Chapter Forty-Three
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
We get Stanley and Pippa’s address from the vicar and talk through a possible scenario in the taxi to their house.
Assuming that Stanley and Tracy were having an affair, it’s possible that Tracy was pressuring Stanley to tell his wife about them and to declare that he was leaving her for Tracy.
But maybe Stanley had been putting it off.
Maybe he had no intention of ending his marriage and that, finally, Tracy called his bluff and gave him an ultimatum: either tell Pippa everything or Tracy would do it herself.
She even gave him a deadline. He had to do it by the day noted in her Filofax, otherwise she would tell Pippa.
In this case, it would have been Stanley who went to the salon that night, bashed in Tracy’s head, and shielded his departure from the salon with an umbrella.
The taxi stops in front of an imposing brick home with a conservatory on one side.
The lawn is flat and wide, its grass as neat as a fresh crew cut.
It’s a bland estate, with none of the charm of the village cottages, but it might be the kind of place Tracy had dreamed of moving into once Pippa was out of the way.
The doorbell echoes through what sounds like a sparsely furnished home. Indeed, the door opens to an abundance of glare—from the marble floors and sweeping staircase, a garish gold-and-glass chandelier in the foyer, and tall windows looking out over the back lawn.
Wyatt tells the maid we’d like to have a word with Mr. Grange.
The maid nods and escorts us into the living room, which looks like a gallery of contemporary art, with abstract paintings on white walls and flat, black leather benches without backs or armrests.
There is a single stone coffee table with nothing on it.
Stanley enters the room with long, confident strides.
He is slick and polished, his dark hair combed back in the wet look, a handkerchief in his jacket pocket, and slip-on leather shoes that look like they’ve never been worn outside.
He offers a hand to Wyatt, a firm shake by the way Wyatt winces, and nods at Amity and me.
“Stanley Grange,” he says. “What’s this all about?”
He doesn’t sit, and neither do we.
“It’s about Tracy Penny,” Wyatt says.
Stanley glances quickly toward the foyer.
“Terrible shame. Ugly thing. Murder.”
“We may as well cut to the chase,” Wyatt says. “You were seen entering Tracy’s salon several times. On Mondays.”
That’s a leap. We don’t know for sure that Stanley was the man Edwina had said she’d seen on Mondays.
“Seen? Me? Mondays? Uh, yes. Haircuts. You know. Neat. Trim. Fastidious.”
“The salon was closed on Mondays,” Amity says.
“Closed? Right. Indeed. Funny, that.”
He looks to the foyer again, like he wants to finish this conversation before anyone comes in. I appreciate how well he is staying in character, but it’s an odd performance.
“Your car—a red Tesla, I believe—was also spotted behind Tracy’s building,” Wyatt says. “At night.”
Stanley paces back and forth. “Tesla. Yes. Brilliant car.”
“Mr. Grange, we believe you were having an affair with Tracy Penny.” Wyatt’s eyes are shining.
Stanley sighs. “Ethical lapse, yes. Crime, no. A mistake. Terrible mistake.”
Amity looks at me wide-eyed, like we may be on the brink of nabbing our man. I give her a thumbs-up.
“Did you promise Tracy you’d tell your wife about your affair?”
Stanley slumps, sinks down onto a couch-bench.
“Yes, yes. Many times. But did I? No. Couldn’t do. Terrible thing.”
Wyatt has a glint in his eye like he’s moving in for the kill.
“But then Tracy threatened to tell your wife herself, didn’t she?”
“Threatened? Yes, yes. She did.”
“And you believed she would go through with it.”
“Formidable woman that Tracy. A tiger.” For a moment he looks like he’s forgotten his shame and is remembering more exciting times with Tracy. Black-negligee times. “Argh,” he roars, bares his teeth, and laughs. “A wild woman.”
“And you had to stop her,” Wyatt says.
Amity is standing beside me now, I can feel how excited she is. We’re about to get a confession. We’re going to win this thing!
“That’s right. I had to stop her.” He looks up, almost pleading, like he wants us to understand why he did it.
“And how did you do that?” Wyatt asks softly. This is the last thing we need. We know whodunit. We know whydunit. And now Stanley Grange is going to tell us howdunit.
“I woke her up.”
“Yes?” Amity says.
“Middle of the night.”
“Go on,” Wyatt says.
“And I told her how terrible I felt.” Stanley sits on the leather bench, puts his head in his hands.
“Yes,” Wyatt says, sitting beside him. “You felt bad about what you were about to do, but you couldn’t stop.”
“No, I couldn’t stop. Once I had started, I just…”
“You struck her?”
Stanley looks up. “Why would I strike her?”
“To protect your secret,” Wyatt says.
“No, I, I felt so wretched,” Stanley says. “I told her everything. I told her about Tracy and me.”
“Told who?” Amity says.
“What?” I say.
Stanley stands.
“Pippa.”
“I’m confused,” I say.
“I told Pippa everything.”
“Wait, weren’t you at Tracy’s salon?”
“Why would I be at Tracy’s salon? I was upstairs, in our bedroom.”
Wyatt gets up and asks Stanley to explain again.
“In complete sentences, tell us what happened,” he says.
“I was so scared. She’s a very frightening woman, you have no idea,” Stanley says.
“Who, Tracy?” I ask.
“No, Pippa. I was so afraid for her to know. But I had to tell her. I had to do it before Tracy got to her. I couldn’t take the risk. I decided to just tell her everything.”
“When was this?” Wyatt says.
“It was on Friday evening.”
“So, the day before Tracy was murdered?”
“Well, I didn’t know Tracy was going to be murdered. All I knew was that if I didn’t speak to Pippa before Monday, Tracy would get to her.”
“So you confessed everything?” Amity says.
“Yes, and I promised to end my affair with Tracy.”
“Damn straight, he did.”
None of us have noticed Pippa in the doorway.
She’s in a perfectly pressed white pants suit and high heels.
“Told me what he’d done, the fool. With a hairdresser, of all people!
So tacky. He promised to make it up to me.
And I made him start straightaway. Booked us the royal suite at Clitheridge Spa for two nights, where I kept him on a tight leash.
Couples massage, yoga, steam room, the works.
He was at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day. He still is, aren’t you, darling?”
Stanley doesn’t look handsome now, more like a punished puppy. “Yes, dear.”
“We returned the day after Tracy Penny’s body was discovered.
” She waves some papers in the air. “Here are our receipts, and a schedule of our meals and spa activities so you can see precisely what we were doing when Tracy Penny met her maker. My husband may be an egotistical, cheating bastard, but he is not your murderer.”