Murder Has a Sweet Tooth Read online

  “But?”

  Someone in the kitchen called out to Jennifer that the two bowls of clam chowder she was waiting for were ready. She took another long drag on her cigarette, dropped the butt, and ground it under the sole of her black work shoe. “Vickie said something about him not understanding and trying to push her when she didn’t want to be pushed.”

  This meshed with what Alex had told us about how he’d confessed to Vickie that he wanted to date her and that Vickie had reacted badly. “And when Vickie said that, what did Alex say?”

  “Well, that’s when he said he wished she was dead.”

  The news hit me somewhere between my heart and my stomach, and for a while, all I could do was stare at Eve. Since she was staring right back at me, I guess she knew exactly how I felt. It wasn’t until I realized I was wasting precious seconds that I forced myself to speak. “He said—”

  “‘ I wish you were dead.’ Yeah, that was it. I mean, at least I think it was. The music was kind of loud.” Jennifer turned to go back into the kitchen.

  I stopped her with one last question. “Do you think Alex could have been drugged?”

  It was Jennifer’s turn to be shocked, but she was a good sport. She thought about it for a minute. “I had a friend that happened to in a bar over in Reston,” she finally said. “Creep who slipped something into her drink tried to get her into his car, but a couple of us, we saw her leaving with him and we knew something was wrong. It’s scary, but yeah, you hear it happening to women all the time. But why would somebody drug a guy?”

  It was a good question and, convinced it was important to find the answer, we thanked Jennifer and I called Tyler as soon as we stepped out of Swallows and were out of range of that news crew.

  “Why am I not surprised you’re all over this murder like flies at a Sunday picnic?” he asked.

  I didn’t take it personally. I mean, I did, but I didn’t let Tyler know it. Again, I asked what I’d asked the second he picked up his phone. “Is it possible Alex might have been drugged?”

  Tyler thought about it before he said, “Anything’s possible.”

  “He says anything’s possible,” I told Eve in a stage whisper before I spoke again in a normal tone of voice. “And you could find out, right? If you did some kind of blood test or something?”

  “Paramedics drew blood. Procedure. But don’t get your hopes up. Those party drugs are hard to find after they’ve been in the system more than a couple hours, and nobody looks for them as part of any of the standard tests. You think it’s possible?”

  “I think it explains why Alex can’t remember what happened after Vickie ran out of the restaurant.”

  “If he’s telling the truth.”

  No, Tyler couldn’t see me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t react to his accusation. My shoulders shot back. “Alex isn’t the type of man who lies.”

  “Which type is that, Annie? The type who’s trying to save his butt after he gets caught red-handed? If you’re going to play detective, you’d better learn not everybody is what they seem.”

  “Alex is.” I was certain of it. Jim wouldn’t be his friend otherwise. Rather than argue with Tyler and get nowhere, I decided to stay with the tried-and-true. Nothing appeals to a cop like logic. “If he is telling the truth, then he could have been drugged, right?”

  “If there are drugs involved—and this is a big if, remember—I think it’s more likely Alex intended to give them to Vickie.”

  It was the second time that afternoon that I felt as if I’d been knocked for a loop. Since we were out on the sidewalk, I stepped over to the side to stay out of the way of other pedestrians so I didn’t get bowled over, and I motioned to Eve to stand aside, too. She, however, wasn’t paying attention. There was a pricey boutique next door and Eve had her eye on a green cocktail dress with skinny straps and a neckline cut down to there.

  I left her at it and collected my thoughts. When I didn’t make any sense of what Tyler was saying—when I couldn’t—I stammered, “What on earth are you talking about, Tyler? Why would Alex want to drug Vickie? He admitted that he liked her, that he wanted to get more serious with her.”

  “Uh-huh.” I could picture Tyler sitting at his desk. When he sat back, I heard his chair squeak. “But what Alex didn’t bother to mention was that Vickie wasn’t just Vickie. She was Vickie Monroe, Mrs. Edward Monroe.”

  “She was married?”

  “Married? Oh, yeah. And from what her husband said when he came in to identify the body—poor bastard—happily married. They live up in McLean. I can pretty much place the address. It’s one of those nice homes in an upscale development. Nice husband, too. He’s the owner of some hotshot company up that way. You see what I’m getting at here, Miss Annie the Detective? Home, husband, two little kids, too, by the way. Vickie was a member of the PTA at their school. She volunteered with her little girl’s Girl Scout troop. She was a member of the local garden club. She took cooking classes with her friends.” He let me digest this information before he added, “Sounds like Vickie Monroe had a nice life, so if your friend Alex was looking to take things to the next level, I can see why Vickie wasn’t all that thrilled about having it ruined by a guy she met once a week for a couple laughs. And if Vickie refused, Alex might have—”

  “No. It’s not possible.”

  Tyler chuckled. Not like it was funny, like he expected me to argue and he wasn’t disappointed. “When you’ve done this as long as I have, you know that anything and everything is not only possible, it happens all the time.”

  “But—”

  “When you get some real evidence, something we can actually verify, give me a call,” he said, and because he didn’t expect that to happen anytime soon, he hung up.

