Connie looked Noreen up and down, her eyes lingering oddly on Noreen’s chest. If Missy didn’t know any better, she would have thought Connie had just checked her friend out.
“Nice to meet you, Noreen.” Connie offered her hand and the two women shook. Then, before Missy could fathom what was happening, Connie had stepped forward and hugged her with her whole body, like they were good friends going back forever. Missy hugged the woman back. When they pulled away, they both smiled at each other.
“Spanx?” they both asked.
Then they were both laughing pretty hard, despite the occasion. Connie stubbed out her cigarette and deposited it in the disposal unit.
Missy said, “Spanx are God’s gift to the big and beautiful.”
“That they are,” Connie agreed. “It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise,” Missy said, feeling more comfortable around her.
“I just can’t believe it,” Connie said. “She was so young…”
Missy didn’t know whether she was allowed to share what scant details PJ had given her, but she didn’t care. “An infection.”
Connie shook her head but didn’t react that much. She’d already known. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Missy nodded. Now that they had talked for a few minutes, Missy figured she could politely excuse herself.
“Well, we’re going to head inside.”
“I’ll come with you.”
***
The line to Karen’s casket stretched all the way back to the front door. Missy, Noreen, and Connie queued up. They made small talk and Missy did her best to include Connie, but the woman had gone quiet and gave mostly one word answers and polite smiles.
“Who is that?” Noreen nodded in the direction of a side room where some women had congregated.
Missy peered inside and groaned. “Oh God. That’s Abella.”
The attorney that had worked with Karen at the firm was holding court, telling all the other women present some story. They listened with rapt attention. Missy could just make out what she was saying. Abella was talking about one of her cases that had actually gone to trial and how she had outwitted opposing counsel by pretending to be a dumb blond and purposely bumbling a discovery request that resulted in a harmless error…Missy didn’t begin to understand what she was saying, but the women in the room were impressed.
“You know her?” Noreen asked.
Missy shook her head. “I just met her two nights ago. She’s an attorney at the firm Karen worked at.”
“So I gathered. She’s mentioned her job title about five times in the last minute.”
Missy peered around the room and saw the other women who’d been with Abella at the Diet Club. With them hanging on, it seemed like Abella had an entourage. The attorney came to the end of her story and the other women beamed. Missy got the sense they would have clapped if they hadn’t been inside a funeral parlor.
Abella noticed Missy looking into the room. “Hello there, Muffy.”
“It’s Missy,” she said, then decided to throw it right back at the attorney. “How are you, Abba?”
“Abella.” She held that fake smile in place but her eyes were cold. “Good to see you again, under the circumstances.”
Missy nodded but couldn’t bring herself to trot out some tired cliché. She couldn’t pretend to like this woman.
The attorney stepped out of the room, her entourage in tow. “We’re headed out, Missy, but I was just wondering if you had heard what happened to your friend.”
Missy arched her eyebrows. “I did.”
Abella pursed her lips. “An infection, just awful.” She shook her head very dramatically. “She really should have taken better care of herself, don’t you think?”
“I think we’re at a funeral.” Missy’s anger was rising. “And I think it’s very rude to speak ill of the dead.”
“What did I say?” Abella said. “Just that she needed to take better care of herself? We all do.”
Missy had had it with this chick. The line moved up, but Missy stayed put and turned to face the attorney.
“Why don’t you get out of here?”
Abella pretended to be offended. “Now, Missy, I understand how upset you are, but that’s not really—”
“Shut up,” Missy said. “Shut up. You didn’t even like Karen. I was around you two for all of five seconds and I could tell right away. The only reason you came was because you worked with her and felt compelled to show your plastic surgeried face so your colleagues couldn’t call you a heartless bitch behind your back.”
The quiet conversation in the foyer dried up. Missy felt everybody watching her.
Abella’s smile had turned dangerous. “Be careful, woman. I’m an attorney and my reputation is very important to me. Anybody that damages it with bald-faced lies like that might end up getting served with lawsuit for slander.”
Missy’s face was on fire. “Yeah, I figured you’d hide behind the law.”
Abella’s smile finally broke. She kept her eyes on Missy but addressed her friends. “Come on, girls, let’s get out of here. Obviously, not all of Karen’s friends had class.”
She turned on her heel and marched out, her hangers-on in tow.
It took ten seconds for the hum of conversation to pick up again. Missy moved up with the line. Noreen nudged her shoulder.
“Wow.”
“In case you couldn’t tell, I really don’t like that woman.”
“I’ll say.”
Connie leaned in. “Karen didn’t like her either. You should have heard some of the horror stories. She tried to get Karen fired a few times, wrongfully of course.”
Missy believed it. That woman was vicious so Missy wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she was a back-stabber.
They moved forward with the line. Eventually they crossed the threshold between the foyer and the viewing room.
“Look, it’s you,” Noreen said.
Missy didn’t know what her friend was talking about, but then she saw the displays set up in the front of the room. Old photos decorated the first one, mostly pictures of Karen when she was younger. Missy spotted herself in a few of them.
