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

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “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.”

  Chapter Twelve

  There was much fanfare with Miss Vivee leaving the house for the first time in twenty years. People were congratulating her on leaving out and working on the Island. It was like Miss Vivee had been crowned Miss Yasamee and there was to be a parade in her honor. But no one knew the truth about why she was leaving the house.

  Miss Vivee came down while I was still hanging out in the kitchen with Renmar. She made me eat breakfast in the kitchen with her. Then she took the rest of the morning to get ready, said it was “real important” that she looked her best. Good thing too, because when we got out to the main part of the house, the dining room was full of people waiting to see her off.

  She had on light pink lipstick, and a pink coat and hat that fit down over her head. She wore a checkered lavender and white dress and opaque beige stockings.

  I just don’t know how she doesn’t have a heat stroke. She wore a coat, granted a thin one, practically every day.

  Her long hair had been pulled back into a braid and pinned up at the nape of her neck. Her “pocketbook,” as she called it, on one arm and Cat in tow, she made her entrance into the dining room like she was the Queen of England.

  “Looks like everybody got wind of this momentous occasion,” she muttered as we walked out. “I know Renmar and Brie are happy with all the customers.”

  “Is this all because we’re going out?”

  “This is all because I’m going out. Nobody gives two hoots and a holler what you do,” she said. “But I could do without all of this.” She waved her hand around and put a scowl on her face. “Wonder will this many people show up at my funeral.”

  Miss Vivee’s scowl couldn’t hide how pleased she was with the people who came to see her off. Even I could tell that.

  “So how far does this Viola Rose live?” I asked after I got her and her dog in the car, calmed down, and buckled in. She didn’t like my Jeep at all. Said it was too high off the ground. She fussed a good while about it.

  “If I knew I was going to have to climb into the cab of an eighteen-wheeler, I would have called a taxi,” she had said grumbling.

  “Two blocks over.” She pointed her finger now. “Go that way. We’re not going to her house. We’re going to the diner. Remember?”

  “But -” I tried to protest. The way she pointed wasn’t the way to the town square.

  “You think you know this town better than me?” She glanced at me. “Because you don’t.”

  “I’ll go whichever way you want me to, Miss Vivee,” I said and followed her direction.

  “In this quadrant,” she said after sending me on a circuitous route and ending up on the other side of the square without going through it, “are streets named after trees. Ash, Oak and that one coming up is Magnolia.” She watched with anticipation as we came up on Magnolia. Halfway across it, she yelled, “Stop!” She said it so suddenly that it threw both of us forward when I hit the brakes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I want to go down Magnolia,” she said.

  “That’s why you yelled at me?” I mashed on the gas and turned the steering wheel hard to maneuver around the corner and go down the street I’d almost passed. “You could have caused us to have an accident.”

  “Accident?” She looked around out of all the windows. “There is not one car coming this way. Who were you going to run into?”

  She got quiet and peered out of the window as I drove down the street and in a barely audible voice she muttered, “I wonder does it still look the same.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. Just keep driving.”

  I drove down the street. About midway down it, Miss Vivee cried out again. “Oh no!” she said and tried to crunch down in her seat. She was barely tall enough to see out of the window as it was. But she moved fast, bending her neck and trying to lean forward so she couldn’t be seen through the passenger side window. I don’t think she was limber enough to get completely out of sight. And I do believe she would have dropped to the floor of the car if she could’ve.

  “What?” I yelled again as I slammed on the brakes. “What’s wrong now?”

  “Oh. Good Lord, don’t stop!”

  I put my foot back on the gas.

&nb
sp; “Hurry up! Get me out of here.”

  “What is wrong with you?” I glanced over at her as I maneuvered down the street.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.” She fixed her hat on her head and stretched her neck to peer out of the window. Looking back down the street she asked, “Do you think he saw me?”

  “Who?” I asked and looked out the rearview mirror. “That man with the cane walking his dog.”

  “Yes! The man with the cane walking the dog. Did he see me?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s still standing there, watching us drive away.”

  “Oh Lord Almighty. I think I’m gonna faint,” she said and started fanning herself with her hand. Turn on the air, child.”

  “Who is he?” I asked as I put the fan on high and rolled up the windows. “Is he someone you know?”

  “Can you just drive and not ask so many questions. All I did was ask you to go down Magnolia and before I know it you’re making a big production number out of it.”

  “Me?”

  “Drive to the diner,” she huffed. “You think you can do that?” She strained to look out the back window as if to make sure we weren’t being followed.

  I checked the car mirror. “He’s gone,” I said.

  “Who cares?” she said and waved her hand at me. “Let’s just get to what we come to do. The diner.” She wagged her finger pointing out windshield at the road ahead and nodded.

  In other words, telling me to get a move on.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Land sakes alive, it’s true.” A waitress met us at the door. “I do declare. Rumor mill said you were coming out and dang blast it if you ain’t standing right here in my diner.”

  “Mornin’ Viola Rose,” Miss Vivee said. And waved her hand dismissing her comments. “You want to seat us, or just stand here and gawk? I can’t leave my dog in the car all day while you gab.”

  Stepping into the Jellybean Café was like arriving in the Land of Oz. It was all in Technicolor. There were shiny chrome, bright red leather-topped stools, placed a few feet apart underneath an aluminum counter that ran the length of the restaurant. The booths were a vibrant red, turquoise, purple and yellow stripe with radiant white Formica table tops that matched the polished linoleum floor and were set in front of huge picture windows that sparkled with colorful neon signs.