Murder, with Peacocks

by Donna Andrews

  “Barry was just leaving,” I said. Barry looked back and forth between Michael and me. I gestured to the door with the candlestick. Barry finally slouched out.

  I put the candlestick down and sank into a chair.

  “That was stupid,” I said.

  “I thought it was rather impressive. Remind me not to bet against you in an arm-wrestling contest.”

  “Yeah, I’m stronger than I look,” I said. “Fringe benefit of my career.”

  “I didn’t realize pottery was quite so strenuous.”

  “I’m not a potter; I’m a blacksmith.”

  “You’re what?”

  “A blacksmith,” I said. “I work with wrought iron. That’s my work,” I said, pointing at the candlestick.

  “I’m impressed. But obviously confused; I thought your mother said you and Eileen were partners.”

  “We share a booth and sometimes collaborate,” I said. “Mother hates to tell people what I really do; she thinks it’s unladylike.”

  “Ladylike or not, it’s useful. I was on the porch and heard you telling him to let you go, so I rushed in to rescue you. Only to find you didn’t need rescuing at all.”

  “I don’t think he’d have gone as easily if you hadn’t come along. Thanks.”

  We strolled out. Barry, fortunately, was nowhere to be seen. I’d be just as happy if I never saw Barry again.

  Michael walked home with me and stayed for several hours, amusing Mother and me with his banter. I had the feeling, though, that he was keeping a lookout in case Barry showed up to pick up where he’d left off.

  Which was silly. Barry was obtuse but not dangerous or violent.

  Or was I being obtuse?

  I pondered briefly how satisfying it would be to catch Barry red-handed with a blunt instrument in one fist and a tampered fuse in the other.

  I suppressed that train of thought and tried to call Mrs. Thornhill, the calligrapher, a few more times before going to bed. I tossed and turned for a while, remembering the sullen anger on Barry’s face when he left the dining room. I knew I’d handled the situation badly, but I wasn’t sure what I could have done that would have turned out better.

  Sunday, June 26

  SAMANTHA AND MOTHER, HAVING HEARD WHAT I’D DONE FOR Eileen, insisted on the same service. Since their weddings were one and two weeks behind hers, respectively, they didn’t have quite as many presents. Yet.

  Pam had only seen Dad in passing, and Mrs. Thornhill was nowhere to be found. On the positive side, Barry made himself scarce.

  Monday, June 27

  BY MONDAY, I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK THAT MRS. THORNHILL, the calligrapher, had skipped the country, taking Samantha’s envelopes with her. At her rates, the 50-percent down payment Samantha had made would certainly cover plane fare to Buenos Aires, and probably a few nights at a moderately priced hotel. I decided to go over and confront her in person. If she wasn’t there, I would wait for her. I could make use of the time; I took my clipboard and my notes for another batch of the thoughtful, warm, personal invitations Mother wanted me to ghostwrite for her. I wasn’t sure how early to go—I wanted to catch Mrs. Thornhill before she could disappear for the day, but not wake her up. I finally decided on eight. If she hadn’t already missed her deadline I might have given her till nine. If I had to go a second time, I’d go at seven. Maybe six.

  When I got there, I saw Mrs. Thornhill’s car parked in the driveway—somewhat carelessly—and heard a television blaring away. I’m in luck, I thought. She’s home. But as I walked to the front door, I noticed half a dozen copies of the Daily Press scattered on the lawn and a Jehovah’s Witness flyer stuck behind the screen door. Perhaps she wasn’t home after all. Perhaps she left the TV on at top volume to discourage burglars. If so, her neighbors would be ready to strangle her when she got back.

  I rang the bell several times, and since the television kept me from hearing whether it worked, knocked a few times for good measure. At last some impulse inspired me to turn the knob. The door was unlocked.

  Had something happened to Mrs. Thornhill? I had laughed at Dad’s melodramatic suggestion when he made it, but what if he was right? Could that be why she hadn’t answered any of my calls this week? Was I about to walk in and discover a horrible, bloody corpse?

