Maya Mound Mayhem (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

We went to the
University of North Georgia to see what we could find out about Aaron and his
article on Maya living in the United States. I wasn’t so sure how that was
going to work out. But knowing Miss Vivee she’d find a way to get information
about him. But before we could we ran into Bugs. I had parked the car at the
Visitor’s Lot and we were walking, at a snail’s pace, over to the library.

“Well if it isn’t
the Mod Squad,” he said when he saw us.

He shook Mac’s
hand and gave Miss Vivee a squeeze on her shoulders.

He fell into
walking with us.

“What are you
doing here?” I asked. “You go to school in Athens.”

“I do, but since
I’m so far from school, I sometimes come down here and use the computer lab
over at the library.”

I nodded.

“And I know that I
couldn’t use the equipment at the dig site for my stuff,” he said.

“No,” I said.
“That wouldn’t be right.” I smiled. “I’m glad you realize that.” I looked at
him. “And that’s where we’re headed. To the library,” I said.

 “Why are you
going over there? I’m sure it’s okay for
you
to use your own equipment.”
he said.

“Came to get some
information on Aaron Coulter.”

He stopped
walking. “Aaron Coulter?”

“Yeah.” I stopped
walking and turned to look back at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you know him?”
Miss Vivee asked. She had stopped too. I guess she’d seen the look on Bugs’
face

I tugged on his
arm and started him moving again. At the rate we were moving we’d never make it
to the library.

“Did you know him,”
I asked the question again. He hadn’t answered Miss Vivee.

“Everyone around
here that had any interest in archaeology knew
of
him.” He hunched his
shoulders.  “Even with me just coming up here to use the computers, I’d heard
of him. But he’s not on campus. I heard he left a few weeks ago. Hasn’t come
back.”

“That’s because
he’s dead.”

“What?” He stopped
walking again. “How do you know that?”

“His were the
bones I found.”

“Wow,” he said.
“That’s unbelievable. So he’s been missing and not just gone. Why wasn’t anyone
concerned about it?”

“Who’s to say that
no one was concerned?” I asked

“Oh. I don’t know
that anyone wasn’t. But I hadn’t heard anything.” He looked at me. “I just
thought he left because he didn’t get your job.”

“My job?” I asked.
“What do you know about him trying to get my job?”

“Remember when I
told you that Riley thought she was going to get to be second in command?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“That was because
she thought Aaron Coulter was going to get the job. They were dating.”

“Yeah.” I nodded
my head. “I kind of figured that out.”

“Figured it out?
You’re not surprised?”

“About what?” I
asked.

“That Aaron, uhm,
Professor Coulter and Riley were dating.”

“Why would you
think I’d be surprised about that,” I asked him, but before he could answer
Miss Vivee spoke up.

“We’re not
surprised because we already knew,” Miss Vivee said.

“Really?” he said
and looked at me, puzzlement on his face. He seemed to shake it off. “Well I
know something that you might not know, Logan.” He looked at me for a long
moment. “Not sure if I should share it with you, though,” he said.

“Then why did you
even bring it up,” Miss Vivee said. It seemed her fascination with him for
being a botanist was wearing down fast.

“I was kidding,”
he said. “Logan’s my girl. I think it might help her.”

“What is it?” I
asked.

“How about if you
and the Mod Squad come over to my house tomorrow for lunch? I’ll show you what
I got.”

I looked at Miss
Vivee and she gave me a tight-lipped nod. “Okay,” I said. “How about 12:30?”

“Sounds cool,” he
said. “See you then.”

“Hey, I thought
you were going to the library,” I said.

“Nope. Gotta go
clean up my house for my company tomorrow,” he said and flashed a smile.

But the time we
walked to the library, even I was tired. I got a copy of the monthly journal
but didn’t take the time to read it. Miss Vivee was ready to go. I made them
stay at the library and went and got the car.

At the rate they
moved, resolution to this murder mystery wasn’t going to come until the year
2020.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Jackson “Bugs” Reid
had a big house for one person. But he told me that he needed it for all of
experiments. And his yard was full of those. There were trees, shrubs and bugs sanctuaries
everywhere. I hesitated in walking up to his door, it was like the creepy
horror house in the neighborhood. If it hadn’t been painted white with cheerful
brick red-colored shutters, I definitely would have thought that was what it
was. Miss Vivee, of course, seemed right at home. She marched up and rang the
doorbell, while Mac and I lingered down on the sidewalk.

