"No can do. It's against the Magicians International Code of Doom," the kid said.
"Hey, who wants a snack?" Kelly announced, and we all ran inside. It was a good distraction. Even though we'd just eaten, my troop never turned down a snack.
After a quick shower that did not remove any of the green from my hair, I searched through Aunt June's clothes. My clothes were back at camp. Fortunately, I found some clothes that appeared to be close to my size, right down to the bra and undies. Which was interesting because Aunt June seemed a bit plumper and shorter from the pictures I'd seen.
"Where did you get those?" Ava asked between gulps from her juice box. She seemed to be fully recovered from the earlier excitement.
"I found them. I'm guessing they may have belonged to a friend who stayed here now and then? Or she rented the place out?"
Kelly gave me a once-over. "Maybe one of her boyfriends?"
"I don't know," I said.
I didn't think Pete, Dr. Morgan and Virgil were this size. And that reminded me.
"I still have to go see the tooth and meet the postmaster."
"Maybe he'll recognize the clothes." Kelly winked.
"If he stayed here, why were his clothes in Aunt June's bedroom?" Betty tapped her chin.
Kelly and I looked at each other before she answered. "I'm sure he used one of the guest rooms. Maybe she had more room in her closet."
"Let's go see if we can find more clues!" Lauren suggested.
"On the second floor only, please!" I shouted as they ran up the stairs like a herd of elephants.
"Keeping those girls busy is exhausting." Kelly sat down on a kitchen chair.
"There's so many things here that are dangerous." I ran my fingers through my green, wet curls. "The bluffs, the river, the bugs upstairs…"
Kelly's eyes flashed with amusement. "You know, Ava has decided to submit you for a Nobel Peace Prize for rescuing her."
"I'd never qualify." It was irritating how the haircut worked so well—and maintained the vivid greenness. "Do they even know what that is?"
"Betty told them it was created by the guy who invented dynamite. Which is surprisingly true."
I pulled out my cell and opened the Amazon app.
"What are you doing?"
"Seeing what else these little river monsters have bought that we don't know about."
Ten minutes later, I'd cancelled orders for an inflatable raft with motor, two thousand salamander eggs, and a portable flamethrower.
"Who knew you could get these things online?" Kelly wondered.
"Who knew they'd deliver in one day. That would've been good to know in Chechnya when we were out of toilet paper or in Colombia when hand sanitizer ran low."
Kelly smiled. "You know, I should be horrified. But for some reason I can't explain, I'm not."
"You're getting numb to them. Your outrage filter is dulled," I said.
"I'm sure that's true," Kelly said. "I am impressed with Betty's newfound interest in magic."
I stared at her. "I know, right? I mean, most kids start out small with a coin or a deck of cards. This kid goes right to disappearing acts." I thought of Betty vanishing in a puff of smoke. "Where's she getting the smoke bombs? There weren't any ordered on my account."
"A magician," Betty said from the doorway, "never reveals her tricks."
"No poof of smoke?" I asked.
"No sense in wasting it on you two." She shook her head and walked away, saying, "Unbelievers. Yeesh."
She didn't have to work too hard to impress me. I was sold.
"Let's let them search a bit longer." Kelly yawned. "And then head back. They want to make cast iron skillet pies, and that's going to take a while."
"Okay. But first we stop at the convenience store." I pulled on a curl and let it spring back. "It's time to see if I can do something about this."
Another hour and a half of searching was all Kelly would allow. The girls came up empty and were starting to ask to get back to camp to make dinner. I texted Rex to say we would meet him back at camp.
"Hey, guys!" Hal came out from behind the counter. "Cobra, Asp, Rattler, Blackadder, and Viper," he called the girls by their camp names. Then he looked at us. "Hardy One and Two."
"How did you know about that?" I don't really know why I asked.
He shrugged. "Small town. Now what can I help you with? It isn't food. You bought enough to eat for a week, and I've noticed you've been going to Nancy's for most meals."
The girls were vanishing down various aisles. I checked my wallet to make sure I had all of my money and cards. I did.
