“Oh, my goodness!” Mother said. “It’s wonderful!”
Even as tired as I was, I had to admit it was impressive. We drove up to the house, which was lit with candles on the inside and more strings of lights on the outside. Several more lanterns outlined a path to the backyard.
Everyone yelled “Surprise!” when we got there. Only about two hundred of our nearest and dearest, which made it positively cozy compared with what tomorrow would be like. Everyone was complimenting Dad on his brilliant idea and each other on how well it had turned out. Everyone had brought food and drink, and they were all behaving themselves beautifully. Even Cousin Horace had showed up in coat and tie.
I dragged a lawn chair and a Diet Coke to a quiet corner of the yard, put my feet up on an empty beer keg, and collapsed.
“Why so glum?” Michael asked, appearing at my side, as usual.
“Do you know how many miles I’ve walked today?” I asked.
“Do you know how many wheelbarrow loads of Spanish moss I’ve hung?” he countered.
“You didn’t have Mother cracking the whip over you.”
“I had your Dad and Pam.”
“I almost ran into that fallen tree.”
“I fell off the ladder twice.”
I couldn’t help giggling. “All right, you win,” I said.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, waving his arm at the yard.
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely, positively, ridiculously beautiful.”
We sat in silence, watching the guests drift across the yard in the flickering candlelight, hearing the murmur of conversation and the occasional ripple of laughter. Mother and Dad were standing near each other at the center of the party. Dad was explaining something to several cousins, gesturing enthusiastically. Mother was watching him with approval. Everyone was relaxed and happy. At a time like this, it became really obvious how much of a pall the unsolved murders had cast over everyone’s mood this summer, I thought. And looked around once more for the sheriff. Where on earth was he? I still had nagging doubts about Samantha’s guilt, and I wanted to make sure that the sheriff, in his zeal to convict Samantha, didn’t overlook any evidence that pointed to Barry as the culprit.
A figure stepped between us and the rest of the party. Jake. He was strolling along, looking up at the trailing fronds of moss with bewilderment.
“What do you think of the moss?” Michael asked him.
Jake started.
“The moss? Oh, it’s all right if you like the stuff. I suppose it’s pretty enough.” He picked up the end of a frond, looked at it critically, and then dropped it again, as if dismissing it. “Very odd,” he said, as if to himself, and wandered off.
I forced myself to mingle for a while, then retreated back to brood in peace in my observation post at the edge of the yard.
“You’re worried about something,” Michael said. He was definitely turning into a mind reader, as well as my faithful shadow.
“I keep having this nagging feeling I’ve forgotten something. Or overlooked something. Something important.”
“Something for your mother’s wedding?”
“I suppose it must be. I mean, the murders are solved, the other two weddings are over, one way or another. It must be something about Mother’s wedding, right?”
“What did you do today? Maybe we can figure what you’ve forgotten by process of elimination.”
I related all the errands we’d done, made Michael chuckle at the clever way I’d gotten the cake into the car under Mother’s very nose, made him laugh outright at my description of Dad lurking in the tool shed and shrieking like a peacock.
“I can’t see Jake doing anything ridiculous like that,” I said with a sigh.
“Ridiculous!” Michael said. “I like that; if you ask me your dad’s the ultimate romantic.”
“I agree,” I said, looking around at all the moss, candles, and Christmas lights. “In a bizarre way, it’s very romantic how he’ll happily do the most ridiculous things to please Mother.”
But I still felt a nagging unease. Perhaps it was the assembled relatives. They were all too well behaved. Surely someone was contemplating something really stupid that we wouldn’t find out about until the worst possible moment tomorrow. Like the night before Pam’s wedding, when some of the cousins had gotten Mai, the groom, completely plastered and put him on a plane to Los Angeles with a one-way ticket and no wallet. I was keeping a close eye on the cousins in question tonight, despite my sneaking feeling that it wouldn’t really be a bad thing if something delayed this wedding. Or called it off entirely. If I saw the practical jokers leading Jake off toward the airport, would I really want to interfere?
