Mind-Bending Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  Rex frowned. "Whose is it?"

  "Not a clue—but it's just like the shirt the dead guy was wearing."

  Rex ran home as Carnack processed me and led me to a cell. Twenty minutes later, Rex returned with one of my T-shirts. I changed in the bathroom and handed the sheriff the blue polo. Maybe there were trace elements of something that would exonerate me.

  Once I was finally alone, I slumped onto the cot. What a bizarre night. I played through what had happened over and over, from the moment I woke up in the shed until the arrival of the Bladdersly police. None of it made sense.

  Who was Tyson Pancratz? And why would I have killed him?

  CHAPTER THREE

  All things considered, the cell wasn't too bad. The bed was pretty comfortable, and I had a window and a sink. I mean, I wouldn't want to be here more than one day or anything, but it was certainly tolerable.

  Prison cells are different all over the world. In Japan and Sweden, they have state-of-the-art, sparkling clean facilities that could double as vacation rentals. But in Azerbaijan or Nicaragua…well, let's just say you have to be okay sharing a cell made for one person with five or six others and twice that many cockroaches or rats.

  I was staring at the mirror image of the window when a movement caught the corner of my eye. Something fell past my window. It was too small to be a man.

  A barred owl hooted. Repeatedly. Maybe it was after a possum or whatever had fallen outside. I sat down on the bed and leaned back against the wall. There was a strange sound on the other side of it.

  I sprang to my feet and noticed a flashing light outside the window. There was the sound of breaking glass, and then I spotted a small acetylene torch working at the bars.

  "Shhhh!" a voice whispered. "They'll hear you!"

  "Who'll hear me?" another voice asked.

  "The Man!" said the first.

  I stepped up to the window and peered out.

  "Betty?"

  A shadowy head popped up in the window. "No. I'm not Betty, whoever that is. Cool name though. I'll bet she's amazing."

  "Yes, you are. And unless I miss my guess, Lauren is with you."

  A figure stepped up and waved. "It's me, Mrs. Wrath! Inez!"

  "No, it's not," Betty growled. "That's not Inez, and I'm not Betty."

  "What are you doing here?" I asked, although I had a pretty good idea.

  "We're busting you out!" Inez said cheerfully.

  "Guys!" I protested. "Go home. It's like four in the morning. I'm innocent. I'll get out. By the way, how did you find out I was here?"

  "Betty has a police scanner," Inez said as if I were an idiot.

  Of course she does.

  The torch flared up again.

  "Stop! Unless you want to head to juvie, you need to go home!"

  "We can't. We told our parents we were spending the night with you," Inez said. "Of course, we didn't tell them about you murdering that guy and all." She turned on her cell phone light, and I could see them better. Both girls were dressed in camo from head to toe. Huh. I would've guessed ninjas.

  "You told them that? Where have you been all night if they thought you were at my house?"

  "We don't have to answer that," Betty said. "We have veranda rights or something like that."

  "It's Miranda, and you aren't being arrested, so it doesn't apply to you." I like to use any opportunity as a teaching moment. "You guys are out running around town in the middle of the night, and I don't need to know?"

  "We were at the…" Inez started.

  "Don't rat us out, Mac," Betty interrupted. "We aren't the ones who knocked off some sap. We're not on the hot seat."

  "Put the torch away." I didn't ask how she came by it, but it wasn't much of a surprise. My troop was not your normal Girl Scout troop, and that was mainly because of Betty. The ten-year-old was a middle-aged spy trapped in a kid's body. She was destined for black ops, hopefully after at least completing elementary school.

  "We can do this!" Betty insisted. "We'll bust you out of the joint and hide you in a safe house."

  "If you break me out, it'll make me look even more guilty," I said. "Something I'm trying to avoid."

  There was a pause.

  "I hadn't thought of that."

  "It's okay." Inez smiled. "We can get some patsy to take the fall for you!"

  "Patsy?" I asked. "Take the fall? Hey, what's up with all the slang?"

  "We've been watching old movies. The kind with gangsters," the girl said.

  "What are gams?" Betty asked. "The guy in one movie said the dame had nice gams."