"You don't sell guns or knives or blowtorches, do you?" I asked.
Hal seemed confused. "No. You need those things?"
"No." I waved him off. "I just wanted to make sure. Our snakes can be more deadly than just their bites."
"Are you looking for anything in particular?" he asked.
Yes. Information.
"Yes, actually." I pointed to my hair. "Your brother did a great job on the haircut. And, I don't want this to leave this room, but do you have any hair bleaching supplies and hair dye?"
Hal laughed. "I'm so sorry about that. Basil probably told you he could work miracles, right? He tells half the women in town that. They love him and don't seem to mind that their heads resemble Easter eggs."
I smiled sweetly. "This just isn't my thing. I don't like standing out."
And I didn't. It took me years to perfect my look for blending in. Dirty blonde hair, average height, not too skinny, and not overweight. It was an important thing in my former line of work. But green and white hair, while it might look normal in Behold, it wasn't going to fly back home.
"Basil has big dreams," his brother explained. "One of them is getting rich enough to not care about breaking the terms of our father's will and leaving town for good."
"That would be hard to do on a hairdresser's salary," Kelly said before spotting Lauren walking past the aisle with an armload of matches and Betty behind her with a gallon of lighter fluid. "Excuse me for a moment," she said as she chased after them.
"Well." Hal smiled warmly. "You can't tell either of my brothers anything."
"You three seem to be very different from each other. You must have the business acumen."
Hal thought about that for a moment. "Basil is the creative, social one. Nigel thinks he's the smart one—and maybe he is. He did become a lawyer, and he's been mayor for years."
"Where does that leave you?" I asked.
"I guess I'm the practical one. I don't make a big splash. I picked a business that was useful to people without being overly important. It suits me."
"That's it?" I wondered. "No big plans for the future? No ambition?"
"Oh, I guess as much as anybody." He spotted a car outside at the pumps. The driver was waving his arms around to get Hal's attention. "I'd better take care of this."
As I browsed the toiletries section, it occurred to me that Hal had really summed things up. It must've been unusual growing up sandwiched in between two ambitious brothers. But maybe that's typical for middle children, even if the age difference was measured in minutes instead of years. I was an only child. I had no idea how that would feel.
"No hair stuff?" Kaitlyn asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing here. I guess it will have to wait."
"Good." The girl grinned. "'Cuz we like your hair like that."
We joined the others at the checkout, where Kelly was buying what looked to be a gross of Pixy Stix.
"Are you crazy?" I asked. "That's just pure sugar!"
Kelly sighed. "It was either that or buy out the supply of matches. I decided to compromise." She took one of the Pixy Stix from Ava and studied it. "You don't think these things are overly flammable, do you?"
We got back into the van, and Kelly drove us back toward Camp des Morts. We'd promised the girls we'd do some cooking for dinner, and keeping them away from Aunt June's house, especially since they wanted to cave dive, seemed like a good i
dea.
"When can we do the ropes course?" Ava asked from the back.
"Like I told you, I don't think we can," I answered. "I'm not certified, and I don't want to press Toad into finding someone to facilitate it for us."
"But we want to do the zip line!" Betty protested.
My troop loved the zip line. They loved it so much that they learned how to use the harnesses, the helmets, and the equipment on their own. We always did zip at camp. But the only way to get to it here was to climb up to the ropes course. And I wasn't certified in that.
Rex was waiting for us when we arrived. His eyebrows went up when he saw each girl sporting a Pixy Stix as tall as they were, but he wisely said nothing.
"You don't happen to be certified in high ropes courses, are you?" I asked.
"Nope. Now if we had a rifle range like they do at Boy Scout camp…" His voice trailed off as five little girls pivoted in place to stare at him.
"Boy Scouts have what?" Betty shrieked.
Rex gave me a look I liked to call the I shouldn't have said that, should I.
"Yes." I turned to my troop. "Boys have a rifle range. And shotgunning. And use hatchets."
"Where are you going with this?" Kelly asked.
I wasn't sure myself.
