Murder With Peacocks (36 page)

  I was mildly depressed when we arrived at  the Brewsters' house. Even with the interruptions, it  had been a gorgeous ceremony. The dresses were  ridiculous, but in a bizarre sort of way the  overall effect was beautiful. Once he'd  gotten over his disappointment at not being allowed  to give a sermon, Cousin Frank had really  thrown himself into the occasion and performed a beautiful  ceremony. After the charming eccentricity of  Eileen's Renaissance music on virginals and  lutes, I'd actually enjoyed hearing a really big church organ boom out "Here Comes  the Bride" and other old standards.

  But I kept remembering Eileen's and  Steven's faces during their ceremony.  Samantha's face didn't light up when she  saw Rob standing at the altar. I got the distinct  impression she was checking him out to see if he was  properly combed and dressed. And Rob didn't  look transfigured. Just nervous.

  I tried to enjoy the reception, or at least  look as if I were enjoying it. But I had the  nagging feeling there was something I ought to have done that would  blow up in my face any minute. Perhaps it was a  side effect of the poison ivy.

  Barry was hovering, as usual. For once, he  was proving useful.

  "I'm not sure this is real Beluga," I said  to Barry, handing him a cracker heaped with caviar.  "Does it taste right to you?"

  Barry downed the cracker.

  "Tastes fine to me," he said.

  "No, you ate it too fast. Here, try  another one. Roll it around in your mouth for a  while. Get the full flavor."

  Barry obligingly did so.

  "Still tastes fine," he said, when he'd  finished.

  "Maybe it's the crackers. They have a strong  flavor. Just try some by itself." I handed him a  heaping spoonful.

  "It's fine," he said, again.

  "Here, clear your palate with this water," I  said, handing him a glass. "Now try again. Are you  sure it tastes like real Beluga?"

  "I'm not sure I know what real Beluga  tastes like," he said finally. "But this stuff tastes  great."

  "Go take some to Mrs. Fenniman, will you?  See what she thinks."

  Barry lumbered off with a plate of caviar and  crackers for Mrs. Fenniman.

  "Well, the ceremony went off," Michael  said, arriving at my side.

  "I notice you didn't say anything about how  it went off," I said, craning over his shoulder.  "The less said about that the better."

  "What are you looking for?"

  "Barry. Does he look healthy to you?" 

  "As a Clydesdale," Michael said,  frowning. "Why?"

  "I've just fed him a vast quantity  of caviar. If he doesn't keel over in the  next ten minutes or so, I'm going to have some  myself."

  "Bloodthirsty wench," was his comment. 

  "Has he tried the shrimp yet?" Dad  asked, plaintively. "And the salsa?"

  "I'm sure he'll wander back in a  minute," I said, reassuringly. "We'll have  him graze his way through the whole buffet if you  like."

  "Not a bad idea, at that," Michael said.  "The guests seem curiously reluctant to eat  today."

  He was right. Usually by this time the buffet would have  been decimated. Now, most of the crowd sat around  sipping drinks and surreptitiously watching  Barry, Cousin Horace, and the few other hardy  souls who'd already braved the buffet. I decided  to load up my plate while the coast was clear.  I could always stand around and hold it until enough people had  dined that I felt safe.

  "Damn, I'll be glad to get out of this  dress," I said. I tried to scratch my  blisters unobtrusively and then realized that I  shouldn't have. Scratching set everything revealed by my  decolletage into jiggling motion.

  "You look very nice," Dad said approvingly.  "Michael, you'll have to tell your ladies what a  fine job they've done."

  "Thanks; I will," he said.

  "It may look nice, but if I ever wear a  dress this low cut again, I'm going to put a  sign at the bottom of my cleavage," I said.  "I've seen a bumper sticker with the wording I  want: If you can read this, you're too damn  close."

  "It's not really that bad," Dad said, as  Michael spluttered on his champagne.

  "Oh no?" I said. "Watch what happens  when he comes over," I said, pointing to Doug, my  nemesis from parties past, who seemed to be  looking in our direction. Michael and Dad  looked at him, and he seemed to change his mind.

  "Did one of you glare at him?" I asked.  "If so, you have my eternal thanks."

  "I think we both did," Michael said, as  he and Dad burst out laughing.

  "Well, at least for the moment all I have  to worry about is stray bits of food," I said, as I caught a bit of caviar before it  disappeared into the bodice. I noticed that more people were  eating, and Barry was showing no signs of distress,  so I'd begun nibbling from my plate.

