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

by Janice Peacock

  “I don’t want to hear—”

  “Because we’re working in his—”

  “Yuck. I don’t want to hear what you’re working in—”

  “We’re working in his booth. Such a dirty mind you have,” Val said, scolding me.

  “I can’t believe you’d leave me to work at someone else’s booth.”

  “You have Tessa. You don’t need me,” Val said, turning from side to side to make sure she looked terrific from every angle.

  “You’re perfect,” I assured her, as Val put on an extra coat of lipstick, smacking her lips together.

  “Val? I need your help.”

  “What is it, darling?”

  “Can you make me look, uh, like you?”

  “I’ve been waiting for this moment since I met you,” Val said, hugging me.

  “This wouldn’t be a permanent change, just a temporary thing. I need to look different for a little while so someone won’t recognize me.” The mystery bead seller wouldn’t want to talk with me after I’d chased her through the streets of Portland. I hoped a disguise might help, so I could learn something from her before she realized who I was.

  “That’s a start. Maybe you’ll love your makeover so much, you’ll decide you want to dress fabulously every day.”

  In the bedroom, Val made a beeline for her overnight bag, and pulled out a dress—a tiny dress.

  “Do you actually wear that thing?”

  “Sure, but I usually wear it with some leggings because it’s pretty short, even for me.” Val was five inches taller than I was, so something that was too short on her might be a reasonable length on me.

  “Wow, Val, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say something was too short.”

  “I think it will be faboo on you.”

  “But, the color, seriously. I don’t think pink with black dots is my style.”

  I was beginning to regret asking for Val’s help.

  “Maybe I’ll just wear this,” I said. I was comfortable in jeans and a red T-shirt, and a coordinating necklace, of course.

  Val gave me a withering look. “Yes, but then you’ll look like you always do. Aren’t you trying to look different?”

  “Pink with black dots it is,” I said. If I was going to disguise myself, I might as well go all the way. “You know who would like this? Wendy,” I said.

  “Wendy the Polka-Dot Princess?”

  “That girl just loves her spots. Every bead she makes—covered in dots. Everything she wears is covered in dots as well. She must have been a Dalmatian in a previous life.”

  “Oh, yes, I saw her table yesterday. All those dots were making me go cross-eyed,” Val said.

  “She’s okay, and she’s been making beads for a long time. Funny, she never seemed to have progressed from making spotted beads. She’s really good at making them, though.”

  “She could change things up, don’t you think, with her outfits and her beads,” Val said, adding a wide black belt to my costume. “She could wear something a little less wild—something neutral.”

  It was hard to believe Val would want someone to be subtler because if one word described Val, it was “over-the-top.” That’s more than one word, but it does describe her accurately.

  “You need shoes,” Val said, looking at my feet with a grimace.

  “Sorry. I’ve got these—“ I said, looking down at my red leather clogs.

  “And those icky green sneakers you were wearing yesterday,“ Val said, handing me a pair of patent leather sling-back heels. “Put these on.”

  “There’s no way those will fit me. Your feet are much larger than mine,” I protested, handing them back as quickly as she gave them to me.

  “They’re sling-backs. They have this little strap that’s adjustable,” Val said, pushing me into a seated position, kneeling and jamming a shoe on one of my feet, then buckling it tight.

  “Ouch!”

  Val put the other shoe on my other foot and stood up to admire my new shoes. She pulled me up so I could try them out.

  “What do you think?” Val asked.

  They were a little tall for me, but I admit they made me look—and feel—cute.

  “I like the shoes,” I said. “I don’t know if I can walk in them, but I like them.”

  “You know, honey, if you can’t walk in them, you can lie down in them, and you know—”

  “Val, I don’t want to talk about what I could do in bed with shoes on.”

  “Because that hunky Ryan guy, oh, or the sexy Detective Zach—”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter. Let’s focus here,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I was feeling a little tippy on the narrow heels.

