Maya Mound Mayhem (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Wow,” he said. “That’s unbelievable. So he’s been missing and not just gone. Why wasn’t anyone concerned about it?”

  “Who’s to say that no one was concerned?” I asked

  “Oh. I don’t know that anyone wasn’t. But I hadn’t heard anything.” He looked at me. “I just thought he left because he didn’t get your job.”

  “My job?” I asked. “What do you know about him trying to get my job?”

  “Remember when I told you that Riley thought she was going to get to be second in command?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “That was because she thought Aaron Coulter was going to get the job. They were dating.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded my head. “I kind of figured that out.”

  “Figured it out? You’re not surprised?”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “That Aaron, uhm, Professor Coulter and Riley were dating.”

  “Why would you think I’d be surprised about that,” I asked him, but before he could answer Miss Vivee spoke up.

  “We’re not surprised because we already knew,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Really?” he said and looked at me, puzzlement on his face. He seemed to shake it off. “Well I know something that you might not know, Logan.” He looked at me for a long moment. “Not sure if I should share it with you, though,” he said.

  “Then why did you even bring it up,” Miss Vivee said. It seemed her fascination with him for being a botanist was wearing down fast.

  “I was kidding,” he said. “Logan’s my girl. I think it might help her.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “How about if you and the Mod Squad come over to my house tomorrow for lunch? I’ll show you what I got.”

  I looked at Miss Vivee and she gave me a tight-lipped nod. “Okay,” I said. “How about 12:30?”

  “Sounds cool,” he said. “See you then.”

  “Hey, I thought you were going to the library,” I said.

  “Nope. Gotta go clean up my house for my company tomorrow,” he said and flashed a smile.

  But the time we walked to the library, even I was tired. I got a copy of the monthly journal but didn’t take the time to read it. Miss Vivee was ready to go. I made them stay at the library and went and got the car.

  At the rate they moved, resolution to this murder mystery wasn’t going to come until the year 2020.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jackson “Bugs” Reid had a big house for one person. But he told me that he needed it for all of experiments. And his yard was full of those. There were trees, shrubs and bugs sanctuaries everywhere. I hesitated in walking up to his door, it was like the creepy horror house in the neighborhood. If it hadn’t been painted white with cheerful brick red-colored shutters, I definitely would have thought that was what it was. Miss Vivee, of course, seemed right at home. She marched up and rang the doorbell, while Mac and I lingered down on the sidewalk.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to eat anything that came out of that house. And I couldn’t tell anything that he had supposedly cleaned in anticipation of us. It was a jungle in his house. If it wasn’t for Miss Vivee insisting that he might know something that might help us with find out who the killer was, I’d probably have turned around and gone back to the hotel.

  “C’mon in,” Bugs pulled the door open wide and waved at me and Mac. Miss Vivee was already inside. “So glad you all could grace my humble abode with your presence,” he said, a big wide grin on his face.

  “You’ve got a log of plants and bugs around here,” I said scratching my arm. I felt itchy all over.

  “Don’t you just love it,” he said, excitement written all over his face. “The only problems are drainage and my neighbors. I got roots growing up through the pipes in my house and people squawking about bug infestation.” He laughed. “I’ve got some stuff that’ll unclog any drain but there is nothing I can do about the people that live on the street. Hopefully they won’t have me or my plants ejected.”

  I could relate to their complaints.

  I bent over and scratched my leg.

  “You rent?” I asked looking around.

  “No. I own it.” He grinned. “That’s why I’m still here.”

  Mac sat down on the couch, it was a ruddy looking green polyester with little white pills all over it and saggy seat cushions. I was sure I’d have to help Mac get up from it. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t want to sit for fear something might crawl on me and there was really no place to stand other than in the middle of the floor.

  Miss Vivee didn’t seem intimidated at all. She walked around and looked at all of the displays. It reminded me of her greenhouse. It probably reminded her of it too, and that’s why she felt at home. Plants. Bottled extracts of plants. Potting soil and pots.

  “You have a lot of different things,” Miss Vivee said nodding her head it appeared in approval.

  “Yeah. I’ve got some of everything. Any of it the same as plants you have?” he asked her.

  “Most of my plants are for medicinal purposes. I’m a Voodoo herbalist you know.”

  He laughed big and hearty. “You’re kidding me, right?” He held his stomach and laughed some more. “That is awesome. I’ve got to get a picture of you. Here,” he twisted from side to side and looked around the room. “Okay. Here. I’ve got an aloe vera plant. You use that to heal, right?”

  Miss Vivee nodded.

  “Yeah. This is so cool. Stand right next to it, Miss Vivee.” She moved by it and posed with her fingers up in a peace sign and a big grin on her face while he took her picture with the camera on his phone. “I can’t wait to tell my friends.” He tucked his cell into his pocket. “Are you like certified or something?” he asked.

  Mac spoke up. “She was trained by a Voodoo Priestess in New Orleans.”

  “Oh my gosh! What a hoot!” he said. “And what about you, Dr. Logan Dickerson?” he turned his head and looked at me out of the side of his eye. “What do you do that I don’t know about?”

