Buried In Buttercream

goes down.”
    “Yeah, but setting up two alibis?” Savannah said. “That makes you look more guilty than innocent.”
    Waycross took one of the last drumsticks off the chicken platter. “He’s a little touched in the head, if you ask me. Preoccupied by death and dying.”
    In unison, everyone at the table turned to look at Jesup. Today she was wearing a black and red death-metal tee-shirt and red makeup “tears” dripping from the corners of her eyes.
    She shrugged. “Being real about the inevitability of death helps us to celebrate life. It’s a healthy thing.”
    “This guy’s an undertaker,” Tammy said. “And he collects stuff like antique undertakers’ tools. That’s a little creepy, don’t you think?”
    “Cool.” Jesup’s eyes glowed. “There’s a store down by the beach, The White Rose, that sells stuff like that. It’s awesome. I went in there while you guys were all looking for dumb shells on the beach.”
    “My shells aren’t dumb,” Jillian protested. “I found a pretty pink one.”
    “Your shells are lovely, sweet pea,” Granny told her, patting her on the head. “And the rest of you watch the subject matter of this here conversation. Let’s keep our children children for as long as we can.”
    “Point taken, Gran,” Savannah said. “The rest of us will use ... um ... alternative terminology when discussing the particulars of this situation.”
    “Huh?” Jillian asked, looking adequately confused.
    “Mission accomplished. Follow in suit.” Savannah looked over at Jesup, who was trying to get the biscuit basket away from Marietta. “This store you’re talking about, does it carry, shall we say, items that could be classified as ‘macabre’?”
    “It’s packed with stuff like that.”
    “Do they sell seashells and kites?” Jillian asked. “I like stores that sell fun beach stuff like that. Oh, and stuff with glitter and sparkles.”
    “Me, too,” Gran said. “Gobble up them peas now.”
    Jesup thought for a moment. “I guess you’d classify them as ‘cemetery chic.’”
    “Hmm,” Dirk said, “those are two words I never thought I’d hear in the same sentence.”
    “How much you wanna bet he’s shopped there?” Tammy said.
    Waycross nodded. “You know he has.”
    “I don’t know what that’s got to do with this miserable, rotten case,” Dirk grumbled.
    Jesup took a long drink of her iced tea, and with a self-important little smirk, said, “Aren’t you missing a ... uh”—she looked down at the children—“a utensil employed as an instrument of ... say ... annihilation?”
    Dirk stared at her, blank-faced. “What?”
    Savannah leaned over and whispered, “A murder weapon. Code, for the younguns.”
    “Oh, right. Yeah, we don’t know what it was,” he said. “Just a general description. Eight inches or more in length. Narrow, sharp on the end.”
    “There are lots of undertaker tools like that,” Jesup said with all authority. “Things that they stab into the bod—”
    “Jesup Loretta Reid, eat some peas!” Granny said, shoving the bowl in her direction.
    “But I don’t like peas.”
    “Eat ’em or wear ’em.”
    “Okay.”

    Savannah, Dirk, Tammy, and Waycross—the newest honorary member of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency—filed into The White Rose, trying, for all the world, to look like four people who weren’t just your ordinary schmucks, but cool, hip folks interested in the darker side of life.
    The clerk behind the counter, whose face was decorated with the same type of bizarre makeup that Jesup liked to use, gave them a quick once-over and went back to reading his vintage edition of Fangoria .
    Savannah glanced around the shop and decided that she wasn’t likely to become one of their steady customers. The photo books of dead children, the artwork of serial killers reverently displayed on the walls, and the decorative statuary of demons raping women was unsettling to her spirit, to say the least.
    She decided it was a good thing that Granny didn’t know that Jesup was into this sort of thing. Otherwise, she’d be scheduling an exorcism for her at the next Wednesday-night prayer meeting.
    Finally, the guy behind the counter lowered his magazine and said, “You need help or just looking?”
    Savannah left a display of freeze-dried tarantulas and bats and walked over to him. “I don’t think y’all have anything I’d want to buy,” she told him. “But we do have a couple of questions for