But no one was doing anything suspicious. Everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time.
Except, possibly, Jake. I saw him, a little later, hovering near the edge of the group around Mother, looking rather forlorn.
“I could almost feel sorry for Jake,” I said. “It is supposed to be his wedding, too.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “Which reminds me: wasn’t the party actually supposed to follow the rehearsal?”
“Oh, damn! I can’t believe we forgot the rehearsal!”
“We could go and remind them.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s nearly ten already. Everyone needs their rest. Mother, especially. And I can’t go to bed until we chase everyone out and put out all the candles and Christmas tree lights. Mother and Jake have both done this before; they’ll manage.”
“Famous last words,” Michael said.
“Oh, don’t be silly. After all, it’s supposed to be a short, simple ceremony. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Well, now we know what you’ve forgotten.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”
Saturday, July 30.
Mother’s wedding day.
I WOKE EARLY, AND CROSSED THE LAST BLOCK OFF MY CALENDAR. All I had to do was get through today and I was home free.
I fixed Mother some breakfast. She picked at her food. She seemed anxious. She didn’t want to talk. We carried out last-minute tasks in an awkward silence.
Caterers arrived. Why we’d bothered, I don’t know; every neighbor and relative invited had insisted on bringing his or her specialty. The men came to set up the tents in case of rain. The cousins who would be playing their musical instruments arrived early and began a much-needed rehearsal. The florist fussed about the effect the heat was having on the flowers, which was silly; it was no hotter than either of our previous weddings. By now we’d all forgotten what unwilted flowers looked like. The peacocks were now definitely molting and looked thoroughly disgusting, so we lured them down to Michael’s mother’s yard for the day. Cousin Frank, who had behaved impeccably throughout the chaos of Samantha’s wedding, was hauled back from Richmond for a return engagement.
Through all this, Mother remained preoccupied. She failed to respond to any of my conversational gambits. If she was having second thoughts, she was keeping them to herself and not letting them slow the momentum of the day.
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked when he arrived in the early afternoon.
“I have this strange feeling Mother’s having second thoughts.”
“Is that so bad?”
“No, except that it’s a little inconveniently late. I mean, I really wish people would think things like weddings through before they go and ask their friends and relations to spend literally months of their lives working like dogs to arrange ceremonies they have no intention of going through with.”
“Or following through with, in Samantha’s case,” Michael said.
“Precisely,” I said, testily. “If you’re not entirely sure you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, it seems to me that the last thing you’d want to do is to set in motion a very lengthy, time-consuming, expensive, and highly public process designed to lead inexorably to just that.”
Michael nodded sympathetically and we
nt to supervise the arrival of the Be-Stitched ladies, along with (in addition to our dresses) their husbands, children, and extended families. At the last minute, Mother had invited them en masse. Why not? It wasn’t as if we’d really notice a hundred or so extra people.
Mother finally allowed me to see my dress, although she did make me put a paper bag over my head until the ladies put it on me. I held my breath as she reached to whisk off the bag. I stared into the mirror, astonished.
“Do you like it, dear?” Mother asked, a little nervously.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. And, for a wonder, it really was. The rose color went perfectly with my complexion and the cut made the best of my figure. Mother looked more cheerful as she went off to put on her own dress.
“I told you so,” Michael said. “You look really great; I knew you would.”
“This almost makes up for the velvet and the hoops,” I said.
Relatives began arriving in the middle of the afternoon, well aware that the parking would run out long before five. I’d arranged to have two vans available so Rob and Mal could run a shuttle service for guests who’d had to park half a mile away. The sheriff had borrowed some deputies from two neighboring counties to carry out the regular patrol work for the day so his entire staff could direct traffic and then attend the wedding.
