Mosquito Bite Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  "It's not the future," I reminded them. "It's present day. We're not from the future."

  Hilly cocked her head to one side as she worked on her third lanyard—an impossible structure using sixteen different laces. How did she know how to do that? I looked at my anemic and disfigured lanyard.

  "Maybe we are from the future," the assassin wondered. "Maybe we came through a time warp to this place."

  "But then all these women would be young," I said.

  "Or maybe," the assassin said, "they went ahead in time and got stuck in a place where they are older."

  Esme looked up in interest. "Does that mean we can go back to being young again?"

  I really needed to clear this up once and for all. "It doesn't work that way. Nobody has travelled through a time warp. We are all in the current time."

  Esme frowned. "Well, I don't like that explanation."

  One of the Sharons turned to a Kaitlyn. "Is it hard being one of four Kaitlyns? We only have the two Sharons."

  One of the girls nodded eagerly. "Oh yes. Mrs. Wrath can't tell any of us apart. Which is racist."

  "Whoa!" I held up my hands. "That's not racist. You four look exactly alike and have the same name, and this confuses everyone."

  Hilly shook her head. "That's Kaitlyn S." She pointed to one of the girls. "And she likes pumpkins and cats and math. That"—she pointed to the other—"is Kaitlyn P, and she likes ketchup and llamas and dancing."

  "S? P?" I asked.

  "Middle initials of course," Hilly said.

  The Kaitlyns beamed.

  "How do you know so much about their differences?" I asked with what may have been construed as snark.

  "The S is for Sarah, and the P is for Patience," Hilly responded. "I know because I asked. Have you ever asked?"

  Guilt is a funny thing. It can twist your gut and fill you with despair. I did feel guilty that I'd known these girls for years and Hilly had not. It was possible that I was a little mad at my own stupidity.

  "Of course, I knew that," I said.

  "You did? Then you know the names of their pets." Hilly looked at me expectantly.

  "Well, I…" The Kaitlyns had pets? I suppose I should've guessed, knowing my troop's adoration of animals.

  "Kaitlyn S"—Hilly didn't wait for me to finish—"has a goldfish named King Leopold the VII of Belgium. And Kaitlyn Patience has a dog named Legless."

  "Legolas," Kaitlyn P corrected. "I like Lord of the Rings."

  I don't know what upset me more—the fact that Hilly knew this or the fact that I might now be expected to call the Kaitlyns by their first and middle names.

  "Our leader couldn't tell the difference between us either," one of the Sharons interjected. "But she learned after a couple of months." She held up her hair at the nape of her neck. "See? I have a mole on the back of my neck, but Sharon doesn't."

  "So she had to lift up your hair to figure that out?" I asked. "Seems like that invaded your personal space."

  "Oh no, she didn't do it long. By the end of the first semester, she knew all about us—what made us different. You haven't done that?"

  I found myself being compared unfavorably to a woman who was now most likely dead, and I kind of hated the dead woman for figuring the Sharons out. I should've tried more. I should've made an attempt from the start to find what made each of the Kaitlyns unique. But I was either lazy or easily confused. Probably both.

  "Sounds like you had an amazing leader," I grumbled.

  "Not really," one of the Sharons said. "We didn't like her." She pointed to the other Sharon. "Thought she wasn't a good Scout."

  "That, and she was my gym teacher," the other Sharon said. "I never was any good at that class."

  "Mrs. Wrath isn't mean like that!" one of the Kaitlyns said.

  "Thank you," I stated.

  "Yeah! She may not be very smart," the other Kaitlyn insisted, "but she's nice."

  "Um, thank you?" I repeated.

  "We didn't mean any disrespect," one of the Sharons said.

  "You didn't say anything to disrespect me," I insisted, not really sure who's side I was on —but pretty sure it wasn't mine.

  There was a brief pause before one of the Sharons said, "Hey! What's your favorite activity at camp?"

  "Swimming!" all four shouted at once.

  Riley looked up from his elegant navy and gray lanyard. "Why don't you know more about the Kaitlyns?" he asked.

  I considered strangling him with plastic lacing.

