Free Size 14 Is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot Page B

cannibalism.Are there even any of these?
    “Yes,” I say, in answer to Magda’s question. “Yes, I’m sorry. But it was Lindsay.”
    Magda’s face crumples again. “Oh, no!” she says, with a wail. “Heather, no!”
    “Magda,” I say, alarmed by her reaction. Which, really, if you think about it, is way more natural than mine—which had been to flee the area for the warmth of the St. Vincent’s ER. Or Sarah’s, which had been to make bad jokes. “I’m so sorry. But if it’s any consolation, Cooper told me the coroner thinks she was strangled first. I mean, she didn’t die from…from having her head chopped off. That didn’t happen until later.”
    Not surprisingly, Magda seems to find little comfort in this piece of information. I really do suck at grief counseling. Maybe I should go into accounting.
    “It’s just…” Magda sobs, “it’s just that Lindsay—she was so sweet! She loved it here so much! She always wore her uniform on game days. She never did anything to anybody. She didn’t deserve to die like that, Heather. Not Lindsay.”
    “Oh, Magda.” I pat her arm. What else can I do? I notice that each of Magda’s nails has been painted in the New York College school colors of gold and white. A major college basketball fan, Magda never misses a game, if she can help it. “You’re right. Lindsay never did anything to deserve what happened to her.” That we know of.
    Oh, see? There it is again! Where does that kind of jaded cynicism even come from? It can’t be because I’m a washed-up former pop star trying to put my life together, only to be told I have to take remedial math.
    Can it?

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    “People are gonna try to make things up.” Magda’s gaze on mine is intense. “You know how people are, Heather. They’re gonna try to say,Well, she shouldn’t have been seeing so many boys, or something like that. But it wasn’t Lindsay’s fault she was so pretty and popular. It wasn’t her fault boys buzzed around her like bees to honey.”
    Or flies around horse manure.
    God, what iswrong with me? Why am I blaming the victim? I’m sure Sarah, if she were here, could tell me. Is it out of some desire to distance myself from what happened to Lindsay, so I can be, like,Well, that could never happen to me, because the boys aren’t exactly buzzing around melike bees to honey. So no one will ever strangle me and then chop myhead off?
    Or is there some other reason I can’t help thinking there might be something more to Lindsay’s death than a “random act of violence”? Was she really all sunshine and school spirit? Or was she actually hiding something behind those iridescently green contact lenses?
    Magda reaches out and grasps my hand in a grip so tight that it hurts a little. Her eyes—still swimming with tears—are bright as the rhinestones she sometimes has implanted in her nail tips.
    “Listen to me, Heather.” Magda’s carefully lined lips tremble. “You’ve got to find the person who did this to her. You’ve got to find him, and bring him to justice.”
    I’m on my feet at once. But I can’t go far due to Magda’s death grip on my hand.
    “Mags,” I say. “Look, I appreciate your faith in my investigative abilities, but you’ve got to remember, I’m just the assistant hall director….”
    “But you’re the only one who believed those other two girls, last semester, were murdered! And you were right! Smart as he is, that Detective Canavan, he couldn’t’ve caught their killer—because he didn’t even think they’d been killed. But you, Heather…you knew. You’ve just got this way with people….”
    “Oh,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
    “You may not think so, but you do. That’s why you’re so good at it. Because you don’tknow you can do it. I’m tellin’ you, Heather, you’re the only one who can catch the person who did this to Lindsay—who can