Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Outside, Wyatt turns to the left and leads us along a narrow alley to the back of the building and a well-tended parking area.
There are five spaces marked for cars and, hidden behind a white fence covered with golden honeysuckle, blue recycling bins and black garbage bins.
On either side of a narrow dirt path leading away from the parking lot are rosebushes, about to bloom, that look like the ones my grandmother tried to cultivate.
The path dead-ends at a slightly wider trail, where a sign on a wooden post reads PUBLIC FOOTPATH .
It has two arrows, one marked for the direction of the King George Inn and one pointing the other way, to the “fairgrounds.” Beyond the path are more bushes and pastures that blend into gently rolling hills.
When we’re back in front of the salon, Wyatt suggests we discuss the crime scene while it’s still fresh in our minds.
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Amity says. “Tracy Penny had a full life. All those photographs. A vibrant woman.”
“There, there, Amity.” Wyatt pats her arm. “I think she’s going to pull through in the end.”
“I haven’t forgotten that it’s pretend,” Amity says. “I’m just trying to imagine how this would feel if it were real. Understanding who the victim was as a person and being angry at the murderer for cutting her life short might help us crack the case. We must think like psychologists.”
“Not like detectives?” I say.
“Both,” Amity says. “Do you think it’s coincidental that Sigmund Freud loved detective stories? They’re not only about evidence, they’re also about the workings of the human mind. Tracy Penny may be fictional, but we’ve got to analyze her like she’s real. And to that end, I’d say she was vain.”
“Why do you say that?” Wyatt asks.
“Because all the photographs in the salon are of Tracy Penny. Did you see that large portrait of herself as a bride? There’s only one reason a woman displays her wedding portrait after her marriage ends.
Because she knows she looks gorgeous. That’s the memory she’s conjuring, not the wedding itself. ”
I get her point, but I still don’t understand why anyone would want to display evidence of their own naive hopefulness.
The sun is coming through the clouds, and the air is warming.
I take off my rain jacket and fold it over my arm.
We review the crime scene and agree that it was strangely tidy.
No sign of a struggle, no messy fingerprints or bloody tracks on the floor.
It was as if someone entered the salon—either with a key or after Tracy let them in—waited for Tracy to turn her back, thwacked her on the head a few times, and departed, closing but not locking the door.
“It was not a crime of passion,” Amity says.
“Not sudden anyway.” Wyatt unzips his jacket.
“A premeditated murder,” I say slowly.
The way Amity and Wyatt look at me, it occurs to me that if anyone is going to be playing the Watson role in this investigative trio, it’s me.
Wyatt asks if we noticed the nylon robe left on the back of the chair. It was an ordinary black robe, the kind that snaps around the neck and that you put on when you get your hair cut or colored.
“It was an extra-large,” he says. “And the shaving brush on the shelf opposite that chair was still out—not in its holder—and was dirty. As was the towel beside it.”
“In an otherwise clean salon,” Amity says.
“Tracy insisted that Dinda leave early,” I say. “I guess she didn’t have time to tidy up?”
“But if, as Dinda suggested, Tracy wanted to impress Lady Blanders, wouldn’t she have cleaned the place before her arrival?” Wyatt says. “Perhaps the mess suggests that Lady Blanders was not the last person to see Tracy Penny alive. Someone else was there after her appointment.”
“And that someone was a man!” I say.
“Or someone wants us to think that a man was there,” Wyatt says.
“Ooh, you’re good,” I say.
“A real sleuthhound,” Amity says.
“Never heard that one,” Wyatt says, though he stands a little straighter.
“It’s in A. A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery ,” Amity says.
“Next to The House at Pooh Corner ?” Wyatt says.
“Entirely different. Milne wrote eclectically, you know. First, he was a humorist at Punch , and when he told his agent and publisher he was going to write a detective novel, they told him that what the country wants from a humorist is more humor. Then, after the success of The Red House Mystery , when he said he wanted to write nursery rhymes, they insisted that his public wanted a new detective story. But Milne was adamant that the only reason to write something is that you want to write it. He said he’d be as proud to write a telephone directory ‘con amore’ as he would be ashamed to create a blank verse tragedy because someone else wanted him to. ”
“Sound advice,” says Wyatt.
Amity looks up at him, like she’s giving it serious thought.
“I suppose it is.”