Murder Has a Sweet Tooth Read online

  “That’s it. That’s got to be it.” Celia was relieved. She backed off. “I’d better take care of that glass in there before Beth feels she has to. I don’t want to spoil her celebration.”

  “I don’t, either.” I clasped the roll of paper towels to my chest. “But there’s one other thing . . .”

  If Celia was less polite, she would have ignored me. The way it was, she stopped in midstride, broom in one hand, dustpan in the other, and looked at me over her shoulder.

  As casually as I could, I said, “Edward thought Vickie was going to cooking class on Tuesday nights.”

  Big points for Celia, her expression never changed. But I couldn’t help but notice that her slender shoulders went rigid.

  When she didn’t say a word, I knew I had to. “Vickie’s been hanging around at Swallows on Tuesday nights for a few weeks now. You all go to cooking class on Tuesday nights and Vickie was supposed to be with you. But I bet she had excuses, right? She didn’t feel well. She was busy. Once, I can see, and you’d never question it. Twice, it happens, and you offer to help out if she’s so overwhelmed she can’t take care of things by herself. But I think after three times, her friends would start asking questions.”

  “Hurry up with that broom, Celia!” Glynis called from the great room. It was a perfect excuse for Celia to cut and run, and cut and run she did. I was left with unanswered questions.

  Of course, I had every intention of finding out more before I left there that night.

  With that in mind, I had just stepped out of the kitchen door when I ran smack into Edward Monroe. Good thing I had that roll of paper towels clutched to my chest. It cushioned the blow.

  “I’m so sorry.” At the same time that I automatically smoothed the wrinkle the paper towel roll put in his tie, I stepped back into the kitchen. “I didn’t see you come around the corner.”

  “No problem.” Edward didn’t say this in a tone of voice any different from the one he’d used when he was praising Michael to the high heavens. “Didn’t want to leave a mess for Beth and Michael.” He held up his glass for me to see. It was empty. “I need to head out.”

  “But the kids aren’t done with their movie.” I didn’t need to be a mother to know this would be a major bone of contention.

  “They’re staying here tonight but I’ve got to run.” Edward crossed the room and put his glass in the sink. “Beth invited them, and I think it will be good for them to be with their friends for the evening.” He took a step toward the doorway and I had not one doubt that he was going to say his good-byes and leave for home.

  I sidestepped my way in front of him. “That’s really nice. Beth and Celia and Glynis, they were good friends to Vickie.”

  “Yes, they were.” For the first time, Edward actually took the time to look me over. Apparently, I wasn’t all that interesting, because it didn’t take all that long. “It was nice meeting you, Annie,” he said in the perfunctory way people do when they just want to get something over with. “Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

  My smile was as brief as my pretending to go along with the pretended niceness. “Before you leave . . .” I wormed my way directly into Edward’s path again. “There’s just something I wanted to ask you about. Just something I was wondering.”

  I can’t say he was thrilled about being cornered. But he was nothing if not polite. Edward waited semipatiently.

  And I wondered how I could ease my way into asking what I needed to ask, and then realized there was no way, and I might as well just get it over with. “I was just wondering . . .” I smiled. Decided I was being too sociable. Wiped my expression clean. “Celia, Glynis, and Beth go to cooking classes every Tuesday evening,” I said.

  Edward didn’t so much shrug as twitch his shoulders, as if he could barely be bothered with what was bothering me. “I’m sure they’d let you tag along.” He moved to his left.

  I angled myself to my right. “I’m sure they would. Only I don’t want to. And apparently, Vickie didn’t want to, either.”

  He went as still as a statue.

  I held my breath.

  This time when Edward looked me over, he took his time. Maybe he’d decided I wasn’t so easy to dismiss after all. But before I could figure out if this was a good thing or a bad thing, he backed up a step, cocked his head, and said, “You didn’t even know Vickie. Why do you care?”

  I knew it would come to this. How could it not?

  Have I mentioned that in real life I’m a completely honest person, but that when it comes to an investigation, I sometimes have to compromise my honesty and I do it without even a hint of guilt?

