Murder, with Peacocks

by Donna Andrews

  “Who?”

  “Samantha.”

  “Run away? I’m sure she did it.”

  “I didn’t mean that; I meant the murders.”

  Michael shrugged again.

  “You’ve got me. Forget about the murders for now. And Samantha.”

  “Easier said than done,” I muttered. I was getting sleepy—I had gotten up at five-thirty, after all. I leaned back in my very comfortable seat I closed my eyes.

  “Meg,” Michael said, in a firm tone.

  “Mmm?” There was a pause. Whatever Michael wanted to talk to me about, he was in no hurry. Neither was I. It was very peaceful out here in the middle of nowhere, with just the frogs and crickets. Much more peaceful than it would be back home. The tow truck driver could take his time.

  Suddenly I felt my shoulder being shaken.

  “All right,” I growled. “I’m not going to sleep.”

  “You did already,” Michael said. “You’ve been asleep for hours. The tow truck driver is finally here. Are you awake enough to drive home?”

  I was. And fortunately, by the time I got home, things were fairly quiet around the neighborhood.

  Sunday, July 24

  SUNDAY WAS A BUSY DAY. ALSO AN AWKWARD ONE.

  “Should we go over to help the Brewsters with the cleanup?” Pam wondered.

  “They’ve already got a cleaning service coming,” I said. “They can afford to pay for it and still bail out Samantha, I’m sure.”

  “We don’t want to look as if we’re avoiding them,” Pam countered.

  “Why? Aren’t we?”

  “You can’t exactly blame them for what Samantha did,” she protested.

  “Why not? They raised her. Besides, if you were the Brewsters, wouldn’t we be the last people you wanted to see right now?”

  “Hmm,” she said.

  “Don’t you think you should go over to start sending back the presents?” Mother asked.

  “Surely the Brewsters can do that.”

  “One does want to make sure it’s done right,” Mother said. Translation: make sure all the family members who sent valuable or antique gifts got their stuff back safely.

  “I think we should wait a day or so, Mother,” I said. “I can get a head start making up some labels; I’ve got the index cards with the record of who sent what.” Translation: the Brewsters won’t be able to put anything over on us and abscond with any valuable presents.

  “I imagine they’ve got a lot of food that they don’t feel like eating just going to waste,” Dad said. “Do you suppose I should go over and offer to help them with it?”

  “No, Dad.”

  The Brewsters weren’t picking up the phone or answering the door, anyway; I’d tried the one and Mrs. Fenniman the other. I left a polite message on their machine apologizing for intruding when they had so much on their minds and asking them to let me know if there was anything that needed to be done.

  “I think they’re packing,” Mrs. Fenniman reported with glee.

  The only person in the house behaving normally was Rob. Which was a little abnormal, considering that he’d more or less just been deserted at the altar. Granted, he couldn’t officially start the annulment process until Monday morning, but still, you’d think he’d be spending a little time reflecting on the whole disaster. But he came down at ten, ate a hearty breakfast, and spent the day curled up in his hammock with his books and papers. Working on Lawyers from Hell, I realized.

  “I thought he’d already taken the bar exam,” Mrs. Fenniman commented.

  “He’s working on a … related project,” I said.

  “He’s taking this so bravely,” Mother said. Dad and I looked at each other.

  “You could say that,” Dad said.

  “If you ask me, he’s relieved,” I muttered to Dad.

  “I agree,” Dad said. “But don’t upset your mother. She likes fussing over him.”

  The sheriff dropped by to tell us that there had, indeed, been digitalis in the caviar at the rehearsal dinner. And that it would probably be ten to fourteen days before they released the reverend’s body, which was a relief. Callous as it may sound, we had enough on our hands with the cleanup from Rob and Samantha’s ill-fated wedding and preparations for Mother’s event: we didn’t need a funeral on ton of everything else.

  Monday, July 25

  MONDAY MORNING, WHILE THE FAMILY LEGAL MINDS DRAGGED Rob off to begin the annulment proceedings, Mother hauled me into Be-Stitched and insisted that I be blindfolded while I tried on my bridesmaid’s dress for her wedding.

