Buried In Buttercream

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 since 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