A Flicker of Doubt (Book 4 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (15 page)

“
I’m not sure,” I said, “But
I think it had something to do with the way her boss was trying to
manipulate me.

There’s got to be more to it than that What
else have you been up to?”

“
I got Cyrus’s sister to
agree to come back to Micah’s Ridge. He has two guards patrolling
his grounds now. It’s the only way I could think to get past
tan.”

“
My, you’ve been busy,
haven’t you? Anything else I should know about?”

“
No, that’s about it Wait a
second, there is one more flung.” I pulled the excised newspaper
clipping out of my wallet and handed it to him. ‘This is the
article Becka cut out of her newspaper.”

He studied it a moment, then said, “I wonder
why she cut out this article about Hank Klein’s donation to the
Firefighter’s League.” I took the clipping back from him and was
surprised to see Klein’s name mentioned in his own newspaper. I
flipped it over and gave it back to him. “I didn’t even notice
that. How about this woman’s body found in Larkspur Lake?”

“
We should ask Morton about
it”

“
I already did,” I admitted
reluctantly.

“
So what did he
say?”

“
He told me the coroner
ruled it an accident, but that’s no proof. He thinks Becka killed
herself, too, and we know that’s not true.”

He studied the article a few moments.
“Harrison, the circumstances are too different, even though both
women died around water. What else do you have?”

I pointed to the snippet about illegal
dumping. “I’m willing to admit it could be about this. Don’t you
think it’s too big a coincidence, given the fact that we found an
envelope from Washington in her purse and a photo of a barrel in
her room?”

“
It’s a possibility, but
coincidences happen in life. “What do we really have?”

Suddenly I felt like the dumping was where
we should focus and not on the drowning. The article and the
envelope have to be tied together. That picture edge we pulled from
her dresser mirror is another piece of it, too.”

“
Do you think Becka stumbled
across something she shouldn’t have?”

I nodded. “It’s another possibility we have
to consider.”

“
I don’t know,” Markum said.
“For all we know, that letter was something entirely unrelated, and
the photograph might have been of her ex-boyfriend, the one she
wanted to get rid of.”

“
So why was the tear left
behind?”

“
Maybe she got so mad she
tore it off the mirror and left that corner by accident. We don’t
even know it’s a barrel; it could be some kind of outdoor chair for
all we can tell.”

“
My gut is telling me we’ve
already got the answer, if we could just find the right way to look
at it,” I said.

A customer came in and said, “Excuse me, I’m
looking for a present for my mother. She’s in her early seventies
and she’s looking for a new hobby.”

“
You’ve come to the right
place,” I told him, then looked at Markum and added, “If you’ll
hang around a minute, we can talk more about this.”

He glanced at his watch, then said, “I need
to make some phone calls. We’ll discuss it later.”

After Markum was gone, I asked the customer
what kinds of things his mother liked. “She’s a fabulous baker, but
she’s looking for something else to do with her time.” He patted
his stomach and said, “If I don’t find something else for her to
do, she’s going to kill me with cookies.”

“
Does that mean she has a
lot of cookie cutters?” I asked.

“
You wouldn’t believe her
collection,” he said. “She can’t stop buying them. Mother claims
the shapes are what she loves.”

“
Then I’ve got just the
thing for her.” I walked over to the aisle with tinted sheet-wax
kits and grabbed a few colors. “You should have her try these. She
can use her cookie cutters to cut out shapes in the wax. Hang on a
second.” I’d been experimenting with one-page pamphlets for the
store to try to generate some extra business. I grabbed the one I’d
written about making specialty candles with cookie cutters and
handed him one.

He looked at the brochure, then asked, “What
do they look like, though?”

“
Let’s see what I’ve got in
my classroom.” We walked to the back of the store, and after a few
minutes of searching the cabinets, I came up with a-red honeycombed
candle in the shape of a playing-card-club I’d made practicing for
a lesson with Mrs. Jorgenson.

He nodded. “This sounds perfect I’ll buy
this, too, so I can give Mother an example of what she should be
shooting for.” He looked embarrassed for a moment when he asked,
“It is for sale, isn’t it?’

“
If you see it here, it’s
for sale. The only thing we need to haggle over is the
price.”

As I rang up his purchases, he said, “Can
she come by if she’s having trouble?”

“
I give free advice, but if
she’s interested, we also teach candlemaking classes here at the
store.”

“
That sounds great,” he
said. “I’m glad I stopped in.”

I handed him his change. “Me, too. Let me
know how she likes candlemaking.”

“
Oh, I will.” He took a few
steps toward the door, then asked, “Is the owner here today? I’d
like to tell her what a good job you’re doing.”

“
I’m the owner myself,” I
said, “And I appreciate the compliment.”

“
I complain when the service
is bad, so I fed it’s my duty to praise where it’s merited. Good
day.”

Goodness help me if I didn’t reply, “Good
day to you, sir.”

After he was gone, I fielded a few telephone
calls, waited on half a dozen of our regular customers and had a
generally good time operating my candleshop.

I was running the reports from the register,
happy with the afternoon’s events, when the front door opened. I’d
forgotten to lock it, and a customer right now would throw off my
report and cause me an extra half hour of work.

When I saw the look of dogged determination
on Erin Lane’s face, I was suddenly sorry it wasn’t a customer
after all.

Chapter 12

“
That look can’t be good for
me,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“
We’re going out on the
river,” she said. I felt a wave of dread chill me. “I’m not
interested, but thanks for asking.”

“
Harrison Black, don’t you
realize the only way you get over being thrown off a horse is to
climb right back up on one?”

I pretended to look around. “If you’ve got a
horse, I’m willing to ride it, but I’m not going kayaking
again.”

“
You’re being unreasonable,
Harrison.”

