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

by Abby L. Vandiver

  They took them one step at a time.

  Out the door and across the sand.

  Limping and dragging.

  Mac lost the rubber end to his cane and they wanted to stop and look for it. It took all the clever coaxing I had in me to make them leave it and go to the car.

  Jump into the car and make a fast getaway.

  I had to push Miss Vivee up into my SUV Jeep.

  Geesh.

  As soon as we got back to the Maypop, Miss Vivee dragged me in her room, sat me down on her bed and sat right up under me. “Call, Mac,” she instructed.

  Didn’t we just drop him off?

  “Put him on speaker,” she said and started poking buttons on the phone.

  “Miss Vivee!” I gently pushed her hand away. “I have to dial the number first. What is it?”

  She rattled it off and I punched in the numbers. After about the tenth ring I looked at her. “Maybe he’s gone to bed.”

  “The phone ought to wake him up.” She looked down at my phone. “He doesn’t know your number. Hang up and call right back.” She tried to push the “End” button.

  “I can do it,” I said and gave her a sideways glance.

  I redialed Mac and he answered on the third ring.

  “It was the nicotine,” Miss Vivee shouted into the phone. She hadn’t needed me to call him on my phone, as loud as she was speaking she could’ve just poked her head out the window. I’m sure he would have heard her.”

  “You don’t have to talk that loud,” I said to her. And then to instruct her, I said in a regular voice, “Sorry about bothering you, Mac. Miss Vivee wanted to talk to you.”

  “Nicotine,” she said over me.

  “How is that?” he said.

  “Oliver told me once how those electronic things he smoked work. You have to fill up the filter with nicotine. Like what we saw in those bottles in his bathroom.”

  “Pure nicotine is poisonous,” he said, which made Miss Vivee cluck her teeth.

  “Well of course it is. That’s why he’s dead.”

  “What I’m saying is the only way nicotine is that lethal is if it was practically 100%. There were no bottles like that there. And no one would use that to fill one of those things he smoked. It would kill him.”

  “It did kill him, Mac.”

  Is she saying the poison used to kill Oliver was nicotine?

  “Hold on,” I said to the both of them.

  I tapped on the Safari icon on the phone and brought up Google. I typed in e-cigarettes and nicotine strength.

  “Here. Let me see . . . ‘How do I choose a nicotine strength – Vapor Train.’” I read the link and then clicked on it. I skimmed the article.

  “Okay it reads, ‘When making the switch from smoking cigarettes to the electronic cigarette, many new users are bewildered about how to choose nicotine strength’ . . . . blah blah, blah blah. ‘Most e-liquids come in several strengths: high, medium, low, and zero,’” I read. “Okay. Wait. Here it is. ‘There are 12mg and 24 mg strengths . . .”

  “That wouldn’t kill him, Vivee,” Mac interrupted. “It’d have to be stronger than that. The highest he had was 18mg. Remember? We saw it.”

  “If somebody put enough of it in the cartridge, that would make it stronger,” Miss Vivee argued. “Just like I did with the tea. I added more drops of the extract to make it more powerful.

  “Those little filters, cartridges, or whatever they’re called only hold so much,” Mac countered. “You can’t just add more to it. It would spill out.”

  I backed up and read another entry that said the same thing basically, it was a company that sold 18, 12, and 6mg bottles of the liquid nicotine used to refill the e-cig cartridges. Then I typed in nicotine poisoning. It said it usually happened in children. Caused by chewing tobacco leaves.

  Then I read “Symptoms.” Nausea, excessive salivation, abdominal pain, pallor, sweating, vomiting. Burns on the mouth.

  I looked over at Miss Vivee who was still yelling into the phone at Mac.

  Even dead, Oliver did show some of those symptoms.

  Maybe Miss Vivee did know what she was talking about.

  I pulled up a previous search about the nicotine e-liquids and re-read the first entry I had found. Down further in the article it read: “The nicotine density listed for e-liquid is the number of milligrams of nicotine per milliliter in the E-Liquid.”