  "I mean"—he continued to gamble with his life—"Hilly knows a lot about them, and she hasn't spent nearly as much time with them."

  I looked at him. "What are you going to do with your lanyard?"

  He looked startled. "I don't know yet. Why?"

  "Oh"—I looked down at the mess I was holding—"I was thinking we could do an experiment to see how far down your throat I could shove it before you choked."

  Riley grinned and went back to his work. I looked over at Esme, who was talking to Inez.

  "You know, back in the 60s I was the only girl like me in my whole town," the older woman confided.

  Inez seemed confused. "Why? Were you into weird stuff?"

  "What? No, I meant I was…"

  "Cuz Betty's into weird stuff. Like political activism and ninjas and making medieval weapons out of spatulas…" Inez went on.

  "No." Esme shook her head and waved her hands in front of her. "I mean Mexican."

  Inez studied her. "You're Mexican?"

  "No dear, I'm Puerto Rican."

  This seemed to confuse the little girl. "Then why did you say you were Mexican?"

  Esme shrugged. "That's just what they called us then. Why? What do they call you now?"

  "I'm Latina." Inez held her hand to her chest. "My grandparents came here from Panama and Argentina. Or you can be Hispanic. Or you can just be whatever."

  Esme's mouth fell open. "So many names! What do they all mean?"

  Inez shook her head. "I don't know. I'm only eleven. But Mama says we're Latina."

  "The future sure is confusing," Esme said. "Can I just be Puerto Rican until I sort it all out?"

  "Of course! It's America! You can be anything you want. That's another thing Mama says." Inez smiled.

  I wasn't sure if I should say something. To be honest, I didn't think I had any right to. My heritage was somewhere between white and eggshell. I'd heard Inez talk about her grandparents before and knew she was very proud of her heritage.

  As for me, I always just kind of felt like an Iowan. I didn't really have ties to other countries. Dad had said our name Czrygy was Czech. And Mom says on the Wrath side, we've been here so long that it wasn't important.

  I admired Inez for having such strong ties to her past. Betty's family was Russian on one side. She was happy with that. I'd done a little digging a while ago on Ancestry.com, but never really kept it up. My husband, Rex Ferguson, was Greek and Scottish. Maybe I should dig a little deeper when I got home.

  Speaking of Betty, I'd noticed they hadn't said anything so far at all. The little girl and the older woman looked each other over. It was like some sort of spooky, lethal stare down.

  "Favorite weapon?" Betty Jr. asked.

  "Spear," Betty Sr. said. "Mostly because that's what we have here. In the real world I'd use a flamethrower."

  "Interesting choice," the little girl said as she wove her black on black lanyard. "Why a flamethrower?"

  Betty Sr. shrugged. "I've always liked starting fires."

  "Me too," Betty Jr. replied. "But my weapon of choice would be a bazooka. They're more subtle."

  Riley snorted next to me, so I nudged him to keep quiet. I was trying to wrap my head around the idea that a bazooka was more subtle than a flamethrower. I was always partial to a 9mm Colt with a silencer. But maybe that was just me.

  Betty Sr. said, "I noticed we both like our marshmallows burned."

  "Like a briquet. Hot dogs too." Betty added white into her lanyard, and I saw the beginnings
of a tiny skull pattern appear.

  Betty Sr. asked. "Who would you rather fight—Dwight D. Eisenhower or Lyndon B. Johnson?"

  The younger Betty looked up from her lanyard. "I don't know. Who are they?"

  "Presidents from our time."

  The girl thought about this for a moment. "Okay. Then both."

  The older Betty nodded. "That's what I'd say too. How do you feel about commies?"

  The girl went back to her plastic lacing. "I don't know what commies are, but they sound bad. So I don't like them."

  "They're Soviets," the older woman said.

  "Nope, still no idea who that is. My turn—what was life like one hundred years ago?"

  If she was insulted, Betty Sr. never showed it. "I've only been here for fifty, and I'm not 100."

  Betty Jr. didn't skip a beat. "Same question, what was life like fifty years ago?"

  "Why is that the same question? One hundred years and fifty years are a lot apart."

