Death Waxed Over - Tim Myers [29]
I found Frannie Wilson locking up her office door at the Register of Deeds when I got to city hall.
“Harrison Black, I can’t believe my eyes. You, of all people, out playing hooky.”
Frannie was a big fan of candlemaking, and had been one of Belle’s first customers at the shop. She looked like somebody’s grandmother, but had a sassy, playful streak that always caught me off guard.
“I haven’t seen you lately, so I wanted to make sure all was well with the world.”
Frannie said loud enough so everyone in the building could hear, “I know you didn’t kill that woman, Harrison.” In a lower voice, she added, “There, do you think that helped?”
“At this point it couldn’t hurt.”
“Things are as bad as all that, are they?” she asked, scowling. “I don’t understand folks around here turning on you, Harrison. I know in my heart you never would have shot that woman.”
“Thanks.” I was grateful for her support, and wished she’d stopped there.
Not Frannie. “Now I can see you running her down with your truck, or even whacking her over the head with one of those monster candles you like so much, but shooting her? No sir, I don’t buy it, not for a second.”
“It’s good to know you believe in me.”
“So what brings you here? I don’t wager for one minute that you missed my ugly mug.”
“Frannie, you know you’re one of my best-looking customers.”
She cackled at that, then added, “Then you’ve got to do something to pretty up your clientele. Enough of this idle chitchat. Why are you here?”
“I need to know if Greg Runion’s been up to anything in the downtown district lately; say, right around Gretel Barnett’s shop.”
She pretended to look shocked. “Harrison, you should know better than to ask me something like that.” As she spoke, she nodded her head vigorously. “I could get in serious trouble giving out that kind of information.” Then she winked, and added with a whisper, “It didn’t turn out to be much, though, since he couldn’t buy the whole block. There was one holdout, so the deal fell through for everyone. Guess who it was?”
“I don’t have to guess. It was Gretel, wasn’t it?”
Frannie nodded. “I don’t have to tell you it didn’t make her popular with the other folks wanting to sell to Runion. There are three people who own the rest of that block, and I’d be willing to believe that any one of them had a better reason to plug her than you did.”
“You wouldn’t mind telling me which three folks she crossed, would you?”
Frannie looked up and down the hallway, saw that it was empty, then said softly, “There’s Martin Graybill, he owns The Ranch Restaurant. Then there’s a man from Minnesota who’s never set foot in North Carolina, as far as I can tell.”
“Who’s the third party?” I asked.
Frannie shook her head, then finally said, “If you tell a soul I told you, I’ll deny it till I die, but you actually know the woman. The only other owner on that block is your star candlemaking student, Mrs. Henrietta Jorgenson herself.”
Chapter 8
“Mrs. J? Are you sure?”
Frannie said, “Harrison, most of Micah’s Ridge has no idea how much property that woman owns. She’s the closest thing to a Rockefeller we have around here.”
“If she’s already wealthy, she wouldn’t be too upset missing out on this deal, would she?” I couldn’t believe Mrs. Jorgenson would hurt anyone because of money, when she already had so much of it already.
Frannie shook her head. “You don’t know many rich folks, do you? There are two kinds I run across in my job, and they’re as different as dogs and cats. There’s one sort who are the best kind of folk around, and no one would ever know how much they’ve got by the way they act. Then there’s the other kind, the ones that want every cent they can get their hands on, like it’s some kind of race to the end. Do I need to tell you which type your Mrs. Jorgensen is? She’s never given up a penny without making it squeal, except for her hobbies. In everything else, she’s as shrewd and tight-fisted a woman as you’d ever want to run across.”
“Thanks,