Page 47 of Welcome to Murder Week

“You’re not an ancient crone.”

A guy comes out from the back carrying a stack of shoeboxes, which he puts on the counter.

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately for a few minutes?” I ask.

Claire leads me to the tent displays. She opens the flap of an orange dome tent and crawls in. I follow.

“Okay, let’s do this!” she says, now looking like she’s up for having some fun.

I tell her what we’ve learned from Bert, which is that he has been unhappy with Tracy for a while, complaining about the way she keeps her place. “Do you know why he might be so eager to get her out of the building?”

“Out of the whole building or only the salon?”

“The salon.”

“That is interesting.” She rolls back until her spine touches the floor and bounces up again.

“It’s for me,” she says. “I told him about my dream to open a vegan café but that I couldn’t find a place with affordable rent. He said he might know a place I could definitely afford.” She breaks into a sneaky smile.

“He’d give you free rent in the space occupied by Tracy’s salon?”

“He’d do anything to make me happy, to be Daddy’s little girl again.” Claire rocks backward again, this time until she’s flat on her back on the floor, arms and legs stretched out like a snow angel. “Bloody hell, am I incriminating my own dad?” She closes her eyes, puts the back of her hand on her forehead. “Cue the smelling salts!”

I think I have what I need and start to crawl out of the tent. But then I remember the most important question. When was the last time Claire spoke to her father on the phone? I don’t tell her that Bert has already told us he had a long conversation with her during the time that Tracy was murdered.

“He calls me all the time,” Claire says. “But I almost never pick up. Last time I did was probably two weeks ago. If you see him, tell him I’m alive.”

Which is more than I can say for Bert’s alibi.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

From the front hall, where I’m wiggling my feet out of my wet shoes, I can see that Amity and Wyatt have been busy. The murder bulletin board is well populated. In the middle is a photo of Tracy, from which red string fans out to photos of Gordon Penny, Dinda Roost, Lady Blanders, and Bert Lott. The black question mark, Wyatt informs me before I head upstairs to change into dry clothes, is for the mystery man who may or may not have had a haircut and shave after Lady Blanders left the salon and may or may not be the same person who hid himself behind an umbrella when leaving the scene of the crime.

After changing into dry clothes, I watch from the couch as Wyatt and Amity add more photographs to the bulletin board—the salon chair with the extra-large black robe, the plastic face shield, the appointment calendar, the organic products, and, of course, Tracy herself, sprawled out on the floor as a corpse.

Wyatt tells me that Lady Blanders’s alibi checked out. Not only was she at the King George for dinner with her friend, but the maître d’ even confirmed that she had snails.

“Apparently, she went to the loo during dinner and was in there for so long that they were all in a panic that the snails had gone off.He was hugely relieved that she was fine and that they hadn’t given food poisoning to the village’s most prominent resident.”

I tell them what I learned from Bert’s daughter.

Wyatt says, “Nice work, Watson,” and moves Bert’s picture closer to the center of the board. Arms folded, he stares at his handiwork as though if he looks hard enough, the solution is going to make itself known.

“So far we’ve got three people with possible motives and opportunity,” he says. “Gordon Penny is dependent on his ex-wife for money, is apparently still in her will, and stands to come into a nice bundle if she dies.”

“And he has a key to the building, as well as a wobbly alibi, being home alone,” Amity says.

“Next up,” Wyatt continues, “is Bert Lott, who seems to have been trying to evict Tracy in order to give the space to his daughter.”

“He’s also got a key to her place,” Amity says.

“And no alibi,” I say. “In fact, he lied, which seems very incriminating.”

“And finally, there’s Dinda Roost, who also has access to the salon and a motive to kill Tracy,” Wyatt says. “We shouldn’t eliminate her only because she’s not the sharpest tool in the box.”

“Right, and then there’s Dev,” Amity says. “Shouldn’t he be on the board too?”

“Yeah, put him on,” I say. “I don’t know if he has a motive, but he was cagey about his alibi. Said he was showering.”

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