Murder, with Peacocks

by Donna Andrews

  “Just as well; I have a feeling any minute now I’ll get called into a conference about redecorating the living room. Mother has Michael from the dress shop measuring the house.”

  “Now there’s an intelligent young man.”

  “Yes, he seems nice,” I said, wincing. That was all I needed, for Dad to turn his boundless energy and determination to setting me up with the least eligible man in town. It was going to be the longest summer in recorded history.

  “He’s a professor of drama, you know,” Dad went on.

  “Yes, well, duty calls,” I said, and fled back to the kitchen before he could continue.

  I decided that chocolate chip cookies would cheer me up and placate Mother as well, so I took the time off from my list to whip up a batch. Lured by the smell, Rob ambled in, followed eventually by Michael and Mother, who graciously issued an invitation for us to make some lemonade and join her on the porch.

  “We always like to have lemonade and cookies on the porch on summer afternoons,” Mother said, when Rob and I brought out the glasses.

  “Very civilized,” Michael said, wolfing down his sixth cookie.

  Just then we heard the kitchen screen door slam, followed by frantic quacking.

  “Here comes Eric,” I said.

  My eight-year-old nephew ran in and launched himself at Mother, wailing and holding up a bleeding finger. By the time Mother had calmed him down enough to look at it, the bleeding had mostly stopped, and he had subsided into muted sniffles. Echoed by muted quacking from his pet duck at the back door.

  “Would you like Grandma to kiss it and make it better?” Mother asked, smiling down at Eric.

  “Grandpa says that the human mouth has more bacteria than even dogs’ mouths,” Eric said, snatching away his hand and backing off in terror.

  “I’m sure your grandpa knows best then, dear,” Mother said, with a touch of asperity. “Why don’t you go ask Grandpa to suture it?”

  “Okay,” Eric said, charmed by the idea. Suture, indeed; the child obviously needed more of Dad’s vocabulary lessons. Mother sipped her lemonade as Eric ran happily out, armed with a fistful of cookies. Michael was looking oddly at us.

  “Dad’s very good with childhood scrapes and sniffles,” Rob said. “That was always one of his major charms as a parent. How seriously he treated even the most minor ailments.”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t all become raging hypochondriacs,” Mother said, shaking her head.

  “Other children might run to Mommy and get a Band-Aid,” I added. “We’d go to Dad to have sterile dressings for our lacerations and abrasions—after proper irrigation to prevent sepsis, of course. At least Pam and I did.”

  “I never could stand the sight of blood,” Rob said with a shudder.

  “Won’t that be rather a handicap in your profession?” Michael asked.

  “Oh, very funny,” Rob said, and buried his face in his bar exam review book.

  “Rob’s a little sensitive about lawyer jokes,” I explained, patting my brother’s arm.

  “Lawyer jokes?” Michael said. “I’m very sorry; I wasn’t trying to make a joke. I could have sworn your father told me Rob was going to go on to medical school. To become a forensic pathologist.”

  “Oh, God! Dad’s at it again!” Rob groaned.

  “Dad wishes Rob would go to med school and become a forensic pathologist,” I said. “He came up with the idea about a week after Rob broke the news that he was going to law school.”

  “I didn’t realize he was going around telling people that again!” Rob said, shaking his head.

  “Still dear, not again'” Mother said. “He never really stopped, you know.”

  “God, think of all the people he’s probably told,” Rob moaned.

  “I think most of the family understand the situation, dear,” Mother reassured him.

  “Our family might, but what about Samantha’s family?” Rob wailed.

  “They’ll learn,” I said. “The important thing to keep in mind when dealing with any of our extended family,” I said to Michael, “is never, ever to believe anything any of us says without corroboration.”

  “Preferably from an outsider,” Rob added.

  “Preferably from your own two eyes,” I said.

  “Are you telling me your entire family are liars?” Michael asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Meg.” Mother sniffed.

  “Not liars,” I said. “Well, maybe a few, and mostly they can’t help it. It’s just that most of our family are prone to … exaggeration.”

  “Tall-tale-telling,” Rob added.

