Food Fair Frenzy

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Yeah. I kind of did,” I said.

  “I told you,” she said. “Martha couldn’t hurt a fly. Could you, Martha?”

  “Of course not,” Aunt Martha said. “And neither could Marigold.” She went over and looped her arm around Marigold’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Nana,” Marigold said and wiggled out of grandmother’s grasp. “They don’t have any proof.”

  “Proof?” Aunt Martha said. “Why would you say that, Marigold?” Tears were forming in her eyes. “Tell them that you didn’t do it.”

  “Grandmother,” Bay said. “What proof do you have?”

  “DNA,” Miss Vivee said.

  “You’re conducting DNA analysis now?” Bay asked. “In what? Your own forensic lab?”

  “Don’t get smart with me. I’m thankful that my grandchild is not a murderer,” she looked over at Marigold and back at Bay. “But I won’t tolerate no sass,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Tell me what you got, Miss Vivee,” Sheriff Haynes said. “Because I know you couldn’t conduct a DNA test.”

  “No. I can’t. But Logan looked up for me how to unseal adoption records,” Miss Vivee said and patted my hand. “It seems that for sealed adoptions, like the one that happened for Lily LeGrande’s daughter, papers must be filed with the court to get any information that would identify the biological parents. But for unidentifying information like where they were born, you don’t need a court order. Isn’t that right, Marigold?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said, that stupid smirk still on her face.

  “So Miss Marigold Kent got that unidentifying information. Found out her grandmother was born in Augusta County and starting searching all the public records she could find. Lily’s death, and the fact she had an infant daughter, was in all the newspapers. Probably wasn’t too hard to deduce that Martha might just be Bella Donna.” Miss Vivee looked at Marigold. “Especially after Martha couldn’t give you the information you needed for your genealogy study.”

  “All the information she gave me checked out. It was her adoptive family’s information.”

  “My adoptive family?” Aunt Martha said. “I wasn’t adopted.”

  “Yes you were,” Marigold nodded her head. “I found the adoption papers in your parents – adopted parents’ boxes you had stored.”

  “I’d told you I would go through those boxes,” Aunt Martha said.

  “I had just wanted to help,” Marigold said.

  “So why didn’t you tell me? After you found out, why didn’t you show me what you’d found” Aunt Martha looked at Marigold, but she said nothing. “Bella Donna?” Aunt Martha repeated the words and shook her head. “Isn’t that something that people use to poison with?”

  “Yes,” Miss Vivee said. “And it’s your birth name.”

  “Nightshade,” I said. “Is another name for it.”

  Miss Vivee looked at Sheriff Haynes. He nodded his head. “And that flower was in that poem,” he said.

  “So was the lily of the valley,” Miss Vivee said. “And all the time I thought whoever wrote that note couldn’t spell. Putting an ‘e’ on grand.” Miss Vivee looked at Marigold. “L-E-G-R-A-N-D-E. You spelled ‘grand’ like her – like your great-grandmother’s last name. That’s why you put an ‘e’ on it. Isn’t it.”

  “That would be your only clue,” Marigold said quoting the poem.

  “I need to sit down,” Aunt Martha said. “I think that I’m going to faint.” Aunt Martha’s knees drooped and she grabbed her head.

  Sheriff Haynes and Bay moved toward her, and Marigold moved toward the door.

  “Hold on there, young lady,” Sheriff Haynes said and slid back in front of the door blocking Marigold. “You got Martha, Bay?”

  “Yeah, I got her,” Bay said. He held onto her and walked with her over to the registration counter. “Lean on this, Mrs. Simmons. I’ll get something for you to sit in.” He went into the dining room off the foyer and brought her a chair and got her settled in it. “Now, Grandmother, you were saying about DNA.”

  “If you check Martha’s DNA against that of Lily’s, you’ll see that they’re related.”

  “We don’t have any DNA from Lily LeGrande, Grandmother,” Bay said. “Do we?” he looked at Sheriff Haynes.

  “Not sure. But I doubt it. That was a long time ago. Way before we knew anything about DNA.”

  “You got anything else, Grandmother?” Bay said.

  “Don’t be so quick now, Bay.” Miss Vivee nodded her head toward Martha. “She’s got a journal. It’s old and it’s filled with recipes. Some handwritten, some pasted in. Someone had to lick them, because back then we didn’t have self-adhesive cards. I’m suspecting that is was Lily who did it, that’s why Marigold checked Martha’s DNA.”

  Everyone looked over at Marigold.

  She chuckled. “Wasn’t hard to get her to sign the papers to get the record unsealed, but I had to come up with a big story for her to let me swab the inside of her cheek.”

  “Why did she kill him, Grandmother?” Bay asked.

  “Oh, good heavens!” Aunt Martha said and slumped in her chair.

  “Mrs. Simmons are you going to be alright?” Bay asked.

