"That's exactly what I said!" I was a bit exasperated. "You said he was a loon who followed us here, changed your mind, and then used different words to say what I'd said."
Hilly took the three cicadas off of her head and set them back on the tree. "What do you mean?"
I shook my head to clear it. Sometimes Hilly could be very frustrating. "Okay, so let's go with your gut feeling. Who left him here for dead, and who's the woman they were asking about?"
"Maybe it's me?" Hilly asked. "Someone knew I was coming here and was looking for intel."
My jaw dropped. "You didn't even know you were coming here. How could someone find that out if you didn't know it?"
Hilly cocked her head to one side. "I'm not sure. I'm not easy to track. And I'm trained to, you know, debone the flounder. It seems like only an idiot would chase me down."
That was a good point. "I agree. Question. Who would be looking for you?"
Hilly shrugged. "Anyone who knows someone I've had as an assignment, I suppose. I've done jobs in twenty-seven and a half countries, if you count Austria."
Why wouldn't I count Austria? "I'm not sure I follow."
"Some people can hold a grudge for a long time. But I think it's more recent. I was in Bosnia not long ago. And there were…unforeseen issues there." She snapped her fingers. "That's it! It has to be!"
"Has to be who?" I didn't really think I should have to ask.
"Milton the Sledgehammer!" Her eyes grew wide. "Why didn't I figure it out sooner?"
"Who is Milton the Sledgehammer?"
"He's a wrestler on the amateur circuit in Bosnia. I was supposed to milk the lobster, but he had a twin brother I knew nothing about." She cocked her head to one side. "You know, Langley just doesn't have the intelligence it used to."
"You took out the wrong guy."
She nodded. "It's rare, but it can happen. I heard Milton was coming after me."
"Why didn't you just milk the lobster again?"
The assassin looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. "Who'd milk a lobster? Who'd drink lobster milk? What would the lobster get out of that?"
I stared at her. "But you said…oh never mind. Why didn't you just go back and kill Milton?"
"Because he has a sledgehammer. I don't like hammers. Too dangerous."
"You're joking. You once took out five guys in a Thai alley armed only with a crochet hook."
Hilly laughed. "Well, that was easy. They just had guns and knives."
I blinked a couple of times.
"I'll bet that's it. Milton came to the States with a gang and is after me." She seemed completely unconcerned if that was true.
I decided to go with it. "If they're here, what's the plan? I don't want anyone to get hurt."
Hilly stood up and dusted off her pants. "I'd better go see if I can find him." And with that, she was gone.
And I hadn't had the chance to ask how Milton the Sledgehammer got his name, albeit it was something to do with his hammer.
She popped back into view. "He was an amateur carpenter." And then she vanished in the trees.
Well that's just great. Now Hilly can read minds.
Riley and Chad returned with wood, and since I didn't see anyone else on fire duty, I set it up. Lauren, who could smell a fire-building opportunity a mile off, appeared out of nowhere.
"I'm gonna go relax," Chad said.
Riley asked him where he was going to go exactly. We hadn't set up any kind of camp.
"I don't know!" he grumbled. "Somewhere else! These old broads creep me out."
I considered hitting him. "Don't talk about them like that. If you're going to go, stick close to camp." Just in case Maria or Milton the Sledgehammer were hiding in the woods.
"Don't worry," he sneered. "I'm not going far."
Riley sat on a log as I pulled the box of matches from my backpack.
"Want me to light it? I don't have a job yet." Lauren looked around to make sure she wasn't overheard. If she were, all the girls would be here begging to set the wood ablaze.
Girl Scouting is a wonderful institution. It teaches girls confidence and builds character. But a Scout's first real taste of power comes the minute she lights that first match. My troop were all raging pyromaniacs. I often wondered if they weren't normal girls and when I allowed them to set the first fire that started them down a very dark path.
"Sure." I handed her the matches. Lauren was our best fire starter. "Why are you here alone? Shouldn't you be with Laura?"
"She's weird." Lauren knelt on the ground and began setting up the kindling.
