At Wick's End (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (14 page)

As I fanned the sheets out on the table, I
said, “There are several ways you can do this. Cut-outs all from
the same color look nice, but complementary colors are attractive,
too. Why don’t you cut six pieces of the same shape and we’ll make
a candle with them.”

Mrs. Jorgenson opted for a maple leaf cutter
and quickly cut out six leafy imprints.

“
Now measure out your wick,
put it between two leaves, then keep sandwiching the cut-outs
evenly. Your goal here is to keep the wick in the center of the
candle.”

She did as she was told, then delicately
pressed them all together.

“
That was easy,” she said
as the leaf-candle fell apart, the wick lying on the table like a
discarded string.

“
What happened?” she asked,
studying the fallen sections.

Fortunately, my first cut-out candle had
done the same thing, so I knew just what to do. “Put it all back
together, press firmly this time, then we’ll try adding a little
heat.”

I took a blow-dryer out of one of the
cabinets and gave the leaf a good blast of heated air around the
edges after she reassembled it. “Pinch the edges together like
this. It gives the candle a more rounded look.” It held together
this time, and Mrs. Jorgenson looked pleased with the results.

“
I’d like to do another one
on my own now.”

She chose a club shape from one of the card
cutters and opted for a lavender wax. This attempt was a great
improvement over the last, and by the time our session was over,
she’d made nine different shapes and seven rolled candles.

I collected them for her, carefully wrapping
each candle individually before placing it in her bag. I still
couldn’t tell from her expression or demeanor whether she had
enjoyed the process or not. It was possible my star student had
taken her first and last lesson all at the same time.

As we walked out to the cash register, Mrs.
Jorgenson waved a hand at Eve and said, “I need a selection of
colors from your stock of sheet wax. Let’s say three packs of
each.”

“
We have sixteen colors in
stock,” Eve said.

Mrs. Jorgenson thought about it a moment,
then said, “Is that all? We’d better make it six packs of each
then, I have a great deal of work ahead of me.” She frowned, then
added, “I just had a thought. I’ll need three sets of every cutter
you have in stock.”

I was standing just behind her. “You only
need one set of cutters.”

Eve shot me a dirty look as Mrs. Jorgenson
turned to me and said, “I’ve decided to give two sets to my nieces
as presents.” While Eve disappeared into the storeroom to put the
order together, Mrs. Jorgenson handed me her credit card. “Why
don’t you handle the billing while we wait?”

I totaled up her bill including the
merchandise Eve was collecting and the supplies we’d used in our
lesson today. Before I ran it through our system, I said, “Excuse
me a moment, would you?”

“
Certainly,” she said.
“That will give me the opportunity to browse a little.”

I found Eve quickly going through the boxes
in the storeroom, making up Mrs. Jorgenson’s order.

She brushed a wisp of hair out of her face.
“Is something wrong? Did she change her mind?”

“
Keep pulling stock,” I
said as I helped her with a heavier box off the top shelf. A wave
of anxiety ran through me when I realized I was standing on the
exact spot where Belle’s body had been discovered, but I fought it
back.

“
Why are you here, then? I
can handle this, Harrison. Honestly, you shouldn’t leave her out
there alone. She might leave.”

“
Right now I doubt I could
get her out of the store with a crowbar; that woman’s got the
candlemaking fever worse than I do. I need to know what we charge
for private lessons,” I said.   

Eve said, “I haven’t a clue. I know what the
group I lessons run, but we’ve never had an individual demand
personal instruction before.”

“
Let’s double the regular
fee then. What do you say?”

Eve frowned and bit her lower lip. “I
honestly don’t know. We don’t want to alienate her.”

I laughed. “The lady is determined to learn.
Why not charge her for the privilege?”

“
It’s your shop,
Harrison.”

“
Double it is,
then.”

When I got back from the storeroom, I
couldn’t find Mrs. Jorgenson anywhere. Oh, no. I shouldn’t have
left her alone after all. Then I saw her head appear above a shell
full of copper cookie cutters, a dozen or so in her hands. “I’ll
take these as well.”

