Snuffed Out (Book 2 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (3 page)

“
You can join my health
club,” Millie said, “Though I confess, all I seem to do lately is
pay the monthly fee.”

“
Thanks, but I think I’ll
stick with walking for now.”

She said, “Then you might want to add an
extra lap or two today. This treat isn’t exactly low calorie.”

“
That’s my favorite kind,” I
said as I grabbed my last doughnut, along with the coffee, and
headed over to At Wick’s End.

Tick Dearborn was opening her antique shop
as I walked past, and I thought about moving on to the candleshop,
but it appeared I was the designated deliverer of bad news. Tick
was a middle-aged woman who’d never grown out of her big-hair
phase, and I wondered how much ozone she’d personally destroyed
with hairspray every morning in the course of her lifetime. What I
liked best about her was that she had a ready smile and always
seemed to think the best of people.

“
Tick, have you heard the
news?”

She turned to me and said, “Were you talking
to me, Harrison?”

I saw her eyes were red and she had a
handkerchief to her nose. “Never mind. Somebody already told
you.”

“
Told me what?” she said as
she dabbed at her eyes. “These allergies are killing me. I’m
dripping and stopped up and sneezing my head off. I swear I’m going
to move to Arizona.”

“
Aaron Gaston died last
night.”

She took a deep breath, then said, “How sad.
Was it a car accident? I’m always worried about traveling by
automobile.”

“
No, he died in his
shop.”

“
How tragic. Just like
Belle.”

I certainly hoped not. I said, “I guess so.
Well, I’ll let you get back to work.”

“
Harrison, let me know if
there’s a service. I think we should all be there.”

“
I’ll do that.”

Tick went back to opening her store, Aunt
Tick’s Antiques. Her real name was Patricia, but she’d told me the
story that when her younger sister had been a toddler, she couldn’t
say that, so she came up with Tick instead of Trish. Tick was in
her early fifties and had been selling antiques for the twenty
years since her husband had died, leaving her with his inheritance
from his own family, an old Victorian mansion stuffed full of
antiques.

I felt like a ghoul passing the word around
to the folks at River’s Edge, but my tenants had a right to
know.

After unlocking the door to At Wick’s End, I
found Eve Pleasants already there, though she wasn’t due in for
another hour.

“
Going for some overtime?” I
said with a smile as I locked the door back behind me.

“
I wanted to be sure you
were ready for this lesson. Harrison, I don’t mean to put any extra
pressure on you, but we can’t afford to lose Mrs. Jorgenson. Not
now.”

“
Are you worried? She seems
happy enough.”

Eve said, “Let’s just keep her that way,
shall we?”

I finished up the last bite of my doughnut
and said, “There’s something I need to tell you. I’m afraid it’s
bad news.”

“
Something besides Aaron’s
death? Is this place cursed, Harrison?”

“
How did you hear about it
already?” I asked.

Eve looked sheepish for a second, then said,
“We live in a small town.”

“
News travels fast in
Micah’s Ridge, doesn’t it? What did you know about the man? I
wasn’t around him enough to get much of an impression one way or
another.”

“
He was nice, I suppose, but
you should really ask Heather. They were quite close.”

“
So I’ve heard.” I took a
sip of coffee, then asked, “How close were they, would you
say?”

Eve started to say something, then obviously
changed her mind. “Why don’t you ask her? I’m not comfortable
discussing this with you.” Eve frowned, then added, “Aaron’s death
is going to leave you without a tenant. Have you thought about that
at all?”

“
It never occurred to me,” I
said. “I suppose I’ll put an advertisement in the paper or
something.”

Eve shook her head. “Belle never advertised,
and she managed to keep full occupancy here. She even kept a list
of tenants on a waiting list. Didn’t you find it in her
apartment?”

“
I never saw it,” I
admitted, “But I haven’t gone through all her papers, either. It
can keep.”

“
You shouldn’t tarry on
this, Harrison.”

