Marshmallow S'More Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  I stopped on the third floor and pulled my gun, gingerly opening the door. The hallway was dark, so I took no chances as I moved very slowly with my gun drawn. Noises at the end of the hall made me stop. I strained to hear in the murky dimness. Voices. Garbled. I slid closer.

  "You know the drill," a man with a clipped British accent said.

  "I do. Consider it done." I'd know Riley's voice anywhere.

  What was I doing here? Was I spying on Riley? That didn't make sense. The doorman knew me. Why was I lurking creepily in the hall? Why didn't I make my presence known?

  "Get her!" a woman cried as I made out a shadow standing in front of me. I began to run as if a rabid dog were chasing me…

  I sat straight up on the couch, covered in sweat. My training kept me from calling out until I knew where I was. Oh right. DC. With my troop.

  A glimmer of memory hung around the edges of my mind before fading. I'd had a dream. A dream the memory of which was slowly slipping away. I lay back down, wondering what the hell had just happened. Somewhere along the way, I fell back to sleep.

  The Kaitlins woke me up first thing in the morning by screaming. As I scrambled to my feet into a defensive position, they jumped back, startled, before running out of the room. Oh well, it could've been worse. Much worse. Because they've snuck up on me before when I've slept, I no longer take peanut butter and cotton balls on camping trips.

  I handed out breakfast bars and made a quick dodge through the shower before joining everyone in the main room. The girls were thrilled that Maria was going to hang out with us, and they swarmed her, peppering her with questions like: Do you have a cat, and can I pet it? and Are you a supermodel?

  Evelyn's door was locked, and she wasn't answering. Maria said Mrs. Trout had come out, seen that Maria was wearing her troop shirt, and gone back into the room. My guess was the mom had decided she was off the hook. I decided that pursuing Evelyn's involvement any further wasn't worth the effort. At least not today.

  After everyone had eaten, we discussed our plans. I'd decided to shake up the schedule a bit and do the zoo instead of Congress. It would give Maria and me a chance to talk and puzzle things out. From past experience I knew that there were too many ambitious and nosy interns on Capitol Hill. They were much more effective than any listening device the CIA had. You couldn't sneeze without the Speaker of the House finding out and asking if you had avian flu.

  We needed a little more privacy. And people gave you that when they saw you coming through the turnstiles with a herd of kids wearing brightly colored, matching shirts.

  "There was nothing on the radar last night when I checked in," Maria whispered as we watched the Giant Pandas sleepily tumble around their habitat. I was kind of jealous, truth be told. Well, that was only if I could put ranch dressing on the bamboo shoots they ate.

  "Still no trace of the call?" I asked Maria.

  She shook her head. "Riley either has turned off the phone, or its battery is dead, or whoever is threatening him has destroyed it."

  The girls squealed as the female panda stretched and yawned. Wow. They were actually stunned into silence. I'd have to remember that. I wondered if the Chinese government would loan me a panda and if they got along with cats. I'd have to look into that.

  "Do you think he'll call again?" Maria asked, giving the girls a huge grin. She was gorgeous, with dimples and perfect skin. The girls were totally smitten and basked in the glow of her smiles. I wondered if she knew hypnosis. That could really come in handy.

  "No idea." I was worried. Really worried. Riley could be dead. Soon it would be twenty-four hours since he'd called. The odds weren't good, unless he was holding out on whatever information they wanted.

  I'd been puzzling about how he'd gotten away from his captors long enough to call me. But the way he'd sounded made me realize he couldn't escape for some reason. Were they watching him? Were they having him call me so they could track my whereabouts?

  Good thing I'd borrowed a few things from the CIA when I left. My SIM card was untraceable. By anyone. I wasn't too worried that the yakuza would show up at the zoo for a standoff. But then, what would I use for a weapon if they did? I made a mental note to check the map to see where the lions were held. I wondered when they fed them.

  We made our way to the bird exhibit. The girls weren't as impressed as they'd been with the pandas. There were a lot of colorful birds in Iowa, from goldfinches to cardinals to redwing blackbirds. Maybe they didn't think these exotic fowl measured up. I was wrong.

