A Brush with Death: A Penny Brannigan Mystery - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,32
historical merit, you’ll be sure to . . .”
Her voice trailed off as Penny nodded and touched her arm.
“Yes, of course I will. You don’t have to worry about that. And I agree with you about the photos, by the way. I think it’s all about instant gratification versus something of permanent and lasting value, but there are advantages to the digital ones, too, like speed. I haven’t turned over Emma’s bedroom yet, but I expect there’ll be a few treasures there for you. I promised the clothing to Bronwyn for her jumble sale.”
“That’s the best place for it,” agreed Alwynne. “You won’t want to wear it, but someone else will. Still, you have a bit of time. The sale isn’t until November. Good timing, that, so we can clear out our closets to make room for all the new things we’ll get for Christmas.”
“You’re so practical, aren’t you?” said Penny affectionately as the two women smiled at each other.
“Oh, and look—here’s the rector. We left the front door open for him.”
The Rev. Thomas Evans closed the door behind him and eased into the sitting room with the confidence acquired from many years of attending every imaginable occasion from sickbed visits to the counseling of parents who are beside themselves after learning that their teenage daughter is pregnant.
“Good evening, Penny,” he said warmly, reaching over to shake her hand. “And Alwynne, too.” He peered around. “Victoria somewhere about, is she?”
From the kitchen came the sound of a ringing telephone, and then a few moments later Victoria joined the group in the living room.
“Hello, Thomas,” she said with an easy smile. “That was Bethan on the phone. Says she’s sorry she can’t make it and that we should carry on.”
“Right,” said Penny. “That’s what we’ll do. Why don’t we all sit at the dining room table? I think that would work better for us this evening. But first, I want to show Thomas our board and get him up to speed on what we know so far. And, Victoria, there’s a new photo here you need to see. It’s Alys, when she was about fourteen. She wore her hair quite short. I bet there were a few arguments with her mother over that, but I think she looks quite good.”
She handed the photo over to Victoria, who gave it a brief glance, then passed it on to the rector, who carried it with him as he and Penny crossed the room to the whiteboard.
He took a bit more time with it and then returned it to Penny, who taped it to her display.
“I think I’m going to get a small corkboard,” she muttered to no one in particular. “I like pushpins better.”
She spent a few minutes with the rector, showing him the timeline of the events on the night Alys died and giving as much background as she could. Then, the two joined Victoria and Alwynne at the table.
“Oh dear me,” he said as he lowered himself into his chair. “I know you are preoccupied with all this, Penny, but realistically, after all this time, do you think you’ll be able to solve a mystery that the police were unable to at the time?”
He paused.
“Well, we did once before,” said Penny, referring to the missing bride earlier that summer. “And I, that is we,” she said with a vague gesture at the other two, who nodded helpfully, “we need your help. In fact, we need you to do now what you did for us then.”
“Oh, no,” said the rector. “No more breaking and entering for me. That was quite enough, thank you very much. I am still terrified someone will find out what we did, and I will be up in front of the bishop so fast my feet won’t touch the ground.”
As the others laughed, he joined in in a good-natured but halfhearted kind of way.
“No,” Penny went on, “but you’re on the right track. Now, though, we are legally in the cottage so there’ll be none of that. However, I hope you’ll agree to read Emma’s diaries, just as you did last time. But you don’t have to read all of them. If you would start in 1967 and go through to 1971.”
She gave him her best appealing look. “I can’t bear to go through them, and I know you would treat the contents of those journals with the strictest confidence. You are the only person we can trust with this job.”