THIRTY-SEVEN
“BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME,” Tiffany said to Ryan, patting his face sharply, then pulling Miles and Minnie across the warehouse and down the hall.
“I hate that woman,” I said. “Val, you were right. She wasn’t what she appeared to be. And definitely not a team player.”
“You’ve got to look at the inside of a person. That’s what I always say,” Val said.
“No, Val, that’s what I always say.”
Tessa, Val, and I had a group hug, and Ryan hung back, not knowing what to do.
“Ryan, get over here, you need a hug too,” I said, squeezing him tight, and then reaching up, grabbing his sweet face, and giving him a kiss.
Tessa and Val stood there looking at Ryan and me, mouths agape.
“Get a room, you two,” said Val. “This is a hotel, after all.”
Tessa’s phone buzzed, and she answered.
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no,” Tessa said. There was a new crisis at home.
Ryan took me aside. “You go and take care of your friends. Please don’t leave without saying good-bye.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find you,” I said over my shoulder, as I walked down the hall flanked by Tessa and Val.
Tessa covered the phone with her hand. “It’s Ashley. She says that Izzy shaved the hair off one side of her head. Joey’s locked himself in his room with Stanley—” Tessa stopped in the middle of her sentence. “Wait a minute. What is Stanley doing at my house?”
Val didn’t have a chance to explain.
“Ashley, put your dad on the phone!” Tessa demanded. Her conversation with Craig continued in half-Italian and half-English, until finally she hung up the phone, tossed it dramatically into her purse, and zipped it shut. Tessa was giving her phone, and all the people on it, a big time-out.
“I think you both should take off,” I said.
“I want to be here for you, but I’m worried about how out of control things have gotten at home,” Tessa said.
“Your family needs you,” I told her. “Val, can you give Tessa a ride back up to Seattle? And take Gummie with you. He’s miserable.”
“I’m so sorry I brought Gumdrop. I just didn’t know what else to do,” Val said. “Don’t you need us here?”
“There are only a couple hours left of the sale, then I need to get everything packed up. I won’t be far behind you. Gummie needs to get home as much as Tessa does.”
“I suppose so. But what if Bruno comes back and threatens me?” Val asked.
“Pick up Stanley from Tessa’s,” I advised. Tessa glowered at me. She clearly didn’t like the thought of Stanley at her house, adding to the mess and destruction that was occurring at the moment. “And if Bruno comes back, you just tell him you’ve got your attack dog ready and that you’ll unleash him if Bruno doesn’t leave immediately.”
“Stanley doesn’t look ferocious,” Val said.
“Do you know that if you say ‘speak,’ Stanley will bark?” I’d discovered this last month, but had yet to use it to scare someone. “Just get him to bark through the door at Bruno, and I expect he won’t stay on your doorstep for long.”
“What a super idea. I knew there was a good reason to keep Stanley. I always thought he was a guy magnet, which he is. But I also like that he can be a guy repellent,” Val said.
“All right, you two. Get packed up and get out of here. Adriana’s watching my booth, and I need to get back there before the show closes,” I told them. “Are you two going to be okay heading home without me? Do you think you can handle Gumdrop?”
“We’ll be fine once we’re on the road, and I can put on some classical music,” Val said.
Tessa gave Val a confused look.
“I’ll explain it on the drive home,” Val said. “If we get hungry, we can stop at Taco Bell. And I’ll drop you off at your house. That way I can pick up Stan—”
“Val, maybe you should be going now.” I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring up Stanley again.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I HOPED I HADN’T left Adriana alone too long in the ballroom.
When I finally got back to my table, she was holding court, telling stories about the good old days in the bead world to a rapt audience of other vendors. Virtually all the customers had gone home, as often happens in the last hour of a sale like this.
Finally, we heard the announcement we were waiting for. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bead Fun sale is now closed. Please make your final purchases and proceed to the exit.”
