A Flicker of Doubt (Book 4 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (2 page)

After a while, Markum looked outside toward
the river and said, “It looks like they’re finally, finished out
there. Are you ready to go upstairs now?”

“
I’m feeling better” I said
as I stared into the last dregs of my cup. As I pushed it away, I
added, “I have to open the candleshop.”

Markum said, “Harrison, you’ve just had a
tremendous shock. Close the blasted place up for a day, or a week
if you need to. Your customers will understand.”

“
And what do I do in the
meantime? Should I hang around my apartment feeling bad about what
happened to her?” I asked him. “Becka was my friend. Who am I
trying to kid? She was a lot more than that to me, at least at one
time. I’m sorry she’s gone, but there’s nothing I can do for her
anymore.” I was surprised to find myself crying again as I
spoke.

Markum looked surprised by my outburst, but
Millie just patted my shoulder with a comforting touch. “Why don’t
you at least let Eve handle things this morning? You can work after
lunch if you feel up to it.”

I shook my head, wiping at the tears that
betrayed my words. “I can’t. She’s not coming in until this
afternoon.”

Millie wasn’t about to let it go, though.
“So we’ll call her at home. You know she’ll pitch in if you ask her
to help you.”

I started to protest when Millie added,
“Please, will you do it for me? You need to take some time to
accept this.”

I was still struggling with the suggestion
when the sheriff walked in and sat down heavily at our table,
blowing out a bellow of air as he did.

Millie asked him, “Can I get you
something?”

“
I wouldn’t say no to a cup
of coffee. I’ve been up all night, and I’m starting to feel
it”

She left to get his coffee, and Markum said
to me,

“
Harrison, if you need me,
I’ll be over there.” He and the sheriff had a heavy dose of natural
animosity between them, and they would never willingly be together
anywhere, not even to support me.

After the sheriff and I were alone, Morton
asked gently, “Are you up to talking about this?”

I nodded. “We might as well get it over
with. I was kayaking this morning before I had to open the
candleshop. It was a good day to be out; the rain had finally
broken, and the sun was coming out There was a lot of junk that had
been washed into the water, though. At first I thought I’d hit a
log, but then I saw it was a woman’s body. I didn’t realize it was
Becka until she flipped over. I managed to tow her to shore. That’s
when Millie called you.” I stared down into my empty coffee mug,
then asked, “Do you have any idea what happened to her?”

He shook his head as he played with the
sugar dispenser in front of him. ‘There were no obvious signs of
trauma, so they’re going to have to look harder. She hasn’t been in
the water long, maybe an hour or two at the most, from the look of
her.”

“
So you don’t have any idea
at all what could have happened?” I asked.

Morton said, “That’s right I don’t know, and
I’m not about to start guessing. I’ll let the coroner figure it
out, and then we’ll go from there.” He paused, then asked gently,
“When’s the last time you saw her, Harrison?”

“
Are you honestly looking
for an alibi?” I asked, letting my words bite, not caring if he
felt my hostility in them.

‘
Take it easy, I have to
ask.” When I saw the softness in his gaze, I knew he hadn’t wanted
to ask me that question, but I also realized that he didn’t have
any choice, either.

Fighting to keep my temper in check, I said,
“We went out for pizza at A Slice of Heaven last month.”

“
So then you two were dating
again?”

Millie brought him his coffee as I said,
“No, we were just two friends going out together for a meal. There
was nothing happening between us, at least not romantically. What
about the guy who was stalking her a few months ago? Is he still in
jail?”

Millie hesitated at the table and frowned at
Morton— no doubt hovering nearby to offer me her support—when the
sheriff said, “As of ten minutes ago he was. Listen, I’m not
accusing you of anything, Harrison, I’m just trying to collect
information. I know finding her like that had to be hard on you.
How are you holding up?”

“
I’m not afraid to admit
that I’ve been better,” I said. Millie must have been satisfied
with the sheriff’s softened tone, because she left us and went back
to her register.

