Coastal Cottage Calamity (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter Two

“Logan Dickerson.”
Brie called my name and waved an envelope at me. “You’ve got mail,” she said
and giggled. She was so corny.

I’d been staying in
Yasamee for almost a month and for it to be such a small place, there had been
a lot of disorder going on, the day’s events included. But the one constant –
the calm in the storm – was a handwritten note from my mother that I got each
week I’d been there. Blue Mountain or Hallmark, the card came faithfully filled
with the goings on at home. She said that emails were too impersonal for us to
stay in touch.

Jury wasn’t in on
how I felt about her bombarding me with cheerful, humorous tidbits of sentiment.
One of the many tribulations (perks?) of being the youngest child even though
my twenty-ninth birthday was fast approaching, my mother was always close.

Sometimes I felt
like the light of fame didn’t . . .  couldn’t shine on me because I existed in
my mother’s shadow. I guess I’d put myself there going into the same occupation
as she. Still I just wanted to do as much as she had.

Maybe more . . .

My mother of
course didn’t see it that way. She couldn’t understand why I thought I needed
to best her.

And that’s how I’d
landed in Yasamee – trying to make a name for myself, and I’d gotten in over my
head. In running from the FBI (yeah that much over-my-head kind of trouble), I
ran right smack dab into Yasamee, Miss Vivee and a murder.

I took the letter
from Brie and glanced into the now quiet dining room. Although the fighting
blondes had summarily departed – none partaking of Miss Vivee’s calming tea –
there still was an air of discontent that lingered.

Yep, hiding out. On
the run. A fugitive. That had been me.

Well maybe it
wasn’t as dramatic as that. I just thank goodness it had turned out okay. I got
a permit to dig on Stallings Island. And that FBI guy that that conducted a
“Terry stop” on me in Itza, a little town just outside of where I committed my
crime of trespassing on federally protected property, ended up being
my
guy.

A nice twist.

My criminal
proclivities wasn’t because I hadn’t been raised right. My parents, back in
Cleveland were fine, upstanding citizens. Well, at least my father was. My
mother, a pretty famous biblical archaeologist had a somewhat shaky vitae.
Still it wasn’t like me. Especially since I’d work so hard to get double Ph.Ds.
and spend every waking moment I could find in hot dusty deserts or tropical humid
jungles to make my mark in the world of archaeology.

And not only did I
end up with the FBI guy, he ended up being the son of the owner of the exact
bed and breakfast I sought refuge in.

Coincidence?

Maybe. But he thought
it was fate.

Bay Colquett, son
of Renmar and Louis Colquett. Bay’s father, a creole from New Orleans, had been
the one who taught his maternal grandmother, Miss Vivee all about Voodoo
herbalism. A field she now professed to being a master in.

I don’t know about
master, but she was, I had to admit, pretty smart about it.

Vivienne Pennywell
was unquestionably the matriarch of the small town, and according to her, she
was one hundred years old. No one believed that though. Her daughters, Renmar
and Brie, thought she was about ninety.

Who doesn’t know
how old their mother is?

But that was their
story. Who was I to argue? I was only a guest in their humble establishment while
I did excavations on the Island.

Plus, Brie had
told me that it wasn’t polite to ask a woman’s age (took me a while to get used
to all the southern mannerism that went on in Yasamee). Yet, Miss Vivee freely
told everyone about her meeting the century mark (Brie also said that women lie
about their age). I had come to learn that when it came to lying, Miss Vivee
was the Empress Prevaricator. She had a talent for it that out surpassed every
politician ever known to man.

And, however old
she was, she still had her wits about her. It was Miss Vivee who had solved the
whole matter of Gemma Burke’s death with me as her trusty, most time reluctant,
sidekick. In a week, no less. Dry drowning had killed her and thankfully not
Renmar’s bouillabaisse.

But it just seemed
to me, at ninety she’d have other things to do besides trying to solve murders.
Plenty of things came to my mind. Bingo, for instance.

I read the card
from my mother, then shook the envelope to make sure she hadn’t included any
money.

Yeah, I know I’m
twenty-nine but is anyone really ever too old to get help from their mom?

I sighed and
looked around the room. Taking in a breath I could smell some kind of sweet
goodness coming from the kitchen.

