Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When we step out of the stationer’s, I take a quick glance at Dev’s bar. The door is closed, and the lights are off. I’m disappointed in myself for caring. I was drunk, and he was chivalrous, getting me home safely. Period, end of story.
“Next up is Tracy’s assistant, Dinda,” Amity says. “We need to find out about the argument between Dinda and Tracy that Edwina heard the morning before the murder.”
Dinda is outside when we arrive at her place, which is above a garage on the main road on the edge of town. She doesn’t ask us in but leads us into the side yard, where there are a few plastic chairs and a kiddie pool filled with murky water.
“It’s chilly for wading, isn’t it?” Amity asks.
“My baby loves it,” Dinda says, plucking a few leaves from the pool.
And then she starts asking us questions about our investigation.
Are we close to figuring it out, isn’t Roland Wingford clever, can you believe he was her schoolteacher when she was ten?
“It’s so exciting to have a real author in our village. He’s a very good writer.”
“You liked Murder Afoot ?” Wyatt asks.
“Murder a-what?” Dinda lights a cigarette.
“Roland’s book? About his detective Cuddy Claptrop?” Amity says.
“Ha! Cuddy. That’s so clever, don’t you think? I never heard of a Cuddy. But no, I haven’t read it. Have you?”
She levels a stare at each of us in turn. We shake our heads. I suppose we should buy Roland’s book, both because it might give us insight into how he thinks and because it’s a nice thing to do.
“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Wyatt seems annoyed by Dinda, maybe because she’s clearly not following whatever script she’s supposed to adhere to. I don’t blame him. We need her to play her part so we don’t feel ridiculous playing ours. “Where were you the night of Tracy’s murder?”
“Here, of course. My baby had a cough, so I stayed by her side.”
“I understand you had an argument with Tracy on the morning of the murder,” Amity says. “Can you tell us what it was about?”
“What else—money.” She takes a long drag on her cigarette, juts out her chin as she exhales. “My baby needed alternative therapies for her condition.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say, before remembering that this is all fiction.
“I asked Tracy to help me out, and she wrote me a check, put it in a flowered envelope and all. I thought it was the sweetest thing. But turns out it wasn’t a gift.
It was a loan. And Tracy meant for me to pay it off by working.
She reduced my pay by more than half and put the rest toward my debt.
As if I wouldn’t pay it off eventually.”
“That’s harsh. Was that in keeping with her character?” Amity says.
“I wouldn’t be the first to call her a cheapskate,” Dinda says.
“Who else?” I ask.
“The way she made Gordon beg for money each week, it was downright cruel. And she had so much! Right after she kicked Gordon out, Tracy came into some money from a dead relative. And suddenly she was in a mad rush to finalize the divorce and change her will so that nothing would go to Gordon. It was taking longer than she liked, and she used to complain about it all the time.”
“How much did she inherit?” Wyatt asks.
“Ten thousand quid,” Dinda says.
Amity claps her hands together. “Ten thousand pounds, ‘’Tis as good as a Lord!’?”
“Huh?” says Dinda.
“Mrs. Bennett,” Amity says. “ Pride and Prejudice ?”
“Sure, whatever,” Dinda says. “It’s a lot of money.”
“But if Gordon is still in Tracy’s will…” I say.
“Then the money’s his,” Wyatt says.
“Which is incriminating,” I say.
“Isn’t it though?” Dinda says.
“And with Tracy dead,” Wyatt says to Dinda, “you no longer have to pay back the money she lent you. Which also gives you a motive.”
“It was a gift,” Dinda says, stomping her cigarette butt into the dirt. “She changed her mind.”
“And you have your own key to the salon,” Wyatt says.
“You think I killed Tracy? I’d never.”
“And you support yourself?” Amity says. “That must be difficult with a child.”
“Who said I have a kid?”
Has she forgotten her lines?
“You did,” I say. “A baby who needs some kind of therapy.”
Dinda looks at us, speechless, and then starts cackling.
She walks over to the garage, climbs the outside stairs, opens the door, and whistles.
In a flash, a mangy terrier clammers down the steps, whizzes by us, and leaps into the kiddie pool, yapping and splashing in a chaotic froth.
Dinda stops at the bottom of the steps, arms folded.
“Meet the apple of my eye. My baby, Petunia.”