Murder With Peacocks (16 page)

  "What do you mean, up to?" I asked,  startled. Had some neighbor told her about  Dad's visit earlier that morning? Could Dad have  revealed to someone what he was carrying around in the  plastic butter tub?

  "He went down to the Town Crier office yesterday, and even though it was almost closing  time, he insisted they drag out a whole lot of  back issues."

  "Back issues from the summer before last?  While he was in Scotland?"

  "Why, yes. How ever did you know that?" 

  "Just a wild guess," I said, feeling rather  pleased with myself for putting together the clues. Dad  was obviously pursuing the theory that Mrs.  Grover's murder had something to do with something that had  happened while he was away. Though what  Great-Aunt Sophy, who had been quietly  reposing in Mother's living room for three or four  years, could possibly have to do with current events  was beyond me. I couldn't think of anything odd that had  happened that summer. No deaths other than people who  were definitely sick or definitely old.

  Or definitely both, like Jake's late  wife.

  How very odd.

  Could Dad possibly suspect Jake of  killing his wife? And if so, what could it  possibly have to do with Mrs. Grover's death, for  which Jake, at least, had a complete alibi?

  Perhaps he suspected someone else of killing the  late Mrs. Wendell. Someone who also had a  motive for killing Mrs. Grover? And of  course, if someone was knocking off the women in  Jake's life, Dad would certainly want to do  something about it, in case Mother were at risk.

  At least I assumed he did. I toyed  briefly with the notion of Dad going off the deep  end and trying to frame Jake for his late wife's  murder so he could get Mother back. And then  disposing of Mrs. Grover when she found out his  plot.

  Or Mother, knocking off Mrs. Wendell in  order to get her hands on Jake, and then doing  away with the suspicious Mrs. Grover who  called her a blond hussy and tried to stop the  marriage.

  I sighed. Dad couldn't possibly carry off  such a scheme; he'd have been visibly bursting with  enthusiasm and would have dropped what he thought were  indecipherable hints to all and sundry. Mother would  never have done anything that required that much effort;  she'd have tried to enlist someone else to do it for her.

  No, I couldn't see either parent as a  murderer. But then, I was a biased witness. For  that matter, like most children, I had a hard time seeing my parents as sexual beings, despite  the evidence of Pam, Rob, and myself. Perhaps I  was missing all the telltale signs of a  passionate geriatric love triangle being  played out in front of my nose.

  I glanced over at suspect number one.  She was looking at me with a faint frown of genuine  concern on her face.

  "Are you all right, Meg?" she asked.

"A little tired," I lied. "The weather, I'm  sure."

  "Perhaps you should stay here this afternoon, where it's  cooler. Jake and I are going over to have tea with  Mrs. Fenniman, so you'll have some quiet. Or  you could come with us; Mrs. Fenniman's  air-conditioning is working."

  I was touched by her concern, but realized in that  instant that I had other plans for the afternoon.

  "No, I have a few things to do." With Jake and  Mother safely out of the way, I was going to play  detective. After all, if Dad could do it, why  not me?

  I waited until Mother and Jake took off.  Then I grabbed an unfamiliar-looking dish--one that I could plausibly claim I had  mistaken for something of Jake's--and trotted over  to his house. Quite openly; just one neighbor  returning another's pie plate.

  I knocked, in case someone was there. Then I  reached out, heart pounding, to open the door.

  Which was locked. Unheard of. People in Yorktown  don't lock their doors.

  Searching Jake's house was going to be a little  harder than I thought. I wandered around to the back  door, calling "yoo-hoo" very quietly. The  back door was locked, too.

  But he'd left the window by the back door  open.

  I had pried open the screen and was halfway in  the window when I heard a voice behind me.

  "Lost your key?"

  I started, hitting my head on the window  frame, and turned to find Michael behind me.  Holding Spike's leash.

  "I know what this looks like," I began,  turning to look over my shoulder and lifting the  tips of my sneakers out of Spike's reach.

  "To me, it looks very much as if you've been  reading too many of the same books your dad has.  And why Jake? Isn't he the one local who's not a suspect? Or is this only one in  a series of clandestine searches?"

  "He's not a suspect, but he has a whole  roomful of the victim's stuff. I want to see  Mrs. Grover's stuff."

  "Surely the sheriff took any important  evidence?"