Probably Renmar
and Koryn
,
I thought. They both had settled down from the earlier ruckus. Renmar, chef
extraordinaire, had been teaching Koryn a few tricks of the trade since she’d
moved in. I think the reason she’d taken Koryn in as an apprentice was because
Koryn had been working at the Jellybean Café, and its cook, Gus, was a rival of
Renmar’s. I’m sure she gave lessons to Koryn to show she couldn’t be bested.

I agreed with
Renmar. Her food was the best.

Still everyone had
become fond of Koryn. We were more concerned about her reaction to everything
than to the blondies.

I decided not go
back to the Island the rest of the day. I figured I’d spend a little time
texting my new man. And then take a long bath in one of Miss Vivee herb
concoctions to try to shake all of the murderous auras that were swirling around
in the air.

Chapter Three

It was early – too
early Koryn had complained. And too hot. The edges of the sky were still a
little pink, the gray of the night faint. The early morning June air was a
balmy seventy degrees. Miss Vivee on the other hand, was ecstatic.

“Morning air is
the best,” she said patting on her chest, taking in big gulps of air and
encouraging us to do the same.

Koryn drug her
feet across the sand of the beach as we headed toward the shoal. I was used to
early morning jaunts. I carried Miss Vivee’s folding chair and multi-colored
striped beach umbrella. Koryn had her lunch basket. The both of them had
decided to come with me to my excavation site on Stallings Island for the
morning.

Koryn Razner had
been Gemma Burke’s roommate at the time she died. It had been the first murder
in Yasamee in sixty-five years. From what I’d learned, they had met in Atlanta
and became fast friends once Gemma found out that Koryn was being physically
and mentally abused by her boyfriend. Gemma had brought Koryn to Yasamee to
protect her. Like me, Koryn came to hide out. And like me, because she didn’t
have anywhere to live after Gemma died, she had found salvation at the Maypop.

Renmar, at Miss
Vivee’s direction had taken Koryn in, and Viola Rose and her husband, Gus,
owners of the Jellybean Café gave her a job. In the past month Koryn was
finding her way back to a normal kind of life. She was generally happy.

“It’ll be fun,”
Miss Vivee had told her. “You’ll love the history of the Island.” Miss Vivee
trying to help in her own sort of way.

And that’s the
part that made me happy. The history of the island.

Stallings Island,
the home of Native Americans more than 4600 years ago, was a National Landmark,
and now was all mine to excavate. My mother had called in a couple of favors
and got me the permission to dig on the Island. National Geographic had
supplied funds in 1999 to reopen a 1929 excavation for mapping and radiocarbon
sampling, but no digging had been done at the time. Now the Archaeological
Conservancy had given me permission to do it. Funding, equipment, volunteer
amateur archaeologists, the use of a lab, and a stipend – enough for a year’s
worth of work had been all a part of the go ahead to dig. It had all been music
to my ears.

Maybe it was luck.
Maybe it was fate. Maybe, fate with a little luck thrown in. But I couldn’t
have asked for anything more.

I handed over the
umbrella and chair to Koryn and told her to finish walking Miss Vivee (we’d
left Cat at home) to the end of Oliver’s property and sit on the bench down by
the coastline. I needed them to wait for me while I let Oliver know we were
going to use his boat to get Miss Vivee over to the Island.

Oliver Gibbons’
family at one time had owned Stallings Island as well as most of the land that
made up Yasamee. That’s before the Archaeological Conservancy had taken the
Island due to all the public looting. Still he and Renmar visited the Island
regularly, even though they thought I didn’t know.

To reach the shoal
I’d usually just walked over it – a narrow sandbank that went from the mainland
to the Island – crossing the shallow waters of the Savannah. But I couldn’t do
that with Miss Vivee. Even if I wasn’t exactly sure how old she was, I knew for
a fact she was old enough that I shouldn’t chance her trying to balance her way
across a two-foot wide, fifty-foot long, sand bar. Oliver’s boat was the best
way for Miss Vivee to travel. I was sure that he didn’t mind me using it but
figured it was better to ask.

Oliver’s house was
the only one along the five mile shore. The Savannah River was the backyard to
his beautiful two-story cottage painted a Gainsboro gray with white trim. It
was huddled amid sea oats, morning glories and sand. I walked up six steps and
across the porch to the large wooden door and raised my hand to knock but
stopped mid-air. I leaned it, fist still poised and listened.

