Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Monday
Afternoon, AGD

“We just can’t go to a strip club alone,”
I said. I had given up trying to talk her out of it.

“Why not?”

“Look at us. An old woman and an
archaeologist. We don’t fit.”

I was sitting on Miss Vivee’s bed watching
her as she pulled dress after dress out trying to decide what to wear. Her hair
was loose and hung down her back and she was all smiles. She acted like she was
going on her first date, no outfit seemed to be the right one. I wondered did
she actually think she could find something in her closet that would be just the
right thing for a hundred-year old woman to wear to a strip club.

Cat on the other hand liked everything she
had pulled out. She barked her approval of each choice.

Miss Vivee’s room was big and filled with
antiques. When you walked through her bedroom door it was like stepping back in
time. She had a big, four-poster bed, floor and table lamps with fringe hanging
from the bottom of them, dark wine-colored wallpaper, and a beautiful mahogany
wood vanity with a silk covered stool. And there were pictures of Bay all over.

I wouldn’t have been able to stomach all
the “
Bay-ness
” if she hadn’t been holding information that I wanted over
my head. The only way, she had told me, that I was going to find out what she
had to do with Louis Colquett’s death was if I took her to Atlanta. And to be
sure I didn’t renege on my part, she told me she would only tell me once we got
back. Plus, after I realized how much it meant to her, I didn’t have the heart
not to take her. What’s a trip two hours up the road? So I was stuck going to a
strip club in Atlanta, and suffering through the “Eyes of Bay” staring at me
from every corner of the room.

“I see what you mean,” she said and sat
down on the bed next to me. “Just the two of us can’t go. We need to take a man
with us. Make us look more legit.” she said and bit down on her lip.

Legit? Where did she get that word from?

“We could ask Bay to go with us,” she
said, a questioning look on her face.

“No,” I practically shouted out the words.
She raised her eyebrows at my outburst. “It’s just . . . you know . . . He
won’t let you investigate like you want,” I said. I didn’t want her to know
that I was afraid if I was anywhere near that man he would trick me into
confessing my crimes. I tried to steer clear of him at all cost.

“That’s true,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve
got it,” she said, snapping her finger. She hopped up and Cat jumped with her,
tail wagging on “high.” She grabbed both my hands. “We’ll ask Mac!”

I thought she was going to pull me up and
start dancing she was so elated over her decision.

“Who?” I asked.

 “He’ll be our cover,” she said beaming. Then
we’ll look like we belong.”

“Who?” I asked again. Then it hit me. “You
mean the ninety-year old man that was at the diner staring at you? That Mac?”

“Yes. That Mac. I only know one Mac. I’ll
call him and tell him to meet us at the diner. We can tell him our plans.” She
stopped and squinted her eyes. “I would go to his house, but I vowed I never
step foot in there again.” She shook her shoulders and looked at me. “That’ll
work fine. The diner. We’ll meet him at the diner.”

I wasn’t as enthused about Mac as she was.

“I really don’t think taking an ol- I mean
him – Mac will help us.”

“Why not? Don’t be silly.”

“He may not want to go.  Or be up to it.”
I remembered how upset Miss Vivee got the last time we ran into him. I just
didn’t think it would be a good idea for her to be like that all the way to
Atlanta and back.

“Oh hogwash,” she said. “That man’ll do
anything I ask him. He’s in love with me you know.”

I arched an eyebrow. “No. I didn’t know.”
That comment nipped my concern in the bud. “Soooo,” I started slowly. “Do you
love him?”

“Of course I do.”

I smiled.
How cute.

“Then why aren’t you together. And why did
you barely speak to him when we saw him at the diner? And why did you duck down
in the seat when we passed his house?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Missy.”

“I’m a scientist.”

“Poohey.”

I laughed. “So what’s the answer?”

“To which question?”

“All of them, Miss Vivee. Spill the
beans.”

She lowered her eyes and came back to sit
on the bed with me. “I’m mad at him.”

“What happened?”

She took in a breath. She glanced at me
and then stared down at her hands that she had folded in her lap.

“I ran him over with my car,” she said in
a low, contrite voice.

“Oh?” That’s the only thing I could think to
say.

