Murder With Peacocks (2 page)

  So much for my quiet interlude in the country. I did find a few minutes alone with Steven to talk about Eileen's latest addition to the wedding agenda.

  "About this Native American herbal purification ceremony," I began.

  "I hate to say this, because normally Eileen has such wonderfully creative ideas," Steven said, "but I just think it's a little too much."

  "So do I," I said. "Completely ridiculous. You'd be laughing stocks. Guests would be rolling in the aisles. You'd probably make "News of the Weird"."

  "Exactly. So you'll talk her out of it?"

"No, I think you should tell her you agree."

  "Agree?"

  "Just tell her it's cool with you. I'll tell her I'm researching it. She'll change her mind long before the wedding."

  "Do you really think so?"

  "Trust me," I said. "I've known Eileen all her life. I guarantee you, by mid-June the Native American herbal purification ceremony will be history." At least I had every intention of ensuring it was.

  Steven seemed satisfied. Eileen was overjoyed to hear he'd come around. And I would keep my fingers crossed that whatever new idea she came up with by mid-June was a little less off the wall. Please, I thought, let her become militantly traditional, just for a few months.

  To everyone's disappointment, I went to bed at ten o'clock so I could get an early start on the next day's drive. No, I couldn't stay longer; I didn't want Mother to make herself ill getting ready for Sunday's family picnic. No, Mother's health was fine, but she wasn't getting any younger, and she had a lot on her hands this summer. I overdid it a bit; Barry was so touched by my daughterly devotion that he tried to volunteer to come down and help us with the party preparations and was only discouraged with the greatest of difficulty.

  It could have been my imagination--or the influence of one too many glasses of cider--but as I was wishing everyone good-night, I thought I saw something like a snarl cross Barry's usually placid face. Perhaps he was beginning to realize that pursuing me was futile, I thought. And resenting it. Ah, well; even a surly, resentful Barry would be more interesting than his customary bovine self.

          Thursday, May 26

  What a relief it was the next morning to get up with the chickens (the few who had survived Steven and Eileen's care) and hit the road at 7:00 a.m. By the time I was actually wide awake, I'd put a good hundred miles of winding mountain roads between me and Barry.

  Well before noon I found myself driving down the long, tree-shaded driveway to my parents' house. Well, Mother's house, anyway; Dad had moved out. Although I could see him up in a ladder pruning an ornamental cherry tree. I made a mental note to compliment him on the gardens, which were looking superb, and to hint that the house needed painting before all the relatives came for the weddings. On second thought, maybe I should just arrange to hire someone; painting three stories of rambling Victorian house with gingerbread trim was not something a sixty-six-year-old should be doing, though Dad would try if I mentioned it.

  Mother was on the porch, her slender frame draped elegantly over the chaise lounge. She was dressed, as usual, as if expecting distinguished visitors, with not a single expensively natural-looking blond hair out of place. I suppressed the usual envious sigh. I'm the same height, and not at all bad-looking in my own fashion, but I'm not slender, I'm not a blonde, and nobody's ever mistaken me for elegant.

  Mother wasn't even surprised to see me arrive several days early.

  "Hello, dear," she said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek. "There's lemonade in the refrigerator. Why don't you help your sister with lunch? We'll all be able to eat that much sooner."

  From the relief on Pam's face when I showed up in the kitchen to help, I suspected she was regretting her decision to pack off her husband Mal and the four oldest kids for a summer with Mal's parents in Australia. I could have warned her that the two youngest, Eric and Natalie, weren't much defense against Mother's tendency to enlist anyone within range as unpaid labor. But she'd known Mother eight years longer than I had; if she hadn't learned by now, there wasn't much I could do.

  Dad was the only one who seemed surprised by my early arrival. He came in just as we were sitting down to lunch and took his usual place. Jake, the fiance, was not here. No one else seemed to find this odd, so I said nothing.

  "Meg!" he cried, jumping up to give me a bear hug as soon as he noticed it was me taking the chair beside him. "I thought you weren't coming down till Saturday! You're supposed to be resting at Steven and Eileen's farm! What happened?"

