Murder, with Peacocks

by Donna Andrews

  Dad’s face lit up. “Meg, that’s wonderful! But how do you know?”

  “Michael and I burgled his house. We didn’t find anything incriminating, I should point out.”

  “No, of course not. But are you sure it was Emma Wendell?”

  “Can you think of anyone else whose remains Mrs. Grover would be lugging around in a box marked Emma? I think the odds are good.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And Michael helped you.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Good man, Michael,” Dad said, warmly. “That was very enterprising of both of you, not to mention brave and very thoughtful.”

  “Foolhardy and futile were the words I would have used,” I said. “But thanks anyway. Now that you know where to find her, what are you going to do with her?”

  “Run some tests.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing all this time with Great-Aunt Sophy?”

  “Well, no. Actually, I’ve been on a stakeout.”

  “A stakeout?” I echoed.

  “Yes,” he said. “You see, I realize that Jake couldn’t possibly have killed Jane Grover, but I still think he was mixed up in it somehow. Maybe he hired someone to do it. Or maybe he knows something he’s afraid to tell. Something that might mean that your mother’s in danger. So I’ve been staking his house out for the last ten days.”

  “Staking it out from where?”

  “The big dogwood tree in his yard. His phone’s just inside the window on that side of the house, and I can hear every conversation he has and see anyone who comes to the front door. And I’ve rigged a mirror so I can keep an eye on his back door. Jake can’t move a muscle without my finding out about it. At least while I’m there.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. I wondered if Jake had really failed to notice Dad perching in his dogwood tree for the past ten days. None of the neighbors had mentioned it. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? I made a mental note to cruise by Jake’s house later to see how well camouflaged Dad was. Perhaps I should start building a cover story in case someone noticed him. Babbie about some rare species of bird Dad suspected of nesting in the neighborhood. Yes, the sheriff would probably buy that.

  “Sooner or later, he’ll leave the house unlocked and I can pull the switch, now that I know where his late wife is,” Dad continued. “I didn’t have that much time to search the one time I could get in. But now—”

  “Let me do it, Dad,” I said. He looked doubtful.

  “I’m not sure I should let you. If he finds out we’re on to him—”

  “I’ll get Michael to help me,” I said. As I suspected, that did the trick.

  “Oh, well, that’s all right, then,” Dad said. “Just let me know when you’ve pulled it off.”

  And he trotted off. Presumably to continue his vigil.

  Saturday, July 2

  MICHAEL DROPPED BY AS PROMISED THE NEXT MORNING AND talked Mother into keeping the blue fabric. In fact, he convinced her that she had picked out the one fabric in the world that would do her living room justice.

  “I’m in your debt for life,” I said, as we left Mother and Mrs. Fenniman to contemplate the future glories of the living room.

  “Good,” he said. “Hold that thought. But I have something to show you. Follow me.”

  I followed him down the driveway. I began to suspect where he was taking me.

  “Jake’s house, right?” I asked.

  “Right. You already knew about this?”

  “I only found out last night. How bad is it?”

  He rolled his eyes. I winced inwardly.

  When we got to Jake’s house, Michael stopped, and bent down as if to tie his shoe.

  “Up there in the dogwood.”

  I pretended that I was idly looking around the neighborhood while waiting for Michael. Dad wasn’t quite as obvious as I’d feared. If you knew what to look for, you could rather quickly spot the lump of slightly wilted dogwood leaves and wisteria vines that was Dad. But it actually wasn’t all that noticeable. I thought.

  “He’s been there all morning,” Michael said, standing up and pretending to inspect the other shoe to see if it needed tying. Both of us were carefully avoiding looking at Dad.

  “As a matter of fact, he’s been there on and off for ten days,” I said.

  “Really!” Michael said, barely stopping himself from turning around to stare at Dad in surprise. “I had no idea. I only noticed this morning. Spike thought he’d treed him.”

  “In case anyone does see him and mentions it, mutter something about a rare migratory bird that he wants to scoop Aunt Phoebe with.”