  "I think he meant gums," Inez reasoned.

  "Why would he care if she had nice gums?"

  "She didn't have gingivitis," Inez replied. "My dentist says if you don't floss, you'll probably die from that."

  Seemed a bit extreme, but I didn't have time to suggest that Inez needed another dentist. Someone could come in at any moment and find them. "Guys, get home and say I wasn't able to have you overnight." I wasn't worried about the girls coming up with a good story. They'd come up with a better one than I could.

  "But we brought all this stuff," Inez complained. She held up a bag and shined a flashlight into it.

  There was about five miles of paracord, some duct tape, a ping pong paddle, and a rubber duckie.

  "Are those maracas?" I asked.

  Betty closed the bag with a snap. "We're not going to tell you what all this stuff was for because you're not letting us ninja rescue you."

  So it was ninjas. "You aren't dressed like ninjas. You're kind of dressed like the military."

  "We are revolutionizing ninjahood." Betty sniffed. "Wearing black doesn't blend in with stuff like camo does."

  "Good luck with that," I said.

  "Betty's smart," Inez said. "She's training online to be a ninja."

  "You can do that?"

  "Sure. You just need a credit card, and she has her brother's," Inez said.

  At least she wasn't using mine this time. I heard a noise in the hallway. These girls needed to get out of here. "Whatever. Take it all home, please."

  "Fine, we'll scram," Betty said. "But we'll bust you out before you sleep with the fishes."

  As they skittered away, I had to admit it was nice that they'd thought of me. I did need to figure out where they'd spent most of the evening, but I could deal with that later. There were a few hours left to sleep before people started waking up and interrogating me. I decided to make the most of it.

  Breakfast was a frozen sausage and egg sandwich they'd thawed in the break room microwave and a bottle of orange juice. I polished it off quickly and noticed a new toothbrush and travel-sized toothpaste on the tray. I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and ran my hands through my short, unruly curls. Until recently, they'd been green, due to an unfortunate dye job in Behold, Iowa. It took bleaching them and then re-coloring them dark blonde to go back to my original color.

  I was just starting to organize my thoughts when the door opened and a deputy entered and unlocked my cell.

  "You have visitors," he said glumly. He led me down the hall and opened the door on the left, ushering me inside. Then he left the room.

  It was a sort of break room with vending machines. Oh wow! Ding Dongs! And me without any money. Maybe these visitors, whoever they were, would lend me some money. I know I'd just eaten, but I was always hungry.

  "Merry!" Randi called out as she walked through the door, followed by her husband, Ivan, her twin evil doppelganger, Ronni, and Ronni's husband, Ron. "You poor, poor thing!"

  Randi and Ronni were Rex's older twin sisters. Randi loved me. Ronni thought I was the equivalent of an incontinent skunk with halitosis. Their husbands were former Chechens I'd been embedded with back in my CIA days, and they both loved me. Three out of four wasn't too bad.

  "We have something for you!" Randi was holding a box.

  The twins took baked goods to the town jail every week, which is how they had met Ivan and Ron. My mouth beg
an watering as I thought of their homemade cookies and brownies.

  I took the box and opened it.

  "Oh. Thanks," I mumbled as I pulled out a diorama featuring a cockroach with a curly blonde wig, using a nail file to saw her way through the bars of a prison cell.

  Did I mention that the women were taxidermists? They specialized in bizarre dioramas. Oh sure, they did the typical deer head on the wall or trophy fish like any other taxidermists. But if you also needed an antebellum ostrich in a pre–Civil War hoop skirt with matching parasol, these women were the professionals for you.

  "You're the roach." Ronni scowled. "Get it?"

  "Yeah, I get it."

  Randi patted my arm. "I'm sorry. We didn't have a lot to work with on such short notice."

  "Because Ronni hid all the other animals," Ron piped up.

  Ronni didn't refute this. Of course she had engineered it so that I'd be a cockroach. The woman hated me for no reason.

  "I wanted to put a real file in there," Ivan said. "But they were afraid you would get caught trying to break out."

  "And then they might shoot you," Ron added solemnly.

