Page 63 of Welcome to Murder Week

Wyatt suggests we start with the low-hanging fruit—the flowers.

“We know they came from Willowthrop Florist, so let’s give them a call.”

Amity calls on speakerphone. Making her voice sound gruff and businesslike, she introduces herself as “DS Clark,” which I think stands for detective superior or maybe department superintendent? Whatever, Amity is clearly amused with her ruse. She says she’s pursuing a murder investigation and that the public good would beserved by knowing who recently ordered a bouquet of white calla lilies to be delivered to Tracy Penny.

“Oh, yes, of course, you’re following up.” The woman sounds excited, maybe a little nervous. “I mean, oh, how surprising. Let’s see, the white calla lilies. Let me see if I remember. Hmm, white calla lilies.” She’s the first genuinely bad actress we’ve encountered yet, which makes me appreciate how good everyone else has been. “Here we are. Oh, how interesting. I remember it well, because he didn’t call as so many do these days. He came into the store himself and paid in cash, including some loose change from his pockets. He was a few pence short, but I let it slide. He seemed so desperate.”

“Did you get his name?” Amity asks.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?” Amity asks.

“He had excellent posture.”

“Dark hair?”

“I suppose you could call it dark, what’s left of it anyway. Only a few strands and worn that sad way some men do. A comb-over, I think? I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. He knew exactly what he wanted though, despite the price. I suggested carnations, much less expensive, but he said no, it had to be calla lilies, nothing else would do. I hope she enjoyed them before she, well, you know.”

“I’m sure she did.” Amity hangs up.

“Not very illuminating,” I say.

“On the contrary,” Amity says. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. The flowers were calla lilies, the same flowers that Tracy held as a wedding bouquet in the portrait on the wall. That’s why they were sent to her. The person with the comb-over and the good posture who sent them and wrote ‘Forever Yours’ on the note was Gordon Penny.”

“Why would Gordon send flowers to Tracy?” I ask.

“Because, Watson, he’s still hopelessly in love with her,” Wyatt says.

“Why hopelessly?” I ask. “Maybe they were going to get back together.”

Amity gives me an indulgent look, like I’m an adorable child but not very bright.

“The note was in the garbage,” she says.

Wyatt picks up a red Sharpie, walks over to the bulletin board, and puts a largeXover Gordon Penny’s photograph.

“We have eliminated a suspect,” he says. “Gordon didn’t want Tracy’s money. He wanted to win her back.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“It’s time to visit the vicar,” Amity says. “He’s bound to know something useful.”

Walking to St. Anne’s Church, she and Wyatt debate which archetype they expect to encounter: a young dreamboat like Sidney Chambers inGrantchester, an unassuming priest with extraordinary insight like Father Brown, or a suspicious clergyman whose manner hints at a nefarious past. I’m hoping that Dev is still in his garden and not in town. I am not ready to see him.

At the entrance to the churchyard, we meet a tall woman, even taller than me, probably in her fifties and with bright blue eyes and straight gray hair cut at a slanted angle by her chin. She’s wearing the obligatory white collar over a black button-down shirt and black slacks. But on her feet, she’s wearing electric-blue rubber-toe shoes, the kind that runners wear because they think they’ll ward off plantar fasciitis.

“Good morning! I’m Sally, the vicar here,” she says, opening the gate. Her handshake is firm. “Shall we walk?” She sets out into the churchyard without waiting for a response. Her strides are longer than Wyatt’s.

“I didn’t know there were female vicars.” Amity is nearly skipping to keep up.

“The ordination of women as priests goes back to 1994.” The vicar speaks to us over her shoulder. “My path to the clergy started ten years after that, upon the occasion of a midlife awakening. In my past life, I was an accountant. One day, I found myself contemplating a ledger of numbers and yearning for them to tell me something more important than whether the company that employed me was in the red or the black. I could have tried kabbalah, I suppose, but I was raised in the church. And to the church I returned.”

We have reached the stone wall that separates the churchyard from the surrounding fields. She turns around to face us and leans back against the wall.

“Tell me, are you ordinary tourists come to see a medieval church or pilgrims in search of spiritual succor? Or are you hot on the trail of an imaginary crime?”

“The latter, I’m afraid,” Wyatt says.

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