  “Rare migratory bird,” Michael repeated. “Aunt Phoebe. Right. Just for curiosity, is he investigating Jake or guarding him?”

  “He’s not sure himself.”

  “I see,” Michael said, as we began walking on past Jake’s house. “Tell him to let me know if he needs any help. Not necessarily with the actual stakeout,” he said, quickly, noticing the sharp look I gave him. Right. I could see it now: two suspicious lumps in the dogwood tree, one short and round, the other long and lean. And Michael and Dad getting so caught up in conversation that they forgot to keep their voices down. Just what we needed.

  “By the way, I have a costume for you,” Michael said. “The ladies helped me pull it together. Do you want to go in and try it on now, or shall I just come by a little early for the party and bring it?”

  “Just bring it. Right now, I want to get the yard ready for the party while Dad’s out of the way.”

  “I thought the yard was your Dad’s territory. I offered to help him out by mowing the lawn, and he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Dad adores riding the lawn mower,” I said. “Usually the yard’s all his, but if I get out this afternoon and festoon all the trees with little twinkly electric lights, it might keep Dad from trying to fill the yard with torches and candles. He nearly burns the house down every time we let him decorate for a party.”

  “I can come over and help if you like,” Michael offered.

  “It’ll be hard work,” I warned.

  “Yes, but in such delightful company,” he said.

  No accounting for taste, I suppose. By now, I was actively looking to avoid spending too much time in my family’s company. Although as it turned out, Pam and Eric were the only other family members I succeeded in recruiting. The four of us spent the whole afternoon climbing trees and perching on ladders.

  “Once we’ve got these up, I think we should just leave them up till Mother’s wedding,” I said, as we surveyed our handiwork. “One less thing to do that week.”

  Of course Dad insisted on putting out a few dozen candles, but not nearly the number he would have otherwise.

  And Michael brought over my costume. He called it a lady pirate costume.

  “You can be either Anne Bonney or Mary Read. Both famous lady pirates. Piracy was an equal opportunity career.”

  I examined it. A tight corset, topped by a skimpy bodice and finished off (barely) with a short skirt. All ragged, with picturesque fake bloodstains and strategic tears. I’d have turned it down, except that his concept of a lady pirate included a cutlass and a dozen daggers of assorted sizes.

  “I don’t think much of the dress,” I said. “But I like the cutlery. If things keep going as they have been, you may not get the weapons back till I leave town. And I want your eyepatch.”

  Even after I divested him of his eyepatch, Michael made a very picturesque pirate. With the three or four days’ growth of beard he’d cultivated, he ought to have looked scruffy, but he only looked more gorgeous than usual. Rather like the cover of a romance book. It wasn’t fair.

  Dad came dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Fortunately he felt inspired to act the part as well. Since Mrs. Grover’s murder and the other unfortunate events of the summer were a century out of his period, he feigned complete ignorance of them.

  Mother outshone everyone. She came as Cleopatra, with Barry and one of her burlier n
ephews to carry her litter. I suspected that Barry had built the litter as well. Perhaps that was the excuse he’d used to con Professor Donleavy into letting him set up the carpentry shop. I sighed. I hadn’t realized he’d started buttering up Mother as well as Dad. Barry and the cousin were standing around in their skimpy Egyptian slave costumes, flexing their muscles, looking as if they, too, were posing for the cover of a romance. To me, they looked more like low-rent professional wrestlers. Or extras from a Conan flick.

  About the only person with a mediocre costume was Jake, who wore a tuxedo and carried a cane and periodically performed a few clumsy dance steps to show that he was Fred Astaire.

  Even Cousin Horace, though predictably attired in the usual gorilla suit, had apparently gotten himself a brand new gorilla suit. I approved. The old one had become loathsome, its fur frayed and matted and covered with wine and salsa stains. Perhaps he was feeling self-conscious about the new suit, though; I noticed him slipping around the corner of the house in a manner that was remarkably furtive, even for Horace.

