Murder With Peacocks (29 page)

  "That man's damned lucky to have an ironclad  alibi," Michael remarked. "Have you ever seen  anyone so hysterical?"

  "For two cents I'd frame him for either  murder, just to have him out from underfoot," I said. "And  what's more, he's too big."

  "Too big! He's shorter than you are, and  I doubt if he weighs more than one hundred  fifty pounds. Too big for what?"

  "Too big for me to toss over the bluff,"  I grumbled. "We've already proven I can  barely handle one hundred five pounds."

  Michael gave me an odd look, but  Eric's arrival cut off whatever answer he  might have made.

  "I did good, Aunt Meg, huh?" Eric said, grabbing my arm and swinging on it. 

  "You were a marvel."

  "So we're going, right?" he demanded. 

  "You've got it."

  "When?"

  "We can't do it tomorrow; there's Samantha's  party. And I may not feel like getting up early  Monday. I thought Tuesday."

  "Great! I'll go call Timmy and A.j.  and Berke!"

  "Timmy and A.j. and Berke? I thought--never mind," I said, closing my eyes and holding  out my champagne glass. "How much worse can  four of them be?"

  "Four of what?" Michael asked, filling my  glass.

  "I had to bribe Eric to get him to take  Brian's place. I'm taking him and,  apparently, three other eight-year-old boys  to ride the roller coasters."

  "Roller coasters?"

  "Yes, at whatever's the nearest huge  amusement park," I said, with a shudder. "I hate  riding roller coasters."

  "Can't somebody else actually ride with them?"  "Strangely enough everyone else in the family  is completely tied up all next week," I  said. "Rob's taking the bar exam, but most of them  seem to be going to the dentist. Isn't that odd?  You'd think toothaches were contagious. Dad has  offered to pay for the trip, though. I suppose that's  something."

  "Not enough. Did you say Tuesday?" 

  "Yes. Why? Do I have a fitting or  something?"

  "No," he said. "There's nothing important  going on at the shop Tuesday. I'll go with you."

  I opened my eyes and stared at him. "You must  be mad. Or you've had too much of that," I said,  pointing to the champagne. "We're talking about  four eight-year-olds, here."

  "Yes, and if you take them all by yourself, you'll  be outnumbered four to one. If I go, we'll  only be outnumbered two to one. Better odds."

  "You're mad," I repeated. "Stark, raving  mad."

  "Oh, come on, it'll be fun," he said. 

  "You have a very warped idea of fun, then."

  "Consider it part of Be-Stitched's superior  customer service," he said. "We not  only make your gown, we make sure you stay  alive and sane enough to wear it."

          Sunday, July 17

  I slept late. The only thing I actually  had to do was help Professor Donleavy cope  with the cleanup crew he'd hired. And pack a  few things to return to rental places. And log  in a few more gifts. And field all the phone  calls from people who'd lost things at the party. And  find a box that would hold all the things Eileen    had forgotten and called home already to ask that we  ship to her. Well, maybe it wasn't going to be  such a quiet day after all. Thank goodness  Michael had arranged for the ladies to capture  all the costumes at the end of the party and was having  them cleaned and returned to their owners. I spent  most of the day over at the Donleavys'.  Professor Donleavy was pathetically grateful  for everything I was doing.

  Nice to see that somebody was.

  "Meg, where have you been?" Dad said, when I  strolled up the driveway. "I needed you to help  out with the investigation."

  "What do you want me to do?" I said, trying  to feign an interest in his detective work that I  was too tired to feel at the moment.

  "It's too late now. But--"

  "Besides, I need you to help me," Mother said.  "I was looking for you hours ago. Michael brought  the new drapes and the recovered furniture.  We're rearranging the living room."

  Michael and Rob were in the living room, leaning  wearily against the couch, looking very sweaty and  disheveled. They'd obviously been shoving around  the newly upholstered furniture for quite a while.  It's not fair, I thought, as Michael flashed  me a tired smile. No one that sweaty and  disheveled should be allowed to look that gorgeous.

  "Now, I want Meg to take a look at the  different arrangements we've tried," Mother said.

  Rob and Michael both became a little  wild-eyed. They looked at me, obviously  hoping for rescue.

  "What's wrong with this arrangement?" I said.  "It's fine."

  "Yes, but ..."

