Garden Gazebo Gallivant Page 6

  “You said that before, Miss Vivee,” I said. “You couldn’t think that you can solve this is three days?”

  “Love will conquer all,” she said with a nod. “Come Hell or high water we’re having a wedding on Sunday.”

  I shook my head and looked at my mother. “The Sheriff only asked for Miss Vivee’s help once,” I said. “When they had a note with flowers on it and needed her to see if any of those flowers could have killed the victim. Other times she just stuck her nose in and dragged me and Mac along.”

  “However it happened,” Miss Vivee said. “My input has been invaluable.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “So you don’t think it’ll be okay?” my mother said and looked at me. “I wouldn’t want to come down here and cause any trouble.”

  I looked at Miss Vivee who looked at me. I shook my head. “You can’t mess with destiny, I guess. And this is what this seems to be turning out to be. It’ll be fine, Mom,” I said and threw up my hands. “So,” I said to Miss Vivee, “what do you want to do first?”

  “Now you’re talking,” Miss Vivee said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Before she could sit through what she thought would be Miss Vivee’s plan of action, my mother excused herself to go to the bathroom.

  “Why did you tell my mother about that destiny stuff?” I said once my mother got out of earshot. “Me and you solving murders.”

  “She asked me,” Miss Vivee said.

  That answer was almost laughable. I wanted to be mad, but she acted so innocent and her face looked remorseful. Plus, I could see it was going to be hard to get a straight answer from her.

  “She did not ask you, Miss Vivee,” I said. “Why would she have asked you something like that? She didn’t know anything about it. And you swore that you wouldn’t tell her.”

  “I did no such thing,” Miss Vivee said. “I’d never swear to anything and then go back on my word. It’s nothing a lady would ever do.”

  “You did swear,” I said. “Scout’s honor? Three fingers and a salute?” I mimicked what she had did early.

  “Is that what that means?” she asked, face frowned up.

  “What did you think it meant?”

  “I didn’t know. It just seemed the right thing to do with you acting nervous and all. But, whew!” She swiped her hand across her forehead. “At least I didn’t break a promise. I would have felt so bad.”

  “You did, Miss Vivee. You did break your promise.”

  “No,” she said, extra crinkles lining her forehead. “I was never a Scout so that little ditty thing with my hand,” she repeated the motion. “Didn’t mean anything to me.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What did I miss,” my mother said as she sat back at the table. “You guys didn’t start strategizing without me, did you?”

  “Don’t worry, Mommy. You didn’t miss anything. Miss Vivee never has a plan.”

  “I do too,” she said. “It’s just that it kind of falls into place as we go along. You know. Gathering clues.”

  “Gathering clues?” my mother smiled. “Now that sounds like fun.” She winked at me.

  Maybe she won’t fuss at me too much about abandoning my career as an archaeologist because she seems to really be enjoying this.

  “So tell me about our victim, Kimmie,” she said.

  “‘Kimmie?’” Miss Vivee said with a “hmpf.” “Her name was Kimberly.” Miss Vivee scrunched her nose. “Kimberly Hunt. Perfectly good name, why shorten it?”

  Didn’t everyone call her Vivee? Short for Vivienne?

  Miss Vivee’s set of standards were vast and ever evolving, and they never applied to herself. Only to others.

  “I don’t know much about her,” Miss Vivee said finally answering my mother’s question. “But we’ll find out about her as we investigate.” She nodded her head. “The first thing we do is talk to the people that might have means, motive and opportunity.”

  “Means, motive, opportunity,” my mother repeated her words. “I’ve heard that on television before.”

  “See,” Miss Vivee said. “That just goes to show solving murders isn’t complicated. It’s universally understood. Stick with me,” she jabbed my mother in her arm, “and you’ll learn quickly that there’s nothing new under the sun, only the way you apply that knowledge.” Miss Vivee looked at me. “So. Now. What about September Love?”

  “Seppie?” I asked. “What about her?”

  “She had opportunity,” Miss Vivee said.

