Page 60 of Poison Apple Crisp
“I don’t know. I thought maybe she got it from Cokie. She was a crime buff. Brenda, not so much.” He hesitates a moment. “Cokie and I were pretty serious for a time. Brenda stepped in, and well, I fell for her charm. Next thing I knew, I sank a great relationship with Cokie and found myself staring down the barrel of a wedding with a woman I hardly knew.”
“The barrel?” Ginger thumps her hind leg over his face in what looks to be quite the beating. “That’s a terrible way to look at your upcoming nuptials.”
“And I happen to agree with her.” Carlotta nods.
Poor Martin looks twice as confused with Carlotta’s antics.
“You agree with Brenda?” Martin studies Carlotta, just trying to keep up with her.
“Brenda was pretty excited about the wedding,” I say, ignoring the insanity in our midst. “She asked me to do the honor of baking the wedding cake. Rachelle was there, and she mentioned she was a bridesmaid in the wedding.”
“Rachelle.” He closes his eyes a moment. “Poor thing. But I guess she won’t have to endure the humiliation now.”
“Do you mean Brenda?” I ask, because clearly he’s taken a page out of Carlotta’s disjointed playbook.
“I mean Rachelle.” He nods. “Yeah. Brenda didn’t ask Rachelle to be a bridesmaid in the wedding. She wanted her to be the flower girl.”
Carlotta and I exchange a look.
Ginger lets out a tiny growl. “Wait a minute. Isn’t the flower girl typically a child? I was in a wedding once as the ring bearer. Oh, you should have seen the crowd. Lots of finery, lots of manners. But that flower girl ran amok and cried before she ever hit the end of the aisle. Everyone there thought it was the cutest thing ever, but I wasn’t so amused.”
“The flower girl?” My mouth hangs open with confusion.
Martin nods. “And don’t think for a minute Brenda wasn’t trying to humiliate the poor girl. She had a cutesy floral dress that you might stick a kid in. She didn’t want anyone to know about it either. She was going to have Rachelle come down the aisle with her hair in pigtails like some sort of a stunt on our big day. I told her to reconsider—I have a niece who would have loved the gig—but Brenda said it was nonnegotiable. That was her favorite word,nonnegotiable.” He glowers as he says it.
My chest pumps with a dull laugh. “Why in the world would she try to humiliate Rachelle like that?”
Martin shifts from side to side. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I knew what her game was with other people but that one stumped me.”
Carlotta bobs her head forward. “So who do you think did it? Who poisoned her apple crisp and sent her packing for the big school in the sky in a fit of humiliation?”
He blows out a hard breath, and Ginger tumbles right off his head.
“Come to think of it”—Ginger floats my way—“my mother was always telling Brenda to stop humiliating her brother. I’m afraid it’s something she rather enjoyed.”
I nod, making a note of it.
Martin looks to the floor. “I don’t know. I’d hate to peg just one person. In fact, if I’m being truthful, it would be hard to peg just one person.”
“What about Cokie?”
“Good one, Lot.” Carlotta slaps her hands together. “Cutting right to the Cokie chase.”
My mouth falls open as I look to her in disbelief.
“Cokie?” Martin nods. “She did accuse Brenda of stealing me from under her. And for the most part, it was true. Brenda wanted to be in the power position at all times, and Cokie was the one who wore the pants at the school—pardon the sexist pun. Swiping me was just one of the ways Brenda took aim at Cokie. And I’m afraid I played right into Brenda’s hands with that one. Cokie and I often argued over it. In fact, we argued over it the night of Brenda’s murder.”
That must have been the heated exchange I witnessed between the two of them.
“What about a woman by the name of Alyssa Thomas?” I ask. “Did you ever hear Brenda mention her?”
“Alyssa? Sure I did.” He chuckles. “That was a terrible thing.” A heavy sigh comes from him. “Alyssa’s husband took off with his secretary. He was a preacher, so it was particularly tough. I guess she liked to tell people he disappeared, and that she may have been responsible. Weird, huh? Brenda dug deep for the truth on that one. Turns out, Alyssa was vying for top dog at the PTA, but Brenda demanded she step down or she’d reveal the truth. And it turns out, Alyssa liked her version of the truth too much to fight her on it. She had already told a handful of people her convoluted side of the story—she feared the fallout might humiliate her kid. She told me several times she was thrilled he was finally a senior so she could be rid of Honey Hollow High. But I knew she really meant be rid of Brenda.”
That shoving match Everett and I witnessed between Brenda and Alyssa comes back to me—or more to the point, the exchange we witnessed while watching their shoes.
“Martin? Did Brenda have another reason to blackmail Brenda? Or threaten her?”
He purses his lips. “Blackmailis too strong a word. Alyssa wanted in on a few dance committees, but Brenda was determined to shut her out of everything. She went as far as suggesting she might tamper with her son’s graduation day. Brenda could be bitter as a cup of vinegar when she wanted to be.”