Murder Has a Sweet Tooth (8 page)

“Well, of course.” For a second, Eve forgot where we were, and her voice was a tad too loud. She hushed it. “Ricky has to wear a cummerbund with his little tuxedo. Who even knew they made tuxes for one-year-olds! My goodness, Annie, but he’s going to look as cute as a button! And so are his big sisters, of course. A bouquet of flowers. Don’t you just love thinking of those darling little girls that way?”

There was a flurry of activity outside the big double doors that led into the room. I could hear the respectful murmur of voices. The reminder of where we were and why brought me to my senses. “The kids aren’t going to be in the wedding,” I told Eve. My voice might be no more than a whisper, but there was no mistaking that I meant what I said. “I’ve told you before, Eve. It’s not that I don’t like the kids, it’s just that I don’t want this wedding to turn into a three-ring circus.”

Her shoulders drooped. Not like mine do when I’m disappointed. When I’m disappointed, I fold up like an origami stork and that makes me look shorter than ever. When Eve expresses her disappointment . . . well, I swear, even droopy shoulders didn’t detract from the perfect drape of her white cashmere sweater. She sank back into the chair and crossed her incredibly long legs. “You’re ruining all my fun,” she harrumphed below her breath.

“It’s not a trip to an amusement park, it’s a wedding. And in case you’ve forgotten, it’s my second wedding. We went through all the rigmarole the first time.”

That was enough to make her forget her disappointment. Eve sat up like a shot. She controlled herself, but just barely. “Oh, wasn’t it fabulous, that first wedding of yours! Remember the cake, Annie? You wanted that plain ol’ nothing of a wedding cake and I canceled the order and didn’t tell you. And when they carried in the five-tiered cake with the fresh flowers and the streamers and the sparklers . . .”

I remembered, all right. Every once in a while the feeling of mortification that had rooted me to the spot in the middle of the dance floor still pops up in my night-mares. Before it got the best of me, I knew it was wise to shake away the memory. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than the wedding,” I reminded Eve.

Thinking about it, she glanced around at the somber-faced people around us. “Do you think the real killer is here?”

“I know the real killer isn’t back in the Arlington jail.” I looked around, too. In the fifteen minutes since we’d arrived, the room had gone from empty to just about full. Sad-eyed men in dark suits sat side by side with women who dabbed tissues to their noses. Near us at the back of the room were a couple women who we’d learned from eavesdropping were teachers at the Monroe children’s school. In front of them was a man who’d turned to them at one point and introduced himself as the Monroe family financial planner. As is usual at funerals, the folks nearest to the front of the room were also nearest and dearest to the deceased. Everybody who walked in stopped to console an elderly couple, and I pegged them as either Vickie’s parents or her father- and mother-in-law. The man in the gray suit who was holding a Bible was the minister who would conduct the service. It was the women sitting in the front row and all the way to the right who interested me most. There were three of them, and at the same time I wondered if Vickie had sisters, I knew these were probably not relatives.

They were all about my age and since that was about Vickie’s age, too, I decided they must be Vickie’s closest friends. The first was a tiny, attractive Asian woman in a trim black pantsuit. Soon after she walked in, I heard someone address her as Celia. Next to Celia was a taller, heavyset woman in a dress the exact shade of her filmy gray eyes. She had corn-colored hair and a complexion so pale, she looked like a ghost in a Syfy Channel show. Celia called the pale lady Glynis. Next to Glynis was Beth, a pretty woman of about my height, with shoulder-length brown hair and eyes that were red and swollen from crying. She was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse with tiny white flowers embroidered all over it. There was an empty chair in between each woman and when the double doors opened, three men who’d been talking quietly together in the hallway took their places at their wives’ sides.

Celia’s husband was tall and as skinny as a string bean. Glynis’s was short and round. Beth’s reminded me of a cartoon caricature, a sort of nebbish with a bland expression, thick glasses, and a bald spot that reflected the dim overhead lights.

When a representative from the funeral chapel walked in, an expectant silence fell over the crowd. Beth got a handkerchief out of her purse. Celia grabbed her husband’s hand. Glynis dropped her head on her husband’s shoulder and began to sob. I almost started, too, when a man in a black suit who I knew must be Edward Monroe walked in. He was still in shock from the horror of what had happened to his wife, and he had one arm around a little girl of eight or so and a hand atop the head of a five-year-old boy.

I had to look away so my heart wouldn’t break. “It’s not possible,” I mumbled to myself, but I was sure Eve heard. “There’s no way Alex could have caused this much sadness.”

I had the next twenty minutes or so to think about it while the minister read a passage from the Bible, and a man who introduced himself as Noel, Vickie’s brother, talked about their growing-up years. He had finished going through their elementary school days, year by year, and started on their middle school years when Eve leaned over.

“Do you really think he could have been drugged?”

For a moment, I thought she was talking about Noel, who was certainly putting the rest of us to sleep with details about his life and very little useful or interesting about Vickie. I shook myself out of my Noel-induced stupor and remembered that Eve and I had talked on our way to McLean about the possibility of someone slipping something in Alex’s drink. Now, I nodded. “It would explain why he doesn’t remember anything,” I said, bending my head close to Eve’s and keeping my voice down.

“And you think somebody might have used one of those date rape drugs?”

This wasn’t the time to discuss the theory, so I simply nodded. Luckily, not much had happened to Noel in high school. He quickly finished and sat down. That’s when Celia walked up to the podium and I perked up. No one knew a woman like her friends did, and I hoped to learn a lot about Vickie from what Celia had to say.

“Last Thursday,” Celia began, but her voice clogged and she turned her head and cleared her throat. “Last Thursday, when I went to my son’s school for parent-teacher conferences, I can’t tell you how many people stopped me in the hallways to talk about Vickie. People remember her as a perfect and tireless volunteer and a terrific organizer. If you needed someone to chair the annual harvest festival party for the kids, Vickie was your man. Er . . . your woman,” Celia added, and a reverent murmur of laughter filled the room.

