Maya Mound Mayhem (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

When I first met
with Steven McHutchinson I thought I had him wrapped around my finger. He
seemed agreeable to everything I wanted and needed. And had assured me the dig
was mine and what I found would be what they’d tell the world. I hadn’t shown
him my hand in what I hoped to find at that time, but it didn’t take long for
people to come to know my beliefs.

But after I left
Bugs’ house, all I could feel was devastation. They were just playing me for a
fool.

I was sure that
they didn’t care about that though, because they may have killed Aaron Coulter
because he had the same beliefs. They just bulldozed over the people that
didn’t agree with what they wanted. My hurt feelings I’m sure was trivial and
easily remedied.

I dropped Miss
Vivee and Mac off at the hotel and I went my trailer at the ruins. I kind of
thought that the guards might not even let me in. But everything seemed just
like it always had. Even though, in my heart I knew that it never could be
again.

I sat down and the
table and opened up my laptop. I went to the U.S. Forest Service Website and
tried to find the information I’d read at Bugs’ house. I couldn’t find it
anywhere.

I wonder did they
make that page in response to Aaron Coulter’s paper on Maya occupation in
Georgia.

I decided I needed
to get a better look at that paper. I had left it back at the room. I should
have read it when I first got it.

I slammed down the
top of my computer and laid my head on it. This was killing me. I sat up
straight.

I got up and to
get a bottle of water from the refrigerator and saw out of the window Director McHutchinson
and Clive Armsgoode walking up to my trailer.

What are they
doing?

Crap! Can’t I just
have one minute without something going wrong?

Why would they
come here? I looked around.

Wait . . .

What if they
coming to move my stuff out?

I knew I couldn’t
stay because I believed things that they “frowned” upon. I looked out the
window again. They were walking together in step. Eyes set straight ahead. They
weren’t talking.

Yep. They were
coming to try to oust. And I wasn’t sure that they couldn’t. Especially since
everyone was acting as if I was the prime murder suspect and now only here to
change Georgia’s illustrious history. Which I didn’t want to do.

I looked out the
window again – nope – no Forest Service police with them. But it was
two
of them . . .

I could take them,
I decided. I needed to start being proactive if I was ever going to do what I
wanted to do in archaeology.

I sat the water on
the table and threw the door to the trailer open. They stopped, I guessed
startled at my outburst. I was ready to defend my position and my castle –
small camper trailer that it may be – to the end.

“Can I help you,”
I said rather indignantly.

“Hi, Dr.
Dickerson,” McHutchinson said a seemingly genuine smile on his face.

He wasn’t going to
fool me.

Dressed casually
in jeans and a light blue button down shirt. He had on topsiders, and no socks.
His causal appearance was unusual. It wasn’t as official as I thought it would
be if he came to fire me.

“I came by to
introduce you to Dr. Clive Armsgoode-”

“Ph.D. Early
American History.” I finished his sentence. “Yes we’ve met.”

“Oh,” he said. “I
hadn’t realized.”

“Yes,”
Mr.-Ph.D.-In-Taking-My-Job said. “I stopped by the site the day the bones were
found. Introduced myself.”

“He did,” I nodded
in agreement. “He thought you might have your pants down because of all the
mayhem and disquiet the finding of the bones caused.” I looked at him. “Not quite
sure how it really went for you.”

The two of them
were starting to look uncomfortable.

Good.

They had picked
the wrong person when they picked me. At least today.

Sure, I went to my
mother for help, followed Miss Vivee around like a puppy, but when it came to
my work I was a determined person. And just looking at them, coming to say or
do who’s knows what to me, was making me angrier by the minute.

“Is everything
okay, Dr. Dickerson?” McHutchinson asked.

“Yes,” I said.
“Everything is good. Just waiting to go back to work.”

“Well fingers
crossed that will be soon. Just waiting from the go ahead from the FBI.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes. They’re
working on identifying the remains. Finding out the cause of death.”

“Nothing moves
fast when it concerns the government,” Clive Armsgoode chimed in.

Were they
patronizing me? Or did they really not know?

“The remains
belong to Aaron Coulter,” I said not sure if I was supposed to release that
information. But I didn’t care. “Did you know him?”

That stopped both
of them. Their jaws went slack and their shoulders slumped. Director
McHutchinson looked confused. Clive Armsgoode looked annoyed. Both made haste
leaving after my announcement.

“I’m going to have
to get me a notebook,” I thought out loud. “I have some murder suspects of my
own to list.”   

Chapter
Thirty

By the time I got
to the hotel and all night, I felt bad about being so curt with Director
Hutchinson. He hadn’t fired me and the website from what I could see for the
Forest Service still didn’t have the article that Bugs showed me up.

There were no
messages or phone calls informing me that I couldn’t come back to the site.
That Clive Armsgoode was taking over or anything. So I decided to go to Track
Rock Gap. I pushed Miss Vivee and Mac to dress faster. Eat faster. Climb into
my SUV faster. All morning. I was ready to go. And when we got there my team
was there. Everyone had come to work.

Not that there was
that much work to do.

Still, that made
me smile. Things were normal. I took in a breath. We couldn’t excavate, but
there were things to do.

“Well,” Miss Vivee
said as I was getting her out of the car. I think today we should read that
article Aaron Coulter wrote and see if it gives us any clue as to who killed
him.”

“Oh shoot,” I
said. “I forgot it at the hotel. Again.”

