Merit Badge Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  A small part of me was jealous. I'll admit that. But a large part of me watched in wonder that something like this could actually happen. And another part of me was ridiculously happy that Lana was here with my troop.

  I had no idea what Kelly was thinking. I could only guess she thought the same thing. At least I hoped she was thinking the same thing.

  "Great job girls!" Lana praised, and the girls almost fainted under the glow. "Who wants to make s'mores?" she asked, and every hand shot up, including the five dads. Lana laughed and clapped her hands. It was obvious she was having fun.

  Kelly took charge and called for the girls to come over to her. The girls blinked at each other, then looked to Lana. Lana nodded, and the girls broke loose, racing over to us in loud, chattering chaos. We were swarmed as we put marshmallows on sticks and handed them out. When the last one was handed out, Kelly and I exhaled.

  "Did you see how they descended into complete chaos when we asked them to do something?" Kelly whispered.

  "Yeah. I think we should have Lana run everything from now on." I was covered with sticky marshmallow goo—and they hadn't even melted the marshmallows yet.

  "Agreed," Kelly said as she tore the wrappers off the Hershey bars and I opened the graham crackers.

  It started up again as the girls crowded us with their burned and squishy marshmallows. We somehow managed to scrape each one off the stick onto the chocolate and graham crackers. When the last girl walked away, I noticed Kelly had bits of graham cracker in her hair, and I had a huge smear of chocolate down one leg.

  "You know," the mom spoke up, "you really should have had Lana handle that."

  Kelly and I looked at each other and nodded. She was right. We really should have.

  Lana took over for clean up. Once again, the girls snapped to silent attention, and in brigades worthy of a military parade on Red Square, erased all evidence of the mess they'd created and put out the fire.

  And no one got hurt. No one.

  When they were finished, Lana got the girls to sit in their circle around the fire pit again. I noticed with amazement that each girl was sitting exactly where they'd stood during the fire lesson. They were replaced with robot girls. I was dealing with Stepford Scouts.

  Kelly and I gave each girl two twelve-inch pieces of rope. Lana jumped in and proceeded to lead them through a knot tying lesson the likes of which has never been experienced on this Earth. Never. She put every seasoned sailor to shame. If any of them would've been with us, they would've wept.

  I'd never been good at knots. I'd been preparing for this since we arranged this meeting. But no matter how much I practiced, I couldn't grasp it. The square knot was hopeless. The bow-line hitch was out of the question. Thank God I'd never had to hang anyone because the guy would just drop harmlessly to the ground, watch the ropes tumble around his toes uselessly, and then he'd run off. I hated knots.

  Kelly had some experience— being a nurse made her something of a natural. But between the two of us, we'd been very worried about how we were going to pull this off. If I couldn't master a knot, how could I possibly teach fourteen girls to do it?

  "Right over left," Lana was singing, "and left over right, makes a square knot that's sturdy and tight!" She held up her square knot, and as if on cue, all fourteen girls did the same. And each and every knot was perfect.

  "Who is she?" Kelly asked.

  I shook my head. "I'm starting to think that I really don't know."

  Thirty minutes later we were done. The girls had learned to make about ten different (and in my opinion, scientifically impossible) knots.

  "Okay girls! That's it!" Lana said.

  A chorus of horrified no!s broke out, and the girls swarmed around Lana, hugging her. Two of the Kaitlins burst into tears.

  Lana hugged each and every one of them and immediately after each hug, each girl had a blissed-out look on her face as if she'd been hugged by a pink and glittery princess unicorn.

  "Please stay!"

  "I don't want to go home!"

  "I love you Miss Lana!"

  This was ridiculous. And embarrassing. The girls acted as if being parted from the Russian spy was like being sentenced to cleaning their rooms with their tongues. Kelly and I were faced with sobbing second-graders. No way I wanted their parents picking them up like this. Some of the dads were openly sobbing.

  "How about a game then?" Lana asked. As if by magic, the tears dried up, and quivering lips were replaced by huge smiles.