"But that's because Boy Scouts have no creativity and get bored a lot." Did they? I was just making this up as I went along. "So they have to offer those things to keep them in Scouts."
Betty squinted at me. "Is that true?"
I had no idea. "Absolutely. Seriously, you guys know how to throw knives, build amazing fires, and do all kinds of stuff that would terrify your average Boy Scout."
Kaitlyn nodded. "That's true. My big brother is a Scout, and he's scared of us."
"Exactly," I agreed quickly.
"I'm not sure this is helpful," Kelly said.
"And like I always say"—I took a deep breath—"when we are doing something hard. If it were easy, it would be done by Boy Scouts."
"When did you ever say that?" my co-leader asked.
"Yeah!" Ava punched the air. "We're scary! Right, Mrs. Wrath?"
You have no idea, I thought to myself.
"And we have Betty the Badass," Lauren added thoughtfully.
"And Betty Machete!" Inez added.
Betty said nothing as she cleaned her fingernails with said machete.
"And," Kaitlyn said, "we have scary snake camp names!"
Inez jumped up and down in place. "And we're at a camp that's got ghosts and aliens!"
"We haven't seen any aliens yet." Ava looked disappointed.
I clapped my hands together. "Right! After dinner, let's go on a ghost and alien hunt!"
Five little girls screamed at the top of their lungs as they ran inside to get their bug spray and water bottles.
"I'm not sure this is better," Kelly said then yelled after the girls, "After dinner!"
Rex thought for a moment. "I was talking to Toad. She was here before you arrived. She warned us to be careful not to mess with the Indian burial mounds and to stay away from the edge of the bluff. She said they wanted to put up guardrails but can't because it's a sacred area. Did you know someone fell off the bluff and died five years ago?"
"We missed her," Kelly said. "I wanted to ask her about a trail to the ranger's cabin."
"We haven't met the ranger yet," I explained to my husband. "Unlike every other camp we've been to, the ranger here doesn't live on the road."
"There's no trail?" Rex pulled the map out of his back pocket. "I can see the cabin, but you're right, there doesn't seem to be a trail. Why would he be in the middle of nowhere?"
"Betty Machete tried to cut a trail, but we made her stop," I said."
Rex said, "Well, as I see it, we can do a ghosts and aliens hunt or try to find a trail to the ranger's cabin."
I sighed. "When you put it that way, I know what the girls will want to do."
After cooking and dinner, five little girls filed out of the lodge, each wearing a backpack and a tinfoil hat that featured snakes. If I had to guess, Lauren's was an asp, Ava's was a rattler, Inez sported a shiny black adder, and Kaitlyn wore a viper. Betty's, on the other hand, did not feature a cobra but a rather impressive flying saucer shooting aluminum foil beams onto what appeared to be screaming, melting humans.
"We should've bought more aluminum foil at Hal's," Kelly said.
Rex knelt down eye-level to the girls. "Hey, that's a great idea. Can someone make me one?"
Lauren smiled and rooted around in her backpack. "We made you one." She held out a tinfoil cap shaped like a SWAT helmet with a badge on the front that said, in black marker, To Protect And Swerve. "It'll protect you from the alien's brain-exploding thought waves."
"Thank you!" Rex stood up and placed the helmet on his head. He looked at Kelly and me then back at the girls. "Shouldn't they have ones too?"
Lauren shook her head sadly. "They don't get it like you do."
"Besides," Ava said, her rattler wiggling on top of her head. "We're out of tinfoil."
"They're just going to have to hope we don't find brain-melting aliens," Betty added.
"Oh." Inez turned to Kelly and me. "Since we're on a mission and all that, you don't have to call us by our camp names."
"We haven't called you by your camp names this whole time," I said.
"Aaaaand." Betty rolled her eyes. "That's why you don't get hats."
"That's fair," Kelly said, even though I thought it was not fair.
"Let's go!" Kaitlyn lined up next to Ava.
Inez and Lauren were behind them. Rex lined up next to Betty. He fully understood the buddy system. We always hiked in pairs. And he was smart enough to know who was the most dangerous in the troop.
