Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Ten

“I’ve decided to solve the murder.”

Vivienne Pennywell made her announcement
as she came out the house, followed by her dog, and sat next to me on the porch
swing.

“You have?” I asked.

“I have.” She set her lips in a firm line.
She seemed quite resolute.

I didn’t say anything at first, making
sure she didn’t have any more to say. I had just finished giving my statement
to the deputy and thought I’d get away from all the fray that was still going
on in the house. The crowd of people outside had nearly dissipated. After Miss
Vivee’s comment though, I’d probably would’ve been better off staying inside.

I thought I’d try my “no murder happened”
approach again.

“Maybe nothing happened,” I said. “It is
possible that she had an aneurysm or a heart attack or something. Something
natural.”

“I told you once, there wasn’t anything natural
about her death. I know exactly how she died and I aim to find out what caused
it.” She paused and threw me a glance. “I might need help, though.”

“You want me to help?” I pointed to myself
and shook my head. “No. Not me.” I furrowed my brow.

 “Yes you,” she said. “Seems like you got
a streak of mischief in you. Thinking you’d make a good partner.”

“A streak of mischief? What makes you say that?”
I shook my head. “Not me,” I said again. “I’m as upstanding as you can get.”

“That’s not what I heard.” The edges of
her lips turned up in a grin.

That stupid FBI guy.

“What did you hear?” I asked. “I’m sure no
one knows anything about me. I just got here.”

“My grandson told me you thought you were
Indiana Jones.”

“Indiana Jones? He doesn’t . . . I didn’t
. . . I don’t know why he’d say that.”

“Are you? You are an archaeologist.
They’re good at digging up stuff and piecing together clues.”

“Am I like Indiana Jones? No. Not at all.
How do you know who that is anyway?”

“When you get to be my age all you do is
watch TV. It keeps people from thinking you’ve gone daft when they see you staring
off into space ‘cause your mind done gone blank. You stare at the TV that way
they think you’re engrossed in a show.”

“I’m not anything like Indiana Jones,” I
repeated and shook my head. “Nothing like that. Maybe my mother is,” I add
under my breath. “But not me.”

“Sounds like your mother is a hoot,” Miss
Vivee said with a gleam in her eye. “Believing in Martians. You must have had a
ball growing up.” She smiled at me. “Maybe you think outside the box like she
does? That’s the kind of thinking you need to solve a murder, you know.”

“That may be a little much for you,” I
said. “Solving a murder. Seeing that you’re . . . older,” I said coughing into
my hand. “I think that Sheriff Haynes and Deputy Pritchard just might have
everything covered. Don’t you?”

“Don’t patronize me,” she said. “If I
thought they had everything covered, I wouldn’t say I was going to solve it
myself.”

“And why don’t you think they can handle
it?”

“Lloyd Haynes is a good man and eventually
I think he may get to it, but by that time the Maypop Bed & Breakfast will
have a reputation of its food killing its customers. Renmar’s already in there
bawling her eyes out on Hazel Cobb’s shoulder. With the Maypop in ruin, there’d
go me and my girls’ livelihood and our good name. Just can’t let that happen.”
She sucked her teeth. “And that Colin Pritchard, well he’s about as dumb as a
box of rocks.”

I laughed. “He did seem like he was
bumbling things at first,” I said. “But after I talked to him he seemed pretty
sharp to me. Took down all my information. Asked the right kind of questions.”

And he was cute. Very cute. Nice body and he
had the most beautiful emerald green eyes I’d ever seen. And that dimple in his
chin was just too sexy.

“He asked me where I was when Gemma Burke
died,” Miss Vivee continued talking brought me back from my reverie. “How crazy
is that? Now if that don’t tell you the man don’t know shit from Shinola shoe
polish, I don’t know what does.”

“That sounds like a good question to me.
He needs to check out everyone’s alibi.”

“Well, it’s not a good question,” she said
with an air of disgust. “At least not a good one to ask me. Everyone in this
town, all five hundred and eighty three of ‘em, know that I haven’t left this
house in twenty years. Nearly all his life. So where else would I be? Even Cat
knew he was asking dumb questions, she barked at him the entire time. That boy
ain’t got half a brain. He couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag.” She bit
her bottom lip and scratched across her chin with her fingertip. “But I think I
can find out what happened. Maybe even before the Sheriff does. I’m already one
step ahead of him.”

“How’s that?”

“I know that Renmar’s bouillabaisse didn’t
kill her.” She paused. “And with the body having to be sent to Augusta for the
autopsy, we’ll have a least a week’s jump on the Sheriff’s investigation.”

“Why do you want me to help you?”

“I just told you, you’ve got experience in
digging up stuff. Plus, you think anyone else around here’ll help me?”