  "Look at that!" Ava cried, pointing at a weird-looking bird.

  "It's a king vulture," Maria said, reading off the display plaque. "From Central and South Americas."

  The large beast had a strange-looking, lumpy orange flap over its beak and googly eyes that looked like the pupils would wiggle if you shook the bird. He seemed bald on top with a bright reddish neck. He didn't look real. He looked like a mad scientist's experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong.

  "I love him!" Hannah said enthusiastically.

  The other girls agreed and piled around the glass to profess their undying love to the bird of prey. The vulture stuck his head out and walked over to the glass in a lurching manner. He studied each and every girl up close before clacking his beak loudly. His wings flew open, and he displayed his white-and-black plumage. Clearly, he enjoyed the female attention as he began strutting back and forth in front of the window.

  "I wish we could have one!" one of the girls said.

  "He could be our troop mascot!" another replied.

  I couldn't take my eyes off him. He looked like an animated cartoon character. One that, if he could talk, would sound like Tigger and spew nonsense about cumulonimbus clouds or the color yellow. The vulture cocked his head to one side, and I could swear his eyes went in separate directions.

  The bird strutted over to the middle of the window, his head low enough to be halfway down the length of his body. As he reached the glass, he rose up, spreading his wings, and did a weird little dance. Pacing back and forth in front of us while flapping his huge wings, he clacked his beak and, well, flirted. Was he performing a mating dance?

  Each of the girls squealed and clapped, and the googly-eyed vulture then slammed his forehead against the glass and held it there for a few seconds. He kept repeating this ritual, as if he was convinced he'd find his true love in a group of eight-year-old girls. It made me a little nervous, and I wondered if I'd need a restraining order against the infatuated fowl. It was a good thing he was behind glass.

  "It's got to be the yakuza who have Riley," I said to Maria, my eyes still on the bird. "It's too coincidental that Riley's name would turn up in the chatter at the Japanese Embassy."

  Emily, the usually shy girl in my troop, shouted, "Let's name him Mr. Fancy Pants!" The other girls giggled. I looked at the king vulture. He didn't look like a fancy pants. He looked like a turkey drawn and colored by an insane toddler with an LSD problem. But oh, well—Mr. Fancy Pants seemed the popular choice.

  Maria's voice brought me back to our conversation. "You might be right. If that's the case, where do we start?"

  I thought about this for a moment. "I think the girls should tour some of the embassies for a taste of foreign culture, don't you?" I took out my cell and called Dad.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My father was on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He played golf with the Japanese Ambassador, who was only too happy to give a tour to Dad's constituents. In fact, he was so enthusiastic, he scheduled us for a tour the next day, first thing in the morning. That gave us a little time to plan.

  We invaded the cafeteria at the National Zoo at noon, commandeering a lunchroom to ourselves. I'd like to think it was because they thought we were adorable, but I'm sure the staff had wisely worked with groups of kids before and wanted to separate us from the other guests.

  My girls were great. I adored them. Yes, they were loud and obnoxious, and yes, they totally had it in them to cause proble
ms, but they were just curious kids. My feelings were a little wounded when they stuck us in a room by ourselves. The girls were eating fairly quietly—maybe they knew what was going on. It was small moments like this that made me love them all the more.

  Maria and I talked to them about the animals they'd seen so far and what they wanted to see next. There was a fair split between the pandas and Mr. Fancy Pants. I enjoyed this lunch more than I'd enjoyed anything else on this trip. True, the food was overpriced and tasteless, but give kids french fries and chocolate milk, and they think they're dining at a palace.

  Of course, the main topic of discussion was Mr. Fancy Pants. They were fixated on the bird. Nothing could sway them into talking about any other animal we'd seen. I thought it was a minor victory for birds of prey. I was kind of hoping they'd have stuffed king vultures in the gift shop. Take that, cuddly pandas!

  "Mr. Fancy Pants is way cooler than the pandas!" Caterina shouted in a rare outburst.

  Hannah shook her head. "The pandas were totes cray adorbs!"

