Free The Iced Princess by Christine Husom

far enough.
    â€œThanks a lot for ratting me out, Pink.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œIf you had kept your mouth zipped shut, at least one of us would have had a front-row seat to watch what was happening,” I said in a whisper.
    Pinky flicked her hand at a loose curl by her ear. “It just came out. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”
    â€œI don’t blame you, really. It’s not easy to process something like this,” I said.
    Pinky pointed into Curio Finds. “Could there be anything more awful?”
    â€œAs awful as this is, we all know there are a lot of things that could be worse,” I said.
    Pinky, Erin, and I hovered in the archway. Erin was in the middle and reached over and grabbed my hand then reached for Pinky’s with her other hand. Two Buffalo County deputies wearing black polo shirts with “Crime Scene Team” embroidered above their hearts came through my shop door. One was a man around fifty, and the other was a woman somewhere in her early thirties. The man had a black duffel bag, and the woman was carrying a camera. They glanced up at us, no doubt wondering who we were and why we were there. We must have been a sight. Little five-foot-nothing Erinstanding between Pinky, who was almost a foot taller, and me, who was a half a foot taller. I was a little surprised myself that we hadn’t been told to wait somewhere out of the way.
    The crime scene team went about their business. Clint pointed out the coffee cup with its questionable contents. They took pictures of everything, it seemed, and put the coffee cup in a container to take back to their lab. Pinky, Erin, and I whispered back and forth.
    â€œPinky, I didn’t tell you this yet, but that’s the cup. They think someone put cyanide in Molly’s coffee,” I said.
    â€œOh my God! I don’t even remember her getting a cup of coffee from me,” she whispered back.
    Erin squeezed my hand even tighter. “You’re cutting off my circulation,” I said.
    â€œMine, too,” Pinky said.
    â€œSorry,” Erin said. She eased her grip then dropped our hands altogether.
    Mark walked over to the archway. “The deputies went to get the gurney from the medical examiner’s van, so Clint wants you girls to back away, maybe sit down at Pinky’s counter. Molly’s husband will be here before long, and he’ll have enough to deal with without gawkers, besides. Then we’ll talk to you and you.” He nodded at Pinky and me.
    â€œI don’t know anything, I swear,” Pinky said.
    â€œYou might not think you do,” Mark said, then he turned around to get back to work.
    We backed up and watched as the crime scene team came in, rolling the gurney. We heard bits and pieces of what the officials were saying then saw Clint and Mark carry Molly’s body out of the bathroom and lay it on the gurney.
    Erin and Pinky each put an arm around me. We madesounds but couldn’t form words, not knowing how to adequately express ourselves. Seeing Molly the way she was now, not looking like the Molly we knew, was dreadful. Pinky and Erin were getting their first view of her since she’d passed on.
    â€œThe way her mouth is wide open, it looks like she was gasping for air,” the female deputy said.
    â€œThat would support my theory that she died from cyanide poisoning. Her body was crying for oxygen while she was asphyxiating,” Dr. Long said.
    â€œWhy didn’t she tell someone she needed help instead of going into the bathroom?” the male deputy said.
    â€œOnce it’s ingested, cyanide works very quickly. The victim probably felt dizzy, like she might faint. She may have headed to the bathroom because she was nauseated and thought she was going to be sick. She didn’t know she was in real trouble until it was too late, and she wasn’t able to call for help.”
    Dr. Long’s details of what Molly had suffered through made