No.
I thought.
Because no else
around here cares if you know they think you’re crazy.

“Do you really hail from Ohio?” she asked.

“I do.” I nodded. “I’m from Cleveland. And
before you ask, I don’t think I’m from Mars. And neither does my mother.”

“Too bad. That may have actually worked to
our advantage.” She looked at me. “Super powers and all.”

“How did you know I was from Ohio?” I
asked.

“Bay told me.” She took in a breath. “I’m
from Ohio, too. That’s a secret, though. But since we gonna be partners,
thought I should tell you that up front.”

“I would’ve thought you were born in
Georgia.”

“That’s just what I tell my girls. They
don’t need to know everything about me. I’m a hundred years old.  I’ve done a
lot of things in my time. But nobody around here is old enough to remember
anything about me. I, on the other hand, remember pretty much everything about
everybody.”

“You’re a hundred?” I wouldn’t have ever
thought she was that old. She got around really well, and was so alert.

Maybe I had been too stereotypical when
assessing her.

“Closer to it than anybody else around
here. But not too old to conduct a murder investigation.” She nodded her head.
“You can be sure of that.”

“You have any experience solving murders?”

“Don’t need any experience. Just common
sense and I’ve got plenty of that. But like I said, I need a partner. Just not
sure if I can trust you or not,” she said.

“Understandable,” I said seeing the need
to start trying to get out of this “partner” thing. “But,” I tried to look
sympathetic. “I wouldn’t have much time to help you with your sleuthing, anyway.
I’ve got my own digging to do. I’ve got my work over on Stallings Island,
remember?”

She cut her eyes over at me. “You and I
both know that you don’t have no real business over there.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“And I’m just as sure that it was you that
was snooping around up there by Gainesville. In that locked up government
reservation.”

I opened my mouth to say something.

“Don’t lie,” she said. “You know it’s the
truth. My grandson, Bay is good at his job. He said he knows it was you, but
they didn’t have any proof.”

Ugghh! I do not like that man.

“But no never mind ‘cause that’ll work out
fine for us,” she said. “I’ll just tell everyone I’m helping you over at the
Island.” A smile came across her face and she leaned in to me. “That could be
our cover.”

“Cover?”

“Yes. The story we’ll tell everyone why,
after all these years, I’m leaving the house. Why we’re spending time together.
Believe me, the people around here’ll wonder. I’ll just say you need me to help
over at the Island.”

I was all too familiar with cover stories.
That was the reason I was in Yasamee in the first place.

“And what will you say I need you to help
me do?” I asked.

“Dig, of course. Isn’t that what you
people do?”

“Are people going to believe that?”

“Probably not, but they’re not going to
call me a liar. Not to my face. More than likely, they’ll just smile and nod
their heads trying to pacify what they think is a crazy old woman. But no one
will be able to prove I’m lying because no one is allowed to be on the Island.
It’s really perfect.”

I arched an eyebrow.
Maybe they
wouldn’t be so far off thinking she was crazy.

“I’ll say I’m digging for Indian remains
when really we’ll be digging for clues.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What about Oliver?” I decided to ask
instead of voicing my opinion about the cover story she was making up. “He was
supposed to be helping me,” I said.

“I suspect we’ll have to concoct a story
about that too.” Miss Vivee glanced at me. “If push comes to shove we might
have to let him in our little caper. We’ll see how that goes. But for right
now, mum’s the word.” She patted me on my knee. “Can’t let on to folks what
we’re doing.”

 “Oookay then.” There seemed to be no
wiggling out of this. At least for now. Plus, I was sure, at her age this
little fantasy of hers wouldn’t last long. “I’m in,” I said. “Where should we
start?”

“Start what, honey?”

“The murder investigation.”

“Right.” She tightened her lips and tapped
her chin with her finger. “I think that we should start with the crime scene.”

“That would be here,” I said and pointed
my head toward the house.

“She may have died here, but that isn’t
where she was murdered.”

“And how shall we deduce where exactly the
crime took place.”

“Only one way to find that out,” she said.
“And that’s by going to talk to Viola Rose at the Jellybean Cafe.”

Chapter Eleven

Saturday
Morning, AGD (After Gemma Died)

Head lifted up, nose jutted forward, the
aroma of freshly brewed coffee, sugary-sweet cinnamon rolls, and sizzling bacon
lifted me out of my bed. I practically floated down the stairs and followed the
mouth watery whiff of her cooking through the house and into Renmar’s Palace of
Heavenly Delights (everyone else called it a kitchen).

I know I’d sworn off Renmar’s cooking
after Gemma died in a bowl of her bouillabaisse. And I know that it had only
been one day (I wasn’t even sure if the yellow caution tape had been removed
from the stove), but I just couldn’t resist. I had become addicted to her food
and just like a junkie, I was willing to risk my life for a fix.

