Mosquito Bite Murder

by Leslie Langtry

"Anyway…I don't have proof for this part, but I think Hilly discovered Chad and tried to take him out of the equation. She kidnapped him and, thinking he was dead, inadvertently brought him with her."

  Hilly raised her hand. "I really thought he was dead. It never happens, but occasionally you get someone whose physiology cheats death, and I'd just learned the three-finger death strike, so I guess I hadn't quite perfected it yet."

  The Bettys pointed at Hilly and looked accusingly at me.

  "I can teach you when we get back," Hilly replied to them. "But since I'm apparently not that great at it, it might not work. It didn't seem to do anything more than knock Chad out. I had him in my car and was planning to come in, warn Maria, and then go find a dumpster, because I really like the dumpster thing."

  My mouth fell open. I had suspected as much but certainly hadn't expected Hilly to admit all of it. That was a nice bonus, and a somewhat terrifying one, since I didn't want her to teach the girls how to use pressure points to kill someone.

  "Why didn't you use the one-finger death kill?" Lauren asked eagerly.

  "I'd hurt my trigger finger in Yemen not too long ago," Hilly explained. "Three fingers seemed more doable."

  The little girls took out notebooks and started writing this down.

  "So, Chad escaped from your car and ran into the woods," I suggested. "When you arrived and discovered he was alive, you decided not to kill him until we got back to civilization."

  "Well duh!" Hilly said. "Do you know how hard it would've been to drag a guy like that for hours through a forest with no discernible trails?"

  Riley asked, "But why did you kill Chad here?"

  "I don't think she did," I said. "I don't think Chad was dead at all. I think Hilly used some sort of poison on him that slowed his heartbeat—maybe put him in a sort of coma."

  Hilly beamed and gave me the thumbs-up. "He was totally annoying. Am I right?"

  "How did you figure that out?" Ada asked me.

  "I was thinking about vampire ticks. I made them up. And then the other night, it seemed like they now existed. Something I'd made up became real. I don't know why, but that triggered the memory that I hadn't seen Chad's body go into the freezer. I don't think he was ever there."

  Inez looked across the room. "But we did. We saw them take him away."

  Riley glanced at her. "Them? Who else besides Hilly took him away?"

  I answered. "Hilly…and Laura. They took Chad to one of the tents in Deer End, I think. To be honest, I'm pretty sure Chad is dead now. I only know he was alive when Hilly and Laura took him away."

  Betty Sr. held up her hand. "How did Hilly get Laura to do that? And why didn't Laura tell us about it later?"

  The other ladies all nodded. Except for Laura, who looked down at the floor.

  I wasn't quite sure how to break this news to them. "Because Laura isn't Laura. She's Laura's twin."

  "My name is Lisa" was all the Laura who wasn't Laura said.

  The other women just stared at her with their mouths open for a moment.

  "But we're orphans and we were told we didn't have any family!" Esme insisted.

  "That's technically true," I said. "But I'm guessing Lisa and Laura were split up as babies. Lisa was adopted out. At some point Lisa found out she was a twin and, I think, was looking for Laura for years. Is that right?"

  Lisa nodded but didn't offer up any new information.

  Betty Sr. wondered aloud. "Then, where's Laura?"

  "I suspect she's in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Because Lisa came here to hide by taking her place." I looked right at her. "Somehow you're connected to the CIA, aren't you?"

  Lisa nodded again.

  I continued, "Hilly and Maria recognized you. But so did Chad, who, in losing Maria, decided he had intel to barter regarding Lisa. It's possible he was going to turn double agent and give that info to someone who shouldn't have it. It does happen, sadly, because it can be very lucrative. And Hilly spirited him away in hopes of interrogating him. My guess is that it didn't go well for Chad."

  "Lisa did some work for us in Kabul. Chad wanted to contact them to say where she was, for a price. He would've turned traitor if we let him go." Hilly grinned. "Want to know where the body is?" She was bouncing on the edge of her seat.

  "Yes!" Betty Jr. said.

