“How do you know?” she asked.
So I told Miss Vivee the whole story as told to Bay by Darius Hamilton. All about the blackmail and the reason Gemma left teaching at Euclid Park. I told her about when he came to Yasamee and the argument he witnessed. And I told her that Bay and Sheriff Haynes were going to find Jeffrey Beck and talk to him, but that Darius wasn’t completely off the hook. When I finished, Miss Vivee didn’t say a word. She was so quiet it made me nervous.
I looked at Bay and then back down at the phone. “Miss Vivee, are you there?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.” Her voice was low and had started to trail off. “Well I’ll let you two go. I don’t like talking so much on the phone. I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Okay, Grandmother,” Bay said.
“And Bay,” she said.
“Yes.”
“When you get back, make sure the Sheriff comes in with you.”
“Okay, Grandmother.”
“Okay now. Don’t forget,” she said.
“I won’t.”
I hung up the phone and looked at Bay. “What was that all about?”
“I don’t know, but I’m worried about her,” he said. “I know I gave that whole little speech to you when we were in Atlanta about her being independent and not coddling her. But right now, that’s just what I want to do. I just feel like I wanna protect her. She sounded so sad. I don’t want this making her feel sick or depressed.”
“Me too,” I said. “I’d feel so bad if she got sick about this. So, let’s hurry up. Get back and make sure she’ll be okay.”
Riding with Bay to Melborne and back wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I enjoyed his conversation, and even though Miss Vivee was his grandmother, we shared the same concern about her. Bay called the Sheriff and told him to meet us at the Maypop and we all made it back as quick as we could. The Sheriff pulling up at the same time as we did. When we got there, there were a few cars out front.
The bell jangled over the oak doors as the three of us, Bay, Sheriff Haynes and I walked in. And there in the foyer were Renmar, Brie, Deputy Pritchard, Mac, Hazel and Oliver. And Miss Vivee was sitting on the bench we always shared, Cat lying at her feet.
“Is everything okay?” Bay asked looking around the room.
Renmar waved her hand in the air. “Mother made us all come in here and wait for you.” She cut her eyes toward Miss Vivee and scowled. “She says she’s solved Gemma’s murder and we all had to be here for her to tell us who did it.”
All of us looked at Miss Vivee.
“What do you know, Miss Vivee?” I asked and went over and sat next to her on the bench. “Was it Jeffrey Beck?” I didn’t know how she could know that if that was what she was going to say. But she answered, “No.”
“Then who,” I asked. “Who killed Gemma Burke?
Miss Vivee pointed her finger to the person standing at the bottom of the steps. Their bruised hand resting on the banister.
“It was Colin Pritchard,” she said. “He killed Gemma Burke.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“I’m . . . The murderer?” Colin seemed confused. Even frightened. He spoke in short, quick sentences, taking a breath between words. His eyes darting around the room “No. No way. I’m . . . Not . . . I-I couldn’t be.” I saw a tear roll down his face as he started backing away toward the door. “I loved her.” He looked over his shoulder at the entranceway, just as the sheriff stepped in front of it.
Miss Vivee leaned over and whispered to me. “Told you. That boy don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.” Then she shouted at him, much louder than necessary, “Yes, Colin Pritchard, you are the murderer. Tell him Mac.”
“Gemma died from blunt chest trauma. A diaphragmatic injury,” Mac explained. The diaphragm is a muscle that allows the lungs to work. It relaxes so the lungs can fill up and pushes up to expel the air. When it doesn’t work, because it’s been ruptured like Gemma’s so Vivee tells me the autopsy found, then the person can’t get in enough oxygen and then they drown. It’s called dry drowning.”
“What are you talking about, Mac?” Colin said. “I didn’t do anything to Gemma’s diaphragm.”
“The diaphragm can rupture from a fall or if struck with a firm object like a bat or a ball. Or a fist,” Mac said balling up his hand and shaking it at Colin. “A fist to the abdomen, if the blow is hard enough, can burst a diaphragm.”
Colin looked down at his hand and then his gaze drifted off.
“You remember that bandage you had on your hand the day Gemma died, don’t you?” Miss Vivee asked Colin. “The bruise I brought salve for?”
My breath caught in the back of my throat.
Colin started shaking his head.
“You hurt your hand when you hit that tree, didn’t you,” Miss Vivee asked. “You were the one that Darius Hamilton saw arguing with Gemma in the park. You hit that tree with your fist. And you hit Gemma in her stomach.”