  I did it right then and there. “It’s so glaring,” I said. “I mean, I can’t believe the cops haven’t asked you. Well, I bet they have!” I laughed because right about then, Edward looked like a volcano that was about to blow, and I knew I needed to defuse the situation—and fast. I morphed from superserious to embarrassed in no time flat.

  “It’s none of my business. Of course it’s none of my business,” I stammered. “It’s just that no one’s said a word about it, and I was wondering, that’s all. If Celia, Glynis, and Beth were at cooking class, they obviously would have noticed that Vickie wasn’t at cooking class. I mean, they must have, right? And we know Vickie wasn’t at cooking class because she was over at that restaurant in Arlington with that guy. And the night she was—” I couldn’t take the chance of alienating Edward completely. I carefully avoided the m word. Talk of murder tends to make people queasy. Especially when they’re spouses.

  Or suspects.

  “The night that everything happened, that wasn’t the first night Vickie was in Arlington with that man. At least that’s what I read in the papers. And that means she’d missed more than just a couple cooking classes, and if she missed a couple cooking classes, of course, her friends would have noticed. And they would have asked her about it, of course. I mean, I certainly would ask a friend where she’d been if I thought she was going to be one place and she didn’t show up. And they did, and Vickie always had an excuse. So I was just wondering if any of them mentioned it to you. You know, if they asked you if Vickie was feeling better, or if they mentioned how much they missed having her in class with them on Tuesday nights. I just wondered, that’s all. I can’t help it.” I added this final bit because a streak of red had streamed up Edward’s neck and stained his cheeks and I was afraid he was going to burst a blood vessel. “I guess I’m just too curious for my own good.”

  My phony lack of confidence worked! It put Edward at ease. He smiled. In fact, he laughed. He even patted me on the shoulder.

  “You’re right,” he said. “You are too curious for your own good.”

  And with that, Edward Monroe walked out of the kitchen.

  And me?

  I stood there clutching that roll of paper towels (they were an expensive brand and plushier than the ones I usually bought, so it was as soothing as hugging a teddy bear) and thinking. And what I thought was pretty jumbled, but what it amounted to was this:

  If Edward Monroe was guilty (and Tyler’s professional opinion and my gut reaction said he certainly could be), then he’d possibly just threatened me and I probably should be worried. I would be, too, as soon as I had time.

  Right then and there, though, I had bigger things to think about. Like Jeremy playing soccer and Michael, the man who had nearly been sacked just a couple weeks before, being named to a prestigious position in a successful software firm.

  See what I’m getting at here?

  Even as I walked back into the great room and started sopping up champagne from the tabletop and the floor, I couldn’t help but think that Edward Monroe was guilty.

  And that Beth knew it.

  As far as I could see, that was the only thing that could explain how she was blackmailing him.

  I DIDN’T WANT TO SUSPECT EDWARD MONROE. Really. So he wasn’t the friendliest guy in the world. So he wasn’t Mr. Charm. So statistics say that most murder
victims are killed by someone they know and that often, that someone is their spouse. That didn’t automatically mean Edward killed Vickie. Did it?

  Just thinking about it made me queasy, and I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew exactly why. After all, I was getting married in just two short (and getting shorter all the time) weeks, and the life I was planning with Jim was as perfect as my daydreams could make it. Wondering if Vickie and Edward Monroe had once had those kinds of hopes for their marriage and if their love had deteriorated so much that it had exploded into a murderous attack in an alley outside a bar . . .

  Well, thinking about it was enough to make this soon-to-be bride wish she wasn’t also a private detective.

  But I was. A private detective, that is. And I had promised Jim I would clear Alex’s name.

  With that in mind, I knew what I had to do. I had to search for the truth, and follow the clues—and my instincts—wherever they led. If they brought me to the conclusion that some marriages don’t end in happily-ever-after . . . well, I already knew that. After all, I’d once been married to Peter.

  But what if my investigation brought me face-to-face with the fact that some not-so-happily-ever-afters also include murder?