  I jumped in. "No. I think it would be best if we didn't mention Chad anymore. Don't you think?"

  Hilly grumbled but agreed.

  "How did you know this wasn't Laura?" Esme stared at Lisa.

  "It started when Esme said that a certain root vegetable"—if I could, I was never going to say rutabaga again—"looked just like turnips. And the Sharons said their old leader could tell them apart when she realized one of them had a mole on the back of their neck. Then I remembered your Betty saying that the Sharons often hypnotized you guys. She even said there was a whole year where Laura thought she was a different person. That's because she literally was."

  Lisa frowned. "I never said I thought I was a different person."

  Betty Sr. spoke up. "You never said it. You just didn't act like Laura, so I thought you were mentally confused." She looked at all of us. "She got better."

  I held up the two photos. "Lisa has a very small birthmark on the back of her neck. I noticed it the other day when she put her hair up. Laura doesn't." I showed the photo of the girls as teens. "And in these photos"—I held up the one of the girls at ten—"there's no birthmark."

  "Laura never wore ponytails," Esme said. "And we did think she was off that year."

  I nodded. "You took it in stride that after that year, Laura would have a few quirks and ignored your gut instinct."

  Riley asked, "Why didn't you just stay here with Laura?"

  Lisa shrugged. "Laura thought the others would think one of us was a Communist spy. She thought it would be better to swap out."

  Maria raised her hand. "I think the danger is over for Lisa. I remember her case and recently intercepted some intel that the people who were looking for her are dead."

  "Thanks to me." Hilly nodded. "You're welcome."

  I was a little alarmed that Hilly was disclosing so much classified information. The pinky swear was a powerful motivator, but I was pretty sure the girls would want to know more in the future. If they let it slip during a meeting, Kelly would straight up kill me.

  Riley held up his hands. "Hilly killed Chad and was looking for Maria. Laura is really Lisa. Who are the two guys from last night?"

  I wasn't so sure about this part. "I think Hilly was never interested in catching Maria. I think she wanted to warn her. But then, when Chad showed up, she realized the agency might send more guys. And that's what happened. The two guys were probably looking for Maria, Hilly, and Chad."

  We all looked at Hilly.

  "Are they dead too?" Inez asked.

  Hilly shook her head. "No. And they're getting a beat down when they get back to Langley for making a mess of things."

  "You let them live?" Betty Sr. frowned.

  "Absolutely," Hilly responded. "And I warned them not to say a word if they didn't want me coming after them. But when I get back, they're literally getting a beat down because I'm reporting them to HR."

  I thought of the dominatrices who ran HR, and apparently so did Riley, because he grinned.

  "So," I finished. "That's it. That's the whole story."

  "No it's not." The younger Betty wagged a finger at me. "You got up two nights and ran into the woods."

  "I think the first time I was hallucinating from being hypnotized." I glared at the Sharons, who beamed with pride. "But the second one, I don't think it was what we thought it was."

  Lauren's right eyebrow went up. "What do you think it was?"

  "Well, I believe it was Old Eisenhower, hauling himself back to the lake." Exhaustion and pain were starting to wear me down. I clapped my hands. "It's getting late, I've had no sleep, and we have a long hike ahead of us. Who's with us?"

  It took all of
ten minutes for the women to say goodbye to the camp. They didn't seem sentimental about it, which I found kind of surprising until Ada explained it. She told me that they hadn't really had any interest in going back until they met us and found out all they were missing out on, like cell phones that take pictures and flying cars (I guess they didn't really believe me on that one).

  The girls spent the hours teaching the women various camp songs. Riley, Hilly, and I hiked together, and Hilly told us where Chad's body was. Turns out he was part of the reason Hilly kept going back to the lake. Even though it was unlikely that anyone would ever come out here again, she wanted to make sure he was buried deep.

  Larry didn't follow us out. He roamed around inside the lodge, staring at everything as if thinking that this would make a nice den. We were only about fifteen minutes out when I could swear that in the distance, between the tightly woven trees, I spotted a mountain lion riding very slowly on the back of a giant snapping turtle.