Jake looked positively cheerful. I almost didn’t recognize him. Perhaps he really was deeply in love with Mother and finally felt confident that the wedding was really going to happen. Or perhaps he was merely looking forward to getting the ceremony over with and leaving town. He kept looking in his inside jacket pocket and patting an airline ticket folder with obvious satisfaction.
Dad, on the other hand, was wandering about looking forlorn, with periodic intervals during which he had obviously told himself to keep his chin up. I found myself siding with Dad. If one of the weddings had to misfire, couldn’t it have been this one? I really didn’t want this one to come off.
And so, of course, before you knew it we were marching down the aisle—Pam and I, followed by Mother on Rob’s arm. At the last minute, Mother had decided to have Rob give her away.
“To take his mind off everything, poor dear,” she said.
I’d have thought that the best thing to take his mind off the everything in question was to have nothing whatsoever to do with weddings. I hoped he was really as cheerful as he seemed. I hoped Dad wouldn’t be too depressed. I hoped Mother really knew what she was doing. If she didn’t, it was a little late to do anything; the wedding was underway.
“If anyone here can show just cause why this man and woman should not be joined in holy matrimony,” Cousin Frank intoned, “let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”
Seemingly expecting no reply, he was drawing breath to continue when Dad spoke up.
“Actually, I have one small objection,” he said. The wedding party turned around to look at him, and in the back of the crowd you could see people craning for a better view and shushing each other. After a suitably suspenseful pause, Dad continued.
“You see, I have a pretty good idea that old Jake here bumped off his first wife, and I really don’t want to see him do the same to my Margaret.”
A hush fell over the entire crowd. I looked at Dad, who was beaming seraphically at us. At Mother, who was gazing from him to Jake with rapt attention. At Jake, who had turned deathly pale. At the miles of Spanish moss festooning every tree in the yard. At the masses of out-of-season flowers, the regiment of caterers gamboling over the lawn, at the bloody $1200 circus tent on top of which, despite all our diversionary tactics, the least decorative of the newly acquired Langslow family peacock flock was now roosting.
“Honestly, Dad,” I said, “couldn’t you have brought this up a bit sooner?”
Smothered titters began spreading through the audience, and Dad brought down the house by replying, “But Meg, I’ve always wanted to see someone do that in real life.”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Jake said. “The man must be crazy.”
“I think an analysis of your late wife’s ashes might prove very interesting, don’t you?” Dad said. Had the chemists finally found something? I wondered.
“If you could analyze them,” Jake countered. “You’d have a hard time doing it; I scattered them, just as she wanted.”
“No,” I said. “You scattered Mother’s Great-Aunt Sophy. Dad has your wife.”
Jake looked a little shaken.
“Well, if someone did poison Emma, I’d like to know about it. But it wasn’t me.”
“You can prove he did it, can’t you?” the sheriff said to Dad.
“Moreover, I believe you’re really responsible for Mrs. Grover’s death,” Dad went on. More oohs and ahhs from the crowd. Jake looked pale. I cringed inwardly. If Dad had proof that Jake had murdered his first wife, he’d have produced it. He was changing the subject. He was bluffing.
“That’s impossible,” Jake said. “You know very well I was nowhere near here when she was killed.”
“Yes, but I suspect an analysis of your financial records will show you hired someone to do it.”
“Nonsense,” Jake said, much more confidently. Bad guess, Dad. “Look all you want.”
Dad looked crestfallen. No doubt he was expecting Jake to jump up and confess when accused, the way people do in the movies. People don’t do that, Dad, I wanted to say. The crowd was shuffling around, looking embarrassed, and I imagined that any minute now, Cousin Frank would call things to order and suggest they get on with the ceremony. Do something, Dad! But he was simply staring at Jake, obviously waiting for something. Jake stared back, unruffled. He wasn’t going to make a slip.
Or had he already? Something that had been tugging at the back of my mind suddenly clicked into place. Don’t worry, Dad, I think we’ve got him.
