'Yes! I suppose the sheriff told you,' Pam said.
'I actually thought I was kidding,' I said.
'Perhaps you knew it, subconsciously,' she said. 'After all, the sheriff said it was your idea.'
'It was?'
'Yes. After she and Ian ran off. Don't you remember? You said to search her room for evidence,' Pam said. 'The sheriff took you seriously and went to Uncle Stanley to get a search warrant. And do you know what they found?'
'Two years' worth of back issues of Bride's magazine?'
'Evidence!' Pam chortled. 'Books about poisons! Samples of some of the poisons she's used this summer! Books about car maintenance and electrical wiring. And stuff that she probably used to rig the fuse box and the lawn mower and Dad's car!'
'Books? Doesn't sound like Samantha's style,' I mused.
'And some papers that the sheriff thinks may prove that she and Ian really did steal the money her first fianc`e was supposed to have embezzled. Ian was an old college friend of his, you know.'
'You were right all along,' Michael said. So why didn't I feel happier about the outcome?
Tuesday, July 26
I was planning to sleep late. I'd decided that everything really essential that needed to be done for Mother's wedding had been done, and the more I worked, the more things she would think offor me to do. I managed to sleep through her departure for a facial and was planning to drag myself out of bed just in time to greet the relatives she'd invited over for lunch.
But around nine o'clock, when I turned over, stretched, and prepared to go back to sleep for the second time, I heard Spike barking outside my window.
Damn. Couldn't Michael keep the little monster quiet?
Apparently not. The barking continued. I rolled out of bed, stumbled over to the side window, and peered down at the yard. Spike was dancing around the foot of a large dogwood tree, barking frantically.
Damn. I heard no outraged peacock shrieks, so I assumed Spike had finally intimidated and treed the kitten. I turned to put on some clothes so I could go downstairs to rescue the kitten. I'd have to name the kitten sooner or later, I reminded myself.
But the kitten was inside. When I turned around, I saw him. Peeing on a silk blouse I'd neglected to hang up.
Perhaps I wouldn't be naming the kitten after all, I thought, as he stepped delicately off the blouse, shaking his paws. Perhaps Pam's household could absorb another animal. Perhaps the animal shelter was open today.
But wait. If the kitten was inside, what had Spike treed?
I peered out at the dogwood again. There was a lump swaying in its upper branches, directly opposite my window. Not a small, round, Dad-shaped lump, festooned with vines. Not a long, thin, Michael-shaped lump either. An enormous, ungainly, disgustingly bovine lump. It could only be--
'Barry!' I shrieked. 'You pervert!' He had the grace to look embarrassed.
I grabbed some clothes, quickly dressed--in the bathroom--and ran downstairs, stopping on my way through the kitchen to pick up a piece of cheese for Spike.
'Good dog, Spike,' I said, flicking the cheese at him. He gobbled it and resumed barking.
'Take him away, can't you?' Barry whined.
'Me? Are you crazy? Michael's the only one who can do anything with him. You'll have to wait till Michael shows up.'
And wait we did. I fetched the mystery I'd been trying to read all summer and settled in a lawn chair. Spike got tired of barking after a while and curled up under the tree where he could keep an eye on things and resume barking whenever Barry moved a muscle. I tossed Spike a bit of cheese from time to time, to keep his energy up, and devoted myself to my book. Barry, showing greater sense than I'd previously given him credit for, remained very, very quiet.
Michael showed up around noon.
'So there he is,' Michael said, in exasperated tones. 'What's going on anyway?'
'Spike has treed a desperate criminal,' I said, tossing the dog another bit of cheese. Spike took this as a signal for renewed vigilance and began barking energetically.
'A desperate criminal?' Michael said, peering upward. 'Isn't that Barry?'
'Yes.'
'What's he done?'
'He's a peeping Tom,' I said. 'A low-down, sneaking, miserable, perverted peeping Tom,' I added, loudly, shaking my fist at the tree.
'Meg, I'm so sorry,' Barry began.
'Save it for the sheriff,' I said.
'The sheriff?' Michael said. 'You're going to call the sheriff? Good!'
I heard a whimper from the dogwood. 'No need to call him,' I said. 'He's coming over for lunch, I believe.'
Sure enough, the sheriff showed up a few minutes later, along with fifteen or twenty other ravenous relatives--some, fortunately, bearing covered dishes. I related Barry's misdeeds as dramatically as possible-- somewhat exaggerating the state of undress I'd been in when he'd spied on me. Considering my family's tendency to barge into rooms, day or night, with minimal warning, I'd learned better than to sleep in anything see-through or skimpy.
The sheriff took me aside.
'Are you planning to press charges, Meg?'
I sighed.
'I'd say hell, yes ... but he is Steven's brother. Can you just take him down to the station and scare the hell out of him? Don't let anyone hurt him or anything, but make him think twice before he does something like this again?'
The sheriff pondered.
'I'll do that, but while I'm scaring him, I'm going to check for priors. And where does he live?'
'Goochland County.'
'Great; the sheriff there's an old hunting buddy of mine. I'll just have a word with him, see what he thinks. If I hear anything that gives me second thoughts about letting him off so easy, I'll get back to you this afternoon.'
The sheriff might be weak in the area of homicide investigations, but he had few equals when it came to inducing guilt and putting the fear of God into wayward fifteen-year-olds. Which as far as I could see was about Barry's emotional age. I had a feeling the sheriff was about to solve my long-standing Barry problem.
The family dissected Barry's sins and shortcomings over lunch. Apparently everyone had had their doubts about him all along, but had politely refrained from voicing them. He was too nice. He had shifty eyes. Lucky for Barry that they'd unmasked Samantha, or they'd be stringing him up for the murders as well. Needless to say, lunch was a resounding success.
Everyone in the neighborhood was in a wonderful mood except for me. Well, and possibly the Brewsters, who after a talk with the sheriff had remained in residence, but in hiding. No one was sure whether to commiserate with them for the way their daughter had treated them or consider them her accomplices.
Everyone assumed that seeing the FBI agent at the reception triggered Samantha's flight. I wasn't so sure. I didn't think she'd reacted at all when she saw the agent. I thought she'd planned to run away all along. Well, for some days anyway.
'That's silly,' Pam said. 'If she planned to run away, why did she go through with the wedding?'
'She spent months arranging it; I can't see her letting a little thing like having chosen the wrong groom spoil it.'
