Death Waxed Over (Book 3 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (8 page)

The follow-up paper wasn’t much better, but
at least there were no photographs of me in it. Instead, there was
a small headline below the fold that said the police were close to
an arrest. I was startled to see that it also mentioned several
anonymous tips the police had received, and that they’d even noted
Sheriff Morton’s visit to River’s Edge the night before! It was
obvious someone had been watching the candleshop last night.

Eve came in and found me reading the paper.
“Honestly, Harrison, don’t you have anything better to do with your
time than read that rag?”

“
I didn’t buy it. Someone
left it on our doorstep. Did you see this?” I asked, waving the
paper around in the air.

“
I don’t read rubbish,” she
said, “And you shouldn’t, either. Don’t you have a class to prepare
for?”

“
Do you honestly think she’s
coming?” Mrs. Jorgenson was strong willed and tough minded, but I
couldn’t believe she’d show up after all the bad publicity I was
getting lately.

“
Come, Harrison, she’s too
devoted to candlemaking to believe these lies. She’ll be
here.”

“
Then I’d better get ready
for her, just in case she shows up,” I said.

I started pulling the supplies we would need
for our next lesson. We’d already covered candles rolled from
beeswax sheets, and touched on dipping candles, too. Now it was
time to pour, something I’d been practicing quite a bit on my own
and was most eager to start teaching.

Eve came back as I was setting the
worktables up in the classroom for our lesson. From the look on her
face, she was bearing more bad news.

“
What is it?”

“
Mrs. Jorgenson called.
She’s not going to be able to make it.”

I slammed a block of wax down on the table.
“Why am I not surprised?”

“
Harrison, she had a meeting
she forgot all about, and you know how she loves those
things.”

As I gathered the materials back together, I
said, “So if she really wanted to be here, when did she reschedule
her next class for?”

When Eve didn’t answer, I pushed her.
“Well?”

“
She said she’d let us
know.”

“
Yeah, right.” I brushed
past Eve and said, “We gave it our best shot, didn’t
we?”

“
Harrison Black, we’re not
out of this yet.”

“
Face it, the ship is
sinking, and we’re both going down with it.”

Eve frowned, started to say something, then
changed her mind as she headed for the front.

I asked her, “Where are you going?”

“
We’re still open for
business, Harrison. I’m going to go unlock the door.”

I let her go, lost in my
own self-pity. My worst fear had come true: Mrs. Jorgenson had
abandoned us, cutting the last vestiges of profitability we had.
I’d have to speak with Mary Ann, my bookkeeper, and see how much of
a cushion we had before it was time to print up the
going out of business
signs.

When I walked up front to find her number,
Eve was actually waiting on a customer. The woman looked familiar
to me, but I didn’t recognize her immediately. She had frosted hair
piled on her head in some kind of complicated structure that defied
gravity, no doubt with the aid of a full can of hairspray. As Eve
rang up her sale, I said, “It’s good to see you here again.”

“
I’ve never been in this
shop in my life,” she said, avoiding eye contact with me. “I just
found out about this place this morning.”

“
I’m sorry, but haven’t we
met before?”

“
No, I’m sure you’re
mistaken. I’m new to the area.” She grabbed her change from Eve,
nearly forgot her bag, then retrieved it and bolted out of the
shop.

“
What was that all about?” I
asked. “Another faithful reader of The Gunpowder
Gazette?”

“
No, at least she never
mentioned it. She told me she just moved down from Charleston, West
Virginia. Harrison, you really should try harder to remember our
customers. Belle was an expert at it.”

“
Come on, Eve, I can’t
remember every single person who comes in the door.” I looked
around the shop. “Until lately, that is. I’m telling you, that
woman looked familiar. If I didn’t see her in here, where did I see
her?”

“
I do hope that’s a
rhetorical question,” Eve said. “I certainly can’t help you with
it.”

“
It’ll come to me. Just give
me some time to think about it.”

She frowned, then said, “In the meantime,
you really should speak with Mary Ann about our situation. It might
be prudent to find out where we stand financially. Not that I’m
trying to tell you how to run the business.”

“
I was just thinking the
same thing myself. I’ve been meaning to give her a
call.”

I couldn’t bring myself to dial Mary Ann’s
number. I was serious about seeing what kind of slump we could
handle before things got really desperate, but the phone call would
have to wait. Pearly Gray walked into At Wick’s End, and from the
look on his face, he’d just lost his last friend in the world.

Pearly said, “Harrison, do you have a
moment?”

“
I do for you. Come on back
to the office.”

He said, “I hate to ask, but could we speak
outside?”

“
No problem.” I would have
gone to the zoo with him if it would make him feel better. “Eve,
I’ll be back.”

“
That’s fine,” she said,
carefully avoiding Pearly’s glance. The two of them had gone out a
few times, until Eve had discovered that Pearly was escorting
several different women around town. Since then, they had been
going through a rather chilly exchange of insincere
pleasantries.

I walked outside the candleshop with Pearly
and asked, “So where would you like to talk? We can take Belle’s
truck somewhere.”

“
That won’t be necessary,”
he said. “The steps here will be fine.”

I followed him down the concrete steps in
front of River’s Edge that led to the Gunpowder River, and we sat
three levels from the water’s edge. It was nearly as good as the
tailgate of a truck for talking. Most Southern men didn’t like a
lot of eye contact when they talked to each other, and any pretense
to avoid it was acceptable.

As he stared out over the water, Pearly
said, “Harrison,

I owe you so many apologies I don’t even
know where to begin.”

“
My friend, you don’t owe me
anything. You come here every day and do a fine job keeping River’s
Edge afloat. It’s all I have any right to expect of
you.”

