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

  “My mother is a biblical archaeologist,” I said.

  Why did I say that?

  I licked my lips again and shook my head. “And I-I’m just the run-of-the-mill, garden variety type. Why?”

  He wrote down something in his notebook. I tried to stand on my toes to see what he was writing.

  “If you don’t have any other questions,” I said and adjusted my knapsack on my shoulder. “I was just getting ready to leave.”

  “There was a break-in at Track Rock Gap last night,” he said and looked up at me from his notebook. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “Track Gap?” I said trying to appear confused.

  “Track Rock Gap,” he corrected. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of it?”

  Should I lie? I already had so many lies that I’d had to keep up with.

  “Yes. I’ve heard of it.” I decided on the truth. “Why?”

  “Because your car was reported being seen there yesterday.”

  A knot rose in my throat.

  Oh my God, I really am going to jail.

  “We pulled it up on the security cam.” He looked down at his notebook and flipped through a couple of pages.

  “Ohio FYE 2965. That’s your license plate?” He looked past me at my car.

  “Yes,” I said hesitantly.

  “It was recorded around three o’clock yesterday. It shows you outside the gates . . .”

  How could I be so stupid and not realize the place had surveillance cameras.

  “Wait!” I blurted out. Suddenly it hit me. I felt a smile coming on. “My car was spotted at three o’clock?”

  “Yes and -”

  “In the afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  He’s wasn’t talking about when I was there last night.

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know about last night.

  I breathed in and exhaled a sigh of relief.

  “Oh yes. I was there.” My words flowed. “Thought I’d take a look at it, but it was locked up tight. No visitors I understand?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “No. No one’s allowed on the land. We were wondering did you see anyone else there. Or have any idea who was there last night?”

  “No.” I took in a breath. “No. I have no idea.” I ran my hand over my face. “Okay, then. Is that all?”

  “Just one more question.”

  “Alright,” I said even though that’s not how I felt.

  “Where were you last night?” He looked me directly in my eyes.

  Crap, I thought. Can he tell if I lie? Had he been trained at Quantico to detect liars?

  “I don’t know,” I decided to lie anyway. “Sleep I guess.”

  “You don’t know where you were?” He arched an eyebrow.

  “Your question is kind of vague. Last night encompasses a lot of time,” I said. “Do you mean after six? After nine?”

  “After nine.”

  “In bed. Asleep,” I said and nodded, lips tight.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive,” I said. “I have no reason to lie.”

  Ha! If he only knew.

  “I only ask because the woman at the desk,” he turned and looked back toward the motel, “said she saw you come in covered in dirt.”

  I frowned. “Yeah. I don’t think that happened.” Then I looked directly in his eyes. “Why would she say something like that?”

  He kept his eyes locked on mine. A smirk appeared on his face. For some reason that smirk made me nervous.

  “I don’t know why she would say that,” he said finally. “Okay, well, if you remember seeing anything or anyone at Track Rock Gap while you were there, give me a call.” He closed his notebook and reached into the same inside jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. He handed it to me. “We’re just trying to figure out if the person who broke in last night had come by earlier as well.”

  “I sure will.” I held up the card. “I’ll call if I think of anything,” I said. I opened the back door and threw my luggage inside. I slammed that door, turned, smiled at him and jumped in the driver’s side. I took the satchel from around my and neck and pushed the card he’d given me down in an inside pocket and threw it on the passenger seat. Then I pulled out of that parking lot so fast that I think I left tire marks.

  I glanced back over at the parking lot before I turned the corner and saw that FBI man still standing there.

  Dummy.

  Yeah, I called you dummy.

  I started grinning. “I got out of that one,” I said aloud. “And he’s none the wiser. Some kind of detective he is.”

  I drove over the bridge to the Interstate, I was going back home to Ohio. Do something nice for my mother. I turned on the car’s GPS and Track Rock Gap popped up on the screen.

  I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror, my light-brown skin glistening from my attempt at escape and I thought about what I had done. The grin started to fade.

  I really was turning into a criminal. Breaking onto government property, lying to FBI agents and then feeling good about it. That, suddenly made me feel terrible.

  A remorseful criminal. Geesh.

  I picked up my cell phone and punched in my mother’s number. I was ready to admit I needed her help.

  Chapter Four

  I had decided that I should actually go to Stallings Island.

  I realized that I didn’t want that FBI guy to check up on me and I wasn’t where I said I’d be. I didn’t want him to know how big a liar I had turned out to be.

  My mother knew how to make me be on Stallings Island – legally – happen. She’d know about any excavations there and how I could join a team.

  When I got her on the phone, my mother, Dr. Justin Dickerson, famous, or in some circles, infamous, biblical archaeologist told me that Stallings Island was, much like Track Rock Gap, ran under a federal agency. And, she enlightened me, traffic to the island had in fact been shut down long ago to the public due to looting.

  “Criminals,” she had said and sucked her teeth. “I never could understand why people would break into places like that and desecrate our history.”

  If she only knew that her baby child had become one of those “people.”

