Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,21
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