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

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “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.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  O
n the ride home, Miss Vivee was quiet. I think she felt like we’d run into a dead end. She’d asked him the name of the strip club and where in Atlanta it was located, but he said initially that he couldn’t remember. Miss Vivee had got its general location but no more. It seemed that Colin didn’t want to gossip about Gemma’s fall into disgrace.

  And although I did talk to him by asking a question or two, I know I didn’t do anything close to flirting. Unless he could read my mind, and saw the little fringes of jealousy that eked out when he talked about Gemma, he had no idea how I felt.

  I’m just so much of a bookworm. No social skills. I looked at Miss Vivee. She was chewing her bottom lip, lost in thought. I should be more like her, I thought. Be brave. Take charge . . . Take chances.

  Did I have that in me?

  I shook those thoughts out of my head and exhaled loudly. Miss Vivee glanced at me and gave me a half-smile that showed her mind was preoccupied. I decided not to say anything about her “investigation” ending. I didn’t want to upset her more.

  “A strip club?” she said it out of the blue. We had turned the corner down her street. “Lord Almighty.” She shook her head. It was the first time she’d spoke since we left Colin’s.

  “Unbelievable, huh?”

  “Yes. Unbelievable.” She let out a long breath. “Looks like we’re going to Atlanta.”

  “What? No! We can’t go to Atlanta.” I turned and looked at her. This was a good a time as any to start taking charge. “Why would we go to Atlanta?” I asked.

  “To investigate, Sweetie Pie.” She winked her eye. “We got to find out if Gemma Burke did something to somebody up there. Enough something to make them want to come down here and kill her?”

  “We’re going to go and find a killer?” I said and pulled in front of the Maypop.

  “Well ain’t that what we set out to do from the beginning?” She smiled and patted my arm. “You’re not getting cold feet on me now are you?”

  This taking charge, being bolder thing was not working with Miss Vivee. She may have had more experience at it than me, but I wasn’t going to give up.

  “No. I’m not getting cold feet,” I said. “It’s just that Atlanta is such a big place. And as you would say, it’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack.”

  “No it’s not, Sugar,” she said. “Because we know just where to look.”

  With all this calling me “sweetie pie” and “sugar,” I knew trying to win a fight with Miss Vivee over this idea of hers was going to be an uphill battle.

  All I could do was pray for strength.

  * * * * * *

  Monday Morning, AGD

  Renmar had got wind of our “alleged” trip. Only she thought that we were going to Augusta. Miss Vivee had evidently told her that she wanted to go to a movie and dinner and stay overnight at a hotel in the “big city.” But instead of questioning Miss Vivee about it, Renmar decided to give me the third degree.

  “What movie are you going to see . . . Which hotel are you staying in . . . Are you and mother staying in the same room?”

  I had walked into the kitchen on Renmar, Brie and Hazel sitting around the large table drinking coffee. Renmar started shooting out questions before I could grab a cup. But I didn’t have a chance to answer her barrage of questions before she finally threw up her hands. “I’ve tried talking to her,” she said. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Me too,” Brie replied. “But she won’t listen.”

  “To anyone,” Renmar said. She took a sip of her coffee.

  “I don’t know about anyone,” Hazel Cobb said. “She’s cozied up to our little Miss Archaeologist.” Hazel rubbed my back and smiled at me.

  “She definitely doesn’t listen to me,” I said. I walked over and grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it up with coffee. I had already spent all my breath trying to talk her out of it.

  “Have you tried to talk her out of going?” Renmar asked seemingly as if she’d heard my thoughts. “I know she has these big plans. But Augusta is twenty-five miles away. If anything happened I’d have to try and get all the way up there to see about her.”

  I stirred cream and sugar into my coffee and lifted it up to my mouth.

  And Atlanta, I thought watching Renmar over the rim of my cup, where she really wants to go, is one hundred forty five miles away. Surprise!

  “Why does she have to go all the way up there?” Brie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I lied. And then I tried to explain how usually Miss Vivee doesn’t tell me anything and I just follow her directions. Do what I’m told, I said, which was basically the truth. I also threw in that my mother taught to mind my manners and respect my elders, especially people as old as Miss Vivee, however old that was. With their southern gentility, I’d knew Renmar and Brie would appreciate that and stop questioning me.

  “My mother has a tendency to bite off more than she can chew,” Renmar said her voice softer, seemingly giving me some reprieve. “So I’ve told her that she can’t go.”