  "I'm sorry, girls," I told my troop. "We have burned through our time, so we can't do Adventureland as we'd planned."

  Inez smiled. "That's okay, Mrs. Wrath. This was way better than some dumb old amusement park."

  The other girls nodded in agreement. Obviously murder, spies, hermits, and potatoes for every meal were an improvement on roller coasters. I wasn't sure how I felt about that but kept it to myself in hopes they wouldn't repeat these sentiments to Kelly when we got back.

  It was a long slog. All six women came with us, and to my surprise, had amazing stamina for the trip. Having Hilly's wagon helped with carrying the gear and their duffels. There were a couple of times when I thought of throwing it all out and climbing in there to take a nap, but I worried that it wouldn't set the right example.

  "You know what bothers me about you?" Hilly asked while we were coming close to the hilltop. "You are always accusing me of killing people."

  "Well," I pointed out, "you are an assassin. And you did kill Chad."

  "That's fair." She rubbed her chin. "But did it occur to you that I don't kill people all the time? I mean can you imagine if that was my entire job?"

  "It literally is your entire job," I replied. And then it occurred to me. "Hey! You actually said killing people! You didn't use a euphemism!"

  She waved me off. "It gets old sometimes, and I'm running out of them. You can only say dethroned the lobster king so many times before it loses its gravitas, don't you think?"

  I agreed, because how could I argue with that?

  * * *

  We split up back at the hill, with Hilly and Maria heading to Hilly's SUV and the rest to my van. Don't tell anyone, but I managed to get six women and six girls into my van by dropping the last two rows of seats. The whole way to the diner I was concerned that we'd get pulled over and the state police would think I was smuggling elderly white women.

  The Cyclones Diner sat alone on the interstate. Thank God it was open twenty-four hours, or we wouldn't have made it home. Also thankfully, it was dark when we pulled in. It looked like a clown car spitting out little girls and elderly ladies. And since we were the only ones in the place, the staff had no problem setting up one long table for fourteen.

  "Oh, my…" Esme shuddered after her first bite of a burger with fries. "It's been so long, I forgot what proper meat tasted like!"

  "Proper meat?" Riley asked as he poured dressing on his salad.

  "A few years ago," one of the Sharons said, "Betty shaped some eggplant into a steak. But it wasn't the same at all."

  Betty Sr. wiped her hands on a napkin and nodded. "I probably shouldn't have left in the stems."

  Everyone but Riley was attacking a large hamburger and fries and washing it down with triple-thick shakes.

  "How can you eat that?" I pointed at his plate.

  He patted his abs. "I need to get back into shape, pronto. I have a date this weekend, and I can't let myself fall apart."

  "You aren't normal," I said before sipping my shake. "All those days with boiled potatoes and you get a salad."

  "You don't know what you're missing. This has tomatoes, lean grilled chicken, hardboiled eggs, and dressing." Riley studied his salad carefully. "But it is missing something…"

  "Yeah, real food." I pointed a fry at him.

  "I've got it!" he said. "You know what this needs?" He grinned before snapping his fingers.

  "Rutabaga!" I shouted.

  I really needed to have a chat with the Sharons.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A week later Hilly texted to say that I was right about everything, and she reported that the two men I'd taken on in the lodge were demoted when it was discovered that Hilly was involved. Turns out that like very sensible people, they were afraid of her, so they didn't look too hard for her while at Camp Deerpath. She says they are both manning a station in the Arctic Circle, keeping an eye on suspicious puffins.

  Hilly signed off with a strange comment about herding ferrets in Tunisia. I chastised her for going back to the euphemisms, before I found out that she literally was in North Africa to do just that. Apparently she was housesitting for a vacationing friend who owned two dozen ferrets. She sent me a video of herself with the weasels. It was a bit disturbing.

  On the other hand, Maria disappeared without a trace. Riley and I spent several hours trying to figure out how we could help her without ending up in a maximum security prison for committing treason. We gave up when we realized it wasn't worth it. Maybe someday she and I could meet for brunch and I could get the whole story out of her. Someplace nice, where they don't have extradition to the U.S. There's a tiny restaurant in Syria where they have a never-ending bucket of donuts. I do like donuts.

