Murder With Peacocks (32 page)

  "Definitely. Samantha goes at the top  of the list of people on whom I will not willingly turn  my back. And on whom I will keep an eye when  your father's in the neighborhood. Any other  suspects?"

  "It's a pity we can't frame the Beastly  Barry for it," I said. "I thought we'd be rid  of him, at least for a little while, after Eileen's  wedding, but it begins to look as if he'll never  leave. At least that's the way it looks to poor  Mr. Donleavy. I'm surprised he didn't  try to join us today."

  "I doubt if his enthusiasm for small children  extends to doing anything with or for them that involves  actual work," Michael said, glancing at the  backseat where the small boys appeared still  asleep. "Is he frameable, do you suppose?"  he added, with seemingly genuine interest. Civil  of him to adopt my dislike of the Beastly so  enthusiastically.

  "Well, he was here for the Donleavys'  Memorial Day picnic when Mrs. Grover was  killed. I remember she did something or other that  ticked him off pretty seriously, and he's  normally about as excitable as a house plant."

  "Maybe he's one of those people who's slow  to anger but even slower to get over it, and he's  been plotting revenge," Michael suggested.

  "And he was here shortly before the fuse box  incident. It was just after Eileen went on the  Renaissance kick, and I remember you had him  measured for his doublet that day."

  "He could have put the bomb in the  jack-in-the-box and lied about it," Michael said.

  "And he could have poisoned the salsa; he was  hanging around here for the whole Fourth of July  weekend, and some days afterward--I remember he  kept trying to come up and read to me while I was  recovering. He's had plenty of time to have rigged the  lawn mower or the car since he practically  moved into the Donleavys'."

  "The hell with framing him," Michael said.  "If he has even a shadow of a motive, he's  worth suspecting for real."

  "I'm afraid I have a hard time believing that  he's capable of rational thought, much less planning  two murders and several attempted murders."

  "Well, they weren't very well planned," Michael said. "The killer seems to have  missed his intended victim at least three out of  four times, and missed altogether all but two  attempts. Hell, maybe Mrs. Grover  wasn't the intended victim. Maybe he missed  that time, too."

  "That would explain why we're having such a hard  time figuring out why she was killed."

  "Maybe it would help if we eliminated some  more suspects. We've more or less eliminated  Jake and your mother for lack of opportunity. And  as the intended victim, your father's pretty much out  of the running."

  "Unless you like the theory that Mother and Jake are in  cahoots, or alternatively, that Dad is the  murderer and is trying to divert suspicion  by staging a series of crimes that appear to be  aimed at him. I mean, it has been remarkable  how he's escaped every time."

  "Do you really see either of your parents as a  multiple murderer?" Michael asked.

  "No. But I can't expect the rest of the world  to take my word for it."

  "We'll classify them as highly  improbable."

  "I would have called Pam a likely suspect  at one point," I said. "Mrs. Grover was  horrible to Natalie and Eric."

  "That's no reason to kill someone," Michael  said.

  "Not in and of itself, no," I said. "But if she  caught Mrs. Grover doing something she felt was  seriously damaging to her kids--mentally or  physically damaging--then yes. Pam thinks child  molesters should be executed. Preferably at the  hands of their victims' parents."

  "That's a little extreme, but I see her  point," Michael said.

  "But there's no way Pam would sabotage a  car the kids ride in all the time, or poison  salsa they might find as soon as Dad."

  "True. You know, come to think of it, the way the  murderer has kept missing your Dad does  suggest one interesting thing about his or her  personality."

  "I'm all ears."

  "The murderer has come up with a number of rather  clever ways to bump off your Dad in the course of  his usual activities. So we know the murderer  has a relatively good idea of your Dad's tastes and habits. But each of the  attempts failed--or succeeded with the wrong  person--because your father didn't happen to be doing  what the murderer expected him to be doing at any  given time."

  "Always a serious mistake, expecting Dad  to be where he's supposed to be."

