Death Waxed Over - Tim Myers [67]
Chapter 17
“I didn’t know you came out in the daylight,” I joked with
Markum when he walked into the candleshop just before lunch. “I was beginning to wonder if you were a vampire or something.”
Markum yawned, then covered it with his massive hand. “Yeah, this isn’t exactly my time of day, but I’ve got to adjust to a new schedule.”
“Is it the job in Eastern Europe you were telling me about?”
“No, it’s something else,” he said, picking up a carved candle I’d done a week earlier. “How do you get it to drip like this?”
“You have to do it while the wax is still warm,” I said.
He glanced at the price, so I added, “It’s a time-consuming process.”
“Harrison, I run my own business, too, remember? You have to charge what the job is worth to you, or it doesn’t make sense doing it.” He pulled out his wallet and said, “In fact, I’d like this one for my office.”
There were no customers in my shop at the time. “Tell you what, you can have it. You’ve helped me out enough out here.”
Markum slid two twenties across the counter. “Appreciate the offer, but I think I’ll enjoy it more if I pay for it.”
I took his money, handed him a little change, and said, “Then I thank you.”
He grinned. “Now I can burn it without any guilt. If you’d have given me the thing, I’d have felt bad every time I lit it.” He said, “Pearly been around?”
“Heather was here this morning asking the same thing. If he’s anywhere near River’s Edge, he hasn’t let me know about it. I told Heather he was a big boy. He’s been taking care of himself long before any of us were around.”
“Too true, but he hasn’t had a cloud like this one hanging over him, I’ll wager.”
That got my attention. “Do you think we should be worried?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m sure he’s fine. Knowing Pearly, he’s probably got three or four places to hide out, no doubt rated in order by convenience, amenities and risks of being discovered. The man’s methodical; you have to give him that.”
Talking about Pearly, I suddenly realized I hadn’t told Markum about what I’d discovered under the handyman’s workbench or about Evelyn spotting the clown just before Gretel had been shot. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something. I uncovered two things that I think might be related to what happened to Gretel. I found a tube of greasepaint under Pearly’s workbench yesterday, and a woman I saw at the festival just before Gretel was shot said she saw a clown hanging around Gretel’s booth. It would be the perfect disguise with all that activity going on, wouldn’t it? It sounds like somebody’s trying to set Pearly up.”
“It surely does. Did you see anybody dressed like a clown the day of the fair?”
There had been clowns, jugglers and balloon-twisters wandering the streets all morning, but then I remembered the clown perched on the courthouse steps. “You know what? I think I nearly tripped on him.” I told Markum what I’d seen the day of the festival.
He said, “So at least now we think we know what happened. One of our suspects was dressed up like a clown, pulled out a gun and shot Gretel, then faded back into the crowd.”
He paused, then added, “Harrison, I’ve just about decided that Runion was responsible for Gretel’s murder. There’s little doubt in my mind that he did it. I keep thinking about who had the most to gain, and he keeps coming up number one. I don’t know how much he stood to make if he could buy Gretel’s property, but you can bet it’s more than the forty grand those masks Pearly got are worth. Even Hans’s share would be peanuts compared to the total take Runion was set to bring in.”
“I don’t know, I keep thinking Hans had to have had something to do with her death. Don’t forget, he had a lot to gain, too.”
Markum said, “But what if Runion was sure Hans would sell the building if he inherited it from Gretel? Wouldn’t that give him enough of a push to expedite the inheritance?”
“If