Death Waxed Over (Book 3 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (10 page)

“
Knoxville, right?” I said
with a smile.

“
I grew up ten miles outside
the city limits. You’re good.”

“
I do party tricks too,” I
said. “Is Mr. Runion around?”

She looked at his schedule, then frowned.
“Is he expecting you? I’m afraid I don’t have any openings till
next week.”

“
I think he’ll want to talk
to me.” That was a stretch, but I needed to get past her
somehow.

She picked up the telephone and asked, “Whom
may I say is calling?”

“
Tell him it’s Harrison
Black from River’s Edge.”

She whispered something into the phone, then
said to me, “He’ll be right with you.”

Before she could hang up, Runion came out,
cool gray eyes peering out below large black eyebrows. Runion had
played football for Micah’s Ridge, had won them their only county
title before fading fast at Carolina. He’d come back to town a
hero, then gone into the insurance business before heading into
real estate. I hadn’t grown up in Micah’s Ridge, so I hadn’t known
his history until he’d carefully worked it all into our first
conversation. Every third thing out of the man’s mouth was a lie,
so I wondered how much of what he said I could believe.

“
Harrison, it’s nice of you
to drop by. I’ve only got a few minutes—something urgent has come
up—but I’ll give you what time I’ve got.” He turned to his
secretary and said, “Jeanie, get Hardin on the line in four, then
buzz me.”

I walked back into his office and saw
Runion’s dream projects decorating his walls. They were all
artists’ renditions, since none of them had actually come to
fruition.

“
So,” he said, “are we ready
to work out some kind of deal on River’s Edge? I wish I could offer
you the same thing we discussed before, but I’ll have to drop my
offer by twenty percent. Times change.”

I smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “If
anything, the property’s more valuable now than it was before.”

Runion frowned. “Playing hardball, huh? I
might be able to come within five percent of my last offer, but no
more.”

I ignored his counteroffer, especially since
I had no intention of selling River’s Edge. “I heard you were
interested in Gretel Barnett’s place.”

“
Now who told you
that?”

“
You’re not the only one
with contacts around Micah’s Ridge. Somebody told me you were
pushing her pretty hard.”

Runion held up his hands. “Your source has
been lying to you. As a matter of fact, a man called me offering
the property last week. Nothing came of it, though. It turns out
the place wasn’t his to sell.”

“
Who’d you talk
to?”

“
I didn’t get his name, but
when I called Ms. Barnett to follow up, she told me she had no
intention of leaving the area. Some crank was having his jollies at
my expense, most likely. Now what about River’s Edge?”

I was suddenly tired of the conversation.
“You want to know the truth? I just don’t feel good about selling
the place.”

Runion said, “Come on, everything’s for
sale, if the price is right.” He pointed toward the front office.
“Did you see Jeanie out there? She kept saying no to me, too, until
I finally wore her down.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, it’s not going to
happen.”

I walked out of his office and looked at the
secretary. Evidently I wasn’t too successful in hiding my
disappointment in what Runion had just told me about her.

She started to say good-bye, then her smile
faded as she said, “He’s been bragging about me again, hasn’t
he?”

I bit my lip, then said, “I was hoping you
were a better judge of character than that. Not that it’s any of my
business.”

Without another word to me, she stood up and
stormed into his office. “Gregory Runion, if you tell one more lie
about me, I’m going to tie a knot in your tail you’ll never get
out. I don’t know what fantasy world you’re living in, but I won’t
stand for it, do you hear me?”

I left them there arguing, wondering why
Runion had come up with such a flimsy response to my question about
Gretel’s place. His account of what had happened stretched the
boundaries of believability, and I wondered why that surprised me.
The man reminded me of the old joke that said the only way you
could tell when a lawyer was lying was to see if his lips were
moving. I’d trust Gary Cragg first, and the attorney at River’s
Edge didn’t have much credibility with me. If Runion was telling
the truth, he hadn’t approached Gretel first at all. The idea of a
crank call just didn’t resonate with me. But if Runion was after
her shop, was it possible her store was part of a bigger purchase?
I didn’t know, but at least I knew one way I might be able to find
out. I had a source inside City Hall who just might be able to help
me separate fact from fiction.

