Death Waxed Over (Book 3 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) Read online

Before she drove off, I said, “Be careful. Becka, I’m not happy about leaving it like this. You really should let the police know what’s going on.”

  “If he does anything else, I will. I promise.”

  I had an uneasy feeling as I watched Becka drive off. If anything happened to her now, I’d feel partially responsible. I decided to call the sheriff when I got back inside despite her objections.

  Eve asked, “What was that all about?”

  “Becka believes somebody’s after her. Why don’t you listen while I call the sheriff? It’ll be easier to get the details that way.” I got Sheriff Morton on the telephone and told him everything Becka had told me. Eve’s eyes grew wide at the description of the stalking, but it had little effect on the sheriff. A man named Coburn had been the sheriff when I’d first inherited River’s Edge, but he’d been voted out of office just after I’d discovered who had murdered Belle. Morton was a little better, but not by much.

  When I was finished, he said, “It could be stalking, or it could be that your girlfriend’s got an overactive imagination.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” I said automatically. “I admit that Becka’s had a flair for the dramatic in the past, but I’d still feel better if you talked to her. You didn’t see her face when she came into the shop.”

  Morton hesitated, then said, “Give me her name and address.” After I did, he said, “Tell you what, I’ll have a black-and-white unit check on her later. That’s the best I can do.”

  “I’ll take it. Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “No problem.”

  After I hung up, Eve said, “Well, she certainly had every reason to be upset, didn’t she?”

  “I can’t imagine her coming to me for protection,” I said. While I was an inch shy of six feet tall, I was a good fifteen pounds overweight. Besides, I hadn’t been in a real fight since the fifth grade. I couldn’t imagine being anyone’s guardian.

  “Come now, Harrison, it’s obvious the woman has faith in your ability to protect her.”

  “I don’t know why she’d think that.”

  “Perhaps you’re all she has,” Eve said simply.

  “If that’s true, then she’s got more problems than someone stalking her.” I was worried about Becka, but there was nothing I could do about her situation. She’d call if she needed me—there was no doubt in my mind about that—so I tried to put her out of my mind and get back to the business of running my candleshop. Still, I was uneasy every time I heard the telephone ring, wondering if it might be her, in some kind of trouble I might not be able to fix.

  Chapter 2

  The anointed day for the festival came soon enough. I’d spoken with Becka a few times since the sheriff had checked on her, but she’d had no more encounters with the stranger since that day at River’s Edge. Maybe he’d followed her home and had seen her talking to the police, or maybe seeing me armed with a candle stand had been enough to scare him off. Whatever the reason, Becka appeared to be safe.

  The late-fall weather for the Founder’s Day Celebration in New Conover was perfect as an unseasonably warm breeze brushed away the touches of winter’s impending cold. Far too late in the season to be called Indian summer, the warmth was no less welcome, especially to those of us who were slated to be out in it all day. Our part of North Carolina could have six inches of snow one week, then temperatures could soar into the seventies the next, and by sheer luck, the event organizers had scheduled the celebration during a day more fit for spring than winter.

  Even at 7 a.m., I found myself sweating as I unloaded my truck in the early dawn. I’d come to think of the Ford that way, though I’d inherited it, along with nearly all the rest of my worldly goods, from Belle. I just wished she could be there with me right now, the two of us working side by side.

  I was setting up near the old County Courthouse, now operated as a museum dedicated to the area’s past. The two-hundred-year-old granite building was draped in bunting and decorated with dozens of flags for the festivities. New Conover was the county seat, located twenty minutes from Micah’s Ridge.

  “Hey, are you going to daydream all morning, or are you going to help me with my stuff?” I was glad that Heather Bane and I had decided to set up together. I didn’t feel quite so vulnerable with a friendly face nearby. Heather’s long blonde hair was pulled back in its standard pony tail, and she wore a tie-dyed T-shirt with her jeans.

  I slid her table off the truck bed and said, “I was just thinking about Belle.”

