A Mold For Murder by Tim Myers Read Free Book Online Page B

“Now let’s finish this up. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
    We all worked together cleaning and rearranging the store, and the boutique section of our shop was soon neat and organized again. I gathered the posters we’d had made up of the contessa and started to carry them out through the production line in back toward the Dumpsters that were tucked behind a screen near the employee parking area. When the door wouldn’t budge, I remembered the police weren’t finished there and that they had locked us out. As I carried the posters outside along the side of the building where our customers normally parked, I was surprised to see someone getting out of her car in one of the patron parking spaces. I thought all of our customers had given up on us for the day.
    Then I saw that it wasn’t a shopper at all.

FOUR
    AS soon as I saw her face, I could tell that Sharon had been crying; the last thing I wanted to do was intrude on her private grief. I tried going back the way I’d come, but she spotted me, and there was no way I could just ignore her.
    “Ben, do you have a second?” she asked as she dabbed at her cheeks.
    “Sure,” I said. Crying women had always made me uncomfortable. I never knew what to do, but I hated to just stand there, helpless.
    After Sharon approached me, she said, “I’m sorry. I just don’t know where else to go.”
    “Would you like to come inside the shop?”
    “Would we be alone in there?” she asked.
    “No, but it’s just my family. Maybe we could help.” If I got her within shouting distance of my mother and sisters, I wouldn’t have to worry about consoling Sharon myself. The female members of my family were adept at dealing with emotion, while my brothers and I, with varying degrees of ineptitude, were not.
    “Honestly, I’m not sure I could ever go back inside there,” she said.
    I could understand that reaction. “Would you like to sit in the garden and talk instead? There’s a bench that’s perfect for private conversations.”
    My family, like most folks who made custom soaps, had its own flower and herb garden. Not only was it a great deal less expensive growing some of our own supplies than buying them, but we were always sure of the quality. My father, a born romantic if ever there was one, had insisted that the garden be laid out with a bench in its center, and he and my mother had spent many pleasant evenings there together, holding hands and laughing on into the night. I missed my dad, but nobody missed him more than my mother did.
    She frowned as she stared at the bench. “It’s a little public, don’t you think? We could go for a walk instead, if you don’t mind. It might be easier to talk that way.”
    “That’s fine with me,” I said. As I led her down the block past a shuttered jewelry store, I asked, “I never had the chance to ask. Were you and Connie close?”
    “I guess I can drop the act of calling her the contessa, can’t I? It won’t be long before the whole world knows. I worked with her for three years,” Sharon admitted. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.” Sharon stopped abruptly and turned into my arms. “Ben, what am I going to do?”
    As she started sobbing again, I did my best to comfort her. Finally, the wracking tears subsided.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I’m such a girl. That’s two crying jags in one day. Normally I can go months without shedding a single tear.”
    “You’re allowed,” I said. “You’ve had a rough day.”
    We started walking again, and she dabbed at her cheeks as she said, “Breaking down right now isn’t going to do anyone any good, is it?” She sniffed a few times, then said, “There. I’m better now.”
    “Are you sure you feel like talking? I understand if you’d rather not. It’s a nice day. We could just walk around town and try to forget about what happened today.”
    “No, I need to say this out loud so I can accept it. I’ve been trying to think