a Merry Wrath Mystery
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
* * * * *
CHAPTER ONE
"No," I said wearily. "We cannot go to the morgue to examine corpses."
"Cadavers," Kelly interjected. Being that she was a nurse and probably knew about these things, I deferred.
"No, we cannot go to the morgue to examine cadavers," I repeated.
A chorus of whines went up that implied I'd denied my troop Christmas presents, Easter candy, and starting fires in one fell swoop. Why did starting fires rank so highly? Because my girls were budding pyromaniacs. Which means they haven't burned down anything yet——but it was just a matter of time.
We were standing in a barn owned by somebody somehow connected to the troop. Why didn't I know who it was? The contact had come through Kelly. Since I was a former spy, it was a good idea for me not to know everything because…plausible deniability. Old habits die hard.
The Halloween parade was a big deal. My troop had won first prize two years in a row, and hopefully, the third year would clinch us as a triple threat. Last year our zombie Girl Scout float was so authentic that more than one kid along the route, in his quest for a sugar buzz, ran away screaming. It had taken me a few minutes before I'd noticed Betty was on the float eating something that looked suspiciously like intestines (they were sausage links) and was tossing out gummy eyeballs. Fortunately, the trophies were awarded before the parade started.
For this year, a flatbed trailer stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by rolls of chicken wire and tissue paper. The theme the school district came up with for the parade was "Through the Ages." It was a strange theme for a Halloween parade, but the girls decided that skulls would be appropriate because your skeletal remains were technically an "age."
"Look." I held up the sign for silence, and it worked—a miracle that never ceased to amaze me. "We all know what a skull looks like. We don't need to see a real one."
"I think we should strive for authenticity," Betty complained. "And I think we should have an eyeball dangling from its socket." She pointed to a drawing she'd made. Betty had a bright future in graphic horror novels.
"Or brains exploding out of the top." Inez nodded.
"We could have maggots crawling around it?" Caterina added.
"This is a Halloween parade for kids!" Kelly shook her head. "It can't be gross. Or, really, even that scary." She shot Betty a look for good measure.
The troop slumped collectively, and a cloud of depression descended around us.
"You guys came up with the skull idea," I said. "And I've already bought the chicken wire and the supplies. We can't change now."
Mostly because I had three thousand sheets of white tissue paper, two thousand sheets of black tissue paper, and bandages on all my fingers from the wire. Who knew chicken wire was so painful? Well…besides chickens, that is.
"What if we sat inside the skull," Lauren said, scratching her chin thoughtfully, "with water blasters filled with ketchup and, as we went along, shot the red stuff out of the eye sockets onto the crowd?"
This suggestion was met with wild cheering usually reserved for the death of a North Korean dictator or if candy and puppies were to fall from the sky for no apparent reason.
Kelly held up the quiet sign again. "We are not spraying people with ketchup. Look, this is just for fun. And we're handing out candy."
"Gummy guts?" Inez asked hopefully.
"Tootsie Rolls," my co-leader announced.
The girls grumbled but went back to work on the giant, decaying brownie beanie that would ride atop the skull. And no, we weren't Brownies anymore, but a beanie would work better than putting a huge green sash over the skull's face.
My best friend since kindergarten gave me a look. "I know the Halloween parade is this weekend, but you've been here 24/7 for days." I'm pretty sure she'd wanted to add so it should all be done by now.
"I just wanted to get this over with," I lied as I shoved a dozen skull ski masks into a bag. The girls were going to be dressed as skeletons wearing troop uniforms. I thought it was an inspired idea.
"Is it because you're getting married in a few months? Or the fact that you've had two job offers and haven't accepted one yet?" Kelly searched my eyes—which was kind of creepy. "Or is it your usual weirdness?"
I considered taking offense to the idea that I was usually weird. But to be fair, she was right. How many ex-CIA agents move to Small Town, Iowa to start a Girl Scout troop? I was pretty sure I was the only one. And then there was my cat who looked like Hitler, the fact that my original drapes in my house had been Dora the Explorer sheets, and my sincere conviction that pizza rolls were a food group.
