A Flicker of Doubt - Tim Myers [35]
I decided he was too good a friend to lose over what had been said. I walked straight to his table and said, “I didn’t think your alarm clock worked this early.” I added a smile to take the edge off my words.
He looked relieved when I said it “If you want to know the truth, I haven’t been to bed yet”
I tapped his cup. “Here’s a tip. If you’re trying to beat insomnia, coffee’s not going to be much help.”
He laughed as he scooted out the chair across from him. “Sit down.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
Millie was at the counter with a pair of orange slice muffins on a plate. I said, “Hey, I thought we agreed on three.”
She smiled. “Good morning to you, too, Harrison.”
“Hi, Millie. So what happened to my third muffin?”
She pulled the plate back. “Honestly, I’m beginning to think you should just get one.”
I grabbed it before she could slide the treats completely out of my reach. ‘Two sound great. Any chance I can get some cold milk to go with these?”
“I’ve got a glass chilling in the freezer for you. It should be icy by now”
I took the milk and saw it had a crust of white ice across its top. “Thanks, it’s perfect”
She said, “I don’t know how you can drink it that cold. It would shatter my teeth if I tried it”
“This is the only way to drink milk,” I said. I took the glass and the plate of muffins to Markum’s table. He shuddered when he saw what I had.
“I haven’t had a glass of milk since I was nine,” he said. “Millie’d better do something about that refrigerator; it’s got to be broken.”
“She had this in the freezer for me,” I said, not explaining my preference.
He didn’t comment, which was something I liked about Markum. The man knew when to let something go and when to pursue it. We chatted as we ate, and just about the only thing we didn’t discuss was Becka Lane. It was as if the last two days hadn’t happened at all. The orange slice muffins were even better than I’d remembered, and when I’d finished my second, I was looking at Millie hoping she’d have a third waiting for me. No such luck. I was turning into a real bakery glutton being around her, so I decided to stop at two. The fact that Millie wouldn’t let me have a third helped me hold to my resolve.
I cleaned up the table and said, “If you’ve got some time, we can finish what we started last night.”
He looked surprised. “I thought you had a candleshop to run.”
I glanced at the clock over Millie’s counter and said, I’ve got an hour before I have to be there. Do you have the time and the energy, or would you rather do it later?”
He stood. “Now’s as good a time as any.”
As we walked upstairs to his office, I said, “When do you think we should confront Klein?”
“Not yet I want to cover everything else we’ve got before I tackle him. I did talk to Runion about your other trouble with your friend Cyrus.”
As we walked into Markum’s office, I took my seat across from his desk and asked, “Did you have any luck with him?” I wasn’t going to mention the source of our tension the night before, and if I knew Markum, he wasn’t about to bring it up either.
“The man’s as slippery as a snake oil salesman and has the constitution of one to boot. I got him to admit a few things before he clammed up, though.”
I didn’t doubt Markum would be able to find a way around Runion’s reticence. “What did he say?”
“He’s got big plans for the piece of land next to yours, and from the way he swaggered around his office, it’s close to a done deal. I was trying to break the ice with him, posing as a possible investor. I figured to discuss his schemes a little before I brought Becka’s name into the conversation. If there’s one thing a rooster likes to do, it’s strut.”
“So what happened after you brought Becka’s name up? Could he explain why she had his phone number in her purse?”
Markum frowned. “He clammed up in a heartbeat, and it was all he could do to keep from throwing me out of his office. Harrison, I’ve been wondering if we’re wrong about Klein being Becka’s secret boyfriend, despite what we first thought.”
“What do