Mad Money Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  "What…how…?" I stammered.

  For a moment, I really thought that they weren't going to tell me.

  Kelly spoke up, "The table behind us…"

  I looked around. Right behind me was the back of a man and two middle-aged women, one with a green bouffant and the other with hot pink highlights in her light blonde hair. Nancy walked between us, balancing a tray of apple pie. Her purple beehive glowed like a beacon.

  What was it with the hair here? I listened but only heard the women discussing the weather. The gossip had stopped. In fact, it seemed like the banal discussion was meant to keep us from snooping any further. Just what had the girls done when they overheard this? The image of Betty breaking out a pair of rusty pliers came to mind.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Kelly shook her head. She was telling me it wasn't a good idea to talk here. I'd trained her well.

  "Did you save room for any dessert?" Nancy stopped by holding a pot of coffee.

  "Yes!" four little girls cried out in unison.

  "Lady," Betty said as she turned her napkin into a prison shank, "we're kids. And kids need sugar."

  "Especially if we want to keep our leaders up all night," Kaitlyn added before giving me a wink.

  Kelly asked for menus as I studied Kaitlyn. I realized that I'd never really spent much time with just one of them before. The Kaitlyns, in addition to looking alike and sharing the same last initial, had mothers who were all improbably named Ashley. They'd always seemed to have one cohesive personality. I always suspected that they did it just to confuse me. It worked.

  But this Kaitlyn, after being apart from her three cohorts, was thriving among the other girls. In fact, by the time this trip was over, I'd be able to tell at least one of the Kaitlyns from the others. That certainly seemed like a reason to celebrate with pie. Okay, I really didn't need a reason to have pie. It just helped.

  Nancy dropped seven small menus on the table and ran off to answer a customer. She was back in seconds and took our order, which consisted of two slices of apple pie for the adults and four molten lava chocolate cakes that turned into five once Betty discovered they wouldn't charbroil any of the desserts.

  "So what's next?" Kelly asked as Nancy left.

  "We crash tonight and head over to Aunt June's house in the morning."

  I left out the thought that we'd probably have to drug the girls to get them to sleep. Too bad I didn't bring any of my melatonin brownies. It was something I'd been tinkering with to deal with the first night of any sleepover with these kids. I almost had it right, too. The last batch was so potent that Philby slept for thirty hours straight, and her narcoleptic feline daughter, Martini, had to be rushed to the vet to see if she was in a coma. When Rex found out I was using the pets as guinea pigs so that I could dope the troop, he confiscated the bottle of melatonin capsules and my notes. I think I could've recreated the recipe if I'd had more time before we left.

  "After the night hike!" Inez insisted.

  "Look," I reasoned, "can we put that off until tomorrow night?"

  Kelly agreed. "By the time we get back and unpack, it'll be pretty late."

  A groan went up that caught the attention of everyone in the place, and every single head turned our way. It was a new trick of the girls to embarrass and guilt Kelly and me into whatever they'd been asking for. It wouldn't work. I was used to being humiliated in public. After all, I'd been a Girl Scout leader for four years now. Nothing scared me.

  Ava pouted. "But it's our first night at camp!"

  "We always hike the first night at camp!" Lauren insisted.

  "And there are ghosts and aliens," Inez said.

  I explained, "Yes, but we usually get in fairly early to do that."

  Kaitlyn bit her lip. "Can we at least make s'mores?"

  "You're eating cake," Kelly said calmly.

  Betty finally spoke up. It was the moment I was dreading. "Sure. We can go to bed early tonight. But there has to be something we get in return."

  I looked around to make sure everyone was minding their own business. "Like what?"

  "We want to see the body of the deceased," Betty demanded.

  "Deal," I agreed.

  Later, when the girls were in the van, Kelly took me aside. "Nice stall, but how are you going to pull that off when they realize you fooled them?" She looked me up and down. "You don't know about a corpse stashed somewhere, do you?"

  "Technically," I said slowly, measuring my words, "I don't need to dig up a corpse because…"

  "You didn't!" Kelly stared at me. "Tell me you didn't bring Aunt June with you."

