Snuffed Out (Book 2 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (10 page)

I just hoped it didn’t come down to losing
either one.

There was a knock at my door, and I knew
Cragg hadn’t been satisfied in letting me end our conversation. As
I opened it, I said, “I told you I’d think about it.”

Markum was there, leaning against the wall
just outside my door. “That’s all a man can ask. I’ll leave you,
then.”

I said, “Come on in. I thought you were
Cragg.”

Markum’s lip curled in disgust. “That’s the
meanest thing I ever heard you say, Harrison.”

“
You know what I
meant.”

The big man came in and made a stab at
reining in his wild black hair with a meaty hand. “Sorry to
interrupt, but I came by to see what the sheriff had to say.”

“
Not much,” I admitted,
retelling the conversation I’d had with Morton and the fact that
Sanora had taken the wheel to the dump, without mentioning my
theft.

Markum said, “So that’s that, then. We’re
left without any evidence. I thought, a little too late, about that
pottery wheel. When I asked Sanora if I could buy it from her this
afternoon, she told me it was already gone.”

I jiggled the bag in my hand. “The wheel’s
gone, but I got the cord before she could get rid of it.”

Markum slapped me on the back, nearly
knocking me back. “Harrison Black, I’ll make a salvage man out of
you yet. Let’s see it.”

I handed the cord over. “I got my
fingerprints all over it.”

Markum took it and said, “Come down the hall
with me.  I want to get a better look at it.”

I followed him out of my
apartment and locked the door behind me. Once we were in his
office, Markum turned on a
light that
circled a magnifying glass. It was the size of a coffee cup saucer,
and there was no doubt he could indeed get a closer look than the
naked eye.

“
That’s quite a rig,” I
said.

“
It’s useful at times, no
doubt about that,” he muttered as he unwrapped the cord and studied
it, inch by inch. I busied myself watching him for a time, but
after a while my gaze shifted to some of the travel posters up in
his office. He’d added a new one since I’d been there last, one of
a steam- driven engine racing through a mountain pass, the fog
lying low in the autumn hills and a blanket of patchwork colors
draping it.

“
So,” Markum said as he
moved the light’s swivel head out of his way.

“
It was an accident after
all,” I said.

“
I doubt it, but we’re not
going to be able to prove it by this. Whoever did this was slick,
I’ll give them that. Look at this.”

I studied the section under the lens and saw
the jagged tearing of the cord’s insulation. “What am I looking at?
It’s about what I expected.”

Markum took a pencil point and as it slid
under the magnification, it grew twenty times in size. “Look here,
at the very start of the tear. What do you see?”

“
The line is cleaner than
the rest,” I said.

Markum nodded, then switched off the light.
“I suspect the first cut was made with a knife, then the gap was
rubbed over a piece of wood until the edges softened.”

“
So let’s take this to
Morton. He’s got to listen now.”

Markum shook his head. “I doubt it. The
police work by something called the chain of evidence, and this
one’s been lost. What’s to say we didn’t make that little nick
ourselves? Even if he believed us, it’s not exactly overwhelming
evidence, is it?”

“
So what do we
do?”

Markum thought about it a second, then said,
“We watch, and we wait. I’ve a feeling this particular drama hasn’t
played to its end just yet.”

“
You know, it might help if
I had the slightest idea what you were talking about.”

Markum laughed so loud it nearly shook the
panes of glass in his office. “Harrison, I’ve spent too many hours
alone talking to myself for lack of decent company. You keep your
eyes open during the day, and I’ll do the same at night. Between
the two of us, we’ll have someone at River’s Edge watching all the
time.”

“
Do you think Aaron’s death
had something to do with the complex?”

Markum shrugged. “I’m not sure what to think
just yet. I’m afraid there’s nothing else we can do about it right
now.” He started to hand the cord back to me, then hesitated. “Do
you mind if I keep this?”

“
Be my guest.”

