Inez rolled her eyes. "Kaitlyn number one! Duh!"
Betty said, "She's totally losing it. She didn't even see Kaitlyn."
"Let's give her a chance," Lauren insisted.
"She's cracking up, I tell you." Betty stepped closer, staring up at me. "And she has weird nostrils."
"What?"
The other three stepped closer, looking up my nose. I found myself dropping my chin to my chest to thwart them.
"She does have weird nostrils!" Inez said. "How come we never noticed before?"
I covered my nose with my hands. "Stop looking at my nostrils. There's nothing weird about them."
The girls exchanged a knowing glance I couldn't interpret.
I tried a different train of thought. "Why on earth are you following me?"
"You should take us for ice cream." Inez looked me up and down. "You don't look so good."
The others nodded solemnly.
"I should take you to get ice cream because I don't look good?"
"Of course." Ava scowled. Then she looked at the other girls and twirled her finger around on the right side of her head.
"Come on," Betty said. "You look like we need it."
How could I refuse? In minutes we were at the same ice cream parlor where Wally had last been seen alive. Considering the name of the place and the names of the ice cream, I wondered if I'd need permission slips from their parents.
Sugar Lips' was almost empty. After paying for four Hot Mess Hottie fudge sundaes and one French Tickler Truffle scoop in a cup, I herded the girls to a table in the front window, extremely grateful that they were too preoccupied to ask me what a French tickler was.
"Sorry about your Chechen friend," Betty said as she unscrewed the lid off a dispenser and dumped half a bottle of sugar on top of her sundae.
"How did you know Wally was Chechen?" I asked.
Betty rolled her eyes. "Duh. My grandparents are Russian. I know all about that stuff."
That was true. Her grandparents were Russian and had once helped me with an investigation.
"You know about Chechen terrorists?" I mumbled before realizing that of course she did.
Betty was fascinated with revolutionary movements, having recently been obsessed with the Basque Separatists and the rights of the Catalonians.
"I could tell by his accent," Betty said. "Grandpa plays shuffleboard with a Chechen named Vahka. He talks too much, I think. One day he's gonna get his feathers plucked."
"You know about the euphemisms?" I asked.
Betty pulled a folded-up pamphlet from the pocket in her shorts. "New CIA guidelines. Hilly sent them to me. Don't you keep up?"
"No," I said. "I guess not."
"Anyway," Ava said loudly. She considered herself the leader of the troop, and she didn't like Betty doing all of the talking. "Betty found out Wally was murdered, and we thought we'd better follow you."
"Again, why?"
The child shrugged. "What else are we going to do on a Sunday?"
"Betty has a police scanner at home." Lauren nodded. "She knows everything."
"So." Inez leaned in, her face inches from mine. "Did you do it? Did you…?" She glanced at Betty.
"Pat the Bunny?" Betty finished the girl's sentence as she shaped her ice cream into a rather impressive zip gun.
"Pat the Bunny?" I asked. "Like the book?"
The girl shrugged. "It works. We thought we'd make up our own."
"Yeah," Ava said. "There's also pop the balloons, mace the bad guy, and pickle juice."
"Pickle juice?" I asked.
She shrugged again. "We kind of ran out of ideas. But we all hate pickle juice."
"How come you aren't the main suspect?" Lauren asked. "I'd have thought it was you."
The other three nodded.
My hand came up to my chest. "You think I killed Wally?"
"No, I said I'd have thought it was you." Lauren looked at the others. "Man. She has really lost it."
I shook my head. "I didn't kill Wally."
"We know." Inez stirred her sundae into a soupy mess.
It was just too tempting not to ask the group of ten-year-olds, "Do you know who did?"
This was probably not the best idea. Involving a bunch of fourth graders in a murder investigation that involved international terrorists was probably frowned upon in the Girl Scout handbook.
The four little girls huddled together for a moment before Inez announced, "We have some theories."
"And?" I waited.
"It's probably in your best interest not to tell you at this time," Lauren said.
