Murder, with Peacocks

by Donna Andrews

  “You may have to stand in line,” he replied. “What’s she done to you?”

  “She deliberately smashed Duck’s latest egg. I know it’s trivial, but she very nearly did it in front of Eric, and you saw how upset he was at the very idea of something happening to the first egg. It was just so …”

  “Cold,” Michael said. “Very cold. I know exactly how you feel. She sets my teeth on edge.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Dad appearing so suddenly that I jumped again. “Goodness, you’re nervous today, Meg.”

  ‘That’s understandable,” Michael said. “She’s contemplating homicide.”

  “Mrs. Grover, of course,” Dad said, nodding. “I do hope she won’t come to visit often when they’re married. I hate to think of Margaret having to put up with her all the time.”

  “Mother’s probably the only one of us who’s a match for her,” I said.

  “Meg!” Dad exclaimed. “Your mother is nothing like Mrs. Grover!”

  “I didn’t say she was like her,” I protested. “I said she was a match for her. As in, I defy Mrs. Grover to get Mother’s goat the way she’s getting to everyone else around here.”

  “Your mother feels things more than she shows sometimes,” Dad said, reprovingly. “I plan to do whatever I can to see that she doesn’t have Mrs. Grover on her hands any more than necessary this summer. She doesn’t need that with everything else she has to do to get ready for the wedding.”

  “All the things she’s doing!” I began, but before I could get much further, Dad had trotted off.

  “He looks like a man with a purpose,” Michael remarked.

  “Yes, but what purpose, I have no idea,” I said. “Not to rescue Mother, certainly. Mrs. Grover seems to have latched on to Barry at the moment, and I’m all for letting him go unrescued for as long as possible.”

  “Amen,” said Michael.

  In fact, I was definitely hoping no one would interrupt Mrs. Grover’s tête-à-tête with Barry, since she seemed to be accomplishing the hitherto unknown feat of getting him hot under the collar. He was frowning and getting very red in the face; you could almost see the steam pouring out of his ears. He seemed to be looking for rescue. He kept glancing in my direction and then frowning all the harder. He would have to wait a long time before I rescued him. Unless—a sudden thought hit me. He wasn’t just glowering at me, he was glowering at us. Michael and me. I would be willing to bet almost anything that Mrs. Grover was trying to make him jealous of Michael. Only Barry would be dim enough to fall for that one, I supposed. But the ridiculousness of it wouldn’t necessarily prevent Barry from taking some violent action if he got much madder. He should avoid getting angry, I thought. It didn’t suit him at all. His eyes got small and piggy and he reminded me more with each passing moment of the bull in a cartoon bullfight, snorting and pawing the earth and preparing to charge. Michael, who would be playing the part of matador if Barry did charge, didn’t seem the least bit alarmed.

  I finally decided that it would be better to rescue Barry, for Michael’s sake if nothing else, and had actually gotten within earshot when Dad bustled up.

  “I have a wonderful idea!” he said. “You don’t mind, do you, Barry?” he said, taking Mrs. Grover by the elbow and leading her off. No, Barry didn’t mind a bit, though Mrs. Grover looked rather like a cat when you take away a wounded bird that the cat’s not quite finished playing with.

  “Fetch some punch, Barry,” I said, rather brusquely, thrusting my cup into his hand and giving him a shove in the direction of the food and drink. I watched to make sure he was really leaving, then dashed off after Dad and Mrs. Grover, partly to avoid being around when Barry returned with the punch and partly to hear what Dad’s wonderful idea was. I was appalled to see that he appeared to be making a date with her. To go bird-watching.

  Since Dad’s bird-watching trips start an hour before dawn and include trekking through some of the local streams and marshes to view the waterfowl, Mrs. Grover was proving less than enthusiastic, even after Dad offered to lend her his spare pair of hip boots. But from the way Dad persisted, I realized he must have some ulterior motive. Very few people can hold out when Dad persists. Mrs. Grover finally agreed, with a visible reluctance that seemed to escape Dad, to meet him in Mother’s backyard an hour before dawn for a few hours of nature appreciation.