I told Sheriff Morton, “Everybody thinks I
should hide in my apartment upstairs, but I want to get back to
work. I need to keep busy.”

He nodded. “If it matters to you what I
think, I believe it’s the best thing you could do. It will help
take your mind off what happened.”

He threw a dollar on the table and said,
“Listen, I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything, okay?”

“
I’d appreciate that,” I
said.

After the sheriff was gone, Markum came back
to the table. “What did he want? Did I hear him right? Did he
actually ask you for an alibi?”

“
Don’t start,” I said. “He’s
just doing his job.”

Markum held his palms up. “Sorry, I know I
shouldn’t push you right now. Listen, do you want to get out of
Micah’s Ridge? It’s a beautiful day. We could drive up to Boone,
cruise around on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and then have lunch.”

“
Thanks, I appreciate the
offer, but I want to work. The truth is, I need to keep busy. It’s
the only thing that’s going to help right now.”

He nodded. “Say no more. Why don’t I hang
around though, just in case you change your mind? There’s plenty of
stuff I can do up in my office, and that way I’ll be close by.”

“
Markum, I don’t need a
baby-sitter. I’ll be okay.”

He said, “Of course you will.” As the big,
burly man stood, he added, “Just in case, remember, I’ll be
upstairs in my office if you need me.”

“
Listen, I shouldn’t have
yelled at you before. It’s just—”

He interrupted. “You don’t have to apologize
for anything. I’m just sorry you had to be the one to find
her.”

“
Me, too,” I said, “Hang on
a second; I’ll walk out with you.”

Before I left, I walked behind the counter
and hugged Millie, maybe a little harder than I needed to. “Thank
you.”

She smiled when I pulled away. “You’re most
welcome. If you need me, I’m right here.”

“
I know that, and I
appreciate it, honestly I do.”

Markum and I walked outside, and I saw that
the kayak was still perched on the lowest step near the water.

He followed my gaze and said, “Don’t worry,
I’ll take care of that for you.”

“
Don’t bother. I can’t see
myself ever using it again.”

He said, “You never know.”

Pearly Gray, the handyman to all of River’s
Edge, joined us and said, “What happened? I was just getting out of
my barber’s chair when I heard there was some excitement out
here.”

I started to explain when Markum said,
“Pearly, if you’ll help me carry the kayak up, I’ll fill you in.”
The kayak had handles on both ends for easy portage, but I normally
just threw it over one shoulder. Markum was a lot stronger than I
was, but I realized he was deflecting attention away from me by
enlisting Pearly’s aid, and I appreciated it

Pearly nodded to Markum after catching the
expression on my face. He had a full head of white hair that was
nearly luminescent and an IQ that was off the charts. Pearly had
been a psychologist in an earlier life, but he’d come to River’s
Edge to work with his hands a few years before I’d inherited the
place.

I said, ‘Thanks guys, I appreciate the
help.”

“
It’s our pleasure,
Harrison,” Pearly said.

I left them with the kayak and walked to At
Wick’s End. Maybe it was a good thing that Eve Pleasants—my lone
employee and candlemaking mentor—wasn’t scheduled to come in until
noon. I was glad for the respite, and for the first time since I’d
taken over the candle- shop, I found myself hoping that no
customers came in. It was a shock realizing that Becka was really
dead, compounded astronomically by being the one who had found her
body. Becka’s sister had died a few months earlier in a car
accident and I had helped her get over her grief. Suzanne had been
her last close relative, and now I had no one from her immediate
family to share my own grief with. I needed some time to come to
grips with what had happened, but I couldn’t think of a better
place to do that than inside my candleshop.

I was there twenty minutes when Eve joined
me. Her normally dour expression had been replaced by one of
genuine concern. “Harrison, I came as soon as I heard.”

“
You’re not scheduled to
work until noon,” I said. “Let me guess. Millie called
you.”

“
She was worried about you,”
Eve said.

