Murder With Peacocks(56)

Oh, please, let her have finished the envelopes before she started drinking. Or at least let her have left them in a safe place. Somewhere the cats couldn't get to them.

A prayer destined to remain unfulfilled. Scattered among the cats, cans, bottles, and plates in the living room were a number of cream-colored envelopes. I began gathering them up.

Most of them were in the living room, though a few had migrated into the kitchen, or upstairs into the bedroom. She had gotten as far as the S's, unfortunately. The lettering on the A's was absolutely gorgeous. B through D were a little less precise, but still had a kind of aristocratic dash about them. By E she was definitely going downhill, and I could only guess what names some of her late scribbles were intended to represent. Unfortunately, the envelopes that had been completed first had also been lying around longer at the mercy of the cats. I couldn't find a one that hadn't been chewed on, slept on, peed on or blotched with fishy-smelling grease stains. The blank envelopes were a dead loss; several of the cats had used the carton as a litterbox. I made sure I collected all forty-seven pages of Samantha's guest list. Thank goodness I had numbered the pages. I thought I still had a copy somewhere, but with my luck Natalie and Eric would have used it as kindling.

Having gathered up all the envelopes and list pages and deposited them, as appropriate, either in my car or in the overflowing trash can, I turned to consider Mrs. Thornhill. However exasperated I was with her, I couldn't leave her here unconscious. What should I do?

I called Mother.

"Mother, I'm over here at Mrs. Thornhill's."

"That's nice, dear. How is she?"

"She's passed out on the sofa, dead drunk and covered with cats."

After a short pause, I heard Mother's patient sigh. "Oh, dear. Not again. We were all so hoping she was doing better this time," Mother said, infinitely sorrowful. Great. Why hadn't someone bothered to mention that our calligrapher was a dipsomaniac cat freak? I should have known better than to hire one of Mrs. Fenniman's cronies.

"Do you have any idea who I should call?" I asked. "I can't just leave her there. Does she have family, or should I find one of the neighbors?"

"Oh, dear, I don't think the neighbors. Such intolerant people." I felt a sudden surge of solidarity with Mrs. Thornhill's long-suffering neighbors. "I'll call her son and his wife. You look after her till they get there."

And so I spent the rest of the day baby-sitting Mrs. Thornhill. I realized I hadn't asked Mother where the son lived--in-state, I hoped--but when I tried to call her back the line was busy. For several hours. Presumably the grapevine was disseminating and analyzing Mrs. Thornhill's fall from grace. I checked periodically to make sure she was all right, but the last thing I wanted to do was wake her.

I called Be-Stitched to let Michael know I would miss the afternoon's fittings. I browbeat the printer into promising that he'd find some new envelopes for me in twenty-four hours. I tuned into the Weather Channel, saw a long-range forecast for July and began calling caterers to discuss making menus mayonnaise-free and otherwise heat-proof. I made every other call on my to-do list. I opened a can of cat food for any cat who wandered in and meowed at me. I finally got fed up with the mess and spent the last few hours cleaning. I hauled out a dozen trash bags full of cat food cans, bottles, newspapers, and other debris, changed ten litter boxes, and vacuumed--it didn't seem to bother Mrs. Thornhill. Halfway through the dusting, a car screeched up outside and a frantic couple rushed in. I met them at the door, dustrag in hand.

"Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill?"

"Oh," said the woman, "I thought you came on Tuesdays."

"No," I said, puzzled, "I've never been here before."

"Aren't you the new cleaning lady?"

I explained who I was and why I was there. They overwhelmed me with apologies and thanks. I went home and took a shower, followed by a long hot bath.

"Meg," Mother said over dinner that evening, "you haven't touched your salmon."

I didn't even try to explain.





Tuesday, June 28



Mother tagged along the next morning when I fetched the new envelopes, and then shanghaied me to help her pick out some upholstery fabric. Unfortunately, by the time I staggered home carrying five giant bolts of blue fabric, Samantha had already heard about Mrs. Thornhill from parties other than me, parties who had no interest in breaking the news to her gently and putting the best face on it. The ensuing tantrum was not pretty. I had to promise that the invitations would be out by Friday to calm her down. My mood was not improved when Mrs. Thornhill the younger called me up and tried to hire me to "do" once a week for her mother-in-law. And to top it all off, Mother decided the blue in Great-Aunt Sophy's vase was the exact shade she wanted for the living room. She spent several hours dragging it and the bolts of fabric around, looking at them together and separately in daylight and lamplight. I was a nervous wreck, waiting for her to detect Sophy's absence. Once she actually tipped the vase and dropped the top on the top of the sofa. I replaced it quietly and she never seemed to notice that nothing had spilled. After Mother finally lost steam and went to bed, I stayed up until two addressing envelopes, fretting all the while because I hadn't seen Dad in several days.