I wasn’t sure if
I’d be able to eat anything that came out of that house. And I couldn’t tell
anything that he had supposedly cleaned in anticipation of us. It was a jungle
in his house. If it wasn’t for Miss Vivee insisting that he might know something
that might help us with find out who the killer was, I’d probably have turned
around and gone back to the hotel.

“C’mon in,” Bugs
pulled the door open wide and waved at me and Mac. Miss Vivee was already
inside. “So glad you all could grace my humble abode with your presence,” he
said, a big wide grin on his face.

“You’ve got a log
of plants and bugs around here,” I said scratching my arm. I felt itchy all
over.

“Don’t you just
love it,” he said, excitement written all over his face. “The only problems are
drainage and my neighbors. I got roots growing up through the pipes in my house
and people squawking about bug infestation.” He laughed. “I’ve got some stuff
that’ll unclog any drain but there is nothing I can do about the people that live
on the street. Hopefully they won’t have me or my plants ejected.”

I could relate to
their complaints.

I bent over and
scratched my leg.

“You rent?” I
asked looking around.

“No. I own it.” He
grinned. “That’s why I’m still here.”

Mac sat down on
the couch, it was a ruddy looking green polyester with little white pills all
over it and saggy seat cushions. I was sure I’d have to help Mac get up from it.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t want to sit for fear something
might crawl on me and there was really no place to stand other than in the
middle of the floor.

Miss Vivee didn’t
seem intimidated at all. She walked around and looked at all of the displays.
It reminded me of her greenhouse. It probably reminded her of it too, and
that’s why she felt at home. Plants. Bottled extracts of plants. Potting soil
and pots.

“You have a lot of
different things,” Miss Vivee said nodding her head it appeared in approval.

“Yeah. I’ve got
some of everything. Any of it the same as plants you have?” he asked her.

“Most of my plants
are for medicinal purposes. I’m a Voodoo herbalist you know.”

He laughed big and
hearty. “You’re kidding me, right?” He held his stomach and laughed some more.
“That is awesome. I’ve got to get a picture of you. Here,” he twisted from side
to side and looked around the room. “Okay. Here. I’ve got an aloe vera plant.
You use that to heal, right?”

Miss Vivee nodded.

“Yeah. This is so
cool. Stand right next to it, Miss Vivee.” She moved by it and posed with her
fingers up in a peace sign and a big grin on her face while he took her picture
with the camera on his phone. “I can’t wait to tell my friends.” He tucked his
cell into his pocket. “Are you like certified or something?” he asked.

Mac spoke up. “She
was trained by a Voodoo Priestess in New Orleans.”

“Oh my gosh! What
a hoot!” he said. “And what about you, Dr. Logan Dickerson?” he turned his head
and looked at me out of the side of his eye. “What do you do that I don’t know
about?”

“Nothing,” I said
and shook my head. “What you see, is what you get.”

“Well, I’ve got
something you might like,” he said and pulled me over to a shelf nailed up on
the wall in what would have been a dining room. He pointed to two different
bottles.

“You know what those
are?” he asked.

I read the label
on the first bottle out loud. “Chechen Tree Extract,” I said. “And ‘Chaca Tree
Extract.’” I read from the second bottle and looked at him.

“You heard of them?”
he asked.

“Yes. I know the
story of the two trees, if that’s what you mean.”

“How two men –
brothers – loved the same woman and fought for her to the death?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s a Maya
story,” I said. “According to the story they fought until both of them died.
The gods resurrected them as trees. One as the t
he Chechen tree,
which is poisonous. The other as the Chaca tree, which has a nectar to
neutralize the poison of the other. They usually grow side by side.” I nodded
as I remembered the story. “I’ve never seen the trees though. I don’t think.
I’m not one to identify plants.”

“I like to think
that the brother that was transformed into the tree that can cure the poison
won the fight. The woman in the story knew the poison was no good for her,
neither was the brother it represented. Good versus evil. Knight in shining
armor. You know.” He smiled and caught my gaz. “And I like to think I’m the
brother who prevailed.”

“Neither brother
prevailed,” I said.

“The one who got
the girl.”

I took in a
breath. I didn’t say anything. I knew he was saying I was the girl.

“Did you know,” he
licked his lips and let his eyes drift toward the bottles, “that you can find those
two trees in the U.S. but they only grow together in areas where the Maya once
lived?”

“Really?” I
smiled. I hadn’t known that and I was glad he took my cue to change the
subject.

His story wasn’t
lost on Miss Vivee.