  “What about if . . .” I stared at the phone and back up at Miss Vivee. “What about if it was full strength?” I elbowed her. “Miss Vivee.” She was still talking. “Miss Vivee.”

  “What?”

  “What about if someone changed the strength? Instead of a 24mg or ten or whatever per milliliter. What if someone replaced Oliver’s liquid nicotine bottle with a higher concentration? 75mg per milliliter. Or 100mg.” My eyes got big at the realization. “You wouldn’t need more liquid if it were a higher concentration. The bottle could contain a higher solution of nicotine per each drop.”

  We sat quietly for a moment. Thinking.

  “That might could work,” Mac said, breaking the silence. “Oliver would take one puff on that cigarette and bam!” He slammed his hand on something that made a loud noise into the telephone. Miss Vivee and I jumped.

  “Mac,” Miss Vivee said. “No need to be so dramatic. You scared us.”

  “Sorry, ladies, I got a little carried away. But nicotine . . . The thought of Oliver inhaling and me envisioning the toxin moving through the bloodstream at an exceptional rate, got me a little excited.” He got quiet for a moment, but I could hear him breathing - quick, short breaths. “It only takes about seven seconds, once inhaled,” he said finally. “Yep just about seven seconds, if I remember correctly, for nicotine to travel from the lung to the brain.”

  “Quick. Precise. Lethal.” Miss Vivee nodded her head. “Perfect way to kill him.”

  Miss Vivee hit my arm, almost knocking the phone out of my hand. Her face lit up and her eyes were beaming.

  “That’s why the Andersons wanted to get into that house,” she said, an excited look on her face. “Why they took a chance on crossing that crime scene tape.”

  “Miss Vivee,” I said. “You don’t know it was the Andersons there tonight. You didn’t see them.”

  Although she had tried. I had had to practically hold her down to keep her from getting to the window.

  “Oh it was them. I know it. They were trying to get something,” she said.

  “Why?” Mac asked.

  “To get the evidence. The bottle had to still be there. The bottle with the higher concentration.” She looked at me, smiled and nodded. “It must have been in the kitchen.” She hit me again. “We should have started in the kitchen.”

  I stared down at the phone and then back up at Miss Vivee. “If it was nicotine poisoning that killed Oliver then that makes me think that it wasn’t Ron Anderson or his wife that did it.”

  “How so,” Mac asked.

  “How long had Oliver been smoking e-cigarettes?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Miss Vivee said. “Not long.”

  “No,” I said. “It couldn’t have been long because they haven’t been out long.” I pulled up Google again and typed in “When were e-cigarettes invented.” I read the results out loud. “’2003. The electronic cigarette is first developed in Beijing, China by Hon Lik, a 52 year old pharmacist, inventor and smoker. He reportedly invents the device after his father, also a heavy smoker, dies of lung cancer.’”

  “Twelve years,” Mac said.

  “Longer than I thought,” I said. “But still, Ron and Charlie are long lost cousins.”

  “They said they hadn’t seen Oliver in twenty years,” Miss Vivee said evidently recalling the conversation Ron had with Brie and Renmar.

  “They wouldn’t’ve known he smoked e-cigarettes,” I concluded. I looked at Miss Vivee. “Are you going to take them off your list?”

  “No. They stay. I haven’t ruled them out. That Ron Anderson seems like the c
riminal type. And if he didn’t commit murder, he’s done something else.”

  “So,” I said. “I’m guessing, with the recognition of the symptoms and firsthand knowledge of how quickly nicotine kills, you both knew of a case where someone died from nicotine poisoning?”

  I remembered how they knew that Gemma Burke had dry drowned, a manner of death I’d never heard of before, because of a boy dying that way years earlier.

  “There’s a famous case,” Mac said. “Do you know of it, Vivee?”

  “Of course I do. I’m an herbalist.”

  “Well I don’t know, so somebody tell me,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “It was in the mid-1800s,” Mac said starting the story they both knew about nicotine being used as a poison.

  “In Belgium,” Miss Vivee added.

  “That’s right,” Mac said. “A woman and her husband killed her brother to get the inheritance.”

