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 eavesdropp
ing. 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.”
Chapter Four
The morning turned out to be a long day’s work of me getting nothing done. Miss Vivee was so demanding. Even though she didn’t know the first thing about archaeology. You’d think that she’d let me be in charge, seeing I was the expert.
But, she was easier to deal with when Mac came up to the site. He arrived about an hour after we did, and then he occupied some of the energy she had directed at me all morning.
Dr. Macomber “Not the Boyfriend” Whitson was Miss Vivee former sweetheart and current suitor. He admitted to his age – ninety (guessing the same rules about age didn’t apply to men). He was a spry old guy, about five seven, a firm build, with a shock of white hair that he always tried to tame with his hand. He had a limp that was given to him by Miss Vivee and her Lincoln car twenty years earlier when she’d thought he was cheating on her. But that was an entirely different story.
Happy not to have to babysit her anymore, I checked my knapsack for essentials and put it over my head and across my shoulder. I pulled out my ground penetrating equipment from the tent I’d set up near the end of the shoal. The island, being so close to Yasamee, wouldn’t need the usual site set-up – mess tent, lab and sleeping quarters – once my volunteers got in, we’d all just stay at the Maypop. I know Renmar would appreciate the business. Right now Koryn and I were the only guests.
The computer and leads were stored in a black box that was large enough to double as a table to sit the computer on while doing tests. The antenna, used to detect the physical and chemical changes in the ground, was encased in a red box and I maneuvered it with a long handle attached to the end of it. I handed Koryn a trowel and a brush and told her to follow me.
I sat Miss Vivee right outside my tent when we first got there. Pushed up her umbrella and made sure she was comfortable and out of the sunlight. Once Mac had gotten there I put him with her. When I got ready to leave, I handed them bottles of cold water from a battery operated refrigerator I kept in the tent and told them not to get out in the sun. Koryn left with me leaving Mac to babysit Miss Vivee for a while. He really couldn’t handle her when she made up her mind to do something, but it was the best plan I could come up with if I wanted to get any work done.
Stallings Island’s Native Americans made tempered pottery and shell mounds (instead of ones made from dirt). And that was what most, if not all, of the archaeological excavations in the past had been about. But mine was going to be different.
I lifted the computer out of the black carrying case. It was square and looked more like a tackle box than a laptop. I flipped the locks and pulled up the lid on the miniature computer. The screen diminutive, only showed images in a gray scale.
I connected the long cable leads to the bottom of the box that housed the monitor and then attached the other end to the hand-held antenna that I would sweep over the ground, sort of like a metal detector. It made noises as it powered up and synced the radar with the imaging device.
My heart did a little jump as it fired up. I so hoped to find something new. Something different. I was more than eager to do something on my own and make a name for myself. I took in a breath.
I hate when I feel the need to excel just to prove . . .
I thought about my mother. I guess it wasn’t really all her fault I was insecure at times. I had two older siblings that hadn’t helped my feelings of doubt over the years. They often teased me, as the baby of the family, it seemed to have started from day one. But I’d show them, too. Eventually.
Maybe even this time . . .
“I wanted to say sorry about screaming the way I did yesterday, Logan. It’s just . . . well,” Koryn spoke, her words bringing me back. I shook my thoughts away and tried to focus on what she was saying. I glanced at her, nodded acknowledging that I was listening and then looked back down at my machine. I snapped the survey wheel onto the red box to make maneuvering the antenna over the ground easier.
“It’s okay,” I said grabbing the chrome handle of the antenna. I started walking, rolling the radar in front of me over the transect I had mapped out earlier.
“It’s not like me,” Koryn continued. “But it just reminded me of when he . . . Cal.” She swallowed hard. “When Cal used to hit me. And yell at me . . .” She bit her lip, looking down she kicked a rock with the toe of her shoe.
I glanced up at her, careful not to veer off the narrow section I was surveying. “It’s okay, Koryn. Really. I understand.”
