Movie Night Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  The next table had Betty, Lauren, Inez, and their mothers. Including Lauren's mom—she-who-must-not-be-named (aka Bobbi). Betty's mother was named Carol Ann. She was a pretty woman with a blonde bob and perky smile.

  "You must be Mrs. Wrath!" The woman jumped up with great glee and flung her arms around my neck. "Isn't this just the most fun ever? I can't wait to see what we do next!"

  Oh yeah. Definitely perky. I was pretty sure I hated her. And what was up with the adults calling me Mrs.? It was bad enough that the girls did. But the adults should've known better.

  Hannah and Emily were sick at home. But I still had the other Hannah, Caterina, and Ava's moms to meet. The good news was I'd never forget Lauren's mother's name, nor the four Ashleys. But Betty's perky mom and Inez's sweet mom's names were fading with every second.

  "Hey!" I knelt down next to Ava. "How's it going?"

  This was Philby's table. While her kittens were enjoying their new careers as models, Philby was sitting and glaring at the girls. She didn't mind them petting her, but I got the distinct feeling she felt a little objectified and was not happy about it. Still, not one of them had even attempted getting out of the box. Should we ever be invaded by an evil, feline horde, all we'd need to defeat them are empty boxes. Maybe I should start stockpiling them.

  Caterina held out a bunch of rectangular pieces of different colored paper, all glued together in one spot. There were about fifteen pipe cleaners, all on one end.

  "This is Philby!" She grinned through a huge gap in her teeth.

  Some kids lost their two front teeth. Caterina lost six. At the same time. She'd told everyone that the tooth fairy had left her sixty bucks. Sixty! I think I got a quarter back in the day.

  "Of course it is. And these are the whiskers." I said brightly, trying to focus on her sculpture.

  Philby turned her glare on me. Some cats just didn't understand art.

  "Hello." A woman about my height, with very curly brown hair and very large brown eyes extended her hand. "I'm Lola—Caterina's mom."

  I took her hand and shook it, introducing myself. Ava's and Hannah's mothers introduced themselves—Megan as Ava's and Penny as Hannah's. I tried to find a way to remember them, but it was hopeless, because now I wanted nothing more than to get back to my Harry Potter addiction.

  Names weren't originally a problem for me. In the field, I'd had no problem remembering people's names because they were either my mark, target, or colleague. My life kind of depended on remembering who was who.

  "What are you doing?" Kelly appeared magically at my side. She had an annoying way of doing that.

  "What do you mean?" I pointed to the cats on every table. "We're doing a craft. And the cats are the models."

  Kelly looked around. "I was going to have them make pinwheels."

  I stared at her, "Like the Easter things that spin around?" I looked at the supplies. "How did you think that was going to work exactly?"

  Finn belched—which was adorable. Everything my namesake did was adorable. Everything.

  "I guess." Kelly had a glazed look in her eyes. "That's fine. Good job."

  She looked tired. Of course she was. The woman had a two-month old baby now. From what I understood, new moms didn't get much sleep, like ever. I couldn't possibly survive that. No matter how cute the baby was.

  Maybe I should've cut her some slack. She wasn't sniping at me. It was her lack of sleep that made her irritable.

  "Hey," I said, taking Finn from her. "Why don't you have your parents or Robert watch the baby tonight?"

  It was like watching a person slowly go insane. Only instead of a person, it was Kelly. And instead of slowly, it was, like, one second.

  She burst into tears, "You don't love my baby!" Kelly snatched Finn from my arms and ran from the room crying.

  I looked around the room thinking that the moms would be like, Wow. Crazy, right? But no. Instead they looked at me as if I'd just tied up my own kittens with pipe cleaners and set fire to them.

  I couldn't win. I really couldn't.

  "Mrs. Wrath made Mrs. Albers cry!" Betty and Lauren weirdly yelled simultaneously, pointing at me like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  "Single women!" I heard Ashley say to Penny as she shook her head slowly.

  "I didn't…that wasn't…" I stumbled trying to explain myself, but it was useless. No matter what I said, this room full of mothers and their progeny wouldn't take it well from a woman who could barely handle a cat and three kittens.