  I decided to come clean with her. I had to tell her what I did in order for her to use all of her clout to get me on the island so that my credibility in the science world wouldn’t be shot.

  Only I wasn’t sure how much clout she had anymore.

  My mother had discovered, way back in 1997, that hidden with the Dead Sea Scrolls were manuscripts that described an alternative history to man’s origins. The manuscripts said that man – people just like us, same DNA as she liked to say – had originated on Mars.

  Yeah, right. It made my mother seem kind of wacky.

  Unfortunately, before she could make it known to the general public, people that did know started getting killed over it, and secret societies that had government ties were trying to take the information from her. So she decided the world wasn’t ready for what she knew.

  Big decision for her to make. I know. But my mother is smart. Super smart. And if she thought it was best, well then so did I. So our family – including me – helped her hide all the evidence.

  “One day,” she had said, “this information will be rediscovered and the world will be ready to accept it for what it is and put it to good use.”

  She was good at cover-ups.

  That’s another reason I called her.

  So my mother, after hearing my story and fussing at me for a good ten minutes about my impertinent and cheeky behavior and total disregard for the law, said she could probably get me permission to go to the island through her contacts with the Archaeological Conservancy, the agency now in charge of it.

  Yay! She still had clout.

  But, she cautioned, she didn’t have the faintest idea how I was going to fake an excavation. She was sure that excavations real or fake, weren’t allowed. But she also said she’d keep trying
to get me permission.

  Maybe I could learn to listen a little bit more to my mother before I head out trying to do things on my own.

  She told me that Stallings Island was about eight miles outside of Augusta. And to try and be safe and truthful from here on out.

  I promised I would.

  I punched in Augusta on my GPS and headed south down the Georgia coastline. I opened up the window and let the breeze off the Savannah River flow through me. I turned up the music, Maroon 5’s Sugar, and enjoyed the drive.

  Just off the highway, to my left I watched sea gulls fly over the sandy dunes, bluffs and wind swept sea oats that led to the blue water and barrier islands. Shallow pools riffled where scores of fish, mussels and shrimp swam.

  And to my right sprawling live oaks and towering cypress trees glistening under the bright yellow sun seem to sway with the beat of the music. The skies were a clear, heavenly blue. I took in a breath and smelled the fresh air. A grin curled up the side of my lips.

  Yes. This was going to work out fine.

  I could just feel it.

  Chapter Five

  Thursday Afternoon, BGD

  There was no boat from Augusta to Stallings Island. No ferry. No bridge. No nothing.

  No one was allowed on the island, so no one provided a way to get there. There was, I was told, a shoal – a sandbank – that extended from the shore to the Island. From what I understood, I could just walk across it.

  When I asked for directions to the shoal, I was told it was in Yasamee, a small – No. Very small – town just down the road “a piece.” “A piece” turned out to be twenty-five miles. Augusta and Stallings Island was only eight miles apart down the river, but they were twenty-fives miles apart over land.

  I found my way to Yasamee easy enough. The town was built around a square. The center a wide green open space with park benches and a gazebo, and its four sides anchored with a movie theater, barber shop, diner and a library. I stopped at one end of it and scanned over each building looking for a hotel. Nothing.

  I drove down the streets that dead ended at the square and found all of them lined with beautiful water hickory and tupelo trees and filled with vibrantly colored painted houses of Eastlake and Italianate styled architecture. It was like driving through the streets of a picture. I drove along the beach and saw a beautiful beachfront property. But there was no hotel in sight.

  Then I spotted it. It was a quaint bed and breakfast, just like the ones in travel magazines on one of the last streets I drove down. The sign outside read “Maypop B & B.” Maypop was the edible fruit of the North American passion flower.

  “Perfect,” I whispered.

  From the outside the house looked enormous. It was white with black shutters framing an abundance of front windows. It had double oak doors and a wrap-around porch on the first and second story. I found a place to park right outside the house. Grabbing my knapsack, I strolled up the brick walkway past the verdant, perfectly manicured green lawn and pink azalea bushes, up the steps and onto the porch.

  The tan, natural coir doormat read “Welcome” in big, bold black letters and that’s just how I felt.

  Chapter Six

  Thursday Around Suppertime, BGD

  A bell, fitted to the top of the double oak doors, tinkled as I came in. I walked into a large foyer, its walls painted a rich cranberry ended at glossy, polished wood floors where a large round plush, patterned rug sat in its center. There was an oak staircase, and to the left of it an ornately carved wooden counter that blocked the entrance to a hallway that led to the back of the house. Off to the side was a large dining area that was filled with people.

  The smell of something hot and sweet stopped me in my tracks.

  What in the world is that?

  Taking in the aroma, I turned toward the dining room and saw that everyone in there was looking at me.

  “Hi.” A woman wended her way around tables and came to me with her hand stuck out. “I’m Renmar Colquett. Welcome to the Maypop.” She had a big, genuine smile on her face.

  “Hi.” I said. “I’m Logan. Logan Dickerson. I wanted to get a room?”