  Even though I was standing in a pool of sunlight outside the Spring Hill Recreation Center, I shivered. It was the next day, Saturday afternoon, and before I could let my imagination run wild and carry my worries and my common sense away with it, I reminded myself I was there on business. The recreation center was where Edward had his soccer coaches’ meeting the night Vickie was murdered, and that meant it was the place I might start to get to the bottom of what happened outside Swallows. I had to stay objective. I owed it to Jim. I owed it to Alex, because if Tyler suspected I was biased in any way, shape, or form, he wouldn’t believe a thing I said when it came to proving Alex’s innocence. I owed it to Vickie Monroe. Especially to Vickie Monroe, and to her two adorable children, Henry and Antonia, who would grow up without a mother.

  Keeping the image of Henry and Antonia firmly in mind, I pulled back my shoulders, marched into the rec center, and offered a broad smile to the middle-aged woman behind the counter. “Annie Capshaw,” I said. “I’m with the McLean Virginia Now! You know, the Web site.”

  The woman—whose name tag said she was Deb—couldn’t have known the site because I made it up. Polite person that she was, she nodded anyway. “How can I help you?” she asked.

  I tried my best to look bored. No easy thing when I’m on a case and my brain is buzzing with prospects and possibilities. “My boss is making me do this,” I confided, leaning over the desk and lowering my voice. “I mean, who even wants to read an article about a bunch of soccer coaches getting together for a planning meeting? But . . .” My sigh was packed with enough resignation to sound genuine. “If I have to, I have to. I know they met here on . . .” I flipped open the portfolio I was carrying, the better to consult what I hoped looked like reporter-like notes, and gave Deb the date on which Vickie was killed. “I don’t need much. You know, just the names of the coaches who were here, which teams they represent, how long the meeting lasted. I guess the idea is that we’re supposed to show the community how active the soccer league is. You know, good PR.”

  Apparently, Deb did know about PR, and since there’s nothing top secret about a league meeting for coaches, she wasn’t hesitant to share. She did some digging in a file cabinet behind the desk, found what she was looking for, and made a copy for me.

  “It’s public record,” she said, passing the copy of the meeting minutes over the desk to me. “Nothing in there the coaches would object to anyone seeing. Just never had anyone ask before. Didn’t think anyone cared.”

  I assured her McLean Virginia Now! did, and thanked her. As I walked away from the desk and found a seat on a bench near the door, I was already flipping through the minutes. It didn’t take long. They spelled out everything I was looking for in a report that was exactly three pages long. Edward Monroe had been at the meeting from the beginning. I knew this, because he offered the first report on the agenda, the one about league finances. He’d been there all the way to the bitter end, too; he seconded the motion to adjourn. According to the times listed in the minutes and to everything Tyler said about how long Vickie had been dead when the police found her body, there was no way Edward could have left the meeting when he did and still driven to Arlington in time to slit his wife’s throat.

  A wave of relief washed over me, and I can attribute it only to the fact that finding out that Edward could not have been the murderer reaffirmed my faith in marriage. Of course, it did nothing at all for my case.

  Thinking it over, I was just about to slip the minutes into my portfolio when I realized someone was standing right in front of the bench where I was seated.

  I looked up and found Edward Monroe looking down at me.

  “Deb says you’re with McLean Virginia Now!”

  Deb, much to my dismay, had excellent hearing and a memory for trivial information that was far better than I’d hoped.

  I wasn’t about to let that stop me. I hopped to my feet and Edward didn’t have a lot of choice: It was either step back or invade my personal space. “It’s kind of a hobby. You know, just something to pass the time. Jim works so many hours, and he’s out of town so often.”

  “And you’re writing an article about the soccer league.” He touched a hand to the front of his blue windbreaker with its soccer league emblem above a Tigers patch. “Maybe you’d like to come watch today’s game.” Edward looked toward the door and I saw that out on the soccer fields beyond, kids clad in Tigers blue and white were gathering and warming up by kicking soccer balls around. “Reporting on a game, that would add some real color.”

  My smile was bright as I sidestepped away from Edward. “I wouldn’t want to sound biased toward any one team.”

