“Stop the car,” I said.
“Here? This can’t be right,” Val said, confused. “I thought Saundra was supposed to be some famous bead artist.” A small shingled house sat at the end of a dirt path, edged by a rickety split-rail fence.
“This is the address I saw on her contract,” I said, double-checking the GPS route to make sure it hadn’t sent us to the wrong location. “This is the place. Let’s go check it out.”
Val pulled herself out of the car and stretched her legs. She really did need a bigger vehicle. She fished out a pair of heels from the back seat and was ready to go. We headed down the path toward the house. Off in the distance, brown and white cows ambled around in a fenced hilltop field.
Val picked her way down the unpaved trail in her tall shoes, leaving pockmarks in the dirt as she walked. “It’s just plain spooky around here.”
“Sal said Saundra had a brother who lives with her. I’m not sure if we’ll find him home or not.”
“I don’t like it here, I don’t like it at all,” Val said, pulling a bottle of perfume out of her purse. From a tree branch above us, three crows cawed as we continued walking toward the house.
“Don’t spray any more of this,” I said, grabbing the bottle from her. “Why does the label say Chanel No. 6?”
“It’s better than Chanel No. 5. The guy I met on the sidewalk—”
“You bought perfume on the street?”
“It was a good deal. I’m just a working girl—” She grabbed the bottle from me and tucked it back in her purse.
“You don’t even know what’s in that—”
I heard the click of metal on metal and fell silent. I glanced at Val. She heard it, too. The crows took flight, sweeping low before heading toward the hills.
“Do not move,” I mouthed to her.
“What?” Val said, far too loudly.
“Put your hands up,” a man said.
I put my hands above my head and turned slowly.
He looked exactly like Saundra. Except he was a man wearing a green John Deere hat. And he was alive. And he was holding a twelve-gauge shotgun, pointed right at us.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“THE COPS HAVE ALREADY BEEN here to tell me about my sister,” the man said. “So what are you two doing here?”
“I was a friend of Saundra’s,” I said. “I wanted to come out and make sure you were okay.” This was a fib, but I didn’t want him to think we were random strangers who were trying to break into his sister’s house.
“Can I turn around?” Val asked.
“Just keep your hands up,” he shouted.
Val turned slowly. Doing as she was told, she kept her hands in the air.
“Hi there,” Val said, once she was turned toward the man. “My name’s Val. What’s yours, honey?”
The man looked at Val, his eyes blinking rapidly. Who was this woman who was introducing herself to him, as if there was no gun between them? He pushed back his cap to get a good look at us.
“And this is Jax,” Val continued. “Say ‘hi,’ Jax.”
The man looked from Val to me.
“Hi,” I said, showing him my biggest smile. “Can we put our hands down? Please?”
“Please, honey, we aren’t going to cause any trouble, we promise,” Val said.
“Okay, okay. But no sudden moves,” the man replied.
“Now, I still didn’t get your name,” said Val as she took her hands from above her head and put them on her ample hips.
“It’s Bruce. Now listen, just because I let you put your hands down, that doesn’t mean we can be all buddy-buddy, you know?”
“Nice to meet you, Bruce,” said Val, plunging on ahead, ignoring the fact that the man still seemed ready to fire his gun at any moment. “Now, we came out here because we knew Saundra. And were heartbroken when we heard that she’d died. We just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
Val could charm just about anyone. Nothing she had just said was true, but that didn’t matter. If she could stop Bruce from filling us with buckshot, that would be a step in the right direction.
“That’s real nice of you. Real nice. But I’ve got to be careful. A famous bead artist like Sandy—I mean Saundra, that’s what you’d call her—dies, I think about all the people who’ll be coming here to try and steal her stuff. You know, like all the artists whose work gets more valuable after they die.”
I’d seen Tessa do that very thing when she bought the stack of books from Miles with the hope of turning a quick profit on the autographed books of the now-deceased artist.
“I’m sorry. Saundra was your sister, right?” I asked.
“Yup, my big sister,” he said, finally dropping the shotgun to his side.
“You poor thing,” said Val, stepping closer to Bruce. Immediately, he was back on his guard, but Val was too fast. She closed in on him with a big hug.
Bruce went limp, his plaid shirt coming untucked from the force of Val’s hug. She had a way of doing that to people. When Val finally released her hold on Bruce, we sat down on a bench near the side of the house.
“You two didn’t just come out here to see me, did ya?”
“We wanted to talk with you about how Saundra died,” I said.
“Yeah, I can’t believe she cracked her head open like that.”
“That’s the thing; we don’t think that’s how she died.”
“Then what happened?” Bruce asked.
“We’re still trying to figure that out, but from the way the police are acting, it seems that someone might have killed her,” I said. “That’s the reason we’re here. We wanted to see her house and studio. We thought it might help us figure out what happened, maybe give us some clue about who would have had something to gain by Saundra dying.”
“There’s not much to see. That’s her house. You can go on in and take a look around, but I’m coming with you. I’m still not sure that you aren’t both just treasure hunters here to steal from a famous dead artist.”