“I never knew she had these…” Missy said, pouring over them. In one, Karen and she were sitting in Missy’s old bedroom at home playing with dolls. Both girls had their hair up in pig tails and were squealing with delight.
“She was so beautiful,” Connie said.
“Yes, she was.”
They moved forward. They passed more displays. In each one, Karen got a little older. Missy saw herself in a few more pictures and made a mental note. Not tonight but maybe in a few days she’d ask Karen’s parents if she could make copies of these pictures. She had some herself of Karen. Saturday was Scrapbooking Day this month, she could do a whole section on her relationship with Karen.
The line hooked to the left around a wall and finally Missy laid eyes on the casket. They still had probably ten minutes of waiting to do, but she caught a glimpse of Karen when an older man got up and moved out of the way to allow the next person to pay their respects. And standing just past the casket, Missy spotted Karen’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wise.
She hadn’t seen either of them in…she couldn’t say how long. The last time might have been when she’d just gotten back to town after graduating college. She and Karen had gotten together that summer several times as they braced for the dreaded “real world” and life after college.
“I’m sorry,” Connie said. “I’ve already been up once and I don’t think I can do it again…” Her voice trailed off and tears filled her eyes.
Missy reached out and rubbed the woman’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
Connie got out of line and went back outside.
Noreen waited till she was gone to say anything. “She’s a little off.”
Missy made a face. “Her friend just passed away.”
Noreen shrugged. “Yeah…”
M
issy almost snapped. She felt the need to defend Connie, even though she wasn’t close with the woman.
Noreen slipped an arm through hers. “Sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean anything.”
Missy nodded and together they reached the casket. Noreen went first and made the sign of the cross, then she got out of Missy’s way.
She kneeled in front of the casket and looked at her friend. They had put a lot of makeup on Karen and her skin sagged. She really didn’t look herself. Missy’s eyes misted and she could barely see through the tears. It just didn’t make any sense. Karen had been so young. Too young to die of an infection. She was supposed to live another forty or fifty years. She was certainly supposed to outlive her parents. Missy couldn’t help but think of her own mortality. She was the same age as Karen, which meant she could just as easily die now too.
Life was so fragile. It shouldn’t have taken the death of a close friend to make her realize that. Missy vowed to take better care of herself. She could no longer pretend to be young. She’d be forty years old soon.
She touched Karen’s arm. The skin was cold. Missy told her how sorry she was and how much she missed her and how she’d see her someday in heaven.
“I love you, Care Bear.”
Missy stood and wiped under her eyes. She wanted to run screaming out of the room but Karen’s parents were right there, waiting for her with warm, teary smiles. As she stepped toward them, she burst into tears. Mr. Wise hugged her and held on for awhile. She realized the dynamic should have been the opposite. Missy should have been comforting him, not the other way around. But she accepted it. She hadn’t seen the man in so many years, but he was making her feel better.
Then it was her turn to hug Mrs. Wise. Missy couldn’t even form a sentence. What could she say?
“Sorry.”
“Oh, Missy.” The woman had aged a lot over the years. She and her husband were mid-seventies, a few years older than her mother. “It’s so good to see you.”
The woman’s voice triggered pleasant memories. Missy remembered sitting in her living room while she baked chocolate chip cookies for the girls.
“I’m so sorry,” Missy said again. The words were totally inadequate.
Mrs. Wise took off her glasses to wipe under her eyes. “It’s just horrible. I can’t believe what happened to her.”
Missy nodded. “She was too young…”
They stared into each other’s eyes. Mr. Wise thanked Missy for coming again, then reached around her to greet the couple that had been waiting behind Missy. She realized she needed to move on.
“Can we get together this week?” Missy asked Mrs. Wise. “I think I have some pictures of Karen I could make doubles of.”
Mrs. Wise spoke as if she hadn’t heard Missy. “Did she tell you what she was doing?”
Missy frowned. She didn’t know what Mrs. Wise was talking about. “She actually sponsored me. It was my first night at the Diet Club…”
Mrs. Wise shook her head. “I’d like to give that Mrs. Butterworth a piece of my mind. She created this environment where she actually encouraged people to try these dangerous diets. Karen was so easy-going, she’d go along with almost anything. But she wouldn’t have tried this diet without somebody encouraging her.”
“The one Eleanor Lyons recommended?” Missy asked, confused.
“The Lyons woman recommended this to her?” Anger lined the older woman’s face. “The police need to know that so they can arrest her then.”
Missy didn’t know what Mrs. Wise was talking about, but sensed there was a lot more to the story. Had the diet and the infection been somehow linked?
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wise, I don’t know what diet she was trying.”
Mrs. Wise looked away, shaking her head. “It killed her.”
“What…”
“They found tapeworms inside her.”
Chapter Six
Before Missy realized what she was saying, she blurted the words out.
“That’s impossible.”
Mrs. Wise smiled sadly. “That’s what I said.”