"Why not?"
"Because what you don't know can't hurt you…or something like that," Inez explained.
Betty raised her hand. "I, for one, still think it might be you." Then she carved the grip off the ice cream gun and ate it. This was followed by two quick bites that finished off her sundae.
"Thanks for your vote of confidence." I folded my arms over my chest.
"You're welcome." Betty dumped the rest of the sugar from the canister into her empty dish and began eating it with a spoon.
"We do have some questions for you," Ava announced, sounding like a prosecutor.
"Oh you do, do you?" I finished my ice cream before continuing. "And what if I don't want to answer?"
All four girls sighed at once.
"She's not cooperating," Inez said to the others.
"'Cuz she's guilty," Betty concluded "I told you guys we shouldn't rule that out."
"Even if she's guilty," Lauren placated, "she's got the right to a fair trial."
"We should definitely cover it up if she is guilty," Inez said. "We don't want to lose her as a leader."
Awww, that was nice.
"Right," Betty said. "Because we can get away with anything under Mrs. Wrath."
The other three nodded.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Nothing," Betty replied.
Four little faces stared blankly at me. It was terrifying.
"We are going to discuss this later," I promised. "Right now, I think I should get you back home."
A teenage girl came out from behind the counter and started to clear our dishes. It wasn't the owner. It was Kayla, one of the teen druids from the Cult of NicoDerm. I was their Bird Goddess.
The Cult of NicoDerm consisted of four seething teens—Mike, Heather, Kayla, and Stewie, who was their Grand Poobah or something. They'd chloroformed and kidnapped me recently and named me their Bird Goddess because Stewie knew that I broke into the zoo regularly to talk to Mr. Fancy Pants, the king vulture.
I hadn't been very active in the group, to be honest. It's hard to get motivated to go watch a bunch of insecure adolescents complain constantly about how it totally wasn't fair that there weren't any real vampires or witches or how their parents and 99% of their peers didn't understand their greatness.
"Bird Goddess," Kayla said. "We've missed you at group. Stewie's been upset about that."
"Oh. Right. Sorry."
"He says we can't conjure the spirits of those who have gone before us if we don't have 100% participation."
"I'll try to make it next time," I lied.
"Stewie says," Kayla droned on, "that one missing member has"—she looked up, as if trying to remember—"the potential to make us all look stupid."
"The potential to make you look stupid?" Having one less druid at the circle thingy was what made them look stupid?
She pursed her lips. "Maybe it was something else. I wasn't really paying attention because Mike and Heather were like doing it with their eyes."
I toyed with asking if she 1) knew what "doing it" really was, and 2) if so, how did they manage it with their eyes? But then again, that would go against my policy of explaining sex to the kind of teenager who probably didn't know what it was.
"You," Ava asserted. "Were you working the other night when Hilly and Wally were here?"
The accusation in the child's voice caught Kayla off
guard. "Who?"
"Saturday night," Inez said before going on to describe Wally and Hilly. They were pretty accurate with Hilly, whom the girls loved, but were less so in describing Wally as a super old dude who was short and ugly.
"Yeah." Kayla seemed uncomfortable. "So what?"
Betty stood up and began to pace. "You were the last one to see Wally alive."
Kayla seemed confused. "I what now?"
"Hilly was the last person to see Wally alive," I said.
Betty looked up sharply. "You didn't mention that earlier! Now we really have to work hard to find the killer!"
Lauren nodded. "We like Hilly!"
My jaw dropped. "Wait. You weren't going to work harder when you thought it was me?"
The girls fell into a huddle again, whispering furiously. I thought I heard things like amazing and genius, but I had the feeling they were describing Hilly more than me.
Finally, the girls turned toward me. "Okay. We'll work harder for you too."
"But only because you mentioned it," Inez added.
I sighed. "Great. I feel so much better."
"You're welcome," Ava said. "Now, who wants seconds?"
Betty produced my credit card, which I didn't know had been taken. "I'll buy!"
