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

  “I’ll have a bacon cheeseburger,” I said. If I was going to have to sit here and be talked about, I needed strength. A greasy burger would do that I thought. “French fries and a chocolate milkshake, please.” I smiled at her with one of the fake smiles Miss Vivee always used.

  “You see. She’s coming around,” Miss Vivee leaned in and whispered to me after Talisa left to put our order in. “Might get something useful out of her.”

  “Yeah. We’ll see,” I said and leaned back in my seat.

  “To be honest,” Miss Vivee said and touched Talisa’s hand with hers when she returned with our drinks. “Things aren’t going so well for our granddaughter and we wanted to come down to help her.” Miss Vivee sighed. “She’s all the family we have left and when she’s unhappy it makes things hard for us.”

  “Even at my age, she had me drive down here from Ohio to see about her,” Mac chimed in pointing to Miss Vivee. “Gotta keep the wife happy.” He looked at Talisa. “I’m sure you have family, though. You know how much they mean to ya. Do whatever you can.”

  I hung my head and closed my eyes. I didn’t know what to say. I’d never seen anyone like those two once they went into action.

  “Well she can’t come down here from Ohio and make waves,” she said. “People around here got their own agenda.”

  “That’s what we tried to tell her,” Miss Vivee said nodding her head in agreement. “But you know how young people are. Head strong.”

  “Yes. I do know,” Talisa said.

  “You have children?” Mac asked.

  “No. But I am raising my nephew,” she said and looked over at me. “You may know him. He’s very vocal about what’s going on at Track Rock Gap. He gets it from my husband.”

  “Who is your nephew,” I said. Thinking that I couldn’t know him, because I hadn’t really met anyone that wasn’t associated with my dig.

  “His name is Diwali,” she said.

  But before I could answer, Miss Vivee jumped in. “Oh yes. Diwali Wilson, isn’t it? I’ve met him. Nice boy. Very respectful of his elders,” she said.

  I was wondering if she really remembered him because she wasn’t describing the Diwali Wilson I’d met.

  Talisa smiled. “How did you meet him?” she asked.

  “He was at the Logan’s excavation site the day we arrived,” Mac got into the conversation. “Very passionate young man. I admire his commitment to his ideals.”

  “Sometimes I think he’s a little too zealous,” she said. “I worry what he might do to make sure things go the way he sees they should.”

  “It’s a worthy cause,” Miss Vivee said. “And that’s what we were saying to our granddaughter once we listened to what he had to say.”

  “Everyone was so worried about what was going to be found over there at the ruins,” Talisa said. “I always wondered why if it didn’t prove Maya were here that they’d want to try and hide what was there.”

  “Sounds like you have a different perspective on it than your nephew does,” Mac said.

  “I don’t have a view on it one way or another. And I don’t have an axe to grind,” Talisa said and looked at me. “Whoever got to be in charge of the dig was fine with me. Long as the truth came out.”

  “Someone else was going to be in charge of the dig?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “A couple of people. So I heard. They were looking at a couple of people from over at the University.”

  “University of North Georgia?” I asked.

  She nodded her head but never looked at me. “Then your granddaughter was chosen from out of the blue,” she continued talking to Miss Vivee. “Somebody not from around here. Some people thought that was good. Some didn’t.” She looked at me. “I guess we’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “It’s because you want to take away the Creek and Cherokee heritage,” Miss Vivee said. “You’re hard pressed to find the Maya in Georgia.” She took a bite of the tuna sandwich she’d ordered. She hadn’t said anything else about she and Talisa’s conversation until our food had come.

  “I do not want to do that.” I huffed. “And how did Aaron Coulter get killed because I wanted to prove the Maya are the people that are responsible for the ruins at Track Rock Gap, Miss Vivee?” I dipped a French fry in the glob of ketchup I’d squirted onto my plate. “I don’t understand that,” I said and plopped it in my mouth.

  “Perhaps they meant to kill you,” she said matter-of-factly. “You ever thought of that.”

  My God. I’ve gone from killer to intended victim.

  “It might be that he needed to be eliminated from the competition,” Mac offered. “Didn’t you say he was going to take over your work down in Belize?”

  “Yeah,” I said finishing a sip on my drink. “Take over my dig and my recognition, too.”

  “So maybe he was one of the other people that was being considered for your job,” Mac said and wiped his mouth with his napkin then lowered his voice. “Talisa said they were considering a few people and then you popped up with the job. We don’t know how long he’s been dead, but if he was part of the competition maybe someone didn’t want to have to go up against him.”

  “If that’s the case,” I said. “Then that would probably put Clive Armsgoode in first place for the position.”

  “We don’t know who that is,” Miss Vivee said.

  I looked up from my food to tell her and I saw him walk in the door. “He’s one of the people that was up for my job,” I said. “At least that’s what he told me. And don’t look now, but he’s just come in.”

  Of course they both turned to look.

  “Where is he,” Miss Vivee said.

  “The man standing waiting to be seated.”

  “He looks like he should go in my notebook,” Miss Vivee said. “But that doesn’t eliminate you from being next in line to be killed.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “He still doesn’t have that position. Yet.” She bit into her sandwich.