  “She was hysterical,” I said. “She wasn’t even sure that Kimmie was dead.”

  “Doesn’t mean she didn’t do it,” Miss Vivee said. “All that hysteria could have been a distraction to get you off her trail, in which case it worked. Or, it could have been that she instantly regretted doing it.”

  “She did have dogs that were quite agitated,” my mother said. “They may have seen something that upset them.”

  “Like a murder,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Like a murder,” my mother agreed.

  “She was a bad dog walker,” I said. “That’s all there was to it. She didn’t have any control over them. It was not because they witnessed her taking a hornet and sticking it to Kimmie Hunt.”

  “And she was out early,” Miss Vivee said not paying any attention to how illogical that sounded.

  “That’s opportunity,” my mother concluded seemingly following Miss Vivee’s reasoning.

  “She is definitely a suspect,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Definitely,” my mother echoed.

  I flapped my arms. Why do I even try to reason with Miss Vivee, and now my mother, too?

  “So what does that mean?” I asked Miss Vivee as if I didn’t already know.

  “I think it’s time to go and visit our first suspect.”

  “Our only suspect,” I mumbled.

  “She’s not our only suspect,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Who else is a suspect?”

  “Who else was out there,” she said.

  “Not me,” I said shaking my head. “I know you are not talking about me.”

  “You were out there, but I don’t think you’d kill Kimberly Hunt and then go and tell on yourself,” Miss Vivee said. “Even if you are a bit slow at times.”

  “Then who?” I asked, ignoring her comment about my intelligence or lack thereof.

  “Mac.”

  “Mac?” my mother and I said it together.

  ‘Why you two seem so surprised?” Miss Vivee said. “He’s under a lot of stress, and he could have just snapped.” She mimicked breaking a stick in half.

  “Oh brother,” I said and rolled my eyes.

  “Well, you’re the one who said it, Missy.”

  “Said what?”

  “You’re the one who told me he was out early, very early I might add. Supposedly waiting for the florist shop to open so he could buy a boutonnière when all the time he knew I already had one for him. Who sits on a bench for two hours? And you said he was acting melancholy.”

  “I never used that word,” I said.

  “It’s what you meant,” Miss Vivee said. “You said he hadn’t seemed too surprised to hear Kimberly Hunt was dead, and he hasn’t been around since it happened.”

  “It just happened this morning,” I said. “And he came to get you.”

  “He thought with me on the trail, once I found out he was the murderer, I’d help him get away with it.”

  My mother chuckled. I just shook my head. Miss Vivee could spin gold out of straw.

  “Why would he kill Kimmie Hunt,” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Miss Vivee said. “We’ll have to find out. But first stop is Seppie Love’s house.” She looked at my mother. “You in?”

  “I’m in,” she said.

  “I stood up. “I’ll get the car. And just so you know . . . So both of you know, I whole-heartedly disagree with Seppie Love or Mac being a suspect.”

  “That’s the reason I run this s
how,” Miss Vivee said. “I’m the only one with any far-sightedness.”

  No, I thought, it’s because you’re the only one that can come up with any far-fetched-ness ideas.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I didn’t know if that radar power I’d thought I might be developing was a true thing or not – beeping aside – but I definitely didn’t get any kind of “vibe” from September Love.

  And I didn’t need any kind of power to know that Mac hadn’t had anything to do with it.

  Seppie had been gone by the time Miss Vivee got there, I was sure of that. She hadn’t wanted to stay when Mac and I left her. So there wasn’t anything Seppie could have done to make Miss Vivee see her as a suspect. But I also knew that following Miss Vivee’s machinations always led to the killer. So, I got everyone into my jeep – Miss Vivee in front, my mother in the back –and pulled out of the driveway ready to follow Miss Vivee’s crooked road of inquiry.

  “Where to, Miss Vivee?” I was sure she knew where September Love lived. She knew where everyone lived.

