A Flicker of Doubt (Book 4 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (11 page)

That’s just it She hasn’t given me the
slightest cause to throw her out. Sanora belongs here, too.”

“
I should have known you’d
say that” Heather said huffily.

Esme looked at her owner, then at me. She
sneezed (Mice, then jumped off the counter and landed with fluid
grace. Her tail held proudly in the air, she showed us both what
she thought of us at the moment

Heather said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m
two dollars and thirty seven cents over, and I’m not leaving until
my books balance.”

I tucked the lease back in my pocket and
left her with her accounting problem. Hopefully I’d have better
luck with Sanora. I surely couldn’t have any less.

She was throwing at her pottery wheel when I
walked into The Pot Shot

Instead of Heather’s scowl, Sanora greeted
me with a broad smile. “Harrison, it’s good to see you out and
about. How are you holding up?”

“
I’m doing better,” I said.
“But that’s not why I’m here.”

Her smile dimmed. “Then I don’t want to talk
about it” The tension in her voice was obvious as the vase she was
turning suddenly collapsed under the pressure of her hands.

“
Sorry, I hope I didn’t
cause that,” I said.

She scraped the clay off the wheel. “It
happens.”

After Sanora washed her hands, she dried
them with a towel. I offered her the lease, but she wouldn’t touch
it.

“
Is there any chance you’ll
sign this without a fuss?”

“
Now what do you think,” she
said as she brushed past me.

“
I think you’re both making
this harder than it has to be.”

Sanora said, “I can’t help you there. If
Heather signs, let me know so I can start looking for another
place.”

“
Blast it, woman, she won’t
even tell me what’s wrong. I suppose you’re mute on the subject as
well.”

“
Harrison, I’ll tell you
anything you want to know. The problem’s with her, not
me.”

I said, “Go ahead then, enlighten me.”

At that moment, a young woman came into the
shop. “Excuse me. I’m looking for a dozen wedding gifts for my
bridal party. Can you help me?”

Sanora said, “Absolutely, ma’am.” She turned
to me and added, “We’ll finish this later.”

The bride-to-be said, “I’m not interrupting
anything, am I? I can always come back. There are so many neat
places in this complex. I can’t believe I never heard of it
before.”

“
Please, don’t go on my
account,” I said quickly. “I was just leaving.”

Sanora mouthed a thank-you toward me, but
she needn’t have. No matter how badly I wanted to know the source
of the latest conflict between my tenants, the customer had to
always come first. If Sanora had the opportunity to sell a dozen
different pieces in one shot, I couldn’t interfere with that. I’d
just have to be patient and wait until she could enlighten me.
There was nothing left for me to do but to go back to the
candleshop and see if I could make a sale like Sanora’s.

No such luck. Eve and I sold enough supplies
over the course of the rest of the day to pay our wages, but just
barely. As to the lighting bill, well, we were going to have to
rely on another day’s sales to do that I kept watching the door
throughout the afternoon, expecting to see Sanora every time it
opened, but by the end of the day I’d just about given up on her.
When the door chime announced a visitor ten minutes before closing,
I just knew it had to be her.

“
Oh, it’s you,” I said as
Markum walked into At Wick’s End.

“
Well, I have to say, I’ve
had warmer welcomes in my life.”

“
Sorry, I was hoping Sanora
would come by today.” ‘

He said, “I hope it wasn’t important I just
saw her drive off.”

I drummed my fingers on the counter. “The
thing is, it was important”

“
Does this have anything to
do with what we’ve been working on?’

“
No, it’s about something
else, but I still need to speak with her. Don’t worry about it. It
can probably wait until tomorrow. So what’s up with
you?”

He looked sideways at Eve, then said, “I was
hoping you were free. We need to talk.”

I suddenly remembered Markum’s unsigned
lease upstairs still sitting on my end table. “Yeah, I need to talk
to you, too. Can you give me half an hour? I’ve got to finish up
here.”