  Why is she so hard pressed on getting rid of me? Jail or a casket . . . I wonder does she have a preference?

  “Well, he can try if he wants,” I said. “But I’m not leaving my position. And I’m not giving up on trying to prove that the Maya came to America.”

  “But,” Miss Vivee said. “If that Aaron Coulter did believe that the Maya came to America too, then he could have been killed so he couldn’t prove it.”

  “Which, according to you would still leave me in the line of fire,” I said to her.

  “Stop having such a one track mind,” she said. “I’m thinking that maybe it was that Diwali Wilson that killed Aaron Coulter.” She pulled out her notebook. “And if he did, that means your little geologist might be in on it too.”

  Me having a one track mind?

  “Shhh!” Mac said. “You don’t know who in here knows him or sympathizes with him. Or if he can hear us.”

  “Riley Sinclair. Diwali Wilson.” She licked the tip of her pencil not lowering her voice at all. “I’m putting them both in my notebook,” Miss Vivee said with a nod. “And he should be glad I’m not adding his to it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I dropped Miss Vivee and Mac back at the hotel. It was hard to get rid of them, because they – well Miss Vivee – just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t go with me wherever it was I was going. “We need to work on solving this murder,” she had insisted. I didn’t want to tell her that I needed to be by myself. She just didn’t seem to understand that this was really bothering me.

  I drove over to Track Rock Gap after I left them, sat outside the gate and stared in.

  Why is this all so hard? I assemble a team, we go in and dig. I find my evidence. Simple, right? Instead people are getting killed. Got protesters threatening people.

  Ugh . . .

  I laid my head down on the steering wheel and let out a grunt. Talisa had said that there were other people that they had considered to lead the dig.

  Armsgoode I knew was one. But who else
had there been besides Dr. Mouse-with-a-Moustache?

  Where they still around just waiting to pounce? And were they good friends with “Steve” as well?

  Steven McHutchinson had always treated me nice. Got me the people and equipment I needed. But lately he seemed cryptic with me. I had just thought it was because of the distraction of his campaign. Could it be it was because I wasn’t looking for what he wanted me to find.

  Or what he wanted me to fabricate.

  I tried to think hard had I ever said definitively to him that I was looking for Maya. I know that’s what I had always planned on finding. I hadn’t found any conclusive proof of anything, yet. I don’t know why everyone was so up in arms about it. Even the Forest Service officer who had took my initial statement didn’t believe I was going to find Maya ruins.

  Why in the world would he care?

  I decided to call Bay. Maybe he knew something. He was the one they had put in charge of tracking me down when they saw my car on video outside of the ruins at Track Rock Gap. He would know things about the place. I hoped.

  It was driving me crazy. Questioning why I had been put in charge of a site. Couldn’t it ever be because I was qualified? That I was the right person for the job? All my old worries were being proven as true.

  And was he in with them?

  Bay . . .

  Did he know that they just wanted me as a patsy?

  We hadn’t ever even had an argument, although we’d only been dating for a couple of months, I felt that we couldn’t have a better relationship. At least, what I knew about relationships. I had been a nerd so long, my father was afraid I’d never have a boyfriend. But if I found out that Bay was part of putting me in place to use me, we were definitely going to have an argument. A really big one.

  “Hey you,” he said when he picked up the phone.

  “Bay did you have anything to do with me getting the job at Track Rock Gap?” I started right in. No time for small talk.

  He didn’t say anything. It seemed like his silence was an admission and that made me feel like crying.

  “What’s going on with you?” he said. His voice low. I know he was trying to soothe me even through the phone lines.

  “I think that I just found out that they put me in charge of the dig at Track Rock Gap because they thought I’d be easy to control. Manipulate into saying what they wanted me to say.” I sniffed back tears. “Did you know that?”

  “It was a good thing for you. What you wanted. I put in a good word for you.”

  “Did you know that they wanted me to go along with their idea of things?” I asked again. “That they wanted me to conclude that there were no Maya in Georgia.”

  “No, Buttercup. I wouldn’t have ever recommended you if I’d known that. I know finding Maya is what you do.” He paused. “Did someone say that to you?”

  “No. But I just know it is.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said.

  “This is all so crazy,” I said. “Every job I get in archaeology there seems to be some ulterior motive for hiring me.”

  “No ulterior motive at Stallings Island,” he said.

  “No. But my mother got me that job.”

  He laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” I said.

  “I know. But you know it’s okay to get help when you’re first starting out. Everything isn’t going to happen all at once.”

  “I know that. But I am just so frustrated. Sometimes I just don’t think it’s going to happen at all. I am going to almost make a name for myself. I’ll get so close . . .”

  “It takes time.”

  “And now they think I’m a suspect in a murder.” The tears were coming fast now. Man I didn’t want to cry. It reminded me so much of my mother.

  “They don’t think you’re a murder suspect,” he said.

  “Yes they do. And that’s another thing – why didn’t they put you on the case?”

  He was silent again. I knew what that meant.