Hi. My name is Logan and I’m a Renmar Food
Junkie . . .

I wonder does she have any of those fruit cups.
I whispered as my flight ended and my feet gently landed in the middle of the
kitchen.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Renmar smiled as
I came in, she was stirring something in a metal bowl. “You hungry?”

“Yes, I am.” I sat on one of the kitchen
stools. “Good morning, Brie. Oliver.” They were congregated around the island.

Brie reached over and rubbed my arm. “Good
morning, Honeybun. How are you this morning?”

“Good,” I said. “Hungry.” I looked at
Renmar.

“I’ll get you something,” she said. “But I
think Mother wants you to have breakfast with her.”

“So, Logan.” Oliver spoke to me. He was
puffing on one of his e-cigarettes. “I hear you and Miss Vivee are taking a
drive?”

Odd looking didn’t exactly describe Oliver
Gibbons. He wasn’t bad looking and evidently had a way about him that made
women go wild. To me, he looked like a man out of his time, of course making
that e-cigarette he always had anachronistic. In the time I imagined he’d fit
in, Oliver would have been considered “dapper.” The kind to wear a seersucker
suit and a straw hat, or pastel colored plaid pants.

“Yes,” I said to Oliver. “We’re going for
a drive.” I didn’t want to say too much about us going out because I didn’t
know what Miss Vivee had told them. I had come to Yasamee to make amends for
being a liar and the first thing I did was hook up with one.

“I heard she hasn’t been out of the house
for twenty years,” I said. I picked up a banana from the bowl of fruit sitting
on top of the island. “Is it okay if I eat this,” I asked Renmar.

“Help yourself,” she said. “And I want you
to know how much we appreciate you taking Mother out. I don’t know what you did
to her, but she is just so excited. Isn’t she, Brie?”

Brie nodded.

“So you don’t mind her going out?” I
asked.

“Oh. No,” Renmar said. “I’m happy that
Mother is going to do something other than sit around here all day in her coat
and hat, holding her pocketbook like she’s waiting for McIntosh Funeral Home to
come and pick her up.” She smiled at me. “And I’m glad you’re helping her out.
She thinks she fooled me. Telling me she was going to help you out on the
Island. It took no more than an accusatory “Mother”, drawing it out for
emphasis, for her to spill the beans.”

“She told you what we’re really doing?”

“Of course she did.” Renmar poured her
mixture into cake pans. “She told me that she wanted to stop by the church and
light a candle for Gemma Burke. Pray for her soul. And maybe stop at the
cemetery and put some flowers on Daddy and Louis’ graves. Don’t that just beat
all?” She walked over to the oven and put her cake tins in.

That was just about as far from the truth
as one could get.

“When she asked you to take her to the cemetery,
she tell you about Louis?” Renmar asked.

“Uhm, not exactly,” I said. It was the
first I’d heard of him. In fact, it was the first I heard anything about going
to a cemetery.

“Louis is my late husband, God rest his
soul,” Renmar continued. “Bay’s father. The love of my life.” She smiled at me.
Her eyes appeared to have mist up. “I was thinking, Logan.” She batted her eyes
to make the tears go away. “If you wouldn’t mind.” She looked over at me. Can
you take Mother over to the Jellybean Café? She loves their egg salad. It’ll be
such a treat. Not sure she’ll want to stop. But you could try, couldn’t you?”

Won’t be too difficult to do since that’s
where we were going anyway.

 “I’ll try,” I said instead.

 “I’m surprised Momma didn’t ask Bay to
take her out,” Brie said. “We only get to see him every blue moon. Looks like
she’d want to spend the day with him.”

“He couldn’t.” Renmar said. “He’s riding
with the Sheriff to accompany Gemma’s body up to Augusta.”

“How long is your son staying?” I asked
Renmar as innocently as I could.

“A week maybe. Maybe a little longer.”

Crap.

“He’s on vacation,” she continued. “And
instead of going on a trip to a tropical island with a pretty girl on his side,
he chose to come to Yasamee and see us. Ain’t that nice?”

Just my luck.

“Miss Vivee is a very compassionate
person,” Oliver said running his hand over his salt and pepper hair. “I’m not
surprised she wants to light a candle for Gemma,” he took a puff on his
e-cigarette. He seemed to always have one in his hand. “Nice of you, Logan to
take her,” he continued. “No one’s died around here in ages. And seeing it right
before your eyes can make a person want to make amends with their God.”

“Oliver. Are you saying that my momma
needs to reconcile something with God?” Brie seemed insulted.

He held up his hands. “No. Brie. We all
know that Miss Vivee is a saint.” He winked his eye at me.

