And then it hits me. The German stuff, the coddling, it was all an act. I have no idea what she thinks she did to help me, but I don't care. Mom is back.
"I don't know how I could've done it without you," I say with a smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Blue Hawaii Wedding Chapel is lit up like Christmas when I step inside. Dan doesn't usually turn on all the lights when it's just him. I close the door and wander into the office. What's the emergency, I wonder. Right after Mom's breakthrough that turns out not to be a breakthrough, I received an urgent text to go to the chapel.
That's when I see it. Dan and Mary Lou popping the cork on a bottle of champagne. They giggle like teenagers when it overflows.
"What's going on here?"
Did Dan give in and propose? In what universe is that possible? But here they are, celebrating in front of me. I guess he couldn't take it any longer. Poor man.
"Big news!" Mary Lou laughs. She actually laughs in a way that doesn't sound like something that makes puppies explode.
"Congratulations to you both." I pick up a champagne flute and hold it up in a toast. There's too much to process here. I'm just going to go with it, since that's my new thing.
Dan nods. He doesn't seem overjoyed as much as relieved. I can understand that.
"It's been a long time in coming, but she finally got me to do it."
"Way too long," Mary Lou adds. Her towering nest of hair wiggles as she nods.
"So—" I plop down on the sofa so they don't see me stagger under the weight of the news. What if they have children? I suppress a shudder.
"When is it taking place?" Oh well. They seem happy. I can't begrudge them that.
"Immediately!" Mary Lou claps her hands together.
So that's what's going on. I'm to perform at their wedding. Good thing I always have a uke in the car. But who will be the officiant? I don't think Dan can do it. Can he?
"And then it's off to Laos?" I ask.
They turn and look at me in surprise.
"Why on earth would we be going there?" Mary Lou barks angrily. Somewhere a fairy dies.
"For the honeymoon?" I ask.
The two of them look at each other and then at me.
"We aren't getting married, Nani," Dan says.
"Dan's made me partner!" Mary Lou shrieks. "I'm your boss now! And believe me, things are going to change around here!"
"But…but I thought you wanted a proposal?" I sputter.
Mary Lou's laughter has the disturbing ring of an evil mastermind. Were her outrageous demands just an attempt to get Dan to make her partner? It was certainly better than marrying her.
Did I get played or what?
Detective Ray calls a few hours later, once I get home. He tells me that formerly Real, now Fake, Live Ed really is John Gilligan. And Terry Flynn's fingerprints revealed that he was actually some weasel (I always suspected) named Reginald Blaine. The Feds didn't realize these two were working together, but he had a similar rap sheet, and they were going to look into that.
"Gilligan confessed to killing Allison and Terry Flynn, aka Reginald Blaine. The original plan had been to smuggle the contraband from Kansas to Kauai to Japan.
"Gilligan had started a business here on the island to avoid issues with the US Postal Service." A blazing neon light came on in my head. "Let me guess—Mail Your Stuff?"
"Yes," Detective Ray answers. "He'd set up the business under the name Smith."
"What about the insurance agents in that strip mall?"
"Alvin Smoot and Ben Tashumi? Why would you think they're in on it? I've known Ben for years. A bit of a conspiracy nut, and Alvin has a thing for pretty women, but both are harmless. In fact, the two are combining their businesses."
That explains the photo of Allison, and the clippings in Tashumi's office, and what Binny and I'd seen of the men together at that little dive bar. I just hope they never find out we broke in that night.
"And Rose? The employee? Is she involved?"
Ray grumbles. "No, of course not. She's my cousin's niece. You are a very suspicious person."
"Was anyone else involved?"
"What do you mean by that?" By the sound of his voice, I can tell he's confused.
I take a deep breath. I'm about to accuse someone with no evidence, but I have to know.
"Titus Allen. He's a groundskeeper at the resort." Against my own judgement, I tell Ray what Titus had said in the jungle. Of course, I leave out that I'd followed him. That would just make the detective angry.
"How did you know about him? Jimmy Toki, the head of security at the resort, brought him in this morning. He was running a pickpocket scam at the luaus."
Oops. I hadn't overheard Titus talking about murdering Allison. I'd overheard him talking about picking the pockets of guests at the luau.
"How did you hear this conversation, Miss Johnson?"
"Oh…I was taking a walk around the grounds and accidentally heard him. I thought he was talking about Allison though."
It was as if I could hear the man shaking his head. "That wasn't even part of your case. Now you're investigating other cases too?"
"I'm sorry," I apologize. "I got a little mixed up."
"Next time," Ray's monotone voice says, "leave the investigation to the professionals."
I hear the front door open and two women's laughter. Mom's home. She must have Vera with her.
"No problem, Detective," I say.
He hangs up. I feel bad about the whole Titus thing, and for suspecting the two insurance salesmen. Oh well. It all turned out okay in the end.
As far as everything else goes, Nick and I had ordered two bouquets of orchids native to Kauai sent to Kansas for Allison's and Ed's funerals. We didn't really know them, but they were the good guys, so we thought we should. And Allison really was an amazing singer.
