Murder With Peacocks(35)

"Rather tedious for you," Michael sympathized.

"Oh, it's all right. It's peaceful out here, and it's also amazing how much you can get done even in the middle of the river with a cellular phone. And I brought the stationery so I can keep on with the addressing for Mother."

"Well, come in when you can. With or without Eileen."

"Roger."

I had a quiet day, but on the bright side, Barry took off to meet Steven and Eileen for a craft fair in Manassas. Good riddance.





Friday, June 10



I spent Friday in much the same way--bobbing about on the water watching Dad's latest crop of milk jugs. I found I couldn't write invitations after all; the sunscreen smeared them. I'd made all the phone calls possible.

All I could do was fret about the identity of the murderer, if there was a murderer. I resolved that once I was released from my observation post, I was going to go around to question some of my friends and family. With subtlety. The sheriff was about as subtle as a plowhorse.





Saturday, June 11



After two days of bobbing about on the river herding milk jugs, I devoted Saturday to helping Dad with the roundup--tracking down as many of the milk jugs as possible and recording where we'd found them. We even started getting calls from people down river, claiming the small reward we had offered for turning in the jugs that got past us. Most of these, as expected, were the ones the sheriff had dumped into the current. None of the jugs washed up anywhere near the beach where Mrs. Grover was found, which Dad and the sheriff concluded was convincing enough proof that her body had been dumped there rather than washing up there. I had to admit, I was convinced. Thanks to the vigilance of the Coast Guard and the contrariness of the currents, we now knew that Mrs. Grover must have arrived on the beach by land, not by sea.

But for the moment I'd decided to let Dad investigate alone. Wonder of wonders, Eileen had showed up Saturday afternoon, even more sunburnt than I was, but in one piece, and presumably available for measuring and gown selecting. If she didn't take off before Monday morning.

"Having trouble with your car?" Michael asked. He came across me peering under the hood of my car, owner's manual in hand, so I suppose that was the logical assumption.

"I'm trying to figure out where the distributor cap is, and how one removes it."

"You're having trouble with your distributor cap?" he asked.

"No, but I want Eileen to have car trouble if she tries to leave before I get her in to pick out her gown. In the movies, they're always removing the distributor cap to keep people from leaving the premises, but I can't even figure out where the darned thing is."

After much effort, we succeeded in locating something that we thought was the distributor cap; more important, we confirmed that, whatever it was, once it was removed the car wouldn't start. After considerably greater effort, not to mention some help from Samantha, who happened to be passing by, we managed to get it reinstalled and start my car again.

We then staged a daring midnight raid on Eileen's car.





Sunday, June 12



I slept in Sunday morning and then fled before Mother and her court arrived for the midday dinner. I didn't want to face what the assembled multitudes had to say about either the murder or the Langslow family's latest eccentricities. Instead, I went over to Eileen's house to read her the riot act about staying in town until the gown business was finished. We arranged to go down to Be-Stitched bright and early Monday morning. She promised repeatedly that of course she wouldn't think of leaving town before the gown was settled. Cynic that I am, I took more comfort in the thought of her distributor cap safely stowed in a shoebox at the very back of my closet.

As I was walking down her driveway, Eileen came back out and called to me.

"Oh, by the way, Meg," she called, "Barry's coming in tonight. He called to say he's dropping by on his way home from the show and can stay around for a few days."

"How nice for him. I'll pick you up at five of nine tomorrow."

I rejoined Mother, Dad, and Pam on the porch of our house. Dad had several dozen medical texts scattered about. He kept reading bits in one, then switching to another, all the while nodding and muttering multisyllabic words to himself. I hated to interrupt him, but--

"Dad," I asked. "Do you have any heavy yard work that needs doing?"

"I need to saw up that fallen tree, but I don't think you'd want to do it."

"Besides, dear, don't you have enough to do with the invitations?" Mother hinted. "All this excitement over Mrs. Grover seems to have taken such a lot of your time."

"I wasn't volunteering for yard work," I said. "But Eileen says Barry is dropping by on his way back from the craft fair to spend a few days."