  “Now, tell me why you’re so eager to go hiking through the woods with Mrs. Grover,” I said, when she finally escaped Dad’s clutches.

  “I think a little taste of healthy, outdoor exercise would be beneficial,” Dad said. “Perhaps a fishing trip in the rowboat would be a good idea, too.”

  “You could borrow an outboard motor from someone.”

  “No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Dad said. “The rowboat’s the thing. I could teach her how to row.”

  “Dad, I doubt if Mrs. Grover has any interest in learning how to row. If you’re trying to chase her out of town, why don’t you take her over to Mother’s cousin’s farm and show her the hogs?”

  “That’s a splendid idea,” Dad said. “Perhaps he could arrange to slaughter a few while we’re there. Any other little ideas you have to keep her out of your mother’s hair and make her homesick for Fort Lauderdale, you just speak up anytime.” And he trotted off happily in search of the hog-owning cousin. I sighed.

  “What now?” Michael asked, once more appearing at my elbow. He was getting very good at that.

  “Dad has found a new purpose in life,” I said, pointing to where Dad was enthusiastically talking to Mrs. Grover.

  “Mrs. Grover?” he said, incredulously.

  “In a way. He’s decided Mother needs protecting from Mrs. Grover.”

  “Your mother?” he said, even more incredulously.

  “Precisely. He’s planning to kill her with kindness. Strenuous dawn nature hikes, visits to cousins who live under rigorously rustic conditions—all sorts of supposedly fun things that aren’t. Keeping her out of Mother’s hair and if possible, encouraging her to flee.”

  “She could always refuse to go along.”

  “You don’t know him yet,” I said, shaking my head. “Dad’s the only human being on the face of the earth who can talk Mother into doing something she doesn’t want to do. Mrs. Grover’s a pushover compared to Mother.”

  “Well, I must say, I won’t be sorry if he succeeds in running her out of town,” Michael said. “She keeps coming up to me and insisting she knows me from somewhere. I’m sure if she does she remembers me from my acting days. Before I went back to school for my doctorate, I was one of those rare actors who actually earned a living at it. Mostly in soap operas. I assume that’s how Mrs. Grover knows me.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “Yes, but she keeps saying ‘No, that’s not it. But it will come to me sooner or later.’ As if she expects me to break down and confess, ‘Yes, yes, you’ve seen through me! It was I on the grassy knoll, and what’s more, I can tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is buried!'”

  “Really? I always heard it was somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike,” said a cousin who was the family’s leading conspiracy enthusiast. His uncanny ability to turn up at moments when his pet subjects are mentioned is one of the most persuasive arguments for mental telepathy I’ve ever known. I confess, I abandoned Michael to him and hunted down Dad.

  “Dad, about your trip to the farm with Mrs. Grover,” I said. “Do they still have that old outhouse around for local color?”

  “Yes,” Dad said, a blissful smile spreading over his face as he dashed off to talk to the cousin.

  Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a bad summer after all.

  I kept one eye on Mrs. Grover’s progress through the crowd—it was easy to track her by the comparatively bare spot in the crowd that tended to form around her whenever she paused anywhere for more than a minute. I was surprised she hadn’t yet burst forth to accuse Mother of robbing her dead sister, but perhaps she was saving that for the grand finale. I wandered over to
where Mother and Samantha were talking to the current and former rectors of Grace Episcopal Church. The retired rector, the aptly named Reverend Pugh, was an old family friend. Mother had recently granted tentative approval to his successor after a mere eighteen-year probationary period. She now referred to him as “that nice young man” rather than simply “that young man.” At this rate, he had a very real chance of achieving “dear rector” status by the time he retired.

  “And here’s Meg,” the rector said, as I strolled up. “Your mother and Samantha have been telling me about all the things you’re doing to get ready for their weddings.” Telling him in mind-numbing detail, I suspected, from the desperate note in his voice. I’d long ago stopped wondering why all three brides showed such a distressing inability to understand how anyone they came in contact with could fail to be fascinated with the minutiae of their weddings.