  “Don’t you just hate this truck?” Miss Vivee said to my mother instead of answering my question. “I have to climb into it like I’m going up the side of a mountain, and then it sits up so high.” She wiggled around in her seat.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “My husband has an SUV and I refuse to ride in it. I have a sedan.”

  “Me too!” Miss Vivee said and tried to turn around in her seat to look back at my mother. Her five-foot nothing frame too old to maneuver around. “But Logan refuses to drive it.”

  “She has a boat, Ma,” I said. “It just so happens to have four wheels.”

  “They don’t make cars like mine anymore,” Miss Vivee said, giving a firm nod.

  “For good reason,” I said. “Now you wanna tell me which way to go to get to your suspect’s house?”

  “Go that way,” Miss Vivee pointed and I took off. All set to find Kimmie’s killer.

  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

  No more than ten minutes later, we pulled up in front of a beige house with green shutters. The windows were opened wide, and I could see the sheer curtains floating in the breeze. The front door stood ajar and the only thing protecting it from people wandering right in was a screen door. On the small porch a wind chime that read “Welcome” clinked in the calm wind.

  “So what’s the plan?” my mother asked.

  “I usually do all the talking,” Miss Vivee said. “But if you feel the need, just jump right in.”

  Oh goodness, I thought. She’s gonna let my mother talk? She never lets me say anything.

  “Miss Vivee?” September said pushing the screen door open after we knocked. She had two cats at her feet, one Calico, the other a white Persian. “Oh my goodness, it is you. I thought by now you’d be-”

  “Dead?” Miss Vivee said.

  “I didn’t mean-”

  “Well I will probably die if I have to stand at this door much longer. Where are your manners?”

  “Oh I’m sorry,” she said. “Ya’ll come on in.” We went through the door single file and when I walked past Seppie she said my name.

  “Logan. What are you doing here?” She seemed as if it were a pleasant surprise.

  “That’s my granddaughter,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Granddaughter?” Then recognition lit up her eyes. “You’re married to Bay?”

  “Not yet. So don’t get any ideas,” Miss Vivee said. “It’s practically a done deal. Show her the ring.”

  I held up my hand.

  “I never had any-” September started.

  “Designs on my grandson?” Miss Vivee asked.

  Is Miss Vivee going to let her finish a sentence?

  September started to say something, but I knew how defensive and protective Miss Vivee was about Bay, so I interrupted. No need getting our “suspect” more upset than she was.

  “This is my mother, Justin,” I said and pointed.

  “What’s going on?” a man’s voice came from behind us. I turned around to see a young guy, dressed in jeans, barefoot and pulling an olive green T-shirt over his head and down around his six-pack stomach.

  “This is Keith Collier,” September said and gestured toward the guy. “A friend of ours.”

  “Ours?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Me and . . . Uhm . . . Me and Kimmie’s.” She lowered her head and bit her bottom lip that I noticed was trembling.

  I felt bad for Seppie. I knew how upset she’d been about Kimmie’s death, and now to be interrogated by the likes of us. I watched her as she stood fiddling with the bottom of her shirt, tears rolling down her face.

  She was a pretty girl. Big baby doll eyes, full lips, and smooth skin gave her the look of a model. She wore her hair short, with bouncy ringlets. She had long, skinny legs that had been hidden under the jeans she had on when I’d seen her earlier. Now she had on shorts, and it was obvious she was nervous – pulling on her Daisy Duke’s and crossing and uncrossing her legs. She looked like a flamingo.

  I looked down at her feet and thought she must have passed those feelings of tension on to her cats because they were making figure eights around her legs and purring.

  “Are you okay, Seppie?” Keith Collier asked. He stood in the archway that separated the hallway and the room we were in. Seppie nodded, but didn’t say anything. Then she looked back over at us standing around.

  “Oh. Please, have a seat,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m thinking.” She pushed some clothes off the couch and spread her arm out gesturing us to sit. The three of us sat on it, with me in the middle.

  As soon as we sat both cats went straight to Miss Vivee.

  “What’s your cats’ names?” Miss Vivee asked.