He nodded, opened the safe in his closet and
slammed it shut. “There, I feel better about it already.”

My stomach rumbled, and Markum said, “I’d
say you were late for a bite of supper.”

“
I’m hungry, I admit it.
Care to join me?”

He laughed. “I had breakfast an hour ago, my
friend. We work on different schedules, in so many ways. Good
night, Harrison.”

“
Good morning,” I said, and
he grinned broadly at me. Markum was more of a mystery after every
conversation I had with him than he had been before. Yet again I
promised myself that one of these days, I’d surprise us both and
take him up on his offer to take part in one of his salvage
operations. It would most likely be many things, but I doubted
boring would be among them.

It was frustrating not being able to do
anything more about Aaron’s murder. No matter what Sheriff Morton
thought, I believed just as much as Markum did that Aaron Gaston
had been helped along.

Proving it was going to be another matter
altogether.

I heated a can of soup, made a sandwich, and
was just sitting down to eat when someone knocked at the door of my
apartment. As I walked over to see who it was, I wondered about
Belle’s decision to live on the property in the only apartment in
River’s Edge. There was no doubt it was a time-saver on the
commute, since I was living right over the top of At Wick’s End,
and it was great not having any rent or utilities to pay, but the
downside was that it was extremely difficult to ever get away from
it all. It explained Belle’s retreat on the roof, and why I’d been
spending more and more time up there lately. But when winter
finally set in, what was I going to do? I couldn’t see going to the
refuge when there were icy winds coming off the river, let alone
snow. I’d have to find someplace else to get away.

Pearly Gray was at the door, running a hand
through his luxuriant gray hair.

“
Sorry I’m late,” he said as
he stepped inside. There was a clipboard in one hand.

“
Late? For what?”

He glanced at my small dining table and
said, “You forgot about our meeting, didn’t you? We can do this
tomorrow, there’s nothing urgent.”

Then it hit me. We’d decided to have a
meeting once a month so I could keep up with what was going on at
River’s Edge, and I knew without looking at my calendar that
tonight was the date we’d scheduled. Pearly was too precise to have
ever forgotten.

“
Do you mind if I eat while
we talk? I can offer you a sandwich if you’re hungry.” It was time
to go shopping again. I’d opened my last can of soup, and my
cupboard was decidedly bare.

“
No, I ate hours ago. If
you’re sure you want to do this, I don’t mind keeping you
company.”

“
Excellent. At least let me
get you something to drink.” I peered into the refrigerator and
quickly inventoried my meager choices. “I’ve got some Bo’s sweet
tea and some orange juice. I can offer you water, too.”

He shook his head and smiled slightly.
“Harrison, there’s an art to living on your own. It’s taken me
years to master it, and I’d be happy to share some of my techniques
for single habitation.”

“
I’m fine, thanks. You just
caught me before grocery day.”

He nodded. “Of course. Shall we get
started?”

“
Sounds good to me.” As much
as I liked my erudite handyman, I’d been hoping for some time
alone.

He glanced at the clipboard and said, “First
of all, with The Pot Shot’s space now occupied, we’re back at full
capacity.”

“
What do you think of me
letting Sanora come back to River’s Edge?”

Pearly said, “Harrison, frankly it’s none of
my business. She should be a good tenant if her past history is any
indication.”

“
You mean you aren’t going
to disapprove or scold me? Everyone else has expressed an opinion
quick enough.”

Pearly leaned back in his chair. “River’s
Edge is yours to do with as you see fit. I didn’t get involved when
Belle evicted Sanora, and I’m certainly not going to meddle
now.”

“
Thanks for that,” I said
sincerely. “How is she getting along?”

“
Tick’s taken her under her
wing, I’m happy to say. They made their peace rather quickly.
Sanora and Heather are still at odds. I’m worried we might lose
her, Harrison, regardless of her lease.”

“
I’m worried, too. Anything
we can do about it?”