“You know that little limp he has when he
walks?” she asked. I nodded my head. “It’s because of me and my brand new 1994
Lincoln Continental. I called her Betsy – she was a great car. Anyway, we broke
his hip.”

“Wait. 1994? That was like twenty years
ago.”

She nodded.

“You two were in your seventies.”

She nodded again.

“You hit a seventy year old man with your
car?”

No nod this time, she just sighed and
closed her eyes.

“Why?”

“I thought he was cheating on me.”

I couldn’t hold my laughter in any longer.
“With who?”

“This hussy that lived the next street
over from him,” she said, her whole demeanor changing. “Ooowee! I couldn’t
stand her. Always smiling at him. Falling all over herself when she was around
him. Cooking him dinner and inviting herself to have meals with him.” Vivee
waved her hand in the air. “Just the thought of it, even now, turns my
stomach.”

“You said you ‘thought’ he was. Did you
find out if he really was cheating on you with her?”

“Well.” She fluttered her eyes. “He said
he wasn’t. But you know men, if their lips are moving they’re probably lying.”

“So are they together now?”

“Oh God no. Don’t be silly. If they were I
wouldn’t be taking him to Atlanta with us. She’s dead and buried. Rotting in
hell I hope.” She turned and looked at me, the fire of her eagerness popping
back into her eyes. “So Mac gets a reprieve.” She clapped her hands together.

“Now come on, Missy. Get a move on.” She
patted me on my leg and stood up. “We gotta go and tell him about our little
trip. With that limp he don’t get around as quick as he used to. It’ll take him
some time to get ready.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tuesday
Afternoon, AGD

“Mac is here, Miss Vivee,” Viola Rose
whispered it as soon as we walked through the door of the Jellybean Cafe. She
nodded her head toward the back of the diner. “Says he’s here waiting for you,
wouldn’t even order anything until you got here. Wasn’t sure how you felt about
talking to him. I know how he dills your pickles. Maybe you’d want to come back
later?”

“It’s okay, Viola Rose,” Miss Vivee
replied. “I asked him to meet me here.”

“Oh. I see,” she said, drawing out the
words and then flashing a conspiratorial smile.

“No. You don’t see, Viola Rose. It’s just
business,” Miss Vivee held her head up, chin jutted out and seemed to saunter toward
the booth where Mac sat. “Just bring us three glasses of iced tea over, will
ya?” she said over her shoulder.

She was putting on a show. I grinned. Mac
sure did do something to her. After all that talk it had taken her the rest of
the day to get up the nerve to call Mac and tell him to meet us at the diner.
And all morning she fussed with another wardrobe dilemma. This time what to
wear to see Mac. She had put on face powder and that same lipstick she’d worn
for her “coming out.” She had checked several times in her compact mirror on
our way to the diner that everything had stayed in place. She’d even left Cat
at home.

“Sure thing,” Viola Rose called out to
her. I turned my head to look at Viola Rose and she gave me a crooked smile.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t tease, so
I kept a straight face and followed behind Miss Vivee.

As we walked up to the booth, Mac stood up
and waited for us to sit before he pushed himself back in on his side of the
booth. I noted he didn’t have his cane again.

“I ordered you an iced tea, Mac. You still
drink those, don’t you?” Even Miss Vivee’s voice changed around Mac. It was
softer and gentler.

“I do.” He smiled. “Thank you.”

She eyed him, and a smile crept up her
lips. “What’s that you got on your hair,” Miss Vivee said crinkling her nose.
“Looks like a cow licked it.”

His hand immediately shot up to it head
and he swiped a hand across it. He had his all white hair parted on the side
and slicked down.

“Pomade,” he answered.

Miss Vivee raised her eyebrows and said,
“Hmmmm.”

Okay, so maybe it was just her voice that
was nicer, because her attitude hadn’t changed.

Mac looked as his hand, the one he had
swiped across the pomade, and then wiped it on a napkin he got out of the
holder.

Viola Rose brought the drinks over, she
had a coke for me instead of iced tea.
How nice she remembered.
She sat
them down in front of us. “Anything else,” she asked.

“Not now, Viola Rose,” Miss Vivee
dismissed her with a wave. “I’ll let you know if we change our minds.”

