Food Fair Frenzy Read online

  Thank goodness.

  “What you got in here smelling so good?” Bay asked his mother. He went over and sniffed around the stove. “What’s in here?” He put his hand on the handle of one of the double ovens built into the wall.

  “Don’t you dare!” Renmar said. “I’ve got a cake in there.”

  “Mmmm,” he said. “I’ve got business in Augusta, but I’ll be back to get some of that this afternoon.” He rubbed his stomach. “Save me a piece?”

  “I can’t promise,” Renmar said. “You know how people love my red velvet cake.”

  “Red velvet?” Bay said, a grin spreading across his face. “Now, Ma, you know I have to have a piece of that. I thought I was your favorite son?”

  Renmar chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Okay, I gotta go,” he said. He came over, bent down and kissed me on my cheek.

  “I thought maybe you hadn’t seen Logan sitting there,” Hazel Cobb said. “You hadn’t said a word to her, like you forgot about her.”

  “Never,” he said and winked at me. “I’ll be back.” He waved a good-bye and left.

  “One thing about Logan being here,” Brie said. “We get to see Bay more often.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Hazel Cobb said. “We also get to go to more funerals.”

  “Hazel,” Brie said. “That’s not a nice thing to say.” She looked at me and rubbed my arm.

  “May not be nice, Brie,” Hazel responded, “But it’s true.”

  “Hazel,” Renmar warned.

  Oh now she’s taking up for me?

  Hazel chuckled. “Bless her heart, ever since Logan came, murder is a common occurrence in Yasamee.”

  Seems to me that I’ve learned since I’ve been here that “bless her heart” isn’t a nice thing to say about someone.

  “It’s true.” Brie bit back a laugh. “And Momma has been off the chain.”

  “Off the chain?” Hazel said and busted out laughing.

  I didn’t see anything funny.

  Ever since I came, Renmar and Brie had just thrown up their hands when it came to Miss Vivee. And they mostly blamed me. Reminding me that Miss Vivee hadn’t left the house for twenty years until I arrived.

  And, they noted, it was after I arrived that the murders started. I didn’t need them telling me that, I had had that epiphany the night before.

  I stuffed the last piece of pecan roll in my mouth. I wanted to make a quick exit.

  “Logan you need to go out there and see about her,” Renmar said as I sat my dish, silverware, and glass in the sink. “She’s been wandering around all morning in that backyard. Her and that dog.” She glanced out the kitchen window. “Those are the same clothes she had on yesterday, I do believe, and her hair, even if she is trying a new hairdo, looks unkempt.”

  Why does she always relegate me that duty?

  “I’m worried about her,” Brie said.

  Renmar looked at me. “You’re the only one that can talk to her. She doesn’t listen to anything I have to say, even when she’s . . .” She looked out the window again “Even when she’s not feeling disoriented.”

  Didn’t Renmar just accuse me of helping her go down the crazy road?

  I followed Renmar’s eyes out the window and it made my heart skip a beat. I immediately felt bad. Miss Vivee did look lost. She was walking through her flower garden, it seemed, in a daze. Even Cat had her head hung low.

  “I think she’s okay,” I said. Although I wasn’t too sure, I’d never seen Miss Vivee look like that.

  “I hope you’re right,” Renmar said. “I’m thinking about making an appointment with a doctor up in Augusta one of our guests this morning told me about. She specializes in the elderly.”

  That thought choked me up.

  I glanced back out of the window. “I’ll go and talk to her,” I said.

  “You know,” Brie said. “If something has gone wrong with Momma’s mind, there’s no coming back from it. It’s the way she’ll be from here on out.”

  “Oh Brie,” Renmar said her face frowning up. “You say the most God-awful things. That’s your mother you’re talking about. Don’t go speaking it into the atmosphere that she’s gone bonkers.”

  Isn’t what Brie said the same thing she espoused?

