Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Sunday
Morning, AGD

Miss Vivee’s first day out in twenty years
took a bigger toll on her than expected. She decided to sleep in late, a rare
occurrence I was told, but it gave me the morning free. I decided it was time
for me to visit Stallings Island.

I drove to Mims Point Park where Miss
Vivee and I had been the day before. I parked the car and walked down the stone
steps, wondering all the while was it really the way Gemma had come the day she
died.

I ambled through the tall blades of sea
oats that grew out from the patches of sand, and along the marshy shoreline of
the Savannah River. The oats grew high over the morning glories, and saw
palmetto scattered about. I breathed in the moist air and exhaled.

Perhaps I was meant to come here. To Stallings
Island. I had had only one real job as an archaeologist and that was as the
lead of an excavation team in Belize. I’d stumbled on a stone slap with a
message written in Mayan hieroglyphs that lead me to previously undiscovered
underground tunnels that ran from Panama to Guatemala. But I was never able to
share my find with the scientific community because what I found was connected
to the whole Mars Origin Theory my mother had discovered. Plus, I learned that
I had only been put in charge of the excavation as part of a setup. A crazed
man had wanted to kill my mother and used me to lure her in. He knew, with me
being young and inexperienced, that being the lead member of an excavation team
would be too much for me and I would call in my mother. Of course I did just that.
And because I did, I saw a man get killed and my mother and I got kidnapped.

Life’s too short. Gemma Burke’s death is
proof of that.

As I walked past two weathered boats
moored in the sand, I wondered if I’d ever be an archaeologist that would make
a significant contribution without being in the shadow of my mother. I wondered
would I ever be as insightful and scientific as she was. The youngest, I was
the only one of her three children that followed in her profession – my 
brother, Micah was a lawyer, and the oldest, my sister, Courtney was a teacher
– and I know it made my mother proud that I was an archaeologist, and it made
her want to help me that much more. But I just wanted to do something on my
own. Not be the “baby” anymore.

Maybe this was it. Stallings Island.

My chance to shine.

There was so much history on the small
island, but maybe, just maybe that small island had a big connection to a possible
Maya migration. And if I found something here, on my own, not connected to my
mother in any way . . .

Wouldn’t it be something if I discovered
there was?

That’s probably the reason I risked
trespassing on Track Rock Gap. I had something to prove.

Once I started college, I spent all my
time preparing to become an archaeologist and to make a mark in the field. I
didn’t take time out to date, go out, or do any of the things most women my age
did. I didn’t have many friends that were married, but they all found the time
to have men in their lives. Maybe I wouldn’t be so “uptight” as my father says
about being a famous archaeologist if I took some time out for myself. By that
he meant to date.

And maybe my father was right. Gemma Burke
gave up on love, albeit the guy was married. But she didn’t take a chance on
it. For some reason she came back home, moved some unknown girl in with her and
then, according to Miss Vivee, got herself killed. Her life over, and my father
would say, with nothing to show for it.

Maybe it’s time I took my father’s advice.

My father wrote a syndicated sports
column. He and my mother had been married for more than thirty-five years. Most
fathers are leery of their daughters dating, no man’s good enough. Not my
father. Andrew Mase Dickerson, called Mase by all, was gung-ho on his baby girl
finding a man.

With my mother believing in Martians, my
daddy trying to marry me off and all the other craziness I had to deal with
growing up in my house, it’s no wonder I took to Miss Vivee and her outrageous schemes.

As I rambled along the shore, the waves of
the river’s blue water brushed lazily upon the sand and I spotted the shoal
that led over to the Island. It wasn’t more than a couple yards from Oliver’s
beachfront house.

I knew I was still young and that if fame
and fortune was what I wanted, I picked the wrong profession. So, I was okay
with not having it. I just wanted to make a contribution. I just didn’t want to
end up like Gemma Burke – dead before my time.

I don’t know why I hated to admit it,
although I used this fact whenever I needed to, but my mother was very
successful. There weren’t many in our field that were as accomplished as she
was. Yet, she was so down to earth. So normal. I knew that I’d never make a
find as big as the one my mother had made, but if I could be just as good . . .

I stepped timidly across the shoal, the
fishy odor abruptly invading my nostrils. I found myself holding my breath,
arms out to keep my balance and anticipating what may lay on the Island for me
to discover.

I was so excited.

Unfortunately the first thing I found when
I got there was Renmar and Oliver. I ducked behind a tree and thought about
what to do. They had been so secretive since Gemma’s death. And even before
that conspiratorial.

What if they really were the killers?

I turned around and went back to the
Maypop.

Chapter Nineteen

Sunday
Afternoon, AGD

“Mae Lynn called me this morning,” Miss
Vivee said in a strained whisper. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the
closet under the stairs as soon as I walked in the door from Stallings Island.

I didn’t even know there was a closet
there.