Binny is on a flight to Felix, Kansas, with Andy. He's decided to move out here. I guess they're pretty serious. I never expected that, but I'm thrilled. They make an odd-looking but very cute couple. And I hope it works out.
"Nani?" Mom shouts from the foyer.
"In the kitchen!" I holler back.
"I have my new friend with me!" she shouts.
Ah. I should try to make a good impression. Anyone who tolerates Mom's idiosyncrasies is A-OK in my book. Besides, she'll need someone other than Vera to look after her when Nick and I slip away to Maui in few weeks.
My cell buzzes. It's a text from Nick. Found out who's behind the T-shirts. You are not going to like this.
Mom bursts into the kitchen, tottering on high heels and wearing a new muumuu. Where'd she get the money for that?
"My new business is looking up!" Mom smiles.
"Your new business?" I ask. Since when does Mom have a business? Nick's texting continues: Your mom is the criminal mastermind. She said you agreed to the shirts. And she had help from a friend…
My brain is numb, and I shove the cell away. I'm not sure I can handle this right now. First I need to meet the new friend. Pasting a smile on my face, I wait for introductions.
"I'd like you to meet my new best friend and business partner!" she says as she steps back to reveal the pinched face and helmeted hair of Mary Lou Gorman.
Oh man.
* * * * *
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ALOHA LAGOON BOOKS
Ukulele Murder
Murder on the Aloha Express
Deadly Wipeout
Deadly Bubbles in the Wine
Mele Kalikimaka Murder
Death of the Big Kahuna
Ukulele Deadly
One Hawaiian Wedding and a Funeral
; Bikinis and Bloodshed
* * * * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leslie Langtry is the USA Today bestselling author of the Greatest Hits Mysteries series, Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations, The Hanging Tree Tales as Max Deimos, the Merry Wrath Mysteries, and several books she hasn't finished yet, because she's very lazy.
Leslie loves puppies and cake (but she will not share her cake with puppies) and thinks praying mantids make everything better. She lives with her family and assorted animals in the Midwest, where she is currently working on her next book and trying to learn to play the ukulele.
To learn more about Leslie, visit her online at: http://www.leslielangtry.com
* * * * *
BOOKS BY LESLIE LANGTRY
Aloha Lagoon Mysteries:
Ukulele Murder
Ukulele Deadly
Merry Wrath Mysteries:
Merit Badge Murder
Mint Cookie Murder
Scout Camp Murder (short story in the Killer Beach Reads collection)
Marshmallow S'More Murder
Movie Night Murder
Mud Run Murder
Greatest Hits Mysteries:
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy
Guns Will Keep Us Together
Stand By Your Hitman
I Shot You Babe
Paradise By The Rifle Sights
Snuff the Magic Dragon
My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen
Four Killing Birds (a holiday short story)
Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas (a holiday short story)
Other Works:
Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations
Hanging Tree Tales YA horror novels:
Hell House
Tyler's Fate
Witch Hill
The Teacher
* * * * *
SNEAK PEEK
of the first Merry Wrath Mystery:
MERIT BADGE MURDER
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
CHAPTER ONE
It's not every day you find al-Qaeda's number four operative dead in a Girl Scout camp in Iowa.
The body was twisted unnaturally in the rope course's spiderweb element that consisted of a large wood frame crisscrossed with elastic bungee cords. Sadly, it was my troop's favorite thing to do at camp. Now I had to disappoint them. I hated disappointing them.
A man hung there. He had been in his twenties and of Middle Eastern descent. The neck was clearly broken before he'd been placed into the ropes at Camp Singing Bird. He looked surprised to find himself here. I'm sure the irony would be lost on him that in death, he really was surrounded by seventy-two virgins. Did it matter that they were grade-schoolers, I wondered? Maybe that was just splitting hairs.
I would've been surprised too, had I not been through this kind of thing before. But I'd seen this stuff in Syria and Uzbekistan—not in the placid, wooded hills of eastern Iowa.
And my second grade troop was due at any minute. I was pretty sure I couldn't pass this off as something adorable—like I had with the bats in Tinder Trails Cabin or the mice in the latrines. Troop Leader's Helpful Hint Number One—if your Girl Scouts freak out upon meeting a bat/mouse/wolf spider for the first time—tell them it's just a baby bat/mouse/wolf spider. Little girls are suckers for that, and soon what was scary is adorbs!—whatever that means.
I bent to take his pulse, just to make sure. Yup. He was dead. His glassy eyes were opened wide, and his mouth hung open. Dammit. I needed this like I needed wet work in the slums of Rio.
The sounds of giggles and singing came from the trees just around the corner. Any minute the fourteen seven- and eight-year-old girls who called me their leader would appear. I was pretty sure I couldn't convince them that this dead terrorist was a cute, dead baby terrorist. I pulled the parachute I was going to use for games later out of my backpack and threw it over the spiderweb.
"Mrs. Wrath!" The girls squealed in unison before tackling me in a sticky group hug. Kelly, my co-leader, smirked at me. She could get away with smirking at me because she's known me since we were six-year-old Scouts.
