Aha! I knew how we could extend our investigation without Rex knowing. I texted Kelly that we'd go to the school in the morning to get the signatures for the float. We could do a little gossiping there. She loved the idea and promised to bring the paperwork.
As I hung up, my brain wandered from school to ice cream to wondering if I should take up the piano to Riley. I thought about the job he'd offered me—to work for him as a PI. Then I thought about the potential job with the Historical Society. This was getting me nowhere. I needed to talk to someone.
And I knew just who that should be.
* * *
I don't normally break into the zoo in the middle of the night. I usually do it earlier in the evening, like nine o'clock. This was to avoid any and all staff. There was one guy in the birdhouse I couldn't avoid however…
"That crazy lady is here again!" the scarlet macaw shrieked.
I'd recently learned that his name was Dickie. And that he often repeated anything said by the teenaged boy who cleaned this exhibit every night around six. I'd also learned that the kid had all kinds of issues and blamed them on the fact that I took liberties to visit the king vulture.
Mr. Fancy Pants focused his death stare on my backpack as I entered his enclosure. I'd been training him to remain calm until I dumped the package of Oreo Cookies at his feet. Normally, I brought Girl Scout Cookies, but I was out. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.
"She's gonna tell that dumb bird all of her problems again," Dickie sneered. "And they think I'm crazy!"
I ignored him and started talking to my vulture. Okay, he wasn't my vulture. But I sponsored him. Mr. Fancy Pants had been involved with my troop back in Washington DC a couple of years ago. Since then, the Smithsonian had loaned him to Who's There's own Obladi Zoo.
I've been visiting him ever since.
"So," I said as he devoured the cookies, "I still don't know what to do about the two jobs."
"I'm not a loser!" Dickie screamed. "I'm Gandalf!"
"And then there's the body that showed up on my parade float," I continued, "which has nothing to do with me."
Mr. Fancy Pants stopped eating and fixed me with a glare. He didn't say much but was an excellent listener.
"If only Harry Potter was real!" the macaw grumbled.
I told the vulture about the fitting and the girls' unfortunate choice of dress. He hocked up half a cookie. I knew he'd be on my side. A white and black feather floated to the floor beneath him. Was he molting?
What did I know about molting? Animals did it when they were stressed. Was I transferring my stress to Fancy Pants? I picked up the feather. It was about a foot in length. For some reason, I stuffed it into my backpack.
"Well," I said as I got to my feet, "it'll be a while until my next visit. We've got a float to build. But next time I'll bring Samoas."
The bird nodded, and as I made my way out of the building, I heard Dickie screech, "Anime is a perfectly legitimate art form!"
A few minutes later, I slipped into the house, hoping Rex wasn't still awake across the street and wouldn't see me. Being a detective, he'd definitely wonder what I was doing running around in the middle of the night wearing all black.
Fortunately, my cell was silent. My last thoughts before I drifted off to sleep were whether or not I could get Dickie to record my voicemail message. Something a bit less teen angsty would work. Maybe I could prepare a script…
CHAPTER FIVE
The buzzing of my cell woke me up very early. I reached for it and took the call.
"Merry!" Kelly sounded frantic. "We have a problem!"
I glanced at the clock. "Yes, we do. Because it's seven a.m., and I only went to bed four hours ago—which means if I get out of this bed, I could die."
"Snap out of it! I need your help!"
She sounded so desperate that I sat up. "What's wrong? Is Finn okay? Robert? What's happened?"
"No, that's not it. It's our parade float. Juliette Dowd is meeting us at the barn in ten minutes to inspect it! She says if we're both not there, we forfeit being in the parade!"
I groaned. "I'll be there in ten."
It took me five minutes to get dressed. I brushed my teeth in one minute and was in the van and driving one minute after that to a place that was four minutes away. Which meant I was four minutes late getting to the barn. Kelly and the real witch (who, sadly, wasn't dead) were waiting for me.