"They're all weird," I agreed.
"No, she's weirder. She keeps looking at Chad and muttering under her breath. I think I heard the word kill more than once."
I considered this. "Did it seem like she knew him?"
The girl shook her head and bent down to light the kindling. "I don't think so. She probably just doesn't like him. I don't like him either."
"No one does," I admitted. "You haven't noticed if Hilly is acting strangely?"
"I don't think so." Lauren stood back, admiring the blazing fire. "I can spy on her if you want."
"Forget about it. Do you know what we are having for dinner?"
The answer was potatoes. With a side of potatoes. And potatoes for dessert. All boiled in an ancient, cast-iron pot that hung from a frame over the fire.
"Sorry we don't have any butter or seasoning," one of the Sharons said as she spooned another chunk of boiled potato onto my plate. "We haven't had those things in a while."
"Potatoes grow well here," Esme said. "I wish we had some corn though. That would be nice."
"This is great, thanks." I poked at the bland tuber with my camping fork.
Hilly had returned and was devouring her dinner and making yummy sounds. The others seemed okay with it, so I didn't say anything more.
"Well, we're leaving in the morning," I said.
The six women stopped chewing and stared at me.
"So soon?" Ada asked. "But I made kaper charts for tomorrow!" She held up three more pieces of bark.
The two Sharons shook their heads. "I don't think…" one of them said.
"You should be in such a hurry," the other finished.
"We haven't made the trebuchet yet!" Betty Sr. complained. "It's a key part of our camp defense plan!"
I held my own, which was hard with the sad looks my troop was giving me. "We have to get back. The girls' parents are expecting them." Of course, that wasn't entirely true, since the parents were expecting us to spend a couple of days at Adventureland. "And I think you need to come back with us. You can't stay here until you…" Now how was I going to say die? "Get too old."
"I think we should consider it," one of the Sharons said to the other.
Laura added, "I'd kill for an aspirin sometimes."
"Or butter and salt," Esme sighed wistfully.
Betty Sr. slammed her hand on the table. "No! We made a commitment to look after this place. If we don't stay here, who will keep any bad guys from taking over?"
"This place does need defending," Betty Jr. said as she whittled a potato into an impressive-looking medieval mace.
"There's no reason to anymore," I argued. "Now that it's a private preserve."
"But we made this commitment and chose to honor it," the older woman said.
"Which means we can break it," Esme said gently. "Let's face facts. If what Mrs. Wrath says is true, then the land is owned by someone else."
"I think we should think about it," Ada said. "You can take us back to Zarston."
"Did you say Zarston? You are all from Zarston?" I asked. "But that town doesn't exist anymore. It was just unincorporated, and back in the 1980s, the last person moved out."
All eyes turned to me, and I cursed my tactlessness. Why did I say that? Couldn't I have found an easier way to soften the blow?
"Zarston is…gone?" Esme looked stunned.
"But that's our home!" Ada added.
Be
tty Sr. interjected, "Our home is here and has been for half a century."
I felt bad for the way I'd told them their town didn't exist anymore. "We'll take you with us to Who's There," I said quickly. "You can stay at my second house until you decide to find your families."
"She's got TV, weapons, and Wi-Fi." Betty Jr. nodded. "You'd like it."
Riley got to his feet. He'd been so quiet I'd forgotten he was here. "I'm going to go check on Chad. He never did join us for dinner. Excuse me, ladies."
Nobody seemed to mind that he was leaving.
"Why would we want to watch TV?" Betty Sr. said. "There's not that much on."
Lauren spoke up. "TV is way cooler than it was in the olden times. There's a bajillion channels."
Betty Sr. shook her head. "I feel like you're lying to me. Like with the houses in the sky."
"No I'm not," the kid insisted. "There really are a lot of channels."
"You mean more than four?" Laura asked.
"Four?" I thought about that era. There'd been ABC, NBC, and CBS.
"PBS," Laura explained.
"That's not a real channel," Betty Sr. insisted.
