"You love it?" I asked.
"Not really. I preferred it when your bangs were pink." He referred to a lock-in movie night a long time ago when the girls dyed my bangs hot pink as I slept.
We ate in silence for a few minutes before I pointed my fork at Rex and asked, "Do you want me to introduce you to everyone here?"
Rex considered that. "I'll go over and introduce myself to Carnack, since we have his cousin in common. But let's wait on the others. Give them something to wonder about."
He was so subtle. While I approached my amateur investigations like a bulldozer in a field of flowers, Rex played things strategically and by the book. For the most part, I admired that. Except for when I was impatient…which was practically always.
When he finished eating, I watched as Rex got up and approached the table with Nigel, Dr. Martin, and Sheriff Carnack. The doctor and sheriff shook his hand amiably, but Nigel cast me a weary look. Was he worried that my husband being here would complicate matters legally? Or had I worn him out already? Or maybe his face was just like that.
"You know," Kelly said after finishing her pancakes. "I like having Rex here."
"Me too," I agreed. "He'll have our back."
"No, that's not why. It'll just be nice to have another grown-up."
I ignored the dig. "I didn't tell you, but Betty brought ninja outfits for the girls."
Ava, Inez, Lauren, and Kaitlyn turned to Betty and began protesting.
"You weren't supposed to tell anyone… Now it's not a secret anymore…"
"Chill." Betty waved them off. "I'm being stranemic."
"I think you mean strategic."
"Whatever," the girl said. "I've got an idea."
The girls grinned, thinking they were up to something. What Betty hadn't counted on was that, with Rex, we had one more adult to keep an eye on things. And thank God, because between killer frogs, ropes course phantoms, the threat of aliens and ghosts, and a murder to solve, Kelly and I needed all the help we could get.
I watched my husband as Nigel excused himself and the sheriff invited him to sit. The two men seemed to be hitting it off. Maybe he could get intel I couldn't. After all, they were colleagues and had a friend/cousin in common.
"I wonder what they're talking about," I muttered.
"You'll find out soon enough." Kelly pushed back from the table. "I have to admit, these are the best pancakes I've ever eaten. But what are we going to do with all the food we bought?"
"How long are we staying?" Inez asked.
It was then that I realized I had no idea. We'd been here a couple of days already, and I wasn't sure how much longer we'd be. Which meant that the girls' parents had no idea either.
While most leaders might be worried about that, I was lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you saw it) to have parents who really didn't seem to care how long their daughters did anything with the troop.
"Two more days?" I asked.
Kelly looked at the girls. "Do any of you have to be home right away?"
"You're kidding, right?" Betty asked.
"What about you?" I asked my best friend and co-leader.
"My in-laws are in town," Kelly sighed.
"Ah. So that's why you wanted to come here."
"They're not that bad," she said. "They're just, well…"
Kelly was not the kind of person to badmouth anyone. Her husband, Robert, and their little girl, Finn, were wonderful. But Robert's parents were a little over-the-top. His mother, Valerie, always talked at a decibel that could be overheard in Ohio and ended every sentence with an overly eager exclamation mark. His father, Andy, was nice enough, but he was also very loud. And they wouldn't let Kelly do anything around the house, from cooking, cleaning, or taking care of the grandbaby.
"I always feel like I'm in the way," she said. "They won't even realize I'm gone."
"We can't stay here forever." I drew circles with my fork in the maple syrup.
"Why not?" Kaitlyn asked. "I like it here."
I pictured living here in that house with five girls, Kelly, and Rex. It seemed like a nightmare. Oh sure, I'd have a great time, but a nightmare nonetheless.
Nancy asked if we needed anything else as the bell over the door jingled.
"Hi, Virgil!" Nancy shouted. "Be with you in a minute."
I turned to see the postmaster/tooth keeper/possible suitor for Aunt June. Virgil nodded, giving me a strange look before loping over to the counter, where he took a seat.