  "Women shouldn't judge other women." The perky Carol Ann glowered. Wow. She got dark in a hurry.

  I looked around the room and sized things up. I was outnumbered. When faced with these odds, there was only one thing to do.

  "Sorry," I apologized, adopting my most contrite look. "I'll go find Mrs. Albers and fix things."

  I fled the room as if being chased by peasants with pitchforks and torches (which, by the way, they still do in certain Eastern Bloc countries). The church was dark and silent. Where was Kelly? Finn wasn't crying—which would be totally useful right now.

  None of this was her fault. What was wrong with me that I couldn't behave here? All I had to do was keep people happy and learn a few names. But like typical me, I was fighting it every step of the way.

  Kelly probably felt like she had to be my mother too. Honestly, when did I start acting like a surly teenager? That wasn't me. I was an adult. I was very good at adulting. I stuck my head in the nursery, which seemed like the perfect place to calm down a baby. But no, it was empty. I worked my way down the hallway, checking every room. They sure have a lot of rooms here. I thought people only came here on Sundays. I must've been wrong about that too.

  "Kelly?" I called out as I hit the gym. The lights were on but it was, you guessed it, empty.

  "Kelly," I shouted again as I left the gym and went toward the kitchen. "Hey! I'm sorry. You're not hiding from me, are you?"

  Kelly wasn't in the kitchen either. I wound my way through to the room where we'd had the reception a few days before, finding no one. That left the main auditorium, or whatever they called that place where everyone sits to hear the minister talk.

  "Kelly?" I said quietly as I stuck my head in.

  The lights were dim, but I could make out someone sitting in the front pew. Maybe Finn was asleep. I walked over, trying to be quiet.

  "Hey," I said, laying my hand on my best friend's shoulder.

  She burst into tears, "I'm such a failure!" Finn slept in her mother's arms, ignoring the outburst—which was good since Kelly was a loud crier.

  "What are you talking about?" I said as I sat down next to her.

  Kelly wiped her eyes, but continued to cry. "I don't know what I'm doing! I can't keep Finn on a sleep schedule! And she only took about two ounces of formula!"

  It was like she was speaking in tongues. I couldn't understand what she was talking about.

  "I'm sure it's all fine." I put my arm around her. "You're a great mom."

  "No, I'm not!" Kelly burst into sobs. "I'm doing everything wrong! Did you know that in the last two months, I've called the pediatrician seventeen times? Me! A nurse!"

  Seventeen times did sound excessive, but I wasn't about to say so.

  "That's totally normal!" I lied. Or maybe I was right. I'd had no experience here.

  Kelly dried her eyes again and studied me. "Do you think so? Because Dr. Samuelson told me to get a grip and stop calling him."

  I'd need to have a little "conversation" with Dr. Samuelson. One that involved thumbscrews.

  I shrugged. "Well, what does he know?"

  She burst into tears again. "Everything! He's a baby doctor!"

  I didn't say anything for a few moments. I'd never seen Kelly in hysterics before. This was weird and completely out of my skill set. Kelly was always calm and in control. Who was this woman?

  "Well…" I tried to think of something to say. "You're a new mother. You can't be expected to know it all. Cu
t yourself some slack."

  Kelly blew her nose and handed the tissue to me. What the hell was I supposed to do with this? I got up and walked toward the altar. Surely there was some wastebasket up here. Right? Guess what. You'd be wrong. So, I walked to the back of the room and, finding a bin there, chucked it before returning up the aisle to Kelly.

  "You're right," Kelly hiccupped. "This is probably just my hormones going haywire."

  Post pregnancy hormones? That didn't sound good. I'd have to avoid that.

  "Sorry I've been so hard on you," Kelly added. "The Evelyn Trout thing wasn't entirely your fault."

  This was good! Now we were getting somewhere.

  "I mean, I should've helped you plan the trip and attended those meetings where you went over everything. I'd have known that woman wasn't one of ours."

  Great. Not quite what I'd expected. Oh well.

