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

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Miss Vivee came back to our room late, well after I had gone to sleep. She must have just taken a “catnap” as my grandmother says, because as soon as the sun came up, so did she. I had to keep her calm until the school was open, because she was ready to go at dawn.

  Miss Vivee had explained to Ms. Sterba that she and Mac were Gemma’s long lost grandparents and that I was their nurse and companion.

  More lies to keep up with. I was thinking about starting my own notebook just to help me keep track.

  But the two of them finagled their way into her office by playing on Mac’s bad leg. Good thing he’d brought his cane along.

  “How can I help you?” she said and gestured toward two chairs that sat in front of her desk. I remained standing and leaned on a nearby wall.

  “We just need some information,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Gemma didn’t leave a forward address, working phone number or any emergency contacts. So, as I told you Mrs.-”

  “Whitson,” Mac said at the same time that Miss Vivee said “Pennywell.”

  They looked at each other. “Pennywell-Whitson,” Miss Vivee said. It’s hyphenated.”

  Principal Sterba nodded.

  “So no way to contact our Gemma, huh?” Miss Vivee said. She reached out for Mac.

  “It’s okay, honey. We’ll find her.” He patted her hand and looked at Principal Sterba. “It’s just that we can’t find her anywhere. I really don’t know if my poor wife can take anymore disappointment. We’ve been everywhere looking for her.”

  “Did you, uhm, try Atlanta,” the principal seemed reluctant to say anything.

  “Oh, yes,” Mac said. “We know all about her life there. But nothing is more important to us right now then finding our grandchild.”

  “We know you can’t give us any personal information like where she lived or anything.” Miss Vivee bowed her head and lifted just her eyes. “But is there anything that you can tell us?” I could have sworn that I saw tears well up in Miss Vivee’s eyes.

  Mac, on cue, grabbed her hand and this time rubbed it gently. “We’re just so worried about her,” he said to Principal Sterba. “She’s all the family we’ve got left.” He looked at Miss Vivee lovingly and she returned the gaze.

  I swear, those two were the biggest liars. And it just seemed to come so naturally. I wonder are all old people like that? My grandparents are always telling some kind of story to us about what our parents had done when they were young or things that had happened to them. From now on, I’m taking everything they say with a grain of salt.

  “Well, when Gemma first arrived here,” Principal Sterba began her story about Gemma. Evidently Miss Vivee and Mac had been believable enough that she was willing to tell what she knew. “She had just graduated. She completed her student teaching in Marietta but said she wanted to live here in Powder Springs. Then she told me ‘how’ she worked her way through school.” She put air quotes around the word “how.”

  “I was leery about hiring her at first,” Jill Sterba said, her eyes showing that she was remembering the incident. “Of course we have a reputation to uphold and we want only the best environment for our students. But Gemma promised me that nothing would come back to haunt her or put the school in any bad light. She said that she’d never taken any pictures or been on the Internet, she was sure of that. Plus she worked under a stage name and always wore a black wig and heavy makeup. Even though a scandal would be devastating to our small school, I took her at her word and hired her.

  “Gemma turned out to be a caring and dedicated teacher. The children and staff loved her. It wasn’t long before she proved to me that I had made the right decision in giving her a chance. Then, one day, just out of the blue, she quit. She said that she wanted to keep her promise to me and something had come up where she didn’t think she’d be able to.

  “I knew that she must be referring to her days working in Atlanta so I didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask any questions. I accepted her resignation and she left. I did hear, later that is, that she had moved back home.”

  “Back home . . .” Miss Vivee let her voice trail off then she grabbed her dress over her heart, pulled it tight and looked at fake grandpa. “Mac, do you suppose . . .”

  Mac’s eyes got big. I don’t know if he was playing along and seemingly understood what she meant, or if he really didn’t know what it was he was “supposed” to know.

  “Oh my,” Miss Vivee started to fan her hand over her face. “There was a place that she used to run away to when she was young,” she licked her lips and let her eyes move from Mac back to Principal Sterba. “Just to get away, you know. She always called it her other ‘home.’ I wonder . . .” Miss Vivee bowed her hand.

