by Murder
"How does it look, really?" I asked Michael, who came back to the house to have lunch with us.
"Fantastic," he said. "Really, you're going to like it."
"I damn well better."
"You really don't like giving up control of things, do you?" Michael asked.
"No, I don't," I said. "That sounds like Dad's capsule analysis of my character flaws. What else has he been telling you?"
"He thinks you intimidate most men--he's not sure whether it's deliberate or not--and on those rare occasions when you meet someone who's not intimidated by you, you run for cover."
"Really."
"He's decided that the best thing for you would be to meet the right guy under circumstances that would allow you to get to know each other as friends before the possibility of anything else comes up."
"Please tell me he's not about to start playing matchmaker," I said, wincing.
"I ... think he's perfectly happy to leave things alone for the moment. Until all the weddings are all over."
"That's fine; after the weddings are all over, I can escape."
"We'll see," Michael said.
I wondered if he was planning on helping Dad. Just great. Dad and Michael, sitting around discussing the sorry state of my love life and trying to do something about it. The idea depressed me. And seeing Jake at one end of the family dinner table--timid, bland, ferret-faced Jake--was enough to complete the depression. Mother may have good taste in bridesmaid's dresses--the jury was still out on that--but her taste in bridegrooms had certainly gone downhill.
"I'm going to sit outside and be idle," I announced as lunch ended. "I'm going to lounge in one of the folding lawn chairs, sip lemonade, and leaf through whatever magazines I can find that I can feel reasonably sure have no pictures of brides in them."
"I'll join you, if you don't mind," Michael said, following me out the door.
"They won't miss you at the shop?" I asked.
"They're at a point on this set of dresses where they can manage without me right now. As a matter of fact, they're at a point where I would be very much underfoot."
"Then you can amuse me with witty conversation," I said.
"I don't know how witty it will be. But I have been meaning to talk to you about something. Now that things are settling down a little."
We gathered up the lemonade and lawn chairs and found a nice shady spot under the largest oak tree on the lawn. But just as we were setting up our chairs, a peacock leaped out of the tree and began strutting up and down the lawn with his tail spread. We looked around and saw a peahen behind us.
"I think we're in his way," I remarked. "He has my heartfelt sympathy," Michael said. "Let's give them a little privacy. God knows that can be hard enough to find around here."
We picked up our lawn chairs and moved down the lawn to an almost-as-shady spot. The peacock followed and resumed his mating display in front of us.
"He seems to be a little confused," Michael observed.
"We could split up and see which one of us he's really interested in," I suggested.
"I'm not sure I want to know," Michael said. "I thought they were just rented for Samantha's wedding. Did you decide to keep them around for your mother's after all?"
"We decided to keep them around permanently." I sighed. "The grandchildren put up such a fuss this morning when Mr. Dibbit came to pick them up that Dad talked him into selling them. I think Eric has them confused with turkeys. He's walking around bragging about having rescued them from somebody's dinner table."
"Every home should have a few peacocks."
"If you really feel that way, I could write your name on a couple of the eggs."
"Eggs?"
"Of course, I've only seen one so far, and I have no idea how many they hatch at one time. But if you keep your eyes open, you'll notice you don't see most of the hens. They're off ... somewhere. Incubating, we think. Dad and Eric have put in a special order at the bookstore for books on peafowl and general poultry care, so within a week or two the entire family will be walking experts on peacock husbandry."
"I can hardly wait," Michael said.
"I can."
"I think you need to get away from your family for a little while."
"That's what I'm doing right now," I explained.
"Out here in full view, where anyone who wants to find you can just walk right up and find you?"
"Well, what do you suggest?"
"Let's go to dinner someplace," he said. "Someplace that is not run by any of your mother's family or anyone who even knows you and will come up and start babbling about the weddings."
"I wish I could," I said. "But I shouldn't. Not until after the wedding. Things are too crazy. I shouldn't be sitting here doing nothing now."