I patted her hand gently. “You worry too
much. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I hoped. I never considered the prospect of
any of my tenants leaving, certainly not by dying on the premises.
Would anyone even want a store where the owner had died on site?
That was how I’d inherited my shop, but I wasn’t sure just anyone
would be willing to do it. What would happen with Aaron’s
equipment? Was there an executor, or was that something I was going
to have to take care of? I’d have to call Gary Cragg, an attorney
with an office on the second floor of River’s Edge. Knowing Cragg,
he’d probably charge me for the advice, but I had to ask
someone.

That was all I needed, more details to muddy
my mind when I should have been focusing on dipping candles.

I had just finished practicing my third
dipped candle of the day when Heather came in.

Eve saw her and said, “I’ll go see what she
wants, Harrison. Finish your candle.”

I studied the slim tapers in my hand. My
previous attempts had all been singles, dipped with one strand of
cotton wick dangling down into the melted wax atop a reservoir of
very hot water. This time I’d decided to try a tandem. Both ends of
the wick were dipped into the wax at the same time, leaving a
narrow strip of untouched wick for me to hang on to. A couple of
the dips had come rather close to immersing my fingertips, and I
was beginning to see Eve’s point that I should have been using a
wire holder instead of my own precious hands. Knowing Mrs.
Jorgenson, though, she wouldn’t sit still for it. The closer she
could get to the process, the better she liked it.

Heather came back with Eve close on her
heels. “I’m sorry, Harrison, I know you’re busy, but I want to get
Esmeralda.”

I glanced at my watch. “My lesson’s not for
another fifteen minutes. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Eve said, “Give her your key, Harrison, she
can get the cat herself.”

I brushed off Eve’s advice. After all, At
Wick’s End was my store, not hers. Besides, Mrs. J hadn’t been
early for a lesson yet.

“
Don’t worry, I’ll be right
back,” I said as I handed her the dual tapers in my
hand.

“
I don’t want to put you
out,” Heather said as we walked outside. I’d thought about putting
in a secret entrance I could use to get me from my store to my
apartment directly upstairs over the store without leaving the
building. I’d been thinking about a pole like the firemen used, but
that wouldn’t do me any good getting back up. As it was, we had to
go outside, then up to my place.

“
You’re not putting me out,”
I said. “I was happy to watch Esme for you. Do you mind telling me
what’s going on?”

Heather said, “Yes, I do. Harrison, I don’t
want to go into it, okay?”

“
Fine,” I said. If she
didn’t want to tell me, that was her business.

I unlocked my door, and Heather brushed past
me to search for her cat. Esme was still on my bed, asleep on my
pillow. She didn’t even wake up when Heather collected her.

“
Thanks,” she said as I
locked up behind me.

“
Any time. Esme’s a pretty
good houseguest.”

Heather merely nodded, and it was all I
could do to keep on her heels as she rushed down the stairs. She
managed to duck into The New Age before I could say another word. I
saw Mrs. Quimby inside and waved. She was a graying lady with a
quick smile and a love for cats and minerals, and she helped
Heather out now and then with both.

I thought about following Heather into her
store and not leaving until she gave me some reason for dumping
Esme on me like she had. Millie had said Heather and Aaron had
dated, but it had been over before I came to River’s Edge. Was her
reaction because of unresolved feelings toward the potter, or was
there more to it than that?

I glanced at my watch and realized any cross
examinations would have to wait. Mrs. Jorgenson was due in five
minutes, and I had just enough time to get things ready for her
first lesson in dipping candles.

“
I told you not to go,” Eve
said shrilly as I walked into the store.

“
I’ve still got five minutes
to spare,” I said as I walked in.

“
You’ve got more time than
you think,” she said with a grim shake of her head. “Mrs.
Jorgenson’s come and gone. We’ve lost her, Harrison.”

“
What do you mean, we’ve
lost her? I had five minutes.” I said the last a little harsher
than I should have.