I twisted myself around in the small space.
It was pitch black and even with Vivee’s small frame it was tight for the both
of us. “You couldn’t tell me that out there?” I said bumping my head on the
angled ceiling. I had taken to whispering too.

“No. I don’t want nobody else to hear.
Renmar is still a suspect you know.”

“I just saw Renmar over on the Island,” I
protested. “She’s not even here.”

My eyes adjusted to the dark and I felt
around on the wall by the door for a light switch, but found the light bulb was
attached to a long cord that hung from the ceiling. I yanked on it and a beam
of light broke up the darkness.

“What did Mae Lynn say?” I said in a
regular voice.

Miss Vivee reached up and jerked the chain
turning the light back off. “Shush. Not so loud.” I could hear her breathing
hard. “I wrote it down in my notebook.” She started moving around. I could tell
she was fiddling around with her purse.

“Oh shoot,” she said. “I can’t read it in
here it’s too dark, dang it. That’s okay, I remember what she told me.”

“Well, what did she say?”

“She said that the girl is from Atlanta,
her name is Koryn Razner. And it looks like Gemma Burke had lived there for a
while too. So maybe that’s where they met.”

“How come we can’t have any light?”

“I don’t want anyone to know we’re in
here.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“We have to talk to Colin Pritchard,” she
said.

“The deputy?”

“Do you know another Colin Pritchard?”

I guess I didn’t.

“He went to Atlanta to do his Peace
Officer training. Would’ve been there the same time that Gemma Burke was
there.”

“I thought you told me that he did his
training up north?”

“Ain’t Atlanta north of here?”

“Yeah, but I thought you meant the real
north. Like Ohio.” I shook my head. “Never mind.”

“Can you take me over to see him?” she
asked.

“On a Sunday?”

“You think the Sheriff’s office takes a
day off?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “I’ll take you.”

Anything to get out of this closet.

“Are we telling Renmar the truth about
where we’re going?” I asked.

“Of course not.” She groped around and
found my arm and patted it. “But you leave the lying up to me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Now when we go out,
just act natural.”

Right.

I turned the knob and opened the door, my
eyes adjusting back to the sudden flood of light saw a large figure standing in
front of me. Turning my face to the side, squinting, I saw out of the corner of
my eye that the big, looming figure was Bay. He had that stupid smirk smeared
across his face.

Crap.

“What are you doing in the closet?” he
asked.

“I was in there with Miss Vivee,” I said
in my defense.

Didn’t he see her?

“Hello, Grandson.”

“Hello, Grandmother. Aren’t you looking
lovely today?”

“Thank you,” she said and wrapped her hand
around his arm. “Logan was giving me a little training,” she said.

“Training?” Bay looked at me questioningly.

“Yes, dear. You know for when I help her
with her work. She said that I might have to go inside of caves and down
through tunnels.” She was making gestures with her free hand. “It’ll be very
dark in those places. So she said I needed to get used to being in small, dark
spaces.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Quite ingenious, don’t you think?
Making me stand in the closet.”

How does she come up with these things?

“Ingenious isn’t the word I’d use,
Grandmother.” He gave me a scowl.

“That is
not
why we were in that
closet,” I said.

“Then what were you doing in there with my
grandmother?” he asked.

According to Miss Vivee I couldn’t tell
him the truth. So I said nothing. Clearly my imagination wasn’t as advanced as
Miss Vivee’s.

“Are you okay?” Bay asked his grandmother.

“Oh yes, dear,” she said as they walked
away. “I just feel a little faint.”

She turned back and winked at me.

He turned back and mouthed something that
looked like “You are sooo going to jail.”

Oh crap.

Chapter Twenty

Colin Pritchard, good looking man that he
was, looked even better in his civvies.

After we got rid of Bay, which took the
better part of an hour, I drove Miss Vivee to the Sheriff’s office to find
Colin. She had packed foot soak powder for the Sheriff’s injury, and some salve
for Colin’s hand. She’d made both from roots and leaves. I didn’t understand
why she couldn’t just go to Hadley’s and get a tube of Bacitracin for each of
them.

And in addition of the salve, she also was
packing a slew of questions for Colin. But we soon found that he wasn’t at the
Sheriff’s office. He was going on a fishing trip for the next three days.

How do you go fishing in the middle of a
murder investigation?

But of course Colin not being at the
office didn’t put a dent in Miss Vivee’s sail. We left the healing powder for
the Sheriff, and then drove to Colin’s house. And I’m sure if he hadn’t of been
there, we would have gone on our own fishing trip to find him.

When we arrived at his house, a small
white, one story, we found him loading up his black pick-up truck. He had on a
pair of straight legged jeans and a light blue denim shirt that looked like it
was made for him. With looks like his, I was thinking that I could look past
the “he’s so dumb” part. Although, the jury was still out on that one for me
anyway. Who lets a man, without some level of intelligence, be a deputy? Maybe
Miss Vivee over exaggerated about his lack of mental capabilities.