  “And now, your face,” Val said, grabbing a small suitcase and putting it on the bed. She pulled up a chair in front of me and started sorting through the case.

  “Ah, okay, foundation, powder, eye liner, eye shadow, mascara, and lipstick,” Val said, taking inventory of all the products she was going to need to work her magic.

  “Please be gentle, I’m not used to wearing a ton of makeup,” I said.

  “You don’t want to be recognized, do you?” Val’s eyes gleamed in a way I’d never seen before. “Don’t worry, I’ll make you look gorgeous. No one will recognize you.”

  “I’m not sure that was a compliment,” I said, kicking her with her own shoe.

  “Sorry, honey. I’m glad you trust me.”

  “And you’ve got ten minutes.”

  Val went straight to work, with only a few mutterings to me to hold still, blot my lips, and finally to close my eyes. She puffed my face with powder and ran her hands across my forehead and cheeks one last time.

  “Ooh-la-la,” said Val. I kept my eyes shut tight. “Jax, that means you’re supposed to open your eyes.”

  I slowly opened them, worried about what I’d see in the mirror Val was holding. She had actually made me look like a different woman. My skin tone was so smooth and even, not a single freckle showing. I had about two pounds of blush on my cheeks. The electric blue eye shadow was a little much, but it definitely made me look like not me, which was what I was after.

  “Wow! What a terrific job you did,” I said, admiring her handiwork in the mirror.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Val replied.

  I couldn’t call myself beautiful, but I did look different, and that’s what I needed if I wanted to be unrecognizable to the young woman I was searching for at the market. If I toned down the makeup about ninety percent, it would have been the perfect look for me.

  “Do you have anything for my hair?” I asked Val.

  “Oh, yes! You’re going to let me style your hair too?” she asked. She opened a tiger-striped tote and started pulling out an arsenal of hair care products. “Of course, you don’t have much to work with,” she complained, looking at my tousled mess of light brown hair. I’d been wearing it short for about six months, ever since I’d singed off my bangs in a studio accident involving a scorching hot kiln.

  “Val, I just need some gel or something,” I said.

  “Gel is so ’90s. You need some wax,” Val said, scooping some sticky purple goo from a container.

  “No, Val. Please…” But it was too late. She rubbed her hands together, and then ran them through my hair. I closed my eyes and let her do what she wanted. There was no restraining her.

  “Ooh-la-la,” Val said, and I knew it was time to look.

  I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror. Val had worked her magic. My hair looked cute and coifed, definitely not my usual style.

  “Wait, I have one more thing that will help you,” Val said, reaching up and removing a hair clip from her head. Attached to the clip was a puff of hair. “I sometimes need some extra fullness here at the crown of my head.”

  Val headed toward me, holding the fluffy hairpiece.

  “Come on, Jax. It’s so cute. It’s called a wiglet. Kind of like a tribble.”

  “What’s a tribble?” Whatever
it was I didn’t want it.

  “They’re cute little aliens on Star Trek—”

  “No, Val, I am not putting a tiny alien on my head,” I said, backing away from her.

  “It’s not a real alien, darling. Those TV shows, they’re fake,” Val said. It scared me to think Val felt she needed to explain that to me. Val definitely had the advantage—she knew how to walk in high heels. She cornered me.

  “Now hold still,” Val said, clipping the vile thing to the top of my head and pulling my hair up around it. Val held me back at an arm’s length. “Let me get a good look at you. Hmmm. It’s not really the right color. Let’s just—”

  “Stop. No more! Tessa’s watching my booth right now, and soon she’ll get tired of sitting there, because she’s missing her chance to shop. I’ve got to get to the market and get back as soon as possible before she explodes,” I said as I grabbed my handbag and wobbled out the door. I hoped I wouldn’t see anyone I knew as I crossed the lobby.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE LAST TIME I WENT to the Saturday Market I walked, and it took longer than I’d anticipated. This time, I was driving. Walking would be difficult, at best, in Val’s clothes and shoes. If I walked, the worst-case scenario was that I’d get picked up by the cops on suspicion of selling more than beads. Val could pull off the sexy look—me, I just looked like someone had dressed me up and put me out on the street. Which, in fact, was what happened.