  “But an article about a coaches’ meeting . . .” He countered with a step into my path. “That doesn’t sound all that interesting.”

  “Blame my editor.” I hoisted my purse to my shoulder and tucked my portfolio under my arm. “She said she wanted facts and figures.”

  Edward nodded. He understood. The look he gave me wasn’t exactly a smile. “The same facts and figures the police have been asking about.”

  “Really?” If I’d learned anything from a lifetime of being best friends with Eve, it was how to toss my head in that wow-imagine-that kind of way that always catches guys off guard. Without fail, it works for Eve. For me? Not so much. At least if Edward’s stony silence meant anything.

  It was one of those awkward moments I’m so not good at. And a chance I might never get again. Determined to get at the truth, I took the proverbial bull by the horns. “I’ll bet the police asked something else, too. I bet they asked if you left the meeting for a while. If you were there at the beginning, and there at the end, and if in between—”

  “I popped out to murder my wife?” Edward’s eyes were blue. The color the Chesapeake Bay turns right before a storm.

  I sucked in a breath and held it until my lungs felt as if they’d burst. That was right about the same time Edward threw back his head and laughed. “You ask a lot of questions, Annie.”

  “Reporters do that.” Ambiguous, but true.

  And apparently enough to satisfy Edward. His smile was cordial, but reserved, as if we’d just been introduced at a business meeting. “I can’t wait to read your article,” he said.

  “I’ll let you know when it’s posted,” I promised, and because there wasn’t anything else to say and nothing to be gained from a man who was clearly toying with me, I nodded my good-bye and slipped away from him and toward the door.

  I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until I was safely outside, and I refused to look back, either, even though I could feel Edward’s gaze fastened between my shoulder blades. I marched to my car and unlocked the door. I had already tossed my portfolio inside when a car pulled into the parking place next to time, and Chip, Glynis’s hu
sband, got out.

  “Hi, Chip.” His eyes were unfocused and I could tell he didn’t remember me. But then, at Beth’s house the night before, it was obvious Chip was more interested in drinking wine than he was in the company of his friends. I’d personally counted seven glasses that he drank, and that was before Beth served my flan with Kahlua and coffee. Just in case he was still a little bleary-eyed (either from the alcohol or from my too-rubbery flan), I rounded his Audi. “I’m Annie. We met last night at Michael and Beth’s.”

  “Of course.” His smile came and went quickly. Like Edward, he was wearing a blue Tigers windbreaker and he smoothed one hand over it. “You’re new to the neighborhood.”

  “And I hope I’m fitting in. It’s kind of awkward. You know, trying to get to know people. I mean, with all that happened to Vickie . . .” I dragged the thought out, hoping he’d jump right in and fill in some of the gaps. When all he did was shift uncomfortably from foot to foot, I decided on a more direct approach.

  “That was great news about Michael. About his promotion. I just saw Edward inside.” Almost afraid to look, I turned that way. There was no sign of Edward Monroe, thank goodness. “He’s seems really excited about having Michael on board as CFO. He said it’s going to take a real load of day-to-day worries off his back.”

  “He did?” Chip wrinkled his nose and behind his thick glasses, his eyes squinched. “Glynis says—” He caught himself and cleared his throat.

  Like all detectives everywhere, I knew exactly what that meant. Chip’s common sense had momentarily gotten the best of him. Too bad. Because I would have loved to know what Glynis said about Michael’s promotion.

  Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend I already did.

  “I know. That’s what she told me, too.” I raised my eyebrows and laughed, sharing the confidence with Chip. “And after all that stuff a couple weeks ago about how Michael almost got fired . . .”

  Like I’d done, Chip looked toward the front door of the rec center, and call me too imaginative for my own good, but I swear he was looking for Edward, too, and when he didn’t see him, relief swept across his expression. “He never really would have done it,” Chip confided. “Edward talks a good game. You know, hard-nosed. But then, he has to, doesn’t he? He’s running a major corporation and he can’t afford any screwups. But when push came to shove, he wouldn’t have given Michael his walking papers. Edward’s not that kind of guy.”