  “Just like Ron Anderson,” Miss Vivee said and nodded at me.

  “Perhaps,” Mac seemed to agree. “Anyway, I can’t say that I remember all the details, but determining if a poison was from a plant before that time hadn’t been possible during an autopsy. That kind of forensics didn’t exist. Knowing that the couple used pure nicotine to kill him.”

  “If an autopsy couldn’t detect nicotine, how does anyone know that’s what they used?”

  “Ahh,” Mac said. “I said up until that time. The prosecutor had thought that it may be nicotine because they found dried tobacco leaves and some dead cats in the brother-in-law’s makeshift laboratory. So the prosecutor asked a British chemist to develop a test he could use and would stand up in court. It took the chemist three or four months, but he figured out a test that could be used on a corpse to determine if the poison was plant based. I think after that the brother-in-law was found guilty and hanged for it. I don’t know his full name – the chemist’s, but his last name was either Stats or Otto because the Stats-Otto test is still standard in toxicology even today.”

  “But,” I said touching the phone to close down Google. (I almost didn’t need it with the wealth of information Miss Vivee and Mac had stored in their brains.) “It seems to me,” I continued. “With people puffing on tobacco for more than a few thousand years, and its popularity as a national addiction, no one would think to use it to kill someone. Other than with cancer, which doesn’t kill instantly.”

  “Nicotine is a drug,” Mac said. “Highly addictive.”

  “Right. I agree with that,” I said. “But it’s just not something you hear about people using to kill someone.”

  “Women use poison to kill,” Miss Vivee said. “It’s a known fact. It’d seem right as a murder weapon against our resident lover boy. Either that or a small caliber hand gun.”

  “Yes, another fine weapon for a woman scorned,” Mac agreed.

  “We don’t know if a woman killed him. Remember,” I raised my eyebrows. “Your number one suspect is Ron Anderson,” I said trying to rein in conversation and get back to how would someone think to use nicotine. “Surely wouldn’t be my first choice seeing that every corner store sold rat poison that would do the job just as well. Killing someone with nicotine.” I shook my head. “It’s quite creative. But it seems odd to use. Out of the way. So many other poisons to use.” I looked at Miss Vivee. “Your greenhouse shelves are lined with plenty of things. And I bet no nicotine.”

  “No.” Miss Vivee set her lips in a tight line. “Don’t stock any. I only know of one other use for it, other than that, no, it has no medicinal use. No good use.”

  “Other than to kill Oliver, that is,” Mac said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Renmar seemed heartbroken.

  It was the morning of Oliver’s memorial service and the Maypop Bed and Breakfast was going to host the repast. Even if Renmar had to “choke Ron Anderson” herself to make it happen.

  Her words.

  I had been tiptoeing lightly around Renmar. I didn’t want to come right out and accuse her of murder, even though her own mother thought her capable. But if she was the murderer she sure was putting on a good show. She seemed lost without Oliver.

  “As much as I hated them,” she said, “I’m even going to miss those god forsaken electronic cigarettes of his.” She fanned her hands in front of her eyes to keep them from getting misty. “After Louis died from lung cancer who would have ever thought I’d say that.” She looked over at me.

  I was sitting at the round kitchen table drinking coffee while she flitted around the kitchen – pots steaming, flour aflutter, pans clanking. It was early in the morning, and I’d heard her in the kitchen even after we got back from our snooping expedition. I looked back at her over the rim of my cup and hunched up my shoulders.

  “Well I never would,” she said.

  I watched her and thought to myself, I thought my family was crazy. Between Miss Vivee’s Voodoo-ism and Renmar’s mean streak that made her capable of murder. I was beginning to wonder what I got myself into when I fell for Bay . . .

  “I talked to Bay this morning,” I said.

  “You did?” A weak smile crossed her face. “What’d he say?”

  “He and Tom are coming to the memorial service today.”

  “Tom?”

  “Remember the liaison for the FBI?”

  “Oh the one Mother said was having a pissing contest with Lloyd.” She chuckled. “The Sheriff, I heard, didn’t want the FBI to have anything to do with Oliver’s body.”

