Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Powder
Springs, Georgia

Thursday
Morning, AGD

“She was a wonderful teacher. I really
hated to see her go.” Jill Sterba stood before us, her hands clasped in front
of her. She spoke in a soft, even voice that was probably reserved for children
and meddling nonagenarians. “But other than that, I really can’t say anything.”

Jill Sterba was the bespectacled,
blonde-haired principal of Euclid Park Elementary School. She was tall and
thin, and had a no nonsense air about her. She stood by the set of glass doors
where she’d let us in, but it appeared that’s all the far she was letting us
go.

Just like no one thought it strange that
Grandma and Grandpa Big Time Liars were in a strip club, no one gave it a
second thought that a stripper called Buns Galore knew that Euclid was a Greek
mathematician. The school named in his honor was a one-story, tan brick
building that housed grades kindergarten through third.

We had spent the night before in a
five-star hotel in Atlanta that Miss Vivee paid for on her American Express
Blue. Bay had left, thank God, and Miss Vivee insisted that she and I share a
room. She also insisted that Mac had to get his own room, which she said he had
to pay for, too. Then she spent all evening in his room with him. I stayed in
our room and watched a movie and ordered room service. I wasn’t going to let
Miss Vivee pick up the charges for my food with the room, though. Although she
was throwing money around like she was Oprah, she was still just a little old
lady. Plus, I figured that Renmar had to have something to do with payments on
that credit card.

Miss Vivee came back to our room late,
well after I had gone to sleep. She must have just taken a “catnap” as my
grandmother says, because as soon as the sun came up, so did she. I had to keep
her calm until the school was open, because she was ready to go at dawn.

Miss Vivee had explained to Ms. Sterba
that she and Mac were Gemma’s long lost grandparents and that I was their nurse
and companion.

More lies to keep up with. I was thinking
about starting my own notebook just to help me keep track.

But the two of them finagled their way
into her office by playing on Mac’s bad leg. Good thing he’d brought his cane
along.

“How can I help you?” she said and
gestured toward two chairs that sat in front of her desk. I remained standing
and leaned on a nearby wall.

“We just need some information,” Miss
Vivee said.

“Gemma didn’t leave a forward address,
working phone number or any emergency contacts. So, as I told you Mrs.-”

“Whitson,” Mac said at the same time that
Miss Vivee said “Pennywell.”

They looked at each other.
“Pennywell-Whitson,” Miss Vivee said. It’s hyphenated.”

Principal Sterba nodded.

“So no way to contact our Gemma, huh?”
Miss Vivee said. She reached out for Mac.

“It’s okay, honey. We’ll find her.” He patted
her hand and looked at Principal Sterba. “It’s just that we can’t find her
anywhere. I really don’t know if my poor wife can take anymore disappointment.
We’ve been everywhere looking for her.”

“Did you, uhm, try Atlanta,” the principal
seemed reluctant to say anything.

“Oh, yes,” Mac said. “We know all about
her life there. But nothing is more important to us right now then finding our
grandchild.”

“We know you can’t give us any personal
information like where she lived or anything.” Miss Vivee bowed her head and
lifted just her eyes. “But is there
anything
that you can tell us?” I
could have sworn that I saw tears well up in Miss Vivee’s eyes.

Mac, on cue, grabbed her hand and this
time rubbed it gently. “We’re just so worried about her,” he said to Principal
Sterba. “She’s all the family we’ve got left.” He looked at Miss Vivee lovingly
and she returned the gaze.

I swear, those two were the biggest liars.
And it just seemed to come so naturally. I wonder are all old people like that?
My grandparents are always telling some kind of story to us about what our
parents had done when they were young or things that had happened to them. From
now on, I’m taking everything they say with a grain of salt.

“Well, when Gemma first arrived here,”
Principal Sterba began her story about Gemma. Evidently Miss Vivee and Mac had
been believable enough that she was willing to tell what she knew. “She had
just graduated. She completed her student teaching in Marietta but said she
wanted to live here in Powder Springs. Then she told me ‘how’ she worked her
way through school.” She put air quotes around the word “how.”