  “Creative interpretation of reality resulting from wishful thinking,” I suggested. “Like Dad’s notion about Rob having a career in forensic pathology. All Rob’s life Dad has been dreaming about Rob following in his footsteps. He was depressed about Rob not going to med school until he came up with the forensic pathology idea one day, and after that it took on a life of its own.”

  “That’s the other thing you have to watch out for,” Rob said. “With most of the family, once they get an idea into their heads, it’s very hard to get them to change their minds.”

  “We hate letting silly things like reality interfere with our pet notions,” I said.

  “I think I know exactly what you mean,” Michael said. “I’ve already experienced something of the sort myself.”

  “Good,” I said. “So you’ll know to take everything anyone here says with a grain of salt.”

  “A pound of salt,” Rob corrected.

  “Honestly, I have no idea why you children insist on filling this poor boy’s head with such stories about your own family,” Mother said. “You’d think we were a family of lunatics and pathological liars.” When the three of us burst out laughing, she shook her head, gathered up her embroidery and her lemonade, and went inside.

  “Oh, dear,” Rob said. “You don’t suppose Mother is upset, do you?”

  “I doubt it, Rob.”

  “I’d better go and see.” He sighed, heading for the door.

  “Mother is imperturbable, Rob, you should know that by now,” I called to his retreating back. Michael chuckled.

  “Oh, it’s very funny if you don’t have to live with her,” I said. “Which, thank God, I don’t most of the time.”

  “I wasn’t laughing at your mother,” he said, hastily. “I was laughing from sheer delight; how often does one meet someone who can use words like ‘imperturbable’ in casual conversation like that?”

  “Yes, I know we can be rather pretentious sometimes. Expanding one’s vocabulary is one of Dad’s pet projects. He used to pay us by the syllable for new words. He does it with the grandkids now. That sort of thing has a permanent effect.”

  “A very charming one, if you ask me,” Michael said. I sipped my lemonade and looked at him over the rim of my glass. The more I saw of him, the more I realized why instead of treating him as a pariah when they discovered his sexual orientation the local ladies seemed to have adopted him as a sort of pet. He was not only drop-dead gorgeous, he was absolutely charming. Except for the rather generic Middle Atlantic accent, he could easily have been custom-made to fit their notions of a Southern gentlemen. He was immaculately groomed and casually but elegantly dressed, with impeccable manners. Even Samantha and her mother admitted he was a charming conversationalist—although around here, that could simply mean that he had the ability to listen to others rattle on for hours without any overt sign of boredom. And he had a knack for the formal gallantry and witty flirtatiousness that so many aging Southern belles consider their due. More to my taste, he seemed to have a brain, and a slightly sardonic sense of humor. If only … but no. He wasn’t very obvious about it, but if both Mother’s branch of the grapevine and Samantha’s said he was gay, I could see no use wasting time on might-have-beens.

  “I’m not sure you should be quite so hard on your family, though,” he said. “It seems to me that most of the town shares your tend
ency to see things the way they want to see them.”

  “Most of the town are related to us, one way or another. At least the ones who have been here a generation or two. And the rest have just been around us too long.”

  “That must be it,” he said. “You see, shortly after I got here, something happened that seemed to give everyone the bizarre idea that I—” He froze, looking over my shoulder, and I turned around to see Samantha and one of the bridesmaids.

  “Hello, Meg,” Samantha said. “You look comfortable.” I felt as guilty as a night watchman caught sleeping on the job.

  “No reason not to be comfortable while I work,” I said. “We’ve been discussing the gowns. Michael has some ideas for making the hoops more manageable.”

  I felt guilty picking on Michael that way, but he rose to the occasion. After enduring a seemingly endless conversation on how the hoops could be better constructed to allow us to fit through normal doorways, sit in the limos, and go to the bathroom without too much outside assistance, I excused myself and fled outside on the pretext of seeing if Dad needed help. Michael jumped up and followed me out.

  “Nice of you to come all the way out here from town,” I said.