  I stood there on the sidewalk, trying to make sense of everything he’d told me, and when that didn’t work, I waited for Eve to join me and tried to fit the information I had into what I did know about the case.

  “Listen to this,” I said. “And help me make sense of it all. Alex was found, passed out, with a knife in his hands, with Vickie’s body.”

  There was no denying any of this. Eve nodded. “Ugly but true.”

  “Yeah, but wait.” I held up a hand to let her know I wasn’t done. “Tyler says Vickie Monroe was from McLean, one of those ritzy suburbs the two of us always fantasize about.”

  Eve couldn’t deny this, either. Once in a while, back in the day before we both got jobs at Bellywasher’s and got so busy, we used to take drives through some of the suburbs we fantasized about. Yes, in our weaker moments, both Eve and I had imagined ourselves living Vickie’s life. We’d have perfect homes in a perfect gated community, and of course, we’d be neighbors. My brighter-than-average children would attend the better-than-normal schools nearby with Eve’s. Because our husbands would make enough money to support us in the upper-class style we were used to, neither of us would have to work. But that didn’t mean we’d be couch potatoes. Both of us would be involved in our kids’ lives, and in their activities. Together, Eve and I would contribute to our community.

  I came out of the dream when I heard myself sigh. “Oh, yeah,” I said, “Vickie Monroe had our dream life, Eve. Well . . .” I flinched. “Except for those cooking classes. And . . .” This time, even a flinch wasn’t enough to register my horror. I felt the blood drain from my face. “She had a perfect life except for the cooking classes, and the murder.”

  Four

  BELIEVE ME, I HAD A PLAN. AT LEAST A PLAN AS FAR as my investigation went. I had to wait until the medical examiner released Vickie Monroe’s body, but after that, I had every intention of attending her funeral. After all, everybody goes to a funeral: family, friends, neighbors, loved ones. Maybe even murderers. Oh, yeah, I would be there, too, and talking to everyone unfortunate enough to get too close to me.

  Until then, I had other things to keep me busy. There was all the work I had to do at Bellywasher’s, of course. As business manager at the restaurant, I’m responsi
ble for keeping all our invoices in order, paying our bills, balancing deliveries against receipts against those invoices. I make sure we order the supplies we need and I take care of our bank transactions every single day. I handle payroll, too, as well as things like making sure what we’re charging for food actually covers the cost of the food, the preparation, and that payroll. If we’re lucky, we can manage a smidgen of profit in there, too.

  Yes, in my real job, I do all those wonderful, mundane things other people hate to do, and I love every minute of it. After all, I get all the excitement I need from murder. And from planning my wedding.

  These days, it seemed as if the two things had a way of getting all mixed up.

  Which was why on Thursday evening, I spent some time at the restaurant thinking about what I could do for Alex and how I’d proceed with my investigation. But once Bellywasher’s closed and I kissed Jim good night, Eve and I hurried over to the apartment that wouldn’t be my apartment for too much longer. This time, we were investigating—

  “Cullen Skink?” I was sitting at my computer, and Eve was standing behind me. She leaned over my shoulder and pointed at the screen, reading out loud. “What on earth is it? And do you really think you’d want to serve something called Cullen Skink at your wedding?”

  I wasn’t about to so easily dismiss anything that fell under the heading of Scottish cuisine. I clicked around the Internet site I’d found that promised to reveal the secrets of Scots food in all its glory. Or not.

  “It’s fish soup,” I told Eve, speed-reading the page as I went. “And it doesn’t sound half bad. You need a smoked haddock, onions, milk, potatoes. I might actually be able to do this!” I grinned at the prospect until I got to the part of the recipe that said Method. Then I read aloud and my shoulders drooped. “The first thing you have to do is skin the haddock.”

  “Oh, my Lord, Annie! We can’t have you doing that on your wedding day. You’ll smell fishy!”

  Eve didn’t have to argue to convince me. With my mouse, I zoomed around the page, looking for other suggestions. “Here’s one.” I stopped and pointed it out. “I don’t know what it is, but it sure sounds Scottish. Crappit heid.”

  She leaned closer and read, “It’s the head of a fish stuffed with oats, suet, and the fish liver. It’s boiled in seawater. Annie, you’re not actually thinking—”

  “No.” I went back to Google and tried a different Scottish cooking site.

  “How about that one?” Eve stopped me with her question. “Black pudding. That’s got to be like chocolate pudding, right? And what could be better or easier than chocolate pudding? Oh!” She shivered with delight at the very thought. “We could top it with dollops of fresh whipped cream and strawberries. Wouldn’t that be the best?”

  It would have been, if black pudding was what we thought it was. The recipe proved otherwise. “It’s sausage made by cooking blood with filler until it’s congealed,” I told Eve, and she didn’t wait for me to read more. She grabbed the mouse and clicked off the page.

  I was not to be deterred, even in the face of culinary adversity. I kept looking, and my efforts were rewarded. “Here’s one that’s traditionally served at weddings. It’s called cranachan. It’s made with whipped cream, whiskey, 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 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.