Snuffed Out - Tim Myers [15]
With a sheepish grin, I headed out of At Wick’s End with a free afternoon and a little money in my pocket.
It should have been perfect, and it would have been, if I hadn’t run into my worst nightmare in the parking lot behind River’s Edge before I had a chance to get away.
Chapter 4
I tried to duck when I saw Manfred Stratton standing by my truck, but it was too late. He spotted me before I could get back out of sight, and hailed me in his booming voice.
“Harrison. I was just ready to come looking for you. We have a great many things to talk about.”
Manfred Stratton had stumbled into At Wick’s End two weeks before, and I hadn’t been able to shake him since. If the man had shown the slightest interest in candlemaking I might have warmed to him, but instead, he was a former salesman who now had nothing to do but harass shop owners with his windy conversations and pointless stories of his past successes, no doubt many of them accomplished only in his mind.
“Sorry, Manfred, I don’t have time to talk.” Anyone else would have gotten the hint from the tone in my voice, but Manfred ignored it, as he no doubt had his customers’ protestations in the past.
“Fine, fine. I’ll buy you a cup of Millie’s excellent coffee and we can visit for a while. Have I ever told you about the time I was nominated for salesman of the year for my company?”
“I’m sure you have,” I said as I brushed past him and opened the truck door. “‘Bye,” I said as I sped away. I’d half-expected Manfred to throw himself in my path to keep me from driving off, but as I turned the comer, I saw that the man was still talking! Remarkable. I wondered how long it would take him to notice that his audience had vanished.
I was learning about all kinds of odd birds that shop owners had to deal with on a daily basis. Manfred, for all his long-winded stories and lack of purchases, wasn’t as bad as the shoplifters. It’s not like I sold necessities in At Wick’s End. What drove some people to steal the wicks and wax I’d caught them with? Eve, having logged much more practice, was a whiz at spotting our light-fingered visitors. The week before she’d collared a sweet, little old man who admitted to pockets stuffed with merchandise.
I drove the thoughts of thieves and windbags from my mind and promised myself I’d have some fun.
Only I wasn’t exactly sure what that entailed anymore.
Almost by accident, I found myself at the Micah’s Ridge pavilion down by the riverfront. There were jewelers and T-shirt shops, small little restaurants tucked into nooks and crannies, and there was a place for open-air concerts that occurred Friday nights throughout the summer. We had two fairs a year, one in summer and the other in autumn, and Eve and I had been discussing a booth rental to test the waters. I parked the truck and walked around the mostly empty grounds until I came to the water’s edge. There was a shop there that rented canoes and kayaks that I hadn’t seen before. I found a woman in her late twenties out front working on an old wooden canoe.
“Getting your rentals in shape?” I asked as I watched her sand through layers of paint.
She looked up and laughed as she brushed an errant strand of black hair out of her face. “I wouldn’t dream of putting this out for rental. This one’s going to be all mine.”
“So you work at this shop and restore boats, too?”
She smiled. “What can I say? I’m a woman of limited interests.” She stuck out a hand and said, “I’m Erin Talbot.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Erin. My name’s Harrison Black.”
She nodded, then ran her fingertips across the patch she’d been sanding. As she worked, Erin asked, “Have you ever been out on the water?”
“I canoed at summer camp, but that was a long time ago. Do you get many folks who want to paddle the Gunpowder?” The river was a little too wide and fast for my tastes.
“It’s protected here, though how they ever had the nerve to call this Gunpowder Lake I’ll never know. I do most of my own serious paddling in the mountains.”
“What rivers have you been on?”
“Let’s see,