  “Nothing,” I said and shook my head. “What you see, is what you get.”

  “Well, I’ve got something you might like,” he said and pulled me over to a shelf nailed up on the wall in what would have been a dining room. He pointed to two different bottles.

  “You know what those are?” he asked.

  I read the label on the first bottle out loud. “Chechen Tree Extract,” I said. “And ‘Chaca Tree Extract.’” I read from the second bottle and looked at him.

  “You heard of them?” he asked.

  “Yes. I know the story of the two trees, if that’s what you mean.”

  “How two men – brothers – loved the same woman and fought for her to the death?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a Maya story,” I said. “According to the story they fought until both of them died. The gods resurrected them as trees. One as the the Chechen tree, which is poisonous. The other as the Chaca tree, which has a nectar to neutralize the poison of the other. They usually grow side by side.” I nodded as I remembered the story. “I’ve never seen the trees though. I don’t think. I’m not one to identify plants.”

  “I like to think that the brother that was transformed into the tree that can cure the poison won the fight. The woman in the story knew the poison was no good for her, neither was the brother it represented. Good versus evil. Knight in shining armor. You know.” He smiled and caught my gaz. “And I like to think I’m the brother who prevailed.”

  “Neither brother prevailed,” I said.

  “The one who got the girl.”

  I took in a breath. I didn’t say anything. I knew he was saying I was the girl.

  “Did you know,” he licked his lips and let his eyes drift toward the bottles, “that you can find those two trees in the U.S. but they only grow together in areas where the Maya once lived?”

  “Really?” I smiled. I hadn’t known that and I was glad he took my cue to change the subject.
r />   His story wasn’t lost on Miss Vivee.

  “Why would Logan like that story?” Miss Vivee was back to feeling cold toward Bugs. “Didn’t you have something to show her? Something about her job?” she asked impatiently.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “Come back here.” He headed off to the back of his house.

  I backtracked and helped Mac up from his seat on the couch and we caught up to Bugs who went down a short hall. We followed and on the other side was a clean, beautiful living area. No bugs. No plants.

  “Whoa,” I said. “What a difference.” I turned around and looked back to where I’d just came from.

  “You like?” he said grinning. “If my neighbors saw this, they’d try to nominate for Home Beautiful instead of having my house condemned.”

  “Where did you get all of this from?” I asked. His house looked like a museum. The furniture contemporary. Sleek with clean lines. And he had all kinds of artifacts on shelves that were built into the wall. I walked around the room, followed close behind by Miss Vivee and examined his pieces.

  There were some in glass cases, mounted. Like Arrowheads. Weapons. And jewelry. It reminded me of the ones in my mother’s study. She had collected a ton of them over the years.

  “This is my sanctuary. Where I come to just chill,” he said.

  I looked at him. “How did you get all this stuff?”

  “e-Bay mostly,” he said.

  It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen on e-Bay.

  “What did you have to show us,” Miss Vivee said again. Her patience evidently wearing thin.

  “Oh. Right. Okay.” He grabbed his laptop from his desk and sat down on the couch. He patted for me to come and sit next to him. I didn’t mind sitting in this part of the house. Miss Vivee sat down next to me.

  He put the computer on the coffee table and fired it up. The screen had a black background and he was typing in some commands of some kind.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He grinned. “This is the real reason they call me Bugs,” he said. “I can break into any computer.” He looked at me. “I’m like a fly on the wall.”

  “Look,” he said and sat back. I leaned in and it was the U.S. Forest Service website. There were pictures and an article. The title of it was, “Mayan Myth Busting at Track Rock Gap.”

  I looked up at Bugs. “What is this?”

  “It’s the Forest Service’s website.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “But this isn’t on there. At least when I last checked.” I pulled out my phone to find it on Safari.

  He pushed my phone down. “It doesn’t say that now. I hacked into their computers. They have this page set and ready to go. It’s going to be their official statement.”

  I read down the page. Miss Vivee in my ear asking me what it said, but her voice was muffled by my heart beating in my ears. I was concentrating on what it said so hard that I couldn’t have heard anything else anyway.

  What it said was the exact opposite of what I’d hoped to find at the ruins. I read, my lips moving slowly as my eyes lingered on the words. My mouth had grown dry and I felt my eyes stinging.

  “The Track Rock Gap Rock art and stone landscape sites on the Chattahoochee National Forest were created by Creek and Cherokee people beginning more than 1,000 years ago,” I read it out loud. “There is no archeological evidence of any Mayan connection to the sites.”

  Ohmigosh . . .

  I looked up from reading. I looked at Bugs and at Miss Vivee who had put on her glasses and was practically on my lap to get close to the screen.

  When she caught my eye, she asked again. “What does it say?”

  “It says that there were never any Maya at Track Rock Gap and that it ‘frowns.’” I made air quotation marks, “on anything being found that contradicts the message they are disseminating.”

  “That would mean you,” Mac said.