“That was an interesting slip of the tongue, Mr. Wendell,” I said. Jake whirled to face me. Dad’s face brightened.
“You said that you’d like to know if anyone poisoned your wife,” I continued. “Dad didn’t say anything about poisoning. He just said he thought you killed her. I think ‘bumped off was the exact phrase he used.”
“Well … I assumed … from the ashes …” Jake spluttered. The sheriff looked interested, but unconvinced.
“But you’re right, it’s a long time ago,” I went on. “It would be very hard to prove he did it anyway. So, Sheriff, why not just arrest him for murdering Mrs. Grover?”
“If you have any idea who he hired, I’d be happy to look into it,” the sheriff replied.
“He didn’t have to hire anyone,” I said. “He did it himself.”
“But how?” Dad said, eagerly. I could hear the words “cast-iron alibi” muttered from several directions in the crowd, and the sheriff was shaking his head regretfully.
“I wasn’t anywhere near here when Jane was murdered,” Jake said, smugly. “So how could I possibly have done it?”
“The storage bin,” I said. “That’s how you did it. And where you did it.”
Jake froze.
“She was accusing you of selling her sister’s possessions or giving them to Mother,” I went on. “I overheard you telling her that the jewelry was in the safety deposit box and the furniture and paintings were safe in your storage bin. She didn’t want to wait, did she? The bank wasn’t open on the weekend, but you promised her that you’d take her to the storage bin as soon as the party was over. And you did. But she never came back. Not alive, anyway.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jake said. But his voice was shaky.
“Did you drug her coffee with her sleeping medication? Or did you hold a gun on her and force her to take it? Either way, you knocked her out, drove her out to your storage bin, tied her up, and left her there. Then the next day, in between a couple of errands, you asked Mother if she’d mind if you dropped by your storage bin for a minute. What was it you said you wanted?”
“His golf clubs,” Mother said, frowning sl
ightly. “He wanted to take them with us on the honeymoon.”
“And of course Mother didn’t want to go inside your stuffy old storage bin. Right? I bet she stayed in the car reading a bridal magazine while you bashed Mrs. Grover’s head in with a blunt object—I’m guessing one of the golf clubs—and stowed her in the trunk of Mother’s car.”
“In my car?” Mother said, faintly. “We were riding around with a dead body in my car?” I saw gleams in the eyes of the two cousins who sold cars.
“He couldn’t use his, Mother,” I said. “It’s a hatchback. And then that night, after we all went to bed, you snuck back and put her on the beach. You figured it didn’t matter that the autopsy would show she’d been moved from wherever she’d been killed, because everyone would know you weren’t anywhere nearby to have killed her. The fact that the body wasn’t found for another whole day made it even harder to prove anything.”
“That’s all very interesting, Meg,” the sheriff began. “But I think you’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
“Check his storage bin,” I said, turning to the sheriff. “The U-Stor-It on Route Seventeen, bin number forty-three. Check his golf clubs for traces of blood. I bet you’ll also find a lot of other interesting things in his bin, things he didn’t plant in Samantha’s room, like traces of foxglove plants and leftover stuff from that bomb he planted in Barry’s jack-in-the box and a brand-new gorilla suit and—”
Suddenly I felt an arm grab me around the neck and a cold, metal circle pressed against the middle of my back.
“Everyone stay away! I have a gun!” Jake shouted, dragging me with him as he backed slowly away from the sheriff.
“Now, Mr. Wendell,” the sheriff said, in his most soothing tone. “You don’t want to make things any worse for yourself.”
“Any worse! I like that! You’re going to put me away for murder, and it’s all his fault,” Jake shrieked, pointing at Dad with the gun for a moment before sticking it in my back again. Everyone looked at Dad in bewilderment. “When we got home from the damned party, Jane told me that she knew how I’d done it,” Jake said. “It was Langslow and his damned garden that tipped her off. He was going on about common household poisonings. She recognized Emma’s symptoms.”
Murder, with Peacocks Page 32