  “No! I don’t know that I’ll ever be alright again.” Aunt Martha pulled a wad of tissues from her purse and swiped them across her head. “Hearing all of this is killing me. It just couldn’t be true. Could it?” She looked at Marigold then swung around in her chair and looked at Miss Vivee. “Could it?”

  “Well, I’m going to have to hear my grandmother out,” Bay said. “So if you don’t think you can listen – can take it – then I can have Logan wait with you in the other room.”

  And miss Miss Vivee in action? Sorry, Bay but you’re going to have to come up with another plan.

  “No. No,” Aunt Martha said. “I don’t want to go.” She looked over at Marigold. “She’s my granddaughter. She may need my help.”

  “Don’t worry, Nana. They don’t have anything on me.”

  “Grandmother,” Bay said. “How did you come to this conclusion?”

  “Lily LeGrande baked pies like nobody’s business. She kept all her recipes in a journal. She showed it to me once. I’m sure that the one that Martha has is one and the same.”

  “Did you see Mrs. Simmons’ journal?” Sheriff Haynes asked.

  “Nope,” Miss Vivee said. But I’ve tasted her Dutch Apple pie, and it’s Lily’s.”

  “That does not a murderer make, Grandmother.” Bay said. “And a DNA match between Mrs. Simmons and Lily LeGrande doesn’t prove that Marigold killed anyone.”

  “Marigold gave Martha that journal. I remember they looked all over for it after the murder, and no one could find it. I suspect it been taken so Lincoln Wagner could share its contents with the Smiths of Pottstown.”

  “Pottstown?” I said. “Where Camren Wagner is from? I thought she meant Pottstown, Georgia.”

  “Have you ever heard of a Pottstown, Georgia?” Miss Vivee asked me.

  I hadn’t heard of Pottstown, Pennsylvania either.

  “So, that’s Camren Wagner’s family?” I asked. I wanted to keep the story moving.

  “Yes. Remember you said that you’d eaten a few Mrs. Smith’s pies, Logan. Ever had their Dutch Apple?”

  “Wait. Are you saying . . .” I looked at Miss Vivee. This part wasn’t in her book. “Are you saying that Jack Wagner married a woman from the Smith family? The ones that make the frozen pies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sooo . . .” I was trying to put it all together. “Lincoln Wagner took Lily’s pie recipes-”

  “And her idea for frozen pies,” Marigold said.

  We all looked at her.

  “He took them . . .” I was still gathering my thoughts.

  “Killed her for them,” Miss Vivee said. “While his son watched.”

  “I didn’t work that case,” Sheriff Haynes said. “Wasn’t even born yet. But I’ve read the file. I know that it was Lincoln Wagner that found
her. He, I think, said he and his boy were out walking when they discovered the body.”

  “He’s the one that put the body there,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Do you have any proof of that?” Bay asked.

  “Proof of that could have only came from Jack Wagner. But it seems like little Miss Marigold made it so we wouldn’t be able to hear any of that from him,” Miss Vivee said. “He probably had confessed it to her when she went to ask him about finding her great-grandmother’s body. And when he gave her the recipe book.”

  “Had you ever spoken to Jack Wagner?” Bay directed his question to Marigold.

  “We’ve had words.”

  “And did he tell you he was really sorry. So sorry that he’d never came forward. So sorry that he planted lilies all over that field at Lincoln Park?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Yep. So sorry he said,” Marigold answered the question, “that he set up a trust, leaving the land to Lily LeGrande’s heirs. And then he found out her heir was my grandmother. He said he was so remorseful that he hadn’t spoken up.”

  “He was only five at the time it happened,” Miss Vivee said.

  “He grew up,” Marigold said. Her eyebrows knitted together, her breathing so heavy she sounded as if she was snorting. “Planting lilies, and bequeathing land. Hmph!”

  “You didn’t care anything about that land, did you?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “No,” Marigold said. “Or those stupid lilies. Jackson Wagner’s father stole my grandmother’s legacy.”

  “I wouldn’t have cared about that!” Aunt Martha screeched. “I didn’t even know anything about my legacy.”

  “So what about everyone getting sick at the fair, Miss Vivee,” Sheriff Haynes asked. “Did she do that too?”

  “Yes she did,” Miss Vivee nodded and looked at Marigold. “That’s why Martha couldn’t find that recipe journal of hers.”

  “I misplaced it,” Aunt Martha said. “I told you that, Vivienne.”

  “Marigold took it,” Miss Vivee said. “She wanted to bake a special pie for Jack Wagner. One of Lily’s very own creations.” She looked at Marigold and smiled. “But with a special ingredient – the addition of amygdalin. Sprinkled right on top.” Miss Vivee shook her head. “You learned that with that nutrition degree, didn’t you. The one you got from the University of California.” She looked over at the sheriff. “I don’t know why she wanted everyone else to get sick.”

  Aunt Martha looked at Marigold, it seemed, for the first time, with disgust. “You made all those people sick?”

