Death Waxed Over (Book 3 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (11 page)

He slapped my shoulder, and I felt it sting.
“Harrison, there are always pretty sights and even prettier girls
around the next corner, but not when a friend needs a hand.”

“
So what happened on your
trip?” I asked, never expecting an answer.

He looked at me a few moments, then said, “I
had to deal with some pirates.”

“
Come on, if you don’t want
to tell me, that’s fine, but give me some credit.”

Markum shook his head. “There are more
pirates than the ones with eye patches and parrots, my friend.”

“
You mean like software
pirating, that kind of thing?”

“
No, I’m talking about
pirates on the water. A friend of a friend I know from another life
called me with a horrific story. Seems a pretty bad man and his
friends found out a young woman named Sammie Jo was alone on her
yacht, so they decided to move in and make themselves comfortable,
even if Sammie Jo had different ideas altogether.”

“
Why didn’t she call the
police?” I asked.

Markum shrugged. “There were threats made,
very real ones at that. These fellows had some rather alarming
manners. Sammie Jo managed to make one telephone call before they
found her cell phone. She called Lisa and Lisa called me.”

“
So what did you do?” I
asked. I couldn’t believe Markum was telling his story so calmly.
My heart was racing just listening.

“
Well, I had a nice long
chat with the gentlemen in question, and they decided to vacate the
premises and not come back.”

“
So you convinced them
quicker than you thought you would?”

Markum shook his head. “I knew it wouldn’t
take long to set them straight, but finding them was my main
problem. Turns out they were holed up on Big Pine Key, and they
weren’t trying to hide their presence there.”

“
How did you convince them?”
I asked.

Markum laughed. “You’re a curious fellow,
aren’t you? Let’s just say that pirates aren’t the only ones who
can make somebody walk the plank. By the time they all made it to
shore, I knew they wouldn’t be bothering the lady in question
again.”

I tried to get more out of him, but he
seemed to regret sharing what he had. I finally said, “Was Sammie
Jo satisfied with the outcome?”

“
She was satisfied enough to
bank my next excursion to Alaska and become a silent
partner.”

“
You haven’t given up on
that, have you?” Markum had been thwarted attempting something in
Alaska, and it was one of the few times he’d come back with his
tail between his legs. I wondered about the kind of people who
could do that to a man with so much positive energy and sheer force
of will.

“
I’m breathing, aren’t I?
You’re still welcome to sign on and come with me.”

“
I’ll take a rain check,” I
said. “I’ve got all I can handle here.”

He ran a hand through that thick black hair
of his. “Just wait. I’ll talk you into coming yet.”

“
You’ll have to do better
than you’ve been able to do so far,” I said.

Markum looked me up and down and said,
“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“
You bet I am, and I’m not
afraid to admit it.”

Markum cackled with delight. “Then I want
you on my team for sure. It’s the fools who aren’t afraid that end
up getting hurt. Now what’s going on with you?”

I brought him up to date, hesitated when it
came to the part about Mrs. Jorgenson, but I went ahead and gave
him the details of everything I’d found out. After all, what good
was it to have a sounding board if I didn’t come clean about
everything I’d uncovered?

“
You’ve been busy,” he said.
“I’m impressed.”

“
I feel like I’m spinning my
wheels,” I admitted. “I’m even more confused now than I was
before.”

“
Harrison, you’re going
about it the right way. If you’re not ready to come to any
conclusions yet, it just means that you haven’t gathered enough
information. Now let’s sit down and think this through. Where do we
attack next?”

“
I don’t know,” I admitted.
“I’ve been trying to track down Gretel’s brother, but I can’t
figure out how to do that if the police can’t even find
him.”

“
How do you know they’re
even looking? Come over to my office, I’ve got an idea or two about
that.”

I locked up my apartment
and walked down the hallway to Markum’s office with him. I traced a
finger across the gold leaf letters
salvage and recovery
on his door as
I passed through it.

