Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter Three

“Where are you headed?” he asked. “He” was
tall, with honey-colored skin. Dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and paisley
tie. It was easy to notice the fit, firm body underneath that filled out his
clothes.

“When?” I said.

“Now. You seemed in such a hurry.”

“I told you, you scared me.” I licked my
lips. “That’s why I started running.”

He looked at me and took in a breath.

“Sorry about that. Okay? I just was trying
to get your attention.” He bit his bottom lip and stared at me for a moment.
“I’m with the FBI,” he flashed me the badge he had pulled out of his pocket. “I
just needed to ask you a couple of questions.”

Whew! No handcuffs.

“FBI?” I pretended I hadn’t known.

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh, okay then.” Now I pretended I was
much calmer. I really wasn’t. I was, in fact, more nervous than I’d been the
night before when I was doing the actual crime.

Suddenly, I had to pee.

“So where are you headed?” he asked again.

“Stallings Island.” The place just popped
into my brain and I let it out.

A half-smile crept across his face.
“Really?” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small
notebook and pen.

 “Yes.” I stumbled forth with my lie. “It
is an archaeological site in the coastal region of Georgia.” I tried to speak
more casually. “I’m an archaeologist. I’m doing research on the people that
lived there approximately 4000 rcybp. R-C-Y-B-P. That’s radio carbon years
before present,” I said in my most professional voice.

Figured I’d throw a little
sciencey
stuff in, maybe I’d sound less like a criminal.

“What kind of archaeologist are you, Ms.
Dickerson?”

“It’s
Doctor
Dickerson.” I squared
my shoulders and tried to stand up straighter. I had a Ph.D. in Anthropology
and
History, hopefully it would make me seem more like a law abiding citizen. And
flaunting it might help me appear more unfettered. Although, I still had to put
my hands behind my back because I couldn’t seem to control them from trembling.
My mouth wasn’t having a hard time spilling lies, but the rest of my body
seemed to rebel against it.

“My mother is a
biblical
archaeologist,”
I said.

Why did I say that?

I licked my lips again and shook my head.
“And I-I’m just the run-of-the-mill, garden variety type. Why?”

He wrote down something in his notebook. I
tried to stand on my toes to see what he was writing.

 “If you don’t have any other questions,”
I said and adjusted my knapsack on my shoulder. “I was just getting ready to
leave.”

“There was a break-in at Track Rock Gap
last night,” he said and looked up at me from his notebook. “Do you know
anything about it?”

“Track Gap?” I said trying to appear
confused.

“Track Rock Gap,” he corrected. “Don’t
tell me you haven’t heard of it?”

Should I lie? I already had so many lies
that I’d had to keep up with.

“Yes. I’ve heard of it.” I decided on the
truth. “Why?”

“Because your car was reported being seen there
yesterday.”

A knot rose in my throat. 

Oh my God, I really am going to jail.

“We pulled it up on the security cam.” He
looked down at his notebook and flipped through a couple of pages.

“Ohio FYE 2965. That’s your license
plate?” He looked past me at my car.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

“It was recorded around three o’clock
yesterday. It shows you outside the gates . . .”

How could I be so stupid and not realize
the place had surveillance cameras.

“Wait!” I blurted out. Suddenly it hit me.
I felt a smile coming on. “My car was spotted at three o’clock?”

“Yes and -”

“In the afternoon?”

“Yes.”

He’s wasn’t talking about when I was there
last night.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know about last
night.

I breathed in and exhaled a sigh of
relief.

“Oh yes. I was there.” My words flowed. “Thought
I’d take a look at it, but it was locked up tight. No visitors I understand?” I
raised my eyebrows.

“No. No one’s allowed on the land. We were
wondering did you see anyone else there. Or have any idea who was there last
night?”

“No.” I took in a breath. “No. I have no
idea.” I ran my hand over my face.  “Okay, then. Is that all?”

“Just one more question.”

“Alright,” I said even though that’s not
how I felt.

“Where were you last night?” He looked me
directly in my eyes.

Crap,
I thought.
Can he tell if I
lie? Had he been trained at Quantico to detect liars
?

“I don’t know,” I decided to lie anyway. “Sleep
I guess.”

 “You don’t know where you were?” He
arched an eyebrow.

“Your question is kind of vague. Last night
encompasses a lot of time,” I said. “Do you mean after six? After nine?”

“After nine.”

“In bed. Asleep,” I said and nodded, lips
tight.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive,” I said. “I have no reason
to lie.”

Ha! If he only knew.

“I only ask because the woman at the
desk,” he turned and looked back toward the motel, “said she saw you come in
covered in dirt.”

I frowned. “Yeah. I don’t think that happened.”
Then I looked directly in his eyes. “Why would she say something like that?”

He kept his eyes locked on mine. A smirk
appeared on his face. For some reason that smirk made me nervous.

“I don’t know why she would say that,” he
said finally. “Okay, well, if you remember seeing anything or anyone at Track
Rock Gap while you were there, give me a call.” He closed his notebook and
reached into the same inside jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. He
handed it to me. “We’re just trying to figure out if the person who broke in
last night had come by earlier as well.”

“I sure will.” I held up the card. “I’ll
call if I think of anything,” I said. I opened the back door and threw my
luggage inside.  I slammed that door, turned, smiled at him and jumped in the
driver’s side. I took the satchel from around my and neck and pushed the card
he’d given me down in an inside pocket and threw it on the passenger seat. Then
I pulled out of that parking lot so fast that I think I left tire marks.

I glanced back over at the parking lot
before I turned the corner and saw that FBI man still standing there.

Dummy.

Yeah, I called you dummy.

