Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,20
of tissues I had a feeling I was going to need as soon as Edward Monroe and his kids walked in.
Funerals always do that to me.
I was doing my best not to get sucked in by Eve’s wild plans, but I was looking for a distraction. Desperate to think about anything other than that urn sitting on a table at the front of the room, what was in it, and why, I turned to Eve. “Little Ricky’s wearing a cummerbund?”
“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