Maltese Vulture Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  I'd gotten exactly two feet farther than when I'd started. Dusting myself off, I got to my feet and pulled the gate shut behind me. Then I panted for like, about a minute. The gate had been unlocked. I should've checked that first. But I hadn't. I needed to get my head in the game if I was going to find out what was going on.

  I had some snooping to do. The backyard was vast, with a thick, plush carpet of grass. Once again, money seemed to be abundant here. As I moved along the side of the house, I planned what I'd say if anyone came out of the house. Clearly I was so worried about Tammi and Delaney, I was just trying to find out if there was news. The gate was unlocked, so I'd decided to check around back.

  That would do. It wasn't a great story, but a nervous wreck like Tammi would accept it. I came around the house to a large deck that led down to an inground pool. Wow. Once we found her kidnapped daughter, I'd have to ask if we could have a pool party here.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows with a set of sliding glass doors caught my attention, and I ran up and looked inside. A large family room with cathedral ceilings and all-white upholstered furniture looked so inviting, I wanted to go in and take a nap.

  White furniture? No wonder Tammi was always nervous. This stuff wouldn't last ten minutes in either of my houses…mostly because of me. I wasn't a girly girl and didn't mind getting dirty. Sometimes I even remembered to take my muddy hiking boots off before going into the house. But sometimes I didn't.

  I banged on the sliding glass door, but again was met with silence. I tested the latch. Locked. After checking the rest of the yard, I made my way back to the gate (and through it this time) to my car in the driveway.

  They really weren't here. Could they be at the ransom drop off right now? It still amazed me that the mayor hired Riley instead of working with the local police. He should've known better. Rex didn't like it when people took the law into their own hands. Especially when it was me.

  Back in my car, I drove around the neighborhood, looking for a yellow pickup or Riley's black SUV. I kept fanning out to other streets, trying to maintain a circle. As I went, I wondered, where would I do a ransom drop?

  In a small town, people were always watching. I wouldn't do it within the town's limits. There were a few places on the edge of town—the seed plant, the old elementary school, the zoo—but those seemed either too risky or too dangerous.

  Out in the country—that's where I'd do it. The tall corn could hide you from the highway, especially on a gravel road. The only trouble was, there were endless gravel roads out in the country. I knew that because the minute I'd gotten my driver's license on my sixteenth birthday, I'd travelled them all. There really weren't a lot of places to drive through in a small town.

  Argh! Where was Riley? If I could find him, I could get there and…and what? Put a stop to the drop off? Yes, that's what I'd been thinking. No, I couldn't do that. As much as I wanted Nellie Lou, it was better for the mayor and Tammi if they got their daughter back.

  Still, it was all so sordid how the mayor hired Riley, foregoing his own police department. Something about that gnawed on my insides. Why do it unless you had something to hide?

  Did they have something to hide?

  I took out my cell and dialed Stacey at the Council. Her voicemail told me cheerfully to leave a message and have an amazing day! What was it she'd said to me? Something about a scandal? I pulled over and parked.

  "Merry?" Kelly picked up on the first ring. "What's going on?"

  "Has Riley returned yet?" I asked.

  "No. I've gone over his whole desk, looking for a note of an address or something like that. But I haven't found anything."

  "Never mind that," I said. "Have you ever heard of there being some sort of scandal with the mayor?"

  There was silence on the other end for a minute. "Okay, it's really weird that you mention that, because something in the back of my mind tells me there was something. I just can't think of what it was."

  "It didn't make the local paper," I mused. "I'd have seen that."

  "I'll see what I can find out," Kelly said. "After all, I am a researcher for a private eye."

  Yeah. A private eye who was going to get a beatdown when this was all over for taking Nellie Lou without asking.

  I insisted she call me with anything, no matter how insignificant, and hung up. Just as I was starting the engine, my cell rang. It was Randi.

  "Hey, Randi," I said. "I can't talk right now…"

  "Oh, Merry!"

  Was she sobbing? There was a gasping of breath. What had happened?

  Randi continued. "It's so awful! I just don't know what to do!"