  "It wasn't relaxing. Barry was there."

"Barry who?" my sister, Pam, asked.

  "Steven's brother. The one they keep pushing at me."

  "The dim one?" Dad asked.

"Precisely."

  "Is he nice?" Mother asked.

  "Not particularly." I'd explained to her several times before, in excruciating detail, exactly how much I disliked Barry, but since she obviously paid no attention I'd given up trying.

  "I can't see how any brother of Steven's wouldn't be nice," Mother said.

  "Well, he'll be down for the wedding, so you can see for yourself. For that matter, he'll probably be down for Eileen's family's barbecue on Memorial Day."

  "You could call and tell him to come down for our picnic," Mother suggested.

  "Mother, I don't want him here for our picnic. I don't like him."

  "I suppose it would be awkward, with Jeffrey here," Mother said.

  "Jeffrey's not--oh, I give up," I muttered. I'd also failed to convince Mother, who liked my ex-boyfriend for his vapid good looks, that Jeffrey was out of the picture. Dad patted my shoulder.

  "I know your mother really appreciates your coming down," he said. "There's such a lot to do."

  "Yes, Meg," Mother said, her face lighting with the sudden realization that at least for the moment she had me solely in her clutches, free from the competing influences of Samantha and Eileen.

  We spent the rest of lunch discussing wedding details, followed by an afternoon of debating redecorating plans and a supper split between these two equally fascinating topics. I ate both meals with my left hand while scribbling several pages of notes in the notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe. Dad made intermittent attempts to talk them into giving me tomorrow off, and was ignored. After lengthy discussion, Mother, Pam, and I all agreed that a visit to the local dressmaker was the first order of business. I was about halfway through the job of nagging three brides, three flower girls, and fourteen bridesmaids into visiting the dressmaker and had even talked to her on the phone several times, but hadn't actually made it to the shop myself.

  "Well, that's settled," Mother said, as Pam and I began clearing the dishes. "Tomorrow morning you'll go down to Mrs. Waterston's shop and make sure everything is going well."

  "Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea!" Dad said, with great enthusiasm. "You'll like that!"

  I stared at him, amazed at this sudden about-face. Such enthusiasm from Dad meant that he was up to something, but I couldn't imagine what. He was wearing what he probably thought of as a Machiavellian expression, but since Dad is short, bald, and pudgy, he looked more like a mischievous elf. Ah, well. Perhaps he had decided getting me a day off was a lost cause and was putting a cheerful face on the inevitable. Or perhaps Dad approved of Mrs. Waterston. Perhaps she shared one of his obsessions--bird-watching, or gardening, or reading too many mysteries. Since she'd only come to town the previous September, Mrs. Waterston was one of the few people in the county I hadn't known all my life. That alone made me look forward to meeting her. Yes, a visit to the dress shop was definitely in order.

           Friday, May 27

  So, bright and early the next morning, I drove into Yorktown proper to visit the dressmaker.

  Mother told me the dress shop was two doors down from the house where her uncle Stanley Hollingworth lived. I've never yet known her to give anyone a set of directions without at least one reference to a landmark that hasn't existed for years. It wasn't until the third time I'd examined every building in the block that I realized she must have meant not the house where he currently lived but the one he'd grown up in, three quarters of a century ago.

  Sure enough, two doors down from the old Hollingworth house was a small cottage painted in Easter egg pastels, including a tasteful pink and baby blue colonial-style sign in front reading Be-Stitched-- Dressmakers. I walked down a cobblestone path between a low border of immaculately pruned shrubs, opened a glossy sky blue door, and walked in to the tinkling of a small, old-fashioned bell. The whole thing was almost too cute for words. And since I positively loathe cute, I walked in prepared to dislike the proprietor intensely.

  And found myself face-to-face with one of the most gorgeous men I'd ever seen in my life. He looked up from the book he was reading, brushed an unruly lock of dark hair out of his deep blue eyes, and smiled.

  "Yes?" he said. I stood there looking at him for a couple of embarrassing seconds before pulling myself together. More or less.