Bruce brought us into the tiny two-bedroom house. Saundra’s bedroom was full of all the beautiful clothes that she was well-known for: silken skirts, finely woven shawls, long delicate dusters, and miles of scarves. The other bedroom was Saundra’s bead studio. It was empty, except for a clean white table, a torch, a few thin rods of glass, and a camera.
“That’s odd,” I said.
“I agree,” said Val. “This is the tidiest studio I’ve ever seen.” Val has seen my perpetually messy workshop plenty of times. “I mean, really, wow, I had no idea a studio could be like this. I can even see the countertops.”
“The only places I’ve seen that were this sterile were the cleanrooms in the Clorox labs,” I said.
My studio is always chaotic, and this was at the opposite end of the spectrum. This space was too immaculate for any real creativity to occur. It was as if Saundra cleaned up before leaving for the weekend. Could she have known she was never coming back?
“Did you see your sister work in her studio much?”
“I live up the hill at the ranch. It was just her in this valley. She liked having her privacy, and I don’t think she liked the cattle much. I’m not sure what all happened down here.”
“Did she have people over to visit?”
“Oh, lots of people visited. She did have this one friend, always dressed like a clown. You know—covered in polka dots.”
“Wendy,” Val said. Two points to Val for being a super-sleuth.
“And then some wimpy dude, I think his name was Miles.”
“Yes, Miles, we know him. He’s Saundra’s assistant.”
“Then there was a young woman. She didn’t have much to say. I’d see her at the gate. She’d show up with a big stack of cigar boxes, and I’d help her get them in and out of her truck. Always a little skittish, like some of my calves.”
“Do you know anything about her? Her name?”
“I’m not sure if she was a bead lady or not. She, uh, didn’t really look like some
of the other bead ladies I’ve met.”
Could that be the mystery woman who I’d run into last night? I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to find her because she certainly didn’t want to be found.
“’Course, there were lots of others, too. Hard to tell some of them apart,” Bruce said. “Sorry, I can’t be much more of a help.”
“That’s okay, we understand,” said Val, patting Bruce on the shoulder as we stood on the front porch of Saundra’s house. Val truly could do almost anything, and people just let her.
“It’s been real nice talking to you ladies. I hope you figure out what happened to my sister. She’s all I had, other than the cows. I’ve got to get up there and get them corralled,” Bruce said, looking up the hill.
“We promise if we learn anything about your sister, we’ll be in touch with you.”
Bruce set down the shotgun on his pickup truck. It was piled with all sorts of ranching tools, various prods and hooks, and branding irons.
Val and I walked down the dusty path to her car. I could see the footprints of the people who had passed this way: boot prints from the police officers who came to tell Bruce the bad news about his sister, pockmarks from Val’s heels, many other prints and scuffs, and some small tire tracks as well.
• • •
Val and I climbed into the car. She took off her high heels, and once again flung them in the back seat, then clicked on the radio. There was no reception out here in the boondocks. I reached over and turned it off.
“You know how Bruce asked us how Saundra died?”
Val nodded.
“How did she die? I was the only one who saw Saundra after she died, other than the police and the coroner. What did they see that I didn’t, that would make them believe she was murdered?”
“I saw this one episode of Star Trek, where Mr. Spock, being so logical—”
“Shhh, Val, you can tell me about that later,” I said, not wanting to hear anything more about her sci-fi obsession. “If I knew how Saundra died, maybe that would lead us to the killer.”
As we drove away, we could see Bruce standing in the gravel road, very alone.
TWENTY-NINE
WHEN VAL AND I ENTERED the lobby of the hotel, the first person we saw was Tiffany. The detective looked like she was waiting for someone. It turned out she was. She was waiting for me.
“Jax. I’ve been looking all over the place for you.” I wasn’t sure I wanted Tiffany to know we’d been out to Saundra’s house, and I hoped Val wouldn’t volunteer that information.
Val reached out her hand to shake with Tiffany. It was the oddest thing. These two women were cut from the same cloth. More than once I’d gotten them confused with each other, at least briefly. They did have the same taste in footwear, after all.
“Val, this is Detective Houston,” I said.
“You can call me Tiffany,” the detective said.
“And Detective Houston, this is Val.”
“You can call me Val,” she said, with an unexpected edge in her voice. Knowing Val as well as I did, I could tell something was wrong.
“Why don’t you come with me? We can have a little chat,” Tiffany said, as she guided me into the small conference room that she’d turned into her interrogation room.
Val stood in the conference room doorway, trying to figure out whether she should come in.
“Can Val join us? She’s really good with understanding human nature,” I said, although sometimes she had a little too much to say on the subject.
“Too true. You see, I’m a hair stylist, and I’ve heard it all. So many crazy stories…” Val settled into the chair next to me without waiting for the detective’s invitation.
“Val? Let’s just move on. I’m sure the detective has some questions for me,” I said, patting her knee.
“Do you know what the person who trashed your room last night was looking for?”
“No idea,” I said.
“Ryan gave you your belongings back this morning?” Tiffany asked.
“Yes, he did.”
“And did you notice anything missing?”