"It's nothing," I lied again. "I just think we should keep working on the float. What if something happens and we aren't finished? Like a freakishly early blizzard or an unexpected invasion by Canada? Getting done early would mean that stuff wouldn't slow us down."
Kelly rolled her eyes. "An invasion by Canada? Really? That's the best you could come up with?"
"You have no idea how close we are to that happening." Most people had no idea. But it was coming—it was only a matter of time. I'd tell you about it, but it's classified.
Kelly sighed. She did that a lot around me. I didn't take it personally. My best friend since elementary school was very smart. And she had experience I didn't have, like being married and having a toddler (who she thoughtfully named Finn, after me).
"Merry, you have a problem dealing with reality."
She was right, so I ignored her and continued stuffing white tissue paper into the little chicken wire holes. This was what would take forever to do, mostly because it's hard to move fingers that are covered in bandages. Oh well. At least I wouldn't bleed all over the skull (even if the girls would love that).
Kelly threw her arms up in the air and moved on.
It wasn't the wedding. In the last few months, I'd been seeing a counselor named Susan. For the last few sessions, we'd been talking about how losing my job with the CIA had been affecting me. Now, whenever I thought about my work as a spy, it depressed me.
My name is Merry Wrath. Well, really my name is Fionnaghuala Merrygold Wrath Czrygy. It looks like fee-oh-na-goula, doesn't it? The name is Scottish and pronounced Finella. I have no idea why, but apparently it makes perfect sense in Scotland.
Anyway, up until a few years ago, I'd been a field agent with the CIA. My partner, and ex-one-time boyfriend, Riley, and I had worked all over the world together. And then the Vice President accidentally outed me (as a thinly disguised attack on my father—an influential senator), and I had to retire. So I changed my name to my mother's maiden name and moved back to the small town I grew up in—Who's There, Iowa. Within a couple of months, Kelly snagged me to help run a Girl Scout troop, and the rest is history.
Susan was kind of right about the job thing. In July, Riley had offered me a job as a private investigator with his new business, and Rex (my fiancé and the city's police detective) had gotten the mayor to offer me a part-time job running the local Historical Society. Riley's offer was the most tempting, considering my past. But the city's offer would keep me on my fiancé's good side. There was nothing that aggravated him more than finding out I was investigating one of his cases.
There was no time limit for me to accept. Riley was still getting things ready to open, and the mayor was waiting for some discretionary funding, but this was still a major decision—one that I was avoiding to the point that I was throwing myself into Girl Scout activities with the enthusiasm of an OCD Junior Leaguer at a thank-you note writing party.
My blood pressure started to spike, so I forced the matter out of my brain. The float was my immediate priority. The girls expected a win again this year, and disappointing them was out of the question.
It took a while, but once the kids got the hang of it, stuffing the skull went a little faster. And by that, I mean it took thirty minutes just to get half of the skul
l's cheek done. Did skulls have cheeks? I knew they had cheekbones. I decided to keep this thought to myself because I wasn't sure I'd like the ensuing debate between the girls.
It was chilly in the barn because it was late October, but no one seemed to mind. Kelly had shot down the idea of a space heater in a dry hay barn. The idea was to distract the girls from thinking about the temperature.
I kept them busy trying to come up with a slogan for our float. I'd shot down a few suggestions, including Death by Girl Scouts and Our Leader Can Kill Your Leader (which I secretly had to admit was my favorite). The four Kaitlyns (that's right, I have four Kaitlyns, all with last names starting with the letter M) were brainstorming with words like skinning, flaying, and threats about your skin dissolving if you didn't buy cookies.
My troop was made up of hard workers, but putting the float together was still slow going. I wasn't confident we'd get this done in time. I might have to come out and work on it during the day. After all, the trophy and our championship status were on the line.
