Buried In Buttercream

waving her over to the car.
    Again, it wasn’t like Tammy to interrupt something like this. It had to be important.
    “Excuse me, Mrs. Aberson. I’m sorry, but I have to go over there just for a moment. I’ll be right back. You just sit here and try to collect yourself. Everything’s going to be okay.”
    Yeah, right, she said to herself as she walked away . And why don’t you just go ahead and tell the poor woman that the world is at peace and we’ve solved the problem of global hunger, too.
    She got to the car, where Tammy had rolled down the window.
    “What’s up, kiddo?” Savannah asked.
    Tammy thrust her electronic tablet at her. “You’ve got to see this,” she said. “I just found it and thought you should know. I think it changes everything.”

    A few moments later, Savannah walked back across the lawn from the Mustang to Geraldine Aberson, who was even more distraught than when she had left her.
    Savannah knelt beside her and looked into the woman’s tormented face.
    “Is there something you have to tell me, Geraldine?” she asked softly.
    The older woman sat silently, crying, biting her lower lip and wringing her hands. Finally, she nodded. “I can’t let my Reuben take the blame for this, no matter what he says.”
    “No, of course you can’t.”
    Savannah took her hand and held it between hers. “Tell me what happened. Help me understand why you did it, and then maybe I can help you.”

Chapter 25
    S avannah had decided that it was time to have an enormous backyard barbecue to celebrate the solving of the Aberson case. She hoped to foster familial togetherness with lip-smacking ribs, potato salad, baked beans, and the simple act of turning the crank on some homemade ice cream.
    Plus, there were less things for the kids to break outside, and the backyard was considerably larger than her living room, so it served to dilute the strong brew of family togetherness.
    Marietta was lying on a beach towel in the smallest bikini that Gran would allow, soaking in rays.
    Cordele sat in a chair, reading the latest pop-psychology bestseller.
    Atlanta was perched on the back porch, playing her guitar, a pencil in her mouth and a pad of paper on her thigh as she wrote down the chords to the mournful country song she was composing. It was about some girl who had jumped into a river and drowned herself after being betrayed by a lover. A unique and original subject for a country song, to be sure.
    Dutiful Alma was carting dishes of food from the kitchen to the picnic table in the yard without complaint. She even hummed a happy little tune as she worked ... except for when she walked by Atlanta. She had been told, “Cut it out! Your caterwaulin’s interferin’ with my composin’ here, girl!”
    Macon was snoring in the hammock, while Jillian and Jack stuck dandelions in his hair and between his toes.
    Jesup sat under the magnolia tree, reading some vampire magazine with a gruesome cover. She looked contented as she reveled in death-obsessed fiction that, according to her, affirmed the joys of life.
    For once, Vidalia and Butch weren’t fighting. She was parked in a folding lawn chair with him sitting on the ground, giving her a foot rub. The two toddlers were racing in circles around them, laughing when they inevitably fell on their chubby, cherub faces in the grass.
    The detectives of the group were gathered around the barbecue grill, where Savannah and Waycross manned the tongs, flipped the burgers, adjusted the hot dogs, and basted the ribs.
    Granny had decided to hang out with them, because the conversation was far more lively and the subject matter more interesting.
    “I can’t get over a woman like that Geraldine killing her own daughter-in-law that’a way,” she said as she adjusted her lawn chair to recline a couple of notches. “I saw her picture on the morning news, and she looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”
    “You might have, too, Gran, if you’d had the kind of provocation that the Abersons had,” Savannah told her. “She bawled like a baby when she told me why she did it. Their little granddaughter told her that Madeline had been trying to get the child to say that her daddy had molested her. She even bribed the child with some sort of princess outfit if she’d tell the school counselor that he’d touched her inappropriately.”
    Granny’s eyes narrowed and her face that was usually sweet and saintly turned hard and scary. “Oh ... that woman needed a