  “Don’t cry, Vivee. We’ll find her. That’s gotta be where she is,” Mac said. “C’mon, honey.” He stood up and helped Miss Vivee stand.

  “Thank you so much, Principal Sterba,” Miss Vivee said through fake sniffles.

  “Call me, Jill,” the principal told her.

  “Jill.” Miss Vivee dabbed at her eyes with a hanky that Mac had produced from his pocket. “I think we now might just know where to find our Gemma.”

  I didn’t want to be morbid, but I knew where to find Gemma, too. At the coroner’s office in Augusta.

  “Mac shake the woman’s hand,” Miss Vivee said. “I think she may have just given us back our granddaughter.”

  Mac obliged. The crap flowing in the room was getting too deep for me to stay without wading boots so I slipped out into the hallway. Thought I’d go make a call to Hollywood and find an agent for Miss Vivee. That woman had definitely missed her calling.

  Chapter Thirty

  Yasamee, Georgia

  Thursday Afternoon, AGD

  No one in Atlanta that we talked to knew a Jeffrey Beck. Principal Sterba said Gemma left no contact numbers or information on next of kin. That meant she had no names or addresses to share with us. The strippers, Miss Vivee found out when I was outside talking to Bay, did seem to think that Gemma had two boyfriends. Maybe Jeffrey Beck was one of them, but we weren’t able to confirm it and we hadn’t a clue who the other one could be and that worried Miss Vivee. She couldn’t “connect the dots,” she kept saying, if she didn’t have all the information.

  With Miss Vivee being the Queen of Lies, and her trusty cohort, Sir Mac, seconding every fib she told I was beginning to think that Miss Vivee might could wrangle enough information out of her unsuspecting suspects to find out “whodunit.” So it made me sympathetic when she was upset on not finding Jeffery Beck or the name of the second man in Gemma’s life.

  “I know what we have to do,” she said with some reluctance in her voice. I’m sure she wasn’t timid about asking me to do anything, I couldn’t ever get out of anything she wanted me to do. I just think her hesitation stemmed from the fact that she wasn’t sure what her next step in her crime solving spree would be.

  “What is it, Miss Vivee? Who do we have to lie to now?”

  “Lie? We haven’t lied to anyone,” she said sounding affronted.

  “We’ve lied to everyone, Miss Vivee.” I bit back a laugh. “Well. You’ve lied to everyone.”

  “You just don’t understand the art of investigation,” she said her nose wrinkled intimating I was confused. “Ask Bay. You have to create an environment where the people you question feel comfortable. Willing to talk. That’s all I did.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said narrowing my eyes. “Yeah. Right. Who do you want to question in your ‘comfortable environment’ now?”

  “I want to talk to Koryn Razner. Gemma’s houseguest.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “With all of other suspects so far away,” I said. “It’s looking more and more likely Home Girl is our killer. You sure you want to talk to her?” I made sure she could detect the concern in my voice. “Maybe let the Sheriff do it.”

  “He already talked to her. Remember? He got nothing. And she’s not the killer.”

  “Ho
w do you know?”

  “Because she’s still in town. Still going to Viola Rose’s on Saturdays.” She shook her head and set her mouth in a tight line. “I just can’t see it unless she’s some kind of deranged, hardcore sociopath, psycho-killer. No feelings. No remorse.”

  “Maybe she is.”

  “I’d be willing to bet a fat man that she’s not.”

  I hadn’t seen any fat men in Yasamee since I’d arrived. I was thinking that perhaps Miss Vivee had lost them all with her penchant for placing ill-conceived bets.

  Nonetheless, lies, bad bets, and all, I had become quite fond of Miss Vivee and her antics, I hadn’t heard from my mother with the go-ahead to work legitimately on the Island, so I agreed to take her to talk to Miss Psycho-Killer.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  This time, I decided, I was going in Gemma Burke’s house with Miss Vivee. That way I could at least try to keep her activities on the right side of the law.

  We drove over to see Koryn in my jeep, in virtual silence. I didn’t know if Miss Vivee was mad at me because I refused to drive that boat she called a car or if she was quiet because she was thinking hard on something. Cat was stretched across the back seat, not a care in the world. I turned on the radio and listened to Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know while I drove the two miles from the Maypop to Koryn’s.

  The windows on the front of Gemma’s house were open. A breeze flowing through ruffled the white sheer curtains. A “Home” doormat sat in front of a canary blue door with a gold knocker. Two Adirondack chairs that matched the blue on the door were sitting on the front porch. And Miss Psycho-Killer herself was sitting in one of them. Feet up on the banister, Koryn was wearing a pair of cut off shorts and a halter. She was reading a book of poetry, and sipping on a glass of iced tea.

  The scene certainly didn’t paint the picture of a day in the life of a murderer.

  Maybe Miss Vivee was right.

  I parked one house up. Miss Vivee said she didn’t want Koryn to “turn tail” and run because we pulled up into the driveway, and I didn’t want to park right in front of the house either.

  As usual, Miss Vivee didn’t fill me in on the strategy she was using to elicit the smoking gun that would find us our actual killer. I was supposed to be the wingman, but I was more like a bat on our little capers, always flying in the dark.

  I got out the car and then helped Miss Vivee and Cat out. We walked up to the porch.

  “Hello,” Miss Vivee said.

  I wondered what lies she had set to tell.

  “I’m Miss Vivee and this is Logan. We wanted to speak to you about Gemma.”

  Well would wonders never cease? She told the truth.

  “Hi,” Koryn said. “Come on up and have a seat.” She set her glass of iced tea on the floor of the porch. “I can get another chair from the house.” She stood up and pointed toward the door. “And get you something to drink? Some iced tea?”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I can stand.”

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “Yep. I’m good. Thanks.”

  “She’s fine,” Miss Vivee said with a wave of her hand and sat down in the other Adirondack chair. “And we don’t need anything to drink. Thanks for offering, though.”

  Cat went up to Koryn and gave a sniff. Koryn bent down, putting her nose into Cat’s face, she ruffled the hair around her neck. Patting her on her head, Koryn said. “Good dog,” and looked at Miss Vivee. “What’s her name?”

  “Cat.”

  Koryn let out a gentle laugh and gave Cat one more pat.

  “So what did you want to know?” She had a soft voice and easy demeanor. Dressed for a lazy summer afternoon, she was barefoot and had her brown hair, with its haphazard cut, pulled back in a ponytail. Strands of it fell down around her face and neck.

  “Gemma Burke was murdered.” Miss Vivee said, taking off her sunglasses. No fanfare. No preamble. She announced it like she was reading the day’s menu at the Maypop.

  When she goes for honesty, she turns it on full force.

  “I know,” she said. “I heard talk at the Jellybean Café.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and put her feet on the chair. “I guess she was poisoned? Although when I asked the Sheriff about that he said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss it. He’d just come by because he heard there’d been a disturbance. I told him everything was okay and he left.”

  “He’s right. He’d compromise the investigation if he discussed it,” Miss Vivee said. “But I can tell you this, Gemma wasn’t poisoned.”

  “She wasn’t?” she asked. She put her feet down and leaned forward. “Then how was she killed?”

  “We’re working on that.” Miss Vivee said matter-of-factly.

  “You are?” Koryn had a surprised look on her face. She looked at me and then back to Miss Vivee. “Why?”

  “The Sheriff asked us to help.”

  Now the lies begin.

  “He had to work with the coroner’s office up in Augusta to get the body autopsied,” Miss Vivee said without even flinching. “But because I know everyone in town, he asked me to think about who might have done it.” Miss Vivee patted her leg and Cat jumped up in her lap. Stroking him she said, “Me coming to talk to you is probably a little more than what the Sheriff had in mind when he asked me, but something Gemma Burke said to me right before she died got me thinking. I thought I’d come over and speak with you about it.”