“You are really a
poor detective,” Miss Vivee said. “You’ve had it for two days. We haven’t read
it yet. I would think that would’ve been the first thing you did.”

“Really, Miss
Vivee?” I said. “The first thing I’d want to do is read how someone else had
proven something that I’d dreamed of proving myself?” I looked at her. “I’m
dreading it. But you’re right, it might help. Get back in the car. We’ll go and
get it.”

“We’re not going.
You’ve been rushing us all morning and for what? Now you forgot a valuable
piece of evidence in our murder investigation.”

Evidence of the
murder?

“No problem,” I
said. “I’ll go by myself. You and Mac wait in the trailer. Stay out of the
sun.”

“We know what it
is we need to do,” Miss Vivee said. “We’re just waiting for you to figure out
what
you’re
supposed to do.”

“I’ll be back,” I
said and pulled off to head back to the hotel and retrieve the journal with the
article.

“What’s going on,
Miss Vivee?” I said as I walked in the door. I had read the article and it was
really bothering me about what I found out. But as soon as I spoke to them, she
and Mac jumped a foot in the air, a hard feat for those two. I looked at them,
their faces looked as if they’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
Backs up against the closet door, they stood tight-lipped and nervous.

“Nothing,” she
said barely audible. “Is it, Mac?” She looked at him out the side of her eye.

“Well,” he started
slowly. “Certainly, in my medical opinion, I can say with surety that there is
definitely nothing going on in that closet.

“Let me see, Miss
Vivee,” I said and tried to pry her from her roost in front of the door.

“We’ll take care
of it, Logan.” She leaned in and whispered to me and gave me a half-cocked
smile. “Don’t worry about it.” She nodded her head toward the door and winked,
like it was a signal. I turned and looked at the door and back at her. “You
have better things to do,” she said. “Go do them.” She waved me away with her
hand. “Go ahead.”

I didn’t know what
she was talking about, but I knew I needed to see what was in that closet.
Those two were always up to something.

“Move, you two,” I
said.

“Why would you
want to see it again?” Miss Vivee asked as she and Mac stepped away from the
door. “I knew she had it in her,” Miss Vivee muttered to Mac as I went to open
the door. “I just didn’t know she had such a morbid sense of it.” She turned up
her nose and shook her head.

What was she
talking about?

I pulled open the
closet door and something fell into my arms.

It was Laura
Tyler.

A dead Laura
Tyler.

Crap!

I jumped back and
pitched her out of my arms. Running in place and shaking my hands, I screeched.
“Oh my God, Miss Vivee,” I said. “What have you done?” I looked at the both of
them. “What have the two of you done?”

“What are you
talking about,” Miss Vivee asked.

“You killed
Laura.” It came out more of a statement than I meant for it to. It was a
question, but one that I really felt I already knew the answer to.

“You shouldn’t
jump to conclusions, Logan,” Miss Vivee said and furrowed her brow making her
wrinkles meet and sag even more. “It isn’t polite.” She went and sat down in a
chair.

“You kill a person
and then hide the dead body and I’m the one that doesn’t know about manners?” I
said surprised. “When did you do this? I wasn’t even gone all that long.” I
looked down at Laura lying precariously on the floor. I tilted my head so it
was at the same angle as hers. “And what were you planning on doing with her?”

“Well, we thought
you
may have killed her so we were going to get rid of the body for you.”

“How could I have
killed her and I’ve been with you all two all morning.”

“You may have
snuck out last night. I’m a sound sleeper, you know” Miss Vivee offered. “And
we were only trying to help.”

“Who?” I raised an
eyebrow.

“Help you,” she
said. “By getting rid of the body.”

“Who was going to
get rid of the body?”

“Mac and I.”

“Really? And how
were you going to do that.”

“Well, we hadn’t
quite figured that out,” she said and licked her lips. “But we were thinking
we’d wrap her up in a rug, and I’d grab one end and he’d grab the other . . .”

I was so upset
with them, but I had to do all I could to keep a straight face. Mac limping
with his cane in one hand, and Miss Vivee with her pocketbook in hers, carrying
a body out and . . .

“Wait,” I said at
the realization. “What were you going to do with it after you carried out the
door?”

“Put it in the car
and throw her in the river.”

“Or,” Mac said. “I
had suggested we could dig a grave.”

“Neither one of
you drive.” I darted my eyes between the two of them trying to understand their
thinking. “You would have had to put her in
my
car, if you could have
lifted her, and have
me
drive you to wherever.” I shook my head and
looked back at Mac. “And the two of you could never dig a hole.”

“I dig holes in
dirt all the time in my greenhouse,” Miss Vivee offered in defense of their
plan. “No big deal.”

I felt my eyes
rolling up toward the ceiling of the trailer.

“Well. Like I
said,” Miss Vivee seemed bothered that I was questioning her and their
abilities. “We hadn’t worked out all the details yet.”

“I didn’t kill
her,” I shook my head and said. “And if I did, do you really think I’d stuff
her in a closet and leave?”

“You aren’t always
too smart about things, dear,” Miss Vivee said. “And, if I must keep repeating
myself we were only trying to help you out. No need to get testy.”

I looked at
Laura’s body. Her normally silky blonde hair was matted and dirty looking. Her
skin was pale but had blotches of reddish rash-like bumps on her face – across
her nose and mouth – and up her bare arms. I closed my eyes, counted to ten,
and opened them again. Yep. She was still there. Still dead.

This was a
nightmare.

I swear.
The body count
around me was just building up at lightning speed. She made number five.

Geesh . . .