  "It's all the same to me. I'm only eleven."

  Betty Sr. scratched her chin and looked off into the distance. "Well, since I don't know what life is like now, I can only tell you what I remember. It was kind of a crazy time, what with the Vietnam War, the assassination of JFK—he was president—the Hippie movement…all those things. But we didn't all watch TV that much. We didn't have those fancy phones you have. Every house had one phone, and it was attached to a wall."

  Betty Jr.'s eyes grew wide. "Only one phone? And you couldn't move it? How did you live like that?"

  "We didn't know anything else." Betty Sr. shook her head. "You know, hearing you all talk about hundreds of channels, computers, and the like makes me afraid to go back out there."

  The little girl nodded seriously. "You'll need me to sort it out for you. I think you should come back with us."

  "I don't know that I want to do that." The older woman shook her head. "It sounds overwhelming. Things are simpler here…easier."

  "Yes, but all you have to talk to are the same five ladies and a turtle, and you don't have pizza or chocolate cake," younger Betty pointed out. "And you might like it out there. Mrs. Wrath offered you her old house. You can live there without worrying about furniture or rent or anything. You would need to get a new driver's license though."

  "We never got them in the first place."

  Betty nodded. "It's okay. I don't have one, and I've driven Mrs. Wrath's van."

  That was true. And she didn't even crash it.

  "What did she say?" Riley looked up. "And what exactly are you doing? Not working on your lanyard, I see."

  "Shhh." I held up my index finger to my lips. "Listening to the girls talking to their future selves.

  He looked around. "Are they saying anything interesting?"

  "It's interesting to me. The girls don't talk this way to Kelly or me. They seem reserved with these ladies." I shoved him lightly. "You were listening."

  "Not really. I've been thinking. I guess there's something about these easy, light crafts that make one think." Riley held up a complex, twisting, helix-like lanyard.

  I looked at mine with its uneven weaving. "What were you thinking about?"

  Riley said, "About Chad. I think you should check on him."

  "That's going to be bad." I shuddered. "He's stuffed in a non-working freezer in the summer."

  "Decomp won't be bad," Riley assured me. "No bugs could've gotten in yet."

  "You don't know that. You're just guessing. Besides, what's the point of checking on him? Where could he go?"

  "What if the killer took him and buried him?" Riley asked. "We have to report him when we get back. How can we do that if he's missing?"

  "But why aren't you looking at him? Why do I have to do it?"

  "Because I have the power to drive you crazy if you don't." He grinned as he brought his fingers into snapping position.

  "We'll do it!" Betty and Lauren joined us.

  "Go back to your lanyards," I insisted. "I'll do it."

  "You're no fun anymore." Lauren pouted.

  "I am too! You guys have to stop saying that. And what's fun about staring at a stiff?" Nothing, that's what. Everyone looked at me. Riley wasn't going to do it, and the girls would. I'd send Hilly, but since she was a suspect, I didn't think it was a good idea. I had no choice. "Fine! I'll go!" I threw my arms in the air and stomped off toward the lodge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I stared down into the freezer. Chad was missing. Well that made it easier and harder all at the same time. Interestingly enough, it didn't seem like there'd even been a body inside. It even smelled okay. I closed the door and re-opened it, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, like that time in Uzbekistan when I mistook a sugar packet for an LSD one (helpful hint—don't use the same packets for sugar and LSD).

  I spent an entire twenty-seven hours having a deep and meaningful conversation with a giant purple swan named Homer, who, it turned out, while being imaginary, was an expert on all things Paraguayan and collected Icelandic runes.

  I looked inside the freezer again. Nope. Still gone. Someone had moved Chad. Nothing was amiss in the area surrounding the useless appliance. Was it possible that we'd made a mistake and that Chad was alive and walking around? He'd really seemed dead to me when I'd examined him. And I'd checked his pulse. But maybe I'd been wrong. If he was alive, at least he didn't suffocate from being in the freezer. That would've sucked.

  I spent the next twenty minutes scouring the lodge, just to make sure someone didn't take him out and dump him somewhere else. I wasn't going out there to tell everyone that dead Chad was missing only to find alive Chad sitting there with them, scowling about something.

