lending cups of sugar and garden tools and feeding each other light summer refreshments.
Before Mother could organize another neighborhood soiree, I hid in our old treehouse with a stack of envelopes and a couple of good books. I couldn't concentrate on either, though, and found myself gazing down on the crowd, wondering if Dad was right and one of them was a murderer.
I didn't buy the idea of a wandering tramp. I doubted any stranger could pass through our neighborhood without getting noticed by at least half a dozen nosy neighbors and being reported to the sheriff long before he'd had the chance to knock anyone off.
Even residents would cause talk if they did anything out of the ordinary. Long before we noticed Mrs. Grover's disappearance and had reason to be suspicious, someone like Mrs. Fenniman would be sure to ask, 'What on earth were you doing standing around in the Langslows' backyard waving that blunt instrument?'
But a neighbor doing something perfectly normal would be ignored. People wouldn't be suspicious--in fact, they wouldn't even remember seeing an everyday sight like--what? I pondered, wondering if I'd done the same thing myself: omitted mentioning a possible suspect.
A bird-watcher. No one would notice a habitual bird-watcher like Dad strolling along the bluffs with binoculars, I thought. Or a gardener. Gardeners also tended to wander rather casually from yard to yard, borrowing tools and admiring each other's vegetation. A dog owner could pretty much wander at will, I realized, seeing Michael stroll into our yard leading Spike.
At least as long as he or she had a pooper scooper of some sort. Or a neighbor carrying something that looked like prepared food and heading for Mother's kitchen, I thought, seeing three more neighbors arrive with covered dishes.
This is not getting anywhere, I told myself. Ninety percent of the neighborhood falls into one or another of those categories.
Besides, even if I'd forgotten to mention a passing bird-watcher or food-bearing neighbor, I'd have noticed someone getting close to the bluff. The edge is fragile and crumbling; I grew up having it drummed into me to stay away from the edge of the bluffs. And I admit, I've been a little hyper about it myself ever since the Fourth of July when Rob was seven and got carried away while watching the fireworks over the river. Watching your kid brother suddenly disappear, along with a large chunk of ground on which he had been standing, and then seeing him excavated, undamaged except for a broken arm, from a mound of rubble--that sort of thing tends to stay with you. I'd have noticed anyone even approaching the edge of the bluffs, much less someone getting close enough to shove a person, live or dead, over the edge.
So perhaps I should start from the other end. Who had reason to kill Mrs. Grover?
I didn't like the answers. Aside from Jake, secure behind his alibi, most of the other possible suspects were people I knew and liked. Hell, half of them were family. Although Mother was graciousness itself, I could tell she had taken an intense dislike to Mrs. Grover. I didn't suspect my own mother, of course, but someone else might. And while she had been gallivanting about the county with Jake at the time of the crime, I could think of several friends and relatives who would throw themselves over a cliff--to say nothing of an unpleasant stranger--if they thought it would please Mother.
The sheriff would be high on that list, which could account for his being so slow off the mark investigating. But if he was a cold-blooded killer he was certainly a much better actor than I'd imagined. He'd established what he called an observation post on our diving board, and was standing with a glass of iced tea in his hand, watching his deputies' frenzied activity with a mixture of pride and bewilderment. Then again, it could simply be that he was a little out of his depth dealing with a murder other than the occasional domestic dispute down in the more rural end of the county.
I suspect Dad might have brought himself to dispose of Mrs. Grover if he thought it was absolutely necessary to protect Mother's life, but his idea of how to deal with Mrs. Grover as an annoyance was the mild- mannered, rather entertaining plan of harassment we'd developed during the party. He was rational enough to realize that he would be overreacting if he killed Mrs. Grover merely to spare Mother embarrassment and irritation. At least I thought he was. And no matter how much Dad had always longed to have a homicide to investigate, I knew he wouldn't go overboard and actually commit one. That would be crazy, even for Dad.