  It took a while for the guests to find their way  to the buffet, but after a few centuries the party  began to show signs of life. Especially after word  spread through the crowd that the county DA'S date was  an FBI agent she'd met during the bureau's  local investigation on Samantha's former  fiance. I had to give Samantha credit:  she hadn't turned a hair when he came through the  reception line. Maybe she didn't remember  him. I could spot half a dozen of the  preternaturally clean-cut new "cousins"  cruising the crowd like eager human sharks, waiting  to pounce. I was torn between hoping they'd find  someone to pounce on and hoping everything went off  quietly.

  Dad was installed by the punch bowl, and from his  gestures I suspected he was relating the  graphic details of the usher's injury to anyone  who would listen. I was trapped by a long-winded  aunt who was telling me every moment of the weddings of  each of her four daughters. I was smiling and  making polite noises while daydreaming of  pulling off my dress, scratching my poison  ivy, and then flinging myself naked into the pool. I  almost jumped out of my skin when Mrs. Brewster  suddenly appeared behind me.

  "Where's Samantha?" she asked. "Shouldn't  she be getting ready to throw her bouquet?"

  "She's--she was right over there," I stammered.  Mrs. Brewster frowned. Losing the bride was not  acceptable behavior for a maid of honor.  "I'll just go and find her and hurry her up," I  babbled.

  I cruised through the crowd. Samantha was nowhere  to be found. Everyone had just seen her a few  minutes ago and expected she'd be right back.  I could see Mrs. Brewster fuming by the punch  bowl. Evidently Dad's adventures in the  emergency room were failing to charm her. I  decided to check the house. Perhaps she'd gone in  to use the bathroom. Or to cool off.

  I grabbed a few hors d'oeuvres on my  way past the buffet and trudged upstairs  to Samantha's room. She wasn't there. I  saw only Michael and the two little seamstresses  staring out the window.

  "Where's Samantha?" I asked.

Michael pointed out the window. I managed to find  enough space to peer out over the seamstresses' heads.

  "Dashed out without even changing," he muttered.  Mother and Mrs. Brewster came in.

  "So where is she?" Mother gushed. "I can't  wait to see her in that lovely suit!"

  It was a long driveway, but down at the other  end we could see that Rob, still faintly elegant  in his damp, limp gray morning suit was helping  Samantha into the passenger's seat of her red  MG. Stuffing her in, actually; she was still in her  bridal gown, hoops and all, and he was bashing  armfuls of expensive fabric down around her.  God knows how he was going to find the gearshift under  all that froth. He didn't even try to deal with the  veil, just took it off, crumpled it into a ball,  and shoved it down in the space behind the seats.

  It was a lucky thing their backs were to us; they  couldn't see the venomous looks they were getting from  the two seamstresses. Or hear Michael  sighing, "Oh, shit." I echoed his sentiments:  what, pray tell, had happened to the bouquet  throwing? We'd had a special throwing bouquet  made, a slightly more compact version of the one  Samantha had carried down the aisle, thereby  nearly doubling the bouquet budget. Perhaps she'd  held an impromptu throwing while I'd been  looking for her. I peered down the driveway.  No signs of a bouquet. But I did see Mrs. Fenniman pop up, apparently from the  azalea bed, and begin throwing birdseed at them from  one of the little lace-trimmed bags, and Rob was just  getting into the car when--

  "Where's Samantha?" Rob said, sticking his  head in the door. Wearing his traveling clothes.

  "Rob?" I said.

  "If Rob's here--" Mrs. Brewster said. 

  "Who the hell is that?" I asked.

  "Such language!" said Mother.

  "Who the hell is who?" asked Rob.

  "Who the hell is that driving off with  Samantha?" Mrs. Brewster and I said, in  unison.

  "Oh, dear." Mother sighed. "That's very bad  luck when two people say the same thing. You must both  link your little fingers together and say--"

  "Not now, Mother," I said, on my way to the  door.

  Despite the handicap of my hoop skirts, I won the race to the end of driveway,  finishing a hair before Mrs. Brewster. Michael  came loping along close behind us, while Mother and  Rob, not being quite sure what the fuss was all about,  finished in a dead heat for last. Mrs.  Fenniman, who had obviously gotten rather  heavily into the Episcopalian punch, still had a  great deal of birdseed left, so she chucked some  at us as we pulled up. But, of course, we were  all too late. As Mrs. Brewster and I  reached the end of the driveway, we could just see the  MG disappearing around the corner. And catch a  few bars of a Beach Boys song blaring from the  radio. "I Get Around."