  I pushed open the old wooden screen door that led to the huge backyard from the kitchen. As soon as I stepped outside my senses were invaded with the smell of wildflowers, jasmine and honeysuckle; the bright, vibrant pinks, reds, yellows and purples of the delicate flowers; and the chirping of the birds that filled Miss Vivee’s garden.

  I watched Miss Vivee as I approached. Her long white hair was hanging loose, it was disheveled, and looked as if she had been twisting it with her fingers. And she looked, I don’t know . . . Confused? Befuddled?

  Hadn’t she just been okay yesterday? Could something like that happen so overnight?

  Cat walked over to me and I reached down to pet her. Brie was right, though. There was no going back. With all the research and support, there was no cure for dementia. I stood up and stared at Miss Vivee, zooming in on her face and then to her eyes.

  “Why are you looking at me all crazy,” she said.

  “Me? I’m not looking crazy?” I shook my head and swallowed.

  Should I tell her it was she that had the crazy look?

  “What’s wrong with you?” I said instead.

  She furrowed her brow. “Why? What do you know?”

  “Know?” I asked. “About what?”

  “Never mind,” she waved her hand at me.

  “What’s wrong with your hair?” I thought I’d try a different approach.

  “My hair?” she reached up and tucked a few stray strands behind her ear, then patted it down. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well, it looks unkempt. And you told Renmar I was having you grow dreadlocks.”

  “Unkempt?” She grinned. “You’re starting to sound like an old woman.”

  “It’s what Renmar said. I just used her words. But don’t get away from this dreadlock thing.”

  “She was bothering me about my hair. So I told her it was your fault my hair looks like this. She won’t try and put you away if you’re acting a little crazy.”

  “Is that what you think? That you’re acting a little crazy?”

  “Hell no!” she said her voice a little louder than usual. Cat let out a yelp, I guessed dittoing the sentiment. “Anyway, crazy people don’t know they’re crazy, so, it wouldn’t make any sense to get my opinion about it. But it’s none of her business if I comb my hair or not.”

  “Why wouldn’t you comb your hair?”

  “I didn’t not comb it on purpose. I was up really late talking to Mac,” she said and looked off as if she was remembering the conversation. “It was probably close to ten before I got to bed.”

  “10pm?”

  “Of course, 10pm. Good lord, what other time could I be talking about?”

  I didn’t know, but ten didn’t seem late to me.

  “How does that have anything to do with your hair?” I said instead.

  “Well. After we talked, I just tossed and turned and couldn’t get any sleep. I probably was pulling on it all night. Do I have bags under my eyes?”

  She pushed her face close to mine and blinked her eyes hard several times.

  I pulled back and tried to examine them. Maybe there were some bags under there, but there were so many wrinkles, who could tell?

  “I don’t see any,” I said. I got back on the subject at hand. “What were you and Mac talking about?”

  “How we’d be able to prove my innocence.”

  “Your innocence?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Innocence of what?”

  “Murder,” she said.

  Chapter Eight

  Now I was really getting nervous. I remembered how people thought Miss Vivee had something to do with Bay’s father’s death. She had explained to me that he was suffering from cancer,
and had requested her help to end his pain. Such actions are legal now in a few places, but I’m sure they weren’t legal anywhere when Louis Colquett passed away. They were very close, Bay had explained to me, and whether it was true or not, he said, no one blamed her. But to me, it just exemplified who she was – brave and willing to go to the end to help a friend.

  But now, I wondered, do I need to get worried?

  “Whose murder?” I asked.

  “Jack Wagner’s murder,” Miss Vivee said. “Who else?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Why would anyone think you murdered him? You didn’t even know him, did you?”

  “No. And -”

  “And,” I took over talking and didn’t let her finish. “We don’t know for sure that he was murdered.”

  “Everyone, but you it seems,” she nodded her head toward me, “knows the man was murdered. Even the Sheriff said it.”

  “I’ll wait for the coroner’s report,” I said. “Because frankly I’ve had enough of murder.”