“No. I didn’t look closely, but from what I saw, everything was there.” The only thing missing at this point was my sanity.
“What do you think the connection is between the deaths of Saundra Jameson and security guard Carl Shulman, and your room being trashed?”
“I’m not sure there is one.” I was relaxing a little bit. She was asking a good question. “I can’t think of a common denominator, other than all three events happened here at the hotel. I can’t imagine why anyone would kill the security guard. Maybe he saw something happen when Saundra was murdered, and the killer was trying to cover his tracks.”
“That idea has some merit,” said Tiffany. “But how does your room fit into this?”
“I don’t know how any of this fits together. I’m sorry. I wish I did,” I said. “I don’t know who would trash my room.” Other than the maid who had interrupted me when I was breaking into someone else’s room.
Tiffany’s phone rang, and she answered it. While listening to the caller, she opened the email program on her iPad. “I already saw that report. Thanks for sending it. Interesting to see the C.O.D.,” she said to the person on the phone. She listened for a reply, then hung up.
“What have you girls been up to?” Tiffany asked, changing gears.
“Oh, just a little shopping,” Val said. Thank goodness Val was on my wavelength. Although there was really no reason to lie about where we were today, I didn’t feel like volunteering that information.
“Funny, that’s not what I heard,” Tiffany said with a tense smile. “I heard you went off to Saundra’s house. Doing some snooping around without me, Jax?”
“Uh…” I said, completely unclear about what I should say next, and doing it ineloquently. “Uh…” I said again.
“Jax, I thought we were a team on this. Now you’ve brought your pal Val into the situation. I told you very specifically that you were not to speak with other people about this case. You’re going to land in jail for obstructing a police investigation.”
“I, I—” I continued in my inarticulate way. Val sat next to me, glowering at Tiffany, hands clasped together in front of her. Her long, red nails tightly gripped the back of her opposite hand.
“We did a little shopping, and while we were in the neighborhood, we thought we’d stop by Saundra’s house,” I said. This, of course, was complete nonsense, since there were no shopping malls within miles of Saundra’s house.
Tiffany let us off the hook, now that I’d spilled the beans. Or is that beads?
“And did you learn anything at Ms. Jameson’s?”
“Not really. We met her brother.”
“Yes, he was nice,” Val said. “Though I think he could use a makeover—the tractor company logo baseball hat is not a good look for anyone older than fourteen. And that red and orange plaid shirt, he could use an updated pattern in a more flattering color.”
Tiffany stopped taking notes on her iPad when Val starting talking about Bruce’s makeover. The detective sat impatiently, tapping her red nails—cut to a much more practical length than Val’s—on the table, waiting for Val to stop. But Val was not getting the hint. The detective’s phone rang.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Tiffany said, stepping out of the conference room, leaving her iPad behind. We watched her walk away, her patent leather shoes flashing their red soles with each step she took.
“When the detective was on the phone, she said something about an interesting C.O.D. What do you think that’s about?” I asked.
“Cash on Delivery?”
“No, I’m thinking Cause of Death.”
Val and I both looked over at the iPad.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Val asked.
“If you’re thinking that there’s an autopsy report we want to see on that tablet, then yes, we’re thinking the same thing.”
“Quick, giv
e it to me,” said Val.
“I’m not sure—”
“I want to see that iPad,” she insisted, reaching across the table and pulling it toward us. Val pressed the screen with one of her knuckles, and the screen blinked to life.
PASSWORD:
“Oh, crap, Val. We need a password. Okay, let’s try this,” I said, grabbing the tablet.
I typed password on the screen, trying the most obvious choice.
Invalid password. Three more attempts.
I tried another common password: abc123
Invalid password. Two more attempts.
“Jax, let me try, okay?” Val pulled the iPad in front of her and concentrated. She placed one hand on the edge of the screen and put her other hand to her temple.
“I don’t think the Vulcan Mind Meld works on iPads.” In fact, I didn’t think it ever worked, except on Star Trek. And if you were Mr. Spock. I ran to the door to keep an eye out for Tiffany. I didn’t want her to find us doing any digital breaking and entering.
“I’m getting something,” Val said, her hand still at her temple.
“Hurry, she’ll be back any second.”
Val typed gucci
Invalid password. One more attempt.
“Of course not Gucci. It would not be Gucci,” Val said, her hand back at her temple.
“Last chance, then I don’t know what happens—the thing locks up for some period of time or explodes or something,” I said.
Louboutin, Val typed.
Access granted.
“Wow! It worked,” I said, astounded.
“Wow, that Vulcan Mind Meld thing really does work,” Val said, impressed with herself.
“What’s a Louboutin?” I asked.
“Oh Jax, you should know that. You’re a woman. You should know more about shoes than just high tops and clogs. Louboutins are shoes with red soles. She’s wearing a pair today.”
“So maybe it’s not the Vulcan Mind Meld?”
“It worked. All I’m saying is that we were locked out, and now we’re in, so you better see what you can find out before Tiffany comes back,” Val said, trading places with me at the door. “And you can thank me later.”
A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) Page 15