Yellow tape crisscrossed the barn, and for a second I wondered if I should call Rex. That would serve two purposes: 1) letting my fiancé know that I'm observing proper protocol and in turn earning me brownie points, and 2) reinforcing to the unstable redhead that I'm engaged to her former boyfriend. Yes, it's petty. And yes, I'd be stuffing personal gain inside an opportunity to appease Rex. But hey, two birds with one stone and all that.
"This is unacceptable!" Juliette snarled as I stepped out of my car. She was dressed in her usual uniform—a green suit. In fact, it was the only thing I'd ever seen her wear. Was she a robot? And if so, could I still whip her butt if she was a robot?
"I'm sure everything is fine," Kelly soothed.
"Your float is a crime scene!" the angry redhead shrieked. "What kind of leader allows someone to be murdered on their Girl Scout float?"
Allows someone to be murdered on our float? Was she implying that the killer had asked for permission and I'd agreed? Like I could make a decision on something like that so quickly. I mean…of course I'd say no.
"We had nothing to do with that." I made a point to show that I was scrolling through my list of contacts.
"Are you inspecting all the floats or just ours?" I added.
"I have the right to check on troops and their girls!" Juliette started jumping up and down and, with her red hair, looked a bit orangutany. "I don't have to justify anything to you."
I settled on a number and held out my cell to show the psycho. "I'm calling your boss and probably waking her up. You'd better have a good reason for harassing us today."
Kelly laughed. It was then that I noticed she'd been recording us. I wondered if she was going to Snapchat this.
"Well?" I pushed. "Do I make this call?"
Juliette now noticed that my best friend and co-leader had filmed her little tantrum. Her skin started to match her hair, and with a scream of frustration, she ran to her car and drove away.
"This is getting ridiculous," I said as I stuffed my cell back into my pocket.
"Do you really have the CEO's number?"
I shook my head. "Of course not." Then I winked to let her know I did have it. I knew how to get access to unlisted numbers. I'd be a crappy ex-spy if I didn't.
"We have a little blackmail material at least. Have you thought of having Rex talk to her?" Kelly asked.
I shook my head, "I don't want him anywhere near that woman. She's so crazy I don't know what she'd do." Although, the words kidnap, roofie, and kill all came to mind.
A bang made us jump. It sounded like a plank slamming into another plank. And it came from behind the barn.
"The wind?" Kelly whispered. A glow came over her face as she anticipated checking it out. She really needed a hobby. I made a mental note to buy her a jigsaw puzzle later.
Putting my finger to my lips to quiet her, I crept up to the corner of the barn. "Wait here, and be ready to call 9-1-1," I said.
"I'm going with you!" Kelly whispered furiously.
"No, you're not. It's too dangerous." I was the spy. Kelly wasn't. I'd never seen her in a fight other than verbal (which she always won, by the way). And she had a daughter to think of. "You stay here."
"What if someone's hurt?" she said as she disappeared around the corner of the barn.
I had no choice but to follow. And I didn't like it. For once I kind of understood Rex's concerns about me. Except for the fact that I'd been in virtually every dangerous situation you could imagine and came through fine. Well, mostly fine. I still have a scar where I got run over by a bicycle in Estonia. I'd been following
a suspected Russian spy and unwittingly walked onto the course of a bike race fundraiser for dolphins. I walked away though, and that's the point.
My best friend, however, hadn't been in danger before. Catching up with Kelly, I managed to get in front of her, using my arm to hold her back. We were just about to turn around the last corner of the barn when a twig snapped. Both of us froze.
"Do you hear that? Sounds like someone is running," Kelly whispered.
That's exactly what it sounded like. I raced around the corner to see a dark figure disappear into the trees that surrounded the barn. Next to me, a door hung open. I didn't even know this door existed. To be honest, I'd never really inspected the whole building—which kind of makes me look bad considering all the bragging I'd just done.
"I'm going after him. You check the barn," I shout-whispered over my shoulder as I took off after the intruder.
