Murder With Peacocks (6 page)

  Yes, the party was definitely hitting its stride. One of the uncles had taken his favorite perch on the diving board and was enthusiastically conducting a program of chamber music. My niece was lurking near the CD player in the hopes of slipping the 1812 Overture into the program and seeing him fall off the board again. About the usual number of relatives had pretended to think the picnic was a masquerade and had come in costume, including Cousin Horace in his well-used gorilla suit. Eric and Duck were paddling around in the pool, quacking at each other and bobbing for bits of food that the guests threw at them. Mother sat fanning herself with an antique Victorian fan and beaming goodwill near and far.

    "Oh, thank you, Michael!" she said, as he handed her the bouquet. "Isn't it nice to have everyone together like this? Though I do wish Jeffrey could have come down for the holiday weekend," she added, turning to me. "You should have tried harder to convince him, Meg."

  "Mother, pay attention," I said. "Jeffrey is history."

  "Now, Meg."

  "Jeffrey has been history for months, and I wouldn't get back together with him if he were the last human male on earth--which would be impossible anyway, because Jeffrey is not human, he is a vaguely humanoid reptile. Please delete Jeffrey from your memory banks. This is a recording."

  "I still think Jeffrey is a very nice boy," Mother said.

  "Good riddance to bad rubbish I say," Dad put in.

  Dad has remarkably sound ideas on what my personal Mr. Right should be like. I should have known something was wrong with Jeffrey when Dad didn't take to him.

  "Ball!" came the cry again, and we all hit the deck except for Mother, who watched with mild interest as the croquet ball missed her ear by two inches and landed in a bowl of potato salad on the buffet table. This ball apparently belonged to Mother's best friend, Mrs. Fenniman, who firmly believed that you weren't allowed to touch the ball with anything other than the mallet. Pam and several of the saner cousins hurried to move the rest of the dishes off the table so Mrs. Fenniman could climb up, dig the ball out with the mallet, and thwack it over the heads of the crowd to the croquet field.

  "It's almost as good as the croquet game with flamingos and hedgehogs in Alice in Wonderland," Michael said, watching Mrs. Fenniman with morbid fascination.

  "Don't give them ideas," I said, noticing absently that since Mrs. Fenniman was dressed in her usual somber colors with a black straw hat precariously attached to the side of her head, her perch made her look even more like a raven than usual. Ravens, flamingos ... something tugged at my memory. "Oh, Dad, do you know of anyone who sells or rents peacocks?"

    "Peacocks? Why peacocks?"

  "Samantha wants to have some for her wedding."

"Whatever for?" Michael asked.

  "I don't know; loitering about decoratively, I suppose," I said, shrugging. "I mean, that's what peacocks do, isn't it?"

  "That sounds very nice," Mother said, thoughtfully. "Very nice indeed."

  "Well, if you want them, you can have them after Samantha's finished with them," I said. "Provided I find some to begin with."

  "Let's go ask your mother's cousin, the one with the farm," Dad suggested. "He used to have some guinea fowl. Maybe he has an idea where to find peacocks."

  "Yes, I think that sounds like a lovely idea," Mother said. "Which reminds me, Michael, about the dining room ..."

  "You're having to spend an awful lot of time on silly details like those peacocks," Dad said, as we left Michael in Mother's clutches and strolled through the crowd looking for Mother's agricultural cousin.

  "Well, if I didn't, who knows. Maybe Samantha would get ticked off and cancel the wedding," I said.

  "Would that be such a tragedy?" Dad said, vehemently. "If you ask me, it'll be a sad day for Rob when he ties the knot with that one. I know you're working awfully hard to bring this wedding off, Meg, but I hope you won't be too upset if I succeed in talking him out of it, because I certainly intend to keep trying."

  I was speechless. I don't know what startled me more, hearing Dad's outburst or realizing that Samantha had come up behind him in time to catch every word of it. If looks really could kill, Dad would be in serious trouble.

  "Whatever you think best," I said, steering him gently out of Samantha's range.

  We found the cousin, and, after extracting a promise that he would canvass the neighboring farms for peacocks, I left him and Dad deep in a conversation on the relative merits of various kinds of manure. I went to help Pam with her repairs to the buffet table.