  "Exactly. I've only known him since the  beginning of the summer, but I've picked up that much.  The murderer, however, despite knowing rather a lot of  useful details about your Dad, has apparently  not grasped this critical aspect of his character. I  suspect the murderer is a person of limited  imagination and very regular habits. Enough imagination  to come up with a series of ideas, but not enough to think them  through and make them foolproof. Not enough to recognize  that there were going to be an awful lot of external  events around this summer to interrupt everyone's  usual habits. And that your dad doesn't have very  many usual habits anyway."

  "So the murderer, who has a highly  organized but pedestrian mind, knows Dad  reasonably well but doesn't really understand  him."

  "Precisely," Michael said. 

  "Unfortunately, it seems to me that the people who  best fit that description are the very suspects  we've already been looking at."

  "True," Michael said. "We need more." 

  "He or she has some basic knowledge of  poisons."

  "Thanks to your dad, that doesn't eliminate  anyone in the county." We both thought in silence for  several miles.

  "Mechanical ability," Michael said at  last. "Whoever did it knew how to tamper with cars  and lawn mowers and fuse boxes. That should  eliminate a few people."

  "Mother, certainly, if we hadn't already counted  her out. And Dad, for that matter."

  "Samantha, too, I should think," Michael  said.

  "Now, don't you be a chauvinist like A.j.  I know she gives the impression that she'd die  before she'd lift a finger to do anything mechanical,  but that only applies when there's someone else around  who'll do it for her if she bats her eyes.  Remember how she bailed us out when we were trying  to reinstall my distributor cap?"

  "I stand rebuked. Return her to the top of the suspect list. What about the bomb?

Surely most of our suspects have little or no  experience with bombs."

  "No, but I hear you can build one with  fertilizer, which everyone in town has by the ton, and  these days I'm sure any eight-year-old could  find step-by-step instructions on the Internet."

  We both glanced at the back of the car, where the  troop of eight-year-olds appeared to be sound  asleep, oblivious to the new level of  destructiveness they could be achieving with a little  initiative.

  We continued to dissect the case all the way  home, without coming up with anything else useful. Was  the murderer really that brilliant, or were we all  being particularly dense?

         Wednesday, July 20

  I was helping Dad with some gopher stomping the  next morning when Aunt Phoebe showed up  to introduce a visiting cousin.

  "Cousin Walter?" Dad said. "I don't  remember a Cousin Walter."

  "I'll explain the genealogy to you later,  Dad," I said, poking him with my elbow.

  Cousin Walter was about six two, very  physically fit, with a crew cut and a bulge under  one arm of his bulky, unseasonably heavy navy  sports coat. I'd never heard of Cousin  Walter either, but if the FBI or the SBI or  the DEA or whatever law enforcement agency sent  him wanted us to pretend he was a cousin, that was  fine with me.

  No one in town would be fooled--we were all  chuckling already about the half-dozen locals who'd  introduced relatives nobody had ever met before  or even heard of. Everybody was going along with the  joke--we were glad to have them. I apologized for  not inviting our newfound cousin to the wedding, he  graciously accepted an oral invitation, and  Dad and I returned to our gopher stomping. We  were still at it when Michael showed up.

  In my book, gopher stomping is useless but  fun. Dad is convinced that if you systematically  destroy a gopher's tunnels by treading on them  to cave them in and then stomping to pack the dirt, the  gopher will eventually get discouraged and go  elsewhere. I think that far from discouraging them it  probably pleases them immensely; they get to have the fun of digging all over again. But  Dad likes to do it, and I help him out. Besides,  with an outdoor wedding coming up, to which at least half  a dozen middle-aged or elderly relatives  would insist on wearing spike heels, reducing the  pitfalls in the yard seemed like a good idea.

  "I've come to a fork," Dad announced. "Are  you at a dead end, Meg?"

  "No, I'm still going strong," I replied.  "Michael, would you like to take one?"

  "One what?" Michael asked.

  "One fork of the gopher trail," Dad  explained, stopping for a moment and mopping his face  with a bandanna. "Come over here and I'll show you."  After Dad demonstrated the basics of gopher  stomping, we all three stomped a while in  silence. Michael looked as if he wasn't  sure whether or not we were putting him on.

  "By the way," Michael said, pausing to stretch,  "I was actually looking for Spike. Have you seen  him?"

  "No, not for several days," Dad said. "How  did he get loose?"

  "Took off after the peacocks and hasn't been  seen since."