  Being armed to the teeth was an excellent idea for future neighborhood parties. The cutlass wasn’t sharp, but waving it at anyone who misbehaved tended to get my point across. Some of the daggers actually were sharp, which I used to advantage when Barry, having had too much to drink, foolishly grabbed me by the waist. And the weaponry made me feel irrationally safer whenever I remembered the fact that one of the cheerful party guests gamboling on the lawn might well be a killer.

  Everyone was having a good time. Well, Barry was off somewhere sulking and nursing his cut. It wasn’t much of a cut, and I was sure he didn’t really need the elastic bandage on his wrist, either. I hadn’t twisted his arm that badly the other day; he was blowing these things out of proportion. Jake was off somewhere sulking, too; someone had mistaken his Fred Astaire impersonation for a penguin. And Samantha had proclaimed herself mortally embarrassed and gone home in a huff after seeing Rob dressed in what he called his legal briefs—a pair of swim trunks with pages from a law dictionary stapled all over them. But everybody else was having a great time.

  “Hello, Meg,” came a muffled voice. I turned to see Cousin Horace. Who appeared to have changed back into his old gorilla suit. He was waving a paw at me. I could see a familiar set of blueberry stains on his left palm. How tiresome; if he had to wear the suit, why couldn’t he have stayed with the new, improved model?

  “What happened to your new suit?” I asked.

  “New suit?” he asked, puzzled. He was eating watermelon through the gorilla mask; an amazing feat, but one I would really rather not have watched.

  “Didn’t I see you earlier in a new gorilla suit?” I asked, irritably. Well, perhaps to give him credit he preferred not to stain his new suit. Perhaps we could get him to change back when he’d finished eating.

  “I don’t have a new suit.”

  “Are you sure?” Dumb question; of course he’d know if he had a new gorilla suit. But if it wasn’t him …

  “Who was it?” Cousin Horace asked, suspiciously. I gave him an exasperated look.

  “How should I know? I thought it was you.”

  Who, indeed? I left Cousin Horace muttering threats against the imposter and moved through the party, scanning the crowd for another squat, furry figure.

  “Looking for someone?” Michael asked, coming up beside me.

  “Yes; someone in a gorilla suit,” I said, standing on tiptoes to look over the crowd.

  “Your cousin Horace is back there, by the buffet.”

  “Not him,” I said, shortly.

  “You mean there’s someone else wearing a gorilla suit? Is it contagious?”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” I said.

  “About what?” asked Dad, who had just appeared on my other side.

  “Someone is sneaking around in a gorilla suit,” I said. “Someone other than Horace.”

  “Well, it’s not as though he has exclusive rights to it,” Dad said. “Although I’m sure Horace finds it upsetting.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I saw whoever it was sneaking around the corner of the house. With everything that’s going on, I don’t like the idea of someone sneaking around.”

  “Someone dressed in a costume that hides its wearer’s identity,” Michael added.

  “Sneaking in or out?” Dad asked.

  “Out, I think. Unless I scared him away.”

  “Let’s check the house,” Michael suggested.

  We did, though it didn’t seem too useful to me, since we had no idea what we were looking for. We didn’t even know if we were looking for something missing or something added. Nothing seemed amiss downstairs, other than the normal chaos that comes from preparing for a large party and then having several hundred people tramping in and out to use the bathroom. I sighed at the thought of the cleanup we’d be doing tomorrow. The few people currently in the house remembered seeing the gorilla suit, but thought it was Horace. Was I the only one who noticed the new suit? Then again, presumably Horace could have gone inside to use the bathroom. We scrutinized the fuse box, but none of us knew what a booby-trapped one looked like, and anyway the lights were working.

  It was upstairs that we found it. In my room.

  “Dad! Michael!” I hissed. They came running, and I pointed to the object lying on my bed.

  A small wooden box, like a shoebox propped up on one end. Made of some highly polished wood, with delicate asymmetric carving on two sides. Leaning against one side was a card that said, in large, bold letters: For Meg.

  “Looks like Steven’s and Barry’s work,” I said.

  “Really?” Michael said. “It’s quite impressive.”

  “Could you have mistaken Barry for Horace?” Dad asked.