“
You said it yourself,
though. We’ve become friends since your Great-Aunt died. And a
friend owes you more than an employee does. I should have told you
from the beginning that I was keeping company with Gretel. In my
defense, I didn’t know that she’d planned to open a candleshop
until she’d already bought the place. The fool woman paid cash for
the building and her franchising fee, if you can imagine
that.”

“
She wasn’t just renting? I
can’t believe she owned the space outright.” I was more than a
little jealous. If I lived to be eighty, I might own River’s Edge,
but that depended on a lot of good luck to happen along the
way.

“
She got some kind of
incredible inheritance when her parents died. Her brother
squandered his, but Gretel had a knack for making her portion grow.
They ended up hating each other because of it. It bothered me at
first, knowing how much she was worth, but Gretel never put on airs
about it. I’m doing this badly,” he added with a heavy
sigh.

“
You’re doing fine,” I said.
Though I knew Pearly’s history as a psychologist, I also realized
that professional relationships and personal ones were quite
different. While I never doubted for an instant that he had been
good at his job, I knew it was difficult for most people to
apologize.

“
Don’t be so sure. There’s
more I haven’t told you yet. I’m afraid she got the idea for her
shop from me, at least indirectly. I was bragging about what a fine
job you’ve been doing here, and she started to ask questions. I
thought she was just taking an interest in my life, but it turns
out she was mining me for information. I probably should have
walked away after that, but blast it all, it’s been difficult for
me to find a woman who challenged me like she did.”

“
Nobody has the right to
expect that kind of loyalty in their friendship. You followed your
heart, Pearly.”

“
You’re being too easy on
me, Harrison. She thought River’s Edge was coming between us, and
I’m afraid she started to resent you. She told me she was going to
wipe you out, so I broke it off with her.”

“
When did all this
happen?”

“
The night before she was
murdered,” Pearly said, his voice nearly choking. “I was at the
fair to make amends—to see if we couldn’t work out some kind of
compromise— but it took me too long to work up my nerve, and by the
time I was ready to talk to her, she was dead.”

I couldn’t imagine what he was going
through. His unresolved issues with her would probably haunt him
the rest of his life, and I didn’t envy Pearly that at all. And to
think I’d called my troubled sleep nightmares!

“
I’m sorry if I played any
part in your grief, Pearly.”

“
I’ll work it out, Harrison.
I have to find a way to live with what happened. The first step is
making things right with you.”

“
We’re fine, Pearly. If you
need someone to talk to, I’m right here.”

He nodded, then we both stood. As he offered
me his hand, Pearly said, “I appreciate the offer, but what I
really need right now is a few days away to clear my head. Would
that be all right with you? I’d like to go up into the mountains
alone and sort this out.”

I could hardly deny his request. “Take as
much time as you need.”

“
You’re a good friend,
Harrison, better than I have any right to expect.”

“
I have my moments,” I said,
smiling slightly.

Pearly left, the slump in his shoulders
eased somewhat. I couldn’t imagine what he was going through, but
I’d do my best to help him deal with it. I’d find a way to hold the
complex together until he got back.

It was too early for lunch, but I couldn’t
face going back to an empty shop, so I decided to indulge in one of
Millie’s pastry treats. She waited on a few customers ahead of me,
then said, “What can I get you today, Harrison?”

“
I was hoping you had
something special on the menu this morning.”

She smiled. “You mean something along the
lines of a bakery item?”

“
I wouldn’t say no to
something sweet,” I said.

“
I’ve got just the thing, if
you can wait five minutes. It’s cooling on the rack. It’s called
Apple Pan Dowdy and it’s wonderful, if I say so myself. I got the
recipe from George’s mother, though she put off giving it to me
until we’d been married ten years. She wanted to make sure the
marriage was going to last before she shared the family secret;
it’s that good.”

“
I can’t wait,” I
said.

“
Well, you’re going to have
to force yourself. It’s so much better when it’s cooled slightly.”
She lowered her voice, though most of her customers had taken the
tables near the windows to enjoy the river view. “How are
you?”

“
Well, I was hoping it was
just my imagination, but if things keep going the way they are, I’m
going to be out of the candleshop business by spring.”

“
Harrison, you’ve got to
have more faith in people than that. Your customers are going to
stick by you.”

I considered telling her about Mrs.
Jorgenson’s cancellation, and the feeble excuse she’d used, but
there was no reason to burden Millie with my problems. “Yeah,
you’re probably right.”

“
That’s the spirit.” Her
telephone rang, and as she answered it, I looked through the
display case to see what else Millie had been up to. Though she was
trying to keep her voice low, I could catch everything she was
saying. “I won’t do it, George, so stop asking.” After a pause, she
said, “I don’t care what they think, and frankly, I’m disappointed
you do. Good-bye, George.”

Millie hung up the telephone rather
forcefully, then stared at me a moment. “Don’t pretend you didn’t
hear that,” she said.

“
It’s none of my business,”
I said.

“
That’s where you’re wrong.
Some of the folks George works with think I should take a vacation
until this mess is cleared up, and my loving husband, who’s
normally bright enough to know better, suggested I do just
that.”

“
Millie, I’m sorry. I can’t
believe this is affecting you.”

“
We’re a family here,
Harrison. What affects one of us affects the rest. Don’t you worry,
I’m not going anywhere.”

“
Thanks, I appreciate
that.”

Millie said, “In fact, I can do you one
better than that. I made an extra Pan Dowdy for George, but he’s
shown himself particularly unworthy at the moment. I want you to
have it; if you like the recipe, that is.”

“
I shouldn’t,” I said,
thinking of the calories more than anything else.

“
Nonsense, you’ll hurt my
feelings if you turn it down. It’s either you or George eating
this. Otherwise it’s going in the garbage.”