  "She knows games too?" Kelly whispered. I just shrugged. I hoped she knew more games than The Slutty Nurse and the Naughty Russian Prime Minister.

  Lana organized the girls into what I can only think of as the ultimately safe Red Rover. The girls formed two rows facing each other, their hands in front of them, palms up. One side huddled with Lana, giggling and whispering. They broke up and resumed their line.

  "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Ava right over!" They broke out in a chorus. Ava ran over and walked up and down the line, gently slapping their hands in a sort of flat, double high-five. At the end of the row, she reversed her hands and slapped up against Hannah's hands and ran for it. Hannah gleefully chased Ava to her line but didn't catch her. She joined Ava's side.

  Lana then huddled with Ava's team. More giggling and whispering. They chose Emily to come over. This went on and on until the parents arrived.

  I can only describe the pickup as the saddest thing I'd ever seen. Yup. Those are the words I'd choose. The saddest thing I'd ever seen. Even for the dads. Maybe especially for the dads. More than one of them had to be chased off. As the last girl was dragged kicking and screaming away, I collapsed onto a picnic table. Kelly plunked down next to me, exhausted.

  Lana, on the other hand, was bouncing around like a balloon filled with Red Bull and zapped with electricity.

  "That was so fun! Wasn't that fun? When do we get to do it again?" she asked all in one stream of words.

  "You're not tired?" I asked. "We've been here four hours. How could you not be tired?"

  Lana just shook her head. Her ponytail bobbed seductively. "No! I love being with the girls! I miss it!"

  Kelly stared at her. "How did do you do that?"

  Lana stopped bouncing and bit her lower lip. "Do what?"

  "That!" Kelly swept her arms around her. "This! How do you make people so happy?" She left off and make women like me so miserable, but it was there, hanging in the air like a small, toxic cloud.

  Lana didn't get her meaning. "I don't know. I just figure, why not be happy all the time. The alternative is to be sad. And I don't like being sad."

  "What experience do you have with sadness?" I asked. It was a legitimate question. I'd only ever seen Lana happy.

  Lana sat down next to Kelly. She took a deep breath, then started her story. "I grew up in a Russian orphanage. It was very sad there. I was able to go to school and be a Girl Scout, but every night I went back to the orphanage. When I turned sixteen, the director gave me fifty rubles and a blanket and sent me out onto the streets. That was my whole life until I met you, Merry." Then she looked up and smiled. "This life is better! Much better!"

  Kelly, my snarky, sarcastic Kelly, the one who never ever lets me get away with anything and who calls me on my stupidity every time…that Kelly, burst into tears.

  I came pretty close myself.

  CHAPTER NINE

  We drove home in silence. Kelly and I were feeling pretty damned guilty. We felt bad about the way we'd treated Lana. But what could we say? Sorry didn't seem to cut it. And then there were all the things we'd been thinking. I felt terrible about that too.

  Lana didn't seem to notice. She hummed along with the radio and had her arm outside the car, dangling in the breeze. She really surprised me. I guess I'd been a little wrong about her. I should've given her more of a chance. I didn't say these things because I didn't really think I could dig myself out of the crappy hole I'd made. So I sat there in silence, listening to Lana humming.

 
; Kelly parked the car in the garage. When we got out, she led us to her backyard, where we'd sneak home. Then she threw her arms around Lana. Without a word, she turned and walked into her house, closing the sliding glass door behind her.

  Lana smiled. "Kelleeee likes me!" I stumbled in shock as I walked and Lana skipped, back to my back door.

  My cell rang as soon as I got in. Lana giggled and decided to take a shower. I heard the door close behind her. She had to be spent. I was, and I'd hardly done anything.

  "This is Merry," I answered. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I needed to take a shower and just collapse. My whole day had turned upside down, even if it was for the better. There's nothing like a shame spiral to make you want a shower and a nap.

  "Ms. Wrath…" The unmistakably handsome voice of Detective Rex sent a jolt of energy through me. "Do you have a moment? Could I stop by?"

  I looked out the window. All of the press had cleared out. When did that happen? How did that happen? Maybe Riley finally got them going on a wild goose chase. At any rate, the coast was clear.