  Nonsense, I thought. But still, I braced myself before carefully reaching to push the door open—

  And hurriedly jumped aside to avoid a tidal wave of cats. They swarmed out of the door and scattered to the four winds. About a dozen of them, I thought, although it seemed like more. I waited until they were out of sight … waited a little longer while one extremely fat cat waddled slowly out, hissed at me, and disappeared into the bushes. Then, very cautiously, I entered the front hall.

  There were still cats left indoors, and the place reeked of cat urine and fish. Two or three cats wound themselves sinuously around my ankles, and several others scattered from my advance. There were sedate cats sitting at the top of the stairs, and half a dozen playful kittens scampering up and down.

  I peered to the right into a dining room that was more or less empty of cats, but filled with debris. Empty cat food cans strewed both the floor and the mahogany dining room table, which they shared with a number of Royal Doulton plates holding crumbs of cat food. I went back though the hall into the living room and found Mrs. Thornhill. She was on the couch, unconscious, with a gin bottle in her hand, and half a dozen cats draped companionably over various portions of her body, some sleeping and others washing whichever parts of her or themselves were handy.

  Oh, please, let her have finished the envelopes before she started drinking. Or at least let her have left them in a safe place. Somewhere the cats couldn’t get to them.

  A prayer destined to remain unfulfilled. Scattered among the cats, cans, bottles, and plates in the living room were a number of cream-colored envelopes. I began gathering them up.

  Most of them were in the living room, though a few had migrated into the kitchen, or upstairs into the bedroom. She had gotten as far as the S’s, unfortunately. The lettering on the A’s was absolutely gorgeous. B through D were a little less precise, but still had a kind of aristocratic dash about them. By E she was definitely going downhill, and I could only guess what names some of her late scribbles were intended to represent. Unfortunately, the envelopes that had been completed first had also been lying around longer at the mercy of the cats. I couldn’t find a one that hadn’t been chewed on, slept on, peed on or blotched with fishy-smelling grease stains. The blank envelopes were a dead loss; several of the cats had used the carton as a litterbox. I made sure I collected all forty-seven pages of Samantha’s guest list. Thank goodness I had numbered the pages. I thought I still had a copy somewhere, but with my luck Natalie and Eric would have used it as kindling.

  Having gathered up all the envelopes and list pages and deposited them, as appropriate, either in my car or in the overflowing trash can, I turned to consider Mrs. Thornhill. However exasperated I was with her, I couldn’t leave her here unconscious. What should I do?

  I called Mother.

  “Mother, I’m over here at Mrs. Thornhill’s.”

  “That’s nice, dear. How is she?”

  “She’s passed out on the sofa, dead drunk and covered with cats.”

  After a short pause, I heard Mother’s patient sigh.

  “Oh, dear. Not again. We were all so hoping she was doing better this time,” Mother said, infinitely sorrowful. Great. Why hadn’t someone bothered to mention that our calligrapher was a dipsomaniac cat freak? I should have known better than to hire one of Mrs. Fenniman’s cronies.

  “Do you have any idea who I should call?” I asked. “I can’t just leave her there. Does she have family, or should I find one of the neighbors?”

  “Oh, dear, I don’t think the neighbors. Such intolerant people.” I felt a sudden surge of solidarity with Mrs. Thornhill’s long-suffering neighbors. “I’ll call her son and his wife. You look after her till they get ther
e.”

  And so I spent the rest of the day baby-sitting Mrs. Thornhill. I realized I hadn’t asked Mother where the son lived—instate, I hoped—but when I tried to call her back the line was busy. For several hours. Presumably the grapevine was disseminating and analyzing Mrs. Thornhill’s fall from grace. I checked periodically to make sure she was all right, but the last thing I wanted to do was wake her.

  I called Be-Stitched to let Michael know I would miss the afternoon’s fittings. I browbeat the printer into promising that he’d find some new envelopes for me in twenty-four hours. I tuned into the Weather Channel, saw a long-range forecast for July and began calling caterers to discuss making menus mayonnaise-free and otherwise heat-proof. I made every other call on my to-do list. I opened a can of cat food for any cat who wandered in and meowed at me. I finally got fed up with the mess and spent the last few hours cleaning. I hauled out a dozen trash bags full of cat food cans, bottles, newspapers, and other debris, changed ten litter boxes, and vacuumed—it didn’t seem to bother Mrs. Thornhill. Halfway through the dusting, a car screeched up outside and a frantic couple rushed in. I met them at the door, dust rag in hand.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill?”

