Bed & Breakfast Bedlam - Abby L Vandiver Page 0,61

11:45 or noon. Yeah, probably closer to twelve o’clock.”

“Is that when you killed her.”

“No!” Darius slammed his hand on the table so hard it made me jump. “Stop saying that. I didn’t kill her.”

“Okay,” Bay said, not showing any emotion at all. “Tell me what happened.”

“I found her at the park. She was talking to a guy. Tall. Dark hair. And they were having an argument. I watched from a distant, but I never got close to them.”

“Was it Jeffrey Beck?” Bay asked.

“I’m not sure. But I think so. Anyway. They were having an argument. He seemed pretty mad, he hit his hand against a tree. I thought he was going to hit her.”

“What did you do?”

“I left. I wasn’t going to get in the middle of that.”

“You hit women, but when you see them getting hit, you run?” Bay asked Darius.

“I told you!” Darius started yelling. “I never hit, Gemma.”

“No,” Bay said calmly. “You just killed her.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Friday Evening, AGD

We all drove back to Yasamee the same way we went. Me and Bay in one car, and the Sheriff alone in his squad car. Darius Hamilton got to go home with his daddy.

The two sheriffs, Bay and Darius’ lawyer/father talked long and hard about the evidence – or lack thereof – against Darius. No one could see that there was enough to bring him up on charges. And maybe it wasn’t him that killed Gemma, Bay had to admit. Maybe it was the guy at the park.

“Jeffrey Beck,” I said.

“Jeffrey Beck,” Bay said and looked at me. “He is definitely a person of interest.”

“I’mma call Miss Vivee,” I said pulling out my iPhone. “And let her know what happened.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Bay said. “I just hope she won’t be too disappointed about it.” He glanced at me. “You know, that we didn’t have enough to arrest Darius Hamilton.”

“I just hope that she won’t want to go out and get the evidence you need to arrest him.” I raised an eyebrow. “Because I know she’ll try and drag me along with her,” I said as I punched in the Maypop number on my phone.

Miss Vivee picked up the phone on the first ring. I put my phone on speaker.

“Hi, Miss Vivee.”

“Hi, Grandmother,” Bay said.

“Hey you two. I could hardly sit still waiting for your call,” she said. “Did you get that son-of-a-gun?”

I looked at Bay. “We didn’t arrest him,” I said.

“Why?” she shouted into the phone.

“You tell her,” I whispered to Bay.

“We didn’t have enough evidence against him, Grandmother.”

“What in tarnation? How could you not? He was in town the day she died.”

“Yeah, but according to his account.” Bay said “He wasn’t the only one in Yasamee that day.”

“Who else was here?”

“Should I tell her?” Bay mouthed to me. I shook my head no.

“What? What you say,” Miss Vivee said yelling.

“Jeffrey Beck might have been there,” I said.

Bay’s eyes got big. “I thought you didn’t want to tell her?” he said in a voice just above a whisper. I hunched my shoulders.

“How do you know?” she asked.

So I told Miss Vivee the whole story as told to Bay by Darius Hamilton. All about the blackmail and the reason Gemma left teaching at Euclid Park. I told her about when he came to Yasamee and the argument he witnessed. And I told her that Bay and Sheriff Haynes were going to find Jeffrey Beck and talk to him, but that Darius wasn’t completely off the hook. When I finished, Miss Vivee didn’t say a word. She was so quiet it made me nervous.

I looked at Bay and then back down at the phone. “Miss Vivee, are you there?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.” Her voice was low and had started to trail off. “Well I’ll let you two go. I don’t like talking so much on the phone. I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Okay, Grandmother,” Bay said.

“And Bay,” she said.

“Yes.”

“When you get back, make sure the Sheriff comes in with you.”

“Okay, Grandmother.”

“Okay now. Don’t forget,” she said.

“I won’t.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Bay. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t know, but I’m worried about her,” he said. “I know I gave that whole little speech to you when we were in Atlanta about her being independent and not coddling her. But right now, that’s just what I want to do. I just feel like I wanna protect her. She sounded so sad. I don’t want this making her feel sick or depressed.”

“Me