  "I'm here about a wedding. Where's Mrs. Waterston?" I asked, and then realized how rude that sounded.

  "In traction," he said. "Down in Florida. I'm her son, Michael; I'm filling in while her broken bones mend."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I hope she's better soon."

    "Not nearly as much as I hope it," he said gloomily. He had a wonderful, resonant voice. Perhaps he was a musician. I'm a sucker for musicians.

  "How can I help you?" he asked.

  "I'm Meg Langslow. I'm supposed to come here to be measured for a bridesmaid's dress."

  "A bridesmaid's dress," he said, suddenly looking very cheerful. "Wonderful! For whose wedding?" He stood up and turned round to pull out the top drawer of a file cabinet on the back wall, giving me a chance to discreetly eye his wonderfully long, lean form. I decided I was looking forward to bringing Eileen in here so I could point out to her that this, not the beefy Barry, was my idea of what a hunk should look like. And I peeked at the book he was reading--Shakespeare. Not only gorgeous, but literate, too.

  "Samantha Brewster, Eileen Donleavy, or Margaret Hollingworth Langslow. Take your pick."

  His hand froze over the files and he looked up warily.

  "You're not sure which? Are you, perhaps, comparison shopping to see who has the least objectionable gowns before committing yourself?"

  "No, I'm stuck with all three of them. Langslow is my mother, Brewster is marrying my brother, and Donleavy is my best friend. I know it sounds odd, but this is a very small town."

  "Actually, after two weeks here, very little strikes me as odd," he said. "And you're right; this is a very small town. I'm surprised I haven't run into you before."

  "I don't live here anymore. I've come home for the summer, though, to help with all the weddings. I assume one set of measurements will do for all three; the first and last ones are only two weeks apart."

  "Should do," he said. "What a summer you're in for. Here we are. Brewster ... Langslow ... and I'll start a file for Donleavy."

  "Start a file? She's the first one up; you mean she hasn't even been here yet?"

  "Not since I took over, and if your friend had been in before Mom left for Florida I'm sure she would have started a file."

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began counting silently. I had gotten to three when he asked, "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," I said. "Eileen always advises me to count to ten when I lose my temper. I generally still feel like throttling her when I'm finished, though."

  I opened my eyes.

  "She was supposed to have come in with one of her other bridesmaids months ago to pick out dresses so your mother could order them in our sizes. I mean, that's what she told me she'd done. The measurements were just supposed to be for the fine-tuning, or whatever you call it. Which I thought would be happening this week. She lied to me!"

  Calm down, Meg, I told myself. Do not lose your temper at Eileen, especially in front of this very nice and extremely gorgeous man. Who was not, I had already noticed, wearing a wedding ring. I made a mental note to interrogate Mother about him; no doubt she and the aunts on the Hollingworth side of the family already knew not only his entire life history but also several generations of his family tree.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that I'm the one who's trying to pull this all together, and she's the one who's unintentionally sabotaging everything."

  "We'll manage something," he said, with a smile. "I don't recognize the name--what does she look like?"

  "She's about five-ten, frizzy blondish hair down to her waist, a little on the plump side. Kind of looks like she just got in from California, or maybe Woodstock. The original."

  He chuckled and walked over to a curtained doorway in the back of the shop and called out something in a rapid, musical tongue. A little wizened Asian grandmother, well under five feet tall, popped out and they chattered at each other for a few moments.

  "She was in and looked at all the books several months ago, but didn't decide on anything," he reported finally. "Took down several stock numbers but hasn't called back."

  "I'll have her in here Monday. Oh--Monday's Memorial Day. Tuesday, then. She'll be in town by then. You are open Tuesday?"

  He nodded. "That would be great. Why don't we have Mrs. Tranh measure you now for the other weddings."

  "Fine," I said, my mind still focused on Eileen's iniquities. "And just what did Mother and Samantha decide on? At least I hope they've both decided on something. They told me they had, but perhaps I shouldn't have trusted them, either."

  "Oh, yes, they did. Several months ago. Your mother said she wanted to surprise you and your sister, and we weren't on any account to show you what it was until she had the chance," he said, a little nervously.