  “Oh,” said the woman, “I thought you came on Tuesdays.”

  “No,” I said, puzzled, “I’ve never been here before.”

  “Aren’t you the new cleaning lady?”

  I explained who I was and why I was there. They overwhelmed me with apologies and thanks. I went home and took a shower, followed by a long hot bath.

  “Meg,” Mother said over dinner that evening, “you haven’t touched your salmon.”

  I didn’t even try to explain.

  Tuesday, June 28

  MOTHER TAGGED ALONG THE NEXT MORNING WHEN I FETCHED the new envelopes, and then shanghaied me to help her pick out some upholstery fabric. Unfortunately, by the time I staggered home carrying five giant bolts of blue fabric, Samantha had already heard about Mrs. Thornhill from parties other than me, parties who had no interest in breaking the news to her gently and putting the best face on it. The ensuing tantrum was not pretty. I had to promise that the invitations would be out by Friday to calm her down. My mood was not improved when Mrs. Thornhill the younger called me up and tried to hire me to “do” once a week for her mother-in-law. And to top it all off, Mother decided the blue in Great-Aunt Sophy’s vase was the exact shade she wanted for the living room. She spent several hours dragging it and the bolts of fabric around, looking at them together and separately in daylight and lamplight. I was a nervous wreck, waiting for her to detect Sophy’s absence. Once she actually tipped the vase and dropped the top on the sofa. I replaced it quietly and she never seemed to notice that nothing had spilled. After Mother finally lost steam and went to bed, I stayed up until two addressing envelopes, fretting all the while because I hadn’t seen Dad in several days.

  Wednesday, June 29

  THE NEXT DAY, MOTHER DECIDED SHE HAD CHOSEN THE WRONG upholstery fabric. I had to lug the bolts back down to the store and exchange them. Not, of course, without endless time-consuming consultation with Mrs. Fenniman. I caught a glimpse of Dad as Mother and I drove to the fabric store, so at least I knew nothing had happened to him. I discovered, to my vast irritation, that Barry had brought down all his tools and set up a shop in Professor Donleavy’s garage, thus giving him less reason than ever to leave town. Professor Donleavy was about as thrilled as I was, but several relatives and neighbors had already given Barry commissions. I tried calling Dad when I got home, with no luck, and was up until two-thirty addressing invitations.

  Thursday, June 30

  MOTHER THEN DECIDED THE FIRST FABRIC HAD BEEN RIGHT, AFTER all. At least she thought it was. I had to chauffeur her and half a dozen friends to half a dozen fabric stores before we were sure, though. Back home with the original five bolts of fabric. Mrs. Thornhill the younger called to up the ante on her offer. I refrained, with difficulty, from resorting to unladylike language. No word from Dad. After Mother went to bed, I snuck down to Pam’s house with the five bolts of blue fabric and asked her to hide them. While I was there, I asked her if she’d seen Dad.

  “Only in passing,” she said. “He’s behaving very oddly.”

  “What do you mean oddly?”

  Pam thought for a moment.

  “Furtively,” she said at last.

  Great.

  I only managed to stay up till midnight before falling asleep over Samantha’s beastly new envelopes.

  Friday, July 1

  BY THE TIME I WOKE UP FRIDAY MORNING, MOTHER AND THE advisory board had decided they needed to exchange the upholstery fabric again. However, my foresight in hiding the fabric at Pam’s thwarted them. I told them I’d be glad to ferry them back to the fabric store when they found the bolts, and retired to the hammock with the remaining invitations, leaving them twittering over the sample swatches. I was able to finish all the invitations and drop them off at the post office before noon. On my way back, an inspiration struck me, and I stopped at Be-Stitched just as Michael was taking off for lunch.