Pam. Ordinarily, my sister would be the last person I'd expect to do anything as outlandish as murdering somebody. She could shrug off nearly anything; if someone really did cross her, Pam's natural reaction would be to toss off a few witty remarks and then make sure the culprit's name was mud throughout the county. But if she thought Mrs. Grover was harming one of her kids? She'd be capable. Where they were concerned, she could exterminate a hundred Mrs. Grovers as matter-of-factly as she would an equal number of cockroaches. Pam was not crazy, but she was very, very focused.
Mrs. Fenniman, now. She was a little crazy. Fond as Mother was of her, Mrs. Fenniman was indisputably crazy enough to fit right into my family. In fact, she was a relative, more or less. After twenty-five years of intense genealogical discussion, she and Mother had finally found that the sister of one of our ancestors had apparently been married to the nephew of one of Mrs. Fenniman's forebears, so they'd declared each other relatives. I could see Mrs. Fenniman taking matters into her own hands. During a visit to Richmond, she had once discouraged an armed mugger by stabbing him with her hatpin. And she was convinced that she had never been burgled because everyone in the county knew she slept with her great-grandfather's Civil War saber at her bedside, ready to deal with any intruders. The fact that at least 99 percent of the townspeople had never been burgled either was, of course, irrelevant.
Mrs. Fenniman was wandering about in the yard below, wearing--good heavens, no!--a deerstalker hat. That was all we needed, another would-be amateur detective. I was relieved when she spotted Dad and hurried over to deposit the deerstalker on his shining crown. Dad beamed gratefully. He and Michael were talking, somewhat apart from the crowd--though it was hard to tell whether this was because they were sharing inside information on the crime or simply because people tended to steer clear of Spike, who lunged, snarling and snapping, at any human who came within a few feet.
Michael. He wasn't a relative or an old friend, but I found myself strangely reluctant to consider Michael in the role of suspect. But what, after all, did I really know about him? He seemed like a nice person. But who knew what secrets he might be concealing? Secrets worth killing for? As I watched, he offered Spike a sliver of cheese. Kind-hearted of him, considering how nasty the little beast was. Spike gobbled the cheese, and then, when he'd barely swallowed it, lunged at the hand that had just, literally, fed him. What a pity there was no possibility of Mrs. Grover being killed by a wild animal. We could make Spike the fall guy; he certainly qualified.
Then again, Spike had his uses. He whirled and nearly took a chunk out of Barry, who was still dogging Dad's footsteps.
Barry. One of the few people who might possibly be large enough to have heaved Mrs. Grover into the river. Or over it, if he wanted. Or tucked her under his arm and hauled her down to the beach as easily as I could carry a loaf of bread. He was staying at Eileen's father's house, with the path to the beach not ten feet away. He'd had a run-in with Mrs. Grover at one of the parties. He and Dad alibied each other, but incompletely. Barry claimed to have been with Dad all day, helping in the garden, but I overheard Dad explaining to the sheriff that he'd done his best to 'park' Barry whenever possible-- to find a chore Barry could do unsupervised and then leave him there where he was out of Dad's hair. It didn't work all that well, I gather--Barry seemed to need to hunt Dad down at regular intervals to ask rather idiotic questions. But still, there were vast stretches of time during which Dad was reveling in Barry's absence and Barry could have been doing away with Mrs. Grover. I would be crushed to find out that any of my family or friends was a murderer. But I thought I could bear up under the loss if it turned out to be Barry. I briefly contemplated life without Barry, or rather with Barry behind bars. I liked the prospect. No more having Barry hang around my booth at craft fairs, scaring away any other, more attractive men who might want to talk to me. No more showing up at Steven and Eileen's to find out they'd arranged to have Barry over at the same time.
Whoa. Steven and Eileen. They would be crushed if it turned out to be Barry. Ah, well, I suppose I would have to hope it wasn't him either, for their sakes.
'Hi, Aunt Meg!' I started; I hadn't even noticed my nephew Eric climbing the tree with Duck under his arm.
'Hi.'
'Samantha was looking for you.' Drat. 'Don't tell her where I am,' I said. I tried to think of a reason to give him, but Eric didn't seem to find my request at all strange.