I didn't even fight them as they raced to the counter.
What were the girls talking about—thinking I'm a suspect? That was ridiculous! Hilly and Riley and now Bitsy were the suspects as far as I was concerned. Actually, I favored Bitsy in this scenario. I wouldn't mind having her do hard time. The woman had taken credit for my achievements, and then there was the video…
Hold on. If they thought I was a suspect, maybe the police did too? Why hadn't they questioned me? Oh, right. I was kind of on the lam, needing to get my thoughts together so that I could blame Bitsy for this whole mess.
The girls returned, and in a couple of minutes, Kayla approached the table warily, setting the ice cream down on the table. "Girls." She plunked down four more sundaes. "Bird Goddess." She gave me another scoop of ice cream.
Inez looked her up and down. "Tell us what went on with Hilly and Wally! What did they order? What did they say? What were they doing when they left?"
The teen druid took the hammering to heart, probably thinking that if she answered the questions, she could go back to the storeroom and her beloved cell phone.
"Um, the woman had the What's in My Pants banana split, and the dude had a scoop of the Naughty 'Nilla Nightie in a Madonna's Brassiere waffle cone."
"And what did they talk about?" Ava asked.
The teenager shrugged. "I don't know…stuff?"
"Think hard!" Betty slammed her fist on the table. "A woman's life might be at stake!"
Kayla looked to me to make sense of this.
"Sorry, Kayla. It's important. This is for the Bird Goddess," I said reluctantly.
"Oh. Okay." She bit her lip, and her eyes rolled up and to the right. "Oh yeah. The creep asked her to marry him, saying if she did, he wouldn't make you go through with killing some guy." She thought about this. "Is that some sort of metaphor? Killing some guy?"
She had no idea.
"Wally proposed?" I asked.
Kayla looked longingly at the storeroom where her phone was likely pining for her. "Yup."
"Did she answer?" I pressed.
"Answer what?"
I blinked a few times. "Answer with yes or no?"
The teen druid looked directly at me. "Oh. Right. She said she'd think about it and asked if he'd ever been to the zoo." She held up her hands. "And that's all I know."
I handed her a ten-dollar tip, and she scurried to the backroom.
Wally proposed as a way for me to get out of the hit? That seemed to make Hilly look more guilty because she could've killed him to get me and her out of these situations.
"Did you know they were going to the zoo?" Lauren asked, shaking me out of my thoughts.
"No," I answered. "This is the first I've heard of it."
"Maybe they were just throwing Teen Druid Drama Queen something to throw her off." Ava pointed at the back room.
"Maybe…" My thoughts were wrapped around that zoo comment. It didn't make sense.
"I guess we'll have to go to the zoo now." Betty shoved the last four bites into her mouth in rapid succession.
"It's closed," Lauren mumbled through a mouthful.
The others were finishing quickly because they realized that Betty was on the move.
"I guess we'll have to break into the zoo now," Betty corrected, standing up and pushing away from the table.
"No," I said. "We're not breaking into the zoo. I'm taking you home. Your parents are probably worried about you."
This was a silly thing to say because none of their parents were the helicopter kind. They were more like the send-their-kids-to-boarding-school-in-Mongolia-and-forget-they-even-had-kids kind. They seemed more interested in their phones than their daughters most of the time. I'd always wondered if I kept the girls for a whole week—would they notice?
"They think you took us to the mall in Des Moines," Inez said. "We can't go back yet. It hasn't been enough time."
The four girls stared at me like I was an idiot. I had to wonder if they were right.
"You told them…" I started before giving up. "Okay, fine. We will retrace their steps, but we are not breaking into the zoo."
"Does this mean we are going to the Cornhole?" Ava's eyes grew wide.
Inez shook her head. "I'm not even allowed to know it exists!"
"There are an average of 8.7 fights there a week," Betty gushed. "Did you know that?"
"8.7?" I asked. "How do you have seven-tenths of a fight?"
