Buried In Buttercream

by G. A. McKevett

  Suddenly ... with a jolt of unwanted self-awareness, she realized she was glad that tonight wasn’t their honeymoon night, after all. In her heart of hearts, she was relieved to have one more night’s reprieve.

  Because, as much as she wanted to be with Dirk and was looking forward to the joys and pleasures their intimacies would bring, she was more afraid than eager.

  That made her sad. It made her angry. And it made her hate the man who had ruined her body ... along with her self-confidence and her sense of security.

  She started to cry, holding the washcloth tightly over her face to muffle the sound. Then her sobs grew and grew, until they wracked her body. She could feel the wounds deep inside that hadn’t healed yet, aching with each breath.

  Would she ever truly heal, or would she be in pain for the rest of her life because of what he had done to her?

  The torrent of tears continued with a ferocity that scared her. She had never cried like this before in her life, and she wasn’t sure how much worse it was going to get.

  It was as though she were another person, observing herself from a distance and saying, “She’s lost it now. The gal’s cheese has done slipped off her cracker. She’s gone completely off the deep end, and she may not be coming back.”

  Then, from far away she heard a voice. A soft, sweet, little voice. And a pounding.

  Someone was knocking on the bathroom door.

  “Auntie Savannah? Auntie Savannah? It’s me, Jillian.”

  With a heroic effort, Savannah sucked in her sobs and forced herself to say, “Yes, Jilly. What is it, sweetie?”

  “I need to go potty.”

  Savannah took a deep breath, steadied herself, and wiped her eyes with the washcloth. “Auntie Savannah’s taking a bath, sweet pea. Can you maybe go use the bathroom downstairs?”

  “No, I can’t. Uncle Macon went in there, and he stayed for a long, long time. Now it smells really, really bad, and I can’t stand it. Can I come in there? Pleeeezz?”

  “Honey, I—”

  “Pretty please with sugar on it?”

  With a sigh, Savannah climbed out of her princess tub, blew her nose on some toilet paper, tossed it into the commode, and then wrapped a large, fluffy towel around her dripping body.

  Oh, well, she thought, as she walked to the door and greeted her niece, who was standing there, doing a lively pee-pee dance. Reckon I’ll have to pencil in some cryin’ time on my calendar for tomorrow or the next day. There’s a time and a place for everything. Even a nervous breakdown. And, apparently, this ain’t it.

  Chapter 10

  On the way to the county morgue the next morning, Savannah was unusually quiet. As Dirk drove along, he kept shooting her anxious sideways glances, which she chose to ignore.

  She knew it was just a matter of time until he asked her what was wrong. He always knew when something was “off” with her, big or small. And it was going to be a hassle, because he wasn’t one to take “Eh ... nothing” for an answer.

  She just wasn’t in the mood to go into a long explanation—or even a short one—about bathtub breakdowns, disfiguring scars, or nieces who were persnickety about where they used the toilet. Some unpleasantries were best left alone and not even thought about, let alone discussed, if at all possible.

  This wasn’t a concept that Dirk was familiar with. He was not a guy who ever, under any circumstances, suffered in silence. If he was unhappy, uncomfortable, inconvenienced, or had his nose dislocated in any way, he wanted the entire world to know about it ... and do something about it as quickly as possible.

  So, he didn’t understand the “just let it go” mentality, and couldn’t rest until he had ferreted out any and all causes of what he perceived as her moodiness.

  Of course, she could lie to him. She wasn’t above it, if the circumstance called for a bit of creative truth-telling. But he was good at sniffing out bull-pucky, too, and fibbing usually caused more problems than it solved.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  There it was. Right on schedule.

  She sighed and turned her face away from him to stare at the passing scenery out the window. “Nothing much. Just had sorta a rough night. That’s all. No big deal.”

  “Hmmm.” He reached for the plastic zip bag that he kept on his dash and took out a cinnamon stick. He popped it into his mouth.