“I was leery about hiring her at first,”
Jill Sterba said, her eyes showing that she was remembering the incident. “Of
course we have a reputation to uphold and we want only the best environment for
our students. But Gemma promised me that nothing would come back to haunt her
or put the school in any bad light. She said that she’d never taken any
pictures or been on the Internet, she was sure of that. Plus she worked under a
stage name and always wore a black wig and heavy makeup. Even though a scandal
would be devastating to our small school, I took her at her word and hired her.

“Gemma turned out to be a caring and
dedicated teacher. The children and staff loved her. It wasn’t long before she
proved to me that I had made the right decision in giving her a chance. Then,
one day, just out of the blue, she quit. She said that she wanted to keep her
promise to me and something had come up where she didn’t think she’d be able
to.

“I knew that she must be referring to her days
working in Atlanta so I didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask any questions. I
accepted her resignation and she left. I did hear, later that is, that she had
moved back home.”

“Back home . . .” Miss Vivee let her voice
trail off then she grabbed her dress over her heart, pulled it tight and looked
at fake grandpa. “Mac, do you suppose . . .”

Mac’s eyes got big. I don’t know if he was
playing along and seemingly understood what she meant, or if he really didn’t
know what it was he was “supposed” to know.

“Oh my,” Miss Vivee started to fan her
hand over her face. “There was a place that she used to run away to when she
was young,” she licked her lips and let her eyes move from Mac back to
Principal Sterba. “Just to get away, you know. She always called it her other
‘home.’ I wonder . . .” Miss Vivee bowed her hand.

“Don’t cry, Vivee. We’ll find her. That’s
gotta be where she is,” Mac said. “C’mon, honey.” He stood up and helped Miss
Vivee stand.

“Thank you so much, Principal Sterba,”
Miss Vivee said through fake sniffles.

“Call me, Jill,” the principal told her.

“Jill.” Miss Vivee dabbed at her eyes with
a hanky that Mac had produced from his pocket. “I think we now might just know where
to find our Gemma.”

I didn’t want to be morbid, but I knew
where to find Gemma, too. At the coroner’s office in Augusta.

 “Mac shake the woman’s hand,” Miss Vivee
said. “I think she may have just given us back our granddaughter.”

Mac obliged. The crap flowing in the room
was getting too deep for me to stay without wading boots so I slipped out into
the hallway. Thought I’d go make a call to Hollywood and find an agent for Miss
Vivee. That woman had definitely missed her calling.

Chapter Thirty

Yasamee,
Georgia

Thursday
Afternoon, AGD

No one in Atlanta that we talked to knew a
Jeffrey Beck. Principal Sterba said Gemma left no contact numbers or
information on next of kin. That meant she had no names or addresses to share
with us. The strippers, Miss Vivee found out when I was outside talking to Bay,
did seem to think that Gemma had two boyfriends. Maybe Jeffrey Beck was one of
them, but we weren’t able to confirm it and we hadn’t a clue who the other one
could be and that worried Miss Vivee. She couldn’t “connect the dots,” she kept
saying, if she didn’t have all the information.

With Miss Vivee being the Queen of Lies,
and her trusty cohort, Sir Mac, seconding every fib she told I was beginning to
think that Miss Vivee might could wrangle enough information out of her
unsuspecting suspects to find out “whodunit.” So it made me sympathetic when
she was upset on not finding Jeffery Beck or the name of the second man in
Gemma’s life.

“I know what we have to do,” she said with
some reluctance in her voice. I’m sure she wasn’t timid about asking me to do
anything, I couldn’t ever get out of anything she wanted me to do. I just think
her hesitation stemmed from the fact that she wasn’t sure what her next step in
her crime solving spree would be.

“What is it, Miss Vivee? Who do we have to
lie to now?”

“Lie? We haven’t lied to anyone,” she said
sounding affronted.

“We’ve lied to
everyone
, Miss
Vivee.” I bit back a laugh. “Well.
You’ve
lied to everyone.”

“You just don’t understand the art of
investigation,” she said her nose wrinkled intimating I was confused. “Ask Bay.
You have to create an environment where the people you question feel
comfortable. Willing to talk. That’s all I did.”