  When I got in The Ladybug, I looked in the rearview mirror and nearly screamed. Actually, I really did scream. I ripped the tribble off my head and jammed it in my handbag. I was not going to wear that thing out in public. I put on a black felt hat that was in the back seat. It didn’t go with the rest of the outfit, but it was the best I could do. If I’d had a knit cap, I would have fit in much better, since it was Portland, after all.

  As I drove, I remembered what Val had said about Luke—that Saundra had offered him private lessons. I assumed that meant that Saundra decided to make up the money he lost by giving him a one-on-one class or two. If this was true, then Luke wouldn’t have wanted to kill Saundra. Plus, Luke’s booth was not near Saundra’s, which would have made it difficult for him to zap her from behind. And even though he wore a coat that could have concealed a cattle prod, it was clear that it was not the most likely murder weapon at this point.

  I parked a block from the market and adjusted all my body parts to make sure nothing had shifted in the dress on the drive over. Then I checked my lipstick in The Ladybug’s side mirror before heading off down the street. It was difficult to swing my hips, as Val would have done, especially when I was wearing someone else’s shoes that were two sizes too big. I decided it was better to concentrate on simply walking from the car to the market without falling down and breaking my neck.

  The market was bustling when I arrived. I scanned the tables as I walked from booth to booth. Handmade jewelry that ran the gamut from elegant to funky filled the first few booths, but there were no glass beads. Stalls with veggies, candles, and hand-knit sweaters followed. Vendors displayed handmade ceramics, jams and jellies, and T-shirts with clever sayings. Finally, I saw a booth with a display of glass beads in cigar boxes. I casually sauntered over to it.

  A woman sat at the table, her hair tucked up inside a knit cap—so much for identifying this woman by her hair color. A small handmade sign on the table read: Beads by Brynne. That name didn’t ring a bell. Keeping my eyes down, I focused on the beads and hoped the woman wouldn’t recognize me. The person I was looking for only got a glimpse of me the night before. I hoped the clothes and makeup Val put on me would be enough to make me unrecognizable and that I’d have a few minutes to talk with her without her bolting, as she had done the night before. I looked in the boxes. They were full of Saundra’s beads. Either stolen or knock-offs, it was hard to tell.

  This was the mystery bead seller I’d been searching for. Brynne wasn’t trying to engage me, her potential customer, but was instead focused on her phone. I thought I’d start out slow, with some basic questions to see what I might learn from her without arousing her suspicion.

  “These beads are really unique. Did you make them?” I asked, picking up a Fenestra bead, another design I recognized as Saundra’s, with tiny window-like portals that you could look into to see the bead’s colorful center.

  “They’re handmade from Italian glass. I create all these beads using a torch.” She was talking, and she didn’t recognize me. This was a start.

  “I make glass beads, too,” I said. “But mine aren’t as nice as these.”

  “Cool, thanks.” She returned to looking at her phone.

  “Did you take classes around here?”

  “I learned on my own from books and YouTube. Oh, and then I learned a lot working with this guy, Miles.”

  Miles. He was the connection. Somehow Miles linked this woman to Saundra, but I didn’t know how or why.

  “Did you ever meet him?” she asked. “He’s a beadmaker. Pretty cool guy. I met him at the Urban Sea Monkeys concert. They’re an obscure band with a retro-folk-synth sound—you’ve probably never heard of them. I listened to them back before anyone else did. But now, they’ve just sold out to the commercial market.” No wonder she liked Miles. They shared that hipster desire to listen only to esoteric bands and to bad-mouth musicians who achieved any level of commercial success.

  Should I tell her I knew Miles? Should I tell her my name?

  “No, sorry, I haven’t met him,” I lied.

  “You want to buy a bead, or what?” she said, looking up at me.

  As we made eye contact, she jumped up from her stool and backed away from me. “Hey, you’re the lady who was following me last night. Who are you, an undercover cop?”

  Oh no! My cover was blown. She’d recognized me. So much for Val’s costume. Maybe I should have kept the wiglet clipped to the top of my head.

  “I’m not a cop.” Brynne was looking from side to side, trying to figure out what her escape options were. “Look, you can’t run away and leave your beads behind. Just sit still and talk with me.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Brynne said. “And by the way, that’s a really sucky disguise you have on.” I decided I’d let the insult slide.

  “I need your help. Someone killed Saundra Jameson.”

  “Look, I barely even knew that bit—”

  “Your beads, they look just like some of Saundra’s.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to sell them at the market. They were supposed to be hers, but they didn’t turn out so well, so I didn’t sell them to Miles.”

  “You were selling beads to Miles?”

  “Yeah, he’d give me the designs, and I’d make them,” Brynne said. “It was an easy way to make bank each month.”

  Saundra wasn’t making her own beads? What a crazy idea: A beadmaker who didn’t make beads. I knew she was able to make them, having seen her demo a few months back at Tessa’s studio. Now I knew why Saundra’s studio was so neat—nothing was ever made there.

  I also understood now what Saundra’s brother, Bruce, meant about the people who came to visit Saundra. There was a woman who didn’t look like the other bead ladies—because she had green hair.

  “Do you know why anyone would want to harm Saundra?”

  “I’ll tell you this, I made a lot of money in this deal. I wouldn’t kill her. I didn’t like her, but I liked her money.”

  “What can you tell me about Miles?”

  Brynne started closing up the cigar boxes that held her beads, clipping the lid of each box in place with its square metal clasp. I was running out of time.

  “Saundra didn’t treat Miles very well, but he kind of needed her. He told me once he couldn’t get another job. Not sure why.”

  “Can I buy a few of your beads?” I asked. “How much for these three?” I might need them later, although I wasn’t sure why.

  I paid Brynne, and she placed my beads into a little woven bag, then put away the cigar boxe
s in her backpack. She folded up the tablecloth she’d been using and stuffed it in as well.

  “Hope you catch your killer,” Brynne said, slinging her backpack onto one shoulder.

  “Hey Brynne, any way I can get in touch with you?” I called to her as she left.

  She glanced back at me. Without a reply, she slipped into the crowd and was gone.

  THIRTY-THREE

  WHEN I GOT BACK to The Red Rose Hotel, I went straight up to our room. I didn’t want anyone seeing me in this getup. As I slid the key card into the lock, I heard a loud howl from the other side of the door.

  Gumdrop was unhappy. He was not going to be happy until he was home. I opened the door slowly. My cat was sitting on the plush white sofa, now covered in long gray fur. He let loose another long howl. His green eyes were slits in his otherwise fluffy face, and his front claws were extended, gripping the sofa cushion. I sat down on the sofa next to Gummie and gave him some long strokes down his back, and a vigorous scratch under his chin. He kneaded his paws in my lap.

  “Ouch! I’m going to clip your nails when I get home. You scratched Ryan yesterday, you know,” I said to the cat. He looked up at me with his grumpy eyes and let loose a plaintive, “Yellloooo.”

  I pulled off Val’s clothes and slid into my own jeans and back into the red ribbed T-shirt I’d had on earlier. Val’s makeup remover was on the bathroom counter, and I used it to take off the makeup she’d slathered on me. I slipped on my red clogs and was down at the bead bazaar in a matter of minutes. Tessa was working at my table, as she had been for much of the last few days. She was writing up a sale when I arrived.

  “And here are your beads,” Tessa said with a big smile. “Thanks for your purchase.” I sat down behind the table with Tessa. She handed me the receipt book, and I flipped through the pages.

  “Looks like sales have picked up a little,” I said. Things had been slow earlier in the day. Buyers were now zipping through the bazaar one last time to pick up any items they’d been thinking about, but hadn’t purchased earlier.