  “Have you now?” She looked at me with a devilish smirk.

  “What is this thing you have with murder, Miss Vivee?” I said. “I mean, I know I’ve run into a couple on my own, but you just seem to attract them.”

  “I attract them?”

  “Yes, you,” I said, trying to project my thoughts of being a murder magnet onto her. “You attract them.”

  “Like a moth to a flame?” She let her gaze drift.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like a moth to a flame.”

  “I knew you’d come, you know” Miss Vivee said after a short pause.

  “Knew I’d come where?” I asked. “Out back?”

  “No. To Yasamee,” she said and walked off toward her greenhouse. Cat followed behind her.

  To Yasamee? I mouthed under my breath and followed her. She passed the miniature putt-putt golf course, and on to the other side of her greenhouse. She sat on a wrought iron bench, the black paint peeling, showing years of wear. I’d never known her to sit out here. I sat down next to her, and so did Cat.

  “How do you feel, Miss Vivee?” I asked. I began thinking that maybe a trip to Augusta to see that geriatric doctor was a good idea.

  “How am I supposed to feel?” she asked.

  “I mean . . .” I licked my lips, and blinked my eyes. I didn’t want to say anything to upset her. “You should feel however you feel.” I looked at her. “Good.” I said and nodded my head reassuringly. “You should feel good.”

  “How do you feel?” she said and raised an eyebrow.

  “I feel good,” I said. I patted her on her knee like she often does to me. “I’m feeling really good.”

  “Well, you’re acting awfully daffy.”

  Time to change the subject. Again. “How did you know I’d come to Yasamee?”

  “It was my destiny. Our destiny.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Okay. I thought. This was getting wackier by the minute.

  “Our destiny?”

  “Yes,” she said.“ I had prepared for it. And the wave of murder that came with you.”

  Oh. My. God. She is going crazy.

  I furrowed my brow and narrowed my eyes. “Now wait a minute . . .”

  “Gemma Burke’s murder wasn’t the first – or second – one I’d seen.” Looking down at her hands, she smoothed out the wrinkles, pausing to rub one of the larger of the many dark spots on it. “I’d been told that all of this was my destiny. I just didn’t know I’d be so old when it happened. When you came.”

  Now she was scaring me. And even though I had kind of come to that realization the night before, I definitely wasn’t prepared to hear her tell me it was divine providence.

  “All of what, Miss Vivee?”

  “The murders.” She locked her eyes with mine. “Solving the murders.”

  “Anyway,” I said, not wanting to talk about that anymore. “What makes you and Mac think that you’d be a suspect in Jack Wagner’s, uhm, death?”

  “The note,” she said and nothing more.

  I paused and thought about what was written on the note. I couldn’t remember Miss Vivee being mentioned, although honestly, I didn’t remember much about what it said at all.

  “What about the note?” I finally asked.

  “The flowers.”

  “Yeah. What about the flowers?”

  Spit it out, Miss Vivee.

  “I have them.”

  I hadn’t the faintest idea what that meant. “Oh, Miss Vivee, just tell me.” I voiced my impatience. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have every flower on the note.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes. In my garden. In my greenhouse. I have each one of those flowers.”

  “So?”

  “So they don’t just grow, all of them, at the same place. I had to plant them.” She was waving her hands around, raising her voice.

  “Lots of people have gardens,” I said letting my voice get a little louder, too. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Big deal?” She let her hands drop as if they had gone limp. “Sometimes, girl, I think you ain’t as smart as all your college degrees let on you are.” She shook her head. “All the plants on that list are poisonous.”

  “All of them?”

  She turned and looked at me and made a face. “Didn’t you read the note?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you remember it said deadly flowers?”

  I didn’t remember it saying that.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t remember that.” I shook my head vigorously, and let my eyes roll up and to the right to think about it. I looked back down at her. I didn’t remember much but I was positive it didn’t say “deadly flowers.”