“Vickie was at every single one of Henry’s soccer games.” She looked at the little boy who was, by this time, sitting on his father’s lap. “She always brought homemade snacks for all the kids on the team—both teams. She always wrote thank-you notes to the coaches at the end of the season. She was the first to raise her hand when Antonia’s Girl Scout troop needed a cookie mom or a car pool coordinator. Every single person in this room is going to miss Vickie. But it’s important to remember that we aren’t the only ones who will feel this loss. McLean will not be as good a place without Vickie among us.”

Celia sat down and Glynis took her place. “Vickie was absolutely the most wonderful woman in the whole world.” She giggled a little in that uncomfortable way people do when they’re not sure if they should be laughing or not. “If you knew her, this isn’t news to you. You know she was beautiful, and that she took pride in her looks. You know she kept a perfect house, and that if the Big Guy up there”—Glynis looked toward the ceiling—“if the Big Guy ever decides to re-create the Garden of Eden, he’ll ask for Vickie’s advice. She was gifted when it came to gardening and decorating, and she could throw one heck of a party. There isn’t one . . .” Glynis turned toward the urn on the table. “There isn’t one party any of us will ever have or ever attend that we won’t think of you, sweetie. We’ll miss you.”

Beth was waiting at the podium even before Glynis walked away. “Vickie loved her family,” she said. “Edward . . .” Beth’s eyes welled and her voice wobbled over the words. “She loved you, Edward, and you know she was the perfect wife. She loved you, Antonia. And you, Henry. Your mommy is looking down on you right now from heaven. She’ll always . . . always . . .” It was all Beth could say. Sobbing, she returned to her seat.

Sobbing, we all watched her.

After that, things wrapped up pretty quickly. On behalf of the family, the funeral director thanked everyone for coming and invited friends and relatives to the Monroe home for lunch. We all stood and, row by row, filed past the urn.

Because Eve and I were in the back row, we were the first out the door. But when she made to go out to the parking lot, I put a hand on her arm. “I want to talk to them,” I said. “To Vickie’s friends.”

Eve was taller than me. She didn’t even have to strain to look over my head and back into the room where the service had been conducted. I looked that way, too, and saw Celia, Glynis, and Beth, their arms linked, standing in front of the urn. “What are you going to say? That you’re trying to find their friend’s killer? They know Alex is in custody.”

“I was thinking I’d say I was a friend from college, that I heard about Vickie and—”

Just as I was practicing the lie, the three women walked out of the room. They stood in a tight circle, their arms around each other, and well-prepared lie or not, I didn’t have the heart to butt in.

But then, I didn’t have the luxury of not butting in, either. Not if I intended to get to the bottom of Vickie’s murder.

Just as I approached, Glynis pulled out of the hug. “We should go Wednesday after school,” she said to her friends, sniffing. “We always go on Wednesdays, and the kids will be disappointed if we don’t. We don’t want to upset them. We don’t want to let them know how upset we are. Besides, we owe it to ourselves to keep things as normal as we possibly can.”

“You’re right.” Celia nodded.

Beth said, “I promised Erin we’d do Clemyjontri Park this week.”

“That’s fine,” said Celia.

“Agreed,” said Glynis. “Four o’clock?”

And when nobody objected, the three women split up and went to stand with their husbands.

Watching them go, Eve leaned over my shoulder. “You’re not going to tell them you’re an old friend from college?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” No one was paying any attention to me, but I turned away anyway when the three friends walked toward the door. “I’m not going to be an old friend, I’m going to be a new friend,” I told Eve. And before she could ask for details I hadn’t thought of yet, we turned and left the funeral home.

WHEN IT COMES TO PLAYGROUNDS, CLEMYJONTRI
Park is something of a legend. At least in this part of Virginia. It features four different play areas with a carousel in the center, and though I’d read that the playground took up the better part of two acres, that didn’t quite translate. At least not until I arrived there Wednesday at four and realized it wasn’t going to be easy to find Celia, Glynis, and Beth. I trudged over just about the entire playground before I caught sight of them watching a horde of children scramble over the jungle gym in the Fun and Fitness area.

That was just about the time I realized something else—showing up at a playground without a kid made me stick out like a sore thumb.

If I was as thorough and as organized as I claimed to be, why didn’t I think of that?

I swallowed my mortification and thanked my lucky stars that Eve wasn’t able to be with me that day. One woman without children was odd. Two were bound to look conspicuous. As it turned out, Eve said she had too much to do that afternoon. She claimed she was going to zip over to Très Bonne Cuisine so she and Norman could look through samples to choose the napkins that would be on the table at the wedding. (Just for the record, I insisted that the napkins Bellywasher’s already owned would be fine, but once Eve and Norman got the whole cotton sateen idea in their heads, they were impossible to control.) No matter, I didn’t believe the table linen story from the start. Oh, no. My worries ran far deeper. I had suspicions about another wedding cake fiasco. Believe me, as soon as I had a free minute to devote to it, I was going to go into full detective mode and call every bakery in Arlington and beyond. One sparkler-encrusted wedding cake per lifetime is one too many.

I promised myself I’d think about that another time. For now, I had a murder to investigate. With that in mind, I walked over to the Fun and Fitness area like I had every right to be there. When I stopped to look things over, I just so happened to end up close to where Celia, Glynis, and Beth were talking quietly.

“Wow.” When I pulled in a breath of wonder, I didn’t have to fake it. The place was spectacular. Besides, I was out of breath from walking the playground. “I’ve heard good things about this place, but I never thought it would be so incredible. The kids are going to love this!”