  That's Samantha for you. Always a stickler for  those appropriate little details that really make  an occasion.

  As we stood, dumbfounded, something fell out of the  dogwood trees above us and bounced off my head  onto the gravel. Samantha's wedding bouquet.  I heard a burst of high musical laughter from  the upstairs window and looked up to see the  seamstresses bobbing back out of sight.

  "So that's what she did with it," Mrs.  Brewster said triumphantly, as if the discovery  of the bouquet more than made up for Samantha's  absence.

  "You seem to have an affinity for these things,"  Michael remarked, as he picked up the  now-battered bouquet and handed it to me.

  As soon as Rob understood what was going on,  he insisted on dashing after them in the first car  available. Mine. Several other birdseed-bearing  guests had arrived at the end of the driveway, and  they and Mrs. Fenniman cheered and pelted him as  he pulled out. As word of the--was elopement the  appropriate word? Flight, I suppose, was  more accurate. As word of the flight spread, most  of the male guests felt compelled for some reason  to drive off in pursuit. No one was too clear  on who they were pursuing, Rob, or Samantha and  her fellow traveler, who turned out to be Ian,  the last-minute substitute usher. There was a great  deal of coming and going as cars drove up to report  on where they'd been and what they'd seen, or  hadn't seen and then set out again fortified with food  and drink from the buffet. Mrs. Fenniman and her  fellow harpies stood around by the driveway,  swilling punch and sniping at the passing cars with  handfuls of birdseed, giggling uproariously all the while, until at last they reached the  point where they couldn't open the little bags and began  throwing them whole, at which point somebody had the good  sense to confiscate the remaining birdseed. They  tried to keep up the barrage with acorns and pine  cones, but that took most of the fun out of it and they  lost interest fairly quickly.

  Except for a couple of bridesmaids who  considered themselves entitled to have hysterics and the mothers  or friends who evidently felt compelled to cater  to them, most of the women gathered around the food tables  like a twittering Greek chorus. The peacocks,  unsettled by all the chaos, adjourned to the roof  for a filibuster. Mrs. Brewster retired to her  bedroom with a migraine. Jake undertook the job    of running around fetching her cold compresses,  relaying her messages to Mr. Brewster (who  had locked himself in his study with a bottle of  Scotch), hunting down and locking up valuable    items Mrs. Brewster feared might disappear in  the confusion, and generally serving as chief toady and  errand boy. I had no idea why--maybe it was a  role he was used to playing with Mother--but he  certainly made points with me for taking it off my  hands. Personally, I had my doubts at first  whether Mrs. Brewster's headache was real or  merely convenient. I decided it was probably  real--she did, after all, have reason--when she  emerged looking absolutely ghastly and demanded,  imperiously, that someone Do Something About Those  Peacocks. Which was how I found myself at about  seven o'clock, sitting on the roof of the Brewsters'  house with Michael.

  He was the only male who was neither  half-drunk nor off in pursuit of the elusive  trio. Instead, he had been lounging elegantly  around the house, sipping punch, supervising the  seamstresses' packing, flirting with me,  eavesdropping shamelessly on every conversation within  earshot, and obviously enjoying the hell out of the  whole situation. But with a straight face, I had  to give him that. When Mrs. Brewster issued her  ultimatum, he volunteered to help me with the  peacock roundup. We changed into jeans, unearthed  Dad's ladder, and together managed to chase the  birds back down into the yard. Some of the men who were  tipsy enough that their wives had restrained them from  driving off in search of Rob, Ian, and Samantha took over the roundup.

  "I vote we let them handle it from now on," I said. "After all, someone's got  to stay here, to repel the peacocks if they  attempt another boarding."

  "Fine by me," Michael said. "I think there's  actually a breeze up here."

  He stretched out luxuriously on a flat part  of the roof with his head propped up against a second  story dormer. He was right about the breeze. It was  ruffling the lock of hair that had fallen over his  forehead. I decided at that moment that I'd had enough  punch.

  "Everyone seems to be getting on rather well in  spite of everything," he remarked, startling me out    of my reverie.