  “Right,” I said. “That would mean that they frown on me. I looked back down at the screen and read. “There is no archeological evidence of any link to Mayan people or culture at this site. There is no evidence for movements of large groups of people from the Maya region of Mexico to the Southeastern United States during this time period. It is quite possible that there were limited trade connections between the two regions, but there is no evidence for Mayan people settling anywhere in what is now the Southeastern United States.

  “It is important to study and honor the achievements of the people of the region, both past and present. Making claims that people from somewhere else must have created anything complex denigrates and demeans those who were actually here and created these things. Please consider the information we provide here to learn more about the actual residents of the region and their rich and fascinating legacies.”

  I closed the lid on the laptop and felt a tear roll down my cheek.

  Wow . . .

  Everyone sat quiet for a long time.

  “Are you sure this is what they plan on putting out?” I said finally.

  “I mean. You know. I can’t be sure,” he said and hunched his shoulders. “It’s what they have queued up. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When I first met with Steven McHutchinson I thought I had him wrapped around my finger. He seemed agreeable to everything I wanted and needed. And had assured me the dig was mine and what I found would be what they’d tell the world. I hadn’t shown him my hand in what I hoped to find at that time, but it didn’t take long for people to come to know my beliefs.

  But after I left Bugs’ house, all I could feel was devastation. They were just playing me for a fool.

  I was sure that they didn’t care about that though, because they may have killed Aaron Coulter because he had the same beliefs. They just bulldozed over the people that didn’t agree with what they wanted. My hurt feelings I’m sure was trivial and easily remedied.

  I dropped Miss Vivee and Mac off at the hotel and I went my trailer at the ruins. I kind of thought that the guards might not even let me in. But everything seemed just like it always had. Even though, in my heart I knew that it never could be again.

  I sat down and the table and opened up my laptop. I went to the U.S. Forest Service Website and tried to find the information I’d read at Bugs’ house. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

  I wonder did they make that page in response to Aaron Coulter’s paper on Maya occupation in Georgia.

  I decided I needed to get a better look at that paper. I had left it back at the room. I should have read it when I first got it.

  I slammed down the top of my computer and laid my head on it. This was killing me. I sat up straight.

  I got up and to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator and saw out of the window Director McHutchinson and Clive Armsgoode walking up to my trailer.

  What are they doing?

  Crap! Can’t I just have one minute without something going wrong?

  Why would they come here? I looked around.

  Wait . . .

  What if they coming to move my stuff out?

  I knew I couldn’t stay because I believed things that they “frowned” upon. I looked out the window again. They were walking together in step. Eyes set straight ahead. They weren’t talking.

  Yep. They were coming to try to oust. And I wasn’t sure that they couldn’t. Especially since everyone was acting as if I was the prime murder suspect and now only here to change Georgia’s illustrious history. Which I didn’t want to do.

  I looked out the window again – nope – no Forest Service police with them. But it was two of them . . .

  I could take them, I decided. I needed to start being proactive if I was ever going to do what I wanted to do in archaeology.

  I sat the water on the table and threw the door to the trailer open. They stopped, I guessed startled at my outburst. I was ready to defend my position and my castle – small camper trailer that it may be – to the end.

  “Can I he
lp you,” I said rather indignantly.

  “Hi, Dr. Dickerson,” McHutchinson said a seemingly genuine smile on his face.

  He wasn’t going to fool me.

  Dressed casually in jeans and a light blue button down shirt. He had on topsiders, and no socks. His causal appearance was unusual. It wasn’t as official as I thought it would be if he came to fire me.

  “I came by to introduce you to Dr. Clive Armsgoode-”

  “Ph.D. Early American History.” I finished his sentence. “Yes we’ve met.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t realized.”

  “Yes,” Mr.-Ph.D.-In-Taking-My-Job said. “I stopped by the site the day the bones were found. Introduced myself.”

  “He did,” I nodded in agreement. “He thought you might have your pants down because of all the mayhem and disquiet the finding of the bones caused.” I looked at him. “Not quite sure how it really went for you.”

  The two of them were starting to look uncomfortable.

  Good.

  They had picked the wrong person when they picked me. At least today.

  Sure, I went to my mother for help, followed Miss Vivee around like a puppy, but when it came to my work I was a determined person. And just looking at them, coming to say or do who’s knows what to me, was making me angrier by the minute.

  “Is everything okay, Dr. Dickerson?” McHutchinson asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Everything is good. Just waiting to go back to work.”

  “Well fingers crossed that will be soon. Just waiting from the go ahead from the FBI.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yes. They’re working on identifying the remains. Finding out the cause of death.”

  “Nothing moves fast when it concerns the government,” Clive Armsgoode chimed in.

  Were they patronizing me? Or did they really not know?

  “The remains belong to Aaron Coulter,” I said not sure if I was supposed to release that information. But I didn’t care. “Did you know him?”

  That stopped both of them. Their jaws went slack and their shoulders slumped. Director McHutchinson looked confused. Clive Armsgoode looked annoyed. Both made haste leaving after my announcement.