After a couple of hours, Kelly called it, and we waited outside until the girls were picked up. I was impressed that the parents came on time. They never got out of the car or asked how it was going, but that was better than no one picking up the kids at all.
That actually happened once. I had to take the girls to my house, which was on the same block as the school where we met, and things went well until somebody found my stash of truth serum. Little girls should not be totally honest with each other—especially when it comes to personal preferences regarding Disney princesses on backpacks. It took a lot of ice cream to sort out those hard feelings.
However, this was not one of those times, as every parent showed up. Once everyone was gone, I headed home.
It never ceased to amaze me when my troop didn't want meetings to end. This, of course, meant that Kelly and I were amazing leaders. But if Scout events went on forever, I'd probably kill someone. So, whenever the girls wavered about leaving meetings, I'd tell them their parents promised cake when they got home. To my surprise not one girl has ever complained that they didn't get any. Which meant their parents were more amazing than mine were and made me think we'd need to explore healthy eating sometime—whatever that was.
* * *
At home, Philby, my cat who bore an unfortunate resemblance to Hitler, jumped up onto the breakfast bar with her daughter, Martini, who looked like Elvis. Both cats stared meaningfully at me. With a sigh, I got out a can of tuna, divided it onto two plates, and set those plates before my feline overlords. It was always good to keep the cats happy because unhappy cats are downright scary.
As the two of them devoured their canned tuna, my brain decided to rehash the usual internal dialogue. It always went a little like this:
Evil Me: Why don't you just chuck it all and run back to the CIA? People have probably forgotten about Finn Czrygy by now. You could be a spy again!
Good Me: I like living here. I love working with my troop, and I love Rex.
Evil Me: You just "like" living here! You just said that!
Good Me: I meant "love."
Evil Me: But that's not what you said! Besides, you're going to be 30 in a year or so. You had an exciting life once. Do you want to spend the rest of your time in Dullsville, Iowa?
Good Me: First of all, 30 isn't old. Secondly, I don't think of it as Dullsville.
Evil Me: Don't you miss living on the edge? Never knowing if you were going to survive tomorrow?
Good Me: No, I don't miss that. Besides, I have new opportunities here now…
Evil Me: You're wrong! You know you miss being shot at by a renegade chicken in Chechnya.
Sometimes, Evil Me expressed some strange priorities.
My cell rang, which gave me the opening I needed to end this conversation. The number was from Zelda—an employee of A Storybook Ending.
"Hey Zelda," I said.
"Your dress is here!" the woman squealed. "You need to come by for a fitting."
She seemed more excited than I was. I loved Rex, but I wasn't very girly. "Oh. Okay. How about tomorrow? Say ten o'clock?"
I hung up and texted Kelly to let her know. She'd been with me when we picked out the dress. She was an expert in these things because she was married.
Evil Me tried to bring up the argument again, but I finished her off with a glass of wine and a book about the Cold War. It was good stuff. Time and again, I'd heard the old-timers at the CIA complain about the end of the Cold War. At the time I'd thought they were nuts.
But now, after reading about all the cloak and dagger stuff, I realized it was a kind of Golden Age of espionage. And even though I'm glad I wasn't a secret agent back when we didn't have cell phones or laptops, it was kind of a romantic idea.
Espionage changes as technology does, but the principles are the same. Like the Girl Scouts, it's all about being prepared. If you are well informed and ready for anything, you can handle most situations. And that's espionage in a nutshell. It might sound overly simplistic, but there are ways of making it fun. Like inventing a spy camera from a mint tin or weaponizing squirrels in Colombia (I got the idea from the chicken).
In a way, I was getting my girls ready for that invasion from Canada or keeping them from freezing to death outdoors by knowing how to build a fire. Pyromania was very important to my troop. Kelly worried about it, but it was the right thing to do.
I pictured the ten little girls on the streets of East Berlin, passing secrets and always looking over their shoulders. They could totally handle it, and I was pretty sure that Betty and Lauren would have an impressive body count.