  "Is it Rex? Your parents?" I asked as my stomach dropped to my shoes.

  "No! It's not them!" A few more sobs followed.

  "It's alright," I said without really knowing if it was. "Tell me what happened."

  "It's Ronni! She's been kidnapped!"

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  For a second, I must admit, I wasn't terribly upset. Ronni hated me. But then again, she hated everyone. And she was Randi's twin and Rex's sister.

  "I'm on my way," I told her as I was already driving.

  It only takes five minutes to get anywhere in Who's There. I made it in two.

  Bursting through the front door, I called out for Randi, who flew into my arms.

  "Where's Rex? Did you call him?" I asked.

  The woman stopped crying and pulled away. "He's not answering. Neither is the sheriff. Nobody's answering!"

  "Okay, I'm here. It's going to be okay. How do you know Ronni was kidnapped?"

  Randi dabbed her eyes with a tissue and took a moment to blow her nose. "She's still missing from earlier. She never told me she was leaving. She always does that."

  "Could she have just gone off to cool down? She was a bit irritable." The more I thought about this, the less it made sense. If it were true, Ronni would be gone all the time.

  "No"—the woman shook her head—"she never leaves without telling me. Ever. So she must've been kidnapped!"

  I was starting to get a little frustrated. I needed to be out combing the country roads for Riley, but I was stuck here with Randi.

  "Is the car here?"

  "Yes. She didn't take it. And her keys are on the hook by the door. She never leaves without them."

  "Maybe she went for a walk and knew you'd be here so she didn't need the keys?"

  Randi stared at me as if I'd gone insane. "She wouldn't be gone this long! And she always takes her keys!"

  "Well"—I threw up my hands in resignation—"did you call her cell?"

  Randi produced it from her pocket with a look on her face that read DUH.

  "She never leaves her phone!" Randi sank into a chair made from a polar bear. The bear's head stuck out above hers as if he was just about to eat the frazzled woman.

  "Okaaaaaay…" I said slowly. "She's gone and it's weird. But don't you think kidnapping is a bit of a stretch?"

  She wiped away her tears. "I know you think I'm crazy."

  I did think that. I didn't say that, but I did think it.

  "And," she continued, "that you think because I knew about the little girl being kidnapped, that's what planted the idea in my head."

  I thought that too.

  "Maybe I'd think those things. But deep down, I know something's terribly wrong. Call it twintuition, but I know it."

  Her argument left me at a bit of a loss. I wasn't sure Ronni had been taken. In fact, I wouldn't put it past her to be hiding just to upset people and possibly have me blamed for it. But there was no way I was going to convince Randi otherwise. And I really needed to find Riley and Nellie Lou.

  "Stay here," I said. "Close to the phone. I'll go see what's happened to Rex."

  Randi nodded eagerly and ran over to the store phone, staring down at it intently.

  I got back into the car and called Rex. But it went straight to voicemail. Where was he? Feeling a little guilty for telling Randi that I'd help her, I drove to the station.
It was deserted, aside from Agnes, the geriatric receptionist.

  "I don't know where everyone is," she grumbled as she paged through a magazine. "Nobody tells me anything."

  I left the station wondering if the old woman really was an asset to the team; then again, this was the same team that had Officer Kevin Dooley, so what did I know? Where was my husband? I drove to the sheriff's department, but that door was firmly locked. That's weird. They must be gone too.

  Was everyone at the ransom drop but me?

  My cell rang, and I saw that it was Kelly. I silently prayed that someone would at last have some news for me.

  "What did you find out?"

  Kelly didn't mind my brusque greeting. "Stacey said it had to do with the country club. She didn't know all the details but said the mayor's family was months overdue in paying the rent for their cabin."

  "They have cabins?" Seemed a bit rustic to me for a country club.

  "They're more like a private changing space for the pool or golf course or dinner. Just one room with a bathroom. I called my cousin who works there. She said that the mayor had agreed to give up the cabin until a week ago, when they paid all the back rent."

