Free Organize Your Corpses by Mary Jane Maffini

had vanished.
    As soon as they were out the door, the organ music swelled and the memorial service was under way.
    At least Sally shut up. I tried to pay attention to a succession of retired school principals for St. Jude’s. Each one of them gave the impression that unseen marksmen had high-powered rifles trained on their foreheads. I could almost imagine the red dot from the laser. If you chose to believe them, Miss Henley had brought much joy to their lives by her immaculate record keeping and maintenance of classroom order.
    Sally said, “I hear the old witch left a serious bundle to the school, and the catch was they had to have all the living principals speak at the memorial.”
    “That would explain it,” Jack said. “Principals losing their principles.”
    Benjamin’s face was pale as dust when he ducked back into the pew. When Sally opened her mouth, he said, “What is the matter with you people? Keep your voices down.”
    Jack gave me a nudge. I refused to make eye contact with him for the rest of the memorial. The high point continued to be the fracas at the front with Miss Henley’s fragile elderly cousin. By the time the last representative of St. Jude’s wiped his brow with a handkerchief, the crowd was pleased to exit and head for the bread portion of the circus.
    By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, the big white wheelchair-accessible van from Stone Wall Farm had arrived, the attendant had her glasses straightened out, and Olivia Simonett had shipped out. The eager crowd could surge toward the reception without distraction.
    The reception was held, not in the church hall with the parish’s Women’s League traditional egg-salad sandwiches, but in the ballroom at the Woodbridge Arms, Woodbridge’s recently renovated historic hotel. It was a two-block hike from the church. I suggested we skip it, but Sally and Jack nixed that idea. The chocolate brown van from Kristee’s Kandees was parked by the hotel.
    I pointed to it. “That’s good news, at least.”
    “Get a load of that.” Jack smirked, staring around in wonder as we walked in. “Everything but the disco ball.”
    But I approved. The ballroom was quite splendid. Tables of canapés and tiny pastries, chocolate truffles, huge silver coffee urns and tea services. Small glasses of quite tolerable white wine were handed around by busy servers in black and white uniforms. Miss Henley had made sure her memorial would be one to remember, even if she couldn’t have counted on her cousin to give it that little extra touch.
    I spotted Margaret Tang frowning at some canapés. She radiated expensive professionalism in a severe navy suit, with just a whimsical bit of lace camisole showing. There was always more to Margaret than you’d expect. There was no sign of Mrs. Tang. I figured she’d hustled back to the store. I slipped up behind Margaret and said “hi.”
    She turned and squealed, “Charlotte Adams.”
    “That’s me!” I squealed back.
    “Did you come back for this happy event?” she said, picking up a small plate and adding a few sandwiches and a pastry.
    It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Margaret’s mother hadn’t been passing on messages. I figured that was typical for the Tang family.
    I said, “I’ve been back in Woodbridge for more than six months now. I’ve set up a business.”
    “No kidding.”
    “I heard you’d set up a law practice. That’s great. I left you a couple of messages at the store. I left my business card too. I figured you were too busy getting settled to get in touch.”
    She shook her head. “Mom’s weird. You should know that after all these years.”
    “Jack tried to reach you too, when Pepper hauled me in for questioning. You were somewhere in court.”
    The hand with the sandwich froze. “Pepper hauled you in?”
    “Yeah. She questioned me about Miss Henley’s death. I think she wishes I’d done it.”
    “Unbelievable.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Sorry, I didn’t even hear