  When I finally stepped outside, I noticed that Hilly was explaining her lanyard to the others. It was a very intricate 3D model of Old Eisenhower with six toads on his back. I knew she was good with her hands, but how did she do that?

  It didn't matter, I reminded myself. There was a small matter of what wasn't taking up space in the freezer.

  "Pssst! Riley!" I whispered loudly.

  He got up and joined me. "What's up? Did you see Hilly's lanyard? That's unreal!"

  "Great. But that's not our biggest problem right now." I looked around before whispering, "Chad's not in the freezer."

  He looked at the lodge. "What are you talking about?"

  "He's not in the freezer," I repeated, "or anywhere in the lodge. I checked."

  It appeared that Riley believed me and didn't feel the need to check it out himself. "Well, he was dead, so he couldn't have gone too far."

  "What should we do?"

  His right eyebrow went up. "You're asking me? You never ask me. You just charge ahead into unknown territory without a plan."

  I ignored the jab. He wasn't wrong. It was something I was kind of stubborn about.

  "Well I'm asking now."

  He thought for a moment. "I guess we should ask everyone."

  "Do you really think we should ask everyone?" I asked. "All together?"

  Riley nodded. "Yes, of course. What's the point of being so secretive about it?"

  I hadn't thought of that. "What if Hilly dragged him off so she could put him in a dumpster later?"

  He shrugged. "Then he's not our problem anymore."

  That was true. "She won't tell us if she did," I admitted.

  "I highly doubt it. That's not her MO."

  Huh. It was a fair point. "What if it isn't her? What if it's the real killer who did it?"

  "She's probably going to deny it either way," he replied. "Which, again, means it's no longer our problem."

  And then there was the other possibility. "And if he's alive?"

  Riley held up two fingers. "Then he wandered off into the woods to get hopelessly lost, or, on the chance there might be a miracle, he'll be waiting for us at the van when we get there."

  That was a good point. "Okay. Who do we start with?"

  Riley looked around. "We sit down the whole group and ask. How could tha
t go wrong?"

  I started to count the ways in my head but stopped at ten and kept it to myself. Riley was taking the lead. Let's see what these guys had to say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  So, we did just that. Calling the meeting wasn't hard, since we were all in the same place anyway. Riley told them what I'd discovered and waited for someone to come forward and admit they moved him.

  Unfortunately, everyone was silent.

  "I need to know who moved the body," I insisted. "I'm not mad. But I think we need to know what happened here."

  "Maybe he walked off?" Ada asked. The others agreed.

  "I'm pretty sure he was dead." I tried to sound confident in my assessment of his death.

  "I think the commies took him," Betty Sr. said.

  "Or the Boy Scouts," Laura added.

  My troop got into a huddle and whispered for a minute. Then Betty turned around and announced, "We think the aliens got him."

  That was a new theory. "What aliens?" I asked.

  Hilly looked alarmed and checked the sky. "There are aliens here?"

  "It's well known," Betty continued, "that there are aliens everywhere." When she saw I wasn't convinced, she added, "The aliens that have mixed up the time/space dimension thing that brought us here into the past or them into the future."

  I wasn't sure if I should dispute that. What would Kelly say? She'd discourage such thinking. I kind of liked the aliens idea. It would be tough to explain to the authorities, but it was a less messy idea.

  "Or wolves!" Lauren said. "Wolves could've dragged him off."

  I shook my head. "How did a wolf get into the lodge, open the freezer, get him out of the freezer, and close the freezer after?"

  "I don't know," the junior zookeeper said. "Wild animals are unpredictable."

  "I had a wolf steal a carcass once," Hilly admitted.

  The older troop looked at her with interest.

  "Of like a rabbit or something," I said quickly while shaking my head at Hilly.

  "No it wasn't," Hilly said. "It was a deer. I had to fight him off too. But I won."

  "Whatever. Guys"—I shook my head—"our only theories thus far are aliens and wolves. Neither of them work. I need whoever took him to just admit it so we can move on."