"I guess I'm with you," I said to Kelly.
And away we went.
We started out giving Rex a tour of the large lodge, the mud pit, and the lazy river. Then we took the trail that led to four different campsites, complete with wood-framed and roofed tents, bathrooms, and firepits.
"I'll bet this is where the ghosts hang out," Inez said as we hit the first campsite, named Outpost.
"We'd better check." Betty pulled out a water gun.
The other girls did the same. Rex helpfully made his finger into a gun and showed them how the police would clear each tent. It was impressive how quickly the girls picked it up. By the second campsite, called Prairie's Edge, they were tapping each other on the shoulder and using hand signals.
Betty and Rex made a good team. First, Betty would pull out a knife, and Rex would disarm her. Then, from the seemingly endless depths of her backpack, she'd pull out a crossbow, and Rex would disarm her. Unlike all the times I'd disarmed her, she didn't protest. Not even once. Well, she did complain when he took that concussion grenade from her. But that was to be expected.
At the third site, Tinder Trails, Betty had given up on weaponry and was making a Ouija board out of tree bark and twigs to commune with the spirits. Rex found a pinecone and used it as the planchette.
We didn't find any ghosts or aliens at the fourth and last campsite, Pinetree Hill, which neither had pine trees nor a hill. Instead of being dejected, the girls turned onto the trail that led to the Indian burial mounds and bluffs.
"According to the map," Rex said, "there are four mounds. A turtle, a snake, a bear, and a fish. That's kind of cool, right guys?"
The girls grinned at him and nodded. He'd become a member of the troop. As long as he didn't start doing the floss (whatever that was) or saying things like "tope" (which I've since learned is a mashup of totally and dope), our marriage would be okay.
"I did some research," Lauren spoke up as we arrived at the first misshapen, earthen lump, helpfully labeled Bear Mound. "And no one has ever seen what's inside. They think there are all kinds of skeletons under there."
"It doesn't look like a bear." Ava bit her lip.
"It's supposed to look like one from the air," Lauren explained.
"Who cou
ld see it from the air?" Inez questioned. "Native Americans couldn't fly back then."
Betty said, "They obviously built them for the aliens to see."
The other four agreed. I did too. It made sense.
Kelly asked, "Why would they want the aliens to see a bear mound?"
Betty sighed with exasperation. "Hello. So they could land here."
"Yeah," I said. "Duh."
Kelly shook her head and walked over to the snake mound on the other side of the path, followed by four of the girls.
"Normally," Betty said to me, "you're the clueless one and Mrs. Albers is the smart one."
I cocked my head to one side. "I'm not as smart as Mrs. Albers?"
"Well, you are in dangerous stuff and finding dead bodies and all that. I'm surprised you didn't find one here."
Rex uttered a silent prayer of thanks for that under his breath and went off to join Kelly and the other girls.
"It's a compliment," Betty insisted. "It's tope."
I joined the others at the snake, where a lively discussion was in progress.
"I think the mounds are actually filled with alien bodies!" Ava said. "That's why you can only see them from the sky! So they can find their grandmas and grandpas."
"I bet no one ever thought of that before!" Inez was eyeing the snakey shape.
"We could be famous!" Lauren added. "Anyone have a shovel?"
I threw myself between the girls and the mound. "Guys, these burial mounds are more than a thousand years old. Digging them up is a federal crime."
"That's so disrespectful, Mrs. Wrath," Lauren said. "I can't believe you thought we'd do that!"
Huh?
"Maybe she wants to do that and frame us?" Inez wondered.
That turned quickly.
The girls wandered over to the turtle mound, shaking their heads.
I asked my co-leader, "How did I go from being the good guy to the bad guy?"
Kelly chimed in, "More importantly, how did I go from being the smart one to the clueless one?"
"Oh. You heard that, did you?"
Rex was trying to keep it together as he walked over and joined the girls.
"You aren't that smart either," I called after him. "You are wearing a tinfoil hat with a glaring misspelling!"
Take that!
Mad Money Murder Page 18
