Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

furniture she thought was about to become hers anyway, and having to be gently but firmly told to give it back. I couldn't possibly see her selling them.
      Mother arrived back from church just before noon, followed almost immediately by about fifteen or twenty relatives and neighbors, bearing flowers, extra plates and glasses, and more food in amazing quantities. The expected chaos reigned right up until the party began. I was a nervous wreck, expecting Jake's sister-in-law to arrive any moment shrieking accusations. The fact that she hadn't shown up yet was no relief; I was sure she was postponing the confrontation till the party, where she'd have a bigger audience. At least that's what Mother or any of my aunts would have done.
      In retrospect, it seems appropriate that the summer's first known threats of homicide were uttered during the party preparations--although unlike at least one other local resident, I wasn't serious. My nerves were shot, and I was only trying to keep Dad and several of the uncles from decimating the buffet before the other guests arrived.
      Mother is fond of remarking that she looks forward to the hour when a party begins because then she can stop working and start having fun. That may be true for her--although Pam and I have noticed that any work she does is purely supervisory. For me, the start of a party only means a change from the tangible, boring, but satisfactory work of cooking, cleaning, and decorating to the unpredictable and far more difficult task of keeping several hundred neighbors and family members from injuring each other or driving me crazy before the end of the evening.
      I almost jumped out of my skin when Mother glided over to me with another woman in tow and said, "Meg, this is our guest of honor--Jane Grover, Jake's sister-in-law."
      At first glance, Mrs. Grover seemed harmless. She was a short woman with badly hennaed hair and a loud print dress. She and Mother didn't look as if they'd had a quarrel. But after a second I realized that her smile looked artificial and her eyes cold.
      "How nice to finally meet you, my dear," Mrs. Grover said, with a look that somehow seemed to insinuate that she had witnessed my shameless eavesdropping on the porch. "We must talk later."
      I stammered a greeting and escaped as soon as possible. In the direction of the bar. I watched her and Mother making the rounds of the party. Well, at least they were both on their best behavior.
      The party was in full swing, and I'd already confiscated firecrackers from two small cousins and a golf club from an inebriated uncle when Michael arrived.
      "Didn't your mother say she was just having a few people over?" he said, incredulously, as he stood at the edge of the sea of guests in our backyard.
      "For Mother, this is a few people," I said.
    "She doesn't count family," Pam said. "At least half of the horde's family."
      "The weirder half," I added.
      "Oh, by the way," Michael said, holding out a bunch of flowers.
      "Mother will be charmed," I said. "I'll lead you to her so you can present them in person. Don't get in the way of the croquet players," I warned, giving the flying mallets a wide berth. Michael paused to watch the game.
      "Croquet!" he exclaimed, taking in the spectacle of a dozen middle-aged and elderly aunts in flowery summer dresses and sun hats posing among the wickets. "It's wonderful! Like something out of a Merchant Ivory film."
      "Yes, the croquet clique do tend to dress the part, I'll give them that," I said. "But if you're under the impression that croquet is a genteel, civilized, Waspy way to spend a summer afternoon, don't look too close--they'll spoil all your illusions. It's a blood sport for them."
      "Really?" Michael said, incredulously. Just then, one aunt hit another's ball out with a swing that would have been more at home on a golf course than the croquet grounds.
      "Ball!" shrieked all the croquet players, and most of the assembled guests--