Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,19

honey, and fresh raspberries and the whole thing is topped with toasted oatmeal.” I didn’t wait for her to say yea or nay. I didn’t need to. I knew that any recipe that included whipped cream and fresh raspberries was as all right by Eve as it was by me. I had the recipe printed out in a moment, and a few minutes later we were in the kitchen, giving it a whirl.

And I suppose since I’ve said this much about it, I really should report the results.

Only, do I have to?

Let’s just say that by the time it was all over, I had honey stuck in my hair, there was cream (whipped and unwhipped) splattered across the kitchen cabinets, and Eve, who had volunteered to toast the oatmeal in a frying pan, was sitting at my kitchen table with her right hand wrapped in a cold, wet washcloth. The better to keep the blisters down.

It was a good thing my limited supply of at-hand food didn’t include fresh raspberries. It would have been a shame to sacrifice fresh raspberries for something that turned into that big a mess.

I sank down on the chair across from Eve’s and groaned, and Eve, though she was surely in pain, never forgot that it is the duty of a best friend to boost her best friend’s spirits. She knew where I kept supplies for just such an emergency. She got up, fetched the step stool I kept in the kitchen because I’m too short to reach most of my cupboards, and dragged it over to the shelves above the refrigerator. She’s tall, but even she had to stretch to reach my emergency supply of giant-sized Hershey bars. That’s the idea, of course. If the chocolate is out of reach, I will be less likely to reach for it. Except in the most dire of emergencies.

Eve brought one over along with a jar of extra-crunchy peanut butter and handed me a spoon. “Don’t worry. We’ll find something that’s easy and tastes good, too. You’ll still be able to surprise Jim.”

I spooned up some peanut butter and coated a square of chocolate with it. I chewed and swallowed it down. “That’s the problem,” I said, my words sticking to the roof of my mouth. “My bad cooking is exactly what won’t surprise Jim.”

“I’M THINKING EMMA AND LUCY WOULD LOOK sweet in rose. Not anything mauvy, a true, rosy pink. That way, Doris and Gloria could wear a nice, fresh shade of green. Wendy and Rosemary . . . well, with their coloring, bright yellow might be too much. But then, they’re kids, and kids can get away with anything and still look adorable. So let’s put Wendy and Rosemary in yellow, but a nice soft shade. That leaves Alice, and I’m picturing lilac for her. And I know, I know, Annie . . .” Even if I hadn’t known her forever, I would have picked up on the frustration in Eve’s voice. This was a subject she’d brought up time and again for the last . . . oh, I don’t know . . . maybe twenty-five years. “I know you aren’t into lots of color or flashy fabrics, but you know you really should give it a chance sometime. You know, spread your artistic wings and fly. But really, I mean, this is a wedding and wouldn’t it just be adorable if the girls looked like a bouquet of flowers! And Alice’s lilac dress will match Little Ricky’s bow tie and cummerbund.”

Believe me, when Eve gets like this—all talky and making plans so big, all of Virginia can’t hold them—I try my best not to fall under her spell. I tried even harder that next Monday morning as we sat in Willburger’s Funeral Chapel waiting for the service for Vickie to begin. For one thing, this was hardly the place to talk about a wedding. For another, it wasn’t the time, either, considering that we were attending the funeral so we could find out all we could about Vickie and—if we were lucky—so we could find someone who might be responsible for her death. Someone other than Alex, that is.

At least Eve knew enough to keep her voice to a whisper. That was a plus. So was the fact that we were sitting in the last row of folding chairs, back near a credenza filled with photographs of Vickie and her family, a vase with two dozen yellow roses in it, and a box