Death Waxed Over - Tim Myers [20]
I rolled down the window and saw Sheriff Morton approach. Before he could say a word, I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I’d done anything wrong.”
“This isn’t about your driving, Harrison. You’ve got bigger problems than that.”
“What is it? You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”
“Quit asking me that. You’ll know it if I’m going to lock you up. Listen, we’re almost back to the candleshop. I’ll follow you and we can talk there.”
I did as I was told, my thoughts racing as I tried to figure out exactly what I’d done now. I’d know soon enough, but that didn’t keep me from guessing.
I parked in front of the candleshop instead of in the alley behind River’s Edge, and the sheriff pulled up beside me a minute later. I asked, “So what’s going on?”
“Inside,” he said as he gestured to the door. The rain was really starting to intensify.
The automatic security lights—armed with motion detectors—turned on as I approached the shop, and I thought about when Pearly and I had installed them. I flipped the lights on as I walked into At Wick’s End, but the sheriff hadn’t followed me. He’d evidently ducked back into his squad car and was talking on his radio. Without a word or a glance back at me, he pulled out of the parking lot, his lights coming on as he did. Whatever he’d wanted to talk to me about had been overruled by something else.
I waited around half an hour, but for the first time in months, being in the candleshop was depressing. Not even the brightly decorated wax candles on display could cheer me up. I locked the shop’s front door and headed upstairs. My dinner matched my mood: a cold sandwich, some stale potato chips and a two-liter bottle of root beer that had gone flat days ago. It wasn’t exactly a gourmet meal, but I choked it down.
I didn’t bother with a plate, eating off a paper towel instead. It sure made doing the dishes easy. Looking through my books, I settled on a biography of Thomas Jefferson. As much as I loved reading mysteries, I was in no mood for dead bodies, not after the night I’d spent replaying Gretel’s murder in my sleep.
There was a pounding on my door as I picked the book up, so I laid it down on the table and opened the door.
It was the sheriff, and he was dripping wet. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I had a call I needed to take.” He started in, then said, ‘Tell you what; why don’t we do this in your shop? I don’t want to get your floor wet in there.”
I nodded. “I wish I knew what this was about.”
“Just be patient for another minute,” he said.
“Let me grab my keys and I’ll meet you downstairs.” I picked up my key ring and locked the apartment behind me. Morton was under the awning in front of the candleshop waiting for me.
I unlocked the door yet again and flipped on the lights. I was spending more time there when I was closed than when I’d been open.
After he walked in, I locked the door behind him. “So what’s going on?”
He pulled something out of his pocket, and I could see a letter in a clear plastic envelope. It said, i saw the candle guy kill her, in block letters.
“You call this evidence?” I said. “I know who did this.”
“I didn’t say I believed it, I just thought you should know what you’re facing here. And I highly doubt you know the sender. There wasn’t an identifying mark on it, and it was mailed from the downtown post office in Micah’s Ridge.”
“Some nutcase was waiting for me by my truck yesterday. He told me that for the right price, he would swear he saw someone else kill Gretel. When I ran him off, he threatened me with something just like this. I never thought he’d follow through with it, though.”
“How did he threaten