Coastal Cottage Calamity (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 2) (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Underneath her
makeup and all her falseness, Lindsey looked as she had been pretty once. Now though,
she just looked made-up. In need of a touch-up, her white-blonde hair sprouted
from brown roots was long and unnatural. It was ratty and straw-like from too
much coloring and styled in the kind of casual disarray that took a while to
get right. She had an oval face, lips outlined in red pencil larger than her
mouth, and thick black liner defined her dark violet eyes.

She wore a two
piece black suit with white piping around the lapel of the jacket, and a white
blouse that was unbuttoned to show the bordered lace of her pushup bra. The
pencil skirt short and tight. Her legs long and slim. She had a tanning booth
coloring that was obvious and smelled like fresh flowers in vanilla.

She and was
puffing one of those e-cigarettes that Oliver smoked, holding it between two
fingers.

Miss Vivee glided
right up to her.

“Oliver told me
you were his favorite,” she said leaning in close to her and putting her hand
in the small of Lindsey’s back. “He just didn’t know how to tell the other
women.”

Oh boy, there she
goes. Starting those lies, and in a church. Didn’t she have any fear of going
to hell?

“He did?” Her red,
puffy eyes lit up. “And here I was thinking that I was glad he was dead.” She
dabbed her eyes and did a stray look at the casket. “That if he didn’t want me,
then I didn’t care that he was dead.” She wiped her eyes again and gave up a
weak laugh. “Seemed like my eyes care, though, they just keep gushing tears.”

“It’s okay,
dearie,” Miss Vivee said. “Mac cheated on me once, and when that woman he’d
been messing around died, I had to stop myself from going and dancing on her
grave. Didn’t I, Mac?”

His usual Johnny-on-the-spot
support of whatever lies tumbled from her lips, wasn’t so forthcoming when she
mentioned “The Hussy.” The woman Mac swore he had nothing to do with and the
reason Miss Vivee had hit him with her car.

“But it all works
out in the end, sweetie.”

“How can this work
out, Miss Vivee,” Lindsey said. “He’s dead.” She started sobbing at the words.

“Don’t cry,” Mac
said. “Oliver would want you to be strong.”

She sniffed. “You
think?”

“I know,” Miss
Vivee said. “I see you smoke those e-ciggy things. Just like Oliver.” Miss
Vivee gave her one of her fake warm smiles.

Lindsey laughed
and looked at it. “He got me started on them. Gave my ex a fit.” She threw a
look toward the sanctuary. “But I didn’t care, I enjoyed having things in
common with Oliver.”

“You didn’t have
anything in common with your ex?” Miss Vivee asked.

“No. Not really,”
she said and lowered her eyes. “He was too possessive.”

“Got just the
opposite with ole’ Oliver, huh?” Mac said and chuckled. Miss Vivee smacked him
on his arm and he yipped with an “Ouch!”

“Pay no mind to
him,” Miss Vivee said. “They always regret their actions in the end.” She eyed
Mac. “So. You were so upset at the Maypop that day. And Mary Beth . . .” Miss
Vivee shook her head. “She acted like a wild woman.”

“I know,” Lindsey
said and took a puff. “She scared me.” She let out a nervous laugh. “And that
other woman.”

“Do you know her
name?” Miss Vivee asked.

“No. She came in
looking for Oliver saying she was his fiancée. Mary Beth flew off the handle at
that and I guess . . .” she lowered her eyes, “I just followed suit.”

“You know, I’ve
been thinking about taking up smoking one of those things.” Mac wagged a finger
at the e-cigarette. “How does it work?”

“Oh,” Lindsey
said. “It’s really easy. You just pull this cartridge off and fill it up with
nicotine and then you can even add menthol or flavors to it, too.”

“Flavors?” Miss
Vivee asked. “Really?”

“Mmmhmm,” she
said. “It’s really easy. I like it a lot.” She looked down at it. “Now I’ll do
it because it’ll remind me of Oliver.”

“What strength of
nicotine do you use?” Mac asked.

“Strength?”

“Yeah, you know,”
I said. “The concentration of nicotine.”

“Oh. I don’t
know,” she said and chuckled. “Oliver always bought all the stuff I needed for
it.” She looked at me. “I guess now I’ll have to find out what it is I need to
buy.”

“Okay, let’s go,”
Miss Vivee said turning around and leaving.

I guess she had
all the answers she needed.

I said bye to
Lindsey and picked up my pace to catch up with Miss Vivee and Mac.

“You didn’t have
to be so rude,” I said.