“
I’m afraid it’s out of our
hands. I’m concerned about her, though, and I’m not afraid to admit
it.”

There was something in his eyes and the
catch in his voice that told me Pearly wasn’t saying everything he
was thinking.

I said, “I know I haven’t known Heather as
long as you have, but I care about her, too. There’s something
else, isn’t there?”

Pearly stared at his hands for the longest
time, then said, “I’ve lost more than one night’s sleep wanting to
tell you something, but for the life of me I can’t decide if I
should.”

I waited him out, letting him decide for
himself.

After a full minute of silence, he said, “I
hope what I’m about to tell you will be kept in strictest
confidence.”

“
I already know Heather and
Aaron were seeing each other,” I said.

“
As does the rest of River’s
Edge. No, this is about the night Aaron died.”

That certainly got my attention. “What
happened?”

“
It may be nothing, in fact,
it probably is, but I saw Heather out and about that night. I
watched her from a window upstairs and saw her in the parking lot
staring at Aaron’s shop. She stood there the longest time without
moving, as if she was waiting for something to happen, something
she dreaded.”

“
When exactly was
this?”

He sighed heavily, then said, “Ten minutes
before the power went off.”

I took some time to digest what he’d told
me. Could Heather have had something to do with Aaron’s death? I’d
known her less than a month, but I considered her beyond an act of
murder. But I hadn’t known her when she’d been with Aaron. Could
his rejection of her have driven her to ending his life?

“
It’s probably nothing,
isn’t it?” he asked hopefully.

“
I wish I could tell you
that, I truly do.”

Pearly said, “I should have kept it to
myself. Now I’ve passed my nightmares on to you.”

“
If it happened at River’s
Edge, I need to know about it. I rely on you to keep me informed,
and I thank you for sharing this with me. Is there anything else I
need to know about?”

“
As far as the building is
concerned? I’m nervous about the wiring. I know I’ve expressed my
concerns before, but it bears repeating. We should be on a
ground-fault interrupter for the entire complex. What happened to
Aaron could leave us open to a lawsuit.”

“
We can’t afford any
upgrades right now; you know that as well as I do. Besides, I don’t
see how what happened to Aaron could have been our
fault.”

“
Most likely you’re right, I
worry too much.” That was patently false, as Pearly was one of the
most serene men I’d ever known.

“
So that’s it,” I
said.

He said, “Harrison, you certainly don’t have
to, but you’re most welcome to join me on my rounds tonight. I like
to walk around the property and make certain all is as it should be
on the grounds.”

I wanted to say no, but how could I, when I
was keeping Pearly from his own personal life? “Just let me grab a
jacket.”

“
There’s a chill in the air
tonight, no doubt about it.”

We walked down the stairs and out into the
night. Pearly said, “I’m afraid I let my batteries go dead in my
flashlight.”

“
We’ll manage,” I said as a
breeze from the river nudged us. I was glad I’d remembered my coat
and zipped it up against the wind.

“
Hey there,” he suddenly
called out into the night, and it ; took me a second to spot the
person he was hailing. The sound of Pearly’s voice made the figure
jerk, but it was too dark and we were too far away for me to see
who it was. I saw the stranger’s hand go back, and for an instant I
thought they might have a gun. Then the glass window at The Pot
Shot shattered into a thousand pieces as the alarm went off
inside.

Pearly and I raced after the culprit, but it
was impossible to find them in the darkness.

Panting and nearly out of breath, Pearly
caught up with me under a nearby streetlight as the taillights of a
car disappeared. “Did you get a license plate number?” he
asked.

“
No, it happened too fast. I
didn’t even see what kind of car it was,” I admitted. Some keen
observer I’d turned out to be.

“
That brings up one more
item on my list.”

“
What’s that?” I asked as we
walked back to River’s Edge to survey the damage.

“
We could use security
lights around the building, with some motion sensors.”