The man looked to be in his sixties, in good physical shape. His brown hair had a tinge of red when the light hit it. With thick, black-framed glasses and a trimmed mustache and beard, he seemed like a promising suitor for Aunt June.
"That's him!" Ava whispered. "The guy with the tooth!"
"I still need to see that," I said quietly.
"Well, we have to go to finish looking for clues in the house," Betty insisted.
Lauren agreed, "We need to have our priorities."
"Yes," I said, not taking my eyes off of Virgil's back, "but I need to interview him. And I want to see the tooth."
Rex joined us, giving me a quick kiss on the forehead before sitting down. Behind us, I could hear Basil gasp.
"That was interesting," Rex said.
"What did he say?" I turned to look at the sheriff, who was staring back at me.
Rex waved to Nancy and pantomimed writing a check.
"I'll tell you later. He's watching."
"What did you think of Nigel?"
Rex took the check from a happy Nancy, who smiled at him a tad too long.
"Typical small-town lawyer."
Rex went and paid the bill then returned to our table and left a tip.
It only took a couple of minutes to drive to the house.
I gave him the outside tour since he'd seen the inside last night.
"I've always thought about getting a cabin in this area of the state," my husband gushed. "Are you sure you want to sell it?"
"This is a lot more than a cabin," I countered.
"I think she should keep it too," Kelly interjected. "She could rent it out."
Rex nodded. "I'd love to come here and do some fishing."
"I didn't know you fished."
"I used to. I haven't had time since marrying you." He winked. "How many bedrooms? I can't recall."
"Three guest rooms and a master. But the whole third floor could be converted to bedrooms too."
"We could come up here with my parents, the twins, and their new husbands," Rex said.
Kelly's in-laws were extra. My in-laws were extraterrestrial. Not his parents. They were nice—owned a Greek restaurant in Des Moines. But his twin sisters, Randi and Ronni, were another story entirely.
The twins were older than Rex and mostly identical in appearance but not in demeanor. While Randi was sweet, warm, and fun, Ronni was the antichrist whose one mission in life was to destroy me.
They had their own business as taxidermists in Who's There, and their specialty was anthropomorphic dioramas, like a group of costumed lemurs at a superhero convention, elderly buffalos playing shuffleboard, or the Christmas nativity scene done with naked mole rats.
I couldn't imagine sharing a house with them and pictured the twins decorating with dead things.
"There's a frog in a pitcher!" came the squeal from the kitchen, and I raced to stop the girls from letting it out.
Betty was staring at the little yellow frog, who was just sitting in the jar staring back.
"We have to get him back to his enclosure." I snatched it out her hands. "Rex, come with me. The rest of you, start looking for those other clues."
We took the frog up to the third floor. We'd kind of breezed through it last night. But I needed to see if he could solve our problem.
"Can you figure out how to get him in his enclosure? As you can see, there's no real visible openings."
"You're right about that." Rex set the jar down and ran his hand over the walls around the frog's terrarium-
like display.
"I feel bad," I said. "I haven't fed any of these…things…yet. I don't even know what they eat."
Rex stepped back and studied the surrounding wall. "Maybe Aunt June wanted to make sure these things never got out."
"Well, according to the sheriff, Coroner Oroner, and Dr. Morgan, the brown recluse did."
Rex walked over to the spider's enclosure. "There's one in here alright. It had to have been one from outside."
"What did your sheriff buddy say anyway?"
"He was very eager to make me think this was an accidental death." Rex looked at me. "He does not like you."
"I don't care about that. If I worried what people thought of me, I wouldn't have been a very good spy."
"Yes, well, I'm not fond of anyone who doesn't like you."
"Thanks." I smiled.
"The sheriff thinks you're here to stir up trouble…something I've had some experience with."
"You didn't say that, did you?"
"Of course not." He moved back to running his hands over the wall. "Like I said, he really wants me to think this was an accident."