I started grinning. “I got out of that
one,” I said aloud. “And he’s none the wiser. Some kind of detective he is.”

I drove over the bridge to the Interstate,
I was going back home to Ohio. Do something nice for my mother. I turned on the
car’s GPS and Track Rock Gap popped up on the screen.

I glanced at myself in the rearview
mirror, my light-brown skin glistening from my attempt at escape and I thought
about what I had done. The grin started to fade.

I really was turning into a criminal.
Breaking onto government property, lying to FBI agents and then feeling good
about it. That, suddenly made me feel terrible.

A remorseful criminal.
Geesh
.

I picked up my cell phone and punched in my
mother’s number. I was ready to admit I needed her help.

Chapter Four

I had decided that I should actually go to
Stallings Island.

I realized that I didn’t want that FBI guy
to check up on me and I wasn’t where I said I’d be. I didn’t want him to know
how big a liar I had turned out to be.

My mother knew how to make me be on
Stallings Island – legally – happen. She’d know about any excavations there and
how I could join a team.

When I got her on the phone, my mother,
Dr. Justin Dickerson, famous, or in some circles, infamous, biblical
archaeologist told me that Stallings Island was, much like Track Rock Gap, ran
under a federal agency. And, she enlightened me, traffic to the island had in
fact been shut down long ago to the public due to looting.

“Criminals,” she had said and sucked her
teeth. “I never could understand why people would break into places like that and
desecrate our history.”

If she only knew that her baby child had
become one of those “people.”

I decided to come clean with her. I had to
tell her what I did in order for her to use all of her clout to get me on the
island so that my credibility in the science world wouldn’t be shot.

Only I wasn’t sure how much clout she had
anymore.

My mother had discovered, way back in
1997, that hidden with the Dead Sea Scrolls were manuscripts that described an
alternative history to man’s origins. The manuscripts said that man – people
just like us, same DNA as she liked to say – had originated on Mars.

Yeah, right. It made my mother seem kind
of wacky.

Unfortunately, before she could make it
known to the general public, people that did know started getting killed over
it, and secret societies that had government ties were trying to take the
information from her. So she decided the world wasn’t ready for what she knew.

Big decision for her to make. I know. But
my mother is smart. Super smart. And if she thought it was best, well then so
did I. So our family – including me – helped her hide all the evidence.

“One day,” she had said, “this information
will be rediscovered and the world will be ready to accept it for what it is
and put it to good use.”

She was good at cover-ups.

That’s another reason I called her.

So my mother, after hearing my story and
fussing at me for a good ten minutes about my impertinent and cheeky behavior
and total disregard for the law, said she could probably get me permission to go
to the island through her contacts with the Archaeological Conservancy, the
agency now in charge of it.

Yay! She still had clout.

But, she cautioned, she didn’t have the
faintest idea how I was going to fake an excavation. She was sure that excavations
real or fake, weren’t allowed. But she also said she’d keep trying to get me
permission.

Maybe I could learn to listen a little bit
more to my mother
before
I head out trying to do things on my own.

She told me that Stallings Island was about
eight miles outside of Augusta. And to try and be safe and truthful from here
on out.

I promised I would.

I punched in Augusta on my GPS and headed south
down the Georgia coastline. I opened up the window and let the breeze off the
Savannah River flow through me. I turned up the music, Maroon 5’s
Sugar
,
and enjoyed the drive.

Just off the highway, to my left I watched
sea gulls fly over the sandy dunes, bluffs and wind swept sea oats that led to
the blue water and barrier islands. Shallow pools riffled where scores of fish,
mussels and shrimp swam.  

And to my right sprawling live oaks and towering
cypress trees glistening under the bright yellow sun seem to sway with the beat
of the music. The skies were a clear, heavenly blue. I took in a breath and
smelled the fresh air. A grin curled up the side of my lips.

Yes. This was going to work out fine.

I could just feel it.

Chapter Five

Thursday
Afternoon, BGD

There was no boat from Augusta to
Stallings Island. No ferry. No bridge. No nothing.

No one was allowed on the island, so no
one provided a way to get there. There was, I was told, a shoal – a sandbank – that
extended from the shore to the Island. From what I understood, I could just
walk across it.

When I asked for directions to the shoal,
I was told it was in Yasamee, a small – No. Very small – town just down the
road “a piece.” “A piece” turned out to be twenty-five miles. Augusta and
Stallings Island was only eight miles apart
down
the river, but they
were twenty-fives miles apart
over
land.

I found my way to Yasamee easy enough. The
town was built around a square. The center a wide green open space with park
benches and a gazebo, and its four sides anchored with a movie theater, barber
shop, diner and a library. I stopped at one end of it and scanned over each
building looking for a hotel. Nothing.

I drove down the streets that dead ended
at the square and found all of them lined with beautiful water hickory and
tupelo trees and filled with vibrantly colored painted houses of Eastlake and Italianate
styled architecture. It was like driving through the streets of a picture. I
drove along the beach and saw a beautiful beachfront property. But there was no
hotel in sight.

Then I spotted it. It was a quaint bed and
breakfast, just like the ones in travel magazines on one of the last streets I
drove down. The sign outside read “Maypop B & B.” Maypop was the edible
fruit of the North American passion flower.

“Perfect,” I whispered.

From the outside the house looked enormous.
It was white with black shutters framing an abundance of front windows. It had double
oak doors and a wrap-around porch on the first and second story. I found a
place to park right outside the house. Grabbing my knapsack, I strolled up the
brick walkway past the verdant, perfectly manicured green lawn and pink azalea
bushes, up the steps and onto the porch.

The tan, natural coir doormat read “Welcome”
in big, bold black letters and that’s just how I felt.