  It was a strange habit, but it had gotten him through the worst of his Quit Smoking campaign. And she’d found the aroma of cinnamon an improvement over cigarette smoke.

  She’d decided it was rather pleasant, kissing a guy who smelled and tasted like apple pie.

  “I talked to Granny this morning when I came to pick you up,” he said, “and she told me they tried to give you a nice, peaceful evening.”

  “They did. She laid the law down to the whole clan, and, as usual, they obeyed ... albeit grudgingly. They kept the racket down and gave me some space. As much space as one can get in a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house with fifteen people in it.”

  “So, what was the ‘rough’ part?”

  She winced. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. He had to sniff and dig. She debated whether to try to throw him off the scent entirely, or just redirect him.

  “Thinking about the case,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She could tell by the suspicious look he shot her way that he didn’t buy it. Maybe he would pretend to. One could always hope.

  “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Me, too.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. What did you come up with?”

  “Not much.”

  “Me either.”

  They had arrived at the morgue. And as he drove the Buick into the parking lot and pulled into his usual spot, he said, “Maybe Dr. Liu’ll have something good for us.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  He cut the key, reached over, and put his hand under her chin, gently turning her to face him. He gave her a sweet, sad smile. “You know, honey, I’m looking forward to the day when we can put all this ... this mess ... behind us. When we can concentrate on what really matters—us, making a home together, our friends and family ... good things like that.”

  Once again, tears flooded her eyes. But this time she didn’t fight them back. Instead, she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “That’s what I’m looking forward to, too,” she said. “More than you know.”

  “Then let’s get going.”

  As they entered the front door of the building, Savannah steeled herself for the inevitable run-in with the officer at the front desk. Good ol’ Kenny Bates, the bane of her existence ... or, at least, a major irritation when she had the misfortune of having to enter that unhappy place.

  Very few good times were had inside a morgue. And being greeted by and having to deal with Bates wasn’t one of them.

  Although, things had been easier since she’d bludgeoned him with his own rolled-up porn magazine.

  Since that violent attack, he hadn’t hit on her any more. Mostly now, when he saw her, he just sulked. No more invitations to come over to his apartment and watch dirty movies. No more comparisons between her and the latest “hubba-hubba” centerfold.

  It was an improvement.

  When he glanced up and saw that it was the two of them entering the reception area, he looked disgruntled, but he reached up and self-consciously fiddled with his ill-fitting toupee. Then he brushed some nacho cheese chip dust off the front of his ill-fitting uniform. The hairpiece appeared to be too large and the uniform definitely too small to accommodate his overly cushy physique.

  But, apparently, he still felt the need to look his best for her, even if she had pummeled him.

  And the knowledge made her feel creepy ... like she needed to go home and take a long, long bath in a strong, pine-scented disinfectant.

  He shoved the clipboard with its sign-in sheet across the counter to Dirk, avoiding eye contact with Savannah.

  “I haven’t seen you two s
ince you got engaged,” he said with a pouting, mournful tone in his voice.

  “Yeah, well,” Savannah replied, “our luck was bound to run out sooner or later.”

  His face flushed with anger. “It’s about time you got married,” he said to Dirk. “Everybody knows that you’ve been slidin’ her the salami for years now.”

  Dirk reached across the counter and grabbed a handful of Kenny’s shirt front. Savannah heard fabric ripping. A button flew off and landed on the counter, where it spun a moment or two before rolling off onto the floor.

  “As usual, Bates,” Dirk said in a low and dangerous tone, “you don’t know your ass from a gopher hole. And unless you want to have an unlucky, pissed-off gopher shoved, teeth-first, up yours, you’d better watch what you say about the lady I’m going to marry.”

  When Kenny didn’t answer, Dirk shook him. Hard.

  “Got that?”

  Kenny’s face was going from angry red to oxygen-deprived purple. He managed a feeble nod.