Rex turned and smiled at me. He pressed what seemed like a blank spot on the wall to the left of the enclosure, and a seamed door that wasn't there before popped open.
"How did you find that?" I ran over and studied the spot he'd touched.
"There." He pointed at what looked like a smudged fingerprint.
Upon closer examination, I saw that it was slightly raised. I pressed it, and the door closed, seamlessly blending with the rest of the paneling. Pressing it again made it open up.
"In one of my very first cases, in the Quad Cities, there was this old house built in the nineteenth century. It had been used as part of the Underground Railroad."
"It used a fingerprint as a trigger?" I asked.
"No, but the spot was slightly raised. Here, I figure the fingerprint was a guide. It's about six feet from the floor, so a kid couldn't get into it." He pushed the door open and took one step inside. "Come on."
I followed him into a narrow hallway that ran behind the exhibits. A small door with a window was on the back of the frog enclosure. I ran back out and grabbed the frog before returning.
Rex opened the door and looked in. Taking the jar from me, he removed the foil and gently dumped the frog inside. Then he closed the door.
"Look!" I pointed to a shelf on the opposite wall.
There were boxes of live crickets and beetles, as well as some replacement materials like tree branches.
"So that's how she did it." I looked down the hall to see similar setups for the other enclosures.
"This is a pretty large hallway." Rex studied it. "This floor is the same size as the others, but the floor space out there is smaller than the floor below."
We walked down the hallway and discovered it ran a perimeter around the whole floor. Was this a spot on the Underground Railroad too?
Screams erupted as the doorway filled with five little girls.
"You found another one!" Kaitlyn shrieked as the girls ran the whole perimeter before returning back to us.
Lauren asked, "How many more do you think there are?"
"I don't see how there could be many more. You could only have so many in one house." Kelly stuck her head through the doorway.
"Why are you guys up here?" I asked.
"Oh!" Lauren handed me an envelope with my name on it. "We found another clue!"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tearing open the envelope, I read the note aloud.
You've found Clue #3! There's more. Unless you're a bad guy, then this is it.
I wasn't sure a bad guy would fall for that.
I have thought for some time that things were amiss. I just assumed I was seeing danger around every corner. But I was right. Since I'm dead, you need to sift through the cold-hearted embers of love.
Bye now!
"Well, that doesn't help."
Rex said, "Basil told you there was a rumor she had three suitors, right?"
"Right. I think they're Dr. Morgan, Pete Oroner, and Virgil."
"The tooth guy?" Betty seemed skeptical.
"That's the one. They're the only ones I can think of. The Hickenloopers are far too young."
"Never rule out anyone," Rex said. "Until you know for certain."
"The coroner believes he was her boyfriend. Maybe you can make more headway with him than I did."
Rex shook his head. "I doubt it. He gave you a lot of information. With his complete lack of expertise, a guy like him wouldn't trust legit law enforcement."
I thought about this as the girls started running loops around the hallway. Rex was right. I didn't like Pete Oroner. He was arrogant and completely unqualified. The fact that he was able to write a possible murder off as an accident did not sit right with me.
"Do you have anyone in town you feel is trustworthy enough to bounce your thoughts off of?" Rex asked.
"Well, Basil. But he's pretty gossipy. He might tell the whole town what I've said. His brother Hal was great though. We could try him."
"My money's on Nancy," Betty said.
The girls had stopped running, and four of them were doubled over panting. Not Betty. She didn't even seem winded.
"Why's that?" Rex asked thoughtfully. He didn't talk down to her. He seemed legitimately interested in her opinion.
"She wanted Aunt June's boyfriend. It's always a love triangle."
Rex nodded. "That's an excellent point. Most of the time, it's either about love or money."
Nancy was younger than Dr. Morgan but about the same age as Pete. Maybe a bit younger than Virgil. But that didn't mean anything. What would Nancy want in a man? She had the best business in town. It was always packed there, so it obviously wasn't failing.
