Murder, with Peacocks

by Donna Andrews

  “Shutting the barn door after the whole herd of horses have been stolen,” I muttered.

  “You’d feel differently if they’d found a second bomb,” Michael pointed out.

  “I’m so sorry,” Barry said. Again.

  Clearly it would be hours before the police and firefighters left and we could get some peace and quiet. Or what passed for peace and quiet these days. Mother and Rob went off to Pam’s. I thought someone from the family ought to be around, so I collapsed in the backyard hammock, out of the way but within call. I was too tired to keep my eyes open but too hyper to sleep. How had I managed to attract the attention of the killer? Had my sporadic attempts to help Dad with his detective work made the killer nervous? Or were Mrs. Grover’s murder, the booby-trapped fuse box, and now the bomb the work of a lunatic who didn’t care who he killed?

  I was not in the mood for company. Well, I didn’t mind having Michael around; he was making entertaining conversation on a variety of subjects that had nothing to do with homicide and he didn’t mind if I just listened in silence. Barry, on the other hand …

  “It’s all my fault,” he said—not for the first time—during a lull in the conversation.

  “It’s alright, Barry,” I said, mechanically.

  “If only I had just given you the box.”

  “You had no way of knowing,” I said, through gritted teeth.

  “You could have been killed, and it would have been all my fault. Well, partly my fault.”

  “Barry,” I said, “if you put the bomb in the box, tell the sheriff. If you didn’t, stop apologizing and go away.”

  He opened his mouth and stared at me for a few moments, his mental gears almost audibly turning. Then he closed his mouth and went away rather quickly.

  I settled back in my hammock. After a few minutes, I opened one eye. Michael was sitting, watching me with a worried look on his face.

  “So?” I asked. “You were telling me how you dealt with the soap opera queen who tried to upstage you.”

  He grinned, and went on with his story. I closed my eyes. It was a funny story. I could feel myself relaxing. And if I managed to drift off before he got to the punchline, I could ask him to tell it again tomorrow. Michael was certainly good company; I was going to miss him when the summer was over.

  Sunday, July 3

  IT WAS NEARLY THREE WHEN I TOTTERED UP TO BED, so I WAS hoping to sleep in the next morning. But the thought of all the mess left over from the party and the bomb wouldn’t let me. About nine, I got up and went down to survey the cleanup ahead of us. Was hunting down a cleaning service that would work on Sunday less trouble than doing it ourselves? Perhaps we should relocate this afternoon’s tea for the bridesmaids to Pam’s house. Fortunately tomorrow’s shower was at the Brewsters'.

  First, coffee and the Sunday paper. I padded out to the front door and looked out to see if by chance the paperboy had hit our porch for a change, instead of the goldfish pond.

  And saw a small box sitting on the porch with a tag on the top that said For Meg.

  I ran back to the kitchen and called the sheriff. Then Dad. Luckily, the trooper and his bomb-sniffing Doberman had stayed over. The sheriff was able to catch them before they took off for Richmond and drag them back out to our neighborhood. Also luckily, most of the neighborhood were still either asleep or in church, so we didn’t have to contend with a large crowd. Just Dad, Michael, Rob, me, and nine assorted law enforcement officials. Ten if you counted the Doberman.

  “Does this look like the other bomb?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, the other was a wooden box about the size of a shoe-box,” I explained. “And it seems like a different handwriting. But the other one also had a tag that said For Meg.”

  The Doberman was going wild, barking madly at the box. This seemed to alarm his handler and the deputies. Did that mean it was a particularly large and powerful bomb? For that matter, Spike was going wild, too, but probably all that meant was that he wanted to attack the Doberman.

  “We’re going to put the box in a special container and then take it out where we’ve got room to detonate it without hurting anybody,” the sheriff said. “We’re just waiting for the special equipment.”

