Fortunately no one was paying any attention to her. Except the little old lady. Miss Vivee. I saw a smile creep across her face right before she turned and walked back down the hallway with her dog, Cat.
“Rooms are thirty-nine dollars a night and we serve breakfast and dessert here,” Renmar’s words got my attention. “For your other meals, you can either go into the kitchen,” she pointed in the direction with a tilt of her head, “and grab yourself something or go to Jellybean Café up in the town square.”
“Yes,” I said. “I think I saw it coming in.”
“Viola Rose will take good care of you,” Renmar said. “She thinks that her husband, Gus is almost a good a cook as I am.”
That elicited an uproar of laughter. I felt myself smiling just because everyone around me was so happy.
“You want some dessert?” Brie asked. She didn’t say anything else about my mother, but I could tell she wasn’t through with me.
“Sure,” I said. Not letting her suspicions (rather the truth) about my mother affect how this town and crowd had made me feel.
“Well, come on then,” Renmar said and ushered me into the dining room. “Brie, get her some pie. A great big piece of pie.” She looked at me. “Do you drink coffee?”
“Yes.”
“And a cup of coffee, too,” she yelled after Brie.
Brie came back with a slice of blueberry pie, a fork and napkin, and a hot cup of black coffee. She sat it all in front of me and smiled in anticipation.
“Enjoy.” Renmar said then turn around and shooed everyone away. “Let her enjoy her pie.”
I smiled and as I cut into it with my fork. Steam rose through the crisscrossed layers of the flaky crust and the rich, royal blue of the berries over-stuffed inside oozed out.
I lifted the fork up to my mouth and let my lips wrap around the big chunk that I’d cut off. I slid it into my mouth and savored the explosion of sweet, gooey, goodness as my tongue turned it over.
Oh. My. Goodness. What could be better than this?
Chapter Seven
Friday Morning
I got up early the next morning. My mother had got me an in, so I thought it best that I go over to the island and check it out. I had to make good on all my lies and put the Track Rock Gap debacle behind me.
As I came down the steps a waft of freshly baked bread beckoned me to the kitchen. I peeked into the dining area and saw people eating and talking at the many tables and Brie acting as server, smiling and chatting at every table she passed.
There’s that one couple from last night, I noted. Heads together, so in love. The guy Renmar eyed when I said I was going to Stallings Island. I didn’t recognize any of the other people. But everyone seemed to know one another. Meals around here seemed more like a small get together of friends and family.
Wait. I stopped to get a better look at the couple from last night. I did recognize the man from the night before, he was still puffing on an e-cigarette. But that wasn’t the same woman. I was sure of it. He was with another woman. Oh my, I giggled. Cheating in public like that. He’s gonna get himself shot.
I wandered into the huge chef’s kitchen. Wall to wall bright white cabinets, aluminum appliances – a six burner gas stove with a built-in griddle, and a bottom-freezer, side-by-side refrigerator met me. A rust and black checkerboard cork floor, a large farmhouse sink, with a shiny silver backsplash behind it and a moss, beige and rust colored rug that sat below it, complimented the green moss colored walls. Renmar stood on the other side of an oversized island with a butcher block top.
“What’s your story, morning glory?” Renmar said glancing up at me. She was up to her elbows in flour.
“Pardon me?”
“You’re up early. Whatch’ya up to?”
“Oh. Yeah,” I said and smiled. “I’m an early riser.” I sat down on a kitchen stool. “Thought I’d go over to Stallings Island. Check it out. See what I’m getting myself into.” I leaned in to see what she was doing. “What’re you making?”
“Biscuits. And you’re just in time for some hot ones.” She glanced over at the oven. “They’re almost ready.”
“Sounds good.” My mouth was starting to water.
“Have you spoken to Oliver Gibbons?” she asked as she floured her rolling pin.
“I don’t know who he is.”
“You know, the gentlemen that always has a lady on his arm.” She looked up at me and winked.