Missy knew she should shut up, that saying anything more wouldn’t help. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“I don’t believe it.”
Mrs. Wise did a double-take. “What do you mean?”
“That’s not something Karen would do.” Missy recalled her friend’s words that evening before they’d stepped inside Mrs. Butterworth’s house. She had asked Karen what the craziest diet was she’d heard about during the meetings, and her friend had said the tape worm diet. When Missy had asked her if she’d tried it, Karen had reacted almost violently. Missy could tell the thought completely grossed Karen out. Which made sense. Karen had always been as squeamish as Missy.
The air seemed to go out of Mrs. Wise. “I know. That’s what I thought, Missy. But they did an autopsy…”
Missy felt her stomach do a somersault. Now that the initial shock had worn off, she kept getting this image of worms and…
She put a hand over her mouth. “I just don’t…”
Mrs. Wise’s eyes filled with tears and pain. Missy realized now wasn’t the time to challenge the cause of death. Mrs. Wise was mourning the unimaginable loss of her daughter.
Missy hugged her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, Missy. Could you come over sometime this week? I have some pictures…”
Missy nodded and answered and went through the motions of conversation with the grieving woman, but in her mind the wheels were turning. Karen had died somehow from tape worms…and there was no way Karen Wise had willingly put tape worms in her own body. Missy had known the woman forever and knew for sure Karen would rather die than do something like that. There was just no way.
As Missy moved away from the casket and toward Noreen, who was waiting in the corner, she thought about some of the other things Karen had told her that night. Her friend had kept some things from her…
“You okay?” Noreen asked.
Missy heard the words but they didn’t register. She was thinking about Abella, Mrs. Butterworth, Eleanor Lyons, and Connie too. She was thinking that secretly infecting Karen with tape worms was the perfect way to kill her. To the outsider, to someone who didn’t know Karen like she did, it would look like Karen had just resorted to an extreme, dangerous diet because she’d been struggling with her weight her entire life.
“Miss,” Noreen said. “You okay?”
Missy finally registered her friend’s words and her concern. She lowered her voice.
“I think Karen was murdered.”
Chapter Seven
You really think so?” Noreen asked when they were back outside.
“Yes.”
“Missy, I think you should take a step back here.”
She wheeled on her friend. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Noreen held out her palms and actually took a step back. “Hey, it’s me. Your best friend, remember?”
Missy was able to calm down, just barely.
“What do you mean, take a step back?”
“Karen’s death is senseless. I feel the same way. You’re having trouble dealing with that reality, so just be careful you’re not trying to force something here.”
“Noreen, that’s messed up.” Missy started walking again toward the truck. They passed dozens of people that were on their way inside the parlor. Karen had had a lot of friends and family. “You’re saying I want Karen to have been murdered?”
“Maybe subconsciously, yes. And that way you can do something about her death. You can’t bring her back, but maybe you can find the person that did this and that will bring order to the chaos.”
Missy frowned. “I don’t know if you remember, but the last time I felt the need to do something about somebody’s death, I got you exonerated.”
Noreen looked over at her. “Don’t throw that in my face. You had a lot more reason to get involved there. You knew I was innocent.”
Missy knew her friend was right,
but she was too ticked off to admit it. “Actually, I didn’t know that.”
Noreen stopped walking. “What?”
“All the evidence pointed right at you. I should have given up at least twenty different times, but I stuck with it despite the evidence.”
Noreen’s whole body stiffened, and Missy knew she’d gone too far.
“What I meant was, everybody knew Anne Baxter had been murdered and you knew I couldn’t have done it.” Noreen looked away.
Missy was about to fire back, but she’d just lost one good friend. There was no point in losing another, especially when Noreen might have had a point.
“Nor, I’m sorry.”
Noreen finally met her eye. “Missy, I really appreciate what you did for me. I’ll be forever in your debt, but at some point you have to stop throwing it in my face.”
“I’m sorry.” She smiled. “The joke has gone too far. You don’t owe me anything. I want you to know that I’ll always have your back.”
“I know.” Noreen’s body untensed. “Now before you go running off to play Stephanie Plum, let’s talk this through, okay?”
Missy smiled, grateful for her friend’s offer to help. “Okay.”
***
Back at Missy’s place, Noreen uncorked a bottle of wine and they shared some pinot. Missy walked Noreen through the entire night, doing her best to recall her conversations with Karen word-for-word.
At the end of the story, Noreen took a deep breath. “Missy, I hate to say it, but I could really argue both sides of this thing.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” Missy got up to pace. “Abella loathed Karen. Hatred is motive enough. And you heard Connie, the woman tried to get Karen fired a number of times.”
“Yeah, but that’s fired. Abella has everything she wants. She’s a bigshot attorney at a large firm, probably making several hundred thousand dollars a year. She’s got the perfect body, perfect clothes, perfect coterie. Even if she hated Karen, what does she get out of killing her? What could Karen possibly do to her?”
Diet Club Death: Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mystery #3 (Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries) Page 5