  The country club! Why didn't I think of that before? Just three miles out of town, dominated by woods, a private cabin might be the perfect place to hand over Nellie Lou! I thanked Kelly and started driving toward the other end of town.

  Was everyone at the drop? It seemed unlikely for the entire police and sheriff's departments to be there. Especially since Riley really wanted to solve the case solo. So, where was he? And where were the mayor and his wife?

  It didn't matter. If they were all there, I'd find them. This was really getting aggravating. Had everyone left town? Did I miss something? And where was Ronni? Why would anyone kidnap her? If Sun and Moon had taken both Delaney and Ronni, I felt more sorry for them. Alone, those two people were a pain in the butt. Together? The little girl and the matronly twin would reduce their kidnappers to tears in seconds.

  Maybe I didn't need to do anything at all.

  On the edge of town, I thought I glimpsed a flash of yellow behind an old, deserted gas station. I was just going to ignore it, until I spotted Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon leaning against a yellow pickup truck, smiling at me.

  I slammed on the brakes and drove over to them. What were they doing here? And why were they still driving that stupid yellow pickup? And if they were looking for Nellie Lou, how was I going to convince them that I still had her when she was off on a wild goose chase with Riley?

  As I got out of the van, I made sure not to get too close. They weren't going to fall for that throwing the little guy at the big guy trick again. At least, if they were smart they wouldn't. And the jury was still out on that. And their disguises were even worse than usual.

  Mr. Sun had on a red mullet wig and dark sunglasses. He wore a plaid shirt with the sleeves torn off over an embarrassingly tiny pair of Daisy Duke jean shorts. The giant looked like a stereotype on steroids. But it was satisfying to see his shins slathered in pink calamine lotion. That poison ivy really nailed him.

  Mr. Moon was, for some reason, wearing a pink dress and combat boots. I didn't even try to figure that out.

  He noticed me staring. "It's more comfortable. That poison whatever got everywhere." The man turned bright red, and that's when I noticed that the calamine lotion went up his thighs to under the dress.

  After smothering a grin, I asked, "What are you doing here?"

  "Waiting for you," Mr. Sun said. He turned to Moon, who was furiously scratching his groin area through the dress. "Stop doing that! You'll make it worse!"

  "Waiting for me? Why? How did you know I'd come this way?" Watching Moon scratch was giving me ghost hives. I tried to ignore him.

  Mr. Moon grudgingly stopped scratching. "We sent the others on wild goose chases."

  I knew it!

  "So we could get to you," he continued.

  That was unexpected. "Why would you do that? I don't have Nellie Lou anymore. Someone else does. I'm no good to you."

  The men kept smiling at me. That was irritating. I stared at Moon's legs, which brought the itch back to his attention, and he went after it with both hands, shredding his thighs.

  "Well?" I pressed.

  Sun slapped his partner's hands away from his own legs and turned to me. "We don't think the bird possesses what we want anymore. We've followed you. Watched you examine it at the sheriff's station. At the taxidermist and the private eye's. You must've found what you were looking for."

  I wasn't sure which was more disturbing—the fact that they'd actually reasoned something out, or the idea that I'd been followed by the yellow pickup and hadn't noticed. The very idea was like fingernails on a blackboard to someone in my former line of work. No, they had to have used a different car. The white sedan I'd seen them in the first time I'd met them maybe. That had to be it, and just in case it wasn't, I wasn't ever going to ask them.

  "I don't have anything," I insisted.

  "No?" Mr. Moon's confidence wavered just a smidge.

  "Well, then, we don't need you anymore. And we don't need the kid either," Mr. Sun rumbled.

  "You don't?" I asked.

  The two men shook their heads. "What good is she if you won't give up the goods?" Mr. Sun asked. "No, we'll get rid of her."

  Moon nodded. "She's a witness." He paused to smooth an imagined wrinkle on the pink dress. His fingers twitched over the calamine, but he overcame the urge.

  Uh-oh.

  I thought quickly. "Okay, okay." I held my hands up in front of me. "You totally outsmarted me. I've got what you want. You just have to let me see you let Delaney go. And then I'll share it with you."