“Uh-huh,” I said narrowing my eyes. “Yeah.
Right. Who do you want to question in your ‘comfortable environment’ now?”

“I want to talk to Koryn Razner. Gemma’s
houseguest.”

Why wasn’t I surprised
?

“With all of other suspects so far away,”
I said. “It’s looking more and more likely Home Girl is our killer. You sure
you want to talk to her?” I made sure she could detect the concern in my voice.
“Maybe let the Sheriff do it.”

“He already talked to her. Remember? He
got nothing. And she’s not the killer.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’s still in town. Still going
to Viola Rose’s on Saturdays.” She shook her head and set her mouth in a tight
line. “I just can’t see it unless she’s some kind of deranged, hardcore
sociopath, psycho-killer. No feelings. No remorse.”

“Maybe she is.”

“I’d be willing to bet a fat man that
she’s not.”

I hadn’t seen any fat men in Yasamee since
I’d arrived. I was thinking that perhaps Miss Vivee had lost them all with her
penchant for placing ill-conceived bets.

Nonetheless, lies, bad bets, and all, I
had become quite fond of Miss Vivee and her antics, I hadn’t heard from my mother
with the go-ahead to work legitimately on the Island, so I agreed to take her
to talk to Miss Psycho-Killer.

Chapter Thirty-One

This time, I decided, I was going in Gemma
Burke’s house with Miss Vivee. That way I could at least try to keep her
activities on the right side of the law.

We drove over to see Koryn in my jeep, in
virtual silence. I didn’t know if Miss Vivee was mad at me because I refused to
drive that boat she called a car or if she was quiet because she was thinking
hard on something. Cat was stretched across the back seat, not a care in the
world. I turned on the radio and listened to Whitney Houston’s
How Will I
Know
while I drove the two miles from the Maypop to Koryn’s.

The windows on the front of Gemma’s house
were open. A breeze flowing through ruffled the white sheer curtains. A “Home”
doormat sat in front of a canary blue door with a gold knocker. Two Adirondack
chairs that matched the blue on the door were sitting on the front porch. And
Miss Psycho-Killer herself was sitting in one of them. Feet up on the banister,
Koryn was wearing a pair of cut off shorts and a halter. She was reading a book
of poetry, and sipping on a glass of iced tea.

The scene certainly didn’t paint the
picture of a day in the life of a murderer.

Maybe Miss Vivee was right.

I parked one house up. Miss Vivee said she
didn’t want Koryn to “turn tail” and run because we pulled up into the driveway,
and I didn’t want to park right in front of the house either.

As usual, Miss Vivee didn’t fill me in on
the strategy she was using to elicit the smoking gun that would find us our
actual killer. I was supposed to be the wingman, but I was more like a bat on
our little capers, always flying in the dark.

I got out the car and then helped Miss
Vivee and Cat out. We walked up to the porch.

“Hello,” Miss Vivee said.

I wondered what lies she had set to tell.

“I’m Miss Vivee and this is Logan. We
wanted to speak to you about Gemma.”

Well would wonders never cease? She told
the truth.

“Hi,” Koryn said. “Come on up and have a
seat.” She set her glass of iced tea on the floor of the porch. “I can get
another chair from the house.” She stood up and pointed toward the door. “And get
you something to drink? Some iced tea?”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I can stand.”

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yep. I’m good. Thanks.”

“She’s fine,” Miss Vivee said with a wave
of her hand and sat down in the other Adirondack chair. “And we don’t need
anything to drink. Thanks for offering, though.”

Cat went up to Koryn and gave a sniff.
Koryn bent down, putting her nose into Cat’s face, she ruffled the hair around
her neck. Patting her on her head, Koryn said. “Good dog,” and looked at Miss
Vivee. “What’s her name?”

“Cat.”

Koryn let out a gentle laugh and gave Cat
one more pat.

“So what did you want to know?” She had a
soft voice and easy demeanor. Dressed for a lazy summer afternoon, she was
barefoot and had her brown hair, with its haphazard cut, pulled back in a
ponytail. Strands of it fell down around her face and neck.

“Gemma Burke was murdered.” Miss Vivee said,
taking off her sunglasses. No fanfare. No preamble. She announced it like she
was reading the day’s menu at the Maypop.