  “She would have loved this, Harrison,” Heather said as we set her table on its folding legs.

  “Eve wasn’t sure my presence here would be worth the effort and cost,” I said. “I’m starting to wonder if she was right. Are you worried about making anything more than what you paid for the display fee?”

  Heather laughed. “Don’t get cold feet now. We’ll both do fine. I’ve got Mrs. Quimby and Esmeralda watching the store and Eve’s keeping your candleshop open, so we’ll make out all right.” Mrs. Quimby was Heather’s lone part-time employee, while Esmeralda was her cat and erstwhile queen of The New Age.

  I finished transferring the boxes in the truck bed to our tables, then said, “Watch our stuff, would you? I’ve got to go park in the vendor lot.”

  I had to walk three blocks back to our tables after I moved the truck, but it was a glorious morning, and I didn’t mind the stroll. I love early morning; it’s my favorite time of day, before the whole world’s awake and bustling around. As I passed table after table, I watched the crews set up, most of them obviously seasoned in preparing their displays. I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to arrange my space, but there would be time, since the festivities didn’t officially open until 9 a.m. I was nearly back to my booth when I ran into Gretel Barnett, the femme candlemaker herself.

  “Hi, Gretel. I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said, trying to hide my displeasure at her presence.

  In a voice that rang out over the nearby sounds of folks setting up, she proclaimed, “It’s a free country, Harrison. I could hardly stand by and watch you steal all my customers from me, now could I?”

  “How in the world can you accuse me of stealing anything? You’re the one encroaching on my territory.” My voice tends to get louder when I’m excited or angry, and I noticed that a few nearby vendors were watching us intently. So be it. I wasn’t sure what had brought out this new belligerent attitude of hers, but I wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

  She retorted, “This is the land of democracy, the American way. Surely you’re not against America.” Gretel nearly shouted her last words, and we were getting more and more attention.

  Fighting to keep my voice calmer than I felt, I said, “I won’t give you the satisfaction of making me lose my temper in public. This didn’t have to be personal, but you’re making it that way.”

  “I’m going to bury you,” she said, not softening her voice at all. “You and your sad little candle store.”

  As she stalked off, I felt my face redden. I was still steaming as I approached my table.

  Heather asked, “What was that all about?”

  “You heard?”

  “Everyone here heard you two. Did she just accuse you of being un-American?”

  “I thought we were going to have a friendly little competition between candleshops, but I guess I was wrong. Now it’s personal.”

  “Harrison, you need to try to get along with her.”

  A lecture was the last thing I needed at the moment. “Heather, I don’t need you as my conscience. I wasn’t the one who started this.”

  We didn’t share more than half a dozen words after that, each left to our own thoughts. What in the world had brought out that kind of attack from Gretel? She’d been abrupt when she’d come into my shop before, but she hadn’t been insulting.

  As I worked on my display, I couldn’t help wondering what had set her off. She’d been open only a week, but I was already seeing a sharp drop in my sales. I
t hadn’t really surprised me. Gretel had the wisdom of her franchise to back her up and help her keep from making some of the mistakes that had nearly ruined me.

  I’d been wondering if she was going to wipe out my business, and then she actually had the nerve to make her declaration to the world that she was going to bury me! If I lost it all, it wasn’t going to be without a fight. I was determined to prove her wrong, no matter what it took. If that meant extending my hours and deepening my discounts, I could get by on less if I had to. At least I had all of River’s Edge to help defray my expenses, while she had only her stand-alone shop. I just wish I knew what kind of cash reserves she had. Buying the franchise couldn’t have been cheap, and I knew their support only went so far.

  Starting Monday morning, I was going to plan an assault on Flickering Lights that would drive one of us out of business; I just hoped it wasn’t At Wick’s End. I loved my candleshop too much to just let it sink quietly into oblivion.

  But if a fight was what Gretel Barnett wanted, then she was going to get one.