“
She shouldn’t be,” I said,
“And neither should you. Go,” I insisted.

“
Harrison, I’m already here.
What sense does it make for me to leave and just have to come back
in three hours.”

I shrugged. “Go shopping, go back to bed, I
don’t care. Eve, thanks for coming in, but I’m going to be
okay.”

She took it better than I had any right to
expect. As she started putting her coat back on, she said, “You’re
sure about this?”

“
Absolutely. Don’t worry,
I’ll tell Millie that you tried.”

She was shaking her head as she left, but I
was glad she hadn’t put up a fight Eve still knew more about
candle- making than I did, but I was starting to catch up, and
after all, it was my name on the mortgage now, and she knew it

I was waiting on my second customer of the
day when the telephone rang.

It was Morton, and he had news for me about
what had ended Becka Lane’s life.

Chapter 2

“
Well, she didn’t drown,”
the sheriff said. ‘To be honest with you, I think it kind of
surprised the coroner, finding her in the water like
that.”

“
So what happened?” I
asked.

“
It was sleeping pills,” he
said gravely. “She must have taken a ton of them. I’m sorry,
Harrison, but it looks like she killed herself.”

“
What? That can’t be right.
It doesn’t make any sense.”

Morton said, “Harrison, I just talked to the
man myself. He put a rush on the job. I’m afraid there’s no doubt
about it”

“
But she hated taking any
kind of pill at all. I refuse to believe Becka would do anything
like that. I’m not saying she would never try to kill herself, but
there’s no way on earth I could ever believe she’d do it with
pills.”

He paused, then said, “Harrison, it’s been a
while since the two of you went out. People change, you know?”

“
Not like that, they don’t,”
I said fiercely. “I remember when she broke her arm six months ago.
She wouldn’t even take a whole pill to help her sleep, and she was
in some serious pain.”

“
I don’t know what to tell
you,” he said. “People change. She must have had some problems you
didn’t know about.” His voice softened as he added, “More folks end
their own lives than anybody could imagine. Not every car accident
is an accident, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen more than one
crime scene on the road that didn’t leave skid marks from
braking.”

“
So you’re not going to
pursue this?”

He snorted. “What is there to pursue? F6r
whatever reason, Becka Lane decided she couldn’t take it anymore,
and so she decided to check out”

“
And she just happened to
fall into the river after overdosing, is that what you’re
saying?”

Morton said, “I admit that’s odd, but the
woman wasn’t in her right mind. What are you expecting, rational
behavior from someone who’d probably already decided to kill
herself? She could have gone to the overlook to do it A lot of
folks go there. Who knows what she was thinking in her last few
hours?”

“
I don’t believe it,” I said
flatly.

“
Harrison Black, don’t go
stirring up trouble where there isn’t any, do you understand me? I
know you’re upset, and I can imagine it’s hard to believe that
somebody you once cared about would kill herself, but you’ve got to
accept the fact that it’s over and there’s nothing you can do about
it now.”

I hung up without even bothering to say
good-bye. There was no way Becka would loll herself. She thought
too highly of her divine right to exist. And even if she did want
to end it all, there’s no way she’d ever do it with pills. But it
was clear that the sheriff was going to blindly accept the premise
that she’d overdosed intentionally and killed herself. That didn’t
mean I had to, though.

I owed it to Becka to find out what had
really happened.

I was still I trying to figure out my next
step when Greg Runion—Micah Ridge’s gung ho land developer— walked
into the candleshop.

“
Harrison, I need to talk to
you.”

“
This isn’t a great time.”
Runion and I had crossed paths before, and I’d felt an immediate
dislike for the man from the first time we’d met that had only
grown stronger with time. I didn’t have a problem with most real
estate developers. After all, somebody had to build the places we
all worked and lived in. But Runion had a slash-and-bum mentality,
and I didn’t like it in the least.

“
I won’t take up much of
your time,” he said, either missing my intonation or choosing to
ignore it