  I lowered my voice, glancing at the car. All five girls had crowded in the window and were looking right at me. "It seemed mean to come here without her. I thought she should see the place one last time."

  Kelly got between the troop and me. "She can't see. She's a corpse. No, scratch that, she's a pile of ash. No offence."

  "Right," I said quickly. "The girls get to see a body without really seeing a body. I think it's a win-win."

  Kelly sighed. "I can't believe I drove a pile of ashes here so that they could get one more glimpse of Behold, Iowa, home of the world's largest human tooth."

  "Well, when you say it like that, it sounds stupid," I mumbled.

  "It is stupid." She thought for a moment. "Where is she?"

  "In that box I set down by the fireplace earlier."

  Kelly shook her head and threw her hands in the air.

  "Okay, I should've told you," I said.

  She folded her arms over her chest. "But you didn't."

  "Well, duh! Because you would've said no."

  Kelly nodded. "Yes. I would've said no. Because it's a body."

  "Fine. I should've consulted you," I griped.

  She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, you should have. We always go over everything before a troop trip."

  "Yes." I pointed at her. "But this wasn't supposed to be a troop trip, was it? I was just coming up here for the day to find out what was going on. You turned it into a troop trip."

  Kelly lowered her voice. "Nonetheless, it is a troop trip, and we should follow all of our usual protocols."

  A slow smile spread across my face. "We can't call this a troop trip."

  "Why not?" My co-leader's nerves were getting frazzled. "We've travelled three and a half hours away with half the troop and are staying at a Scout camp!"

  "Because you didn't get permission slips," I announced triumphantly.

  Permission slips were a nonnegotiable part of any activity, and the Girl Scout Council required them for everything outside of a typical meeting. Not getting those signed forms from the parents was the equivalent of kidnapping the girls and holding them for ransom (although with most of my girls' parents, they'd most likely pay us to take the girls away). Kelly was hardcore about permission forms, and I'd even seen her threaten parents when they dropped off a girl without one. She always kept blank forms and pens in her purse, just in case something came up.

  Except for this time.

  The color drained out of her face. Without saying it directly, I was basically accusing her of not being the mature one. Or worse, of violating the Scout rule by being unprepared.

  She didn't talk to me the whole way to the camp.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Back at the cabin, it took an hour to unpack our gear and for Kelly and me to insist on the lower bunks. That was a tougher battle than anything because it's very difficult to escape from a top bunk without stepping onto the bottom.

  "Can we have a fire?" Betty produced an acetylene torch that I hadn't packed. "We can do it in the fireplace instead of outside."

  "Tomorrow." I thought about the urn in its box next to the fireplace.

  No fire tonight. It might lead to discovery of the body, which the girls might decide overruled the deal of not sneaking outside tonight. For a bunch of ten-year-olds, they knew how to find loopholes like a noose maker at a rope convention.

  Once everyone's teeth we
re brushed and every little body was in bed, and after multiple promises about seeing Aunt June's remains, Kelly and I turned out the light and climbed inside our sleeping bags.

  And then my night of foiling constant attempts to sneak out commenced. I was pretty good at it too. Over the years I'd mastered a death glare that could be seen in the dark. It was 95% effective too. The other 5% was Betty.

  Fortunately, we didn't need it, as everyone passed out quickly. Eventually, I did too.

  The next morning, the girls raced through boxes of Pop-Tarts because I'd said that the sooner we got to the house and checked it out, the sooner we could come back and explore the camp. I might have thrown out the words ghosts and aliens just for extra motivation.

  Exploring Aunt June's house would be just as dangerous as Girl Scout-eating bluffs and dodgy ghosts. This place had its own dangers in the form of three deadly spiders, a scorpion, a frog, and a caterpillar. And I'd have to figure out how to handle that before the girls could think they were cute and want to adopt them.