  “I’m sorry I’ll have to miss them all,” he continued, some-what disingenuously, I suspect. “The day after tomorrow I’m taking the wife and kids on that trip to the Holy Land. Finally going after all these years!”

  “Do you mean you’re not going to be here in July?” Samantha demanded. “Then who’s going to do my wedding? I’ve booked the church.” The rector and I exchanged worried glances.

  “Yes, well, if you’d talked to me I’d have told you I was going to be gone this summer,” he stammered. “When you didn’t, I assumed you were making your own arrangements with my substitute.”

  “And who is that?” Samantha asked.

  “Why, me, of course,” Reverend Pugh answered, beaming. Fortunately his eyesight was very bad—not unusual at ninety-seven—and he failed to notice the expression of outrage that crossed Samantha’s face. I could see she was horrified at the mere thought of his decrepit and highly unaesthetic self officiating at her wedding.

  “Don’t worry, Samantha dear,” he said, reaching to pat her hand and getting Jake’s by mistake. “I’ve got it down in my calendar already. I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

  I’d often heard of people having conniption fits, but I’d never actually seen a genuine, unmistakable example before. I was briefly tempted simply to let things run their course, but reason prevailed, and I knew I had to defuse the situation. Nothing brilliant came to mind, so in desperation I made a conspiratorial gesture to Samantha and whispered the first thing that came to mind: “Just humor him! I’ll fill you in later.”

  And spent most of the rest of the party avoiding Samantha while racking my brain for some explanation that would satisfy her. By the time she finally cornered me, much later in the evening, we’d both had rather a lot of champagne, and I managed to spin a convincing yarn about Reverend Pugh’s mysterious illness, and how Dad had said a positive mental attitude was important and of course it would keep his spirits up to look forward to the wedding, but that we’d round up a substitute and have Dad order bed rest at the last minute. It sounded highly convincing to me, though it could have been the champagne. Either she bought it or she allowed me to believe she had, after issuing the stern warning that I had better find the substitute ASAP.

  I had changed my mind; it was going to be an interminable summer.

  Tuesday, May 31

  ALTHOUGH I HADN’T EXACTLY MADE A WILD NIGHT OF IT, I HAD stayed up rather late at the picnic, plotting pranks against Mrs. Grover, averting disasters, and drinking a few glasses of wine and champagne. All right, more than a few. I was not at all happy when one of the bridesmaids showed up at the house shortly after dawn. The caterer was acting up and Samantha wanted my help.

  “I’m sure Meg will be able to take care of it,” Mother said soothingly as she adjusted her hat in the hall mirror. “Jake and I are following your orders today, dear. We’re going down to get him a new suit for the wedding, and then we’re going to run a whole lot of little errands.”

  “What sort of little errands?” I asked. Perhaps it was paranoid of me, but I couldn’t help suspecting that, as usual, some of Mother’s errands would later turn out to involve major amounts of work on my part.

  “Oh, this and that,” Mother said, vaguely. “Some things for the house. I don’t have a list yet. We’re going to make a list over a nice breakfast, and then see how much we can get done by lunch.”

  “Wonderful,” I said, insincerely. Mother turned loose on the unsuspecting county. I much preferred her indolent.

  “There’s Jake now, dear,” she said, and floated out toward the front door just as Dad came in the back.

  “Meg,” he said. “Have you seen Mrs. Grover this morning? She was supposed to meet me here at six A.M. to go bird-watching. She’s half an hour late.”

  “She probably decided to be sensible and sleep in. That certainly was what I had in mind this morning,” I said, looking pointedly at the bridesmaid.

  “Probably so. Well, if she shows up, or if anyone needs me, I’ll be in the side yard.” I nodded; my mouth was filled with one of Pam’s blueberry muffins.

  “Okay,” I told the bridesmaid, as I finished filling my traveling coffee mug. “Let’s go get Samantha and bring the caterer to heel.”

  The neighbors two houses down had recently put up an eight-foot fence to keep in their Labradors. When we started down the street, I saw Michael trying to pull a small furry dog away from that very fence. The little dog was barking almost hysterically and leaping repeatedly at the fence. We heard an occasional bored bark from one of the Labs. Michael finally succeeded in dragging his dog away, and they headed in our direction. When the dog caught sight of us he quickened his pace.