  "Do I detect a note of concern?" I  asked. "Don't tell me you're actually  getting fond of the beast."

  "I wouldn't say fond," Michael replied.  "But after two months of feeding him and walking him  and giving him so many doggie treats Mom will  probably have to put him on a diet when she  gets back, we've reached a sort of truce."

  "That's great," I said.

  "Yeah," Michael said. "He hardly ever  bites me anymore. Unless I try to take  away something he ought not to be chewing. Or give  him a flea bath. Or wake him suddenly. Or  sometimes when he gets too frustrated at not being  able to kill the postman."

  "Next thing you know he'll be fetching your pipe  and slippers," Dad remarked.

  "Hardly." Michael snorted. "But just when  I was beginning to think we could get through the summer  without one of us killing the other, he disappears like  this. What am I going to tell Mom?"

  "We'll put the word out on the neighborhood  grapevine," I said.

  "And we'll add that you've offered a small  monetary reward for information leading to his capture," Dad added.

  "Every kid in the neighborhood will be scouring the  bushes for him," I said.

  "Remember to warn them he bites," Michael  said.

  "I think the entire county has figured that out  by now," Dad remarked. "Well, I think that will  discourage the little critters for a while," he added,  finishing off his trail with a crescendo of stomping  around an exit hole. "Let's go find the  local urchins."

  The local urchins had a lively afternoon looking  for Spike, but things quieted down by late afternoon.  The storm we'd been expecting all day broke  about five o'clock. The power went out almost immediately, of  course. It always did when we had a thunderstorm.  Mother had had the foresight to be visiting a cousin in  Williamsburg, and called to say she'd be  staying the night.

  Rob went out with his bar exam review group  to celebrate getting through the bar exams.  Celebrating was a little premature if you asked  me; he wouldn't know for months if he'd passed.  But even if he hadn't, at least he wouldn't have  to study night and day for a while, which I suppose  was worth celebrating. I didn't expect him  home till the wee hours, if at all.

  Usually I like a good thunderstorm, especially  since there was hope that it would break the latest heat  wave. But tonight the candles I'd lit made the  house look unfamiliar and creepy, and I was  abnormally conscious of being by myself. The kitten was  under the bed, spitting and wailing occasionally. The  peacocks, who by rights should have been roosting somewhere,  were awake and shrieking. I found myself starting at  shadows, jumping at every clap of thunder, and straining  to hear the suspicious noises that I was sure were  being muffled by the steady drumming of the rain. Or  drowned out by the menagerie.

  When the rain let up at about nine-thirty, I  decided to go out for some air. The ground was soaked,  and it looked as if it would start raining again any  time, but I couldn't stand being cooped up in the house  any more. I put on my denim jacket and fled  to the backyard. I found myself staring down at the  river from the edge of the bluff, wondering if we'd  ever find out the truth about Mrs. Grover's death.  Morbid thoughts. Here I was in the backyard of the  house I'd grown up in, and yet I found myself  looking over my shoulder for shadowy figures. But it was only because I was so on edge, and  straining to hear the slightest noise, that I heard  the faint whining coming from somewhere down the bluff.

  I peered down. I caught a faint glimpse  of movement, a flash of something white.

  "Hello," I called. I heard a feeble  little bark.

  Spike.

  I suppose I should have waited until I could  find someone else to help me, but Michael had  been looking for Spike for several days. The  poor animal could be starving, injured--I couldn't  wait. I rummaged in Dad's shed until I  found a rope that seemed sound, tied one end to a  tree and let myself down, half rappelling and  half climbing hand over hand down the rope, toward  the whining sounds. It was starting to rain again, of  course. About twenty feet down, I found a  vine-tangled ledge that I could stand on, and there at  one end of the ledge, was Spike.

  He cringed away from me, whining softly. His  collar was caught on a branch, and I could see  that he'd rubbed his neck raw trying to get out of  it. Upon closer examination, I began to doubt that  Spike had gotten into this mess by accident. It  almost looked as if someone had deliberately  buckled his collar around the branch. I felt a  surge of anger. How could anyone treat a  helpless animal that way! The poor thing was  sopping wet, trembling like a leaf--