Free Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews Page B

along."
        "You don't know him yet," I said, shaking my head. "Dad's the only human being on the face of the earth who can talk Mother into doing something she doesn't want to do. Mrs. Grover's a pushover compared to Mother."
      "Well, I must say, I won't be sorry if he succeeds in running her out of town," Michael said. "She keeps coming up to me and insisting she knows me from somewhere. I'm sure if she does she remembers me from my acting days. Before I went back to school for my doctorate, I was one of those rare actors who actually earned a living at it. Mostly in soap operas. I assume that's how Mrs. Grover knows me."
      "Have you told her that?"
      "Yes, but she keeps saying "No, that's not it. But it will come to me sooner or later." As if she expects me to break down and confess, "Yes, yes, you've seen through me! It was I on the grassy knoll, and what's more, I can tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is buried!""
      "Really? I always heard it was somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike," said a cousin who was the family's leading conspiracy enthusiast. His uncanny ability to turn up at moments when his pet subjects are mentioned is one of the most persuasive arguments for mental telepathy I've ever known. I confess, I abandoned Michael to him and hunted down Dad.
      "Dad, about your trip to the farm with Mrs. Grover," I said. "Do they still have that old outhouse around for local color?"
      "Yes," Dad said, a blissful smile spreading over his face as he dashed off to talk to the cousin.
      Maybe it wasn't going to be such a bad summer after all.
      I kept one eye on Mrs. Grover's progress through the crowd--it was easy to track her by the comparatively bare spot in the crowd that tended to form around her whenever she paused anywhere for more than a minute. I was surprised she hadn't yet burst forth to accuse Mother of robbing her dead sister, but perhaps she was saving that for the grand finale. I wandered over to where Mother and Samantha were talking to the current and former rectors of Grace Episcopal Church. The retired rector, the aptly named Reverend Pugh, was an old family friend. Mother had recently granted tentative approval to his successor after a mere eighteen-year probationary period. She now referred to him as "that nice young man" rather than simply "that young man." At this rate, he had a very real chance of achieving "dear rector" status by the time he retired.
      "And here's Meg," the rector said, as I strolled up. "Your mother and Samantha have been telling me about all the things you're doing to get ready for their weddings." Telling him in mind-numbing detail, I suspected, from the desperate note in his voice. I'd long ago stopped wondering why all three brides showed such a distressing inability to understand how anyone they came in contact with could fail to be fascinated with the minutiae of their weddings.
      "I'm sorry I'll have to miss them all," he continued, somewhat disingenuously, I suspect. "The day after tomorrow I'm taking the wife and kids on that trip to the Holy Land. Finally going after all these years!"
      "Do you mean you're not going to be here in July?" Samantha demanded. "Then who's going to do my wedding? I've booked the church." The rector and I exchanged worried glances.
      "Yes, well, if you'd talked to me I'd have told you I was going to be gone this summer," he stammered. "When you didn't, I assumed you were making your own arrangements with my substitute."
      "And who is that?" Samantha asked.
      "Why, me, of course," Reverend Pugh answered, beaming. Fortunately his eyesight was very bad--not unusual at ninety-seven--and he failed to notice the expression of outrage that crossed Samantha's face. I could see she was horrified at the mere thought of his decrepit and highly unaesthetic self officiating at her wedding.
      "Don't worry, Samantha dear," he said, reaching to pat her hand and getting Jake's by mistake. "I've got it down in my calendar already. I