  I looked at Miss Vivee and just shook my head.

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help find who did this,” Koryn said. “Gemma saved my life. I wish I could do more than just answer questions now.” She looked down at her hands. “After she’s gone.”

  “How did Gemma save your life?” I asked. But as soon as I did, Miss Vivee furrowed her brows and gave me a scolding look that said “I’m asking the questions.”

  “I was in an abusive relationship,” Koryn said seemingly unaware of Miss Vivee’s displeasure. “Very abusive.” She looked at me. “I feared for my life. And Gemma understood. She’d been in an abusive relationship, too. Not as bad a mine, but it made her understand what to do to help me. She brought me down here with her. Sort of let me hide out here.” A slight smiled crossed her face. “She’d said no one I knew would come to Yasamee. I’d be safe.”

  “And that’s exactly what she said to me,” Miss Vivee said. “And then she told me about two men in her life. One breaking her heart, and the other trying to break the bones in her body.”

  The lies were growing exponentially.

  “She said that to you?” Koryn looked at Miss Vivee in disbelief. “She really didn’t like to talk about that kind of stuff.”

  “She told me,” Miss Vivee said, gentleness showing in her voice. “People in this town often come to me.” She reached over and squeezed Koryn’s hand. “When they need someone to talk to. I’ve lived a long time. Seen a lot of things.” She looked Koryn in the eye. “Been through a lot of things myself.”

  “Well. I know that Darius never broke any of her bones,” Koryn said.

  Ah, his name is Darius.

  Miss Vivee winked at me on the sly, then said, “I think she just used that word metaphorically.”

  I had to try really hard not to roll my eyes.

  Koryn nodded.

  “But I know that Darius is who she was talking about when she said the part about breaking bones because she told me so,” Miss Vivee said. “And Jeffrey Beck is the one that broke her heart.”

  Koryn lifted her eyebrows and sat back in the chair. “Gemma told you all of that?”

  Miss Vivee nodded her head.

  “I mean, I believe you because you know their names, and what happened – basically – but she never wanted to talk about that. I’m surprised she told you.”

  “Well she did,” Miss Vivee assured her. “But you know, Koryn, with love often comes trouble.” Koryn nodded her head. “And as you’ve experienced that trouble can cause great harm. Not just to your heart.”

&nb
sp; “I know,” she said and rubbed her arm. “So you think that maybe Darius or Jeffrey killed her?”

  “Well, you know,” Miss Vivee said. “It’s for Sheriff Haynes to put all the clues together and deduce who the culprit is. But the more information he has, the better shot he has on solving this whole thing.”

  Koryn nodded eagerly. She set forward. “Darius was here the day she died,” she said. “Does the Sheriff know that?”

  “In Yasamee?” I asked, my eyes wide.

  “Yeah,” she said. “He’d come because he’d been trying to blackmail her.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Koryn telling us that Darius was trying to blackmail Gemma made a big, wide crack in a case that I think even Miss Vivee was beginning to believe wouldn’t ever be solved.

  Miss Vivee’s jaw went slack and she did one of her “lost in the moment” gazes over the banister and out in the street.

  “How do you know he was in Yasamee?” I asked.

  “He came by the house. Said he was looking for Gemma. I didn’t know who he was, but I’m not really trusting of men nowadays so I didn’t want to tell him anything,” she said. She took in a deep breath. “I told him she wasn’t home and I didn’t expect her back anytime soon. He told me to tell her that ‘Darius’ came by to see her and that he wasn’t planning on leaving until he talked to her.”

  “Did he talk to her?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. He stayed parked out in front of the house for a little while. Not too long. But long enough that it worried me. He was in a blue truck,” she said her eyes drifting off. “If I’d known Gemma wasn’t poisoned by the bouillabaisse, I would have told the sheriff about him being here.” She looked at me. “I never thought he had anything to do with it.” She licked her lips. “I didn’t go out while he was here, but I kept peeking through the curtains until he left.” She looked down at her hands. “Gemma never did come back home.”