Still, I was considering changing my mind and taking him up on it when Dad and Pam came running out of the house.
"Meg! Michael! You'll never guess what's happened?" Pam called.
"They've tracked Samantha down in Rio de Janeiro and are trying to get her extradited for Mrs. Grover's murder," I said.
"Rats! Who told you?" Pam said crossly. "But you're wrong about Rio; it was the Caymans."
"Are you serious?" Michael asked.
"Yes! I suppose the sheriff told you," Pam said.
"I actually thought I was kidding," I said.
"Perhaps you knew it, subconsciously," she said. "After all, the sheriff said it was your idea."
"It was?"
"Yes. After she and Ian ran off. Don't you remember? You said to search her room for evidence," Pam said. "The sheriff took you seriously and went to Uncle Stanley to get a search warrant. And do you know what they found?"
"Two years' worth of back issues of Bride's magazine?"
"Evidence!" Pam chortled. "Books about poisons! Samples of some of the poisons she's used this summer! Books about car maintenance and electrical wiring. And stuff that she probably used to rig the fuse box and the lawn mower and Dad's car!"
"Books? Doesn't sound like Samantha's style," I mused.
"And some papers that the sheriff thinks may prove that she and Ian really did steal the money her first fianc`e was supposed to have embezzled. Ian was an old college friend of his, you know."
"You were right all along," Michael said. So why didn't I feel happier about the outcome?
Tuesday, July 26
I was planning to sleep late. I'd decided that everything really essential that needed to be done for Mother's wedding had been done, and the more I worked, the more things she would think offor me to do. I managed to sleep through her departure for a facial and was planning to drag myself out of bed just in time to greet the relatives she'd invited over for lunch.
But around nine o'clock, when I turned over, stretched, and prepared to go back to sleep for the second time, I heard Spike barking outside my window.
Damn. Couldn't Michael keep the little monster quiet?
Apparently not. The barking continued. I rolled out of bed, stumbled over to the side window, and peered down at the yard. Spike was dancing around the foot of a large dogwood tree, barking frantically.
Damn. I heard no outraged peacock shrieks, so I assumed Spike had finally intimidated and treed the kitten. I turned to put on some clothes so I could go downstairs to rescue the kitten. I'd have to name the kitten sooner or later, I reminded myself.
But the kitten was inside. When I turned around, I saw him. Peeing on a silk blouse I'd neglected to hang up.
Perhaps I wouldn't be naming the kitten after all, I thought, as he stepped delicately off the blouse, shaking his paws. Perhaps Pam's household could absorb another animal. Perhaps the animal shelter was open today.
But wait. If the kitten was inside, what had Spike treed?
I peered out at the dogwood again. There was a lump swaying in its upper branches, directly opposite my window. Not a small, round, Dad-shaped lump, festooned with vines. Not a long, thin, Michael-shaped lump either. An enormous, ungainly, disgustingly b
ovine lump. It could only be--
"Barry!" I shrieked. "You pervert!" He had the grace to look embarrassed.
I grabbed some clothes, quickly dressed--in the bathroom--and ran downstairs, stopping on my way through the kitchen to pick up a piece of cheese for Spike.
"Good dog, Spike," I said, flicking the cheese at him. He gobbled it and resumed barking.
"Take him away, can't you?" Barry whined.
"Me? Are you crazy? Michael's the only one who can do anything with him. You'll have to wait till Michael shows up."
And wait we did. I fetched the mystery I'd been trying to read all summer and settled in a lawn chair. Spike got tired of barking after a while and curled up under the tree where he could keep an eye on things and resume barking whenever Barry moved a muscle. I tossed Spike a bit of cheese from time to time, to keep his energy up, and devoted myself to my book. Barry, showing greater sense than I'd previously given him credit for, remained very, very quiet.
Michael showed up around noon.
"So there he is," Michael said, in exasperated tones. "What's going on anyway?"