I leaned into Miss Vivee. “Maybe he wanted
something to eat.” I nodded my head toward Mac.

“Who? Mac?” Miss Vivee looked at me and
then over at Mac. “Did you want something to eat, Mac?”

I saw a glint in his eye and almost a
smile cross his face. “No Vivee. I’ll wait for you.”

She gave me a “That’s what I thought
look,” then jumped like she’d been startled. “Oh my,” she said sitting up
straight in her seat. “Where are my manners?” She pointed to me. “Logan
Dickerson this is Macomber Whitson. Mac, this is my good friend and companion, Logan.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said wondering
when Miss Vivee and I had become “good friends.”

“Just call me, Mac,” he said and stuck out
his hand for me to shake.

“Mac is a doctor,” Miss Vivee said to me
with a nod. “Tell her, Mac.”

“I’m a doctor,” he said as instructed.

“Same kind of, um, doctor as you?” I said.
I had to refrain from putting air quotes around the word “doctor.”

“I told you, I’m an herbalist. So. No,”
she said. “He went to school. Graduated top of his class. Didn’t you, Mac?”

“Yes. I did.” He seemed to blush. I guess
he liked Miss Vivee bragging about him.

“He was the town doctor. Birthed most of
the people in this town and took care of them while they grew up, got old and
died.” She stared right at Mac as she talked. “Back then the town wasn’t as big
as it is now.”

All five hundred people big
, I thought.

She broke her stare and looked at me. “Are
you hungry?”

“Me?”
Oh, did she care?
“No. I’ll
wait for you,” I said. I figured Mac’s answer had been the right one.

“So,” Miss Vivee said and hesitated,
leaving an awkward silence among us. She seemed unsure of what she wanted to
say or at least how she wanted to say it. The plan was to get him to go to
Atlanta with us.

Had she changed her mind?

She licked her lips and then took a sip of
her iced tea. “Mac,” she finally said. “You heard about Gemma Burke?”

“Sure did. Terrible thing. Word going
around it was Renmar’s bouillabaisse that killed her.”

“Well that’s a lie,” Miss Vivee said adamantly.

“How do
you
think she died, Vivee?”
he asked, the question etched in his face.

He knew her well. Right away he knew she
thought something else was going on.

Miss Vivee looked at me and then leaned
across the table. Mac leaned in as well.

“I think she was murdered,” Miss Vivee
whispered.

Mac sat back slowly. I wasn’t sure if
because he was surprised about Miss Vivee’s revelation or because that’s all
the fast he could move.

“Well now,” he said and wiped his mouth
with his napkin. “And who do you think did the murdering?”

Before Miss Vivee could answer, Viola Rose
popped back over. “Just checking back for food orders.” She stood poised with
order pad and pen.

“Maybe in a minute, Viola Rose,” Miss
Vivee said visibly annoyed with her. And then we all sat quietly. No one
speaking as long as she stood there.

Viola Rose looked around the table,
clicked the top of her pen a few times and said, “Well I guess I can take a
hint.” She clicked the pen once more stuck it through her teased hair and put
the order pad in her pocket. “Just give me a holler if you decide you want
anything.”

As she walked off, Miss Vivee said,
“Hadn’t I already told her that I would?”

I laughed. But Mac picked the conversation
back up. He seemed keen to hear what Miss Vivee had to say.

“So, Vivee,” Mac said. “Who’s the murderer?”
He eyed her. “Do you know?”

“Not yet. But I’ve been doing some
investigating and I’ve got a list of suspects.”

“Really now. And who’s on the list?”

She looked at me and back at him. “It’s
incomplete right now. But we’re on the trail of a couple of them.”

He nodded his head slowly, and let his
eyes drift upward. He seemed to contemplate Miss Vivee’s theory of murder.

“So since you know that she was murdered, you
must know
how
she was murdered,” he said bringing his eyes down to meet
hers.

“I do,” she said and took a sip of her
tea.

My ears perked up. She had yet to share
her thoughts of how Gemma Burke was murdered with me. It seemed as if she felt
like I should just have blind faith in her and follow her every command,
without question, as she carried through on her inquisition.

I chuckled.
And that was exactly what I
had been doing.