In the past, I'd had twelve girls in my troop. But late in the summer, Emily and one of the Hannahs moved to nearby Bladdersly. With their parents of course. Now we just had one Hannah—which would make things easier.
I still had four Kaitlyns though—all with mothers named Ashley. They would make excellent spies with that kind of background. Because they all looked alike, I didn't always know who was who.
Still, I was sad to lose the two girls. Especially to Bladdersly. Our town's rival in football, the Raging Bladders were serious competition. I'm not sure how it all started, but we called folks from Bladdersly "greasers." It was sad to think that two of my girls had gone over to the "dark side," but there wasn't anything I could do about it.
I set down the book and got ready for bed. In the morning, I'd meet Kelly for the fitting, and after that, I'd head back to the barn to work on the float. I set my mind on that to keep Evil Me at bay, even if she was arguing in favor of shooting ketchup out of the skull's eye sockets. I wondered if she was working with Betty. I certainly wouldn't put it past her.
CHAPTER TWO
Kelly was hopping up and down with glee as I arrived at A Storybook Ending. She ushered me inside with a huge smile on her face.
"What?" I asked as I pulled my arm out of her grip.
Her eyes shone with happiness. "I'm so excited to see you in the dress! It's happening! It's really happening!"
My best friend worked at Westbrook Medical Center—our local hospital. But seeing her giddiness over this whole wedding planning scheme made me think she'd missed her calling.
Zelda joined us and led me back to a dressing room, where for ten minutes she stuffed me into a wedding dress. Kelly and I had selected a simple, off-white, satin and velvet gown with a portrait collar and three-quarter-length sleeves. The dress was fitted, which meant I had to be zipped into it very carefully.
I avoided looking at the dress until I was out on that little platform with the three-way mirrors.
"Wow!" Kelly clapped her hands together. "You look amazing, Merry!"
I turned to stare at myself in the mirror and froze. Who is that? My hair was still a dirty blonde color with unruly curls, but it was longer, almost to my shoulders. Kelly had wanted me to dye it brunette, but I just couldn't do it. My hair was the part I still recognized. But the rest…
"She really does have a figure
in there," Zelda said to Kelly, who nodded.
"Hey!" I protested.
But they were right. Almost three years of wearing T-shirts, jeans, and sweatshirts had numbed me to fashion. But this dress fit like a glove. I had to admit, it wasn't bad.
"I can't believe it fits so well!" Kelly said. "You were measured months ago. Most of the time people gain or lose a few pounds, but you didn't."
Zelda nodded.
"Why would I gain or lose weight?" I frowned at the mirror as I turned to the left and then to the right.
"Because you eat like a ravenous toddler who's been told this is her last Ding Dong," Kelly said.
That was true. I was especially fond of cookies and pasta that came in a can. Rex tolerated my eating habits but had let me know they would change when we moved in together.
Kelly took pics on her phone. "For Judith," she said.
My mother would be happy to see this. She was the ultimate fashion plate and looked amazing in anything.
"I thought you were going to dye her hair dark brown?" Zelda said.
"We will." Kelly shot me a look. "I need to put that on my list."
I kept my mouth shut, because although Kelly really wanted it, it wasn't going to happen. Why was she so obsessed with my hair? Rex didn't mind it. His opinion was more important than hers. Right?
Zelda took a few measurements but discovered the dress needed no alterations. The more I stared at the dress, the more I loved it. And I was starting to get excited for Rex to see it.
Whoa. I was excited about the wedding! I really was! All my fears felt like they were finally melting away. Evil Me stepped forward to say something snarky, but I shut her out. After three years of doing exactly the same thing day in and day out, my life was starting to move forward with the potential for a new job and getting married. And in a three-thousand-dollar gown that was now tailored and couldn't be returned for any reason. Evil Me winked at me. I slammed the door this time. Maybe Susan could perform an exorcism…
Merry Wrath Mysteries Boxed Set Volume III (Books 7-9) Page 20