  "Well, at least they're having a good time," Pam sniffed, watching the winning team perform a decorous victory dance on the croquet field.

  "I think everyone is," said Michael. "Anything I can do to help, Meg?"

  "Hold these," Pam ordered, shoving several platters into his hands. "Mrs. Fenniman has left muddy footprints all over the tablecloth."

  "Having a wonderful time in their own inimitable fashions," I said, watching another aunt who was standing at the very end of the backyard on the bluff overlooking the river, flinging the biodegradable garbage to a flock of seagulls while conversing with them in their native tongue. "With the possible exception of Jake," I added. Jake was standing by himself, a drink clutched in his hand and a nervous expression on his face as he watched the bird-loving aunt.

  "I do feel rather sorry for Jake," Pam remarked.

  "Jake? Why?" Michael asked.

  "Well," Pam said, "about a year and a half ago he has to retire from his job up north somewhere and move down here because his wife is sick and needs a quiet place with a better climate. No sooner do they get here than his wife up and dies. And being pretty much at loose ends, before he's a widower for a year, he falls for Mother."

  "Who is apt to be every bit as much trouble for the poor man as an invalid," I said.

  "I don't see that there's any reason to feel sorry for him," Michael protested. Pam and I laughed. "I mean, your mother seems to be a very charming woman, and it's not as if she's forcing him to marry her."

  "Oh, Mother would never think of such a thing," I said.

  "Well, of course she would if she wanted to," Pam said. "But God knows, what reason would she have?"

  "But look at him," I said. "I mean, does he look happy?" We all three turned to look at Jake.

  "No," Michael said, after a moment. "He looks like a nervous wreck. But prenuptial jitters hit some men that way. I was best man for an old college friend a couple of years ago, and I had to stay up all night with him after the rehearsal dinner to keep him from getting into his van and driving to Montana."

  "Why Montana?" Pam asked. "Was he from there?"

  "No, he'd never been there or ever wanted to that I could remember. But that night, every time I would think I'd talked some sense into him, he'd jump up and say, "Break the news to her, Michael; tell her I've gone to Montana to herd sheep.""

  "But he didn't go?" Pam asked.

  "No, I got him to the church, and the wedding went off as planned. He's never mentioned Montana again. Or sheep. Just a monumental case of prenuptial jitters."

  We contemplated Jake a while longer. When one of the neighbors came up and tapped him on the shoulder, he started so violently I was afraid he'd fall into the pool. Pam shook her head.

  "If he's got prenuptial jitters already, think how bad he'll be by August," she said. "The man could have a coronary."

  "Good point," Michael said.

  "Perhaps he's more nervous than usual with his sister-in-law here," I remarked. She certainly made me nervous.

  "Does she still count as sister-in-law now that her sister is dead, or is she his ex-sister-in-law?" Pam asked.

  "Late sister-in-law, perhaps?" Michael offered.

  "No," I said. "She's not dead, her sister is. Maybe he's worried about how she will take it."

  "Afraid she won't like your mother?" Michael asked.

  "Yes, or won't approve of their marrying so soon after her sister's death."

  "Hmph," Pam said. "I'm not sure I approve of their marrying so soon." She tossed off the rest of her drink, gave our repair work an approving nod, and stalked toward the bar.

  "Do I sense that you and your siblings are not entirely happy about your mother's remarriage?" Michael asked.

  "You could say that," I said. "I mean, we could never understand why Mother and Dad divorced. They never argued or anything."

  "Then what happened?"

  "Who knows?" I said. "All of a sudden one day it was Sorry, children, your father and I are getting a divorce. All very amiable; we all joked that Mother got the house and Dad got the garden, except for joint custody of the tomato patch."

  "And you still have no idea why?"

  "Pam and I have always felt that it was all Mother's idea, and that she was doing it because of something he did, or didn't do. Or that she thought he'd done or not done. We thought eventually either he'd figure out what it was and set it straight, or she'd forgive him, or both of them would just get tired of the divorce and get back together. But now ... it's all looking rather permanent."

  "And you're not happy about it."

  "Well, Jake isn't anyone I would ever have thought of as a possible addition to the family."

  "No, I can see that," Michael said. "Compared to your family he seems a little ... well, bland." He cast an involuntary glance at Uncle Horace.