When she goes for honesty, she turns it on
full force.

“I know,” she said. “I heard talk at the
Jellybean Café.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and put her feet on the chair.
“I guess she was poisoned? Although when I asked the Sheriff about that he said
he wasn’t at liberty to discuss it. He’d just come by because he heard there’d
been a disturbance. I told him everything was okay and he left.”

“He’s right. He’d compromise the
investigation if he discussed it,” Miss Vivee said. “But I can tell you this, Gemma
wasn’t poisoned.”

“She wasn’t?” she asked. She put her feet
down and leaned forward. “Then how was she killed?”

“We’re working on that.” Miss Vivee said
matter-of-factly.

“
You
are?” Koryn had a surprised
look on her face. She looked at me and then back to Miss Vivee. “Why?”

“The Sheriff asked us to help.”

Now the lies begin.

“He had to work with the coroner’s office
up in Augusta to get the body autopsied,” Miss Vivee said without even
flinching. “But because I know everyone in town, he asked me to think about who
might have done it.” Miss Vivee patted her leg and Cat jumped up in her lap.
Stroking him she said, “Me coming to talk to you is probably a little more than
what the Sheriff had in mind when he asked me, but something Gemma Burke said
to me right before she died got me thinking. I thought I’d come over and speak
with you about it.”

I looked at Miss Vivee and just shook my
head.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help find who
did this,” Koryn said. “Gemma saved my life. I wish I could do more than just
answer questions now.” She looked down at her hands. “
After
she’s gone.”

“How did Gemma save your life?” I asked.
But as soon as I did, Miss Vivee furrowed her brows and gave me a scolding look
that said “I’m asking the questions.”

“I was in an abusive relationship,” Koryn
said seemingly unaware of Miss Vivee’s displeasure. “Very abusive.” She looked at
me. “I feared for my life. And Gemma understood. She’d been in an abusive
relationship, too. Not as bad a mine, but it made her understand what to do to
help me. She brought me down here with her. Sort of let me hide out here.” A
slight smiled crossed her face. “She’d said no one I knew would come to
Yasamee. I’d be safe.”

“And that’s exactly what she said to me,”
Miss Vivee said. “And then she told me about two men in her life. One breaking
her heart, and the other trying to break the bones in her body.”

The lies were growing exponentially.

“She said that to you?” Koryn looked at
Miss Vivee in disbelief. “She really didn’t like to talk about that kind of
stuff.”

“She told me,” Miss Vivee said, gentleness
showing in her voice. “People in this town often come to me.” She reached over
and squeezed Koryn’s hand. “When they need someone to talk to. I’ve lived a
long time. Seen a lot of things.” She looked Koryn in the eye. “Been through a
lot of things myself.”

“Well. I know that Darius never broke any
of her bones,” Koryn said.

Ah, his name is Darius.

Miss Vivee winked at me on the sly, then
said, “I think she just used that word metaphorically.”

I had to try really hard not to roll my
eyes.

Koryn nodded.

“But I know that Darius is who she was
talking about when she said the part about breaking bones because she told me
so,” Miss Vivee said. “And Jeffrey Beck is the one that broke her heart.”

Koryn lifted her eyebrows and sat back in
the chair. “Gemma told you all of that?”

Miss Vivee nodded her head.

“I mean, I believe you because you know
their names, and what happened – basically – but she never wanted to talk about
that. I’m surprised she told you.”

“Well she did,” Miss Vivee assured her. “But
you know, Koryn, with love often comes trouble.” Koryn nodded her head. “And as
you’ve experienced that trouble can cause great harm. Not just to your heart.”

“I know,” she said and rubbed her arm. “So
you think that maybe Darius or Jeffrey killed her?”

“Well, you know,” Miss Vivee said. “It’s
for Sheriff Haynes to put all the clues together and deduce who the culprit is.
But the more information he has, the better shot he has on solving this whole
thing.”

Koryn nodded eagerly. She set forward. “Darius
was here the day she died,” she said. “Does the Sheriff know that?”

“In Yasamee?” I asked, my eyes wide.

“Yeah,” she said. “He’d come because he’d
been trying to blackmail her.”