  Dirk released him, and for a moment, Savannah thought he was going to faint as he clung to the edge of the counter and fought for breath. Finally, he recovered himself and slunk back to his desk, where he plopped down in his chair and pretended to stare at the half-finished game of solitaire on the computer.

  Taking her arm, Dirk led her from the reception area and down the adjacent hallway, toward the autopsy suite at the back of the building.

  “Next time that jerk mouths off like that, I’m gonna seriously hurt him,” Dirk said.

  Savannah giggled. “Worse than I did with that rolled-up magazine?”

  He gave her a mortified look. “Hell no! Not that bad!” He sniffed and raised his chin a notch. “I couldn’t live with myself if I were to unleash that level of violence on my fellow man ... all the blood, the guts, the gore.”

  “Didn’t bother me none. Went home right afterward and ate a plateful of spaghetti.”

  “You’re a cold, heartless woman.”

  “And don’t you forget it.”

  They reached the end of the hallway and the set of double stainless steel doors. One had a sign that read: “Authorized Personnel Only Beyond This Point.”

  Often, Savannah had thought, when viewing that sign—and the soul-scarring sights beyond that door—that even authorized personnel would be better off not entering.

  She had seen many sights inside Dr. Liu’s autopsy suite that kept her awake at night and made her reluctant to go into a dark room alone. Even her own bedroom.

  It was always horrifying to see, firsthand, what evil one human being could perpetrate upon another one.

  But she had also learned many a valuable truth inside those doors. So, the journeys had always been worth giving up a portion of her naiveté with its accompanying sense of false safety.

  And she hoped this trip would be equally helpful.

  “When you talked to her earlier, did she say she was finished?” Savannah asked before pushing the door open.

  “Not done, but just about.”

  Oh, well, she thought, so much for the more pleasant alternative of sitting in the doctor’s clinical little office and hearing about the autopsy, versus seeing it in person.

  After viewing so many over the years, Savannah had gotten more accustomed to it, but not if it was someone she knew. No amount of self-talk or attempts at attitude adjustment could prepare her for that.

  Only yesterday Madeline Aberson had been coaching her on how to hold her wedding bouquet. And now she was gone, her body nothing more than a lifeless specimen on a coroner’s table.

  It didn’t seem possible.

  But it was true. It hit her like a hardball between the eyes when she swung the right door open and stuck her head into the room.

  There was Madeline. Lying on the stainless steel, naked except for a small white towel that Dr. Liu used to cover the private body parts of those she worked on.

  It struck Savannah, as it always did, how vulnerable a person looked at that moment.

  This was the first time she had entered this room since her own shooting. And the unwelcome thought rushed through her mind that, but for the grace of God and an inch this way or that, she would have been stretched out on this very table.

  The mental image stopped her in her tracks. She stood there for a long, awkward moment as Dr. Liu, suited in surgical scrubs, stood on the opposite side of the table and waited for them to approach.

  Dirk put his hand on Savannah’s back, leaned his head down close to hers, and whispered, “You all right, Van?”

  She nodded. And with a mighty effort, pulled her mind back to a better place.

  If you could call investigating the murder of your wedding planner better, she told herself.

  She forced herself to look at the body with impassive, professional determination.

  The Y incision that extended length-wise down the center of Madeline Aberson’s chest and branched out toward her shoulders had been closed with Dr. Liu’s neat stitches. So had the cut from ear to ear and over the crown of the head.

  The victim was ready to be bagged and transported to the funeral home.

  Savannah was grateful, at least today, that she’d been spared the more graphic part of the examination.

  “Did those three stab wounds do it?” Dirk asked the doctor.

  She nodded. “One of them in particular. The penetrating trauma led to cardiac tamponade.”

  “What’s cardiac tampon ... whatever you said,” Savannah asked.

  “Our hearts are encased in an outer covering, a sac,” Dr. Liu explained. “When blood builds up in the space between that sac and the heart muscle—in this case, because of the penetrating wound—it can compress the heart and interfere with its pumping. The victim loses consciousness because of the lack of blood supply to the brain.”