  "I wasn't afraid of that!" Ronni shouted.

  "Of course this whole thing is a misunderstanding," Randi soothed. "I'm sure you'll be out in no time."

  "She killed a guy! And she was wearing someone else's shirt!" Ronni snapped.

  "I didn't kill anyone, but I was wearing someone else's shirt."

  Ron frowned, his tiny brain trying to make sense of this. "Why did you put on another shirt?"

  "Because her shirt was too bloody, of course." Ivan shook his head and rolled his eyes. Of course these two former blunt instruments for a Chechen strongman would think that.

  Ron scowled. "We do not always have bloody shirt after. Depends on the method."

  "I didn't kill Tyson Pancratz," I said through my teeth. "I don't even know who he was."

  "I know, dear." Randi smiled as she looked at Ivan. "Oh darn! We left the cookies in the car. Can you go out and get them, honey?"

  Ivan smiled at his wife. "Of course, my little mutton chop. I will bring them." And away he went.

  That seemed promising. "Thank you for everything. But you might have to take the diorama with you." I squinted at it, noticing a small ninja beetle outside the window with a torch. "They won't let me keep this here. Can you take it to Rex?"

  "Of course!" Randi patted my arm. "We just wanted you to see it. Everyone is rallying for you!"

  "No, they're not!" Ronni took off her cardigan to reveal a #JusticeForPancratz T-shirt. Beneath it was a picture of me in an electric chair.

  "Ronni!" Randi narrowed her eyes. "What did we talk about the other day? Merry is family, and we always support family!"

  I noticed that she didn't insist I was innocent.

  "Um." I pointed to Ronni. "Where did you get that T-shirt?"

  Ronni grumped. "I designed them on Zazzle! I bought two dozen and am mailing them to our local clients."

  Of course she had. I needed to tell Jane, my lawyer, about this. If we ever went to trial, I wouldn't get a fair one in this county.

  "Rex says he'll have you out of here very soon," Randi assured.

  I nodded. "He's posting bail this afternoon."

  Ivan burst through the door with a plate brimming with snickerdoodles. Yum! I took them from him and dug in.

  "Who," I said between bites, pointing at Ronni's shirt, "is Pancratz? Do you know anything about him?"

  "How the hell should I know?" Ronni snapped. "But he's a martyr now!"

  "Do you want us to find out?" Ivan asked eagerly as he cracked his knuckles.

  The men didn't have jobs because a resume that says you can crack ribs and scare people isn't exactly useful here in Iowa. I knew they were bored.

  "Do you have your cell phones?" I brushed crumbs from my mouth.

  "No. We had to give them to deputy before we came in." Ron brightened. "But we can ask Libarry!"

  "That would take too long." Randi smiled at her brother-in-law. "And I don't know if it's open."

  "What do you mean?" Ivan asked a question that I imagined the twins got a lot. "Libarry is a person."

  Ron nodded. "Every town has a Libarry."

  Randi looked confused. I'd given up being surprised by these two a long time ago.

  "Explain, please," I asked through a mouthful of cookies.

  "Libarry is the guy back home who knows everything. We just find the Libarry here and ask him." Ivan rolled his eyes.

  "His name is Libarry?" Randi asked.

  "Is short for Libarryanovich."

  "We have to go. Now!" Ronni shouted. "I'm president of the Justice for Pancratz committee, and we are making posters!" And with that, she stormed out the door.

  Ron turned to me before following her. "I know you are innocent." Then he followed his wife out.

  "If there's anything I can do." Randi gave me a quick hug. "Let me know."

  "Me too," Ivan said as he crushed me in his arms.

  And then they were gone. I was polishing off the last cookie when the deputy came in to take me away. Only he didn't. He announced that I had visitors…again. And left.

  "Wrath." Riley and Kelly came through the door.

  Riley—my former CIA handler, one-time boyfriend, current friend, and private investigator—walked over and sat down across from me. Kelly, a former nurse who now worked for him as a researcher, hugged me then went to the vending machine and bought me five packages of Ding Dongs before sitting down.

  Best friends are awesome.