Bay moved in closer to Colin and the Sheriff stood in front of the door and spread his legs shoulder width apart.
“Why is everyone looking at me?” Colin said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You killed her, Colin,” Hazel Cobb said, a look of realization on her face. “I remember that bandage. You killed Gemma Burke.”
“I did not.” His eyes darted around the room.
“How did you hurt your hand, Colin,” Bay asked.
“We fought . . . I mean argued. Me and Gemma. I’ll admit to that,” Colin said. “And I did hit that tree with my fist.” He rubbed his hand where the bandage had been. “I was just so upset. But she was fine when I left her.”
“Tell us what happened,” Bay said.
“She kept following me. First I went to Atlanta, then she came. I came back home and then she came back home. I wanted to know why. Why would she follow me around if she didn’t want me? Why dump me and then taunt me?”
“She didn’t dump you, Colin,” Miss Vivee said.
“See, Miss Vivee, that’s where you’re wrong. She did.” Colin closed his eyes and took in a sharp breath. “She knew I wanted her and she knew being around her would make me want her even more. So I just confronted her. I saw her out jogging and I asked her to come and talk to me. We walked to the park and I asked her why was she doing that to me and she said she wasn’t following me. She said she didn’t even think about me when she decided to move to Atlanta or back home. How could she say that? That’s when we started arguing.”
Tears started streaming down Colin’s face. His voice deescalated to a whimper and he looked bewildered.
“Calm down, man,” Bay said. “It’s okay.”
“I was just so mad, Bay. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yeah, man. I understand.”
“I was just so mad that I hit the tree. And then I had my fist balled up . . .” His eyelids started to flutter and he kept licking his lips. “And I was just saying ‘Why,’ you know?”
Bay said, “I know.”
“And my fists were here.” He put them in front of him. “And then I pulled them apart, real fast. You know, saying ‘Why,’ Not to hit her or anything.”
Bay nodded.
“I pulled them apart too fast and . . . and Gemma was standing just to the front of me . . . On the side like here.” He pointed to a spot, remembering what happened. “And my right fist hit Gemma in her side. On her right side. Right here.” He pointed to the area on his own body. I hit her so hard. But . . . But . . . It was an accident.”
“I know it was,” Bay said.
“And then . . .” Colin looked at Bay, tears in his eyes. “And the force of me hitting her made her fall down those stone steps over at Mims Point Park. Just a couple,” he said. “She only fell down a couple. She just hit them so hard. When she got up she was holding her side. I asked her was she okay. She said it just knocked the wind out of her. I asked her did she want me to help and she said just to leave her alo
ne. I probably shouldn’t have left her I know, but she told me to. And I was so mad at her.” He shook his head as if he was trying to clear it. “I was so mad. I was even still mad at her when the Sheriff and I came here and she was dead. I didn’t even care. How could I still be mad then?”
The Sheriff stepped forward and put handcuffs on Colin and he and Bay led him out the door. We could hear Colin saying through sobs, “I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Well, shut my mouth,” Brie said with a giggle. “Colin is the one that killed Gemma and all this time I thought it was death by bouillabaisse.”
“Brie!” Renmar said. “You really do need to shut your mouth. What an awful thing to say!” She put her hands up to her face. “And poor Colin. Really Brie, none of this is funny.”
“Renmar, I hate to tell you,” Miss Vivee said. “But until Logan and Bay told me that Darius Hamilton overheard the argument and saw the guy hitting his hand on a tree, I thought it was your bouillabaisse that killed her, too.”
Epilogue
Saturday Morning, AB (After Bay)
My big, time-altering event was that I fell in love with Bay Colquett. It had taken exactly seven days from the time Gemma Burke died to the day that Miss Vivee solved her murder and in that time my life had been divided into two separate and distinct periods: Before Bay (BB) and After Bay (AB). Although minute by minute what happened before he came into my life was slowly fading into a blur.
Won’t my daddy be happy.
I know. Isn’t it the weirdest thing? All along I thought I was attracted to Colin Pritchard and hated Bay Colquett. But thinking back on it, it was easy to see. I couldn’t even ever think of anything to say to Colin. Our love affair was all in my head. But Bay, even though I thought he was going to arrest me, made it easy to talk to him. But what I think really made me sit up and take notice of Bay was the way he interrogated Darius Hamilton. He was so forceful and fierce. It made me tingle all over. Who doesn’t like a man like that?
“I always just thought he was cute,” I said defending myself. “I wasn’t trying to move in with him.”