  “This is totally ridiculous,” I said.

  “Humor me, Meg dear,” she said.

  “Don’t I always?”

  All I could tell about the dress was that the material was some kind of butter-soft silk that made you want to stroke it, and that it didn’t have either hoops or an excessively low-cut front. Mother was ecstatic with its appearance, which didn’t reassure me in the slightest, and Mrs. Tranh and the ladies seemed pleased, which did reassure me, but only a little.

  “How does it look, really?” I asked Michael, who came back to the house to have lunch with us.

  “Fantastic,” he said. “Really, you’re going to like it.”

  “I damn well better.”

  “You really don’t like giving up control of things, do you?” Michael asked.

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “That sounds like Dad’s capsule analysis of my character flaws. What else has he been telling you?”

  “He thinks you intimidate most men—he’s not sure whether it’s deliberate or not—and on those rare occasions when you meet someone who’s not intimidated by you, you run for cover.”

  “Really.”

  “He’s decided that the best thing for you would be to meet the right guy under circumstances that would allow you to get to know each other as friends before the possibility of anything else comes up.”

  “Please tell me he’s not about to start playing matchmaker,” I said, wincing.

  “I … think he’s perfectly happy to leave things alone for the moment. Until all the weddings are all over.”

  “That’s fine; after the weddings are all over, I can escape.”

  “We’ll see,” Michael said.

  I wondered if he was planning on helping Dad. Just great. Dad and Michael, sitting around discussing the sorry state of my love life and trying to do something about it. The idea depressed me. And seeing Jake at one end of the family dinner table—timid, bland, ferret-faced Jake—was enough to complete the depression. Mother may have good taste in bridesmaid’s dresses—the jury was still out on that—but her taste in bridegrooms had certainly gone downhill.

  “I’m going to sit outside and be idle,” I announced as lunch ended. “I’m going to lounge in one of the folding lawn chairs, sip lemonade, and leaf through whatever magazines I can find that I can feel reasonably sure have no pictures of brides in them.”

  “I’ll join you, if you don’t mind,” Michael said, following me out the door.

  “They won’t miss you at the shop?” I asked.

  “They’re at a point on this set of dresses where they can manage without me right now. As a matter of fact, they’re at a point where I would be very much underfoot.”

  “Then you can amuse me with witty conversation,” I said.

  “I don’t know how witty it will be. But I have been meaning to talk to you about something. Now that things are settling down a little.”

  We gathered up the lemonade and lawn chairs and found a nice shady spot under the largest oak tree on the lawn. But just as we were setting up our chairs, a peacock leaped out of the tree and began strutting up and down the lawn with his tail spread. We looked around and saw a peahen behind us.

  “I think we’re in his way,” I remarked.

  “He has my heartfelt sympathy,” Michael said. “Let’s give them a little privacy. God knows that can be hard enough to find around here.”

  We picked up our l
awn chairs and moved down the lawn to an almost-as-shady spot. The peacock followed and resumed his mating display in front of us.

  “He seems to be a little confused,” Michael observed.

  “We could split up and see which one of us he’s really interested in,” I suggested.

  “I’m not sure I want to know,” Michael said. “I thought they were just rented for Samantha’s wedding. Did you decide to keep them around for your mother’s after all?”

  “We decided to keep them around permanently.” I sighed. “The grandchildren put up such a fuss this morning when Mr. Dibbit came to pick them up that Dad talked him into selling them. I think Eric has them confused with turkeys. He’s walking around bragging about having rescued them from somebody’s dinner table.”

  “Every home should have a few peacocks.”

  “If you really feel that way, I could write your name on a couple of the eggs.”

  “Eggs?”

  “Of course, I’ve only seen one so far, and I have no idea how many they hatch at one time. But if you keep your eyes open, you’ll notice you don’t see most of the hens. They’re off … somewhere. Incubating, we think. Dad and Eric have put in a special order at the bookstore for books on peafowl and general poultry care, so within a week or two the entire family will be walking experts on peacock husbandry.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Michael said.

