Wedding Cake Killer (3 page)

Chapter 2

“A
t least you never caught me changing gra
des because those football players are morons,” one of the women was saying as Phyllis hurried into the living room. She was standing in the middle of the room facing an equally angry woman, while the rest of the guests sat there looking distressed or embarrassed.

“I never changed a grade for anyone,” the second woman insisted. “And I didn’t have to keep a
mouthwash
bottle filled with vodka in my desk just to get through the day, either.” She made air quotes as she said the word
mouthwash
.

“That’s a despicable lie! Those slutty little dullards only started that rumor because I expected them to actually do their work.”

Phyllis saw Eve wince at the split infinitive. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher, she supposed. She was the same way whenever someone got facts from American history blatantly wrong.

Contrary to what Phyllis had been thinking a few moments earlier, it wasn’t two of the younger teachers who were arguing. Rather, it was a couple of the retired teachers, women approximately the same age as Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve. Phyllis knew them only slightly, and it took her a few seconds to come up with their names.

Loretta Harbor and Velma Nickson—that was it. Both of them had taught at the high school with Eve. Loretta had taught some sort of advanced math—calculus, maybe—and Velma was home ec. Phyllis didn’t think she had ever exchanged more than a dozen words with either of them.

Now, though, she said, “Ladies, ladies, there’s no need for this. And you don’t want to ruin Eve’s special day, do you? Besides, it’s Christmas Eve! We should all be filled with the holiday spirit.”

Loretta said, “If you want to talk about spirits, you should ask Velma about her mouthwash bottle!”

“That does it,” Velma said. She was a tiny, gray-haired, birdlike woman, but just then she looked like she was ready to tackle Loretta and drag her to the floor.

Carolyn moved past Phyllis and said, “If you two are going to squabble like a couple of third graders on the playground, the least you can do is take it outside!”

Eve finally stood up. “Everyone, please. This is a glorious, happy occasion. Loretta, Velma, for my sake, can’t you put those old grudges aside for a little while?”

The two women continued to glare at each other, but after a moment Velma shrugged and said, “I suppose I can ignore her. For you, Eve.”

“And I certainly have more willpower than she does,” Loretta said. She made a tippling motion.

“Just no backbone or integrity,” Velma shot back. “Or maybe it was just that your eyesight was bad and you couldn’t tell a B from an F.”

Carolyn got between them and said, “Sit down, both of you. Now.”

Grudgingly, Loretta and Velma retreated to the chairs where they had been sitting, on opposite sides of the room. Still glaring at each other but not saying anything, they sat down.

“Fine,” Carolyn said. “Now, let’s all just pretend like this never happened.”

Yes, Phyllis thought, that’s what ladies of their generation did. They pretended that anything unpleasant had never happened, unless they were forced to admit otherwise.

Carolyn put a hand on Eve’s shoulder and said, “Just go on with whatever you were doing, dear.”

“Well . . . we were playing Truth,” Eve said. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea anymore.”

“What about the Dare part?” Carolyn asked.

“Oh, goodness, most of us are too old for dares.”

“Well, then, uh . . . we can open presents.”

Eve’s face lit up. “Now, that’s an excellent idea.”

All the chairs in the room were full, including the extra ones Carolyn had dragged in from other rooms when the crowd began to grow beyond expectations, so she and Phyllis had to stand while Eve opened the presents. Phyllis had a notebook and pen ready so she could write down each gift and who had brought it; this way, Eve could send thank-you cards after the wedding. She supposed that if some of the younger women had that job, they would type the list into their smart phones and e-mail it to themselves and send thank-you texts, but she wasn’t that technologically advanced. She could make calls on her phone, and if she had time to stop and think about what she was doing, she could take a picture with it, but that was about all.

Loretta and Velma seemed to get caught up in seeing what gifts Eve had gotten, like everybody else, so after a few minutes they stopped glaring and really did ignore each other. Phyllis was glad. She was sorry the party had been marred even for a few minutes, but she was confident the disturbance hadn’t been bad enough to ruin Eve’s memories of the day.

Her own memories of this Christmas Eve already included uncovering the identity of a murderer. She didn’t need a geriatric catfight to go along with that.

She looked around the room and realized that she only really knew about half of the women. Most of the others were familiar to her, and she even recalled the names of some of them. But there were a few she didn’t remember ever seeing before.

There had been names on the guest list that Phyllis didn’t know at all, too. These were women who had taught at the high school with Eve for a year or two, at the end of her career. By that time Phyllis had already been retired, and she’d never had any contact with those younger teachers. Everybody liked Eve, though. It was just a natural reaction to her personality. So Phyllis wasn’t surprised that those women had come to the shower.

As the pile of gifts dwindled almost to nothing, Carolyn said quietly to Phyllis, “I’ll go take the mushrooms out of the oven and set the rest of the food on the table.”