“
I think it makes perfect
sense,” I said. I’m not getting back in that kayak, and that’s
final.”

“
If you won’t kayak, how
about taking a canoe out with me? It’s not the same as paddling
alone.”

I’m not sure I’m even willing to do that,” I
said, remembering the sound of the dull thud on the hull as it hit
Becka’s body.

“
If I bring a canoe here,
will you go for a ride with me? It doesn’t have to be long. I just
want you back on the water. Please, Harrison? It’s important to
me.”

“
Why?” I asked, sincerely
interested in her concern. “Why do you care if I ever paddle
again?”

“
Because it’s my life, and
we’re getting to be friends. I don’t want this to come between
us.”

I tore the tape off the report and laid it
on my till. “Erin, this doesn’t have anything to do with you. Can’t
you understand how I feel?”

“
Of course I can. I can’t
even imagine how horrible the experience must have been for you,
but I also know how much you love being out on the water. Come on,
Harrison, ten minutes, that’s all I’m asking for.”

“
I don’t know,” I said,
still unsure about how I felt.

“
Tell you what, you do this
for me, and if you don’t enjoy yourself, I’ll never ask you to go
back on the water again.”

I. thought about it a few seconds, then
said, “Fine, I’ll try it. The next time I have some free time, I’ll
go with you.”

She smiled broadly. “I was hoping you’d say
that I have a canoe on the back of my truck. We can be in the water
in five minutes.”

“
Hey, you set me up,” I
said. I gestured to the report and the till full of money. “I can’t
leave right now, honest I have to balance my books, make the
deposit and get something to eat another time, okay?”

She looked stubborn. “If I let you weasel
out of this Bow, I’ll never get you out on the water again. Take
your lime, do what you need to do, and then we’ll go paddling.”

“
You’re not going to give up
until I do this, are you?”

She stood firm. “I’m glad you’re finally
getting the picture.”

I shoved the till and the report under the
counter, “Then let’s get this over with.”

“
Harrison, it’s not a trip
to the auditor. We’ll have fun, you’ll see.”

“
I’m not making any
promises,” I said. “Let’s go.”

She started to say something else, then
obviously thought better of it. “That sounds great.”

Her truck was in the front lot and I noticed
she’d parked the vehicle as close to the steps that led to the
water as she could.

As Erin took the bungee-cord fasteners off
the canoe, I said, “You really came prepared. What if I’d said
no?”

“
Then I’d have just had to
try again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”

I laughed despite the fist of dread growing
in my gut. “Then I’m glad I said yes. Do you need a hand with
that?”

She said, “Sure, that would be great. Grab
this end and we’ll put it in the water.”

After we got the canoe down, she retrieved
one of the blue streamlined vests from the front and said, “Put
this on.”

“
Do you actually wear a life
preserver yourself? I didn’t think you would, after all the time
you spent on the water.”

“
I always wear one, and you
should, too. Accidents happen every day.” As she strapped hers on,
she said, “I never go out without one, and neither should
you.”

“
Okay, I get it” After we
had our life jackets on, she handed me a paddle and asked, “Do you
mind riding the front? I’m used to being in back.”

“
No problem, I’m not bad
with the kayak, but a canoe is a completely different kind of boat,
isn’t it?”

She held her paddle up in the air and said,
“It’s going to be odd with just one blade, but you’ll get used to
it. Keep your paddle on the right side of the boat. If we need to
correct, I’ll do it from where I’m sitting. Are you ready?”

I sighed, then said, “As ready as I’ll ever
be.”

“
Come on, this is going to
be fun.”

“
If you say so,” I said as I
stepped into the boat.

It didn’t take long for us to get into a
rhythm with our paddling. I’d expected the canoe to be awkward
compared to my kayak, but we cut through the water nearly as easily
as I did alone. No doubt having an expert like Erin in back helped.
I kept scanning the water as we went upstream, searching for
anything that might be a body floating around us. There was
nothing, though; the water’s surface was a flat plane as we cut
through it. We hadn’t had a drop of rain since Becka’s death, and
the pristine surface of the water was beautiful. As we paddled on,
I started trusting the water again and looked, toward the banks
around us. The side with River’s Edge was soon overgrown and wild,
with only the river walk beside the edge to show that we weren’t a
thousand miles from civilization. As much as I loved Cyrus’s
walking path, it did spoil the illusion that we were somewhere deep
in the wilderness. We paddled in silence, the only noises coming
from the movement of our paddles and the birds chirping from their
perches near the edge of 4he Gunpowder.

I was lost in my thoughts when Erin asked,
“How are you doing?”

“
Better than I expected,” I
said

“
Are you ready to head back?
I promised I wouldn’t keep you out long.”

I considered going back, and to my surprise,
I found that I wasn’t ready, at least not yet. “Let’s keep going.
There’s a cove up ahead you’ve got to see.” I swear I could feel
her smiling behind me.

By the time we got back to River’s Edge, I
was feeling easy and free on the water again. We pulled the canoe
out and carried it to her truck.

As Erin secured it, I said, “Thanks, I
needed to do that.”

“
I was glad for the company.
We make a good team on the water, Harrison.”

“
With you in back, I can’t
imagine you being a part | of a bad one.”

She shook her head as she secured the last
bungee. “Don’t kid yourself. I take groups white-water rafting and;
canoeing, and you’d be amazed how many people want to coast through
the rapids when it’s the exact time they should be paddling the
hardest I don’t know how they get| the impression they’re on a ride
at Disney World. You tog ally should come white water rafting with
me sometime.”

“
Baby steps for now, okay?
I’m still going to have to get used to being on the Gunpowder
again.”

“
Maybe we should have gone
somewhere else the first time you got back into the water,” she
said.

“
No, this was perfect” I
stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thank
you.”