“Oh. Yes. I do know who he is.”
The cheater.
“I saw him out in the dining room before I came in here to see what smelled so good. Does he know anything about the Island?”
“He knows everything about the Island. He lives right by the shoal. Beautiful beach house.”
“I think I saw the house yesterday when I drove in.” I nodded remembering the gray cottage surrounded by sand, sea oats and morning glories. “Does he know anything about the history of it?”
“Everyone here knows the history of the Island,” she said. She pulled the tea towel off her shoulder and wiped her hands. Reaching in the refrigerator, she grabbed a small ramekin with a handle. She handed it to me with a spoon.
“What’s this?”
“A little fruit. Grapefruit, oranges, blueberries and strawberries.”
“So I don’t know if I should ask Mr. Gibbons.” I took a mouthful of the fruit. “I don’t really know him. I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It’s Oliver. Just call him Oliver. Nobody around here is much on formalities. And he won’t mind a bit. In fact, I already spoke to him about you. He’ll be happy to help you.”
“Mmmm. This is delicious.” I said chucking in another juicy spoonful. “What’s in this?” I gave her a questioningly look. “It isn’t just fruit juices?”
A half-smile crossed her lips. “No. It isn’t,” she said proudly.
“What else you put in here?”
“Now. If I told ya that,” she wiped her hands on her frilly pink apron. “I’d have to kill ya,” she said cocking her head to the side with a smile that I wasn’t quite sure if it was genuine or not.
She went over to the stainless steel double oven. “Perfect,” she said as she pulled a rack of lightly browned topped biscuits.
“Those look good.” I raked the last of the fruit from the small bowl into my mouth. I wanted to stick my tongue in it and lick it clean. But, I remembered my manners. “Are you serving those for breakfast?” I nodded toward the biscuits.
“I sure am,” she said and saw me staring at the biscuits. “Why don’t you go on out to the dining room and find yourself a seat,” Renmar said and nodded with her head toward the front of the house. “I’ll bring you out a couple of these and you can check out the menu and see what else you want for breakfast.” She laid the rack of biscuits on the end of the butcher block island.
“Here,” she said with her southern drawl. “Take another cuppa’ fruit with you.” She pulled out a tray of the ramekins from the side-by-side, sat them on the table and handed me one. “And don’t tell nobody I gave you two.” She pointed a finger at me. “When folks ask for seconds I tell them, ‘No.’ They’re so popular I have to ration them out.”
“I can see why,” I said coveting the one she handed me.
“Now go on. Get!” She turned me around by my shoulders and gave me a gentle push. “Brie’ll take your order,” she said. I turned and smiled at her as she started brushing butter on the tops of the biscuits. “And I’ll bring you some of these,” she called after me.
I held on tight to my cup of fruit and found a table in the far corner of the room near the front of the house. I looked over and saw Oliver Gibbons, cigarette hanging from his lips, right where I had spotted him earlier.
Such a flirt.
Leaning in close, whispering to her, “Casanova” Gibbons touched his woman companion tenderly as he spoke. He hovered over her as if she was his one and only and he was madly in love with her. Yet, she clearly was a different blonde
than the one I saw him with the day before. The one that he had treated the same way as he was now treating this woman.
I chuckled as I watched him. In such a small town, how could he get away with what he was doing?
And why did Renmar talk to him about me? I wonder what she could have said.
I couldn’t do any real work over at the Island until my mother got back with me. I pulled out my phone to check to see if I had missed any calls or texts from her. I didn’t want to get jammed up in a bunch of lies with these people here like I had done with FBI guy. They were such nice people.
Looking up from my phone, I saw Brie taking an order at a table across the room. I waved her over and she held up a finger. “Be right witc’ya, Honeybun,” she said and smiled. “You want me to bring some coffee?”
I nodded. The two cups of fruit was filling, but I figured I’d still order something to go with the biscuits that Renmar was bringing out for me.