"Maybe only weapon-related fights equal a whole fight?" Lauren offered.
"Yeah," Inez said. "Like those pool stick thingies."
"Or broken beer bottles," Betty added.
The other girls nodded.
"We are not going to the Cornhole," I insisted. "You aren't old enough to go."
"When will we be old enough to go?" Inez asked.
"Never, if I have my way," I mumbled. "Okay, come on. Let's get into the van."
As I pulled away from the curb, I wondered for the ten millionth time since I started this troop what I'd gotten myself into.
"You should think about what route to the zoo would be most common," Ava said from the back seat. "It makes us following their route more authentic."
That made sense. I thought about this for a moment. If we took Main Street and turned right on Cherry, we'd hit the main entrance. Well, technically speaking, there were a number of other routes. The zoo was in the southeast corner of town, and Main Street bisected Who's There. But Cherry was the route I thought most would take.
"I can't wait until I can drive," Betty sighed from the back seat.
"You have six years." I glanced at her through the rearview mirror.
"Four. I can get my permit in four," Betty said.
"Yes, but you can't drive on your own until you are sixteen," I added.
In Iowa, you could get your learner's permit at fourteen, mostly because farmers needed their kids to help them. It was easier to have a kid meet you with the truck in the pasture than for you to run back and forth.
Of course, you were supposed to have an adult with you, but most farmers shrugged that off, believing that their fourteen-year-old kid driving in their pastures was okay. Surprisingly, there were no accidents that I'd ever heard of, so maybe the powers that be were onto something there.
"I can drive already," Betty said. "Remember when we borrowed your van and rescued you from that house in the country."
I did remember that. Like the girls would ever let me forget it. A month ago, I had been held captive in an abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere by a woman who'd planned to kill me. If they hadn't arrived when they did, I'd have been toast.
"Betty reads up on the laws of the road and everything," Lauren said.
"She's a good dri
ver," Ava added. "Except for running over all those curbs."
"She ran over curbs in my van?" So that was why my alignment had been so screwed up. Rex and I never had figured out how that happened.
I pulled up to the Obladi Zoo parking lot, and we all got out. The gate was locked. I needed to keep the girls from breaking in.
"Do you think they came here?" Inez squinted at the gate. "Or is there some other way?"
I knew about a back way in. On the other side of the zoo, off of a gravel road, was where I had parked when I broke in at night to visit the king vulture I'd "adopted." Mr. Fancy Pants and I went way back since a visit to the National Zoo in DC. He was on loan here, hopefully for a long time.
The back way was really hidden—hard to find if you didn't know it was there. Most people didn't know about it, but…
"Hilly knows about the back way in!" I leapt back into the car and waited impatiently for the girls to get back in and put on their seat belts before driving away because I'm all responsible like that.
We drove out of town, and I realized I was showing the girls a secret place where they could sneak into the zoo. I probably wasn't going to get the leader of the year award for that.
One time when I'd snuck out here, Hilly had followed me. She had joined me inside. She knew exactly where this was. Had she brought Wally here? I thought about the zoo's layout. You had to go over the fence into the red wolf enclosure. Was she trying to get Wally attacked and killed by zoo animals?
The idea was creative. The problem was Wolfie, the red wolf, was a sweetheart. Still, that might've been her approach. The zoo had some dangerous animals—something I'd learned from experience when someone once knocked me out and dumped me in the black panther enclosure.
It wouldn't have been too bizarre to think Wally had stumbled into the zoo and into the wrong enclosure. Problem solved. Maybe that's why she followed up with the Cornhole—to get Wally hammered so that she could pull it off.
But then, why go to the zoo first? To stake it out? She hadn't had too much experience with the layout.
I pulled over on a gravel road, and we all got out. It was almost dinnertime. I'd need to get back home or to Soo Jin's to make sure no one was worried about me.
"This is the back way?" Inez stared at the line of trees.
Betty started off, but I grabbed her collar and yanked her back.
Macho Man Murder Page 7