Ava stood up as if for a speech. "There's a bunch of sports channels. Like ten movie channels and a bunch of sex stuff."
The whole group went quiet, except for the crickets, including the two Betty Sr. spit off to the side.
I was at a loss on how to deal with this. A mention of something like sex would usually be handled in a calm manner by Kelly. I knew I should say something, but what? I said nothing. It seemed like both the bravest and most cowardly decision at the same time.
Inez looked up from her plate of potatoes. "What do you mean by sex stuff?"
The older women seemed interested too. I guess if they'd been in here since the 1960s, when they were teenagers, they were probably a bit naïve.
"It's when they want to know if you're a boy or a girl." Ava nodded knowingly. "I decided not to have that on my mayoral petition. Mom says I have strong moral fiber, but I don't know what that means."
One of the Kaitlyns piped up. "And TVs are humongous now too."
"It sounds like something from a science fiction movie," one of the Sharons replied.
"It sounds terrible," Older Betty said. "Is that all you do all day? Watch the boob tube?"
I hadn't heard that phrase since Grandma Adelaide Wrath. It resulted in the same response I had as a kid, as the girls and Hilly erupted into a fit of giggles.
"What's a boob tube?" Betty Jr. wondered out loud. She'd finished the last project and was now carving a potato into a tiny castle.
"Maybe that's the TV channels with the sex stuff." Lauren wiggled her eyebrows.
Before there could be any enlightenment on this, I changed the subject.
"Well, it's been fun, but I think we really should be heading to our tents." I got to my feet. "Thanks, ladies, for your hospitality, and think about going with us in the morning."
"Nobody is going anywhere." Riley walked up.
He was ordering me around? "Why not?"
"Because Chad is dead." A muscle twitched in Riley's jaw. "I think he's been murdered."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Well, he's really dead this time. I don't see anything that could have killed him," I said after looking over the body.
"Then it's the one-finger death kill!" Lauren gasped.
We turned to Betty Jr., who was picking her teeth with her pocketknife.
We turned to Hilly, who was picking her teeth with a large bayonet.
"What?" the two asked in unison.
Betty Sr. looked at the dead man. "Okay. I'll get the spade."
"We can't bury him!" the Kaitlyns cried out in unison.
Ava agreed. "We have to solve the mystery! When anyone dies around Mrs. Wrath, we solve it so the police don't arrest her."
Ada looked at me with new interest. "Do people die around you a lot? Wouldn't that make you the number one suspect?"
"Ava is exaggerating," I said. "People do not die around me a lot."
Betty Jr. shrugged. "Maybe he killed himself because he doesn't like potatoes."
"I know the feeling," Esme admitted. "I'm pretty sick of potatoes."
"It's what we have," Ada admonished.
Esme fired back, "It's not like you couldn't plant something else. Some lettuce or green beans."
Ada narrowed her eyes. "I'm saving those seeds for when we really need them."
One of the Sharons stared at her. "I'd say we really need them. I don't think I can eat any more."
Betty Sr. scratched her chin. "I once had an idea to make land mines out of potatoes. Of course, we didn't have any explosives, and no one thought stepping on a potato was sufficiently dangerous, so we scrapped it."
Hilly started to speak, presumably to remind them of her C-4. I cut her off.
"We should probably focus on the task at hand," I said.
We were in the lodge—men included (Betty Sr. had given up keeping them out). Chad had been sitting in one of the chairs that we'd left in the circle. His eyes were closed, with his chin on his chest, and except for him not breathing, it looked like he was just napping.
Something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but my gut told me this death wasn't natural. Was it possible that whatever happened to put him here had a delayed reaction? Was he poisoned?
I couldn't smell anything. His skin tone was, well, deathy, but not a different color—which is a symptom other poisons have. There were no visible marks, no blood that I could see. He wasn't shot or stabbed. Very carefully, I tilted his chin up. No ligature marks.
