Chapter Thirty-Five
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Tracy’s place is above the salon, a one-bedroom flat with a living room that includes a corner kitchen and table for two.
The decor is pretty, if a little frilly, and surprisingly disheveled.
The windows have lace curtains, though a few of the hems are undone and dip down on the dusty sills.
There’s a glass vase of white calla lilies on a table, the petals beginning to brown and the water cloudy.
The coatrack by the door looks like it’s about to topple over from the weight of coats and jackets piled onto it.
On the table is also a copy of Hair Magazine , dog-eared at articles for Barbiecore Hair and TikTok Hair Trends, both of which I photograph for no logical reason.
I feel guilty snooping around Tracy’s apartment and have to remind myself that it might not even be hers and, even if it is, at the moment it’s a stage set.
Wyatt pulls a tiny white card from the wastepaper basket and hands it to me. The top of the card reads “Willowthrop Florist” and the message scribbled below says, “Forever Yours.” I take a picture of that too.
Tracy’s bed is unmade, the pink sheets rumpled and slightly depressed as if someone had been lying there not too long ago. On the floor by the closet is a silky black negligee, the kind put on to be taken off. I hope Amity has plenty of paper for printing photos.
The kitchen counters are clean, but there are dishes in the sink.
The refrigerator is nearly empty. Just a bowl of roasted almonds, a container of nonfat Greek yogurt, a large package of salad greens, and a ready-made macaroni and cheese from someplace called Tesco.
The freezer contains only double-chocolate ice cream, full-fat.
“I have deduced that the deceased was conflicted about food,” I say, hoping to get a laugh from Wyatt and Amity, but there’s no response.
They are standing by the little dining table, their backs to me.
I wedge myself between them to see what they are looking at.
On the table is a bottle of gin and two glasses. The bottle has a familiar blue label.
“That’s Dev’s gin,” I say. “Good for him. Nice to see he’s getting some business.”
“Hmm,” Amity says.
“I’m not sure this one was purchased.” Wyatt picks up a note card that is sitting on the table next to one of the glasses and hands it to me. It reads, “Trace—thanks for, well, all of it. XO, Dev.”
“He’s got thick dark hair,” Wyatt says.
“And he’s tall,” Amity says.
“So?” I don’t know what they’re getting at.
“The nosy neighbor said the man who visited Tracy on Monday afternoons, when the salon was closed, was tall and had a thick head of dark hair,” Amity says.
“Dev’s bar doesn’t open until eight o’clock,” Wyatt says. “It could have been him.”
Was Dev playing me? He was part of this all along?
“Why would he have been here?” I say. “What would be the motive?”
Amity glances back to the bedroom. I follow her gaze to the negligee on the floor.
“You think Dev was sleeping with Tracy?” I say.
“Not in real life,” Amity says. “It’s pretend, remember?”
“He might be our man,” Wyatt says.
At his cottage, Dev did say the murderer was a man.
I go over my encounters with him—at the village green, the opening-night dinner, in his cottage, on the drive, at Stanage Edge.
Did he say anything that could have revealed a plausible motive for him to kill Tracy?
He didn’t mention Tracy or the mystery at all, except to say he was initially a skeptic.
“The dashing distiller has some questions to answer,” Wyatt says.
“Yes, he does,” I say. I can’t deny it. I’m excited by the thought of putting the squeeze on Dev. “I’ll drop by his bar and question him later.”
“We’ll all go,” Amity says.
“Are you worried that my investigative abilities might be compromised by my—”
“Libido?” Wyatt says.
“The word I was going to use was ‘friendship,’?” I say.
From Tracy’s we head to the village’s sole Indian restaurant. Over curry, we review the evidence we saw at the flat.
“The eviction notice on the table seems to be enough to rule out Bert Lott,” Wyatt says.
“But doesn’t it confirm what we already know—that he wanted Tracy out of the salon?” I say.
“Yes, but if he was taking legal action to evict her and had a court date set for a month after the murder, it makes no sense that he would kill her,” Amity says.
“Okay, no more Bert Lott.”
It feels like we’re making progress. We look at the photos on our phones to see if there are other clues.
There’s one of the card we found in the wastebasket from whoever sent Tracy flowers.
But it’s too late to call the Willowthrop Florist, so we put that off for tomorrow.
We also agree we need to ask around about the “Pippa” mentioned in Tracy’s Filofax.
She’d written “TELL PIPPA” and underlined it with such force that the page was nearly torn.
What was she going to tell her? Did it have anything to do with why Tracy was murdered?