THE NEXT CASUALTY—NOT, FORTUNATELY, A FATALITY—WAS from Eileen’s wedding party.
“Oh, Meg, my nephew Brian has the measles!” she wailed.
“Well, so much for a ring bearer,” I said.
“Oh, Meg, we have to have a ring bearer,” Eileen said. “The costume is so darling, and I don’t want poor Caitlin to have to walk down the aisle alone.” Caitlin, I suspected, would rather prefer to have the limelight all to herself, but I doubted Eileen would see this.
“Don’t you have any other little boy cousins?” I asked.
“There’s little Petey, but he’s only two.”
“No way. What about Eric? I think he’ll fit the costume.”
“Oh, that would be perfect, Meg!” Eileen enthused, and hung up reassured.
Now all I had to do was talk Eric into it. I ended up having to
promise to take him and several of his friends to ride the roller coasters at the nearest amusement park as a bribe. Dad was so touched by this show of auntly devotion that he offered to foot the bill. No one else volunteered a damned thing.
“By the way, Dad,” I said, “one more thing.”
“I have to run, Meg,” he said. “I have to talk to the medical examiner.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you later about Jake scattering Great-Aunt Sophy in the river, and Samantha sneaking out of her house late at night with someone other than Rob, and what Rob’s been doing instead of studying for the bar exam.”
That got his attention. His listened intently as I gave him a dramatic account of everything I’d witnessed while skulking about the neighborhood.
“How odd,” he muttered, when I was finished.
“My words exactly.”
“This doesn’t add up at all,” he said. He wandered off, looking very puzzled.
“Well, don’t bother telling me anything,” I said to his departing back. “It’s not as if I’ve contributed anything to this investigation.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. The hell with it. Let Dad detect; I had to go over to the Donleavys’ to keep Steven and Eileen from getting up to anything. Like changing the theme of the wedding at the last minute.
Like everyone else in town, I kept looking over my shoulder, watching for sinister figures lurking in the shadows. And seeing them; although so far all the reports of prowlers had turned out to be plainclothes state police scouting the neighborhood.