"Wait!" Kelly cried out behind me, but I kept going.
I dove into the trees. Even though it was late October, most of the trees still had leaves. Flashes of black wove in and out of my line of sight. I glimpsed enough to see that whoever it was wore a black hoodie and pants. The height seemed similar to mine, but the bulky clothing gave away nothing.
Branches scratched my hands, and once or twice I tripped a little over rotting logs and tangled tree roots. Eventually I stopped seeing the person I was chasing. After ten minutes or so, I gave it up. Turning to look behind me, I realized tracing my steps back to the barn wouldn't be difficult. I'd torn through the underbrush like a clumsy, panting elephant. Flattened foliage led me back to Kelly and a realization that I probably needed to take up jogging.
The back door was still open and Kelly was gone, so I went inside.
"Kelly?"
No answer. A small chill raced down my spine.
"Kelly?"
I was in a room full of tools. The usual stuff, like a rake, hoe, pruners, a machete…that kind of thing. Another door across from me stood open. I went through there and found a dark hallway. Who puts a hallway in a barn? Isn't a barn just supposed to be one large room? There were two doors along the hall, both shut. I'd have to come back and explore those later. Right now, I needed to find my best friend.
"Merry!" she shouted, and the chill vanished. She sounded fine.
I tracked her to the main area where the float was. Kelly was looking at something in her hands.
"You okay?" I asked.
She nodded. "I found something. Look!"
Kelly handed me an old coin. It was gold. And shiny. One side had a faded eagle. The other side was completely worn down.
"Good job. Did you find anything else? She didn't touch the float, did she?" I stuffed the coin into my back pocket and looked around.
Kelly walked the perimeter of the room. "I don't think so. You think it's a woman?"
I was about to explain, but she started to turn away when something outside caught her attention. "Uh-oh."
I joined her at the window to see a police cruiser pull up. Rex and Officer Dooley stepped out. My first instinct was to hide, but both of our minivans were parked outside. I was pretty sure I couldn't pass that off as a coincidence. The jig was up. We walked outside to meet the men.
"What are you doing here?" Rex said more to me than Kelly. That didn't seem fair somehow.
"What are you doing here?" I parroted.
My fiancé shook his head. "We got an anonymous call that someone was trampling the crime scene."
Juliette Dowd must have called. I wiggled my eyebrows meaningfully at Kelly.
"Let me guess. It was a woman, and she sounded angry," I said.
Rex nodded. I filled him in on our little visit with his ex. Of course she called the cops on us. That woman was born for one thing. Revenge. It would be silly to think she saved all of her rage just for me. I couldn't imagine what she did to her co-workers or family. She really was a mean girl.
"Regardless," Rex sighed. "You can't be here. We are still investigating the scene."
The gold coin seemed to catch fire in my back pocket. I ignored it. Guilt is the number one ouster of spies.
"I get that," I said. "But we really do need to get this float going. We only have four days left before the parade."
Kevin Dooley burped. His hand was inside a bag of marshmallows, and he had a sticky white mustache.
"Officer Dooley?" Rex turned to him. "Has the forensics team been over this area?"
Kevin nodded as he polished off the last of the marshmallows. How did he stay so thin when he ate all the time? Then I started wondering what he did at home. I shuddered.
Rex turned back to me with a sympathetic smile. "All right. You can resume decorating tonight." He looked around the cavernous room. "If you see anything out of the ordinary, you have to let me know."
Kelly and I nodded, maybe a little too enthusiastically.
"I'm not kidding," he said, as if he could read our minds.
This time we shook our heads vigorously, attempting to look innocent. The coin felt like it was trying to escape from my jeans to flag down Rex.
"It's 8:30." Kelly looked at her watch. "We could stop by the school and get those signatures."
Five minutes later we were sitting outside the principal's office, like naughty kids.
"This brings back memories," Kelly giggled. "Remember when I punched that girl who was teasing you?"