  I was just about to ask what that meant when Inez stood up. "Fancy Pants can fly! And he eats dead things!"

  Hmmm… It looked like Inez was going to win this one on the gross-out factor—something kids found extremely important for some reason.

  "Why can't they both be awesome?" Lauren asked. She had a point. I was about to agree when one of the Kaitlins got in her face.

  "No! Only one gets to be the best." She folded her little arms over her chest. "And my vote is for Fancy Pants."

  "Why are we even voting on this?" Maria asked me.

  "No idea," I said, shoving a french fry in my mouth. "But you have to admit, it is entertaining."

  In a rare moment of diplomacy, Betty got between the two sides. "I think both are great. You guys should quit fighting."

  The girls slowly nodded and lapsed into a discussion over which animals were more likely to be eaten by vultures.

  "I was kind of rooting for the pandas, myself," Maria said in a low whisper.

  "The vulture was cool though," I said back.

  We continued eating and then cleaned up. When all the tables were empty, I went over the rules again. You can never state the rules too often with little kids. For some strange reason, they forgot them five minutes after they heard them.

  I also told the girls about our change of plans for the next day and visiting the embassy. They seemed to like the idea. Or maybe they just liked that we were going to see the hippos next. It was hard to tell sometimes.

  Maria and I firmed up our own plans for the Japanese Embassy as we wrangled the kids through the rest of the zoo.

  "You're sure your dad won't slip and introduce you as his daughter?" Maria asked as the four Kaitlins aped the gorillas we were watching. They were doing a pretty credible job. Thank God there was glass between us. One of the gorillas had a shifty look about him.

  I nodded. "Positive. Dad can keep a secret. We're just a troop visiting from his home state. Are you sure you're covered?"

  "I never worked in Asia. My beat was South America. No one will know me," Maria replied as she pulled Betty down from the enclosure fence. She was fast. A few more seconds and she'd have made it into the enclosure where the hippo was happily playing with a huge bouncy ball. Maybe becoming Scout leaders is a natural progression for spies and Maria would join the ranks when she retired.

  We were all set. It was a good plan for being spur of the moment. Infiltrate the Japanese Embassy, unleash twelve girls in an invasion that would mostly likely rival Pearl Harbor, and do some snooping while they had their hands full. Was it a perfect plan? Not really. But it was the only plan we had.

  "Jenkins is sending me the floor plan later today," Maria whispered as the girls lined up for bathroom breaks. We had to send them in one at a time. More than one and the echo from the giggling would break the sound barrier. Seriously—why did they build bathrooms with the acoustics of a 1950s cement bomb shelter? It was as if someone thought: Hey, this room is too quiet. Let's make it impossible to hear yourself think if a bunch of kids were in here.

  "He's discreet? You trust him?" I asked. Zeb Jenkins was a douchebag. No field experience, but you'd never have known that if you met him. One word of wisdom—if an agent had been in the field, he wouldn't talk about it. If he did talk about it, he was admin and had never left his desk. There was no exception to this rule.

  Jenkins worked in the research department. He was more like a gopher—fetching info instead of digging for it. But his dream was to be out there, under fire, in some third-world country. I knew that if he ever got that dream, he'd be A) wishing like hell he was back at his desk and B) dead within a few hours of his plane hitting the tarmac.

  "He's fine!" Maria waved me off. "He owes me. Big-time."

  My eyebrows went up. "Owes you?"

  Maria nodded. "I let him do a little field mission in Canada. It was nothing—he just had to pass some papers on. But I sent a few guys I knew to shadow him and make it seem dangerous. Jenkins almost had a heart attack. He loved it."

  I stood corrected.

  "What did he deliver?" I had to ask.

  "My mother's car insurance policy payment. It was due."

  I whistled. "Must be some policy."

  Maria laughed. "He thought he was delivering secrets to the Canadian Mounties. It was hilarious. I backed him up in a black van with all the bells and whistles. Totally priceless."

  "I didn't know your mom lived in Canada."

  "Toronto. My parents didn't like the heat in Florida, so they moved a few years ago," Maria said.