  “It’s just down the street, really,” Michael said. “I’m staying at Mom’s house.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “Your mother calls it the Kaplan bungalow.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Not that any Kaplans have lived there for fifteen years.”

  As we went out the back door, we ran into Eric, sporting an extremely large and already dirty bandage and followed, naturally, by Duck.

  “Hi, Aunt Meg,” Eric said. “Who’s he?” I suppose he had been too concerned with his finger earlier to notice Michael on the porch.

  “This is Michael Waterston,” I said, in my best formal manner. “His mother runs the dress shop. Michael, this is Eric McReady, my nephew.” Michael leaned down to shake the rather sticky hand Eric was offering. “And this is Duck.” Michael won Eric’s heart instantly by solemnly turning to Duck and offering his hand, which Duck pecked.

  “I’ve seen you two around,” Michael said.

  “Yes,” I said, “Duck follows Eric around just like a dog.”

  “Duck’s better than any old dog,” Eric said, loyally. “Come see what he did.”

  Eric led us to a spot in the bushes where a single duck egg was resting.

  “Duck laid an egg,” Eric said.

  “That’s very smart of her,” I said.

  “Him,” Eric corrected. I decided it wasn’t my job to explain that one to him.

  “What should we do with it?” Eric asked. I looked at Duck, who showed no apparent interest in sitting on the damned thing.

  “Well,” Michael said, “I suppose you could always eat it.”

  “No!” Eric wailed. “I’m not going to let you eat Duck’s babies! No, NO, NO!” He flung himself down to protect the egg with such violence that I was sure he would crack it. Duck began quacking hysterically.

  “Hush, Eric,” I said, glaring at Michael. “Nobody’s going to eat Duck’s babies.”

  “I didn’t mean eat it,” Michael said, desperately, “I meant heat it! Heat it! So it will hatch.”

  Eric looked around, still suspicious, but with noticeably less distress.

  “That’s what you have to do to hatch eggs,” Michael went on. “You heat them. Most ducks sit on the eggs to heat them, but Duck seems to prefer following you around, so we have to figure out some other way to keep her … his egg warm.”

  “Like what?” Eric asked, sitting up and cradling the egg in his hand.

  “Well, when I was a kid I had a little machine that you plugged in and it kept the eggs the right temperature for them to hatch. An incubator, it’s called. I hatched some chicks from hen’s eggs that way.”

  “Where do you get a ink-ink-”

  “In-cu-ba-tor,” Michael said. Eric mouthed it after him. I could see the dollar signs in his little eyes; he was going to dash right off and collect twenty cents from his grandfather for learning a new, four-syllable word. “Where do you get one?” he asked. Michael and I looked at each other.

  “I suppose a pet store would have one,” Michael suggested.

  “Aunt Meg, you could find a pet store with an incubator,” Eric said, in the sort of tone that implied that only his incomparable Aunt Meg could perform such a miracle.

  “I suppose I could try,” I said.

  “Try real hard!” Eric pleaded.

  “I will, I promise.”

  “And soon!” he wailed. “What if Duck’s egg gets cold while you’re looking?”

  “I’ll try real soon. Meanwhile, why don’t you keep Duck’s egg in your shirt pocket? Of course you’ll have to be really careful not to shake it, but that should keep it warm enough.”

  “Okay,” Eric said. He carefully placed the egg in his pocket, and he and Duck trotted off—slowly—to find Dad.

  “And what happens if he falls and breaks it?” Michael asked, shaking his head.

  “Well, at least he can’t blame either of us,” I said. “And since there isn’t any Mr. Duck around to fertilize the egg, it’s not going to hatch no matter how long we incubate it. Eric accidentally breaking it might be the best solution; the kids could have a funeral. Pet funerals are very popular around here, especially since Dad came back from a trip to Scotland with a set of bagpipes for each of the grandkids.”

  “They really play the bagpipes?” Michael asked.

  “No, but they can march around making such an ungodly amount of noise that they completely forget to be upset about the dear departed.”

  “Let’s hope the egg survives. You’ve got quite enough to do as it is; I’ll see if I can find an incubator. Since it was all my fault in the first place.”

