Diva 02 _ Diva Takes the Cake, The by Krista Davis

Daisy. “It’s not supposed to be there. But Craig is giving knives like that to his groomsmen as gifts.”

    “Ah, the macho gift. All men are hunters, ergo even those who sit behind desks require an engraved knife with which they could gut an antelope, should the occasion arise.” He turned it over. “Oho! Who is KPA?”

    “Kevin, the best man.” Had Kevin meant to coax me to the shed because he intended to harm me? He barely knew me. “Anyone could have taken the knife out of the box.”

    “Had Kevin left it here, surely he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to cut himself.”

    “We stumbled around. Maybe he didn’t plan on that.”

    “Stumbled around in the shed in the dark?” Bernie sounded amused.

    “Please, it’s not like that.”

    “Sophie! Sophie!”

    I recognized Mars’s voice. “In the shed.”

    Mars joined us. “What are you doing in the dark?” He tried the switch on the wall. “The light must have burned out. The outside one is burned out, too. Sophie, don’t you ever replace lightbulbs?” He sighed. “I’ll come over in the morning and do it for you.” Stepping outside, he reached up and the outside light came on. “Look at that, it was just loose.”

    Bernie showed him the knife.

    “Don’t touch, it’s cursed,” I joked. “So far everyone who has come into contact with the stupid thing has been cut.”

    “Sophie, I swear your mind works overtime on sinister ideas. Emily was hanged, not stabbed.” Mars took the knife and flicked it shut. “I’m going to walk Darby back to her hotel.”

    “She doesn’t want to go with Stan and Robert?” I asked.

    “The murder shook her up. She liked the woman who died, and she’s taking it pretty hard.”

    The three of us returned to the house, and I went back to my hosting duties. I found Humphrey in the dining room staring at Natasha’s heart topiary.

    “Must have been a lot of work,” I said.

    “The ribbon—how does it stay in airborne coils like that?” he asked.

    “Thin wires run through both sides. You can position it in any shape you like.”

    He reached over and squeezed a curl of ribbon. When he released it, the ribbon remained in an ugly clump. “I think this might be what the killer used to strangle Emily.”

    “Natasha’s ribbon?”

    “They can’t figure out what made the marks on her neck.” He ripped a portion of ribbon loose.

    I hoped Natasha wasn’t watching.

    Humphrey pulled the ribbon tight between his hands, twisted it, and tugged on it. “This could make uneven marks of varying size and depth. Where the wires were apart, it might look like two strands but where they’re twisted or very close, it would appear as one.”

    I was in no mood to defend Natasha, but I pointed out that wired ribbon could be bought at any craft store and it wasn’t uncommon to find it in grocery stores and drugstores.

    He examined the ribbon in his hands. “They found microscopic bits of brown fiber on her neck, Sophie.”

FIFTEEN

    From “THE GOOD LIFE ONLINE”:

    The key to a smooth wedding is to plan ahead. The site, the dress, the food, all of the details can be arranged well in advance. Use checklists and start as early as possible. The week of the wedding, you should only have to make a few phone calls to vendors to verify your plans. Don’t leave place cards, favors, or seating arrangements to the last minute. If seating everyone is making your head spin, try http://www.weddingwire.com for a free interactive seating chart.

    —Sophie Winston
    There must be thousands of chocolate brown wired ribbons within a twenty-mile radius, but it didn’t strain the imagination too much to think that the ribbon might have come from the home where Emily had been found.

    When we saw Natasha storming toward us, Humphrey hastily stuffed the ribbon into his trouser pocket.

    “Someone has tampered with my topiary,” she huffed, glaring at me.

    One tiny bit of ribbon was missing, and Natasha acted like a