  Mother described her alternate arrangements.  I improvised compelling reasons why none of them  would work. Rob and Michael watched us, heads moving back and forth with the fanatic  intensity of spectators at Wimbledon. I  finally convinced Mother to leave the living room alone.  Michael and Rob began to look a little cheerful.

  "Now about the dining room," she said. Rob and  Michael slumped back into despondency.

  "We can't possibly do the dining room at  night," I said. "It's no good even trying  until we see what it looks like in daylight."

  "Can't we just--"

  "Tomorrow, Mother," I said, firmly.

  "I suppose," she said, with a disappointed  look. Rob fled. Michael looked as if he  were thinking of it. Mother wandered around the dining room  twitching the new curtains and flicking invisible  dust off the furniture. Dad dashed in.

  "Meg, can you--" Dad began. 

  "Tomorrow."

  He looked disappointed, but left. Not without a  few reproachful backward glances. I slumped  back on the couch, closed my eyes, and sighed.

  "Having a bad day?" Michael asked. I  felt the couch shift slightly as he sat down  beside me.

  "It wasn't particularly bad until I  got home. I'm sorry; I can't help them  tonight. I'm beat."

  "Not your fault," he said.

  "Of course it is. I'm supposed to be  Wonder Woman. I'm supposed to be able  to leap tall buildings with a single bound." I  paused. "Actually, I think the real problem is  that I'm supposed to be here. Back in the  hometown. Like Pam. Available when they need  me. And I can't do that."

  "Yes, we never are quite what our parents want  us to be, are we?" Michael said. With perhaps a little  bitterness? I had a sudden sharp mental image  of a frail little gray-haired lady, peering over  her bifocals at Michael with a look of mild  reproach in cornflower blue eyes whose beauty  was only slightly dimmed by age. Like Barry  Fitzgerald's tiny Irish mother tottering down the  aisle in Going My Way.

  "How is your mother?" I asked, to change the  subject. He sighed. I frowned in dismay.  Perhaps this was a tactless subject. Perhaps his mother was  not doing well.

  "Fine, just ... fine. The bandages are off, and  she's actually showing her face in the dining room already."

  "Bandages? Don't you mean cast?"

  "No." He paused for a few moments.  "Don't you dare repeat this."

  "Cross my heart."

  "She didn't break her leg. Or her arm." 

  "No?"

  "She had ... a face-lift. That's why she  couldn't come back here to recuperate. She's  checked into a hotel in Atlanta and she's not  going to come back until all the bandages and  stitches and swelling are gone, and if anyone  says anything about her looking different, she'll  claim she went on a diet while she was  convalescing. Not that she ever needs a diet,  thanks to all the aerobics and iron-pumping.  Next to Mom, Jane Fonda is a couch  potato."

  "Oh." A face-lift. My mental  picture of sweet, kindly, gray-haired little  Mrs. Waterston was undergoing radical revision.

  "Don't tell anyone," he warned. "She'd  kill me if she knew I'd told anyone."

  "Don't worry; I'm not into gossip." Mother  and Mrs. Fenniman, on the other hand, would have it  all over the county within twenty-four hours of her  return. Nothing I could do about that. "I'm the  oddball around here; I like secrets as much as  anyone, but prefer keeping them to myself and snickering  at people who aren't in the know."

  "I can certainly relate to that," he said. "But  sometimes ... well, there's a big difference between  simply not telling a secret and having to run  around lying and pretending to cover it up. This summer  I've gotten very tired of pretending. In  fact--"

  Just then we heard a blood-curdling shriek.  We both jumped up and ran out of the study and  toward the front door, the direction from which the  shriek seemed to have come. Other family and friends were  peering over the upstairs banister and popping out of  doorways all up and down the hall, although I  didn't see any of them venturing down to help  us. Michael grabbed my grandfather's knobby old  walking stick from the umbrella stand in the front  hall. I flung open the front door and peered  out to see--

  A small, nondescript man in overalls  and a John Deere cap standing on the front steps  holding a much-creased piece of paper and frowning at us.

  "Is this the Langslow house?" he asked. 

  "Yes," I said, rather tentatively. He  looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite  place him.

  "About time," he growled, turning on his heel  and walking down the steps to the driveway, where a  large, battered truck, like a small moving  van, was parked. "I'd like to have a word or two with  whoever drew up this map," he said over his  shoulder, shaking the piece of paper vaguely in  our direction. "Been driving around the county with  these damn things for hours now."