“I can come help—,” Phyllis began.

“I can manage just fine,” Carolyn said. “You’re keeping the list, remember?”

Phyllis nodded. “All right. I’ll be there in a minute, though, as soon as we’re finished here.”

Eve opened the last few gifts, and Phyllis made note of them. Later she would type up the list on her computer, but since she couldn’t get to the desk in the corner of the living room very easily because of all the guests, she took the notebook with her and stuck it in a drawer in the kitchen.

Carolyn had already gotten the other snacks set out on plates and trays. Phyllis put the ice cream balls on top of the punch and gave it a light stir. It turned a pretty light blue color. She put her hands under the bowl and said, “I’ll take this into the dining room. You can bring one of the snack trays.”

They spent the next few minutes transferring the punch and all the food to the table in the dining room, where napkins, plasticware, and festive paper plates were already set out so that the guests could help themselves buffet-style.

The table was covered with an elegant white tablecloth, and there were two blue candles and two silver hearts intertwined. Carolyn had already put the buttercream chocolate cupcakes in a couple of wire trees. She had left the top center spots on both wire trees empty and had put small vases of flowers in them. Silver plates of assorted cookies surrounded the trees. There was also a big fruit tray with a sweet creamy dip and a matching tray of vegetables with a veggie dip. She had obviously been very busy while Phyllis was gone. When everything was ready, Phyllis went to the living room and said, “All right, ladies, we have refreshments in the dining room.”

She was glad to see that everyone seemed to be smiling and talking and laughing. The brief unpleasantness between Loretta Harbor and Velma Nickson appeared to be forgotten. Loretta and Velma were both huddled with separate groups of friends and weren’t paying any attention to each other anymore.

Phyllis’s announcement started a migration to the dining room. It was still early enough in the afternoon that the guests could eat without spoiling their supper. The noise level in the house went up even more as everyone chatted happily.

Eve lingered in the living room as everyone else went into the dining room. She came over to Phyllis and squeezed her arm.

“I can’t tell you how happy this has made me, Phyllis,” she said. “You know me—I’m not a sentimental old softie, but I could almost cry, having all my friends around me like this.”

“You deserve all the happiness you get,” Phyllis told her. She slipped an arm around Eve’s shoulders and hugged her.

“Carolyn told me you solved that awful murder.”

“I was lucky,” Phyllis said. “I figured it out before it was too late.”

“You always do, dear.” Eve laughed. “My goodness, I’m glad Loretta and Velma didn’t murder each other right here in the living room! But then you wouldn’t have had to solve that one, would you, since we’d all know who did it.”

“Don’t even talk about it,” Phyllis said. “No more murders, especially not here.” She paused. Since Eve didn’t seem to mind discussing the incident, she went on, “Those things they were accusing each other of . . .”

“Changing grades and nipping from a bottle of vodka during class?” Eve smiled. “Oh, my, yes. Loretta wasn’t just about to let any of her precious football players fail her class and get booted off the team, and as for Velma . . . she’d be snockered by the time the dismissal bell rang on the first day of school, and I’m not sure she sobered up until the last day in the spring! She was one of those high-performance boozers, though, who could always get her work done, drunk or sober.”

“Good to know,” Phyllis muttered.

Eve linked arms with her and said, “Let’s go sample those delicious appetizers of yours. Do you know if Carolyn spiked the punch like I suggested?”

“I’m pretty sure she didn’t.”

“Good, then we don’t have to worry about Velma diving headfirst into the punch bowl.”

Phyllis couldn’t do anything but laugh as Eve led her toward the dining room.

For the next half hour or so, everyone spread out through the dining room and living room, eating snacks off the paper plates and drinking punch from plastic cups. They all seemed to be having a good time, and Phyllis was glad. She liked being a hostess and seeing her guests enjoying themselves.

But she was glad to see them go, too, drifting out by twos and threes after hugging Eve and offering her their best wishes on her upcoming wedding and marriage. Having company was fine, but the aftermath of having company was better. Phyllis didn’t even mind the cleaning up that much, especially when she had Carolyn and Eve to help her.

“What were Sam and Roy doing this afternoon?” Eve asked as they put away the leftover food.

“Sam said they were going to go bowling,” Phyllis replied. “I don’t know when they’ll be back.”

“It doesn’t matter. Roy and I have a quiet evening planned. I’ve had enough excitement for the day, I think. And it
is
Christmas Eve.”

“I’ll be going over to Sandra’s house,” Carolyn said. She and her daughter spent a lot of holidays together. Some years, Phyllis would have gone to Mike and Sarah’s house for Christmas Eve, or they would have come here and brought her grandson, Bobby, but this year, with the added distraction of the bridal shower, they had decided to wait until Christmas Day to come over.

That was fine, Phyllis thought. Families needed to have their own holiday traditions that weren’t tied to what the parents or grandparents had always done. That was all part of the inevitable process of change she had been thinking about earlier.