I found Frannie Wilson locking up her office
door at the Register of Deeds when I got to city hall.

“
Harrison Black, I can’t
believe my eyes. You, of all people, out playing hooky.”

Frannie was a big fan of candlemaking, and
had been one of Belle’s first customers at the shop. She looked
like somebody’s grandmother, but had a sassy, playful streak that
always caught me off guard.

“
I haven’t seen you lately,
so I wanted to make sure all was well with the world.”

Frannie said loud enough so everyone in the
building could hear, “I know you didn’t kill that woman, Harrison.”
In a lower voice, she added, “There, do you think that helped?”

“
At this point it couldn’t
hurt.”

“
Things are as bad as all
that, are they?” she asked, scowling. “I don’t understand folks
around here turning on you, Harrison. I know in my heart you never
would have shot that woman.”

“
Thanks.” I was grateful for
her support, and wished she’d stopped there.

Not Frannie. “Now I can see you running her
down with your truck, or even whacking her over the head with one
of those monster candles you like so much, but shooting her? No
sir, I don’t buy it, not for a second.”

“
It’s good to know you
believe in me.”

“
So what brings you here? I
don’t wager for one minute that you missed my ugly mug.”

“
Frannie, you know you’re
one of my best-looking customers.”

She cackled at that, then added, “Then
you’ve got to do something to pretty up your clientele. Enough of
this idle chitchat. Why are you here?”

“
I need to know if Greg
Runion’s been up to anything in the downtown district lately; say,
right around Gretel Barnett’s shop.”

She pretended to look shocked. “Harrison,
you should know better than to ask me something like that.” As she
spoke, she nodded her head vigorously. “I could get in serious
trouble giving out that kind of information.” Then she winked, and
added with a whisper, “It didn’t turn out to be much, though, since
he couldn’t buy the whole block. There was one holdout, so the deal
fell through for everyone. Guess who it was?”

“
I don’t have to guess. It
was Gretel, wasn’t it?”

Frannie nodded. “I don’t have to tell you it
didn’t make her popular with the other folks wanting to sell to
Runion. There are three people who own the rest of that block, and
I’d be willing to believe that any one of them had a better reason
to plug her than you did.”

“
You wouldn’t mind telling
me which three folks she crossed, would you?”

Frannie looked up and down the hallway, saw
that it was empty, then said softly, “There’s Martin Graybill, he
owns The Ranch Restaurant. Then there’s a man from Minnesota who’s
never set foot in North Carolina, as far as I can tell.”

“
Who’s the third party?” I
asked.

Frannie shook her head, then finally said,
“If you tell a soul I told you, I’ll deny it till I die, but you
actually know the woman. The only other owner on that block is your
star candlemaking student, Mrs. Henrietta Jorgenson herself.”

Chapter 8

“
Mrs. J? Are you
sure?”

Frannie said, “Harrison, most of Micah’s
Ridge has no idea how much property that woman owns. She’s the
closest thing to a Rockefeller we have around here.”

“
If she’s already wealthy,
she wouldn’t be too upset missing out on this deal, would she?” I
couldn’t believe Mrs. Jorgenson would hurt anyone because of money,
when she already had so much of it already.

Frannie shook her head. “You don’t know many
rich folks, do you? There are two kinds I run across in my job, and
they’re as different as dogs and cats. There’s one sort who are the
best kind of folk around, and no one would ever know how much
they’ve got by the way they act. Then there’s the other kind, the
ones that want every cent they can get their hands on, like it’s
some kind of race to the end. Do I need to tell you which type your
Mrs. Jorgensen is? She’s never given up a penny without making it
squeal, except for her hobbies. In everything else, she’s as shrewd
and tight-fisted a woman as you’d ever want to run across.”