“
That’s fine,” Markum said.
“I’ll be at Millie’s. Come by when you’re finished.”

“
I will,” I promised, and
the big man left

After he was gone, Eve said, “You two are as
thick as thieves these days, aren’t you?”

“
We’re friends, if that’s
what you mean.” Ordinarily I went out of my way to avoid angering
Eve about anything, but I didn’t care for her tone whenever she
spoke about Markum.

“
I’m not at all certain
Belle would be pleased with your friendship. I daresay she wouldn’t
have approved at all.”

“
My great-aunt rented him
office space,” I said. “That’s all the blessing I need.”

“
It’s your business,” she
said curtly.

“
Yes, it is,” I replied,
with just as much frost in my voice as she’d had in
hers.

Eve took my tone in, then looked at the
clock. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll be leaving early
today.”

I knew I’d done it, but there was no backing
down now. After all, At Wick’s End belonged to me; me and the bank,
at any rate. I knew from past experience how

Eve behaved when I offended her, but at that
moment, I didn’t care how she felt.

Eve looked absolutely startled by my reply,
but she couldn’t back down either. She grabbed her jacket, then
left without saying good-bye. It was doubtful whether she’d bother
coming in the next day, but I was tired of constantly tiptoeing
around her. I’d learned enough during my time working at the
candleshop to run the place solo, though I wasn’t at all eager to
do it by myself. The point was, I could if I had to, something I
wouldn’t have been able to say in the past. I was finally starting
to consider myself a candlemaker, by vocation as well as
avocation.

At least it was peaceful as I ran my reports
off the register and balanced the till. I decided to let the
deposit wait until the next morning before work. I had too much on
my mind to bother with it at the moment I turned off the lights,
locked the door to the candleshop, then walked over to Millie’s to
see what Markum had uncovered since we’d last spoke. I glanced into
Heather’s shop as I walked past it but the closed sign was up and
all the lights were out

I was at the door of The Crocked Pot when
Pearly Gray stopped me before I could walk inside. “Harrison, may I
trouble you for a moment?”

I looked through the glass and saw Markum
watching us. I held up one finger, and he nodded.

I turned back to Pearly and said, “Go ahead,
what’s on your mind?”

“
Actually, it’s about Sanora
and Heather. Have you heard about the spat they’re
having?”

“
Yes, it’s just come to my
attention. I haven’t been able to figure out what they’re fighting
about let alone work on some kind of resolution. It’s a real mess.
Do you happen to know what this is all about?”

“
No, I’ve been reluctant up
to this point to interfere, but it’s important we stop this before
it has the opportunity to escalate. As you know, I’ve had some
modicum of success in the past helping people resolve their issues
with one another. I think I can help them in a private
session.”

I knew Pearly had worked as a very
successful psychologist before becoming the River’s Edge handyman
in his “retirement,” but his suggestion still managed to startle
me. “Are you saying you want them to go into couple’s therapy?”

“
I’m thinking more along the
lines of a conflict- resolution approach,” he said.

I patted his shoulder. “Pearly, you can call
it whatever you’d like if you can get them both to stay at River’s
Edge.”

“
Excellent,” Pearly said,
the gleam in his eyes growing sharper, “thank you,
Harrison.”

“
Don’t thank me,” I said, “I
don’t want any of the credit for this, or any blame, for that
matter. Just let me know how you do.”

“
Absolutely,” he said,
already lost in planning his approach to the volatile situation. I
could tell that Pearly was eager to speak with the women in a
professional capacity, though he’d been retired for some time. If
he could patch things up between Heather and Sanora, he would be a
miracle worker. And the best thing about it was that I wasn’t
directly involved with the problem, at least for the time
being.

I walked into The Crocked Pot and asked
Millie, “How about a cup of coffee? Tell you what, why don’t you
surprise me with the blend?” Millie loved it when

I was feeling adventurous. I added, “No more
of those strong caffeine surprises, though. It took me three days
to get to sleep the last time you mixed me one of your
specialties.”