  "The sheriff wouldn't know important evidence  if it walked into his office and introduced itself.  Look, either call the cops or go away; I'm  getting very uncomfortable hanging half-in and  half-out of this window."

  "I have a better idea," Michael said.  "I'll give you a cover story. Here." He  picked up Spike and, before the little beast could  react, tossed him over my leg into the house.  Spike shook himself, looked around, and then ran out  of sight, growling all the way.

  "You were helping me retrieve Spike,"  Michael said, offering me a leg up and then  jumping nimbly in after me. "Don't ask how  he got into Mr. Wendell's house. The place  obviously needs to be vermin-proofed."

  Now that I'd succeeded in getting in, I  felt temporarily disoriented. I had a whole  house to search, and I had no idea what I was  looking for.

  Of course there wasn't that much to search. It was  a rather bare house. There seemed to be even less  furniture and fewer decorations than the last time  I'd seen it, just after Mrs. Grover disappeared.  I reached under the sink and fortunately found a  pair of kitchen gloves.

  "Here," I said, handing them to Michael. "You  wear these. I brought my own."

  "So where do we start?" he asked, following me  from the kitchen into the living room.

  "I'll look in the guest room," I said, more  decisively than I felt. "You search his  desk."

  "What am I looking for?"

  "How should I know? Discrepancies.  Anomalies. The missing will. Blunt objects  still bearing telltale traces of hair and blood.  We're working blind here."

  Michael chuckled and sat down at Jake's  desk. He began deftly rummaging through the  desk, whistling "Secret Agent Man" almost  inaudibly.

  "Smart aleck," I said, and went into the guestroom.

  It wasn't a complete loss. I continued  to be amazed at the number of small, portable  valuables Mrs. Grover had appropriated  while at Jake's. I did find an envelope  containing two thousand dollars in cash, mostly in  hundreds. Perhaps evidence of a blackmail  scheme, although it must have been a penny-ante one  if this was all she had collected. Still, perhaps she  had been stopped before she'd hit her stride. Then  again, perhaps she just didn't believe in traveler's  checks. And I found nothing else of interest.  No diary with a last entry announcing her intent  to meet X on the bluff before dawn. No list  of suspects' names with payoff amounts jotted beside  them. No incriminating letters or photos. Nothing  out of the ordinary.

  Well, one thing out of the ordinary. I found the  late Emma Wendell. What remained of her,  anyway. I opened a rather nondescript box  marked Emma, expecting to find another piece of  silver or china bric-a-brac and found something  greatly resembling Great-Aunt Sophy, only  slightly less lumpy.

  "Yuck!" I said, rather loudly. Michael was  at my side in an instant.

  "What is it?" he asked eagerly.

  "The first Mrs. Wendell."

  "I see," he said, showing no inclination to do so.  "Is this significant?"

  "Not that I know of." Although it began to give me  ideas about why Dad had borrowed Great-Aunt  Sophy.

  "Let's leave her in peace, then. What  else have you found?"

  I showed him the cash, which he agreed was poor  pickings for a blackmailer. He showed me his  findings. Sales receipts, complete with the date  and time, that tended to confirm Jake's alibi rather  thoroughly. A bank book and other papers showing  that Jake was in no danger of starving no matter  how many valuable little knickknacks the late  Jane Grover had purloined. An envelope  marked Jane containing a key to a self-storage  unit and a neatly itemized list of oriental  rugs, antique furniture, and other objects  that were certainly more than knickknacks. Another  envelope marked Safety Deposit containing a  key and an impressive itemized list of  jewelry. I made a mental note to suggest that the sheriff see who inherited Mrs.  Grover's estate. A framed certificate of  appreciation on the occasion of Jake's  retirement from Waltham Consultants, Inc.,  whatever that was. Neat stacks of promptly paid  bills and perfectly balanced bank books.

  "Commendably businesslike," Michael said.

  "But not very illuminating," I said. I stood  up and looked around. "Something's missing here."

  "Like any sign that the man has a  personality." Michael had wandered over to the  shelves on either side of the fireplace. They were  largely empty, except for a few pieces of  bric-a-brac that were presumably either too large  for Mrs. Grover to hide or too cheap for her  to bother with. There were maybe two dozen books,  all paperback copies of recent  best-sellers.