  I laid out my display, including a free giveaway drawing for one of Eve’s most ornately carved candles. It was a work of art, though she hadn’t liked it when I’d said that, and I was hoping we could get enough names and addresses with the entry forms to start a newsletter for At Wick’s End. It was an idea I’d picked up from my research on making small businesses grow, and I was willing to try just about anything. Another article had said that if you could get the kids interested in your crafts, a lot of times the parents followed, so I also laid out some sheets of lavender beeswax that had been damaged in our storeroom. They weren’t good enough to sell, since one edge of the delicate sheets had been crushed in storage, but I’d trimmed the bad parts away with a pizza crust cutter, and they’d be perfect for kids to play with.

  Heather watched my progress, then said, “If you need more space, I can give you a corner of my table.”

  “Is it too much?”

  “No, I’m starting to wish I’d done more myself. It looks like you’ve done your homework on self-promoting.”

  “Let’s just see if it works.”

  I finished displaying the candles and inexpensive kits I’d brought along to sell, and finally I was ready. Ten feet away, I noticed Gretel was watching me from her table, but I wasn’t about to say a word or acknowledge her presence again if I could help it. My signs were all homemade—and they looked it—but hers sported a professional appearance that was just too sleek to be her own work. There were carefully crafted displays that showed some of the simplest steps to making candles, and even I had to admit they were very well done. It wasn’t a fair fight since she had a franchise’s expertise to draw from, but that didn’t really matter to me anymore. I was ready for her. She’d thrown the gauntlet down, and if she was having second thoughts about taking me on, she was going to have to make the first move at brokering some kind of peace between us.

  Gretel appeared to start my way once or twice before changing her mind and backtracking to her spot. She was either going to start Round Two of our fight, or she was coming over to apologize, but as the gates opened and people started coming in, she frowned and settled into her seat. Though she was new to the area, somehow Gretel had finessed a prime spot for her display, and I wondered if she’d paid off the organizers. Her table was five feet away from the Civil War cannon that adorned the grounds, a great attraction for the visitors coming in. I’d heard that the Founder’s Day committee had wanted to drape the cannon in bunting too, but the Sons of the South had put their collective feet down. That cannon was a relic from history, they’d argued, a captured trophy from a Yankee ship, won with the spilled blood of their ancestors, not some prop for the show. I was near the granite steps, and I could see the old courthouse bell on the other side of the lawn from where I stood. It had been at the county seat since the mid-1800s, serving the early citizens of New Conover, and then retired and covered by a stone hutch. The cannon and bell were the two best-known artifacts in the entire town.

  The flow of visitors picked up considerably, and I didn’t have time to worry about Gretel Barnett anymore. Before long I had a great many lookers, a handful of buyers, and a good start on my mailing list. I was also starving, since I’d forgotten all about breakfast in my haste to get set up in time.

  During a lull, I said, “Heather, are you hungry?”

  “No, I always eat a big breakfast before I do these fairs. There’s barely time to turn around during the day.”

  “That was smart of you,” I said.

  She studied me a second, then said, “Harrison, I’ll watch your table if you want to go grab a quick bite.”

  “I hate to ask you to do that,” I said, determined to suffer through my mistake.

  “Hey, we’re covering for each other here, remember? You go now and you can watch my table when I grab lunch for us later. It will be really busy then.”

  “Busier than now?”

  She scanned the crowds. “Just wait. On a day like today, folks are itching for a reason to get outside. We’re going to make some money, my friend, just wait and see.”

  A burst of firecrackers suddenly went off twenty feet from us, and I could see more streamers dancing in the air. The noise had started the moment Founder’s Day opened, and if the pyrotechnics kept up, I was in for a major headache before it was time to wrap up and go home.

  “I’d better go now then,” I said. “Do you want anything? How about some aspirin?”

  “No, I’m fine. To be honest with you, I kind of like the noise. It makes me feel alive.”