  On the drive down the bluffs and into town, we took a back way. It seemed that all of the town's businesses were on the main thoroughfare. Everything else was residential, with modest houses and a church every now and then. While they didn't share the decaying appearance of the downtown area, these houses were all ranch style or split level. I didn't see anything old that indicated that the town was the oldest in Iowa.

  "That's it!" I pointed out the window as we approached.

  The large, three-story Victorian was brown with teal accents. It was beautiful and intimidating, resting on the Mississippi with bluffs on one side and at least a two-block length of grassy yard on the other. It was the last house in the farthest corner in town and probably the best maintained property in the county. For a moment, my thoughts wavered on selling it.

  "Is that your new house?" Inez gasped as Kelly parked. "It looks like a princess lives there!"

  The others agreed, and even though I had no hand in it at all, I took a little pride in the place. I jumped out the second we stopped and opened the back door. As the girls got out of the van, I noticed that they were all wearing their snake lanyards and looking at me expectantly.

  "Is this a test?" I asked.

  Ava spoke up, "You're not taking our camp names seriously, so we're going to wear these until you memorize our snake names."

  I shook my head. "Not gonna happen. I can barely remember your real names half the time."

  "Ladies," Kelly spoke up. "We're only here a few days. Why don't you save your camp names for next summer?"

  "If you can't remember them now," Lauren reasoned, "you won't be able to one year from now. You'll be even older then."

  Inez agreed. "My grandma is really old, and she never remembers my name. She calls me Jorge all the time."

  "Who's Jorge?" I asked. "Your dad?"

  "No," she said. "It's the dog. Grandma's really old." Inez looked thoughtful for a moment. "Like you."

  I looked at Kelly critically. "She's got a point. You are old."

  "I'm the same age as you," my best friend replied. She looked at the girls. "Ladies, it's just not going to work out this time. We have too much going on to worry about your camp names."

  "And Mrs. Albers is old," I added. Three months older, in fact. But I wasn't going to mention that.

  "Okay," Betty said. "We'll change them. I'll be Badger Tooth."

  A rumbling of disagreement went up, as the girls all wanted to be Princess Badger Tooth. I couldn't blame them.

  "No one is changing anything," I said. "There's the house. Let's go."

  "Mrs. Ferguson!" Nigel called out as he caught up with me on the sidewalk. Where had he come from?

  "Go check out the backyard with Mrs. Albers," I said to the girls.

  They ran off. I heard Betty ask if they could jump into the river from the backyard. Kelly totally had this—even if she was ancient.

  "How are you, Nigel?" I asked.

  He made a face that indicated he wasn't happy with me using his first name. Then he gave me a pained smile. "I'm so glad I caught you. I have an outside party who wants to put an offer in on Aunt June's house."

  So soon? "I haven't even put it on the market." I was a little put out that there was an offer and I hadn't even been inside it yet.

  "Once you, the heir, arrived in town, people started to discuss it." He paused to smile for effect. "It's a very generous offer. They will give you $500,000 cash immediately."

  My mouth dropped open. "You're joking."

  Nigel shook his head to imply that he wasn't. It wouldn't have surprised me if he said he'd never joked a day in his whole life.

  There was no way I was entertaining the offer that quickly. "I don't get it. No offence, but Behold isn't a half-a-million-dollar location."

  Nigel didn't seem to be offended. "That is true. The buyer said they've always wanted this home."

  "I can see that, I suppose," I said slowly.

  "The buyer just found out it was on the market. In fact, they'd take it and everything inside sight unseen." He spread his well-manicured fingers as if casually looking at them. "I'm just passing it along."

  "Did he, or is it she, find out because the obituary was in the paper?" I asked hopefully.

  "The prospective buyer"—he dodged my question—"did not say how they found out."

  I was going to have to be direct. "By the way, was there an obituary? Does Behold have a newspaper?"

  He looked surprised. "Aunt June did not want an obituary printed. And in answer to your second question, no, we do not. We often get our news from that city."

  I couldn't help it. "Dubuque?"

  His eyes narrowed. "I realize that you are an outsider and don't understand our history." Then the mask changed and he smiled. "Maybe that is a good reason for you to sell."