Which meant natural causes like a heart attack, aneurism, or something along those lines. Or he was poisoned. I racked my brain to remember anything about poison. I'd had a little experience with arsenic and strychnine, but knowledge of poisons wasn't really in my wheelhouse.
So why did I think he'd been murdered? Just a gut feeling that I didn't trust entirely. Still, my gut had rarely been wrong before. Or maybe it was because we had a first class assassin (who's not…oh I give up. Come and get me, CIA.) amongst us who would know exactly how to kill someone without leaving a mark.
Ada pointed at my former handler. "I think Riley did it. He was the last person to see him. He could've murdered the man when he went to find him."
I considered this. In spite of her accusation, it was nice to know that these women hadn't fully fallen under his spell. No, I didn't really think Riley did it. I thought Hilly did it.
Who were possible suspects? I guess Hilly, Maria, and the older ladies of Troop 0014. Hilly because she could've been the one who brought him here and, if she's after Maria, decided he was a threat. It was hard to think of a man so inept that he was a danger to anyone.
What about Maria? Maybe Chad knew something about her she didn't want out. Maybe Chad wasn't who he said he was. How could I find out? We didn't have any internet, and he was obviously not going to be forthcoming about it. There was no way to find out about his background.
Could it be one of these senior Girl Scouts? They were a bit quirky, and they'd been isolated with only each other for half a century. People have lost their minds over far less. I once knew a brilliant neurosurgeon in Tokyo who lost it one day over a Butterfinger candy bar. He thought the chocolate was telling him to take off all of his clothes and run into traffic on a very busy overpass. Amazingly, he didn't get hit by any cars and made it to the other side, where, since he wasn't wearing shoes, he slipped and fell over the edge onto the highway below, where he was hit by a Volkswagen Beetle. To this day, I've always looked at Butterfingers with suspicion.
But there were no murdery candy bars here. If he was murdered, there was a killer. Chad did say something was familiar. Did he recognize these women or one of them? And then there was the story Lauren told me about Laura muttering the word kill while looking at him.
What would be their motive? Was it possible that they thought Chad would rat them out when he got back to c
ivilization? If that was the case, were the rest of us in danger too? Maybe the ladies just didn't like him. Like a Lord of the Flies thing, where killing someone wasn't taboo. That kind of seemed worse to me. What would stop them from killing us too?
What if Chad's story wasn't true? What if he'd come here looking for these ladies or something else in the woods? And if he seemed to be a threat, it wouldn't be a stretch, I guess, for them to kill him.
If he was murdered, then we were in a bad situation. We were literally stranded in the middle of nowhere with a corpse, no contact with the outside world, and six senior ladies who weren't quite right. I needed to make a decision. Should we call it and head back? I wasn't sure how we'd take the body with us or if that was even a good idea.
But if we left him here, we'd have to lead law enforcement back to the scene of the crime. Or both scenes, including the spot where we'd found him. And that would alert the rest of the world to the presence of these ladies.
There were a number of questions to think about. How did Chad die? Was he killed here, or was whatever happened to him back on the hilltop what killed him? Who was Chad? He claimed he was a nobody—an IT guy for a data company, who was kidnapped off the mean streets of Des Moines and, after being questioned about a woman, was dragged all the way out here and dumped, to be left for dead.
But what if that wasn't the story at all? What if he was undercover, looking for Maria for the CIA? Something occurred to me. Could he have been pursuing Hilly? I thought about her story that maybe he was avenging someone she'd killed. Or what if he's from a competing government? It wouldn't be unheard of. Chad might've followed Hilly here and dumped himself in this very spot. It seemed to me that Hilly was too smart for that. Wasn't she? And was Chad smart enough?
In my former career, I've always been careful about judging someone too quickly. You might find out that that astrophysicist isn't very bright unless you are discussing quantum mechanics, because he can't seem to read beyond a third grade level when it isn't about science.
Or you can find out that the idiot who acted like he couldn't bag groceries is a savant who has memorized all the presidents of every country in South America, complete with their best accomplishments and worst decisions…in order, since 1911.
Mosquito Bite Murder Page 9