“What about you and Sam?” Carolyn went on.

“
It’s a Wonderful Life
, of course,” Phyllis said. “Maybe
White Christmas
, if there’s time.” She never tired of watching those classic movies, even though she had seen them so many times she practically knew all the dialogue by heart.

“No other plans?” Eve said.

Phyllis shook her head. “Nope.”

What more could she want than to curl up on the sofa with Sam and watch some good movies? Especially after the day she’d had.

To be honest, right now that sounded pretty much like heaven to her.

Chapter 3

“I
saw the cutest cake topper in a magazine the other day,” Carolyn said a couple of days later as she sat at the kitchen table with Phyllis and Sam. The three of them were lingering over their breakfast coffee. “It had the bride dragging the groom, as if he were trying desperately to get away. Do you think we should try to find one like that for Eve’s cake, Phyllis?”

With an effort, Phyllis managed not to frown as she said, “Well, I’m not sure.” She knew that Carolyn had a pretty low opinion of marriage in general because of the way her own had worked out, but she didn’t think a cake topper like that would send a very good message. It wasn’t really appropriate, either, since Eve was hardly having to drag Roy to the altar. “I thought the topper we’d picked out already was pretty good . . .”

“I think Carolyn’s jokin’,” Sam said with a smile.

“Of course I am!” Carolyn said. “That would be ridiculous. You didn’t think I was serious, did you, Phyllis?”

“No, of course not,” Phyllis said.

It bothered her that she hadn’t realized Carolyn was joking. Although to be fair, Carolyn had never been known for her witticisms. She was the one who always took things deadly serious. Maybe her own sense of humor just wasn’t up to par these days because she’d been overwhelmed by everything that was happening.

At least Christmas Day had passed in a peaceful, pleasant manner. She and Sam had spent the day here with Mike, Sarah, and Bobby. She hadn’t prepared a big meal. Instead they had feasted on the leftovers from the shower. Even though more guests had shown up than expected, Phyllis’s tendency to have more food on hand than was really necessary had come in handy. There had been plenty left to feed all five of them on Christmas, which made it an easy day for her.

Now that was behind them, and she could turn all her attention to preparing for Eve’s wedding.

“So what’s on the agenda for today?” Sam asked.

“We have to get all the Christmas lights and decorations taken down, boxed up, and put away,” Phyllis said.

“Some folks leave ’em up until after New Year’s, you know.”

“Yes, but most people don’t have a wedding in their house on New Year’s Eve.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Sam admitted. “We had help from half the neighborhood puttin’ ’em up. With just us, it’s liable to take a while to get them all back down.”

“All the more reason to get started,” Phyllis said as she stood up.

Sam’s prediction proved to be true. The three of them worked all day getting the lights and decorations back in the boxes they had come from. Some of those boxes were stored in various closets, while the boxes of white lights were left out for the wedding decorations. Sam had to carry others up a ladder and into the attic that could be accessed through the garage. At least they had good weather for it. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day had been cloudy and blustery, but this day after Christmas was crisp, cool, and sunny, a perfect winter day in Texas.

“Is it the British or the Canadians who call this Boxin’ Day?” Sam asked as he carried a box of lights up the ladder in the garage.

“Goodness, I don’t know,” Phyllis said. She was holding the ladder to make sure it didn’t slip. “I think it’s the British. Or maybe it is the Canadians. Or both. I mean, Canada was part of the British Empire.”

“Could be,” Sam said as he slid the box through the opening under the rafters. “Whoever it is, I think they’ve got the right idea.”

“I’m not sure it has to do with boxing up Christmas decorations.”

“You could Google it and find out,” Sam suggested.

“I could,” Phyllis said, “if there was any reason to do that.”

Sam disappeared through the opening. She heard him moving around up there in the storage space. He emerged a few moments later and started down the ladder. She stepped back to give him room when he reached the bottom.

“You’re getting all dusty,” she said. She brushed at his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “And cobwebby.”

He grinned. “That’s all right. Anybody as old as I am ought to be a little dusty.”

Phyllis didn’t point out that they were practically the same age. And she certainly wasn’t gathering dust.

By late afternoon, all the lights and decorations were boxed up, although quite a few of the boxes still had to be carried up into the attic. They were stacked in a corner of the garage, out of the way, and Sam said, “I’ll take those up there tomorrow. You ladies can get on with your plans for the wedding. I know you’ve still got a lot to do.”

“The cake is the main thing,” Carolyn said. “We’ve never attempted anything quite that big before.”

“It’s going to be interesting,” Phyllis agreed.