I looked back down at my phone. No missed calls. No texts. I backed up a screen, figured I’d check the weather while I waited for Brie. I tapped on Safari and typed in www.weather.com. Lifting my eyes from the phone, I saw Brie go over and start to pick up a pot of coffee from the warmer, but someone coming in the front door distracted her.
Nearly dropping the glass pot, she ran to the door on the other side of the wall from where I sat. Once she went behind the wall I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her clearly.
Everyone could hear her.
“Bay!” I heard her exclaim. “I can’t believe ya’ here! Boy, com’ere. Give me a hug. Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
Then she appeared from behind the wall back in the doorway pulling someone behind her. She called toward the kitchen. “Renmar!” she yelled. “Come here right now! You ain’t gone believe who’s here.” And then he walked into my line of sight.
I dropped my phone into my ramekin filled with fruit.
Oh crap!
I slid down in my seat. I wanted to crawl under the table.
It was the FBI guy from Itza.
Had he followed me here?
Was he here to arrest me?
Brie sure seemed to know him. But it seemed that everyone around here knew everyone else so that might not mean too much.
“Bay!” This time it was Renmar who screamed his name. She ran out from the back and practically threw herself against him and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“Hi, Ma,” he said.
She’s his mother? Jesus!
“My baby,” Renmar pushed away from him and gave him a once over, then she grabbed him and hugged him tight. Again. Over her shoulder she must’ve spotted Miss Vivee. “Mother,” she said breaking her hold on FBI guy. “Look what the cat drug in!”
“Grandmother,” Bay said turning to Miss Vivee just as she came into my sight. “Look at you. You look younger every time I see you.”
She put her arm out to him, a big grin on her face. “There’s my baby.”
And then everyone in the dining room got up to see him. Smiling. Kissing him. Shaking his hand. It was like a movie star had just graced their presence.
“Bay Colquett.” Loverboy Oliver Gibbons joined the chorus. “It’s good to see you,” he said shaking his hand
Not for me. I had hoped to never see this man again.
I dug in my satchel and pulled out the business card he’d given me.
Bay Colquett.
Sure enough that’s what was written on the front of it. He never told me his name. Just announced “FBI” and pushed his stupid badge in my face. And when he was finished interrogating me, he gave me the card and instead of looking at it, I just shoved it down in my purse.
I should have read it.
Because if I had, as soon as Renmar told me her last name, whether I thought they were related or not, I would have turned and bolted for the door. Down the steps two at a time.
I took my phone out of the fruit bowl and dried it best I could and wrapped it in one of the cloth napkins.
I had to get out without him seeing me.
I put my knapsack over my head and adjusted it on my shoulder. I slid out of the chair and looked over to the door that led to the kitchen. Only about twenty-five feet . . . If I could just get across the dining room without too much noise . . . I just might make it through the kitchen and out the back door without him seeing me.
I crept across the room, berating myself for sitting so far to the front of it. I kept a watchful eye on the crowd surrounding the FBI guy.
That’s right everyone, keep him occupied.
Only a few more steps, I turned my head and looked at the door. Just a couple -
“Dr. Dickerson.”
I knew that voice.
Crap.
I turned and looked out to the foyer where everyone was now looking at me.
And there he was with that stupid smirk.
“I thought that was your car outside,” he said. “I see you made it. Get much excavating done yet?”
I should have not worried about covering up my lies and gone home to my mother.
Chapter Eight
Friday Afternoon
It didn’t smell like the mouthwatering pastry that I had smelled the first evening I’d set foot in the Maypop Bed & Breakfast. It smelled fishy even before I got in the door. People were milling around outside, whispering among themselves and watching the house.
I had spent the morning getting a new phone. Renmar’s juicy secret recipe didn’t go well with the wiring of an iPhone 6.
I had planned on spending the morning on the Island but that FBI guy – Bay Colquett – showing up had gotten me so flustered. I drove out to Augusta, because of course there was no mobile phone store in Yasamee. On my way back I stopped at the Stallings Inn. It was, I found, the only other sleeping accommodation in the town. It was quiet and empty. My mother was working on people to get me approved to do some work on the Island and I couldn’t just leave now that she’d got other people involved – my phony cover-up story was causing more trouble than I bargained for. But, until I heard back from my mother, I decided that I was moving out of the Maypop Bed & Breakfast. And away from Bay Colquett.
But once I got inside, everything changed. And things looked even fishier than they did from the outside.
The place was overflowing with people. The Sheriff was shouting at people, Renmar was crying, eyes red and puffy, and the lady I remembered as Hazel Cobb was trying to comfort her. It was bedlam. And then I spotted, Vivienne, sitting quietly there in midst of it.
Miss Vivee sat on the light beige, tufted armed bench in the corner of the foyer. She had on a sun hat and sunglasses, a thin powder blue coat, with a large rounded collar, and knee high rubber boots. Her dog sat on her lap.
She pulled her sunglasses down on her nose and beckoned me with her finger. She mouthed “Come here,” then patted the seat next to her.
I snaked my way through the crowd and sat where she had directed. “What happened?” I asked.
“Gemma Burke died, face down, in her bowl of bouillabaisse.”
“Here?”
“Sitting right there in the dining room.”
I followed the bony, shaky finger as she pointed over to a lone bowl sitting on a table in the middle of the room.
“She bounced in, ponytail keeping pace swinging from side-to-side, full of life. Left cold and stiff in a black bag.”
“That’s terrible,” I said “Was she young?”
“Round about your age.”
“I don’t think I met her,” I said trying to place the name with a face.
“You didn’t. She had come in for lunch.”
“I thought you only served breakfast and dessert here.” I frowned.
“Not on Fridays. On Fridays we serve breakfast, dessert and lunch.”
“Do you ever serve dinner?”
“No.”
“Well, where is that FBI guy?” I peered around through the crowd hoping he wasn’t still around.
“You don’t know much about the law do you, Missy.”
“I’m . . . Logan,” I said placing my hand on my chest. “Remember?”
“I know your name. I’m just saying the FBI wouldn’t be in charge of something like this unless it happened on federal property. You know places like banks, national parks or federally owned land.” She eyed me curiously and then pushed her glasses back up her nose.
“I didn’t mean that.”
Really, what I wanted to know was had he been looking for me. I was nervous about any video tape recording being found showing me running around Track Rock Gap like a lunatic. But I couldn’t let her know that.
“I was just asking,” I said and changed the subject. “So Renmar must have known this Gemma well. She seems pretty upset.”
“No. Not really.” Her nonchalant expression never changing. “Gemma used to live here in Yasamee when she was growing up and then she moved away. Just came back recently. Can’t say that Renmar knew much of her other than that girl loved her bouillabaisse.”
“Then why is she crying?” I watched as Hazel Cobb nestled Renmar on her shoulder and stroked her head. She was sniffling and saying something indecipherable between sobs.
“Gemma Burke died while eating her fish stew. Stands to reason she’d be upset. Everyone is going to think that Renmar’s dish must’ve poisoned her.” She pulled her sunglasses down on her nose again. “Don’t you see all these people? In the house? All along the walkway out front? Probably the whole town has come out. Renmar’s worried. She doesn’t want word to get around that her famous bouillabaisse is lethal.”
I nodded and made a mental note not to eat anything else out of Renmar’s kitchen. Too bad because she made the best food I’d ever eaten.
“She wasn’t poisoned though,” Miss Vivee said matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?”
“I know Renmar’s bouillabaisse.”
“Maybe the girl had a heart attack or something?” I suggested.
“Good Lord, no,” Miss Vivee said keeping her eyes trained on all the goings on. “Although the way she was always out running like somebody was chasing her, dressed in those stretchy clothes, I’m surprised that her heart didn’t burst open from all the exercise.”
Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 3