  “And you have all those poisonous flowers? Here?”

  “Yes.”

  I made a mental note not to touch any of Miss Vivee’s flowers ever again.

  I noticed the worry that seemed to nag her. “I honestly don’t remember the words ‘deadly flowers,’ Miss Vivee, but I do remember it said ‘field of flowers.’ You remember that?”

  She nodded as if she wasn’t really listening.

  “Miss Vivee.” I grabbed her hand. I really wanted to try and ease her mind. “That’s right, isn’t it,” I said. “Field of flowers was written on the note?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Twice.”

  “Right. And there’s a whole bunch of flowers outside the tents. At the fairgrounds. Flowers were everywhere.”

  She nodded.

  “You remember that?”

  “Yes. I remember that.”

  “Maybe that’s what it’s talking about,” I said. “You got the note at the fairgrounds. There are flowers at the fairgrounds. Maybe some of those flowers are on the list? We should check them out.”

  “No. Only one of them is there.”

  “How do you know?” I tilted my head and looked at her. “You couldn’t have looked at them.”

  “I did. I saw them when we drove into Lincoln Park. Plus, I know that field like the back of my hand. That’s where the last murder in Yasamee happened.”

  “The last murder in Yasamee was Oliver Gibbons,” I said. “He died outside his beach house right down the road.”

  “Well, I mean the first murder.” She held her hand up to stop me, I had just opened my mouth to correct her again. “Gemma Burke was the first one you were here for,” she said anticipating what I was going to say. “But remember when she died I told you then that there hadn’t been a murder in Yasamee in sixty-five years?”

  “Not really.”

  Who could remember all those murders ago?

  “Well, that’s where they found the body,” Miss Vivee said. “At the fairgrounds in Lincoln Park.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with that one, did you?”

  She cut me a look. “No, and this one either.”

  “I don’t know,” I said teasing. “You do have all the flowers.” I just wanted to lighten up her mood, and help dispel her
sense of doom.

  “That’s why Mac was trying to help me clear my name. As soon as the investigators find out that Jack Wagner was poisoned by a flower on that list, and I’m the only one with those flowers, they’ll come after me.”

  “Did he die from being poisoned by one of the flowers on that list?”

  Miss Vivee let out a long sigh. “Why else would someone write that note?” She seemed more to be questioning that fact, than giving a definitive answer.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. Bay is the investigator on that case,” I said. “Your grandson wouldn’t come after you, or arrest you. He loves you too much to do that.”

  “Do you think he would help me get away?” she asked, turning her whole body to me, a tiny sparkle appearing in her eye.

  “Oh my goodness, Miss Vivee.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he let a fugitive get away.” She looked at me out the side of her eye.

  “I was not a fugitive.”

  “Hmpf,” she said and turned back to sit facing forward. “Anyhoo,” she continued. “I don’t know of any other place that might have all the flowers on that list. Other than my place. And Bay would have to do his job, grandmother or not. So, Mac told me to gaggle it. See what I could find.”

  “Did you look it up?”

  “How do you think I would have done that all by myself? You have to help me gaggle it.”

  “Google it. What do you want me to lookup?”

  “Good Lord. Can’t you keep up?” she scrunched her nose at me. “Another greenhouse that has all of the poisonous plants on the list.”

  I pulled out my phone and swiped across the front of it. “Do greenhouses list their plant inventory?” I glanced at her. “Do you list yours?”

  “No. How would I list my inventory on there?” She pointed at my phone. “Can you write on it?”

  I shook my head. “No. But if you did list it anywhere, at a registry, or somewhere, then they might publish it on their website.”

  She looked at me with an air of disdain. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.”

  “Let’s look up plant farms,” I said. No need trying to teach her anything about the last fifty years of technology. She still had a 1950s Westinghouse clock radio on the nightstand in her room. “Plant farms,” I said typing it in. “Isn’t that what they call places that sell flowers to florists?” I glanced over at her.