After much discussion, they had decided it would be best to keep the cake as simple as possible, in the hope that there would be less of a chance for anything to go wrong. The plan was that it would be a layered white cake with smooth white icing sitting on a floating-tiers cake stand. Those layers would be wrapped with see-through silver snowflake ribbon with a smaller blue satin ribbon behind it that would show through. In the original design, the cake topper would have sat on a nice blue bow. They had planned on putting plastic snowflakes on the top and second layers, leaving the bottom layer plain but sitting artfully on some tulle and scattering more snowflakes on the table around the cake. This had seemed like an appropriate touch since the wedding was taking place during the winter, but Eve had bought a cake topper just a few hours earlier that required them to rethink the cake plans. This cake topper had a twisted glass heart with doves, flowers, and a bride and groom. After much more discussion, they decided to keep the simple smooth frosting, but they would put touches of hearts and flowers with the frosting to match the topper.

“I think we should have a cake tasting,” Phyllis continued. “I’ll bake some cakes tomorrow morning, and we can get together with Eve and Roy tomorrow afternoon.”

“Why do we need to do that?” Carolyn asked. “Cake is cake.”

She had made that same comment several times while they were making up their minds what to do, and Phyllis supposed it was true, at least to a certain extent.

“I know, but I still think it would be a good idea to let Eve and Roy know exactly what they’ll be getting.”

“I don’t think they’re really worried all that much about the cake.” Carolyn shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter to me.”

Sam said, “And any excuse to eat cake is a good one, as far as I’m concerned.” They had left the garage and come into the kitchen while they were talking, and now he leaned a hip against one of the counters. “I don’t think Roy is worried about much of anything. He’s about as calm as any fella I’ve ever seen who was gettin’ married in less than a week.”

“Well, why shouldn’t he be calm?” Carolyn asked. “He’s getting a fine woman in Eve.”

“Oh, no argument about that,” Sam said. “But any time a fella’s fixin’ to settle down, certain thoughts have to be goin’ through his mind.”

“Like giving up his freedom?”

“Well, yeah.”

Carolyn sniffed. “Yes, like the freedom to scratch himself and throw his dirty clothes on the floor is so important and will be such a sacrifice for poor Roy.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant . . .”

“No, what you meant is that all men are allergic to commitment, even at Roy’s age. Good grief, it’s not like he’s tying himself down for the next thirty or forty years. He’s not going to live that long!”

“I suppose not,” Sam said, looking like he wished he had never brought up the subject.

Phyllis took pity on him and said, “From what I can tell, they’re both very happy and looking forward to being married, and I’m glad for them. So, cake tasting tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock?”

“I’ll be there,” Sam promised with a grin.

Eve and Roy ate supper with the three of them at the house that night. Roy tended to like eating out—he had gotten used to it during all those years when he’d been single, he said—but he seemed to enjoy these home-cooked meals, too.

“I hope you don’t think I’ll be able to feed you like this,” Eve commented during the meal. “My cooking skills don’t even come close to matching up with Phyllis’s and Carolyn’s.”

“You know I’m not worried about that,” Roy told her. He smiled. “I’m marrying the total package.”

With his silver hair, easy smile, and casual good looks, Roy was an attractive man, no doubt about that. He was semiretired from a company in Houston that did consulting work for the oil and gas industry. Since the jobs he did now were all on the computer, he was able to keep his hand in, as he put it, and work from anywhere, including Weatherford. All he had to do was log in to the company’s network.

Sam had found out all of that by talking to Roy, who hadn’t been very forthcoming about his past with any of the others. Sam had also discovered that Roy had been married once before, to a real estate agent who had passed away following a short illness. It was good that he wasn’t a lifelong bachelor. Being married to Eve might have been a big adjustment for him. To Eve, of course, with several husbands in her past, being married was a normal state of affairs.

“We’re going to have a cake tasting tomorrow afternoon,” Phyllis said. “If that’s all right with the two of you, naturally.”

“I don’t think we have any plans in the works,” Roy said. “Do we, Eve?”

She shook her head. “No. At this point we’re just waiting for New Year’s Eve. All our arrangements have been made.”

“Where are y’all goin’ on your honeymoon?” Sam asked.

“The Bahamas,” Eve said. “I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never been there.”

“How about you, Roy?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been there,” Roy replied. “The place is beautiful this time of year. Actually, it’s beautiful any time of year.”

“You don’t have to fly through that triangle to get there, do you?” Carolyn asked with a frown.

Eve said, “You’re thinking of the Bermuda Triangle, dear. They’re totally different places.”

Carolyn shook her head. “Oh, well, Bermuda, Bahama, I always get those two mixed up.”

“What about the Virgin Islands?” Sam asked.

“Oh, I think we’d all be out of place there,” Eve said. She wiggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx and made both Sam and Roy burst out in laughter. Phyllis smiled. Carolyn was the only one who didn’t seem amused.

Phyllis picked up her glass of iced tea and said, “Here’s to your honeymoon. May it be a wonderful trip that you never forget.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Roy said.