  "I've decided." Riley winked. "That I'm going to take your case."

  I tore open the wrapper on the chocolate-covered goodness. "I didn't hire you."

  Kelly pulled a file out of her purse and opened it. "Tyson Pancratz is nobody special. He works at Best Bye. Spelled b-y-e—I think they're a knock off of Best Buy. He sells computers there."

  Riley frowned, endangering his perfect golden skin. "Hey, she hasn't signed on yet. I don't like to hand out info without a retainer fee."

  Kelly continued as if she hadn't heard him. "He's twenty-four, grew up in Bladdersly, didn't go to college, and his parents died in a car accident four years ago."

  "Kelly!" Riley protested. He probably thought he had the upper hand. I usually solved his cases for him. Now he had a chance to turn the tables on me.

  My best friend glared at him. "What? What's the problem?" When he didn't answer, she continued. "If you think I'm going to let my co-leader rot in jail so that you can lord it over her, you're crazy."

  "Thank you," I said through a mouthful of chocolate.

  Kelly kept going. "We have a Girl Scout meeting tomorrow, and there's no way I'm running that by myself."

  "Um." I bit my lip. "Thank you?"

  "No problem." She smiled. "Anyway, there's no reason for you to kill this guy. At all."

  "I have no idea who he is," I agreed. "Why would I kill a guy like that? And how did I do it? I still don't know how I allegedly pulled that off."

  Kelly looked at me for a moment. "I know about that. Soo Jin filled me in. But I'm not going to tell you."

  "Why not?"

  "Plausible deniability. The sheriff will interview you now that the medical examiner's report is in, and you can honestly say you have no idea what happened."

  She had my back, which was awesome.

  "I could tell her," Riley said.

  "If you do." Kelly turned her stone-cold gaze on him. "I'll not only quit, I'll start my own competing agency."

  "And I'll work for her!" I slammed a chocolate-covered palm on the table.

  "Fine," Riley relented. "How can we help?"

  "You already are. Keep looking into this. Rex is bailing me out soon. And Betty tried to break me out last night. I need you guys to be my eyes and ears until I can use my own eyes and ears."

  That didn't make a ton of sense, but I was practically vibrating with all the sugar flowing through my veins.

  The s
heriff entered into the room and announced that it was time to take my statement. Kelly gave me a quick hug, and Riley winked at me as they left. Now all I had to do was make a complete and thorough statement for a night I couldn't remember.

  No problem, right?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The interview room looked like basically every interview room on TV. Carnack sat across from me. Behind him was a glass mirror, most likely with someone on the other side. I'd waived my right to an attorney for this interview because I didn't need it. I hadn't killed Pancratz.

  "Talk me through last night," Sheriff Ed suggested.

  "Okay." I thought about it for a moment. "I remember going to bed with Rex. And then waking up on the floor of that shed in Bladdersly."

  "That's all?"

  "Yup. That's it. Like I told you before, I honestly don't remember any more than that."

  The sheriff rubbed his eyes. "I should let you know that it looks bad, Merry. Very bad. There's a witness who saw you shove Pancratz ahead of you into the shed. He heard screaming and called 911."

  "Wait, what? Who was it?" I asked more out of surprise than concern. "I thought you said the caller was anonymous."

  "The Bladdersly Police Department withheld some intel from me." The sheriff grimaced. I'm sure it galled him that he had to deal with that when he was taking over the case as a favor. "The witness's name is Buddy Malone."

  "Who's Buddy Malone?" Why didn't I know anyone involved? "I don't know anyone by that name. Which means he doesn't know me either."

  "Buddy Malone is a security guard for the pawn shop that owns the shed. He has a flawless record—everyone knows and respects him. He gives to charity, is a retired pastor, and has never testified against anyone in all his seventy years in Bladdersly."

  "Pastor, elderly, beloved Buddy Malone?" I frowned. "That sounds bad for me."

  He nodded. "It really does. Are you sure you can't remember anything else?"

  "I wish I could. I swear that I've never heard of Tyson Pancratz before. What would my motive be for something like that?"

  "This." Sheriff Ed slid a piece of paper over to me.