"Girls!" I gently pushed them away. "How many times do I need to tell you—it's Ms. Wrath. I'm not married." Of course, I knew the answer to this question. Ad infinitum. Meaning, they'd always call me Mrs. Any woman over the age of twenty-one in Iowa was Mrs. Clearly it was me who didn't get it.
"Mrs. Wrath?" the third Katelynn asked. Or was it Kaitlin the Fourth? They all looked the same to me. And each one of them spelled her name a completely different way. Spy work had not prepared me for that.
"It's Ms. Wrath, Katelynn," I said with a smile. Troop Leader's Helpful Hint Number Two—when talking to little girls, always smile. They cry if you don't. I'm not kidding. You don't know real terror until you've stared at the watery eyes and rubbery bottom lip of a cute kid.
The second-grader looked confused for a moment, which was to be expected. "Okay. Mrs. Wrath?" she asked again.
I sighed. "Yes, Katelynn?"
"Why is the parachute over the spiderweb? And why is it all lumpy?"
Kelly squinted at the parachute, eyebrows knit together. She'd probably figure it out, being a nurse and all.
"The spiderweb is out of commission, girls," I announced, stepping between them and the dead man.
A chorus of complaints came from the little girls, and I held up my right hand in the universal Girl Scout symbol for silence. They quieted down immediately. I once again really wished I'd known about this trick when I was surrounded by FARC rebels in Colombia.
"Head on over to the Peanut Butter Pass—I think you're old enough for that one now," I said in a nice save worthy of someone of my caliber.
"Yay!" The girls exploded in shrieks and raced off to that element, leaving me in the dust.
Kelly narrowed her eyes. "They aren't old enough for the Peanut Butter Pass."
"You'd better get after them before they start scaling the rope, then. I'll be there in a second." I shoved her in the direction of the squealing herd before she could respond. "We can't leave them alone for a minute, you know."
Kelly gave me a weird look but took off after the troop. I turned back to the dead man in the parachute. It kind of looked like he was cocooned in the web—as if a giant spider had caught him, poisoned him, and wrapped him to save for later. If only that was what had really happened. No way I could get that lucky.
With a heavy sigh, I took out my cell phone to call the ranger. This was going to suck. You think the CIA is bad with paperwork? Langley (CIA headquarters near DC) has nothing on the Girl Scouts of the USA when it comes to filling out forms and accident reports in triplicate. Nothing.
My name is Fionnaghuala Merrygold Wrath Czrygy. And I'm a Girl Scout leader. Well, I used to be a covert operative in the CIA—a career that has remarkably prepared me well to lead Troop 0348. (And yes, you have to have a zero at the beginning—it's very important for some reason that no one can explain.) I was a CIA agent, that is, until I was unceremoniously and allegedly "mistakenly" outed by the vice president of the United States' chief of staff.
That's right. I was outed. My name and photo were leaked to The New York Times "inadvertently." This is a fancy way to say that the vice president was pissed off at my father, who was the head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, because he didn't back the veep's reelection campaign (a fact even more curious because the VP was a Republican, and my dad was a Democrat). So, my name got leaked, and the chief of staff took the fall and was fired the next day just before going to prison (and of course, pardoned later by the president).
I, however, was not in a cozy corner office in the White House with a nice view, like he was when my name and face were broadcast live worldwide. I happened to be in Chechnya where—to my surprise—the rebels in the bar I frequented had internet and were devoted followers of The New York Times' online edition. (They also read Cosmo, but that's a story for another day.) It took me forty-two hours, two gunfights, a strange encou
nter with an armed chicken, calling in fifteen favors that I'd been saving, and a rather dicey drive to Estonia in the back of a jeep with no shocks to get out of that mess.
Back in DC I testified before Congress, got a nice fat check from my boss at the CIA, along with a short letter explaining why I couldn't work there anymore, and just like that, I was out of a job and internationally infamous.
It was Dad's idea for me to change my appearance, use my middle name, take on my mother's maiden name, and move to my hometown in Iowa. Dad's name was Czrygy. So brunette, brown-eyed Finella (the true pronunciation of my name) Czrygy became blonde, blue-eyed (you have to love what they do with contact lenses these days) Merry Wrath.
The sheriff and a few deputies arrived at camp half an hour after I'd called. I'd managed to get my troop back to the cabins without them seeing the dead guy, staunching their protests with promises that Kelly would make them endless s'mores in the middle of the day—something that would probably bite me in the ass later. The ranger—Bob Williamson—sat with me as we waited. He wasn't very happy to find a dead man tangled in his newly refurbished ropes course. That meant a lot of paperwork for him too.
"Huh," the sheriff said as he poked the dead body with his finger. He stood up and tried to tug his belt up over his beer belly with little success.
"So, what happened here?" he asked Bob.
I tried not to roll my eyes. We'd already told the sheriff that I'd been the one to find the body. But this old, redneck sheriff was only interested in what a man had to say.
Bob pointed at me. "Ask her. She found it."
I once again told the sheriff about how I'd found the body. I once again suggested that they comb the camp for whoever did this, since they were probably still around. And once again, the sheriff looked to Bob for answers.
Ukulele Deadly Page 20