  Waiting for the special equipment was getting on my nerves. I found myself staring obsessively at the box, as if I could figure out by looking at it who had planted it there. I began to realize that there was something familiar about the box. It was a stationery box. A battered, grease-stained box that had once held envelopes. And there were holes punched in the side. And where had I seen that neat, elegant handwriting before? I suddenly realized what it was.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” I said. I strode over to the steps—the deputies were too startled to stop me—and picked up the box.

  “No—don’t—put it down—look out!” came shouts from Dad, Michael, and the assembled lawmen. I opened the box.

  “Mrrow?” A small white kitten was staring back at me with wide green eyes.

  “Call off your dogs,” I said.

  “Mrrow!” said the kitten, and extended a head to be scratched.

  “I knew I’d never seen him act like that before,” said the Doberman’s handier, with disgust.

  “It’s from Mrs. Thornhill,” I told Dad and Michael, who still looked shaken as they approached.

  “Mrs. Thornhill?”

  “The tipsy calligrapher. I suddenly recognized the handwriting.”

  I explained about Mrs. Thornhill and the invitations, to the great amusement of the deputies and firefighters. We were all bursting with the nervous laughter of people who have been badly scared. Some of the deputies began suggesting names like Boomer and Dynamite for the kitten. I refrained from telling them that the kitten would be going home to Mrs. Thornhill as soon as possible.

  We did, however, decide that from now on we wouldn’t open any wedding presents until we’d had them tested. Except for Eileen’s, of course; no one would have any reason to harm her. The sheriff went off to discuss the arrangements with the Doberman’s handler.

  “So who are these people, anyway?” I overheard the trooper ask. “The local mob or something?”

  I let the sheriff defend the family honor. I went off to intercept Mother and warn her that her yard was once more filled with police and firefighters. Warning her didn’t seem to help much; she was still decoratively distraught and her recovery seemed to require that Jake take her and several of the aunts out to an expensive restaurant for Sunday dinner. On the bright side, while the chaos was at its height, I did manage to convince her to postpone her tea for the bridesmaids until the following weekend. And before I called all the bridesmaids to cancel, while I was sure she and Jake were still out of the way, I went down to Jake’s house for another spot of burglary.

  “Here,” I said, sotto voce to Dad that evening. “I’ve got the goods.”

  “Great-Aunt Sophy?” he asked, looking into the bag.

  “No, Emma Wendell. I pulled the switch this afternoon.”

  “That’s splendid,” he said, peering more intently into the bag. “This will be a great help.”

  “If it makes you happy,” I said, as Dad trotted off, bag in hand.

  We had a violent thunderstorm that night. The power went out just as we were about to fix dinner. The kitten, whom I hadn’t gotten around to returning, turned out to be terrified by lightning. It was not a restful night.

  Monday, July 4

  UNFORTUNATELY, THE THUNDERSTORM THAT TOOK OUT THE power Sunday night failed to cool down the air. By nine o’clock Monday morning, the day of Samantha’s bridal shower, the power was still out. The temperature was pushing ninety and still rising. Tempers were wearing thin all over the neighborhood, but particularly at the Brewster house. Those of us trying to help out in the kitchen spent most of the afternoon bickering over which foods were going to be safe to eat by the time the guests arrived and which contained ingredients like mayonnaise and were not to be trusted. As time passed and the
mercury soared, the list got shorter, the trash cans got fuller, and we began to wonder if canceling would be a good idea.

  Then, by a stroke of luck—possibly a bad stroke, although we didn’t realize it at the time—the power came back on at five in the afternoon and we didn’t have to cancel after all. In the hour before the first guests arrived, we ran the air conditioners full blast and changed the atmosphere from an oven to a mere steambath by the time things got underway. Mother sent Rob and Jake to the store to bring back an assortment of cheese, chips, crackers, and luncheon meats to replace the foods lost to the heatwave, and Pam, whose end of the neighborhood got back power a little sooner than ours, endeared herself to everybody by showing up with several huge bowls of fresh onion dip and salsa. I suspected that Dad must still be crouched in Jake’s dogwood tree; for it was nearly the first time all summer we actually served party food that Dad hadn’t picked over in advance. Which meant, of course, that there was so much food we’d probably end up calling him in to help get rid of it afterwards.