He’d changed some of the travel posters on
the walls since I’d been inside, and I was staring at one of Belize
as he slipped behind his desk. Markum pulled a notebook computer
out and started tapping some keys.

I asked, “What are you doing, looking for
him on Google?”

“
I’ve got a better search
engine than that, my friend. At least I do for the information
we’re looking for.”

“
Do I want to know more than
that?” I asked.

Markum laughed. “Probably not. Hum,” he said
as he stared at his screen. “Now isn’t that interesting?”

“
What is?”

“
There’s no photograph of
Hans Barnett on file here, though there are several of Gretel
Barnett.”

“
So he’s camera shy,” I
said. “I know lots of folks that don’t like to have their pictures
taken.”

Markum scratched his head. “But do they hate
it enough to move to a state with no photos on their driver’s
licenses?”

“
That could just be a
coincidence,” I said.

Markum shrugged. “Maybe, but it appears our
boy has been avoiding the camera for years. Wait a second, let me
try something else.” He tapped more keys, then said, “Blast it all,
that’s a dead end, too.”

“
Do we really need a picture
of the man to track him down?” I asked.

“
It wouldn’t hurt. Besides,
I find it helps me in my search if I can match a face with every
name. It can be embarrassing to bump into your quarry and let him
slip right past you just because you weren’t thorough enough to
find out what the gent looked like. I’ve got other sources, but not
at my fingertips. Let me try something else.” After a few moments,
he smiled gently. “That’s more like it. Here’s a web page Gretel
did herself a few years ago. It hasn’t been updated for ages, but
there’s something about her brother here.” As Markum read, he
shared the information with me. “Okay, based on what she’s written
here, the gentleman in question has gray hair that was once brown,
he’s of average height and weight, he’s got cool blue eyes—whatever
that means—he’s left-handed and he used to collect rare coins. His
resume is a human resources director’s nightmare. From this one
entry, it looks like he’s worked in a bank, on a farm, and at a
hardware store; he’s worked as a carnie on the midway and he’s been
a masseur. It’s not much to go on, is it?”

“
It’s more than I was able
to track down. You got all that from her web page?” I was
impressed. While I knew a few things about computers, mostly my
skills covered just enough to be able to sell them in another life
before I’d come to At Wick’s End. I’d even resisted getting a cell
phone, mainly because I didn’t want to be that accessible to
anyone.

“
Some people treat these
pages like diaries,” Markum said. “It’s amazing what you can find
if you just know where to look.”

I thought about it for a moment, then said,
“Do you think it’s possible that Hans had something to do with his
sister’s death?”

Markum tapped a few keys, then logged off.
He said, “A good rule of thumb when somebody is murdered is to look
around for motive. Everything else usually falls into place after
you’ve determined the reason why; there’s got to be somebody out
there looking to gain something, and I don’t just mean money. Hans
Barnett is the obvious choice, but since he doesn’t appear to be
anywhere around, we need to cast our nets a little farther.”

“
I still don’t think Mrs.
Jorgenson had anything to do with what happened.”

“
And that’s based on what,
your growing friendship with the woman? Harrison, that’s one of the
things I admire about you, but just because you like someone
doesn’t meant they’re incapable of some pretty terrible
things.”

I hoped he wasn’t talking about himself, but
I was learning not to press him if I wasn’t sure I was going to
like the answer.

He leaned back in his chair, then said, “You
haven’t said much about Pearly.”

“
He couldn’t have had
anything to do with this,” I said. I may have had some doubt in my
mind, but I would defend him with my last breath.

Markum scowled. “If it’s not profit behind
the trouble, it could be love.”

“
Do you honestly think
Pearly could have had anything to do with Gretel’s murder? Come on,
Markum, we’re talking about our friend here.”

