New EDWIN COPPERPOT excerpt for Teaser Tuesday!

Here is another excerpt from my WIP, EDWIN COPPERPOT. My YA novel about the deceased and their many trials and tribulations. I hope you enjoy the read and all comments welcome!
xoxo -- Hilary

Maura stared listlessly at her tea. Edwin had been gone far too long. From what she could see though the fog, the high moon had come and gone at least three times, and she was beginning to worry. Perhaps Edwin's assumptions were correct and he was being punished for his living misdeeds.

Beatrix Black or Bunny as she preferred, simply couldn't tolerate it further. She rolled her eyes and rapped her moldered fingers on the table. Apparently, before her reckoning, Miss Black's beauty knew no bounds, or so she claimed, but now she donned a face reminiscent of a shriveled turnip, and at the moment it was an especially irritated shriveled turnip. "Maura, really, your doldrums are becoming tiresome."

A flighty young lady, death by drowning, Bunny Black had no patience for the sorry sort. Rich and spoiled in life, she did not see the need to consider such things in death. To her deficit, had she taken it upon herself to consider such things, she might not have drowned that fateful night. She may have realized skinny dipping, in late October, while intoxicated was not a well formed idea, especially when one couldn't swim.

"I'm sorry," said Maura. "Things just don't feel right. What if he's in trouble?"

Bunny snickered wickedly, which came out as a piggish snort after pushing through her shrunken sinuses. "I wouldn't worry. I'm sure Mr. Copperpot knows trouble quite well."

Maura smiled dimly. "Bunny, you're horrible. You know Edwin's not like that."

With a crimped finger, Bunny fished a gnat from her tea. "Don't be so juvenile, dear. Every man's like that. Besides, Charlie Redgrave told me a thing or two about your dear friend, Edwin Copperpot."

Maura looked up from her tea. "What did Charlie tell you?"

Bunny leaned in, all too happy to reveal her confidential conversations. "Charlie told me he and Edwin traveled in the same circles in their living years, frequently in each other's company at social gatherings and formal occasions."

"Edwin never mentioned knowing Charlie before his reckoning. He would have told me."

"He would not have told you. He didn't know himself!" Bunny batted her eyes for no apparent reason. "Far too busy admiring himself and pursuing the ladies, most of which, according to Charlie, needed very little pursuing--shameful harlots--Edwin never took notice of Charlie, too wrapped up in his cavorting and scurrilous activities."

Maura acted unaffected by Bunny's juicy assertion. "I'll never understand it."

Displeased with the lack of reaction, Bunny frowned like a sickly baby. "Understand what?"

"Why the dead still care so much about the details of the living. Edwin Copperpot could have murdered someone during the course of his life and I'd still call him my friend. He's never once given me a reason not to."

Forcing her rigid lips into an exceedingly dismal frown, Bunny reached out a wilted hand and rested it on Maura's sleeve.

"What is it?" asked Maura.

"Oh, dearest, don't waste your time."

"Don't waste my time on what?"

"On him."