I laughed. "You always did have my back."
Kelly looked me in the eye. "I do, but if you'd been murdered in the woods…"
I brushed her off.
The door opened, and Principal Blake motioned us inside her office. It only took a minute to explain and hand her the paperwork.
"I'm happy to help. You two are wonderful leaders. I wish we had more like you." She beamed. The sixtysomething plump woman smiled at us.
"Thank you. We've still got a lot to do, what with finding a body on our float yesterday and the police cordoning off the barn we were working in," I said casually.
Kelly shot me a look. Maybe I didn't ease into this very well.
Mrs. Blake frowned. "It was that Didi Stoker, wasn't it? It's the main conversation in the break room."
Kelly spoke up. "I hate to speak ill of the dead, but she sounds awful. I heard she petitioned the school to give up the Halloween parties."
Okay, so we were diving right in. No subtlety here.
"Oh yes," the principal said. "It always bothered me because she doesn't have any children. She had no connection to the school, and here she was telling us what to do."
I tried to look shocked. "That's awful! I don't think I've ever seen her around. Did you know her?"
"Unfortunately." Mrs. Blake grimaced. "She belonged to my church and was always complaining about everything from the altar cloth to the choir selections. Didi also liked to stir things up. She loved to make up lies and spread them."
"She sounds awful." I frowned.
The principal nodded. "She was. If she was a kid here, she'd be a mean girl and a bully."
The memory of Kelly punching Carrie popped into my mind.
"There was one case…" Mrs. Blake shook her head slowly. "She caused the divorce of a couple at church. Married thirty years, and they fall apart because Didi told the husband his wife was cheating on him."
I leaned forward, "And he believed her?"
She nodded. "It was so sad. Ever since then I wondered if Darlene would kill her." The principal sat back suddenly, her hand over her mouth. "I shouldn't have said that. I don't know what I was thinking. Forget I said it."
I pantomimed zipping my lips shut—something I'd seen Betty do on more than one occasion with the other girls. Now it seemed like I should've paid better attention to what she was keeping quiet. But that was for another time.
The receptionist buzzed, telling the administrator she had a meeting. We thanked her for her time and fled to the parking lot.
"I've never known Mrs. Blake to gossip," Kelly murmured. "Didi Stoker must have bee
n ten times worse than she implied."
"I know I'm not supposed to say this." I shook my head. "But it might be a good thing a woman like that is gone."
Kelly laughed. "No, you're not supposed to say that."
"Who is Darlene? And how can we find her?"
"I wonder…" Kelly stared off into space. "The only Darlene I know is a volunteer at the hospital. And I don't recall seeing a wedding ring on her finger."
I stared at her. "Do you think we could talk to her?"
"I'll find out when she volunteers," Kelly promised.
My pocket buzzed. It was my phone. Stan called to let me know that the rest of the furniture would be delivered in fifteen minutes. This was followed by a text message from my mother saying she would land at the airport in thirty minutes. Being in two places has never been my forte. That's a lot to ask, even from a spy.
"Can you handle the furniture delivery?" I asked Kelly after explaining. "I'll pick up Mom."
"Of course!" she agreed as we fled to our cars.
It would take me thirty minutes just to drive to Des Moines. That didn't include getting to the airport, parking, and finding Mom.
I drove it in twenty. I knew these back roads intimately and broke more than a few speeding laws along the way. My brain felt like it was controlled by a hyperactive gerbil running on a wheel while mainlining caffeine. Too much was happening at once with the furniture, the float, the wedding plans, Mom, Rex, and Didi the dead witch.
My life was mostly quiet. I didn't have a job outside of volunteering with the Scouts. I was single and pretty much lived a life of leisure. Maybe that was what was bothering me a little about the wedding plans. Did I want things to go back to the way they were, where the biggest decision was about whether to get regular or Double Stuf Oreos? By the way, the answer is always Double Stuf. Always.
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