It was such a sensitive topic to talk about and I wasn’t paying attention. With the radar, I had to walk up and down an area, careful not to stray. It was sort of like cutting grass, back and forth to make sure I didn’t miss any of the subsurface. But I couldn’t concentrate on that and be sympathetic to her. I let out a breath and switched it off. I looked at her and touched her arm with my hand. “You know if you ever want to talk about anything. I’m all ears. And so is Miss Vivee.”
“I know,” she said. “And I appreciate everything that everyone at the Maypop has done for me, but I’ve got to get my life back on track.”
I smiled at her. “That’s good, right? You’re ready to do something?”
“I am,” she said. “Sooo.” She dragged the word out, seemingly hesitant about her next words. “I’ll probably be leaving soon.”
“Leaving?” I raised an eyebrow. I figured that was safe conversation. No sympathy needed. I turned the radar back on and started moving again. “You’re leaving Yasamee?” I asked but didn’t move my eyes off the ground I was rolling across.
“Yeah. I found a job in Nevada.”
“Have you told Renmar yet?” I know, like Miss Vivee, Renmar had taken a liking to her.
“No. Not yet. I’ve had enough of Renmar,” she said and lowered her eyes.
“Really?”
“I don’t mean that in a mean way,” she said. “It’s just not who I am, following around behind other people.”
I thought about it and I realized that I’d never actually talked to Koryn about her life. What she liked. What she didn’t like. What kind of person she was. I hadn’t wanted to ask because of a past that included an abusive boyfriend.
“Cal.”
That was the first time she’d ever mentioned his name. She had left Atlanta to get away from him. But I should’ve known that there had to be other things in her past that were safe to talk about. I should have tried. I glanced over at her. Now she was leaving, apparently not very happy with the things that were going on around her. Not much time to get to know more about her now.
“When are you leaving?”
“In a few days. I just got the offer yesterday.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for a job,” I said and turned to head back down the next section of dirt. “I thought you were happy here. Staying at the Maypop. Working at the Jellybean Café.”
“I am. But I can’t keep running all my life. I need to settle down.”
“But just not here?” I asked.
“No. I’m a big city kind of girl.”
Now that I would have never guessed. Koryn Razner was quiet and seemed to me a little introverted. Her haphazardly cut hair was always falling out of her ponytail into her face and she’d recently sliced off more hair to make bangs that were too long. She was constantly pushing or blowing them out of her face. She never had much to say although she did have a warm genuine smile that she didn’t mind sharing. She had a small
frame, and even with all the sunshine in Georgia she was pale. I looked at her, the best word to describe her I thought was “meek.”
“So. What kind of job is it?” I asked making another turn. She was walking sideways now, following me as I went back and forth over the area.
“It’s in a research and development lab.”
“R & D? Really?” I stopped and looked up from the hand held machine. “A science lab? You never said anything about being into science.”
“I know.” She lowered her head and nodded. “I majored in chemistry in school.”
“You did?”
“Yep.” She nodded. “And I used to teach. Like Gemma. But not second graders.”
“Like high school?”
“Yep. High school.”
A smile appeared across my face and I nudged her with my shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me? What a coincidence. I knew I liked you for some reason.” I looked at her. “We’re just alike, huh?”
“Yep,” she said. “We’re both into science.”
I heard Mac’s voice attempt a feeble shout and turned to look at him waving at us. “Vivee said come and eat,” he said.
“I’m just getting a good start,” I said turning back to look at Koryn. I took in a breath and sighed. “You know what?” I took the trowel and brush from Koryn and stuffed it into my knapsack. “Just tell Miss Vivee I’m not hungry and I wanted to get a little more work in before we left for the day.”
“Okay,” Koryn said. “But you know she’ll be upset.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “It’ll be more egg salad for her. No matter how much she claims she doesn’t like it, I think it’s the sole source of energy for the ATP reactions in her body.”
Koryn didn’t say anything.
“It’s a joke,” I said. “ATP. The body’s way of extracting energy from food.”
“Oh yeah.” She chuckled. She blew a breath up to clear her eyes of her bangs. “Okay,” she said. “See you back at the tent.”
Guess that wasn’t as funny as I thought. Maybe I didn’t have it right. ATP to ADP . . .
Coastal Cottage Calamity (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 2