Buried In Buttercream

braced herself for the onslaught. “I don’t know where to begin. Madeline Aberson is the wedding planner from hell! Don’t let anybody that you know hire her! She totally ruined our day for us. It was a disaster because of her, and she won’t even own up to it, let alone apologize!”
    “Could you be more specific?” Savannah asked ... knowing she could and would.
    “Oh, sure. First of all, she didn’t even show up on our wedding day. I didn’t see her face or get as much as a phone call from her. Come to find out, she’d booked two weddings at the same time. I guess the other one meant more to her than mine.”
    “Okay. That’s very unprofessional of her. What else?”
    “Our flowers never arrived! She booked the vendor and placed the order, but she owed them a fortune, and they refused to deliver. My husband’s father ran to the grocery store at the last minute and bought some supermarket roses, or my bridesmaids and I would’ve been empty-handed walking down the aisle.”
    “Ouch.”
    “And the hotel where she’d booked us for our first night together, before we took off for Cabo? We arrived only to find it was closed for remodeling! She should have known that! We had to spend our first night as husband and wife at my mother-in-law’s!”
    “Whoa, that’s a bite in the butt!” Savannah said, forgetting, for a moment, her own wedding catastrophes.
    “No kidding. And she never returned the money to us either. No matter how many times I called her. That’s the so-called ‘harassment’ that she accused me of to get that restraining order. I was just calling to tell her she’d better at least pay me what she owed me, or I’d sue her. What’s ‘harassing’ about that?”
    Dirk cleared his throat. “Um ... I read the order. It says you made threats of physical violence against her.”
    Celia shrugged. “I might have casually mentioned in passing that if she didn’t fork over the cash, I was going to kick her ass so hard that it’d be up between her shoulder blades.”
    Nodding, Savannah said, “Yep. That’d be it.”
    “It was just a colorful figure of speech.”
    Savannah chuckled. “I’m from the South, so I understand all about colorful figures of speech, but can you see how Ms. Aberson and the court construed that as a threat?”
    “I guess. But what the heck are you here for? I haven’t gone near her or called her or contacted her in any way since I was served that paper telling me not to.”
    “We’re working a case,” Dirk told her. “And we’re here to ask you where you were last Saturday afternoon.”
    “Why?”
    “You answer my question, and maybe I’ll answer yours,” he told her.
    She seemed to think for a moment. “Let’s see ... Saturday afternoon. ... My fianc—I mean, my husband—and I had just returned from our honeymoon. I guess I was home unpacking and doing laundry.”
    “Can anybody verify that?” Dirk asked.
    “No. Not really. My husband was already back at work. It was just me and the dogs there at home. Why? Why does it matter where I was?”
    “Because we’re trying to rule you out as a suspect.”
    “A suspect for what?” She looked at Dirk, then at Savannah.
    “Madeline,” Savannah said simply.
    “What about Madeline?” An ugly, most unladylike grin spread across Celia’s face. “Don’t tell me ... somebody actually did kick her butt up between her shoulder blades.”
    “No,” Savannah said.
    Celia looked deeply disappointed. “Oh, damn.”
    Savannah watched her closely when she said, “But they did stab her between the shoulder blades. Three times.”
    Celia Barnhart-Wynn’s face suddenly turned as white as the shirts her students wore. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, wow.”
    Savannah nodded solemnly. “Oh, yeah.”

    Later, they left Celia to return to her teacher’s assistant duties, and as they walked back to the car, Savannah said, “Can you believe a person that hostile takes care of children? Scary thought.”
    “Do you think she killed Madeline?” Dirk asked.
    “I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure ... she certainly had motive. Listening to her story, I was wanting to kill Madeline for her.”
    Dirk sighed as he opened the Buick’s passenger door for Savannah. “You know, it’s a lot easier when the victim’s a nice person without an enemy in the world.”
    “Except one.”
    “Yeah, except one. It’s a lot easier to catch a murderer if the whole damned state didn’t want them dead.”

    Once