speaking, not Miles’s to sell, but he’d been stiffed by the now-stiff Saundra, so selling them seemed like a good way to recoup some of the money she owed him.
Miles pulled out the books, set up a few of them on the table, and sank down into the chair next to me. I felt a little wiped out, and Miles looked like how I felt. Me, from my ordeal with Saundra, and Miles, he always looked a little spacey.
“I’m going to find some food for you. It would do you both some good,” said Tessa. “Coffee and a blueberry muffin for you, Jax?”
“Please.” Tessa knew me so well.
“Can I bring something for you too, Miles?” Tessa asked.
“That would be nice, thanks. A gluten-free muffin and a small dirty soy chai latte.”
“A what?” One of Tessa’s eyes twitched—she was trying not to roll her eyes. I knew what she was thinking—Miles was a high-maintenance kind of guy.
“A muffin, no gluten.”
“That’s not the part I was confused about.”
“I like to order things that aren’t on the menu. It’s a much more authentic experience that way,” said Miles.
“Small. Dirty. Soy. Chai. Latte.” Tessa was committing that drink to memory. I was sure she was regretting asking Miles if he wanted anything.
Tessa came back a while later and distributed breakfast snacks to Miles and me.
“You’re the best,” I told Tessa, giving her a big hug.
She looked over at Miles’s stack of books. “How much for the books?”
“They’re $25, and they have all been autographed by the now deceased author,” Miles said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
Tessa, always on the lookout to make a profit, said, “I’ll give you $200 for ten books.”
“Sold,” Miles said without blinking. He may have been a hipster, but he was also a capitalist.
I caught her attention with my are-you-crazy look.
“They’re signed by the author, and the author is dead. Everyone knows that when an artist dies, the price of their work skyrockets. I’m buying these, and I’m going to sell them in my store for a hefty profit,” Tessa said.
“Way to go, way to sell some books,” I said to Miles. He tried to give me a fist bump, which I bungled by thinking it was a high-five. In the end, it looked like rock-paper-scissors. I was the paper, he was the rock.
Tessa took a copy and handed it to me. “Here’s a gift for your heroic efforts.”
“Thanks, Tessa, I’ll treasure it always,” I lied. I was really going to donate it to Goodwill so I didn’t ever have to be reminded of this awful experience. I opened the cover, and sure enough, Saundra’s giant spidery signature was scrawled across the inside page. I swallowed hard, knowing I couldn’t look at this book today, or ever, and tossed it on the floor at my feet.
“Okay, I’m going to shop. That’s why I came, after all,” Tessa said.
“If you see Ryan, tell him I’d like to talk with him,” I said.
“Who’s Ryan?”
“He’s a security guard. You can’t miss him, he reminds me of a tree, but I mean, in a good way. Sort of big and solid.” Today’s events had seriously scrambled my brain.
“Dark green branches for hair and roots for feet?” Tessa asked with a grin, miming what branches looked like.
“About six feet tall. He’s got sexy brown eyes with glints of amber,” I said.
“Oh, I saw him. He looks young. I mean, younger than you—”
“Ladies, can we stop with the fantasizing about the man-tree? You’re freaking me out,” said Miles.
“I’m
going to go drop my books up in the room, and then I’ve got hours of important shopping to do,” Tessa said. She grabbed her stack of books, and teetering from their weight, pushed her way out of the ballroom doors.
My new table location was much better than where I’d been located originally. Even so, this was the last place I wanted to be. I wanted to be upstairs in my hotel room, or better yet, at home, indulging in what I like to call Double Bubbles—a bubble bath and a bottle of champagne. Instead, I was going to sit here and sell my beads, and try to recoup my expenses from this trip, and try not to think about dead bodies.
I had many questions from customers.
“Are these made from clay from the craft store?” “No, they’re glass,” I responded.
“Are these made in China?” “No, I made them myself,” I answered.
“What kinds of molds do you use?” “I don’t use molds, each bead is sculpted individually,” I told them.
“I’ll give you a buck for it.” “Sorry, this is not a swap meet or a garage sale,” I said, disappointed that a handmade item could be worth so little to some people.
I did it all with a smile on my face, and was glad I had the opportunity to teach people who stopped by about handmade glass beads. Mine were lampworked, sometimes called flameworked beads. I’d made each one by melting glass in a torch, and then wrapping and sculpting different colors of glass around a long thin metal rod, called a mandrel. After completing a bead, I cooled it overnight in a kiln. The next day when I removed the mandrel from the middle of the glass, a hole remained. The bead was now ready to be used in jewelry.
Minnie waved at me from across the aisle. She was about four booths down from my new location. She got up and scurried over to me, since she didn’t have any customers at her booth.
“I’ve got to go tinkle. Can you watch my table?” Minnie asked.
“Don’t forget to come back,” I said, remembering that just a few hours ago, I had had a hard time extracting her from the bathroom. “Miles, why don’t you go and ‘man’ Minnie’s table,” I suggested.
“You want me to go over there?”
“Seriously, Miles, if you’re going to hang out with me all day, you might as well be useful.” I could see why this guy had gotten on Saundra’s nerves—he was not the shiniest bead on the strand. “Maybe you’ll make a new friend.”
A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) Page 5