  Once the shower got underway, I suppressed my mutinous wish that we’d cancelled after all. Watching Samantha unwrap and wave about frothy bits of lingerie ranked very low on my list of ways I’d like to spend one of the hottest days of the summer. I envied Mother, who had pleaded a headache and gone home already. Looking at Samantha’s carefully matched set of bridesmaids depressed me. They were all there: Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer, Kimberly, Tiffany, Heather, Melissa, and Blair. I’d made a little rhyme of it to help me remember all the names, and was working on matching them to faces.

  I was in a lousy mood, but I was the only one, and as far as I could see, the shower was going fine until Samantha vomited into the onion dip.

  One minute she was chatting and laughing with Kimberly and Jennifer II, and then, suddenly, she bent over and puked right onto the dip platter. Conversation, naturally, screeched to a halt.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, faintly, putting her hand to her mouth. And then she turned and fled upstairs. I was still staring after her, wondering if I should go and see if she was all right, when suddenly I heard more retching. In stereo. Kimberly on my right, and one of Samantha’s college friends on my left, were also throwing up.

  It was the beginning of a mass exodus as, one after another, the guests either threw up and ran out or turned pale and walked unsteadily to the door. I considered going after them and rejected the idea. I’m not much of a nurse. And my stomach was beginning to feel a bit queasy. I hoped it was my imagination. I went out to the kitchen, told the housekeeper and Mrs. Brewster what was going on. The housekeeper fainted. Mrs. Brewster dialed 911. Good move. I began gathering paper towels and spray cleaner to mop up the living room as my penance for not going to the aid of the patients.

  Just as I was beginning to think that perhaps luck—or my finicky eating habits—had been on my side and that I wasn’t going to be sick, I felt the first faint tremors.

  You’d think that in a house with seven bathrooms you could find a toilet to puke in when you wanted one, but after trying the hall powder room door—locked, with audible retching sounds emerging—I passed by the kitchen and saw three guests fighting for room at the sink while another was lying on the floor with her head propped over the dog’s waterbowl. That’s it, I told myself. I’m going home while I still can.

  It wasn’t easy. My head was beginning to ache badly, and even though it was twilight, the light hurt my eyes. I made it up the Brewsters’ driveway and almost to the end of the next yard when the dizziness got so bad I had to stop and clutch the fence to stay upright. A horrible cramp went through my stomach, and I felt a sudden, uncharacteristic urge to strangle whichever of the Labs was barking just inside the fence.

  “Meg?” I opened one eye to see Michael, with Spike in tow. Spike was trying to claw his way through the fence to get at the Labs. Serve him right if he succeeded, I thought.

  “Meg, are you all right?” I shook my head, then wished I hadn’t.

  “Samantha’s poisoned us all,” I gasped. “At the shower. Food poisoning.”

  “For God’s sake, why didn’t you stay there if you’re sick?”

  “No place to be sick,” I muttered. “Can’t even squeeze into a John. Everyone’s having hysterics. Going home to be sick in peace.” I began to lever myself off the fence and toward home.

  “Hang on a minute, damn it! Let me set Spike loose and I’ll help you. He can find his own way home.” He caught up with me before I’d gone two steps, and picked me up remarkably easily, considering that I’m neither short nor skinny.

  “What if I throw up on you?” I protested feebly.

  “It’ll wash out.”

  I shut up so he could save his breath for carrying me. Mother, Dad, Jake, and Mrs. Fenniman were sitting on the porch chatting when he staggered up with me.

  “Someone should get over to the Brewsters’ house right away,” Michael ordered. Apparently all the guests are dropping like flies from food poisoning. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Meg.”

  All four of them took off immediately. Even, wonder of wonders, Mother. Dad had his ever-ready black bag, so I figured I could stop worrying about the others. Michael carried me upstairs, correctly figured out from my feeble gestures which bathroom I wanted and deposited me there just in time.