Which might rule out money. Basil thought Virgil and Dr. Morgan were wealthy. I thought Pete might be comfortable. But then again, some people with money might want more. So we couldn't rule that out. And if money was what she found attractive, that put Virgil and Morgan on the list.
Would Nancy kill Aunt June over jealousy? It wasn't far-fetched. She had definitely been standoffish when I'd asked about Aunt June. Killing her would free up the love interest. It was an extreme solution but not hard to believe.
"Our suspect list includes Nancy." I ticked off the fingers on one hand. "Dr. Morgan, Pete Oroner the Coroner, Virgil the postmaster, and Nigel."
"Hickenlooper?" Rex's eyebrows went up.
"Because she ran against him for mayor and because of the possible sale of this house to developers," I explained.
"Yes," Kelly mused. "But why kill his client?"
I shrugged. "I just don't think we should rule him out."
"So five suspects," Rex said. "And no evidence this was murder." He pointed to the clue in my hands. "In my opinion, those clues aren't really clues."
I asked, "What about the comment on the Maplethorpe Funeral site?"
"'The fraud got what she deserved,'" Rex said. "That seems vengeful. It could be from Nancy. It doesn't strike me as coming from one of the suitors or Nigel. Or it could be a smoke screen."
"Unless by fraud, one of the suitors meant that they'd thought they were the only boyfriend until he discovered otherwise. Pete seems to think he was the only one close to her."
"We still don't have proof that she was murdered," Rex said. "Except for the note that came with the urn. Is it possible she was a bit disturbed and is leading you on a wild-goose chase?"
"Of course it is," I admitted. "I didn't know the woman at all."
I led him downstairs to the first floor, where I pointed out all the photos of Aunt June with various historical figures. Kelly offered to take the girls outside for a game of Red Rover. We had to shoot down Betty's idea of both teams lining up with their backs against the river in a dangerous sort of semicircle.
Once they were out of hearing, I told Rex my suspicion that Aunt June was former CIA.
"Riley is supposed
to get back to you?"
"Yes." I thought about it. "But then again, I wasn't exactly nice about it. I could see him blowing me off."
Rex laughed and took out his cell. Within seconds, Riley answered, and the two chatted amiably until Rex asked him what he'd found and then hung up.
"He couldn't find anything. Riley's convinced she wasn't a spy. He is interested in this place though. He offered to come up and help."
"I hope you told him no." The last thing I needed was Riley.
"I did."
I turned to the photos. "Basil thinks she was a socialite from San Francisco or something."
"We could dig around in her background. If you think it's important to the case."
My heart leaped when he said case. It was confirmation that he took this seriously.
"I don't know. But there was that rumor about a hidden treasure."
"Most small towns have rumors like that," Rex said. "It makes them more interesting to live in."
"Then we focus on what we can do here," I said. "We need to approach this as if there was a murder."
"You won't make any friends here doing that."
I shrugged. "So? I wasn't doing a good job of that anyway."
Rex stifled a grin. "Let's revisit the idea of the treasure. If she had one, where would she put it?"
"I would've thought the hidden rooms. But we haven't found anything," I admitted.
"It's a big house. If there are hidden rooms, there are other hiding places." Rex looked thoughtful. "What do you think the treasure is?"
"Money? There's so much speculation that she was very wealthy. Jewelry?"
He continued my train of thought. "It could be stocks and bonds. Gold bullion."
"It's certainly not in those killer bugs." I wished Nigel would hurry up and get rid of them. Although, the frog was growing on me a little. Maybe it was the big brown eyes or the idea that he was listening to me before trying to kill me.
"What if it's not in the house? What if it's somewhere else?"
A scream came from the parlor, and we ran in to see Betty racing to the kitchen sink to wash her hands.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked the other girls.
"Why did you stick your hands into a jar of ashes?" Ava countered.
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