  “Meg!” he cried. “I’ve hardly seen you all week.”

  “Is that why you’ve given up shaving?”

  “I’m getting ready for the costume party tomorrow,” he said, with enthusiasm. Drat; I’d completely forgotten the party.

  “I’m going as a pirate,” Michael said. “What about you?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “But it’s tomorrow!”

  “Now that I’ve finally finished Samantha’s invitations, I’ll think about it.”

  “Have you been doing those bloody envelopes all this week?”

  “That, and running a fabric delivery service,” I said. I explained about the blue fabric I’d been shuffling back and forth. “Any chance you could drop by this weekend, look at the swatch I left lying around, and convince Mother she’s made the right decision?”

  “Your wish is my command. Tell you what: I’ll drop by tomorrow and do it, and bring you a costume to boot. I’ll have the ladies throw something together; they’ve got your measurements.”

  “You’re on. As long as it’s not made of velvet and doesn’t have hoops.”

  I was relieved when Dad dropped by for dinner that night, proving he hadn’t yet fallen victim to the local homicidal maniac. Jake and Mrs. Fenniman also showed up, as did Reverend Pugh, making it yet another of those dinners that should have been more awkward than it was.

  Although Dad did his best to make it awkward. His obsession with homicide seemed to have mutated into a fixation on death and funerals. He spent the entire meal talking about them. Once Mother realized there was no stopping him, she gave in gracefully—nay, aided and abetted him—and we were treated to lengthy discussion of the final illnesses, deaths, and burials of both her parents, together with amusing anecdotes about the departures of a dozen or so collateral relatives.

  Mrs. Fenniman told several improbable but entertaining anecdotes about the last words or deeds of several of her cronies. Reverend Pugh related poignant or amusing stories about the deaths of past parishioners. Dad discoursed eloquently on funeral customs in a variety of cultures. Whenever the conversation threatened to veer off on a non-morbid tangent—for example, the amusing incidents that occurred at the wedding of a relative whose death we’d just discussed—Dad would drag it back on course. Everyone got into the act, except Jake. He looked distinctly uncomfortable and resisted all temptation to join the conversation. And just as Mother was dishing out peaches and ice cream for dessert, it suddenly dawned on me. Dad was trying to find out what Jake had done with his wife’s ashes.

  I burst out laughing, right in the middle of one of Reverend Pugh’s more touching anecdotes. Everyone looked at me disapprovingly. Including Dad, damn it.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me.” And I fled to the kitchen to get the giggles out of my system, smothering my mouth with a dish towel so I wouldn’t further embarrass the famil
y.

  And as I expected, very shortly Dad found his way to the kitchen.

  “Of course, wakes today aren’t the same thing at all,” he said over his shoulder as he walked in. I could almost hear the sighs of relief in the dining room when the swinging door swung closed.

  “Any more peaches?” he asked.

  “In the fridge.” And while he was poking about in the refrigerator, I slipped up behind him and snagged a large brown paper bag that was hanging out of his jacket pocket.

  “I don’t see any peaches,” he said, turning.

  “You were about to lose this,” I said, while squeezing the bag slightly to verify its contents.

  “Oh, good job, Meg! I wouldn’t want to misplace that,” Dad said, snatching at the bag. I whisked it away.

  “First tell me why you’re carrying Great-Aunt Sophy around in a paper bag.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time,” I said, wiggling the bag just beyond his grasp. “Give me one good reason not to put her back where she came from. No, on second thought, you’d just steal her again. Give me one good reason not to hide her where you’ll never find her.”

  “I need her.”

  “So I gathered; what are you going to do with her?”

  “I’m going to switch her with someone else … in a similar condition.”

  “Going to? You’ve had her for nearly two weeks; what are you waiting for?”

  “To tell you the truth, I haven’t located the other party,” Dad said, looking discouraged. “I’ve looked everywhere I could.”

  “If you mean the late Emma Wendell, she’s in a cardboard box in Mrs. Grover’s suitcase. In Jake’s guest room. Unless Jake has moved her for some reason. That is what this ridiculous charade has been all about, isn’t it?”