  “Doesn’t seem likely,” I said. “It was a new gorilla suit, but it still didn’t seem that large a gorilla. Then again, I didn’t get a really good look, and I assumed it was Horace.”

  We were circling the bed, peering at the box from all sides. I finally reached out to take the card—

  Lifting the card triggered some hidden mechanism. The lid flew open, and something leaped out like a jack-in-the-box. I didn’t see what, at first; we all hit the floor. After a few seconds, when nothing happened, we peeked over the side of the bed. A large bouquet of silk flowers had popped out of the box and was still swaying slightly. A card that said Love, Barry was twined in the foliage.

  “That’s certainly very ingenious,” Dad said, peering at the box with interest.

  “And rather romantic in a way, I suppose,” Michael remarked, frowning.

  “Of all the idiotic things,” I began. My heart was still pounding at twice the usual rate. And then I noticed something about the box.

  “Gangway,” I yelled, grabbing it and running. I scrambled through my window onto the flat porch roof outside, and hurled the box as far as I could toward the river. I have a good, strong throwing arm; it actually ended up in the bushes at the edge of the bluff.

  “Meg, that was uncalled for,” Dad said, following me out onto the roof. “I don’t like Barry any more than you do, but—”

  Whatever else he was saying was drowned out by the loud explosion at the edge of the bluff. Part of the bluff flew up into the air, disintegrating as it went, and began raining down in small chunks on the guests in the backyard. A small tree wobbled and disappeared over the edge.

  “It was ticking,” I said. “I see no reason for jack-in-the-boxes to tick. And someone had ripped open the lining and put something under it and sewed it back up, clumsily. Of course he could have decided at the last minute to put in a music box, and done it in a hurry, but I didn’t think that was too likely, and I’m glad I didn’t stop to find out. What kind of an idiot would leave something like that where anyone could find it, Mother or Eric or—”

  “Sit down, Meg, you’re babbling,” Dad said. I sat. “Michael, fetch her a glass of water. And then—”

  “Yes, I know,” Michael said. �
��Find the sheriff.”

  “And Barry,” Dad said. “I think I see them there in the crowd.”

  I looked up. People were swarming near the edge of the bluff. Much too near the edge. I leaped up.

  “Get away from the bluff!” I shrieked. “Everybody away from the bluff! Now!”

  They paid attention. Clowns, hoboes, gypsies, and furry animals of all kinds scattered madly and dived for cover. No doubt they thought I’d finally lost it and was planning to lob more grenades.

  “Good,” Dad said approvingly. “We need to preserve these crime scenes better.”

  “I’ll fetch the sheriff now,” Michael said.

  He brought them right out onto the roof. The sheriff didn’t mind; he could keep an eye on his deputies—several of whom, conveniently, were also relatives and thus already here to begin the investigation.

  “What is going on here?” the sheriff began.

  “Barry,” I said. “Did you leave me a present? Carved wooden box with a pop-up bouquet?”

  “Yes,” Barry said, his face brightening. “Did you like it? When you didn’t say anything before I thought you didn’t like it.”

  “Before? I only just found it a few minutes ago.”

  “But I left it on your porch last night.”

  “And I only found it a few minutes ago, here on my bed.”

  “But I left it on the porch,” Barry insisted. “Last night.”

  “I think it’s obvious what happened,” Dad said. “Someone found the box Barry left, took it away, and added their own little surprise.”

  “Surprise?” Barry said.

  “The explosion. Someone put a bomb in your box.”

  Barry turned pale and gulped. He looked at me, opened his mouth, then closed it and sat down on the roof, his head in his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned. “It’s all my fault.”

  “Don’t,” I said, patting his shoulder. “It was a very beautiful box. It’s not your fault.” Unless, of course, he had put the bomb in it.

  “I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “If I’d had any idea …”

  The party disintegrated, although many of the guests hung around watching long after the sheriff’s merry men finished interrogating them. The sheriff decorated the house with a lot of cheerful yellow crime scene tape and kept us out until he could arrange for a special bomb detection squad to come down from Richmond to search the premises. The team turned out to be a laid-back state trooper with a hyperactive Doberman.