  The girls blissfully ignored us as they ran from one exhibit to another. I barely saw anything because all my focus was on the planning. We paused for a brief rest at the American bison exhibit.

  "Mrs. Wrath!" Lauren shouted. In spite of my best efforts, the girls referred to me as Mrs. Wrath. No matter how many times I explained that I wasn't married, they still did it. I figured that little kids only see two kinds of people—Mr. or Mrs. And while the feminist side of me wanted to scream, there wasn't anything I could do about it.

  "It says that buffalo can jump six feet in the air!" Lauren continued.

  Betty frowned. "These are American bison, not buffalo."

  "What's the difference?" Lauren shrugged.

  Both girls turned to me. I had no idea.

  "I don't know. But there must be some difference," I said. You had to be careful as a leader. Kids assumed you knew everything. Depending on what you were doing, it could be either a benefit or a problem.

  "Mrs. Wrath?" Ava asked, "Can you jump six feet in the air?"

  Hannah squealed. "That would be so cool!" The girl then proceeded to attempt a six-foot vertical jump. She did maybe one foot. For some reason, that inspired all the girls to start jumping. I didn't stop them because I knew it would wear them out.

  "They look like deranged kangaroos," I said to Maria.

  One of the Kaitlins jumped too hard to the left and fell on the ground. She was up in seconds and back to behaving like a Mexican jumping bean. The other girls tried even harder, but no one seemed to get higher than a foot and a half.

  "I could probably do it," Maria mused.

  "Seriously?" I was pretty sure I didn't believe that.

  She nodded. "I played varsity basketball in high school and college."

  "I didn't know that!" I said. "Has it ever come in useful?"

  Maria thought about this. "Once I had to escape by leaping over a four-foot-high fence made of broken bottles."

  I nodded. "I had to hurdle a goat herd once. Fell flat on my face."

  "Mongolia?" Maria asked. "Three years ago, right?"

  My mouth dropped open. "How did you know?" I never told anyone about that, mainly because while I'd cleared the first two goats, I fell flat on my face after the third. The rest of them head-butted me out of the way. Not my proudest moment, but I did score some decent intel.

  She waved me off. "Everyone at work knows. A yak he
rder filmed it on his iPhone and uploaded it to YouTube. It went viral."

  It kind of felt like a wall had fallen on me. "You're joking. Please say you're joking."

  Maria handed me her cell, where she'd already pulled it up. I grimaced as I watched myself fall facedown into a mud puddle. The caption read: Antics of a goat-jumping idiot. Fantastic.

  "Maybe I should show the girls." Maria took the phone back and walked over to Inez, who'd basically given up on jumping and was filming the other girls.

  I pulled something out of my pocket and aimed it at her. "Don't you dare. I'll tase you!"

  Maria laughed and shoved the cell into her pocket. "I give up. Please don't smear ChapStick on me."

  Dammit. She called my bluff. But it worked, didn't it? Mental note: Once we rescue Riley, have him make me a lip-balm Taser.

  A loud snort broke the silence, and we all turned to see the two bison standing as close to us as they could. The girls stopped jumping and swarmed the glass. One bison looked at the other and, without any warm up or trampoline, promptly jumped three feet up in the air. The other bison dropped the mic by pooping. The girls cheered enthusiastically as both animals walked away. I silently prayed that the girls wouldn't try that next because I was pretty sure we'd get thrown out for something like that.

  After a few hours of running around, the girls still hadn't lost any steam, but I was exhausted. A few years ago I could've run a mile through the desert and still had energy to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, retirement had made me a bit soft. Maybe I'd join a gym when I got back home.

  DC was a beast in the summer. Between the super-high humidity and the ginormous crowds of tourists, it was more like Hell instead of a relaxing vacation. I understood the allure of visiting the nation's capital. And to be honest, it was actually one of the cleanest, nicest capitals. Spend a week in Beirut or Lagos and you'd think DC is a mythical spa with sparkly unicorns.

  I was wiped. We needed to cool off. I felt like someone had dumped a wet, wool blanket over my head in the middle of hay fever season. The hotel pool was out, so what were we left with?