  “I didn’t want that fair to be there anymore. Jack Wagner making money off of the memory of my great-grandmother.” She hissed. “All he had to do was the right thing.”

  “Why did you write that note, Marigold?” Bay asked. “Did you want to get caught?”

  “I did it for fun,” she said. “It was the perfect murder and I was proud of it. I didn’t think anyone could have figured out I did it,” she said.

  “That’s because you didn’t know about my grandmother,” Bay said.

  Epilogue

  Without someone knowing Lily LeGrande personally, Marigold would have figured correctly, no one could have guessed she’d did it.

  That’s why it’s never good to mess with old people. They’ve been around a long time, and they know a lot of stuff.

  And no one but a Voodoo herbalist, or the owner of an arboretum would have all nine of those poisonous flowers in their garden. But we figured out it was just a coincidence that they had those flowers. Marigold just needed to include Nightshade and Lily in her poem. And spell amygdalin.

  Miss Vivee said Marigold popped into her head when she saw that blonde in Robert Bernard’s car. She said she didn’t know why, but then all the pieces started to fall into place. That manuscript of hers didn’t hurt either. As soon as I read it, even I knew “whodunit.” Well, almost. I had thought it was Aunt Martha.

  I finally got the chance to call my parents after my weird engagement dinner. Bay had purchased the tickets for the following weekend. Once I got over the shock of no ring, and the stomach ache from that seven layer, decadent chocolate cake, I asked him why he’d planned the trip so soon, especially since he was in the middle of a murder investigation. He told me that he knew it wouldn’t take long for me and his grandmother to figure it out.

  I punched him.

  He gives the two of us so much grief about “nosing around” in his investigations. Always telling us to stay out of the murder solving business. I guess I was naive to think that he believed we listened.

  I decided not to pack any clothes to go home. I had plenty of stuff to wear there, in fact, I needed to bring more of my things back with me on my return. But the closer it got to the time to go home, the more anxious I got.

  I was anxious about facing my mother. I was anxious about getting that ring, and I was anxious about being someone’s wife.

  I hadn’t been on any excavations lately, and other than helping Miss Vivee solve murders, I wasn’t doing much else with my life. Now I was going to get engaged. Being a housewife in itself was a full time job. Or so I’ve been told.

  And to top that all off, Miss Vivee gave Bay and I an early wedding gift. It turned out her tall tale of inheriting Capt. Albert Caspard’s grant of land in the Black Belt was all true (except for the thousands of acres part, it was only a few hundred). Complete, she tells me, with a plantation, and she gave it to us.

  Black plantation owners. Go figure.

  And she really did want to have it nominated for an historic place, and thought that if those “lying no-good Goodalls” could do the archaeological research for the National Registry, then so could I.

  Sigh.

  My mother juggled being married, raising a family and a career all at the same time, so I figured if she could do it . . .

  There I go again, trying to compete with my mother.

  I remembered how she would drag us along on her digs, three kids and my dad, and she didn’t miss a beat. And my father used to joke that he’d follow her anywhere, all he needed was a laptop and a modem. But he wrote a syndicated sports column. He didn’t have to sit in an office, or spend days at a crime scene like Bay. Bay’s job was not mobile.

  And what about my “destiny?”

  According to Miss Vivee, I was born to be Nancy Drew.

  And we both had concluded that Lily LeGrande’s death sixty-five years earlier was when our shared destiny began. Even though I wasn’t even born yet. It was to be solved by us.

  Okay, so I was starting to buy into that idea a little.

  I was so confused.

  Suddenly, I wanted to go home. Couldn’t wait. I needed my mother’s help. Again.

  The End.

  Thank you for taking time to read Food Fair Frenzy. 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

  It’s been a year since I’ve written about Logan and Miss Vivee, but they’re back with more to follow. So, be sure to follow them on their quirky, fun filled 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.

  In this installment, the gang is back in Yasamee. And as usual there is a little real history, and real places. For instance, Miss Vivee talks about the Black Belt. The Black Belt is a region in the Southern United States. It was eventually developed for cotton plantations based on slave labor and the term became associated with the agricultural region. And there is a mall with Walmart and Dillards o
n Wrightsboro Road in Augusta, as well as the John H. Ruffin, Jr. Courthouse. And Frog Hollow Tavern and their signature drink, the Tea Hive is real, too. Next time you’re in Augusta, check it out.

  Thanks to all my beta reader, Kathryn Dionne. As always, the book is better because of you.

  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

  Coastal Cottage Calamity – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery

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  Maya Mound Mayhem – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery

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  In the Beginning: Mars Origin “I” Series Book I

  http://amzn.to/1cwDnd2

  Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin “I” Series Book II

  http://amzn.to/1bwWjFt

  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

  Garden Gazebo Gallivant – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery

  South Seas Shenanigans – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery

  A Lesson in Murder – A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery