Free Organize Your Corpses by Mary Jane Maffini Page A

about that. I’ve been up to my ears with a deposition in Albany. And I didn’t get that message. Of course, that’s what happens when you have your cousin working in your office. Mom probably issued a ‘no message’ list. This kid’s scared to death of her. Anyway, here’s my cell number if you ever need me again. I’ll give it to Jack too.”
    We went through a juggling act with plates and wine-glasses until we’d completed the ritual exchange of business cards. It sure felt strange to do that with an old friend like Margaret.
    I said, “Let’s hope. Listen, why don’t we get together? Come on over and catch up with Sally and Jack. It’ll be just like old times.”
    Margaret made a face. “Hope not,” she said.
    I took it the way I thought she meant it. I couldn’t blame her. Margaret had been a chunky, brilliant Asian in a small town that didn’t value any of those attributes in a girl. She’d complicated matters by wearing glasses and winning school medals. Her science projects had been jaw-dropping. All that wasn’t quite the kiss of death, but close. I never remembered Margaret having a date or even a conversation with any of the popular kids in our school. She’d worked hard at the store under the eye of her sour mother, and endured ethnic slurs and cracks about her weight at school, when she wasn’t being completely ignored by prom queens and football players with half her brains. Except for Jack, Sally, Pepper, and me, no one ever spoke to her. And of course, no matter what Jack said, we were the misfits.
    So what on earth had possessed her to return to Woodbridge now that she had a size-two figure, a thousand-dollar suit, a law degree, and a pair of contact lenses? Knowing Margaret, I decided it was better not to ask.
    I slipped my new business card into her pocket. “That was then, this is now. You know what they say: doing well is the best revenge. Anyway, we had fun together, you and me, Sally and Pepper and Jack.”
    “You’re right,” Margaret said. “We did. Maybe the only fun I’ve had in my life. I’ll call you. And you call me.”
    The reception turned out to be the social highlight of the year. I was taking it all in when I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. I turned to meet the gaze. The one person I didn’t want it to be. I felt a flush rising on my neck. Oh crap, how seriously uncool. I turned away and bumped into Sally.
    Damn.
    “I figure this sucker cost about seven grand, easy,” Sally said, sipping a sparkly drink. I watched as she flitted from person to person, catching up on news here, air-kissing there. Of course, her little black dress was perfect for a funeral. I just hoped she hadn’t seen the flash between me and Mr. Wedding Ring.
    I snatched up my fourth truffle. I quickly stepped backward to avoid a cluster of chocolate lovers and bumped into Kristee Kravitz of Kristee’s Kandees. “These are fabulous. Did you supply them?” I said, pointing to the truffles, which were vanishing fast.
    “I sure did. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt grateful that a person died,” Kristee said with a giggle. “Oh that’s awful, isn’t it?”
    I made a noncommittal noise.
    “Thousands of dollars, just today,” Kristee was saying. “She loved her chocolate truffles.”
    “Did she?”
    “For sure. She was a steady customer ever since I opened the shop. You’d never think about her being kind to anyone, but she was, in her own mean sort of way. She bought a half dozen black and white truffles for herself and one for her cousin every week. You saw that poor lady at the funeral? That’s Olivia Henley Simonett. She’s a few chocolates short of a gift box, to put it mildly, but Miss Henley was always really nice to her. I guess old Hellfire wasn’t always awful, the way she was to us in school. Well, all right, she was awful. A nasty old bat.”
    I said inanely, “But I suppose you’ll miss the business.”
    “Won’t have to. She even left a little fund so