“She didn’t do
it,” Miss Vivee said. “She doesn’t have enough sense.”

“Still,” I said.

“I wonder how she
dyes the roots of her hair brown like that.” Mac said. “Seems like that would
be kind of hard to do.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The next victim,
uh, I mean suspect on Miss Vivee’s list was Wild Woman Mary Beth Perkins. We
found the strawberry blonde sobbing over the casket. Practically nose to nose
with Oliver’s body. Blubbering undecipherable words to him that probably only
the dead could understand. She was red all over. Arms, legs all flushed, her
body trembling, it looked like at any moment she was going to climb over inside
with Oliver.

The attendants
from McIntosh Funeral Home were speaking to her gently trying to get her to
move along. Miss Vivee burst through like gangbusters.

“Mary Beth, you
stop that right now,” Miss Vivee leaned it, her words coming out harshly. “Get
a hold of yourself.”

“Leave me alone,
Miss Vivee,” she snarled. “I don’t want to be disrespectful to you.”

“You’re
disrespecting yourself,” Miss Vivee said scolding her. She looked down at the
body and back at Mary Beth. “And if you don’t stop all your craziness, I won’t
tell you the message Oliver left for you.”

She stopped
crying. She looked at Miss Vivee, then at Oliver and back again. “A message for
me?”

“Your ears only,”
Miss Vivee said a smug look on her face.

Mary Beth sniffed
back her tears. “What was it?” she asked.

“Didn’t you just
hear me say for your ears only? I do declare, Mary Beth, you couldn’t be that
overcome with grief that you’ve lost all comprehension.”

Mary Beth
swallowed hard. “Okay,” she said.

“Come on with me,”
Miss Vivee said and headed off towards the back of the church.

I looked around to
see if eyes were on us. Somebody had to notice Miss Vivee, Mac and me cornering
the blondes.

“Oliver told me
you were his favorite,” Miss Vivee said and leaned in close to her. She put her
hand in the small of Mary Beth’s back. “He just didn’t know how to tell the
other women.”

Oh my God. Those
are the exact words she said to Lindsey. Even put her hand in the same place.

“He said that,”
Mary Beth said and sniffed. Her eyes drifted over to the casket. “I knew it. I
knew it.” She turned back and looked at Miss Vivee. “When did he say that?”

“Right before he
died.”

Please don’t say
with his dying breath.

“Practically with
his dying breath,” she said like she could read my mind. “You know he and I
were very close. He told me everything.”

“Why was he with
those other women then?” She sniffed back more tears. “If he only loved me?”

“He wasn’t with
them,” Miss Vivee said. “They were chasing him. One time Mac . . .”

I tuned her out.
She was now getting ready to tell Mary Beth the same story about Mac, the Hussy
and her Lincoln that she’d told Lindsey.

She could at least
come up with a different story.

When I tuned back
in, Mary Beth was bordering on seething. “She should have just stayed with her
husband,” she said and jerked her head toward the sanctuary. “Two crazies
together. And left me and Oliver alone.”

“Who?” I whispered
to Mac.

“She’s talking
about Lindsey.”

“Don’t say her
name around me,” Mary Beth squealed.

“Calm down,” Miss
Vivee said. “Oliver wouldn’t want you to act like that.”

“No.” She sniffed
again. “You’re right. He wouldn’t want me to act like that,” she said and
actually calmed down. “Especially today.”

Wow. He even had a
hold over those women after death.

“Although I can’t
figure out what he would want the three of you to think,” Mac said. “Or act,
for that matter, once you discovered-”

Miss Vivee smacked
his arm again.        

“Sorry, Vivee,” he
said. “Mary Beth,” he cleared his throat. “I see you don’t smoke those
electronic cigarettes that Oliver was so fond of.”

“No. I hated those
things. He got her,” she let her eyes roll toward the church, “to smoke them.
But I’d never do it. Probably why he loved me the most. I was protective of his
health. Tried to get him to stop smoking them.”

“Quite ingenious
how they work, isn’t it?” he said.

“I don’t know,”
she said and hunched up her shoulders. “They’re electronic, I guess all you
have to do is plug them up or something.”

“Let’s go.” Miss
Vivee did a one eighty on the toes of her shoes and headed for the pew where
her family sat. Not even a “Good-bye” passing her lips.