  I answered for him. My words came out between sobs, “Because they couldn’t put you on a case where your girlfriend is the killer.”

  “Oh babe. Don’t cry.” I could hear the chuckle he was trying to conceal. “That’s not why.”

  “Then why?”

  “It’s because you’re at the site where he was killed. You’re a witness. It’s not because you killed him.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “I know you didn’t, Buttercup,” he said letting that chuckle out. “Why would you even think you need to say that to me? Nobody thinks you killed him.”

  “Your grandmother does,” I said. “I just hope if I get charged they won’t call her in as a witness.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Miss Vivee,” I said. The three of us were standing at the door to Riley Sinclair’s trailer. Mac with his cane, Miss Vivee with her purse, and me with a look of apprehension on my face. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  Crying wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I decided to go back to the hotel and get my partners in crime (solving). Miss Vivee was ready to go. She thought that we should go to the site and search Riley’s trailer to see if we could find any actual evidence on she and Diwali trying to sabotage the site. “Even going as far as murder,” she’d said.

  It was late and I hadn’t thought it a good idea. Miss Vivee did and usually that meant the decision to do it had already been made.

  “We have to look for something to exonerate you,” she said. We were still standing outside. I couldn’t get up the nerve to go inside. “Don’t be such a wuss.”

  A wuss?

  “I’m not, Miss Vivee,” I said deciding not to even go there with her. “I’m trying to stay on the right side of the law and not erode my teams’ trust in me.”

  “They’ve practically taken everything away from you as it is,” she said. “We have to fix this. And if you want to stand here and debate this all night, we’ll get caught and you will go to jail. What will people think of you then?”

  How is it that I would be the only one going to jail? What about her and Mac?

  When we had first gotten back to the ruins, Riley was still in her trailer. What she was doing there so late when we still weren’t allowed to dig made me suspicious of her, too. We hadn’t been there long when we saw Riley leaving.

  “See,” Miss Vivee had said. “It was meant to be.” With her words she headed out the door and nearly broke out into a trot getting over to Riley’s trailer.

  “It’s time to do this,” Miss Vivee said and looked at me. “Mac.” She patted him on his shoulder. “You keep a look out. Whistle if you see anyone coming.”

  “Okie dokie,” he said turning to keep watch and standing as much at attention as his age and the need to lean on his cane would allow.

  “C’mon Logan,” Miss Vivee directed. “Find a window and climb in it.”

  “I don’t think the door is locked Miss Vivee,” I said. “This place is protected. No visitors allowed. Remember? We don’t have to worry about intruders.” I turned the knob on the trailer door and it opened.

  “This place isn’t as well protected as you let on,” Miss Vivee said stepping up into the trailer with a push from me. “Because what I do remember is that you were able to break in here and run amuck.”

  Geesh. Will she ever forget about that?

  I decided not to comment. “So what do we do?” I asked instead.

  “We look for clues.”

  “Clues? Of what?”

  “Of her involvement in Aaron Coulter’s death. Or the reason she is always trying to sabotage your authority around here.”

  Now that was something I would like to find out about.

  I turned on the flashlight on my iPhone 6 and scanned the room. “Look at that, Miss Vivee,” I said a pointed to a wall on the opposite side of the trailer.

  Riley had on display a set of knives. They looked old and not from the time period we were digging in, but it was odd. Wh
y would she have knives?

  “Come over here,” Miss Vivee said seemingly uninterested in the weapons. “Shine that little flashlight from your phone here.” She was standing at what looked like Riley’s makeshift work area. It was a square table set up in the middle of the trailer. Samples of dirt and rocks spread out across it.

  “Why does she have this stuff in here?” I voiced my thought out loud. “It should be in the lab.”

  “Maybe she’s found something she didn’t want you to know about,” Miss Vivee said. “You’d better be careful of that one. She seems like she’s got an axe to grind with you.”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “It’s obvious, Logan. And you’ve got to stop being so naive. Your mother did you a disservice by not letting you find out about life the hard way. Always coming to your rescue.”

  I rolled my eyes. Someone should have definitely warned me about hooking up with the Voodoo-herbalist-amateur-sleuth Vivienne Pennywell. That was for sure.

  “Are we going to discuss my upbringing, or are we going to look for clues?” I asked.

  “There’s the best clue you could ever hope for,” Miss Vivee said and pointed to something on the table.

  It was Riley’s cell phone.

  “Don’t all you young folk keep your entire life in those things?”

  I stared down at it. We sure do, I thought.

  I took in a breath. “I’m sure it’s locked. Everyone keeps a password on their phones. So people can’t just pick it up and use it,” I said. I picked it up and swiped my finger across the screen of Riley’s white Samsung Galaxy phone. It prompted for a password. “See,” I said and showed her the phone.

  “Well, break the code,” Miss Vivee said. “I hear about people doing that all the time.”

  “It’s not a code. So you can’t ‘break’ it. It’s a password. I’d have to know her password to get in.”

  “Let me see it.” She took it from me and starting pressing down on the now dark screen. “How do you turn this dag-blasted thing on?”

  Then I had an idea.