  “The stab marks themselves looked small,” Dirk said. “The actual entrance wounds, that is.”

  Dr. Liu nodded. “They are. They were made by something very small and narrow. But long ... eight inches at least.”

  “So, not a knife?” Savannah asked.

  “Definitely not a knife.”

  “A screwdriver?” Dirk asked.

  “No. More narrow than a screwdriver, and not flat on the end. Sharp and pointed.”

  Savannah thought it over for a moment. “An ice pick?”

  Dr. Liu nodded. “Maybe.”

  “Would an ice pick cause that much bleeding, though,” Dirk asked, “enough to press against the heart and interfere with its beating, like you said?”

  “It doesn’t take that much blood to cause tamponade. One hundred milliliters can do it.”

  When they both looked momentarily confused, she added, “That’s less than half a cup ... for you nonscientific, nonmetric-speaking types.”

  “Thanks.” Savannah looked the body over, up and down. “Were there any other signs of trauma ... of struggle?”

  Dr. Liu reached down and picked up one of Madeline’s hands. “There are slight abrasions here, on the heels of her hands. As though she may have put her hands out to catch herself when falling forward.”

  The doctor moved to the lower end of the table and pointed to the body’s right shin. “There’s scraping there, too, consistent with that on the hands.”

  “She wouldn’t have gotten those by falling inside the hotel room,” Savannah said. “It has thick, plush carpeting. And the bathroom has smooth tile.”

  “The patio tiles are rough,” Dirk added. “She might have been stabbed right where you found her, Savannah.”

  “And shoved right into the water.” Savannah shuddered, thinking of how Madeline had looked when she discovered her. “Her feet were out of the water. She could have skinned her shins on the rock edge of the pool when she went in.”

  “Was she dead before or after she hit the water?” Dirk asked.

  As Dr. Liu peeled off her surgical gloves and tossed them into a nearby waste can, she said, “She had some water in her lungs. Not as much
as you would expect if the cause of death were simply drowning. I think she died quickly from the stab wounds, and the water was incidental.”

  “No defensive wounds?” Savannah asked.

  “None.” Dr. Liu removed her surgical cap and jacket and tossed them into a hamper. She looked tired, as she always did when she had finished an autopsy and ruled it a homicide.

  Murder was hard on the spirit. Anyone’s. Even a spirit as stalwart as Dr. Jennifer Liu’s.

  “Your lady there didn’t fight back,” she said. “Sadly, I don’t think she got the chance to.”

  Savannah sighed and looked at Dirk. He seemed as tired and weighed down as the doctor. “And now it’s up to us,” she said, “to make sure that her killer doesn’t have a fighting chance either.”

  Chapter 11

  Savannah never passed up an opportunity to take a little sightseeing trip into Spirit Hills, one of her favorite areas of San Carmelita.

  Only rich people lived in Spirit Hills. Or, at least, people who had enough money to “put on the dog,” as they said in McGill, Georgia.

  Savannah had never figured out the logic behind that little Southernism, but as a daughter of Dixie, she knew that it had nothing to do with wearing anything canine related. It had to do with showing the rest of the world that you had more than they did ... and, therefore, were a far more valuable human being than their sorry ass.

  And Savannah would be the first to admit that anybody who could afford to live inside this gated, exclusive community in one of its Tudor mansions, Italian villas, contemporary wonders, or French chateaus, had to be better than she was.

  They probably never had mussed-up hair, a bad night’s sleep, a pimple on their nose, or a fight with their spouse.

  Mundane problems like that simply wouldn’t be allowed inside those giant wrought iron gates with the twenty-four-hour guard.

  Of course, she knew better, because she had investigated murders and other horrors behind these gates, and knew firsthand that tragedy could strike anywhere. Life had an unpleasant and often unexpected way of circumventing the protective walls that wealth erected ... twenty-four-hour guard or no.