Coastal Cottage Calamity (A Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

about, Missy?” Miss Vivee smacked my arm. “Oliver’s dead.” She pointed
to his body. I saw she had a tear rolling down her cheek.
    “Bay might be
coming,” I whispered. “I am sad about Oliver. Just was thinking about Bay.”
    Wait. It probably
still wasn’t good to be happy, he was coming because of a dead man.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    “And I’m telling
you,” Sheriff Haynes was talking, jabbing his finger at the FBI’s liaison. “That
part of the shoal he’s lying across is in my jurisdiction.” He stopped pointing
at the liaison and pointed to the ground surrounding Oliver.
    “I’ve gotta map
right here, Lloyd.” Tom shook it in front of him. “All you gotta do is take a
look.”
    “I’m not looking
at anything. And stop calling me Lloyd. Show some respect.” Sheriff Haynes turned
his back on the liaison and beckoned his make shift medical team – the town’s
midwife and the only two ambulance drivers in Yasamee. They came equipped with a
black body bag and a gurney and went into action on the Sheriff’s cue.
    “I’ma accompany
them up to Augusta with Oliver’s body so we can get an autopsy.” Sheriff Haynes
directed his statement toward the liaison but didn’t look at him.
    “You’re not moving
that body, Lloyd,” Tom said ignoring the Sheriff’s directive not to call him
that. “Not until the FBI agents get here.” He spread his suit jacket back and
placed his hands on his hip to reveal his holstered gun.
    “I ain’t afraid of
a gun, Tom. Or of you, for that matter.”
    “Don’t want you to
be afraid,” he spoke in a calming voice and with a hint of a smile on his face.
“Just want you not to touch the body.”
    Sheriff Haynes
took in a breath and blew it out noisily through his nose. “Everybody move
back,” he yelled. He did have authority over the small crowd that had gathered
when news got out about Oliver. “Move back. Give us room. We gotta a job to do
here.”
    Miss Vivee sat in her
chair. She’d taken off the two pairs of glasses she’d worn all morning – her
sunglasses sitting on top of her prescription glasses and squinted against the
sun to watch. Mac standing behind her, she seemed to take note of everything
that was going on. And every now and then she’d let her eyes drift over the
body. I went and stooped next to her.
    “How did you find
the body?” I asked and placed my hand on her arm. “Were you trying to walk over
the shoal to get back?”
    “No,” she said.
“Koryn had left for a bit, and when she headed back I guess she passed him. She
let out that scream she does and Mac and I came to see what was wrong. We got
here just before you did.” She nodded toward the liaison. “Mac called 911 on
Koryn’s phone while she was screaming.”
    That very loud
scream of hers was probably all the Sheriff needed , I thought. I had
heard it all the way on the other side of the small Island. It might have
reverberated across Yasamee.
    I studied Miss
Vivee still worried. I’d never seen her sad, although she was still being her
usual stubborn self. I tried to get her to leave and she wouldn’t. She said
that Oliver needed her there to make sure things went okay.
    I looked over at
Oliver still lying there. All that was missing was a chalk outline. Renmar and
Brie arrived in short order, which I thought at first was good, I figured they
could both help Miss Vivee. But no sooner than they arrived, they both were
hysterical. They couldn’t even help themselves.
    I remembered that
once Miss Vivee told me that Oliver was practically family. He had dated Brie
at some point, but what she seemed most proud of was the weaving of their
relation through history and marriage. She had told me that Oliver was related
through slavery to Hazel Cobb, and Hazel Cobb related to Renmar because she’d
married Hazel’s cousin Louis Colquett. At any rate, it was a sad scene at the
shoal that night.
    The sun was low in
the sky by the time they wrapped up at the crime scene.