"Spike has treed a desperate criminal," I said, tossing the dog another bit of cheese. Spike took this as a signal for renewed vigilance and began barking energetically.
"A desperate criminal?" Michael said, peering upward. "Isn't that Barry?"
"Yes."
"What's he done?"
"He's a peeping Tom," I said. "A low-down, sneaking, miserable, perverted peeping Tom," I added, loudly, shaking my fist at the tree.
"Meg, I'm so sorry," Barry began.
"Save it for the sheriff," I said.
"The sheriff?" Michael said. "You're going to call the sheriff? Good!"
I heard a whimper from the dogwood. "No need to call him," I said. "He's coming over for lunch, I believe."
Sure enough, the sheriff showed up a few minutes later, along with fifteen or twenty other ravenous relatives--some, fortunately, bearing covered dishes. I related Barry's misdeeds as dramatically as possible--somewhat exaggerating the state of undress I'd been in when he'd spied on me. Considering my family's tendency to barge into rooms, day or night, with minimal warning, I'd learned better than to sleep in anything see-through or skimpy.
The sheriff took me aside.
"Are you planning to press charges, Meg?"
I sighed.
"I'd say hell, yes ... but he is Steven's brother. Can you just take him down to the station and scare the hell out of him? Don't let anyone hurt him or anything, but make him think twice before he does something like this again?"
The sheriff pondered.
"I'll do that, but while I'm scaring him, I'm going to check for priors. And where does he live?"
"Goochland County."
"Great; the sheriff there's an old hunting buddy of mine. I'll just have a word with him, see what he thinks. If I hear anything that gives me second thoughts about letting him off so easy, I'll get back to you this afternoon."
The sheriff might be weak in the area of homicide investigations, but he had few equals when it came to inducing guilt and putting the fear of God into wayward fifteen-year-olds. Which as far as I could see was about Barry's emotional age. I had a feeling the sheriff was about to solve my long-standing Barry problem.
The family dissected Barry's sins and shortcomings over lunch. Apparently everyone had had their doubts about him all along, but had politely refrained from voicing them. He was too nice. He had shifty eyes. Lucky for Barry that they'd unmasked Samantha, or they'd be stringing him up for the murders as well. Needless to say, lunch was a resounding success.
Everyone in the neighborhood was in a wonderful mood except for me. Well, and possibly the Brewsters, who after a talk with the sheriff had remained in residence, but in hiding. No one was sure whether to commiserate with them for the way their daughter had treated them or consider them her accomplices.
Everyone assumed that seeing the FBI agent at the reception triggered Samantha's flight. I wasn't so sure. I didn't think she'd reacted at all when she saw the agent. I thought she'd planned to run away all along. Well, for some days anyway.
"That's silly," Pam said. "If she planned to run away, why did she go through with the wedding?"
"She spent months arranging it; I can't see her letting a little thing like having chosen the wrong groom spoil it."
Everyone seemed to think I was joking. I couldn't account for the bad mood I was in. The local serial killer was out of business. Rob had been saved from a truly disastrous marriage. Barry was probably out of my hair for good. In less than a week, all my wedding chores would be over. Well, okay, maybe two or three weeks if you count all the cleanup. So why was I alone in such a lousy mood?
Well, maybe not quite alone. Dad was moping. "What's eating you, anyway?" I asked him.
"It's Emma Wendell," Dad said.
"They've run any number of tests, but they haven't found anything."
"Maybe that's because there isn't anything to be found."
"I suppose," Dad said. He sighed. "It all seemed to fit together so nicely. This really has messed up all my theories."
"I don't think you're going to be able to prove that Jake's a cold-blooded murderer," I told him. "You might have to find some other way of changing Mother's mind. If that's what you want."
He wandered off, giving no sign of having heard me.
I went off to run last-minute errands and perform last-minute tasks. Everywhere I went, people congratulated me. They seemed to think that it was my suggestion that made the sheriff search Samantha's room. And that I was solely responsible for catching her.