  It was a huge bluff because for one thing, I had no idea what was in the bird, so I certainly didn't have it. The trick here was to stall. It wasn't the first time I'd pretended to know something I didn't. In fact, that's the whole objective of a spy—pretending you are something you're not.

  I'd pretended to have plans for a secret radar system, a flash drive with embarrassing photos of a prime minister wearing a diaper and a onesie, and in one case, the script to the finale of the final season of Game of Thrones. And each and every time, I outsmarted those who thought they had one over on me. I could handle these two idiots. Right?

  I could bluff my way through anything. I just had to figure out what they wanted. Then again, maybe all these two wanted was a stylist. And then there's that stupid yellow truck…

  "Okay. You'll come with us," Mr. Sun said.

  "I don't think so." I laughed. "You just get the girl ready for the exchange."

  "You don't get it," Mr. Moon said. "You are the exchange. You for the girl. You have to come with us so we can release the girl."

  "Fine," I announced, "but you are going to let her go before I…" Do what? Give them or tell them what it is they are looking for? How could I phrase that?

  I gave them a look I hoped belied confidence. "Before you-know-what."

  "Fine," Mr. Sun said, producing a black hood from his back pocket and tossing it to me. "Put this on."

  I have a very strict policy of never going anywhere with a hood over my face with goons who might kill me. However, in this situation, a young girl's life (and possibly that of my evil sister-in-law, even though she hadn't been mentioned yet) was at stake. I had no choice. I put on the hood and got into the back seat of their car.

  Too bad they hadn't kidnapped Betty. That kid was resourceful to the tenth power. If they had, I'd probably find both men hog-tied on my front porch while Betty flossed her teeth with a Bowie knife.

  I felt the snap of a zip tie around my wrists. Good. I knew how to get out of those. It's fairly easy, as long as your wrists are in front of you. When they put the tie on, you press your wrists together as tightly as possible to create maximum tension. There's a little dongle thingy—rectangular in shape. You work that to the front and raise your arms over your head. You bring your arms down hard, separ
ating them just before they hit your legs. The zip ties snap in two.

  But I wasn't going to be doing that anytime soon. I needed to see Delaney first. I'd make sure she was fine and send her on to safety. Then I'd beat these two senseless and escape. The only problem I faced was if they insisted I tell them or show them what they want to see. The two men didn't seem to know exactly what it was, but they might have had a general idea.

  The other good thing was that we were driving in that stupid yellow truck. Any local law enforcement and Riley knew to look for it, and hopefully they'd notice me wearing a black hood in the back seat and follow.

  The car bumped along as gravel hit the undercarriage. We were going straight out of town, and I kept a tally in my head of turns, stops, and all that. At the same time, my mind was attempting to work out what these guys thought I had.

  Was it a thing? That seemed less likely, considering I'd have to have whatever it was on me for them to exchange Delaney. I was wearing a T-shirt that read Nothing scares me—I'm a Girl Scout leader, a pair of knit shorts, and tennis shoes. There wasn't much room to hide anything on my person.

  They were convinced I had whatever it was, and if it was big or even midsized, with what I was wearing, they'd know it wasn't on me. It could be something very small, like a flash drive or diamonds. But then again, they hadn't looked me up and down when they took me. They didn't even pat me down.

  That meant it was abstract. Some sort of knowledge or idea. Most likely, something I'd read and could recite. No matter what happened, I really wanted to know what was in Nellie Lou. Even though I was good at bluffing—how long could I hold them off?

  In the meantime, I tried to keep up with memorizing our route and sending psychic messages to Rex and even Riley to tell them where I was. Yeah, I knew that wouldn't work, but it made me feel a little better.

  The truck took a right turn, shortly followed by a left turn. Then, another left turn and one more. We'd made a square. That was a good sign! It meant these two brainiacs thought we were being followed and were testing whoever it was. Hopefully, it was Rex or Riley. Or Rex and Riley. Hell, I'd be happy even if it was Officer Kevin Dooley.