I added them to her total, along with the
amount, astronomical in hindsight, I was charging her for lessons.
Seeing it on paper gave me a bout of cold feet. Would she balk at
the fee and walk out? I mentioned the total to her casually,
fighting to keep the jitters out of my voice.

Her only comment was, “That sounds quite
reasonable,” and I suddenly wondered if I’d charged her enough. Oh,
well, it was too late now.

Eve began carrying boxes out of the
storeroom, and Mrs. Jorgenson gave her the remote control to her
trunk. I said, “Hang on a second, I can take care of that.”

“
I don’t mind,” Eve said as
she disappeared outside.

I handed Mrs. Jorgenson her credit card as
well as the receipt for her to sign, then gave her the other copy.
“Would you like to set up your next lesson now?”

She nodded. “Let’s say the same time next
week, shall we? I plan on devoting this week to rolling.”

She started for the door, then said, “You
know, I’m quite impressed with your ability to teach candlemaking.
It’s as if you still remember what it was like to learn it for the
first time.”

“
Thanks,” I
said.

“
You have a feel for the
wax, don’t you?”

“
I’d like to think so,” I
admitted. “You’ve got a real knack yourself.”

When Eve came back inside a minute later,
there was a bemused smile on her face. “What’s so funny?” I
asked.

“
She actually tipped me,”
Eve said, holding a ten up in the air. “Did she give you one
too?”

“
Not a chance. It looks
like you’re buying lunch,” I said.

Eve tucked the money in her blouse pocket,
then studied the bill I’d made out. She gasped when she saw the
amount I said, “I didn’t charge enough, did I?”

“
Enough? Harrison, that
total I gave you was for an entire class of five. You charged her
much too much.”

I grinned. “Funny, she thought it was quite
reasonable.”

Eve still looked troubled. “I still think
it’s too much.”

I said, “Then I’ll give her a break on her
supplies the next time she comes in, but I don’t think it was a
mistake. I’m telling you, she didn’t bat an eye.”

“
Let’s not try to make up
all of our losses on her,” Eve said softly. “No matter how tempting
it might be.”

I was about to respond when Pearly came in,
a scowl on his face.

“
What’s wrong,” I asked
him, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

Chapter 10

Pearly said, “I was just upstairs at my
locker. Do you mind telling me what happened? It smells like a
perfume factory blew up in there, and all my possessions are
scattered about on a table. Are we having an unscheduled yard sale
no one mentioned to me, Harrison?”

Eve looked flustered by the comment and said
curtly, “I need to tidy up the back room, if you’ll excuse me.”

After she was gone, Pearly asked, “Was it
something I said?”

“
No, she’s been like that
since yesterday.” I took a deep breath, then said, “We had another
break-in the night before last. Somebody went through the locks
with a bolt cutter and dumped everything out onto the
floor.”

Pearly frowned. “There was a bottle of
aftershave my granddaughter bought me for Christmas. I suppose it’s
all gone as well, isn’t it?”

I nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, there were
several broken bottles in the mess.”

He brightened for a moment, then said, “I
suppose that’s the silver lining in all this then. I detested the
concoction, and now I can honestly say that it was destroyed by
vandals. That should save me until next Christmas, though I can’t
imagine what that will bring; my granddaughter has a rather
eccentric taste in scents. Do the police have any idea who could
have done it?”

“
Sheriff Coburn’s too busy
to deal with it,” I said, trying to hide the ire in my
voice.

Pearly nodded. “I don’t doubt that. Rumor
has it that he’s under a great deal of pressure from the mayor and
town council about the murder in the jewelry store, Harrison. It
most likely makes this appear to be nothing more than the act of a
juvenile delinquent.”

“
You don’t believe that any
more than I do,” I said. “There’s no way this could be random, not
with what happened in Belle’s apartment. Besides, who carries bolt
cutters around with them on the off chance they’ll be able to use
them?”

“
There are odd powers at
work here, Harrison. It would be in your best interest to keep your
eyes open and your back protected.”