  "Doesn't he have any more books?" Michael  asked.

  "Good question."

  We looked. Not in the guest room. Not in the  bedroom, which looked more lived in than the rest of the  house but still depressingly tidy. Not in the dining  room or the upstairs bath or the kitchen. Not in  the basement, where Spike lay in wait for us under  the water heater, growling. Not in the attic.

  "Depressing," I said. "Irrelevant, but  depressing."

  Just then we heard a car go by, and peering out,  I saw it was Jake's.

  "We'd better leave; Jake may drop  Mother off and come back soon," I said.

  We lured Spike out from under the furnace and  left the way we came.

  "That was a bust," Michael said.  "Well, we do have corroboration for his  alibi."

  "I thought we had that already."

  "The sheriff had it," I said. "Now that I've  seen it myself, I believe it."

  And, as I admitted to myself before falling  asleep that night, I was more than a little hoping  to find some evidence against Jake because deep down  I just didn't like him. How much of that was  justifiable and how much due to my resentment that he  was taking Dad's place, I didn't know. But  I had to admit, I'd found nothing against him,  other than further confirmation that he was a bland,  boring cipher.

  I pondered the other, more viable  suspects. I could certainly find the  opportunity to sneak into Samantha's room ...  Barry's van ... even Michael's mother's    house, although if I were seriously considering him a  suspect, I had already made a big mistake  by letting him find out I was snooping. Two big  mistakes if you counted letting him paw through  Jake's things. It all seemed rather pointless.

  "I give up," I told myself. "Let Dad do the detecting. I have three weddings  to organize."

          Monday, June 20

  On Monday morning, I coerced Pam  into waiting for the electrician while I traipsed  down to Be-Stitched for some fittings--along--with  Samantha and Mother and half a dozen  hangers-on. I wondered for the umpteenth time if  my presence was really necessary at every one of  Samantha's fittings. Having to stand perfectly  still while Mrs. Tranh and the ladies did things  with pins and tape measures seemed to throw  Samantha's brain even further into overdrive,  and she used the energy to cross-examine me on my  progress (or lack thereof).

  "How is the calligrapher doing?" she asked,    as Mrs. Tranh frowned over some detail of the  sleeves. "Are the invitations back yet?"

  "She wanted a full week," I said,  glossing over the fact that the week had been up the  previous Friday and I'd had no luck getting  in touch with Mrs. Thornhill, the  calligrapher, over the weekend. Best not  to upset Samantha until absolutely necessary.

  "What about the peacocks?" she asked. 

  "I've got some leads."

  "It's nearly the end of June," she  complained.

  "Yes, have you been to see Reverend Pugh for the  premarital counseling yet?" I asked, partly  to change the subject, partly to see her squirm,  and partly because it was another item I'd like to get  checked off my list.

  "Yes, you really must get that out of the way,"  Mother chimed in. Samantha looked uncomfortable.

  "Well, not yet," she admitted. "We have  been wondering if he is quite the right minister," she  added, glaring at me because she didn't dare ask aloud how the search for a substitute was  going.

  "Fat chance finding another this late," Mrs.  Fenniman remarked.

  "Why shouldn't he be?" Mother asked. 

  "Well, isn't he rather ... elderly?"  Samantha said. "Are you sure he's up to the  strain?" What a very tactful way of saying that he  was older than the hills, looked and acted  peculiar even by local standards, and she didn't  want him within five miles of her elegant  wedding.

  "Oh, he'd be so hurt if we didn't let  him," Mother said. "And he still does a lovely  ceremony."

  "He's had so much practice," I said,  trying to imply that even the eccentric Reverend  Pugh could probably manage to get through something as  well known as the standard Book of Common Prayer  wedding service without difficulty. "Besides, the  Pughs have been marrying, burying, and baptizing  Hollingworths for generations."

  "Though not in that order, I hope," Michael  said under his breath.

  "Generations," Samantha repeated, looking very  thoughtful. "Well, if it's a family  tradition." I'd hoped she would fall for that one.  She disappeared into the dressing room, still pondering,  followed by the mothers and Mrs. Fenniman.

  "Reverend Pugh, eh?" Michael said. "Should  be a hoot."

  "You've met him?"

  "No, only heard stories. So has  Samantha, apparently; clever the way you brought  her round."