Someone was shouting.

It was like
déjà
vu
.

There was
screaming coming from the other side of the door so loud it could wake the
dead. I turned around and saw Miss Vivee and Koryn headed across the sandy
beach to the bench. I turned back around and stared at the door.

Should I knock?

Maybe I should just
listen first. Find out what’s going on. Don’t want to walk in on anything that
would get me tangled up in whatever mess was going on inside.

I wonder if it’s
one of those women that were in the Maypop yesterday.

I leaned in and
put my ear to the white wooden door and tried to make out what was going on. I
could hear the shouting clearly, but the words were muffled.

Maybe I’d have
better luck at the window.

I checked around
to make sure no one could see me and went over to the large picture window that
stretched across the front of the house. Dropping down low, I did a duck walk
until I was in the middle of it. I grabbed the window frame and raised up just
high enough for my eyes to clear the bottom so I could see through the glass.

It was Renmar.

She was animated.
Angry. Her hands making gestures as she spoke. Her body jerking as she let out
her threatening words. She was almost as red as she’d been the day before when
she playing referee at the Maypop. And Oliver, though not as seething looking as
Renmar, was matching her word for word. Volume from both on high.

“I am not going to
do it!” she screamed. “I’d kill anyone before I’d see someone else get their
hands on it!”

There it was
again. That word.

Kill.

Everyone sure was
hurling it around so loosely as of late.

“You don’t have
any choice in the matter.” Oliver waved his hand around and turned to walk away
from her. Renmar grabbed him and yanked him back around.

Boy, was she
strong.

“Not even when I’m
dead, Oliver.” She stuck her finger in his face. “I promise you that. No one
will get their hands on it. It’ll never happen. And I’ll stop anyone who tries
to get it.” She leaned, her face in his. “Anyone.”

“Are you
threatening me, Renmar?”

“I don’t know,
Oliver. Are you going to give it to them? Are you just going to hand it over to
them?” She swiped her head over her brow and clutched at her chest. “That would
hurt me. Don’t you know that?” she pleaded. “Do you care that little about me?”

He didn’t say
anything.

“Don’t make me
hurt
you
, Oliver,” Renmar seemed to take his silence as an admission
that he would commit whatever act she was protesting against and that made her
boil. She balled her fist up at her side, raised her shoulders and as they
dropped she huffed loudly. She turned and headed for the door.

Crap.

I needed to hide. I
looked to the left and then to the right.

There was no place
to go.

I ran to the
railing, put my right leg over and as I straddled the banister I looked over
the side of it.

Man. That’s a long
way down.

Then I heard Renmar
opening the door. I snapped my heard around and saw her foot as it crossed the door
jam.

Crap.

I panicked, lost
my balance and that made me tumble over the side of the banister, hands
flailing. I had to muffle a scream as my hip landed on the protrusion of an
odd-shaped stone in a rock garden with a thump. I slapped my hand across my
mouth, and contorted my body to stop the reverberations of pain surging through
it.  Lying on my side, I brought my knees up to my chest, making myself into a
ball, and turned over and crawled close to the side of the house. My leg
throbbing, I started sweating.

I heard Renmar’s
heels walk across the wooden planks of the porch, and I knew I had to make a
run for it. Turning to get out of sight, my face met with a patch of blue
morning glories. Trying not to crush them, I lifted up my middle and then
scurried hand over feet across the rocks and sand away from the house.   

Crap.

When I’d got a
safe distance away from the house, I stood up and swiped the palms of my hands
across the other to get rid of the sand.
I rubbed my upper thigh as I
limped back to where I’d left Miss Vivee and Koryn.

I felt foolish,
sneaking around eavesdropping. All I had to do was leave when I heard them
arguing. Or just knock. Let Oliver know I was taking the boat and leave them to
it.

Seeing Miss Vivee,
I let out the breath and waved.

“Did you let
Oliver know we were taking the boat,” Miss Vivee asked.

“Sure did,” I lied.
“And he said it was fine.”

“I knew it,” Miss
Vivee said and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know why you wasted time
asking.”

“I don’t either,
Miss Vivee.” I smiled at her, rubbing my hip, I said, “I should have never gone
up to that house to ask.”