“
It will be something
gentle, I promise.”

“
Are there any more of those
orange-slice muffins in back?”

“
Sorry, they’re all gone.
But I’m making a fresh batch in the morning.”

I considered my waistline, then denied the
direct evidence to the contrary that I needed to cut back. “Save
three or four for me,” I said.

“
You can have two,” she
said, but I saw the dimples blossom on her cheeks.

I joined Markum and took a sip of coffee.
Millie had kept her word; it was a gentle, nutty blend that I
really liked. I said to him, “Sorry about that Pearly cornered me
before I could get inside.”

“
No problem, Harrison. Was
it River’s Edge business?”

I nodded, but didn’t elaborate. The last
thing I wanted to do was air our dirty laundry with customers
around.

He accepted it at face value. “Any chance
you could get that coffee to go? We’ve got a lot to talk about it
and I’m not sure this is the right place for it”

“
Sure thing,” I said,
standing up and sipping the coffee. Millie let me take her mugs
with me, as long as I brought them back by the next morning so they
could be washed and put into circulation again. “You want to go to
my apartment or your office?”

“
Let’s go to my office,” he
said. “There’s something there I want to show you.”

We walked upstairs together, but I stopped
at my apartment door before we got to his office. “I’ll just be a
second.”

I went in, moved the deposit pouch from
under my arm to under the couch, then retrieved Markum’s lease. The
deposit would have been better off in the bank, or even in
somebody’s safe, but my hiding place under the couch would be fine
until I could take it in the morning. I’d made a mistake with a
deposit when I’d first taken over At Wick’s End by leaving it in my
truck, but that had never happened again. I’d learned that
particular lesson all too well.

I tucked the lease in my back pocket and
walked down the hall to Markum’s office. The travel posters on the
walls had changed since I’d been there last. For a man who spent so
much of his time in exotic locales, he never seemed to grow tired
of the vistas of faraway lands.

I took the lease out and slid it across the
desk toward him.

“
What’s this?” he
asked.

“
Didn’t you get Cragg’s
letter? Everyone else in the building got one.”

“
Oh, you mean the one about
the lease?” He edged the document back across the desk toward me
with the butt of his pen. “Are you sure you want to renew my option
here? I know how some of the folks at River’s Edge feel about my
presence.”

“
Just sign it, Markum. I’m
having enough trouble with Heather and Sanora. I don’t need any
from you.”

He smiled as he uncapped his pen, then
signed his name with a flourish. I took the lease back, folded it
and stuck it back in my pocket. “Now that we’ve got that out of the
way, what did you find out?”

Chapter 9

“
There’s really no easy way to tell you this,” Markum said. “I
found out who Becka was seeing.”

“
It was Hank Klein, the
newspaper guy,” I said flatly.

Markum sat up in his chair. “Now how in
creation did you come up with that? It took me most of the day to
figure it out, and I had to call in half a dozen favors to do
it.”

I felt guilty about not sharing what I’d
discovered, but there was nothing I could do about it now. “It was
sheer dumb luck,” I admitted. “I heard him talking this morning
when I dropped in to get a newspaper. It clicked that his voice was
the one on Becka’s answering machine.”

Markum nodded. “I fed better about it, then.
We’ve got two sources that are giving us the same answer.”

“
We’re not reporters working
on a story. I don’t care if we have verification or not”

Markum said, “Harrison, I’ve been meaning to
talk to you about that. I know you’re taking this personally,
there’s no way you couldn’t, but don’t let that interfere with what
we’re doing. Have you thought about how we’re going to handle the
situation once we find out who killed Becka?’

‘
That’s easy. We tell
Sheriff Morton.”

“
Do you honestly think he’s
going to believe us? We might not exactly have proof that would
stand up in court, do you understand what I’m trying to tell
you?”