"And how clever of you not to let on to anyone until you had the goods on her," one aunt enthused.
I protested that if I'd known she was a murderer, I'd have told the sheriff about her before Saturday, and spared us all the trouble of the ceremony. And poor Rob all the bother of getting an annulment. No one listened. Everybody thought I was just being modest. I gave up trying.
But I couldn't help wondering if it wasn't all a little too convenient. Samantha disappears, and suddenly we discover that she's responsible for Yorktown's homemade crime wave. Somehow it didn't quite add up.
Something suddenly struck me: what if Mrs. Grover showed up early that morning to meet Dad for a bird-watching trip and saw a furtive figure lurking in the trees outside my room? What if she was the first to unmask Barry as a peeping Tom, and threatened to call the police or tried to blackmail him? What if Barry had taken drastic measures to avoid exposure?
What if we had the wrong murderer?
I began to wonder if letting Barry off with a warning was a good idea after all. I called and left a message on the sheriff's answering machine: "call me--I'm having second thoughts about letting Barry go."
Wednesday, July 27
But I didn't hear from the sheriff the next day, and he was nowhere to be found. Only more hordes of relatives bent on congratulating me. Rumor had it that the missing millions had been found with Samantha, and everyone who'd lost money was going to get it back. My popularity was reaching new heights.
"I'm really tired of being hailed as Yorktown's answer to Nancy Drew," I told Michael when he dropped by during his morning walk with Spike.
"Well, you did have her pegged as one of the prime suspects," he said.
"Yes, but I didn't find any evidence of anything. I was just mouthing off when I suggested searching her room. And I'm beginning to have serious doubts about whether--"
"Michael!" Dad exclaimed, popping round the corner of the house. "Just the man I was looking for! My wedding present for Margaret should arrive tonight, and I was wondering if you could help me with it?"
"Sure," Michael said. "How?"
"Well, could we park the truck behind your house so she won't see it?"
"I don't see why not," Michael said, shrugging.
"What kind of truck?" I asked, suspiciously.
"One of your cousin Leon's trucks," Dad said.
"As long as it doesn't block the driveway, I guess it's fine."
"And if you'd like to help us put it up tomorrow, you're welcome," Dad said. "Mrs. Fenniman is going to go with Margaret to the beauty parlor and then take her to lunch, so as soon as they leave, everyone we can find will be coming over to put it up so it will be there when she comes back."
"Sure," Michael said. "Just what will we be putting up?"
"You know how I've been trying to get the yard in shape so it will look really nice for the wedding?" Dad said. "Well, I thought of one thing Margaret likes that would make it just perfect, so I called some cousins in South Carolina--"
"Oh, no," I said.
"And they agreed to help, so I sent our cousin Leon down there with the truck--"
"Dad, do you have any idea how much you can fit into one of those trucks?"
"That's why I'm getting as many people as possible to put it up, Meg," Dad said.
"Put what up?" Michael asked.
"Spanish moss." Dad beamed.
"Spanish moss?" Michael said, incredulous.
"It's that gray, trailing stuff you see hanging from all the trees in the Deep South," Dad explained.
"Yes, I know what it is," Michael said. "You're having a truckload of Spanish moss brought in as a wedding present?"
"Yes," Dad said. "Margaret loves it; she says it always makes her feel she's living at Tara. Whenever anyone in the family comes up here from further south, or if anyone goes down there to visit, they bring back a little of it."
"I don't recall seeing any," Michael said.
"It doesn't survive," I said. "What the cold doesn't kill in the winter the birds drag away in the spring to make nests."
"But she thinks it's so pretty while it lasts," Dad said. "So I decided just once to drape every tree in the whole yard with the stuff. She'll love it. I'll give you a call when the coast is clear. Refreshments for everyone who helps out of course, and you're already coming to the party Friday, I assume? Oh, and if you have a ladder we could use, that would be splendid. We need all the ladders we can get."