  "Thanks," I said. "So, does this mean I can go home tonight?"

  She laughed and shook her head. "Not a chance. I still think you need to get to know these parents. We've gotten lucky that none of them knew about the imposter."

  "No one knew?" That seemed odd. "The girls didn't talk to their parents?"

  Kelly shook her head. "I really don't think so. No one has called asking me to explain."

  I stood and helped her to her feet. "Let's get back. Who knows what's happened since we left."

  "The girls' mothers are there. I doubt that anything has gone wrong."

  We walked in silence back to the room. I felt a little stupid when Kelly took a short cut through the basement, but acted as though I knew that was there. Poor Kelly. She was a mess. After the lock-in, I was going to do some research on this postpartum madness. It seemed to me I should be prepared for anything. I just hoped it wouldn't involve weapons of mass destruction.

  We walked into the room and stopped, jaws gaping. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. All the supplies were put away and the tables were spotless. Nobody had bits of paper glued to them or pipe cleaners sticking out of their nostrils. It was almost as if we'd never been there.

  Meeeeeoooooow!

  Oops. Scratch that. Philby was at my feet, giving me a glare that, if she'd possessed the power of acid spit, would've killed me. The girls had apparently, decorated my cat. Philby's head was orbited by multi-colored pipe cleaners twisted in ways I wasn't sure were possible. Pipe cleaners twisted around her legs, body, and tail so that she looked like a wired up cat mummy or was heading out to Burning Man.

  The three kittens trotted over, each decorated in pipe cleaners. Martini had one tied onto her tail that she was chasing in circles. Bond and Moneypenny were swatting at each others' décor.

  I was just about to lecture the girls on what I'm sure Philby considered animal abuse when Kelly started to laugh. Okay—so it was worth it for that. The laughter was infectious, and soon all the non-feline critters in the room were shaking with giggles.

  Philby was not amused. But since she couldn't remove the pipe cleaners, she just sat there, staring at me. Yeah, I was getting no sleep tonight.

  Kelly had the girls pack up the supplies and then led us to the kitchen for a late night snack of cookies and milk. I kind of wished I'd smuggled in some vodka or something, but the church might've frowned on that. She did promise me we'd go back to the gym to watch the next movie. I just had to mingle with the parents one more time.

  We all made small talk as we ate. And I learned a few things about the moms. For instance, perky Carol Ann turned out to be a strange woman, who claimed she'd been kidnapped by aliens who taught her how to play the bassoon. Penny and Megan spent an unusual and unhealthy amount of time together and have given each other kidneys (not sure how that's possible). The Ashleys actually seemed normal, but I couldn't remember a thing about them. It was as if my brain was on auto erase.

  "Okay, girls!" Kelly called out. "Time for mani/pedis in the gym!" She gave me a glance and added, "While we watch the next movie!"

  The mothers and daughters squealed and raced out of the room. One of the Ashleys took Finn with her so Kelly and I could clean up. That was nice of her.

  "Wow," I said as I tossed an empty cookie box into the recycling bin. "We went through ten packages of Oreos."

  "And a gallon of milk," Kelly added.

  "Who's in charge of the mani/pedis?" I asked.

  "Bobbi," Kelly said.

  A loud hiss came from the doorway. I couldn't see Philby, but I could see spit flying up into the air. After a few seconds, the cat recovered and trotted over to me. I scooped her up.

  "Where are your babies?" I asked her. She didn't respond.

  "The Kaitlins took them with," Kelly answered as she scratched the cat's head. "They were talking about painting their claws pink."

  Uh-oh.

  "Well, we'd better…" I stopped. "Did you hear that?"

  It sounded like a thump outside the door.

  "Probably a raccoon trying to get into the trash," Kelly said, handing me a garbage bag. "Could be dangerous. You should take this out."

  I looked at the bag. "Really?"

  Kelly put her hand to her chest. "I'm the mother of a new baby. I can't go out there and risk leaving Finn as an orphan."

  I took the bag. "Fine. I'll do it for her. Not for you. For Finn."

