Page 26 of Welcome to Murder Week

I’m weighted by jet lag and a food hangover, and I need a nap. Wyatt feels jet-lagged too, and says he’ll walk back to the cottage with me so he can change and go for a run, which he thinks will revive him. Amity, despite being the oldest of our trio, says she’s filled with energy and is going to take a bus to visit a nearby village called Bakewell where Jane Austen is said to have stayed.

As Wyatt and I cross the village green, I’m thinking about our conversation at lunch. I ask Wyatt what he thought of Amity’s “threep’s.”

“She writes fiction, enough said.”

We cross the street. Edwina stands at attention at her window, lifting and dropping her lace curtain. I wave, and Wyatt gives her a little salute.

“I don’t really buy that ‘plummet’ thing either,” I say.

“Speak for yourself, pumpkin. I plummeted hard.”

“Seriously? How’d you guys get together?”

“It was at an Audubon Society fundraiser. I’d recently quit law school, an absurd idea from the get-go to everyone but my lawyer parents, and I was working for my sister. She was catering the gala. Bernard and I chatted during the cocktail hour. He liked my barbecued pulled pork on wonton crisps with jicama slaw and I liked his jawline.”

“Excellent prelude.”

“When Bernard told me he owned a birding store, it made me laugh. It was so tweedy and grown up, yet weirdly sexy. He was older than me, by a decade. I mean, he knew things—about wingspan andmigration patterns and our fine feathered friends. What did I know about anything? Bernard was so earnest, and it didn’t hurt that he seemed to be hiding the body of a triathlete beneath his blazer and corduroys. It was so unexpected, you know? Bernard asked for my number and called the next day. By which I mean, he didn’t text. He made a phone call.”

“How sweet.”

“Bernard took me to an early dinner at a tavern a few towns over. He said he wanted to show me ‘the swallows’ before dark, which I figured was some exclusive gay bar. But after dinner, he drove us to the river and led me to the water’s edge. We just stood there. I had no idea why. I mean it was pretty, but nothing dramatic. He said to wait. We waited. I fidgeted. And then I saw them, tiny dots in the distance. A blur at first, and then more dots, until there was a swarm of vibrating black spots filling the sky.”

“What was it?”

“Swallows. Hundreds of them, swooping and turning like they’d been choreographed. They twisted up in the air like smoke signals or ribbon dances or, I don’t know, waterspouts. Dissolving into shapes and new shapes like images on an Etch A Sketch. Bernard called it a ‘murmuration.’ I didn’t even know that was a word. It’s how swallows protect themselves. Strength in numbers. Anyway, it was beautiful. Like something I hadn’t known I was looking for, delivered to me in a magnificent swoop. I watched the birds spin themselves into a tornado, which narrowed at the bottom like the birds were being funneled into the ground. And then the sky was clear. Bernard said, ‘That’s where the birds will settle for the night. Shall we settle in too?’?” Wyatt smiles, like he’s savoring the moment all over again. “Within a month, I’d moved in with Bernard and was working at Hi, Hi Birdie.”

I stop him, my hand on his arm.

“You just jumped into his life, leaving everything behind? That’s very impulsive.” What had Wyatt been thinking? No wonder he’s having troubles now; he rushed inwaytoo fast.

“I was all in,” Wyatt says. “It was thrilling. He’s still everything to me, but he seems frustrated by having me around. He keeps suggesting I find more fulfilling work, as if he could imagine anything more fulfilling than birds.”

We pass the cheese shop and the stationer’s shop, and we hear music. It’s jazz piano, and it’s coming from the place on the corner, a narrow space with rustic wooden floors, a few tables with mismatched antique chairs. Inside, a man is sweeping. Just as I realize that it’s Dev, he steps close to the door and pushes a pile of dust outside. Wyatt and I both cough.

“Terribly sorry. I didn’t see—Oh, Cath, hello.” Dev has his sleeves rolled up. His brow glistens with sweat.

“No worries,” I say. I introduce Wyatt.

The two men shake hands.

The sign above the bar reads simply,MOSS.

“Interesting name,” Wyatt says. “Is it after a person? Moss Hart?”

“Who?” Dev says. He looks a little embarrassed. “It’s just for, you know, moss. The green stuff? I’ve loved it since I was a kid. I used to lie down on it. It feels amazing.” He laughs, looks at his feet.

“That’s a sweet image.” And then my mind travels from sweet to something entirely unexpected. While I’m standing there like nothing odd is happening, I’m imagining being stretched out beside Dev on a velvety bed of moss, his fingers between mine, his gaze intensely loving. I don’t even know if he’s for real, but Dev’s presence is stirring something inside of me, like he’s giving off some kind of force field that I can’t resist. But that’s ridiculous. Maybe one of Amity’s heroines would think she’d found her soulmate, but that’s not me. I don’t “plummet.”

Wyatt peers inside the bar. “Looks like a cozy spot.”

“It’s a start.” Dev rocks the broom handle back and forth in a way that makes me think he’s about to waltz with it. He says, “We open at eight in case you want to come by.”

Is he looking only at me?

“Good to know,” I say.

When we resume walking, Wyatt asks if there’s anything I want to share.

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