Eve said, “She came thirty seconds after you
left, walked into the store, looked around in a huff before I could
say a word, then stormed out. I was so stunned by her reaction that
I didn’t even have a chance to apologize.”

“
She was early,” I repeated,
hoping if I said it enough times, it would make a difference. “What
makes you think she’s not coming back?”

Eve said, “I’ve seen that look before,
Harrison. You get only one chance with a woman like Mrs.
Jorgenson.”

I shrugged. “I’m sorry she’s going to be so
stiff-necked about it, but I wasn’t wrong to leave when I did.”

“
You’ve lost our best client
because of a cat that doesn’t even belong to you. Can’t you see
this is a loss we’ll not easily recover from?”

“
Okay, I’ll admit Mrs.
Jorgenson’s cash infusion was nice, but we’ll do all right without
it.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Do you honestly
believe that, or are you just trying to make yourself feel better
about blowing it?”

“
A little of both,
probably,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do about it
now.”

“
I suppose you’re right. It
had to end sooner or later,” Eve said.

“
It’s just too bad it’s
sooner,” I said, trying to scrape up a grin. It was a pretty feeble
attempt. I knew how close to the bone things were run around At
Wick’s End, not to mention River’s Edge. With the double blow of
losing a tenant and a star student in the same twenty-four-hour
period, I was losing some of the glow I’d had earlier
myself.

As fate would have it, Eve and I endured the
slowest day we’d had since I’d come to At Wick’s End. One older man
came in asking for directions and I sold one of our smallest
packages of wicks to another customer. I didn’t even cover the
day’s electricity bill by the time Eve’s shift was over.

As she was leaving, she said, “Well, that
was a day to forget.”

“
At least the deposit slip
will be easy to make out. On second thought, maybe I’ll skip a
day.”

“
If you do, Ann Marie will
have a fit. She’ll think you forgot.”

Ann Marie Hart was our bookkeeper, and she
watched over the store as if it were her own. “Okay, you’ve
convinced me. See you tomorrow.”

“
I’ll be here, whether any
of our customers show up or not.” On that cheerful note she
left.

I thought about closing the
store, since the day was turning out to be a wash. Eve didn’t work
every hour I did, but then again, she didn’t own At Wick’s End.
That also meant I could close whenever I wanted to, and I was
tempted. Still, the hours on the door said
Open till
9, so I thought I’d at
least give it another hour or two and see what might happen. I
might even make that electric bill.

After an hour, I’d had
enough. I was just scrawling out a sign that said,
open tomorrow
9
a.m.,
when someone came
in. “May I help you?” I asked as a tall stranger with the thinnest
face I’d ever seen in my life came in.

“
Markum,” he said in
high-pitched voice.

“
Upstairs. Third door on
your left.”

He looked around the room, then backed out
slowly. Markum was River’s Edge’s own salvage expert, whatever that
meant. I liked the fellow, big and robust with a ready laugh, but I
still couldn’t help wondering what exactly it was that he did. As
he’d told me once, salvage could cover a great many things.

It was a hopeless day for sales. I taped my
homemade sign to the door and slid the deadbolt in place so I could
run the register tape and call it a night. I wasn’t three steps
from the door when someone pounded on it. Markum’s visitor probably
couldn’t find the staircase.

I opened the door and found a frazzled woman
with wisps of hair falling down around her face. There was flour on
her blouse and something that looked a lot like Silly Putty
clinging tenaciously to one shoe. The look of desperation on her
face had been enough to make me open the door.

“
Thank you, thank you,” she
said as she rushed in past me.

“
Is there something in
particular I can help you with?” I asked.

“
I’m having a party for my
daughter. She’s ten years old today. I ran out of games,” she
added, nearly out of breath. “Do you have anything twenty-four
girls can do? Please, you’ve got to help me.”

“
I’ve got just the thing,” I
said as I led her back to the packets of sheet wax and wicks.
“Sheet candles are easy to roll, and it can keep them busy if you
have cookie cutters, too.”