  But the most important thing was that Rex wanted to come over here, to my house! Clearly he wanted to propose, I thought. "Sure. Give me a minute to…uh…pick up a little. Ten minutes okay?"

  "Perfect." I thought I could detect a smile in his voice. "See you in a few."

  Rex was coming over! To my house! To see me! Okay, so it could be about the investigation, but technically, he was coming over to my house, and he was going to see me.

  I raced like a whirlwind through the house. Not that it was very messy—it wasn't. But there was dust on the furniture. I didn't have time to find a towel, so I used my hands to dust. I was just wiping off the TV with my fingers, when the doorbell rang.

  I looked down at my hands. They were filthy and sadly sweaty. The doorbell rang again. I was keeping my future fiancé waiting. Looking around, I spotted the Dora the Explorer sheets and wiped my hands on them quickly before answering the door.

  Rex stood on my front porch like some hero on the cover of a romance novel. He was wearing a suit, and it looked amazing on him. Everything about him looked wonderful. He smiled at me. And I lost the ability to speak.

  "Ms. Wrath," he said, "thanks for taking the time to see me. I'm sorry about the short notice." He smiled again.

  "Um, no problem!" I said perhaps a tad too enthusiastically. "Come in!"

  Rex stepped inside, and I closed the door. He smelled like soap and fresh linen. I wondered if it would be out of line to bury my face in his neck. Would that seem weird?

  "Sit down!" I ordered. The demand in my voice made me jump. "Sorry, I meant, would you like to sit down?" That sounded better. Was I an idiot or what?

  "Thanks." Rex sat on the green couch. Since there were no other chairs in the room, I had to sit next to him. Mental note—do not get more chairs for the living room.

  "You smell like you've been in a fire, Ms. Wrath. Is everything okay?" He looked concerned. I loved him for that.

  "Er…no…I just had a meeting with my Girl Scout troop," I babbled. "We were setting fires. I mean, we were learning how to start fires." That sounded bad. Like I was training an army of seven year old pyromaniacs.

  He gave me a strange look that faded into a smile. Then he saw the curtains. The curtains that were actually Dora the Explorer bed sheets. The curtains with two, long, smeary handprints on them. It looked like I had killed somebody who was filthy and they died, clinging to the sheets as they slid to the floor.

  "Sorry!" I said again. "I…um…have a roommate. She's very dirty." I added. What the hell? I was making it worse.

  "Um…okay?" He looked confused.

  "Like Pigpen…from the Charlie Brown cartoons?" I added. "She must've wiped her hands on the curtains."

  Rex looked at me for a moment like I was completely insane. To be completely fair, I was starting to wonder that myself.

  "Tea? A glass of wine? Shot of vodka?" I said out loud as I mentally went through the drinks I had on hand. Then I realized I'd just offered the man shots.

  I said nothing more. It was my only defense, really.

  "No thanks," the future love of my life said very slowly as if he was trying to figure out if he should run. "I'm actually on duty."

  "Oh. Right," I said, wondering why I'd just tried to bribe a cop with booze. Was that a thing? I wasn't sure. It had worked on the Eastern Europeans I'd spied on, and some of them drank antifreeze for a buzz. Not here so much, I guessed.

  "I just had a few more questions. About Ahmed Maloof and Carlos the Armadillo."

  Great. Just when things were getting romantic.

  "I'm sorry." I faked my most sincere voice. "I can't really help other than what I've already told you."

  Rex nodded. "I know you said that. It's just that something is bothering me about you."

  "Me?" My eyes grew wide, and my mouth dropped open. That did not sound good.

  "Yes. You see, I've been trying to research you. And I'm not coming up with anything."

  I waved him off. "Oh that. Well, I don't really have a presence online. No Facebook, Twitter, none of that stuff."

  He shook his head. "It's not just that—I can't find anything about you. No birth certificate…no record of where you've lived, where you went to school, nothing. It's like you don't exist."