  “You’re on.”

  “By the way, Meg, I was wondering if you would like to go—” Michael began, only to be interrupted by Mother calling and beckoning to us from the porch.

  “Michael, you will come to dinner tomorrow, won’t you?” Mother asked as we arrived at the porch. “Jake’s sister-in-law arrived this morning to spend the summer and help with the wedding, and we want to have a few people over to welcome her. Nothing formal,” she insisted, “just a little light refreshment by the pool. Meg, dear, I have something to show you,” she said, taking Michael’s acceptance for granted and moving to the next item on her agenda. “It’s about the dining room …”

  I waved at Michael and went off with Mother to spend the rest of the afternoon fruitlessly trying to talk her out of totally redecorating the dining room in addition to the living room. I hoped Mrs. Brewster wouldn’t up the ante in the decorating competition by decorating three rooms so that Mother would feel obliged to do the family room as well. I hoped Jake was more than reasonably well heeled. I hoped Michael would have the sense to realize that Mother’s idea of “nothing formal” meant that guests weren’t actually required to wear black tie and tails. I hoped the summer would be over soon.

  Sunday, May 29

  I’D GONE TO BED SATURDAY NIGHT EXPECTING A RESTFUL SUNDAY. At least the morning, when Mother and all her cronies would gather at Grace Episcopal, dressed to kill and waiting with decorative impatience for the service to be over so they could get down to the serious business of catching up with the week’s gossip. I planned to sleep late, read the paper, and rest. But I woke early and got up when I couldn’t stop worrying about my to-do list.

  I padded downstairs, fixed coffee, and sat at the kitchen table waiting for it to take effect. I was enjoying the peace and quiet of the empty house. I suppose I was halfway asleep again when a noise at the kitchen door startled me. I jumped and whirled, only to see Jake, halfway through the door. He started and looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was clutching a brown paper bag in both hands with a convulsive grip.

  “I thought everybody was in church,” we said, almost in unison. I laughed when I realized we’d both said th
e same thing. Jake didn’t. No sense of humor, either, I thought. What on earth does Mother see in him?

  “I just came by to drop off some things for the party,” he said, opening the kitchen door a fraction more and then slipping in sideways and over to the refrigerator. He opened the refrigerator door and surveyed the inside, already crowded with containers of food.

  “I suppose I should bring this back later,” he said, shifting from foot to foot and rolling the top of the bag a little tighter.

  “Oh, no; I’m sure we can find a space,” I said. I opened the refrigerator door wider and began shifting around Tupperware containers and foil-covered casseroles. “What is it you’ve brought? Can we slip it here on top of the ham or—” I heard a slight noise and turned to find the kitchen empty. “Mr. Wendell?” I peered out the back door. I could see Jake scuttling around the corner.

  Irritating little man. I seemed to make him nervous. Probably senses that you don’t like him, I told myself. Perhaps trying to get to know him was a lost cause. Perhaps I should just ignore him.

  On the other hand, if Mother had asked him to bring over something for the party, she would expect to see it. I gulped the rest of my coffee and went after him.

  Jake was making better time than I was. By the time I arrived at his house, a block and a half away, he was nowhere in sight. I trudged up the porch steps and was lifting my hand to knock on the screen door when I heard a female voice say, “So there you are!”

  I whirled, and saw no one.

  “I just went down the street to Margaret’s,” came Jake’s voice from inside the house. I realized the woman was inside, too, and not talking to me.

  “To hide something, I suppose?” the voice continued. “Something of Emma’s? The missing jewelry, maybe?”

  “Just some food for the party,” Jake said, meekly. “I told you, Jane; all of Emma’s jewelry is in the safety deposit box. Emma was very careful about that. I’m sure the key will turn up.”

  Ah, I thought. This must be the sister-in-law. Emma, presumably, was Jake’s late wife. And here I’d arrived in the midst of a family quarrel. Over missing jewelry, no less. I was tempted to stay and eavesdrop, but my conscience won out. I turned and began sneaking quietly off the porch.