  “I can.”

  “I think you need to get away from your family for a little while.”

  “That’s what I’m doing right now,” I explained.

  “Out here in full view, where anyone who wants to find you can just walk right up and find you?”

  “Well, what do you suggest?”

  “Let’s go to dinner someplace,” he said. “Someplace that is not run by any of your mother’s family or anyone who even knows you and will come up and start babbling about the weddings.”

  “I wish I could,” I said. “But I shouldn’t. Not until after the wedding. Things are too crazy. I shouldn’t be sitting here doing nothing now.”

  Still, I was considering changing my mind and taking him up on it when Dad and Pam came running out of the house.

  “Meg! Michael! You’ll never guess what’s happened!” Pam called.

  “They’ve tracked Samantha down in Rio de Janeiro and are trying to get her extradited for Mrs. Grover’s murder,” I said.

  “Rats! Who told you?” Pam said crossly. “But you’re wrong about Rio; it was the Caymans.”

  “Are you serious?” Michael asked.

  “Yes! I suppose the sheriff told you,” Pam said.

  “I actually thought I was kidding,” I said.

  “Perhaps you knew it, subconsciously,” she said. “After all, the sheriff said it was your idea.”

  “It was?”

  “Yes. After she and Ian ran off. Don’t you remember? You said to search her room for evidence,” Pam said. “The sheriff took you seriously and went to Uncle Stanley to get a search warrant. And do you know what they found?”

  “Two years’ worth of back issues of Brides magazine?”

  “Evidence!” Pam chortled. “Books about poisons! Samples of some of the poisons she’s used this summer! Books about car maintenance and electrical wiring. And stuff that she probably used to rig the fuse box and the lawn mower and Dad’s car!”

  “Books? Doesn’t sound like Samantha’s style,” I mused.

  “And some papers that the sheriff thinks may prove that she and Ian really did steal the money her first fiancé was supposed to have embezzled. Ian was an old college friend of his, you know.”

  “You were right all along,” Michael said.

  So why didn’t I feel happier about the outcome?

  Tuesday, July 26

  I WAS PLANNING TO SLEEP LATE. I‘D DECIDED THAT EVERYTHING really essential that needed to be done for Mother’s wedding had been done, and the more I worked, the more things she would think of for me to do. I managed to sleep through her departure for a facial and was planning to drag myself out of bed just in time to greet the relatives she’d invited over for lunch.

  But around nine o’clock, when I turned over, stretched, and prepared to go back to sleep for the second time, I heard Spike barking outside my window.

  Damn. Couldn’t Michael keep the little monster quiet?

  Apparently not. The barking continued. I rolled out of bed, stumbled over to the side window, and peered down at the yard. Spike was dancing around the foot of a large dogwood tree, barking frantically.

  Damn. I heard no outraged peacock shrieks, so I assumed Spike had finally intimidated and treed the kitten. I turned to put on some clothes so I could go downstairs to rescue the kitten. I’d have to name the kitten sooner or later, I reminded myself.

  But the kitten was inside. When I turned around, I saw him. Peeing on a silk blouse I’d neglected to hang up.

  Perhaps I wouldn’t be naming the kitten after all, I thought, as he stepped delicately off the blouse, shaking his paws. Perhaps Pam’s household could absorb another animal. Perhaps the animal shelter was open today.

  But wait. If the kitten was inside, what had Spike treed?

  I peered out at the dogwood again. There was a lump swaying in its upper branches, directly opposite my window. Not a small, round, Dad-shaped lump, festooned with vines. Not a long, thin, Michael-shaped lump either. An enormous, ungainly, disgustingly bovine lump. It could only be—

  “Barry!” I shrieked. “You pervert!”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed.

  I grabbed some clothes, quickly dressed—in the bathroom—and ran downstairs, stopping on my way through the kitchen to pick up a piece of cheese for Spike.