  I knew she was being nice now only to soften the blow, because I had a feeling she wasn’t going to show Seppie any mercy when she started her questions.

  “The white one is Whiskers, and the Calico is Paws.”

  “Not very original, huh?” Miss Vivee said. Seppie hunched her shoulders. “I have a dog,” Miss Vivee continued. “She’s a wheaten Scottish terrier.”

  “What’s her name?” Seppie asked, her face brightening.

  “Cat,” Miss Vivee said.

  Seppie laughed and looked at me. “Really?” she said.

  “Really,” I said.

  “How cute,” she said.

  “Seppie,” I said. I figured I’d maybe ask the questions. I knew I wouldn’t be as harsh. “I was wondering. Did you see a black car this morning?”

  “You mean the one that the dogs almost ran into?”

  That was a good way to put it, I thought, because that car had been moving so slowly that it wouldn’t have hit them.

  “Yeah, I saw it,” she said. “Why? Because what about it?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Seeing you again just made me think of it. And it seemed strange. I’ve never seen it before. And it seemed to just be hanging around, you know? Like it was up to something.”

  “I haven’t ever seen it either,” she said. “Is that who you think killed Kimmie?”

  “How do you know she was killed?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Because . . .” Seppie looked at me, then back at Miss Vivee. “I saw her . . . I mean the way she was just lying there. You know.” She swiped a tear from her eye. “Her face . . . Her face didn’t look like she had had a heart attack or anything.”

  “Were you and her still close?” Miss Vivee asked.

  Seppie looked at Keith Collier who was still standing in the doorway to the living room. He hadn’t said a word, but when her eyes met his, he looked away, then turned around and went back wherever it was he had hailed.

  “Yes,” she said turning back to face us. “We were still friends,” she said and plopped down in a chair across from us. She looked at Miss Vivee. “So then, if she wasn’t killed, do they know how she died?”

  “No,” Miss Vivee said. My mother looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You kno
w it takes a long time for them to do an autopsy,” Miss Vivee continued with the deception. “Don’t you watch television?”

  “I . . . I hadn’t . . . I didn’t know,” she stumbled over her words. “Everything you see on television isn’t real anyway.”

  “Yes, I guess you’re right,” Miss Vivee said. “But they’ll find out soon enough. Bay’s on the case. And it won’t be long after, if they determine there was foul play, that they’ll catch whoever did it.”

  “I heard Bay was with the FBI,” she said a lopsided grin crawling up her face, evidently Miss Vivee’s accusation going right over her head. Then she caught herself and looked at me. “That’s just what I heard.”

  “So what do you know about it?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Me?” Seppie’s eyes got even bigger than they were naturally.

  “Yes you,” Miss Vivee said. “You were at the town square this morning.”

  “I was walking dogs.”

  “So you say,” Miss Vivee said, a smirk on her face.

  “I was,” Seppie said sitting up straight. “She saw me.” She pointed to me. “Logan saw me.”

  “No need having a hissy,” Miss Vivee said. “We’re just trying to help ole’ Nash Hunt. You know he’s taking all this real hard.”

  “Oh,” Seppie said as if she’d just realized that Kimmie’s death had affected others. “He was already sick, I know this’ll just kill him.” Then she grabbed her mouth like she had said something she wasn’t supposed to say.

  “He was sick?” Miss Vivee asked catching Seppie’s reaction.

  “I really shouldn’t say anything.” Miss Vivee eyed September, giving her a You’d-Better-Tell-What-You-Know-Or-Else look. Seppie cleared her throat and complied. “That’s what Kimmie had told me. That he wasn’t feeling well. But, I don’t know that for sure.”

  “Well it’s what he has told me, too.”

  There she goes with her lies. Miss Vivee, I knew, hadn’t spoken with Nash Hunt.

  “I just wasn’t sure if you knew about it or not,” she continued

  “He did?” Seppie tilted her head surprised Miss Vivee knew and seemingly relieved she hadn’t been the one to spill the beans. “I didn’t know he spoke about it. Kimmie had told me not to tell anyone.”