Markum picked up a pen from the desktop and
began rolling it between his hands. “I admit it. I’ve grown to like
the man myself, but whose word do we have but his own that he’s the
one who broke it off with Gretel? Maybe it was the other way
around. You spotted him at the fair on the morning of the murder,
we can’t forget that. I’ll grant you that Pearly doesn’t appear to
be the type to do something like this, but love can make you do
strange things, my friend.”

I shook my head. “Not this. I’m not sure I’d
believe it if Pearly told me himself.”

Markum shrugged. “So I’ll keep my doubts to
myself about our handyman from now on unless I find something a
little more substantial than what we’ve got so far. Is that a
deal?”

“
I guess so,” I said. I
didn’t like the fact that Pearly was suspect in any way, but until
I could prove his innocence to Markum—and to myself—I’d have to do
my best to find the truth. Markum deserved all the facts if I was
going to ask him to help me.

He ticked off his fingers as he spoke. “So
we’ve got brother Hans, Pearly, Mrs. Jorgenson, Runion the
developer, Martin Graybill and the Minnesota Mystery Man so far.
Have I left anyone else out? Who else’s life has Gretel’s
touched?”

“
You mean besides me?” I
asked.

Markum laughed. “For the purposes of this
exercise, we’re exempting you, Harrison.”

“
I appreciate that,” I said,
“Her cousin Jubal has been working with her at the candleshop, but
from what he told me, he doesn’t inherit a thing. He’s just
sticking around until Hans shows up.”

“
You know, maybe we should
have a talk with Gretel’s lawyer. I wonder if we’re jumping to the
wrong conclusion here.”

“
What do you
mean?”

Markum said, “We all are under the
impression that Gretel left everything to her brother, but do we
know that for a fact? Who’s this attorney happen to be? I just hope
it’s not Cragg, though it would make things easier.”

“
Come on,” I said, “Just
because I have a key to his place doesn’t mean I’m going to snoop
around in his office.”

“
Now who said anything about
you doing something like that? I was just thinking out
loud.”

“
Jubal told me the attorney
Gretel hired was ancient, but that’s all I remember. If he told me
the man’s name, it’s slipped my mind.”

Markum said, “Then you’ll have to speak with
Jubal tomorrow and get that memory refreshed.”

“
I’m not going to help you
break in to somebody’s office, Markum.”

“
Harrison, I’m shocked,
absolutely shocked, by your implication.”

I started to say something, but the mock
severity of his gaze made me laugh instead. “Sorry, I didn’t mean
to impugn your honor,” I said.

“
I’ll forgive you this
time,” he said, the gleam in his eye brightening. “So it’s settled.
Tomorrow you speak with Jubal and get me that name, then I’ll take
it from there.” Markum’s phone rang before I could protest further,
and after a moment’s consultation with his caller, he put a hand
over the receiver and said, “It’s Sammie Jo from the
Keys.”

“
The pirates aren’t back,
are they?”

Markum smiled softly. “Not with the lesson I
gave them. No, it sounds like she misses me.”

“
You’d better watch out,
Markum, she may be getting too attached to you.”

“
You worry about your
problems and I’ll worry about mine,” he said with a smile. “We’ll
talk again tomorrow.”

I left Markum to his telephone call, a small
part of me jealous that there was someone in the world who missed
him. I wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment. In fact, I barely dated,
and I missed that last phone call before bed, someone to wrap up
the day with. I wished Sammie Jo luck in settling Markum down as I
got ready for bed, but knew she’d have an epic task before her.

Markum was not the settling kind.

In all honesty, I was beginning to wonder if
I was the type myself. No, I was just going through a dry spell
when it came to my love life. I missed having a steady relationship
with a woman, and hoped to have one again sometime in the future.
For the moment, though, I had a very demanding mistress in River’s
Edge, and I doubted she’d take kindly to any distractions from my
attention to her.

Chapter 9

I was startled the next morning when Mrs.
Jorgenson— my erstwhile star student and newest suspect—walked into
the candleshop.