  I cut through the back way toward the concession area rather than fight the crowd. It was roped off for the vendors only, and I was glad to have the shortcut. Gretel didn’t even notice as I passed within three feet of her table. She was busy selling an expensive candlemaking kit to a woman with frosted hair piled high on her head in a beehive. We sold the same kits ourselves at our shop, but not for as much as she was charging. I kicked myself for not bringing more of the high-dollar items too, but I’d only had so much room on my table with my giveaway and kids area. As I walked to the concession area, I nearly tripped over a clown perched on the courthouse steps. Dressed in full makeup and costume, he looked more at home at the celebration than I did. Maybe Eve had been right. I probably should have stayed home.

  I grabbed a sausage-and-egg biscuit and an orange juice from one of the food vendors and nearly knocked Pearly down as I turned around to head back to my table.

  “I didn’t know you were coming to the festivities,” I said.

  Pearly said, “A man has to do something with his time off. Harrison, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”

  “Walk with me back to my table and we can talk along the way,” I said. I didn’t want to leave Heather alone for too long.

  He glanced toward my spot, then shook his head. “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. We could go over to the courthouse steps away from the crowd, though.”

  “Pearly, I’d love to be able to do that, but Heather’s watching my table for me, and I can’t leave her alone. Is it something that can wait?”

  “I suppose so,” he said reluctantly.

  “Good. We’ll talk about it first thing Monday morning then.”

  I started back toward my table, wolfing down the biscuit as I walked. I’d probably get indigestion from the fast meal on my feet, but I didn’t have much choice. I tossed the wrapper and empty carton of juice into a trash can near the cannon, wiped my hands on my bandana, then ran my hand around the inside rim of the pitted metal of the empty barrel for good luck before I walked back to my vending spot amid the noise of firecrackers exploding all around me.

  While I was still fifteen feet away from my table, I noticed a commotion out of the corner of my eye and turned just in time to see Gretel crumple to the ground, knocking her display down in the process.

  At first I thought she’d had a heart attack, but as I raced closer, I saw a blood stain
blossom on the back of her dress.

  During one of the constant fireworks bursts, someone had taken the opportunity to kill my chief competition.

  Before I could take it all in, a woman in her mid-forties pointed right at me and screamed, “He shot her. That’s the man who shot her.”

  Chapter 3

  “I didn’t shoot her,” I protested, feeling my legs weaken with the accusation.

  The woman was not to be deterred, though. She screamed hysterically, “He threw the gun into that trash can! I saw him do it!”

  Sheriff Morton, the law enforcement chief for the entire county, was beside me in a heartbeat. His ruddy complexion and brown hair were in sharp contrast to his predecessor’s washed-out appearance, but I couldn’t count either of the men as friends. “Harrison, what’s she talking about?”

  “She’s nuts, Sheriff, I didn’t do it.”

  He looked toward Gretel’s motionless form and commanded, “Wait right here. I’ll straighten this out.” While Morton went to check on Gretel, my accuser stood there just staring at me, a few steps in front of the other onlookers.

  I started toward the sheriff to see if there was anything I could do to help when the woman yelled, “He’s trying to get away. Somebody stop him!”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said heatedly. “I’m just going to check on Gretel.”

  Morton growled over his shoulder at me, “Get back where you were. Now.”

  I retreated back to my spot, feeling a hundred pairs of eyes focused on me. The crowd had already marked me as the shooter based on one nearsighted woman’s accusation.

  Heather hurried up beside me. “Harrison, what happened? Did you see it?”

  “I was just coming back when she fell over. I thought she was having a heart attack at first. Then I saw the blood. This lunatic,” I paused, pointing at my accuser, “thinks I shot her.”

  “Nonsense. Surely the sheriff will see that.” I looked at Gretel just as the EMS crew was loading her into the back of an ambulance. There was an oxygen mask over her face, and they were moving with extreme urgency. At least she was still alive; that was something.