I asked softly, “Pearly, is there something
you know that you’re not telling me?”

“
Nothing concrete,
Harrison, but I suspect we’re not done with this, and I’ve learned
to trust my instincts over the years.”

After the handyman was gone, I decided to
see what was keeping Eve so enthralled back in the storeroom.
“Everything under control back here?” I asked.

“
We’ll need to reorder our
sheet wax kits, Mrs. Jorgenson nearly wiped us out. Is Pearly
gone?”

I nodded. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about
it. If you honestly think I cheated Mrs. Jorgenson on her lesson,
I’d be happy to give her a rebate the next time she comes in.”

She shook her head. “No, I overreacted.
Belle was always chastising me for looking out for the customer
more than I did the shop. It is a business, after all, and we must
run at a profit if we want to continue. I believe you charged just
the right amount, Harrison. I’m certain Belle would have
approved.”

“
Okay, we’re set then. And
now we have a fee schedule for private lessons, if it should ever
come up again.”

Eve laughed. “Oh, I doubt we’ll get many
Mrs. Jorgensons. They are a rarity in our circles.”

“
Hey, we never thought we’d
get one, remember?” My stomach rumbled, and I said, “Do you want to
go to lunch first, or should I?”

She glanced at her watch. “You go. I like
eating later, if it’s all the same to you.”

“
Good enough. I’ll see you
in a little bit.”

I headed over to Millie’s and picked up a
sandwich and a Coke to go. I wasn’t in the mood for company after
the morning I’d had. The lesson had gone well with Mrs. Jorgenson,
and my meeting with Ann Marie had been quite illuminating, but I
just wanted to be by myself, if only for a half an hour or so. I
was discovering that part of owning a store was the fact that the
store owned part of me. As soon as Eve went back to her regular
hours, I’d be tied to it as if I had a toddler of my own, and I
wasn’t sure I liked that feeling.

Pearly was in Millie’s standing near the
counter, and I nodded to him as I placed my order. I half expected
him to say something else about the trouble at River’s Edge, but
one look into his eyes told me that he was in no more of a mood to
discuss it than I was. As Millie started making my sandwich, Pearly
said, “I was just sharing with Millie news of my recent day trip to
the dog park to wager on a few of the tail-waggers with a lady
friend from Charlotte. On the tour bus, I spent most of the ride
enjoying myself analyzing the folks there from Micah’s Ridge. You
wouldn’t believe it, it was like a roster of Who’s Who in local
society. The mayor was there, Lucas Young sitting right beside him,
why, I even saw Clara Ridgway from the Junior League pretending she
was going to visit a cousin I know for a fact she doesn’t have.
Watching them squirm was more fun than the gambling.” It was
obvious he was trying to lighten the mood, but I wasn’t interested.
I had too much on my mind.

Millie returned with my sandwich, and Pearly
said, “Care to join me, Harrison? I’m getting ready to order
myself.”

“
Thanks, but I’m going to
take advantage of this day while I can.”

I took the sandwich and started for the
steps that led to the water, but it was too close to River’s Edge,
and for once I just wanted to get away from the complex. I walked
along the riverbank for ten minutes until I got to a spot that
offered an uninterrupted view of the water and was away from the
highway as well. A torn section of newspaper skittered in the wind
close enough for me to grab it as I sat, and as I ate, I perused
the old headlines, reading the story of the robbery/murder that had
Micah’s Ridge in such an uproar.

It seemed a thief had entered Bleeker
Jewelers just after they opened for business that morning. The
thief must have known enough to steal the videotape from the
security camera along with a great many diamonds, so the police
initially thought it might be a disgruntled former employee who
knew about the security system. Bleeker’s was a family operation,
though, and the few employees outside the family had solid alibis.
No one knew why the thief had turned murderer. Bleeker had gone
against his own policy and had opened the store that day by
himself. He’d always told his employees that if a robber came in
not to be a hero; jewels could be replaced, lives could not. It was
a pity the man had ignored his own advice.