  As for Troop 0014, I was surprised how easily the women adapted to life in Who's There. After spending a week playing with the microwave and TV (and getting them confused more than once), they spent three solid days eating all the junk food in my house and bingeing reality shows. Rex and Riley helped me set up two sets of bunkbeds in the guest room, and we added a second bed to my old master bedroom.

  Kelly took to the group immediately but to my surprise did not see any similarities between the older women and the six girls in our troop. My co-leader was even impressed that I'd handled everything so well—mostly because I left out the parts where I'd done something less than responsible. The girls, on the other hand, entertained the rest of the troop by re-enacting my canoeing accident and brush with danger with Hilly's thigh. Unfortunately, it was a hit, and I knew that for years to come, it would be a staple story for future camping trips.

  Rex liked the ladies too, and together we went over daily to check up on them. We were introducing them to the world from 1966 on through brief discussions on history. At this point we were on the Berlin Wall coming down and communism imploding. They took it pretty well, considering.

  At first, the Girl Scout Council didn't know what to do with the old troop. They were embarrassed that no one knew the women had spent more than fifty years living at an abandoned camp. They also felt protective and somewhat responsible for them. It was decided that next summer, they would help out at the local camp. Betty Sr. is still trying to push the idea of torture training. She may wear them down yet.

  The Abbott Trust was a bit less than enthusiastic about the fact that there had been six women living in their nature preserve all this time. At first they were furious. But when I pointed out that this was on them for not knowing about it, they decided to give each woman a settlement of $40,000 to move on with their lives. It wasn't much, but they thought that when the story hit the papers, they could say they'd done right by them. So far the media didn't know about these ladies, but it was just a matter of time.

  Betty Jr. introduced Betty Sr. to Amazon Prime and conned her into spending some of that money on replicas of medieval torture devices. I sent them back. The Bettys didn't speak to me for two whole days.

  The Sharons de-hypnotized me. It seemed kind of sketchy when they had me wear a hat made of ice c
ream cones and insisted I spin around in circles forty times. Kelly later told me that on that day, just before I got there, the girls had taught the older ladies how to upload videos to Facebook. I'm probably just being paranoid, but I've been monitoring the internet obsessively, just in case.

  Riley and Kelly helped the women try to find any relatives they might still have living. So far he'd found grand nieces and nephews for Esme and Ada and were working on the rest. The family members seemed happy to discover that they had great-aunts, who'd disappeared under mysterious circumstances more than fifty years ago and were still alive.

  We hosted each woman and her family for a cookout at the house I share with my husband, Rex. Besides the awkwardness of the situation, things went fairly smoothly. The family members were amazed by the stories of a life without electricity, running water, and contact with the outside world. However, both Esme and Ada declined invitations to move in with their distant relatives. I'm sure I was imagining things when I thought the families looked relieved.

  The girls got their Bronze Award at a ceremony in the town's park on Main Street. The older Scouts weren't left out, as they received their ten-year camp pins. Actually, each woman received five ten-year pins because the Council never thought they'd need a fifty-year pin.

  My troop presented a large handmade map they'd created to the Council. It was incredibly accurate and looked like it was true to scale. There was even a detailed, top-down rendering of the inside of the lodge.

  "Merry, I don't know how you managed under those circumstances," Avery Taylor, the new CEO of the Girl Scouts Council said to me after the ceremony. "The girls really did an amazing job with the map. They certainly went through a lot to get this award."

  I squinted at the map. Was that a giant snapping turtle eating a Communist? I put my hand over that part. "They were total troupers the whole time. And they walked every inch of that camp to get it right."

  Avery smiled warmly. "This is going to be framed. We'll hang it in the lobby so everyone can enjoy it. Did you teach them canoe safety?" She pointed at what appeared to be me, trying to get up and over a canoe. My mouth was wide open in what I can only guess was a scream, as the stick figure girls on shore laughed.