“Why would Logan
like that story?” Miss Vivee was back to feeling cold toward Bugs. “Didn’t you
have something to show her? Something about her job?” she asked impatiently.

“Oh yeah,” he
said. “Come back here.” He headed off to the back of his house.

I backtracked and
helped Mac up from his seat on the couch and we caught up to Bugs who went down
a short hall. We followed and on the other side was a clean, beautiful living
area. No bugs. No plants.

“Whoa,” I said.
“What a difference.” I turned around and looked back to where I’d just came
from.

“You like?” he
said grinning. “If my neighbors saw this, they’d try to nominate for Home
Beautiful instead of having my house condemned.”

“Where did you get
all of this from?” I asked. His house looked like a museum. The furniture
contemporary. Sleek with clean lines. And he had all kinds of artifacts on
shelves that were built into the wall. I walked around the room, followed close
behind by Miss Vivee and examined his pieces.

There were some in
glass cases, mounted. Like Arrowheads. Weapons. And jewelry. It reminded me of
the ones in my mother’s study. She had collected a ton of them over the years.

“This is my sanctuary.
Where I come to just chill,” he said.

I looked at him.
“How did you get all this stuff?”

“e-Bay mostly,” he
said.

It didn’t
look like anything I’d ever seen on e-Bay.

“What did you have
to show us,” Miss Vivee said again. Her patience evidently wearing thin.

“Oh. Right. Okay.”
He grabbed his laptop from his desk and sat down on the couch. He patted for me
to come and sit next to him. I didn’t mind sitting in this part of the house.
Miss Vivee sat down next to me.

He put the
computer on the coffee table and fired it up. The screen had a black background
and he was typing in some commands of some kind.

“What are you
doing?” I asked.

He grinned.
“This is the real
reason they call me Bugs,” he said. “I can break into any computer.” He looked
at me. “I’m like a fly on the wall.”

“Look,” he said
and sat back. I leaned in and it was the U.S. Forest Service website. There
were pictures and an article.
The title of it was, “Mayan Myth Busting at Track Rock
Gap.”

I looked up at
Bugs. “What is this?”

“It’s the Forest
Service’s website.”

“I can see that,”
I said. “But this isn’t on there. At least when I last checked.” I pulled out
my phone to find it on Safari.

He pushed my phone
down. “It doesn’t say that now. I hacked into their computers. They have this
page set and ready to go. It’s going to be their official statement.”

I read down the
page. Miss Vivee in my ear asking me what it said, but her voice was muffled by
my heart beating in my ears. I was concentrating on what it said so hard that I
couldn’t have heard anything else anyway.

What it said was
the exact opposite of what I’d hoped to find at the ruins. I read, my lips
moving slowly as my eyes lingered on the words. My mouth had grown dry and I
felt my eyes stinging.

“
The Track Rock Gap
Rock art and stone landscape sites on the Chattahoochee National Forest were
created by Creek and Cherokee people beginning more than 1,000 years ago,” I
read it out loud. “There is no archeological evidence of any Mayan connection
to the sites
.”

Ohmigosh
. . .

I looked up from
reading. I looked at Bugs and at Miss Vivee who had put on her glasses and was
practically on my lap to get close to the screen.

When she caught my
eye, she asked again. “What does it say?”

“It says that
there were never any Maya at Track Rock Gap and that it ‘frowns.’” I made air
quotation marks, “on anything being found that contradicts the message they are
disseminating.”

 “That would mean
you,” Mac said.

“Right,” I said. “That
would mean that they
frown
on me. I looked back down at the screen and read.
“There is no archeological evidence of any link to Mayan people or culture at
this site. There is no evidence for movements of large groups of people from
the Maya region of Mexico to the Southeastern United States during this time
period. It is quite possible that there were limited trade connections between
the two regions, but there is no evidence for Mayan people settling anywhere in
what is now the Southeastern United States.

“It is important
to study and honor the achievements of the people of the region, both past and
present.  Making claims that people from somewhere else must have created
anything complex denigrates and demeans those who were actually here and
created these things.  Please consider the information we provide here to
learn more about the actual residents of the region and their rich and
fascinating legacies.”

I closed the lid
on the laptop and felt a tear roll down my cheek.

Wow . . .

Everyone sat quiet
for a long time.

“Are you sure this
is what they plan on putting out?” I said finally.

“I mean. You know.
I can’t be sure,” he said and hunched his shoulders. “It’s what they have
queued up. That’s all I can tell you.”