  “Good dog, Spike,” I said, flicking the cheese at him. He gobbled it and resumed barking.

  “Take him away, can’t you?” Barry whined.

  “Me? Are you crazy? Michael’s the only one who can do anything with him. You’ll have to wait till Michael shows up.”

  And wait we did. I fetched the mystery I’d been trying to read all summer and settled in a lawn chair. Spike got tired of barking after a while and curled up under the tree where he could keep an eye on things and resume barking whenever Barry moved a muscle. I tossed Spike a bit of cheese from time to time, to keep his energy up, and devoted myself to my book. Barry, showing greater sense than I’d previously given him credit for, remained very, very quiet.

  Michael showed up around noon.

  “So there he is,” Michael said, in exasperated tones. “What’s going on anyway?”

  “Spike has treed a desperate criminal,” I said, tossing the dog another bit of cheese. Spike took this as a signal for renewed vigilance and began barking energetically.

  “A desperate criminal?” Michael said, peering upward. “Isn’t that Barry?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He’s a peeping Tom,” I said. “A low-down, sneaking, miserable, perverted peeping Tom,” I added, loudly, shaking my fist at the tree.

  “Meg, I’m so sorry,” Barry began.

  “Save it for the sheriff,” I said.

  “The sheriff?” Michael said. “You’re going to call the sheriff? Good!”

  I heard a whimper from the dogwood.

  “No need to call him,” I said. “He’s coming over for lunch, I believe.”

  Sure enough, the sheriff showed up a few minutes later, along with fifteen or twenty other ravenous relatives—some, fortunately, bearing covered dishes. I related Barry’s misdeeds as dramatically as possible—somewhat exaggerating the state of undress I’d been in when he’d spied on me. Considering my family’s tendency to barge into rooms, day or night, with minimal warning, I’d learned better than to sleep in anything see-through or skimpy.

  The sheriff took me aside.

  “Are you planning to press charges, Meg?”

  I sighed.

  “I’d say hell, yes … but he is Steven’s brother. Can you ju
st take him down to the station and scare the hell out of him? Don’t let anyone hurt him or anything, but make him think twice before he does something like this again?”

  The sheriff pondered.

  “I’ll do that, but while I’m scaring him, I’m going to check for priors. And where does he live?”

  “Goochland County.”

  “Great; the sheriff there’s an old hunting buddy of mine. I’ll just have a word with him, see what he thinks. If I hear anything that gives me second thoughts about letting him off so easy, I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

  The sheriff might be weak in the area of homicide investigations, but he had few equals when it came to inducing guilt and putting the fear of God into wayward fifteen-year-olds. Which as far as I could see was about Barry’s emotional age. I had a feeling the sheriff was about to solve my long-standing Barry problem.

  The family dissected Barry’s sins and shortcomings over lunch. Apparently everyone had had their doubts about him all along, but had politely refrained from voicing them. He was too nice. He had shifty eyes. Lucky for Barry that they’d unmasked Samantha, or they’d be stringing him up for the murders as well. Needless to say, lunch was a resounding success.

  Everyone in the neighborhood was in a wonderful mood except for me. Well, and possibly the Brewsters, who after a talk with the sheriff had remained in residence, but in hiding. No one was sure whether to commiserate with them for the way their daughter had treated them or consider them her accomplices.

  Everyone assumed that seeing the FBI agent at the reception triggered Samantha’s flight. I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t think she’d reacted at all when she saw the agent. I thought she’d planned to run away all along. Well, for some days anyway.

  “That’s silly,” Pam said. “If she planned to run away, why did she go through with the wedding?”

  “She spent months arranging it; I can’t see her letting a little thing like having chosen the wrong groom spoil it.”

  Everyone seemed to think I was joking.

  I couldn’t account for the bad mood I was in. The local serial killer was out of business. Rob had been saved from a truly disastrous marriage. Barry was probably out of my hair for good. In less than a week, all my wedding chores would be over. Well, okay, maybe two or three weeks if you count all the cleanup. So why was I alone in such a lousy mood?