I was willing to take a chance. And I
knew, that would make my daddy happy – me giving Colin a chance. I needed to
use my energy on something other than being a good an archaeologist as my
mother.

All I needed was to get up the courage to
make a pass at him . . .

Once we found Colin, Miss Vivee didn’t
waste any time trying to get the information she needed from him. She handed
him the salve at the same time she handed him her first question.

“What do you know about Gemma Burke during
the time she lived in Atlanta?” she asked.

“I really can’t tell you anything, Miss
Vivee. It’s an open investigation. The Sheriff would be really upset with me.”

“I just want to know what she did when she
was in Atlanta,” Miss Vivee said. “How would that compromise your
investigation? Especially if it was Renmar’s bouillabaisse that killed her.”

“Why do you want to know, anyway?” he said
his eyes going from me back to Miss Vivee. “What are you two up to?” He placed
fishing rods and a large white bucket in the bed of the truck. “Is this
something I should tell Sheriff Haynes?”

“We’re not up to anything,” I said and
held up my hands. “Miss Vivee was just wondering.”

Miss Vivee wasn’t coming up with any of
her fantastical stories to tell Colin and I didn’t know quite what to say. Her
tactic with him appeared to be “badgering,” which was a long way off from what
I wanted to do with him.

“You were both up there at the same time.
In Atlanta,” Miss Vivee said. “You must’ve seen her.”

“I went to Atlanta before she did,” he
said.

“Then did you even know she was there?” I
asked. I looked at Miss Vivee. “Maybe he didn’t know.”

“I knew,” he said putting a cooler in the
truck. “I came home one weekend and found she’d sold her parents’ home and left
town.” He turned to look at us, he stood with his feet shoulder width apart and
crossed his arms. “Hadn’t even known she was putting it up for sale.”

“Did that make you curious about where she
was?” I asked. My mouth got dry and there was pang in my stomach. Was that
jealousy? About a dead girl?

Geesh.

“A little.” He gave a nod. “I must admit I
was a little curious,” Colin said. “I’d always thought we’d be together, you
know. I’d be the deputy. Gemma would be my wife. We’d live here in Yasamee and
raise our kids.” He kicked rocks in his gravel driveway around with the toe of
his shoe. “But now that will never happen.”

“So then how did you find out she went to
Atlanta?” Miss Vivee asked.

“I knew she’d have to put her address on
the deed. That’s what we did when my daddy died and we had to transfer the
house to me. So, before I left to go back to finish my training, I went and
looked up her address in the land office,” he said. “I just wanted to know, you
know. And lo and behold. She had gone to Atlanta. Right where I was. I thought
maybe she had followed me.”

 “Then did you go and see her?” I was
hoping he would say no.

He said, “No.”

Yay!

“You mean that you were up in Atlanta and
you knew she was there and you didn’t look up her?” Miss Vivee seemed surprised.
“Somebody from home? As far away as you were from it?”

“She had dumped me. She should have come
to me.”

“She didn’t dump you, Colin Pritchard. You
know that and everybody else in Yasamee knows it too. She didn’t want to date
you. All this talk about you two getting married. It’s just nonsense.” Colin’s
eyes showed dejection as he listened to Miss Vivee. “Ain’t no shame in it,
though,” she continued. “Plenty of people ain’t meant to be together. You and
Gemma were just two of those people.”

“Yeah. And with her rejecting me like
that, you’d think I’d go and see her?”

“I sure do.” Miss Vivee put one hand on
her hip and held on to the side of his truck with the other. “I know you. You
ain’t one to give up. You must have visited her when you both were in Atlanta,”
Miss Vivee said. “You can’t tell me, Colin Pritchard that you were in the same
city as a hometown girl, one that you were crazy about and you didn’t go and
say ‘Hello.’ I can’t believe you’d forget your manners like that.”

He went back to saying that he couldn’t
just give out information in the middle of a police investigation. He had
finished loading his truck and was standing by the door, ready to go. But Miss
Vivee stayed on him. Finally, he bowed his head and gave in.

“I did go to see her,” he said. “But . . .
When I saw her . . .” he said hesitantly. “Well I was too embarrassed for her
to say anything. I left and after that tried to push Gemma out of my mind. Just
forget about her. I didn’t want her to have to face me.”

“Why?” Miss Vivee squinted one eye. “What
was she doing?”

He took in a breath. “Working in a strip
bar,” he said and climbed inside of his truck. He rolled down the window and
started his car. “And I ain’t saying no more about it Miss Vivee. I felt so bad
for her then, having to live that kind of life. And I feel even worse for her
now that she’s dead, right when she was trying to fix her life.”

“Oh bother,” Miss Vivee said. “Me too. I
feel bad. Still . . .” She walked over, facing the car and put her hand on the
door through the opened window.  Leaning in, she said, “I have just
one
more question.”