  "What damn things?" Michael asked, still  keeping the walking stick handy.

  Instead of answering, the man flung open the  back door of the truck and banged the side a  couple of times with his fist. A chorus of  unearthly shrieks rang out and then half a dozen  shapes exploded from the back of the truck and  scattered across the lawn, still shrieking.

  "Ah," I said. "I see the peacocks have  arrived."

  Mr. Dibbit, the owner of the peacocks, gave  Dad, Michael, and me a brief rundown on  peacock care while the rest of the family ran off  into the night to hunt them down. Mr. Dibbit  assured us this was unnecessary; they'd find someplace  to roost tonight and would show up for breakfast when they  got hungry enough. Or if they didn't, we  wouldn't have any problem finding them; you could hear them  for miles. Or follow the droppings. I sensed  that Mr. Dibbit was not a peacock owner by choice,  or at least was no longer a proud and happy one.  I began to suspect he was secretly hoping we  would manage to lose or do in his peacock flock  so he could be rid of it. He unloaded a couple  of sacks of what he called peacock feed--  actually Purina Turkey Chow, I noticed.

He told us just to treat them like any other big  bird. And then he drove off into the night--rather  hurriedly. Or perhaps he was still miffed about the  map. Mother had drawn a beautiful map,  elegantly lettered, with many little sketches of the  houses and gardens in the area. But since she'd  left out or misnamed most of the critical  streets and drawn most of the rest out of scale or  perpendicular to the way they really ran, I could  well understand Mr. Dibbit's frustration.

  Dad and Michael began lugging the peacock chow into the garage. I was not a bit  surprised to see Dad sampling it, but I  hadn't realized how much he was influencing  Michael. Men. At least Michael had the  grace to look sheepish when I caught him  nibbling. I went upstairs to change. The rest  of the family could amuse themselves chivvying the  peacocks through the neighborhood or devouring the  poor birds' breakfast. The peacocks had  arrived, taking care of one more of what Samantha  called "those little details that really make an  occasion." I was filled with a sense of  accomplishment, and I planned to get all  dressed up and go to Samantha's party.

  Why I bothered I have no idea. Within half  an hour of my arrival I was wondering how soon  I could sneak out. As usual, most of the people at the  party were Samantha's friends, not Rob's. I  wondered if Rob realized how much his life was  going to change after the wedding. And not for the better if  it meant hanging out with this crowd.

  By one in the morning, I was through. I was running  out of ways to dodge Dougie, the particularly  persistent unwanted suitor I'd ditched at  Samantha's last party. I decided to leave.  But I didn't want to have him follow me home,  so I decided to hide out upstairs for a little  while, in the hope that he'd think I was gone.  Then I would go back down and sneak out.

  I didn't want to stumble into a bedroom that  might be occupied, so I headed for Mr.  Brewster's library at the end of the hall.  Luck was with me; the door was open, and I was able  to duck inside before anyone else appeared in the  hall.

  Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, I  heard a noise behind me. I whirled about and saw  a couple half reclining on the library sofa.  Rob, and one of the bridesmaids. She was wearing  a tight, red strapless dress, although there was a  great deal more of her out of the dress than in it at the  moment. I tried to remember her name, but after  several glasses of wine it was impossible. Not  one of the Jennifers, anyway. Rob looked  somewhat disheveled as well, but instead of the angry  stare the woman in red was giving me, Rob's  flushed face showed mostly embarrassment with, I  was pleased to note, perhaps a hint of relief. I  decided that he needed rescuing, and that the best way  to do it was to ignore whatever they had been up to.

  "Oh, good, there you are, Rob," I  said, walking over to the sofa. "Samantha was  looking for you for something." Rob jumped to his  feet and began putting his clothes to rights. I  helped him by retying his tie as I continued. "I  think they want to take some pictures. With the  peacocks, if they're still awake." What a  stupid thing to say, I told myself, but it was the first  thing that came to mind. Actually I hoped they  didn't want Rob for anything else tonight; as I  drew his arm through mine and began leading him to the  door, I realized that he was stumbling and lurching  badly. Rob never did have much of a head for  drink. I was babbling something inane about peacocks  and wondering how on earth I was going to get him  downstairs, when I ran into Michael at the  landing.