“
Thanks, Frannie, I
appreciate the information. The next time you come in, your bill’s
on the house.”

She said, “As much as I appreciate the
offer, I’m not about to accept it, and you know it. I’ll pay my own
way, Harrison Black. I always have, and I always will.”

As I headed back to At Wick’s End, my mind
was buzzing with ideas. I’d added two suspects in my hunt, one that
didn’t surprise me and one that had knocked me off balance. I had
no trouble visualizing Runion as a killer, but I just couldn’t see
Mrs. Jorgenson doing it, despite what Frannie had told me. I
wondered if Gretel’s brother would be interested in completing the
deal his sister had refused. I’d surely like to talk to the
beneficiary—the only person with a real concrete reason to want
Gretel dead—but if the police couldn’t find him, I didn’t have a
prayer. It was time to head back to River’s Edge.

I worked the last hour with Eve, and though
I could tell she was dying of curiosity to hear about what I’d been
up to, I kept my thoughts to myself. I just couldn’t bring myself
to tell her about Mrs. Jorgenson’s possible involvement in Gretel’s
death. I wasn’t even willing to acknowledge it myself, let alone
say the words aloud.

After we locked the door and ran our reports
from the meager totals, she said, “Well, if there’s nothing else,
I’ll be going.”

“
See you in the morning,” I
said.

She huffed once, then let herself out, not
bothering to lock the door behind her. I waited a minute, then
walked over and slid the deadbolt into place. I still had to make
out the deposit, then head to the bank. I’d learned early on that
the shop’s business had to come first. If there was time and energy
left over, I could spend it however I wished. I had to admit, At
Wick’s End—and River’s Edge in general—was a great amount of work
to handle. I found myself admiring my Great-Aunt Belle more every
day as I tried to follow in her footsteps.

After I dropped off the deposit at the bank,
I decided to head straight back to the complex instead of grabbing
a bite out. There was peanut butter and jelly in my larder, and
while it wasn’t a meal fit for a king, it would do for me. I
slapped a sandwich together, made a tall glass of chocolate milk,
then headed up to the roof. It was a little brisk for a picnic, but
I needed some open space around me, and there was no place in the
world more open than my secret getaway.

Though it was still early, darkness had
crept in like a thief and stolen the last bits of sunlight while
I’d been making my meal. The roof was shrouded in shadows, but I
knew the turf well enough to head unerringly to the cache holding
my chair and blanket. As I settled in to eat, I marveled once again
at the stars above me, punctuating the night with their brilliance.
There was a halo around the moon, and a crisp bite to the air that
made me feel alive. The wind kicked up off the river, and I
shivered against its intrusion. It was a small price to pay for the
sights and sounds I was experiencing. As I ate my sandwich, I took
in my surroundings, happy that Belle had entrusted it all to me,
but sad about the way I’d acquired it all.

The cold finally drove me back inside before
I was ready to give up the sky. I promised myself that when summer
came, I’d bring a hammock and stand up on the roof if I had to
hoist it with a crane so I could spend a night high above Micah’s
Ridge.

As I rinsed my dishes back in my apartment,
there was a pounding on my door, and from the sound of it, whoever
wanted me wasn’t there to share good news.

I opened the door and found Markum standing
in the hallway.

“
You’re back early,” I said,
stepping aside as the big man came into my apartment. “Did
something go wrong?”

Markum had always been sketchy about what he
did, and whenever I pressed him, he’d always say, “You’ll have to
come with me sometime before you’ll get a word out of me,” and he’d
leave it at that. I kept promising myself that someday I’d join him
on one of his adventures. Markum had offered the possibility of
great reward, and an equal amount of risk.

He laughed heartily, and I knew that
everything had turned out all right for him. “On the contrary, my
friend, things went better than I had any right to expect. You
should have been with me; the Florida Keys were beautiful. In fact,
if you hadn’t been in a spot of trouble back here, I might have
hung around a few weeks as a reward.”

“
I hate that you came back
on my account,” I said.