Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews Page A

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