  “Oh that’s wonderful,” she said her eyes beaming. “Well, come on, let’s get you checked in. She looked over her shoulder, back into the dining area. “Brie, we have a guest.”

  The person she called Brie came over and clapped her palms together. “Oh my. How nice,” she said, her smile just as big as Renmar’s.

  “Her name’s Logan Dickerson,” Renmar said to Brie, then to me, “This is my sister, Brie Pennywell,” Renmar pointed to Brie, “and,” Renmar twisted her body from the waist to look around her. “Mother,” she called out, and “Mother” came from the hallway that was behind the counter, carrying a purse on her arm, and a wheaten Scottish terrier following behind her.

  “And this is our mother, Vivienne Pennywell and her dog, Cat.” Renmar said. “But everyone calls her Miss Vivee.” Renmar looked at her mother and the dog. “My mother that is. Not the dog. Everybody calls my mother, Miss Vivee.” She placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder and then turned back to the dining room.

  “And that’s Hazel Cobb,” she said pointing. “My oldest and dearest friend.”

  Hazel was walking toward me when Renmar started the introduction. The only black person I’d seen since I arrived, she wrapped her arms around me. “I’m a hugger,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “And then everyone else,” Renmar said and swept her arm out toward the dining room. “Well. Everyone that’s here today at least. But if you stay long enough you’ll meet everyone because everybody from town comes here at least once a week to eat.”

  When she introduced me to “everyone” the majority of them got up and came out into the foyer. They shook my hand, patted me on my back, and introduced themselves, their wives, husbands, and children to me. I’m sure I’d never remember who was who.

  But man, wasn’t this just the friendliest place?

  Renmar, the apparent proprietor, reminded me of a southern belle. Sophisticated, sleek, she looked to be in her late-fifties. She had on a sleeveless sheath burgundy dress, burgundy two inch heels that were made from Plexiglas or something transparent resembling glass. She was classy. She had her brown hair cut into a stylish bob and her make-up made her skin look like that of a porcelain doll.

  Brie on the other hand looked motherly. She wore her light brown hair in a French roll, and had a sprinkle of freckles that ran across her nose. She was slightly overweight, wore a loosely-stitched crocheted cardigan over her belted, cotton green dress and low heeled loafers.

  “Mother” was old. Old like ninety-odd-something old. But seemed spry. She walked without a cane, or walker. She was slender and short – like five-foot nothing short. She had on a thin, off-white coat with a big round collar. Her hair was long, mostly white, but there were sparse strands of black mixed in. Her hair, braided in the back had been brought over her shoulder to rest on her chest, loose wisps framed her face. She eyed me from the time she came out for her introduction. I couldn’t tell from her expression what she was thinking and, unlike everyone else, she didn’t say a word to me.

  “We don’t get many guests,” Renmar said pulling a guest register from underneath the counter. “Ever since they banned tourists from going to the Island no one comes to visit Yasamee anymore.”

  “What ya doing down here in these parts.” It was Brie that spoke.

  “I’m an archaeologist,” I said, which made everyone quiet down and look at me. “I’m here to work over on Stallings Island.” It wasn’t a complete lie. That is if my mother came through for me. I was going to act the part though, even if I had lost the trail of that stupid FBI guy. I still had to do my penance.

  “You have permission to dig on the Island?” Renmar asked me but she was looking at the man who had wandered in during the introductions. He had a pretty blonde woman on his arm, both puffed on an e-cigarette and were very much into – it appeared – pub
lic displays of affection.

  “Yes. Well, sort of. Why?” I asked and let me eyes dart from Renmar to the man. I hoped they didn’t know something I didn’t know and I would be made out to be a liar once again.

  “No reason,” she said and lowered her eyes.

  “Wait,” Brie said, her eyes seemed to light up. “What’s your last name?”

  “Dickerson.”

  “And you’re an archaeologist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh it couldn’t be,” she clapped her hand again and cocked her head.

  She was making me nervous. Had she heard about me and Track Rock Gap? I heard gossip travelled fast in small towns.

  Although me being at Track Rock Gap wasn’t exactly gossip. It was true.

  “Are you related to the biblical archaeologist, Justin Dickerson?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am,” I said warily. I never knew what people were going to say when they mentioned my mother. “She’s my mother.”

  That made Brie scream.

  “Oh my goodness,” she said. “Her mother wrote a book.”

  Oh. No.

  “My mother and I -”

  But before I could stop her she blurted it out.

  “The book is proof that we all came from Mars.”

  I took in a deep breath.

  Everyone got quiet, they seemed to be holding their breath. The silence was nauseating.

  “Brie!” Renmar said. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Renmar looked at me apologetically. “Brie gets carried away sometimes. I’m sure she’s got it all confused.”

  “Yes,” I said and smiled.

  There was a collective exhale in the room.

  “Noooo.” Brie’s eyes got even bigger. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m right about this.”

  Technically Brie was right. My mother had wrote a book about what she discovered. Two books to be exact, and the first one, the only one Brie could have read was written as fiction. But that’s another story.