I pulled out my cash box and flipped through the money I’d collected and the receipts I’d written from my sales this weekend. I’d done well. Very well. Deciding to treat myself to a small splurge, I walked to Indigo’s table. Her canvas-lined trays were full of nature-inspired sculptural beads. I especially loved the autumn-colored leaves. There were only a few of those left.
“Is there still time for me to buy one of your beads?” I asked Indigo.
“Sure, but don’t you want to trade instead?”
I’d seen many beadmakers trading beads at events, but I’d never done it myself. I didn’t want to trade with Indigo, though; I knew she needed the money.
“I’d love to trade sometime, but for now, I’d like to buy this one,” I said, plucking a sage green and rusty orange leaf-shaped bead from her tray, and placing the money for it in her hand.
“Thanks,” Indigo said, shoving the money in the pocket of her batik skirt, then carefully wrapping my bead in wrinkled—clearly re-used—blue tissue paper and tying it with a piece of jute cord. “Thank you, and namaste.”
“To you, too,” I said awkwardly, not sure what else I was supposed to say or do. “See you at the next bazaar.”
I headed back to my table to pack up. I pulled out all the junk that had accumulated under the table and threw it away. I stacked my bead trays in Tessa’s tote. As carefully as possible, I unplugged the lights from the power supply and wrapped the cord around the base of each fixture.
Vance was at his booth taking his displays apart and packing up. Lin was nowhere in sight.
“Thanks for the lights,” I said when I arrived at his table. “They really helped.”
“You’re welcome,” Vance replied. “And thanks for fixing my glasses and letting me confide in you.”
“No problem. I don’t see Lin—what happened to her?”
“She’s over there with The Twins. Lin decided that she’s going to give up all her scary costumes. She knew she was getting carried away, but she couldn’t help herself when all that kinky stuff was around.”
“What’s that got to do with The Twins?”
“She’s selling them most of our more outrageous costumes—turns out they love that stuff, not for, you know, in the bedroom, but just as fashion statements,” Vance said. “They said something about how their inner soul needed to be echoed in their outer carapace. But I didn’t really understand what that meant.” I expected no one, not even The Twins, knew. “And I’m going to give up the name Vandal. Once I talked with some people about my beads, things got better, and I actually sold a lot of inventory this weekend. I realized I didn’t need to hide behind Vandal anymore. I could just be plain old Vance Dalton, and that would be fine.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. Your work is very special, and so are you. See you at the next bazaar?”
“See you there,” Vance said, adjusting the newly-fixed frames of his glasses.
“And if you come up to Seattle, let Val know you’re coming, and she can help you pick out some new eyeglasses.”
I spotted Lin coming toward us, a wad of cash in her hand. She gave us a big thumbs-up and a smile. Vance seemed pleased. With Lin’s clothing sale, they’d definitely made enough money to make this show profitable for them. I hoped he and Lin would have a better relationship going forward.
Back at my table, I neatly organized all the items we had borrowed from the hotel room. I folded the sheets and comforter, and put the Bibles and dishes on to
p of the tidy stack of linens. Dropping them off at the front desk, I told the clerk they had been removed from room 611, and requested that they not charge my room for the missing items.
I ran into Sal on the way back to my table.
“Hey, I got your things. The ones the cops took. They’re all packed up in a box in the utility room. I could show you where it is, and you know, maybe we could spend some quiet time back there.”
“No way, Sal.”
“You’re right. There’s not much privacy, what with Ernie coming and going. Meet me in my RV in an hour?”
“Not on your life.”
“Your loss,” Sal said.
My phone started playing its little calypso tune.
“Val? You’re home already?” I asked.
“It’s a short drive, honey, and the way I like to drive Firefly, it’s super-short. Gumdrop wanted to get home, poor thing, his howling was lots worse this time. It must’ve been all the catnip that made it easier on him on our way down. He didn’t have any on the way home.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know you’re home. And Stanley?”
“Stanley wasn’t ready to come home yet.”
Tessa must have been overjoyed.
“Any sign of Bruno?”
“No, and I’m glad. I’m so over him. You know, he cheated on me at least twice. Then he comes to my house and accuses me of cheating. How hypothetical is that?”
“Hypocritical,” I said. Val completely ignored my correction and kept on talking.
“And the thing is, I should have known after he cheated on me the first time that he was no good. You know, if someone cheats once, they’ll probably cheat again.”
“Val. You’re brilliant.”
“I am?”
“You are, Val. You most definitely are.”
“Okay, gotta run. I’ve got this cute guy coming over later.”
“What about Luke?”
“You’re not going to believe this! When I was working at his booth, I watched him do that sexy neck thing to every woman who came by.”
“Tessa and I warned you. It’s his sales technique.”
“Well! I was pretty upset about it! I mean, really, I thought I was special!”
“You are special. You just need to meet the right man. Tell me about the guy who’s coming over later?”
“I met him at Taco Bell.”
“You’re going to go out with a guy who works at Taco Bell?”
“No, silly, he’s a massage therapist who was buying some Mexican food for dinner. I told him to come on over, and I’d cook him a nice meal—better than Taco Bell, and then he promised me a nice—”
“Bye.” I hung up before I heard anything more about what the massage therapist was going to do to her.
If someone cheats once, they’ll probably cheat again.
I knew Saundra had stolen a design from Minnie—one design, for the Cosmos bead. But what about all the other designs? Did the bead diva cheat to get those as well? And who would know about the other people involved in this scheme?
Miles would know. He would know who Saundra was stealing designs from. But Miles was going to be hard to question, now that he’d been cuffed and taken away. At least Tiffany had gotten to cuff someone this weekend, and I was glad it wasn’t me.
If Miles couldn’t help me, then who could?
THIRTY-NINE
SAUNDRA’S BROTHER SAID many people had come and gone from Saundra’s house over the years. If I knew who had been to her house, it might be easier to figure out who she had stolen designs from. On the dirt path leading up to Saundra’s house, I’d seen footprints and small tire tracks. I’d seen tracks like that before. Ryan had dodged them as he looked for Gumdrop in my thrashed room.
I called Ryan. “Can you get me into my old room?”
“I could, but I don’t think the people who are staying in it would be very happy about that,” Ryan said.
“Dammit! I wanted to see the vacuum cleaner tread marks across the carpet.”
“Are you still trying to figure out what happened to Saundra?” Ryan asked. “Because that is over, Jax. Time to let it go.”
“Something isn’t right. Those tracks—remember how you avoided stepping on the vacuum cleaner tracks in my room? My room had been cleaned earlier in the day, and someone trashed our room that night. The maid wouldn’t have entered a room that had been turned upside down, and she wouldn’t have come in at night after having cleaned it in the morning.”
“I know how we can find out when the maid was in your room.” I heard Ryan on his radio talking with the front desk, and then back to me he said, “The maid’s on the sixth floor. Let’s go up and talk with her. Meet you there in a couple of minutes.”
I pushed my tote of beads under the table and left the ballroom to meet Ryan. He was waiting for me when the elevator doors opened. The maid was at the end of the hall, near my old room.
“You!” said the maid when she saw me, scowling with her dark eyebrows pulled in tight.
“She’s okay, Consuela. She’s trying to help me,” Ryan said. Consuela alternated between smiling at Ryan and glaring at me.
“When was the last time you cleaned this room?” Ryan asked the maid. Consuela checked her clipboard.
“Saturday morning and this morning before the new customers, Mr. Ryan,” Consuela said.
“Not Saturday night?” I asked.
“No!” said the maid, clearly still angry with me.
“Consuela, thank you so much, and I’m sorry about the other day when you found me trying to get into that room on the fifth floor.” I pressed twenty dollars into her hand. “Here’s a tip for doing such a good job cleaning my room.” Consuela continued to glare at me, even with a twenty-dollar bill in her hand.
“Thanks, Consuela,” Ryan said.
“Thank you, Mr. Ryan,” Consuela said.
“I’ve got to go,” I said as I dashed for the stairwell.
There was another way to make tracks like we’d seen in my room.
FORTY
THOSE HADN’T BEEN vacuum tracks; they were from a scooter. Why would Wendy tear my room apart? I had no idea what she might have wanted, or even if she had found it. Even if Wendy had been in my room, that didn’t mean she had killed Saundra. But why was she in my room, if not to cover her tracks? In the end, she hadn’t done a good job in covering her figurative tracks or her literal ones.
When I got to Wendy’s booth, it was empty. Everything had been packed up and taken away. Now that she was gone, there was no way of getting my questions answered. Tiffany already had her suspects in custody, and I doubted she would see pursuing Wendy’s breaking and entering as anything more than a waste of time.
The only thing left to do was to pack my gear into The Ladybug and get out of there, and the sooner, the better. As I headed through the ballroom, the last few vendors were shutting down their booths. I didn’t have much more to do and was glad Sal had told me where my impounded items could be found. I passed through the door at the back of the ballroom and took the corridor to the utility room. The room was long and narrow, not much wider than the hallway. Running the length of one side were stacks of boxes and cleaning supplies, while the other side was a rat’s nest of power supplies and cables. While I was poking around looking for my box, there was a soft electrical purr behind me. I turned around to see what it was.
“Oh, Wendy, hi. I didn’t hear you come in. I’m so glad I found you before you left.”
“Yes, I’m pretty quiet, other than the sound of my scooter. And it’s pretty quiet back here, too—I bet no one can hear us out in the ballroom.” She was making the hairs stand up on my arms.
Wendy got off the scooter and lumbered toward me. The red and yellow bullseye dots on her black shirt looked like dozens of bloodshot eyes staring at me. I needed to distract Wendy and slip by her so I could get help. Jewelry is always a good distraction.
“Oh, Wendy, how pretty. You’ve got a bracelet with a Cosmo
s bead in it,” I said, admiring the beaded cuff on her wrist. “Saundra had one just like it. I noticed it when I first met her, before…you know, before…”
“Before she died?”
“Yes, before her tragic accident.” I wasn’t going to let her know that it was murder, though I suspected that she already knew that. “The clasp had come undone, and I caught her bracelet before it fell. Is your clasp the same? Does it stay together well?”
She held out her hand to show me the bracelet, and I caught a glimpse of a red streak across the inside of her wrist. Wendy pulled her arm away from me.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Ryan had a similar mark on his wrist. Caused by a furious cat. A cat who was in my room when someone ripped it apart looking for something.
Now I was certain that Wendy had trashed my room. I didn’t know why, and I really didn’t want to find out. I’d had enough of being an amateur sleuth—I’d let Tiffany, or some other homicide detective, figure it out. Right now I needed to get out of here. There wasn’t much space in the narrow room to slip by Wendy, and her scooter was blocking the doorway behind her. It would be impossible to get past those two obstacles. I hoped I could simply talk my way out of this, and find Tiffany or Ryan.
“Jax, you and your friend Tessa. You two, you’ve known each other a long time?” Wendy asked.
“Most of our lives,” I replied.
“Don’t you at times just want to cut her out of your life? To reveal to the world what an awful person she is?”
“No, I don’t, because she isn’t an awful person. I trust her with my life.”
“Hard to believe,” Wendy said, plodding slowly away from her scooter, pressing me back farther into the room. “Tell me then, have you ever been in a relationship that you wanted to get out of?”
I thought about how long I stayed with Jerry, long after the spark was gone. He wasn’t a terrible person, he just wasn’t my kind of person. At some point, we were just not meant to be together. But I didn’t hate him for it.
A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) Page 19
