Page 18 of Welcome to Murder Week

“A dishy vicar?” Wyatt says. “Yes, please.”

I take my notebook out of my bag and write VICAR on the first page. I have a rush of being eleven again and pretending I’m a spy. I used to roam our neighborhood, recording the movements of the residents. I never saw anything criminal, and never found any mysteries to solve, but I witnessed some moments meant to be private, like when Sissy Lampkin, the prim president of the Junior League, stood at her kitchen sink picking her nose. My grandmother hooted when she heard about this, though it hadn’t surprised me. By then I already knew that people weren’t always what they seemed. My grandmother said I was cynical beyond my years, which I always took as a compliment even though she never sounded pleased about it.

I’m starting to settle into the fact that, as strange as it is, I’m here in England to solve a fake crime and that I might even enjoy it.

Selina and Bix, after their allotted fifteen minutes, come out of the salon looking miffed at each other. Another fifteen minutes pass and the Tampa book club ladies exit laughing. I guess the crime scene is suitably gemütlich.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We enter the salon and practically trip over Tracy Penny, who lies face down on the floor, wearing a silky bathrobe printed with green vines and bright red poppies. She has long, wavy dark hair, luxurious for a woman of forty, but not totally surprising, as stylists always seem to have fabulous hair the way dermatologists have skin as unblemished as a baby’s bottom.

As we circle Tracy, I try to ignore the gentle rise and fall of her torso. I take several pictures with my phone, not only of Tracy’s body but of the crimson liquid on the floor. Maybe that’s a clue? At least it was in one of the old shows I watched with Mr. Groberg.If you look carefully, you’ll see that the blood splattered forty-five degrees due northwest, which means the culprit could only be left-handed. Constable, arrest Lord Dastardly immediately!

I’m finding it hard not to laugh, but Wyatt is all seriousness, opening and closing the front door. “No sign of forced entry.”

The constable informs us that the front door was closed but unlocked when the assistant arrived to open up.

“Did Tracy usually lock the door at night?” Wyatt asks.

The constable turns to Germaine, who’s watching from the side of the salon. She gives a quick, approving nod.

“Mrs. Penny’s habit was to lock the door,” the constable says.

“So, then, the murderer was known to Mrs. Penny?” Amity says.

“Or had a key,” Wyatt says. He pulls a notebook from his pocket and scribbles in it.

“And left in a hurry, not bothering to lock the door,” Amity says.

The salon is sunny and clean. Three seats, one of which has a robe draped over the back, face a wall of mirrors. A shelf runs the length of the mirror. On it are two glass jars of blue disinfectant filled with combs and scissors and a chrome shaving set with a wood-handled blade and a shaving brush in a small bowl. There is also a damp towel.

I pick up the shaving brush, which is sticky, and am about to ask Wyatt if it’s real animal hair when the constable barks, “No touching!” and I drop it. In the back of the salon are two sinks for washing hair and a small washing machine and dryer. I walk over to the washing machine and ask the constable if I can open it. He nods. But inside is nothing but a single black nylon robe. The dryer is empty. The back door opens to a vestibule where there is a staircase leading to the apartments on the second and third floors and another door, bolted from the inside, which opens onto the parking lot.

“You said Tracy lived upstairs,” I say to the constable. “Did she live alone?”

“She used to live there with her husband, Gordon Penny, but he moved out six months ago,” he says, and hands me a business card for an establishment called Gordon’s Cha Cha.

“Is that a strip club?” I ask.

“In Willowthrop?” The constable looks as shocked as a Downton Abbey butler asked to serve dinner with only one footman.

“This is acozymystery,” Germaine says. “Gordon’s Cha Cha is a dance studio.”

I pocket the card and turn my attention to the framed photographson the walls. They’re all of Tracy Penny, captured in excellent light in a variety of hairstyles. Here she is in hiking clothes on the shores of an emerald-green mountain lake (hair in braids). Here she is on a sun-drenched terrace (hair in a sleek short bob) hoisting a margarita glass as big as her head. Here she is in her wedding portrait (hair in a glamorous updo and her head bent into a bouquet of white calla lilies). There’s also a framed magazine article about a stable, featuring a full-page photograph of Tracy, now with a perm, standing in the middle of a corral, holding the reins of a speckled pony on which sits a little girl with unruly red hair. The caption says, “Staff member Tracy helps little Ambrosia get comfortable in the saddle.” I take photos of all the pictures on the walls and move on to examine a shelf of hair products with labels that look homemade. When the constable turns his back, I open one and take a sniff.

“If it smells like almonds, it could be cyanide,” Amity says.

“More like Froot Loops.”

“It’s one hundred percent organic, love,” comes a whisper from the floor. Tracy is peering up at me. “If you want to buy some, stop in at the end of the week after I’ve been resurrected.”

From the side of the room, Germaine tsks and rolls her eyes.

A toilet flushes, and a young woman in a white smock appears. She is holding a washcloth to her face, dabbing her eyes, which look red from crying. The constable introduces Dinda Roost, the salon assistant. Wyatt asks Dinda if there was anything unusual about her arrival at the salon this morning.

“Other than my boss on the floor dead as a doornail?”

“Answer the question, please,” Germaine says.

---