  “Oh, what a cute little dog,” the bridesmaid cooed as we came near them.

  “If you say so,” Michael said. “I consider him—don’t!” he shouted, as she bent down to pet the dog. “He’ll take your nose off,” he explained, as the dog went into a frenzy of snarling and snapping. “Bad dog, Spike,” he said rather mechanically, as if he had to say it rather often.

  “Oh, his name’s Spike,” she said inanely.

  “No, actually Mother calls him Sweetie-cakes, or Cutesypoo, or something like that,” Michael said, with disgust. “I don’t think even a nasty little dog like him deserves that, so I’ve decided to call him Spike. After a bully I knew in grade school.” As if he understood what Michael was saying, Spike glanced up at him balefully and curled his lip.

  “Charming,” I said. Spike was a small dustmop of black and white fur with a petulant, pushed-in face. I prefer cats and collies, myself.

  “Mom rescued him from an animal shelter where she was doing some volunteer work.”

  “Oh, that’s so nice,” the bridesmaid said.

  “She is fond of remarking that he must have been mistreated,” Michael said, “and will mellow when he learns to expect food and kindness instead of ill treatment.”

  “Oh, then she hasn’t had him long,” I said.

  “Only seven years. At this rate, I think he’ll go senile before he mellows.”

  Spike trotted over to the neighbors’ mailbox and lifted his leg. However, he lifted the wrong leg, and instead of watering the post came perilously close to spraying the bridesmaid and me.

  “We’d better go,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Samantha will be getting impatient.”

  “The caterer is showing signs of rebellion,” I said. “We’re gathering a posse to deal with him.”

  “Good luck. Are you bringing your friend Eileen in later today?”

  “If she shows up,” I said. “Mother took a garbled message from her yesterday. Something about her and Steven running away to the beach.”

  “Perhaps they’re eloping.”

  “Don’t get my hopes up.”

  We dealt with the caterer by phone, and then spent what seemed like hours in earnest discussion over whether or not there should be finger bowls, and if so, whether they should have flowers or paper-thin lemon slices floating in them. Left to my own devices, I could have settled this in thirty seconds.

  When this weighty issue had been de
cided and I had my marching orders, Samantha and her bridesmaid went off to meet yet another bridesmaid for lunch. Probably going to split a lettuce leaf between the three of them, I thought, guiltily remembering the muffin with which I’d already undermined my day’s calorie count.

  I went home, fixed myself an early and depressingly meager lunch, and spent the next few hours on the back porch swing with the phone, racking up long distance charges. One of Eileen’s bridesmaids, from Tennessee, had provided two completely contradictory shoe sizes, and I had to elicit the truth. One of Mother’s more elusive cousins had to be tracked down—as it turned out, to a commune in California. After failing miserably to find out through any other means the phone number of the Cape May bed and breakfast where Eileen and Steven were reputed to be hiding, I called Barry at Professor Donleavy’s and managed to extract the information without actually promising to go out with him. And finally, I reached Eileen and Steven and made Eileen promise to come home within a day or two to decide on her dress and ours.

  Having reached the end of my patience, I retired to the hammock and addressed envelopes for a few hours. When Mother hadn’t shown up by six o’clock, I began fixing some dinner. When she hadn’t shown up by seven-thirty, I ate it. Jake finally dropped her off after nine, tired but happy and laden with parcels.

  Not a wildly exciting or productive afternoon, but trivial as my activities were to the progress of the weddings, they loomed large in the light of subsequent events.

  Wednesday, June 1

  SUBSEQUENT EVENTS BEGAN HAPPENING THE NEXT MORNING AT breakfast.

  “Meg, have you seen Mrs. Grover?” Mother asked while waiting for me to finish fixing her a fresh fruit salad.

  “Yes,” I said. “I met her at the party, remember? At both parties.”

  “Yes, but have you seen her since? Jake called a little while ago to say she didn’t come home last night. He wanted to report her missing to the sheriff, but for some silly reason you can’t do much until she’s been gone for twenty-four hours.”