  I must've been staring because he added, "Well, I mean, you do exist, obviously. You're sitting right here. But on paper there is no evidence of a Merry Wrath. Nothing."

  My skin itched, and my arms and legs grew cold. This wasn't good. I'd been a non-person many times in my life, with many different aliases and backstories. They had a whole wing at Langley that just answered calls about our backstories, pretending to be the companies we worked for, etc. I didn't have that anymore. No one had even offered. Not even the Federal Witness Protection Program. I'd developed this persona—Merrygold Wrath, on my own. Which meant I had to figure this out and back it up on my own. Which sucked.

  I frowned. "I don't know how that's possible…" My eyes went up to the left, a sign I knew implied that I was wrestling with what I thought was impossible. If I'd gone to the right, it alerted people that I was accessing the right side…the creative side, the lying part of my brain. Any FBI agent or CIA agent would know that, and so, I assumed, would a detective.

  "I grew up here. How could you not find any record of that?" I asked while my brain furiously worked on a solution.

  Rex shook his head, "I don't know. I thought maybe you could explain it." He looked at me with eyes that challenged me with go ahead smart girl—make something up.

  "You met my cousin, Riley, last time you were here," I challenged.

  "Just because you say he's your cousin doesn't mean anything," Rex answered. "Besides, he looked more like a Fed to me."

  I suppressed a laugh. Riley would hate that Rex thought he looked like FBI. He hated the FBI. It was beyond the usual intergovernmental agency mutual loathing. The Feds once blew Riley's cover in a sting operation. He was stuck with an incontinent chimpanzee for four weeks as a result.

  "Why wouldn't his testimony work?" I asked.

  "Because he's just a cousin. And I didn't find any evidence of him living here either."

  Damn. Rex had really looked into this. I should've seen it coming—it's tradecraft 101. And yet, I didn't. Riley didn't either. We were so absorbed with the dead terrorist thing, we'd forgotten that a smart detective would check us out.

  So what to do? I couldn't say my dad grew up here, because I couldn't say who my father actually was, and Rex would look up whatever name I gave him. Even saying I was an orphan was out because obituaries were easy to find.

  I snapped my fingers. "Kelly Albers!"

  His eyes narrowed. "Kelly Albers? I'm sorry, I don't follow."

  "Kelly is my best friend! She lives here and grew up with me. She'll tell you!" Without waiting for him to respond, I called Kelly on my cell and demanded that she come over.

  "I've already told you I
need more than just testimony," Rex said. "And unless this Kelly Albers has copies of your birth certificate and college transcripts…which I doubt…she's no good to me."

  "Well…" I shrugged, stalling for time. "Maybe she can help us think of something. Like I said, we grew up together. Here. In this very town."

  "I'm not convinced she can help, Ms. Wrath. And these are fairly easy things to get. You just have to go down to the county courthouse and ask for your birth certificate. In fact, I could drive you."

  I did want him to drive me. But I did not want him anywhere near official records that proved I was really someone else.

  "Why would you need to take me? I'm perfectly capable of driving myself."

  Rex cocked his head to one side. "I just thought with your car damaged from the accident that maybe it wasn't driveable. I don't have to drive you."

  "Is it really important for you to have these things?" I asked. "I mean, I can get them. There's no doubt about that." I totally doubted that. "But why would they be important to the investigation?"

  "Because it would satisfy my curiosity, Ms. Wrath," Rex answered. It seemed like he was getting mad at me.

  I sighed, as if it was the most inconvenient request ever asked of anyone. "Fine. I'll make sure to get you my birth certificate."

  The detective was silent. He was smart (which was good because it meant our children would be smart). Rex was waiting for me to fill the silence nervously and slip up. But I wasn't going to. Not this time.

  Kelly just walked in. It's what we did. I was kind of surprised about that because now with people showing up dead in my kitchen, it probably wasn't a good idea to leave doors unlocked.

  "Hey Merry," Kelly said naturally. "What's up?"

  Her eyes caught sight of Rex, and she smiled. How could she not?

  "Kelly, this is our new neighbor—Detective Rex Ferguson. And he doesn't believe I grew up here."