FAYE LANTERN and the Search for the Village Murderer by Townsend Penny

Author:Townsend, Penny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

A Hunch

“It’s a textbook case.”

I nspector Rawlings was sipping tea and put his cup down on the saucer as Faye replied, “Maybe?”

“You surely don’t think she’s innocent?” he said, staring back at her.

Faye grimaced at his words, absentmindedly twirling her hair at the back of her head into a coil with her finger as she was thinking. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why Rosemary would kill the vicar and then hold him in an embrace, if your theory is correct, when he was dying or even dead?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she regretted murdering him after she had done the deed.”

“But what was the motive, Inspector?”

He thought for a moment. “If, as I suspect, she was having an affair with Roger Pennell, and she tried to end the affair, he could have threatened to tell Greg?”

Faye shook her head. She wasn’t convinced. “Did she admit to killing him?”

“No. She denied it,” he replied, placing his saucer on the floor with a tea-soaked biscuit on it for Buster.

She gasped. “You’ll get us both in trouble,” she said as she looked around for the inevitable dressing down from the owner of the tea shop. It was a fancy tea shop a few villages down, and the owner, an elegant woman in her fifties with her dark hair tied neatly in a bun, seemed to watch their every move. Faye had accepted a lift from the inspector, who was driving out that way. She was on an errand to pick up a book for Daniel, who was working, and she had agreed to have a brief tea break with the inspector before their drive back. She was now wondering whether it was such a good idea.

The inspector, sensing her distress, said, “I’ll take the blame, if anything’s said.” He knew keeping on Buster’s good side was the better of the two options.

“The thing is, Miss Lantern,” he continued, “as I said before, the facts don’t lie. Rosemary was at the scene of the crime. Her fingerprints were on the gravestone and the vicar’s blood was on her shoes. It’s undeniable evidence.”

“What about Dollie Mahoney’s murder?” she asked, watching him take a bite of his third tea cake.

“Rosemary’s fingerprints were on the flowerpot that was used to hit Dollie over the head and kill her. It puts her at the scene with the murder weapon in her hand. It’s irrefutable evidence,” he added.

Faye picked up the small pot of cream on the table and started spreading it on her scone.

“Did you find out who the footprint at Mrs. Mahoney’s cottage belonged to?”

“We found a match,” he replied, taking another sip of tea. “When we took Rosemary’s shoes from the house for testing, they were in the hallway next to Greg’s. We took his boot for testing, and they were a match for the print at Dollie’s cottage. A size nine with the same pattern of wear in their markings.”

“Well, surely, that puts him at the murder scene with Dollie?” she exclaimed.

“In our investigation, it appears he was a regular visitor at Mrs.

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