  Hazel laughed. “And you think that’ll work?”

  “Well, she can’t go if she doesn’t have a ride,” Renmar said and eyed me.

  “Oh please.” I put my cup down on the table. “Please don’t put me in the middle of it,” I said. “Please.” I looked at Renmar, begging with my eyes. “Plus, I’ve already tried to talk her out of it. I don’t want to feel as if I’m being disrespectful.”

  “Well, just try to talk her out of it, Logan. Again. For me. And if that doesn’t work, I won’t blame you.” She threw up her hands. “How can I? If she doesn’t listen to me, her own daughter, I surely can’t expect her to listen to you.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. The four of us talked and sipped on coffee. Once I finished my coffee and put the mug in the sink I said, “So where is she? I’ve looked all over the house for her.”

  “She’s out back. In her greenhouse. Where she used to spend all her days.” Renmar looked at me, frustration in her eyes. “I didn’t mean anything by that towards you. It’s just that she’s got the bug now. Can’t sit still. Used to be I couldn’t get her to go anywhere, now I can’t keep her home.”

  I gave a “What can you do?” look and headed out the back door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The backyard was huge. It went on for what looked like a couple of acres. In the five days I’d been staying at the Maypop, I hadn’t even realized that there was a backyard, let alone something that looked like this. Miss Vivee would definitely say that that proved I had no detecting skills.

  How could I have missed all of this?

  There was patio area, with a fire pit, fireplace, gas grill and colorful furniture. A three car garage and carport. Flowers were everywhere, and Miss Vivee’s greenhouse was the size of a small cabin. But what made it the best backyard I’d ever seen was that there was a miniature putt-putt golf course right smack dab in the middle of it.

  I followed a stone path to the greenhouse and cupping my hands, I put my face up to the glass and peered in. I could see Miss Vivee inside working on her plants.

  I had decided to try again to talk Miss Vivee out of going to Atlanta. Not just because Renmar had asked me to, but because I was sure that there was no way we were ever going to solve Gemma’s murder, anyway. And no way, in a night club of ill-repute, were we going to find answers to who killed her, if she had even been killed.

  I knocked on the door, opened it and went in. A bombardment of odors went of my nose and made my head swirl.

  I could smell lavender, honeysuckle, rosemary, sage, roses, lilies and so many other things that I didn’t have any idea what they were.

  “Wow. Smells good in here,” I said and smiled. Miss Vivee had on her rubber boots, one of her signature coats and her hair pinned up at the back of her head. Cat was resting at her feet. “So who plays golf?” I asked.

  “I do,” she said. She was pruning and repotting several plants she had on a workstation that she was standing in front of.
“And I’m much better at it than that little putt-putt course would lead on,” she said pointing her head toward it.

  “Well aren’t you full of surprises.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, Missy. I’ve lived a long time.” She eyed me. “So what you up to?”

  “Nothing,” I said. And walked around the tables overflowing with plants that filled the greenhouse. “Just thought I’d come and see you,” I said. I touched a leaf of a purple passionflower plant and leaned over and inhaled. Maypop, I thought and smiled. “I didn’t know you grew plants?”

  “I grow some plants for healing. Some I grow for enjoyment. Without looking up, she said, “There’s a lot of things that you don’t know about me.”

  “I see,” I said. “What kind of healing do you do?”

  “I practice voodoo.”

  “What?” I said and stopped dead in my tracks. “Unbelievable.” I shook my head and starting walking around again. “A golfing voodoo doctor.”

  “Voodoo herbalist,” she corrected.

  I walked over to where she stood and saw cabinets that lined the wall filled with dried herbs and bottles labeled with what was inside.

  “How did you learn all of this?” I asked.

  “Louis Colquett. At least he got me started.”

  “Bay’s father taught you all about this?”

  “Mmm hmmm. Some of it. Louis introduced me to it although I had always used roots and plants to help those with ailments from the time I was young. When I was coming up they didn’t have bottled medicines, you know. But, then, after he showed me different things, I took a trip to New Orleans.” She looked over me. “I lived there for about five years. Studied under a voodoo queen.”

  “Really? I knew I should be afraid of you.”

  “Don’t worry, Honeybun. I like you,” she said grinning.

  “Sooo. Can’t you do some spell, or something, and divine the murderer?” I thought I may as well get to the matter at hand – talking Miss Vivee out of going to Atlanta.