  “Yeah. He was pretty upset. Anyway, Bay thinks if it was murder then he might get some information on the killer at the service.”

  “I guess that’s a good idea,” she said stirring something that smelled yummy.

  It was a good idea to Miss Vivee, that’s for sure. She was planning on doing the same thing.

  “Although I’d hope Bay would come anyway,” Renmar continued. “Not just because it’s business. Oliver after all was family.”

  “Autopsy results I think are going slow.”

  “Why is that,” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it being the weekend, he didn’t really say. Oliver’s body will be there at the memorial. They just don’t have any determination on the cause of death yet. Toxicology and whatever they do wasn’t completed.”

  “Don’t they know up there in Atlanta that the dead don’t care what day of the week it is?” I turned and saw Brie standing at the door.”

  “Come on in, Brie. I’ll make you some tea.” Renmar waved her sister into the room. “I suppose no one’s come in today. Everyone’s getting ready for the service.”

  “We care. Everyone in Yasamee,” Brie said. “But it doesn’t look like the FBI care much about our dead.”

  “I know,” Renmar’s said her eyes filling up with tears. “At least Oliver’ll be there. I’m glad about that.”

  “Hello.”

  I turned again and looked at the archway that lead from the hallway to the kitchen. This time I saw Charlie.

  Charlotte Anderson appeared to be alone and was leaning into the doorway hesitantly, it seemed she’d poised herself to be able to duck and run just in case we were in the mood to throw rotten tomatoes her way.

  “No one was out front. The UPS man gave me this package,” she said and offered it up. “I hope it’s okay that I came on back.”

  Renmar, at Charlie’s appearance, started stumbling over her words. I got up and took the box from her and handed to Renmar.

  Brie was the consummate hostess. “Would you like some breakfast?” Brie asked. “I’m not sure what to call you.”

  “Charlie,” she said.

  “Charlie,” Brie smiled and beckoned her to come and take a seat at the table. “How about a Belgium waffle? Renmar can make you one.”

  “Uhm . . . I’m uhm . . . I have my hands full,” Renmar said holding up the box Charlie had just brought in. She seemed nervous, which was rather curious.

  Unless of course she thought Charlie knew
that she was the one that killed Oliver . . .

  “So, let’s see what I’ve ordered now,” Renmar tried to put on a smile. She grabbed a butcher knife, one too big for the task and sliced into the tape that held the box shut.

  I scooted my chair a little farther away from her.

  “I’ll make it for you,” Brie offered.

  “Oh no, that’s okay -” Charlie started to say.

  “Morning everyone.” It was Koryn. “Looks like everyone’s in the kitchen.” She walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a box of cereal and a bowl. “Everyone but Miss Vivee, where is she?”

  “She’s moving kind of slow this morning, Brie said. “After you finish up, Logan, maybe you can check on her?”

  “Sure.” I said. Miss Vivee had said she wanted to ride to the church with me anyway so she could conduct her secret investigation. So I probably was the one that needed to check up on her.

  “What in the world,” Renmar had opened the packaged and picked up its contents. “Canning jars? Why in the world did I order these?”

  “I ordered them,” Koryn said her mouth full of cereal. “I forgot all about it. I was thinking I wanted to learn about making preserves.” She took in another spoonful. “I don’t need them now that I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Renmar and Brie said together, stunned looks on their faces.

  “You didn’t tell us you were leaving,” Renmar said.

  “I know,” she said and put the spoon down in the bowl. “I was waiting until the right time.” She looked around. “I guess this is the right time,” she shrugged.

  Renmar took in a breath like she wasn’t sure what to say. “Well. Okay,” she said slowly. “So I guess you’ll be taking these jars with you, because with Mother’s bottles in my cabinets and in my spice rack I don’t have any room.”

  “I don’t need them,” Koryn said and hunched her shoulders. She looked around. “I’ll just throw them out.”

  “And why did they come in my name?” Renmar asked pushing the box across the table to Koryn.