Ha! I know she wasn’t and I had just got
to Yasamee.

 “It’s just at her age,” he continued.
People like to have a good relationship with their maker, if they believe in
such things.”

“How old is Miss Vivee?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Renmar said. “I think
maybe eighty-nine, ninety. Somewhere about there.” Renmar looked over at Brie.
“Do you know exactly?”

“Not exactly. No,” Brie said. “She claims
to be hundred. But I don’t believe it.”

“How could you not know?” I asked.

“It ain’t polite around these parts to ask
a woman her age,” Brie said. “And, most women lie about it anyway.”

“It makes us more appealing when we’re
mysterious. Didn’t you know that, Logan?” Renmar said.

I laughed. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“Well it does. And believe me its
appealing to be one hundred. Everyone pays attention to you.”

“However old she is,” I said. “It sure
hasn’t slowed her down.”

“Age ain’t nothing but a number,” Brie
said and made Renmar and Oliver laugh.

“I don’t know about that,” I said.

“Honey, you must know that. How old are
you?” Renmar asked.

“Twenty-eight.”

“Close to thirty then, right?” Renmar
said.

“Yep,” I said.

“And I bet you don’t feel like you’re any
older on the inside than you when you were sixteen or twenty, do you?”

“I used to think that thirty was old, but
now that I’m almost there, to be honest I don’t feel old.” I admitted.

“And neither do I. Or Brie. Or Mother. We
feel just like we did when we were young. On the
inside
. In our minds.
It’s just that our bodies aren’t cooperating. I got a whole lot wiser in all
these years, but all the things I’ve wanted and the way I felt when I was young
hasn’t changed. Just because the years have passed. Things that young people
want – happiness, nice things, love and wanting to be loved, are just a part of
human nature. Doesn’t matter how old you are.”

“Renmar, my dear,” Oliver said waving his
fake cigarette around. “You missed your calling. You should have been a writer
of prose.”

“Go on now, Oliver. You’re making me
blush.”

“Oliver,” I said. “You’re quite modern,
smoking that e-cigarette.”

“He thinks it’ll save him from lung
cancer,” Brie said. “Started smoking them when Louis died.”

Oliver studied his electronic cigarette
and took a puff. “I can enjoy the menthol, get my nicotine fix and not have any
of the ill effects of tobacco,” he said. “It’s a modern miracle.”

“Nonsense,” Brie said.

Renmar went over to the sink, she washed
her hands and gazed out of the window. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day
to be outside.”

 “I had planned on going over to the
Island today,” I said. “That was before Miss Vivee asked me to take her to . .
. uhm, church.”

Oliver and Renmar looked at each other.

“What are you planning to do over there,”
Oliver asked. “It’s been closed to the public a long time.”

“I’m not the public,” I said, trying not
to sound impertinent. “Right now I just have permission to go and do
noninvasive studies. But my mother has some contacts at the Archaeological
Conservancy and she’s working on getting me a permit to dig.”

Renmar dropped a bowl on the floor. It
clanged, and bounced and clanged some more. Everyone looked at her.

“Are you alright,” Brie asked.

“Just clumsy is all.” Renmar glanced at
Oliver. “Well. That’s nice, Logan” she said. She stooped and picked up the bowl
and threw it in the sink. “Isn’t that nice, Oliver? That she gets to go over to
the Island?”

He didn’t say anything. He put his
e-cigarette in a silver case, put it in his jacket pocket and picked up a bunch
of grapes out of the fruit bowl. He plucked one and popped it in his mouth.

 “Oliver’s family owned most of the land
in Yasamee,” Renmar kept talking. “Including the Island. He’s very rich, You’d
never know it though, he’s so humble. Doesn’t flaunt his money.” She smiled.
“But I digress. Yes. He’s very familiar with it.” She looked at Oliver. “Aren’t
you, dear?”

“I’m not all that rich. Put me up next to
Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, and I fade away like the shoreline at high tide.
But, she’s right,” he said. “I am very knowledgeable about the Island. I could
tell you whatever you wanted to know.”

“Good,” I said. “Maybe when I get over to
the island, you’ll give me a guided tour.”

“I’ll be happy to,” he said and shot a
glance at Renmar. “You just let me know.” He stood up and patted me on my back.
“I’ve got to go. Brie, I’ve got a pretty lady meeting me here today. I need the
best seat in the house.”

“All the seats are the same,” she said.
“But I’ll see what I can do.”

“Have a good day, ladies.” Oliver tipped
an invisible hat and left following Brie into the dining room.

“Is it a different woman he’s having
breakfast with?” I asked. “Different than the last three I’ve seen him with?”

Renmar laughed. “I know. And he claims
he’s in love with all of them.”