  "He certainly does," I agreed. "Of course, I can't say I've had much time to get to know him. Maybe he has hidden qualities I haven't seen yet." I glanced again at Jake's rather mousy figure. "Then again, maybe bland is what Mother's looking for. I mean he's not likely to startle the guests at a dinner party with graphic descriptions of the symptoms of ptomaine poisoning. Or put a whole truckload of fresh manure on the flower beds just before a garden party for one of her ladies' clubs. Or drag dead and possibly rabid animals into the house to show to the kids. All of which Dad has done, and more."

  "Quite a character, your dad." Michael remarked. "Sometimes a little too much so."

  "He does seem to be rather obsessed with poison, doesn't he?" Michael said.

  "Ah, I see he's taken you on the garden tour."

  "Not exactly, but I overheard enough of what he was telling another guest earlier to get the idea," Michael said. "Pointing out every toxic item in the landscaping, which seemed to be just about every other plant."

  "You can never be too careful," I said. "If the buffet had been disappointing you might have been tempted to nibble on the shrubbery."

  "But now I know better. I see. Is it a hobby of his, trying to grow every poisonous plant known to man?"

  "Well, when my brother Rob was little, he almost died from eating most of a poinsettia, and Dad got interested in the fact that so many common house and yard plants were poisonous. He's made a special study of it. After all, it combines two of his major obsessions: medicine and gardening. Three obsessions if you include mystery books; he's a rabid mystery reader. See, there he is at it again."

  "Enlightening one of the neighbors, I see."

"Actually, that's Mrs. Grover, the sister-in-law," I said. Dad was pointing at one of the shrubs and gesticulating enthusiastically. "Hydrangea." I said absentmindedly. "Contains cyanide, mostly in the leaves and branches, although I wouldn't advise sampling the flowers, either."

  "Charming," Michael said.

  "That's mountain laurel next to it. I forget what it has in it, but if Socrates had been a Native American, that's what they would have fed him instead of hemlock. And then the oleander, which contains a drug similar to digitalis."

  "Is this a family obsession as well?" he asked.

  "Not at all," I said. "But it's hard not to pick up a few tidbits over the years."

  "I won't need your dad's tour, then. You can do the honors."

  "Ah, but Dad would tell you the scientific names of each poison and describe the effects in vivid, clinical detail."

  "Sounds as if it takes a strong stomach," Michael said, with one eyebrow raised.

  "Yes. Mrs. Grover seems to be enjoying it more than most people do," I said. She was asking rather a lot of questions and peering with those cold eyes at each plant as if committing it to memory. Perhaps some of her sister's shrubbery was missing as well.

  "Could it be her way of flirting with your dad?" Michael asked.

  "More likely she's planning on poisoning someone herself," I replied. "Seems in character."

  "Poisoning someone? Who?" Michael and I both turned in surprise to see a startled Jake behind us.

  "No one's poisoning anyone, Mr. Wendell," I said, gently. "It was only a joke; we were both commenting on how patient your sister-in-law is being about listening to Dad's lecture on poisonous plants."

  "Ghastly," Jake said, and edged away.

  "Do I sense that he didn't enjoy his tour?" Michael said, chuckling. I frowned slightly at him; Dad was coming over with Mrs. Grover in tow. I braced myself.

  "And this is my daughter Meg, who's down for the summer to help her mother with the wedding, and Michael Waterston, who's filling in this summer for his mother, who runs our local dress shop. How's your mother's leg?" he asked.

  "Fine," Michael said. "Making good progress the doctor says. I'm hoping it won't quite be all summer before she comes back."

  "Well, tell her not to rush it," Dad said. "You'd be amazed how many people do themselves a permanent injury trying to do too much too soon."

  "Her sister is looking after her," Michael said. "Aunt Marigold won't let her get away with anything she shouldn't."

  "Marigold? Tell me, is your mother Dahlia Waterston?" Mrs. Grover asked.

  "Yes," Michael said, startled. "Do you know her?"

  "Yes," Mrs. Grover said. "I come from Fort Lauderdale, you know. I know your aunt Marigold, and as it happens, I saw your mother not very long ago."

  "Really," Michael said, oddly nervous.