  Philby walked ahead of me to the door. After sniffing, she arched her back and hissed.

  "I think you're right about the raccoon," I said. I picked up Philby and handed her to Kelly before opening the door.

  The body of a woman fell forward and face down on the floor in front of me. She didn't move.

  "What the…?" Kelly gasped.

  She immediately launched into nurse mode, dropping my cat and kneeling to feel for the woman's pulse. Kelly looked back at me and shook her head. I dropped the trash and helped Kelly turn her over so she could, presumably, start CPR.

  The body flopped over onto its back—unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling.

  Crap.

  "She's been dead a while. Who is this?" Kelly stood up. She looked at the body and then at me. "You know her?"

  I nodded. "Kelly, meet Evelyn Trout."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Rex showed up almost immediately with an officer I'd known and loathed in high school.

  "Hello Kevin," I said. He ignored me like he always did. He had no idea who I was or why I knew his name, and he just didn't care.

  "What is it with you?" Rex said as he put on a pair of latex gloves.

  "Excuse me?" I asked.

  "Dead people always seem to show up at your door." Rex checked Evelyn-the-Corpse for pockets.

  "No purse either," I said. "I already looked."

  Rex arched an eyebrow. "You messed with the crime scene?"

  I shrugged. "I wanted to know who she really was."

  My boyfriend looked at me like a parent exasperated with a toddler with learning disabilities. He looked at me like that a lot, actually.

  "This is Evelyn Trout." I pointed at the dead woman.

  The body did not respond. It was dressed in capri pants and a blouse, as if she was going to a barbecue instead of a date with murder at a Girl Scout lock-in. Huh. I wondered if playing dead would've worked for me.

  "This is Evelyn?" Rex stared at the woman. "The Evelyn?"

  I nodded. I was pretty sure I'd made that clear.

  "So," he said. "That's why you looked for ID."

  "She's not what I'd expected," Kelly said.

  "What did you expect?" I frowned. I know I'd described the woman to her.

  Kelly shrugged. "I don't know, really. Just not what I'd suspected."

  Bobbi came into the room. "Hey, Kelly, we can't find the polish remover…" Her eyes bulged when she saw the body. "Is that…is she…?"

  Damn. I'd forgotten to lock that door or do something to keep the kids from popping in.

  Kelly put an arm around the woman and guided her back to the doorway. "Keep the girls in the gym, will you? And don't tell anyone yet." She stood
there until she was sure the mom was gone.

  Rex shook his head. "I'll need to interview everyone here."

  "Oh no," I said a little too enthusiastically, "I guess we'll have to cancel the lock-in…" Then I could go home and have a movie marathon of my own.

  Kelly glared at me. "Tell me you didn't plant this body here to get out of the sleepover!"

  My jaw dropped. "Of course I didn't."

  Was that her hormones talking? Besides, I've only planted a dead body once, in Tangiers. It wasn't found for a few days, and in the hot African sun, that wasn't a good thing. Did you know dead bodies can explode? I didn't.

  I put on my most innocent face. "I was looking forward to the midnight calling of the aliens ritual with Carol Ann."

  "Okay—I know you didn't do it. But you could act at least a little more upset if we have to call the whole thing off." Kelly folded her arms over her chest indicating this conversation was over.

  Rex cleared his throat. "Ahem…now that we've cleared up that Merry didn't kill Evelyn and plant her here, we should move on with the investigation."

  Philby was standing next to the body, sniffing. She put a paw on the dead woman's left eye, and then started walking around her, sniffing everything.

  "I'd better go check on Finn." Kelly picked up Philby.

  I watched as she walked out the door. "You don't really need to interview everyone, do you? Kelly and I were the only ones here."

  Rex shook his head. "If anyone else had access to this room tonight, I need to talk to them."

  Remembering that everyone had, in fact, been in this room just before we found the body, I could understand that.

  "What about the girls?" I asked.

  Rex nodded. "Them too. I'll interview them in pairs with their mothers, in another room. I'll show the parents a picture of Evelyn to see if anyone recognizes her." He took a picture of the woman with his phone.