Free Murder Has a Sweet Tooth by Miranda Bliss

service had been conducted. I looked that way, too, and saw Celia, Glynis, and Beth, their arms linked, standing in front of the urn. “What are you going to say? That you’re trying to find their friend’s killer? They know Alex is in custody.”
    “I was thinking I’d say I was a friend from college, that I heard about Vickie and—”
    Just as I was practicing the lie, the three women walked out of the room. They stood in a tight circle, their arms around each other, and well-prepared lie or not, I didn’t have the heart to butt in.
    But then, I didn’t have the luxury of not butting in, either. Not if I intended to get to the bottom of Vickie’s murder.
    Just as I approached, Glynis pulled out of the hug. “We should go Wednesday after school,” she said to her friends, sniffing. “We always go on Wednesdays, and the kids will be disappointed if we don’t. We don’t want to upset them. We don’t want to let them know how upset we are. Besides, we owe it to ourselves to keep things as normal as we possibly can.”
    “You’re right.” Celia nodded.
    Beth said, “I promised Erin we’d do Clemyjontri Park this week.”
    “That’s fine,” said Celia.
    “Agreed,” said Glynis. “Four o’clock?”
    And when nobody objected, the three women split up and went to stand with their husbands.
    Watching them go, Eve leaned over my shoulder. “You’re not going to tell them you’re an old friend from college?”
    “I’ve got a better idea.” No one was paying any attention to me, but I turned away anyway when the three friends walked toward the door. “I’m not going to be an old friend, I’m going to be a new friend,” I told Eve. And before she could ask for details I hadn’t thought of yet, we turned and left the funeral home.

    WHEN IT COMES TO PLAYGROUNDS, CLEMYJONTRI Park is something of a legend. At least in this part of Virginia. It features four different play areas with a carousel in the center, and though I’d read that the playground took up the better part of two acres, that didn’t quite translate. At least not until I arrived there Wednesday at four and realized it wasn’t going to be easy to find Celia, Glynis, and Beth. I trudged over just about the entire playground before I caught sight of them watching a horde of children scramble over the jungle gym in the Fun and Fitness area.
    That was just about the time I realized something else—showing up at a playground without a kid made me stick out like a sore thumb.
    If I was as thorough and as organized as I claimed to be, why didn’t I think of that?
    I swallowed my mortification and thanked my lucky stars that Eve wasn’t able to be with me that day. One woman without children was odd. Two were bound to look conspicuous. As it turned out, Eve said she had too much to do that afternoon. She claimed she was going to zip over to Très Bonne Cuisine so she and Norman could look through samples to choose the napkins that would be on the table at the wedding. (Just for the record, I insisted that the napkins Bellywasher’s already owned would be fine, but once Eve and Norman got the whole cotton sateen idea in their heads, they were impossible to control.) No matter, I didn’t believe the table linen story from the start. Oh, no. My worries ran far deeper. I had suspicions about another wedding cake fiasco. Believe me, as soon as I had a free minute to devote to it, I was going to go into full detective mode and call every bakery in Arlington and beyond. One sparkler-encrusted wedding cake per lifetime is one too many.
    I promised myself I’d think about that another time. For now, I had a murder to investigate. With that in mind, I walked over to the Fun and Fitness area like I had every right to be there. When I stopped to look things over, I just so happened to end up close to where Celia, Glynis, and Beth were talking quietly.
    “Wow.” When I pulled in a breath of wonder, I didn’t have to fake it. The place was