“That’s not what you told me,” Bay said. I was sitting on his lap. He, Miss Vivee and I were sitting in the dining room when they had decided to tease me about “having eyes,” as Miss Vivee put it, for Colin Pritchard, The Murderer.
“It’s a good thing for your mother that you got me to look after you,” Miss Vivee said. “Otherwise, I don’t know what might’ve happen to you.” Miss Vivee patted me on my knee and shook her head. “Bless your heart.”
“I know what would have happened to her, Grandmother,” Bay said and tugged at my ear. “She would have been filling out the visitation forms at the Brentwood Correctional Facility so she could visit her convict boyfriend and take prison pictures to post on Facebook.”
“Oh yeah. You two are real funny,” I said and hopped up off of Bay’s leg. “But lucky for you both, I picked the right one in the end.”
“You sure did,” Miss Vivee said. “You couldn’t ask for a better man than my grandson.”
Miss Vivee was right about that, I thought, my eyes beaming. She had been right about so much. She knew from the start that Gemma had dry drowned. I found out that she and Mac had seen a case of a boy, years earlier that had died the same way. That’s how they knew the symptoms.
And Miss Vivee made the right call when she said the sandstone steps at Mims Point Park could have been what killed her. It was actually the combination of the hard hit from Colin’s fist and the fall that did it. But Miss Vivee knew that, too. And she said, she could tell by the injury to Colin’s hand, when we told her that the person arguing with Gemma had hit the tree, that it couldn’t be anyone but him.
Colin was being charged with involuntary manslaughter, which in the State of Georgia carried a prison term of one to ten years. He was standing trial though. He said that his actions weren’t reckless and he couldn’t have known what he did would cause Gemma’s death, elements that must be proven to convict him. My uncle, Greg and my brother, Micah, both lawyers, agreed that if he got himself a good lawyer, he might could prove that in court and get off on the murder charges.
I was just glad I hadn’t acted on the feelings I thought I had for him.
Everything had changed for me and I couldn’t have been happier. I called my parents to tell them about Bay, and my mother told me she’d got me permission to start an excavation on the Island. (Yay!) Renmar and Oliver didn’t seem too happy about that (I never did find out what their conspiratorial actions were all about), but Renmar was happy that I was staying on at the Maypop. As was Koryn Razner.
Miss Vivee had given her a room so she could stay at the Maypop until she got on her feet, which probably wouldn’t be long because Viola Rose and her husband, Gus, had offered her a job at the Jellybean Café.
Bay was going back to work, but he wouldn’t ever be too far, he had promised. Sometimes, I hate to say it out loud, but crime does pay. Because of me trespassing at Track Rock Gap, I found the best FBI guy in all of Georgia. Nay, in the entire world, who I wouldn’t mind if he kept me in his custody forever.
The End
Thank you for taking time to read Bed & Breakfast Bedlam. Look for the rest of the books in the Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Series coming soon. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends about it. And don’t forget to take the time to click on the link and post a short review.
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A Note from the Author
This is my first cozy mystery and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. There are more to come, so be sure to follow Logan, Bay and Miss Vivee on their adventures – they’ll be filled with mystery, murder and even a little romance.
Logan Dickerson is the daughter of the main character in my Mars Origin “I” Series. (So if you like mysteries with just a touch of sci-fi, you might want to check them out!). Logan is from Ohio (like me), but her stories are based in Georgia. I love the coastline there and thought it would be a perfect setting for a cozy mystery.
Some of the places in the book are real. Like Stallings Island and Track Rock Gap. The Maya invasion into North America is a theory proposed by some archaeologists and first seen by me on America Unearthed on the History Channel. Check it out. It’s a fascinating theory. Yasamee, while a real Native American name, is a fictional place.
Thanks to all my beta readers: Kathryn Dionne, Dennis Whittaker, Erika Place, and Michael Lewis. The book is better because of you.
This book is dedicated to my granddaughter, Sydne. My red-headed girl is always full of interesting stories.
I appreciate all my reviews and look forward to reading what you thought about my book. Grammatical errors are of course unintended, so if you find any, just email me and let me know what you’ve found.
I love connecting with my readers and look forward to chatting with you.
Read My Other Books
In the Beginning: Mars Origin “I” Series Book I
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Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin “I” Series Book II
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Incarnate: Mars Origin “I” Series Book III
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At the End of the Line
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Mysticism and Myths
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Coming Soon
Coastal Cottage Calamity – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery
Maya Mound Mayhem – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery
Garden Gazebo Gabble – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Bed & Breakfast Bedlam (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 16