Bed & Breakfast Bedlam - Abby L Vandiver Page 0,54
glad I could help,” she said her eyes beaming. “Gemma was so nice to me. She hardly knew me and she offered to help me.” She looked back toward the house and put her hands in her short’s back pocket. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do now.”
“We’ll figure out something,” Miss Vivee said. “We’ll stop in and see you again before too long.” Miss Vivee patted Koryn on the arm and headed down the steps. “C’mon Cat,” she said. The dog had gone back to Koryn for more patting before leaving.
“I love your dog, Miss Vivee.” Koryn smiled. “Cat. Such a crazy name for a dog.”
“She likes it,” Miss Vivee said, holding onto the banister.
“Bye,” I said. “And thanks for talking to us.”
“No problem,” Koryn said and waved.
I got Miss Vivee and Cat in the car. Coming around to the driver’s side, I glanced back up at the house. Koryn had gone inside. Her book lying open, face down to save her page. The glass of iced tea sitting by the chair.
I kind of felt sorry for her. Having to be on the run. All of her help gone. She’d probably have to move soon. No more Shepard’s pie Saturdays at the Jellybean Café for her.
I got in the car, put my seatbelt on and looked at Miss Vivee. “Well.” I reached over and buckled her in. “What do we do now? Darius Hamilton is in South Carolina and we can’t go there.” I tried to enforce that fact right away. “And we still don’t know where Jeffrey or Miranda Beck are, so . . .”
While I talked, Miss Vivee pulled out her notebook and wrote something down. A time or two, she looked back up at the house and then would write something else. Finally, she put the notebook back and pulled out her sunglasses and said. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” I said starting the car. “Where to?”
“Home,” she said put on her sunglasses. “We have to tell Lloyd Haynes what we found out.”
“Oh,” I said almost in shock. “You really are going to tell the sheriff?”
“What do you want to do?” She turned and looked at me. “Grab a couple of guns, a six pack of beer, ride to South Carolina and have a shoot-out?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Miss Vivee didn’t even want to wait to get back to the Maypop before we called the Sheriff. She had me call him from my iPhone and told him to meet us at the bed and breakfast as soon as he could.
We hadn’t been back more than fifteen minutes when he showed up. Bay Colquett came in right after.
Who called him?
We were all in the foyer. Miss Vivee and I sat in our usual place – on the tufted bench. Brie sat behind the counter and Renmar stood next to it.
The sheriff took off his hat when he came through the door. He looked around the room, nodded his head and ran his fingers through his hair that had fell in his face.
“We got the autopsy report back,” he said. He looked over at Miss Vivee and snorted in a breath. He paused, not saying anything for a long minute. His silence made my heart skip a beat.
So how did she die? The question was on a loop in my brain the whole time we waited for him to say.
Sheriff Haynes swung his eyes to Renmar. “Gemma wasn’t poisoned,” he announced finally.
As soon as he said it, Miss Vivee hit me on my knee and pushed a grin through the wrinkles in her face. Renmar must have been holding her breath because she let out a long sigh.
“Miss Vivee,” the Sheriff said. “I might as well let you be the one to say it. Just got the report over the fax right when you called me. But you seemed to know what it would say even before we took Gemma’s body up to Augusta.”
“What is he talking about, Mother?” Renmar said.
“Gemma Burke dry drowned,” Miss Vivee said. She seemed beside herself with joy over being right. “More than likely the autopsy showed that the right side of her diaphragm was ruptured.”
Everyone looked at the Sheriff to see if he was going to confirm.
“Yes it was,” he said. “That’s why she was coughing and complained of chest pains. The ME said it probably happened about an hour before she died.” He licked his lips and looked at Miss Vivee. “I’m guessing you got something else? That’s why you called?”
“I may have the