  "I'll have to think about it." I smiled back. "I mean, I just got here. I'd like to look the house over. It would be rude to sell it without going through Aunt June's things. Surely you understand."

  I didn't want to keep the house. But he didn't know that. And it was a reasonable enough request to put off the buyer for now. I mean come on. If I didn't find anything interesting or discovered that she wasn't murdered, why not? There was a lot I could do with $500,000. I could donate to the Girl Scouts or buy thousands of cases of Scout cookies and give them to a food bank or take the whole troop to Israel to learn Krav Maga. The possibilities were endless.

  "Of course. I'll leave you to it." And with that, he turned and walked away.

  "Mrs. Wrath! You have to see this!" Ava called from the backyard.

  My heart leaped a little—partly from the excitement of discovering something new and partly from the contagious enthusiasm of my troop. "Coming!"

  I wasn't prepared for what I saw. The yard was beautifully landscaped, with flowers blooming, hummingbirds hovering, and the lapping sounds of the river at the edge. There was an elaborate, screened-in pavilion in the middle of the yard, which sloped down to a stunning stone patio with teal upholstered lounge chairs near the water's edge. I joined Kelly and the girls as they stared at the river.

  "That's the Mississippi?" Inez said in reverent tones.

  "Yes. That's it." I was a bit in awe myself.

  You may think this is strange for someone coming from Iowa. But the fact of the matter is that, just like any other place, you ignore what's in your backyard because you assume you'll always have time to go there someday.

  When I was undercover with Carlos the Armadillo in Colombia, I'd always wanted to visit the famed beaches of Cartagena but never did. In Russia, I missed Red Square, thinking I'd have plenty of time to visit. It was the same when I was in Okinawa with the Yakuza—I was always sure I'd visit Tokyo Disneyland. Fact is, I never did. And I didn't realize it until I ended up in Chechnya. In Chechnya…well, there's really nothing to see in Chechnya, unless you like goats and diesel fumes. And I'd had my fill of those my first week there.

  "Girls," Kelly
said sternly. "This isn't the kind of river you'd want to swim in. There are all kinds of dangerous eddies and a very strong undertow. We have the lazy river at camp. We will do that."

  Kaitlyn pointed at the undulating waves. "Can't we kayak on it?"

  I stepped in to help. "It's not like kayaking on the lake back home. River kayaking is extremely dangerous and unpredictable. No one kayaks here except for much older, seasoned, and trained professionals, and even then it's practically considered suicide."

  Just then ten blue and yellow kayaks, loaded with tiny, giggling Cub Scouts and their den leaders, rounded the bend. As they went by, the boys waved and shouted, "Hello!"

  "This is so easy!" one of the boys squealed as they continued down the river and out of sight.

  Betty narrowed her eyes. "You were saying?"

  This wasn't a moment I was totally unfamiliar with. The girls had caught me in a lie maybe once or twice before. Once where they found me hiding behind my bed eating an entire box of Thin Mints, out of season, when I'd said there weren't any more (never, ever lie to your troop about snacks). The other episode involved a different kind of cookie.

  When the girls were in kindergarten, Jo, the equestrian director at camp, had us come out to feed the horses. Everything was all squeals of happiness until they noticed one horse, all alone, off by himself. You might think little girls love baby animals or princesses the most, but that's not quite accurate. A little girl's first love always seems to be horses.

  After the tears and lamentations as the girls forgot about all the other horses and ran to Cookie's aid, Jo explained that they were getting rid of the beast because he wasn't good at handling a different novice rider every two hours.

  Even though it's a reference they didn't know, it was as if she'd said glue factory. The righteous fury of the Brownies decried the loss of a horse who was ignorant to his dire fate, munching hay five feet away from them.

  For an entire year, all the girls talked about was Cookie the horse. Every craft we made had some incarnation of Cookie. When we worked on knots, someone invariably made one that resembled the horse. Most plays, drawings, and songs featured Cookie dying sad and alone. And every time, the girls would burst into tears over his demise.