“She didn’t do
it,” she whispered after we settled in our seats. “She’s just as dumb as the
other one.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I checked the time
on my iPhone. It was only ten more minutes left for viewing the body, and then
the service was going to start. Miss Vivee still had one suspect to
interrogate, but she was busy talking with people from the town. I decided to
go to the little girls’ room, as Miss Vivee called it.

As I walked down
the aisle, I saw Oliver’s band of blondes, scattered throughout the church.
They had taken their seats. And there was No Name Blondie. She’d just come into
the church. Hurrying up to the front to Oliver, she tugged at her skirt and
smoothed down her hair.

I rounded the
corner to the restroom and chuckled to myself. I remember how I had found it
funny when I first noticed Oliver with his many women, always a different one
on his arm. And he’d bring all of them to the Maypop. That’s how they knew to
look for him that day they all had the fight.

But I guess it
really wasn’t funny.

Now I could see
that it was a hurtful thing that he did to them. I wondered was it hurtful
enough to kill, though.

Two down, one to
go, Miss Vivee hadn’t found in those two what it took to kill Oliver. Maybe it
wasn’t any of those women, but channeling Koryn, it did just wanna make you go
into a closet and scream knowing they were hurt enough that someone would think
they could kill.

Passing a window
in the hallway, I saw Bay and Tom Bowlen outside talking. Probably going over
their notes, I speculated.

I wonder had they
ruled anyone out, yet
.

Miss Vivee sure
had.

I went into the
restroom and looked at my reflection. I straightened out my hair and thought,
would
I kill Bay if he cheated on me?

Plenty of women
had done it.
Goodness,
I thought,
if love was so complicated and
hurtful, I wonder why my father wanted me to get tangled up in it.

After I left the
restroom, I spotted Miss No Name tucked away in a little alcove on her cell
phone. Miss Vivee had said that I wasn’t good at eavesdropping . . .

Maybe I’ll try.

I stood behind the
wall that made up one side of the alcove. I leaned toward the edge and turned
my head so I could hear.

“It’s awful. All
those other women are here. I shouldn’t have come,” she said.

Too late now.

“Huh?” she said
and stuck a finger in the ear opposite the one she had the cell phone up to. “Oh.
I already know that.”

Know what? Can you
move this along? I have to get back.

I peeked out into
the sanctuary. Looked like they were starting the service.

“I already know
what killed him,” she said.

Oh you do?

“It was the
nicotine,” she said.

I gasped. I had to
cover my mouth so she wouldn’t hear me.

She knows. I’ve
got to tell Miss Vivee.

“I told him it
would,” she continued. “Those things aren’t any better than regular cigarettes.
But only it seems like they kill you faster.”

I sucked my teeth.
Miss Vivee can rule her out, too.

When I got back to
my seat it was the part of the program where people were asked to say a few
words about Oliver. I cringed. Was this going to another free for all for the
Blondies?

But before anyone
could get up, the Mystery Woman from Jellybean Café came through the doors, a
light breeze trailing behind up. She walked – no – glided down the center
aisle. She was of course a stranger to everyone (seeing that everyone in town
knew each other). And she had everyone mesmerized.

She walked, head
held up high, her black floppy hat moving in rhythm with her hips that swung
seductively. Her hourglass figure was covered in a black halter dress, she was
bare legged and practically glided down the carpeted walkway to the altar in
her three-inch, poi-de-soie heels.

“I want to thank
everyone for coming today,” she said with a smile after she walked up the two
steps to the podium and fitted the microphone even with her vermillion colored
lips. “It really touches my heart that Oliver, my wonderful husband, was so
loved by everyone here in Yasamee.”

After the initial,
collective gasp, a pin dropping could have made enough noise to startle the
crowd gathered in the church.

Her husband?

Ron stood up and
his jaw dropped opened but he, like everyone else, didn’t say a word. I turned
my neck slightly and saw Charlie cover her face with a tissue. Mystery woman
utilized the hush to let what she had said all sink in.

“Oliver has always
told me so much about his extended family here, and I hope to have the
opportunity to speak to each and every one of you at the repast that Renmar
Colquett and her family at the Maypop Bed & Breakfast has so graciously
agreed to host. The last time I spoke to Oliver, which was on that fateful
morning, he told me that I was the only woman he’d ever truly loved. And
Oliver,” she said looking down at the framed picture. “I want you to know that
I will never, as long as I live, love another man as I have loved you.”

The three jilted
blondes popped up out of their seats, one by one, each gave a huff and stormed
out of the church.

It was a good
thing Miss Vivee didn’t use her line on Miss Sydney about Oliver telling her
she was the only woman he loved, because it might just have been true.