  It was a long night. About the time I thought I had finished throwing up, some of the neighbors began setting off their fireworks, and for some reason that set me off again. Maybe it wasn’t the neighbors’ fault; maybe I was destined to get the dry heaves at about that point anyway, but the light hurt my eyes, the noise made my headache worse, and I wasn’t in the mood for celebrating anything.

  I think Dad came by once or twice to check on me. Michael stuck it out to the end, holding my head when I threw up, and then always ready with a glass of water, a clean washcloth, or a cold compress. It’s a good thing it’s Michael seeing you puking, I told myself, and not Mr. Right. I couldn’t bear to think of Mr. Right, whoever he might turn out to be, seeing me heave my guts up seventeen times in succession. It was embarrassing enough having Michael see it.

  Tuesday, July 5

  I SPENT THE NEXT DAY IN BED, AS DID MOST OF THE REST OF THE guests at the shower. I was one of the lucky ones; some of the other guests had also had diarrhea and convulsions. Dad had to send some of the worst cases off to the hospital. To Mrs. Brewster’s complete mortification, the local paper ran a story about the incident, making it sound a great deal more hilarious than any of us in attendance thought it had been. I slept a lot. Mother and Eileen were too worried about me to mention any of the thousand tasks that weren’t getting done, and Samantha was in the hospital. What a pity I spent most of this unexpected respite sleeping. And playing with the kitten, since no one had found the time to take him back to Mrs. Thornhill.

  Wednesday, July 6

  PERHAPS THE WORST THING ABOUT BEING SICK IN BED IS THAT everyone knows exactly where to find you. Barry attempted to smother me with attention. Dad shooed him out as often as possible, along with various neighborhood ladies who dropped by to report how bravely poor Samantha was holding up and how she was still doing everything she could to keep the wedding plans moving. Since the only thing I could discover she’d done was call me up three or four times to issue new orders and complain about the things I hadn’t felt well enough to get done, a certain lack of cordiality tended to creep into these conversations.

  But Dad liked Michael, or at least found him entertaining, and so didn’t shoo him away as he did with most of the people who came to visit. In fact, Michael made me feel much better by reporting that he had convinced Mother that the blue fabric still in hiding at Pam’s was the perfect thing for the living room, if only it could be found. He brushed away my repeated grateful thanks—about the fabric and his nursing services—and regaled me with the outrageous antics of the various bridal parties who’d been in and out of the shop all week. I was actually in a reasonably good mood when Dad dropped by with news that onl
y he would have considered cheering for a recovering invalid.

  “It wasn’t food poisoning, you know,” he said, with enthusiasm.

  “Then what was it?” I asked. “Surely we weren’t all simultaneously overcome with the force of Samantha’s personality? After all, she was a victim, too.”

  Michael sniggered, but Dad, full of his news, ignored my sarcasm.

  “Some sort of vegetable alkaloid in the salsa,” he said.

  “How does that differ from food poisoning?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t something that ought to have been in the salsa to begin with,” Dad explained. “Probably something in the amaryllis family. I’ve had the residue sent to the ME in Richmond, but we may not be able to tell much more. It was out in the heat rather a long time before anyone thought to preserve it.”

  “How remiss of me,” I said. “Poor Pam! She must be frantic; it was her secret recipe for the salsa, after all.”

  “The sheriff and I have both questioned Pam about the salsa, and it’s hard to see how she could have done it by accident,” Dad said. “The dishes she used to prepare it were still in her kitchen and showed no traces of poison, so it must have been added after she put it in the two serving bowls. And none of the kids admit to having played any tricks with it, and I believe them. There’s just one thing that bothers me.”

  “Just one?” Michael muttered.

  “The rigged fuse box was probably directed at me,” Dad said. “But these last two incidents—the bomb and the poisoned salsa—they were directed at you, Meg.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “The bomb, yes; but the salsa was probably aimed at you.”