I wore my very expensive wedding dress, and Kelly and Soo Jin wore their bridesmaids dresses. The only addition to the wedding party was Riley. Rex had been so grateful for his help that he made him a groomsman next to Kelly's husband, Robert. And it didn't even bother me.
"Hello, Mrs. Ferguson," Rex grinned and pulled me in for a lovely kiss.
I could've gotten lost in that kiss. My emotions had been overflowing since the minute I found him. Wrapping my arms tight around him, I returned that kiss, running my fingers through his hair.
"Ahem." Kelly cleared her throat.
Oh, right. The girls were here. This had to stay PG. I pulled back just in time to see Betty make gagging noises as Lauren shrieked something about not being able to unsee that, whatever that means.
I looked back at Rex and smiled. "Actually, I was going to talk to you about that. I'm thinking of keeping my name. Is that okay?"
Rex looked me in the eye. "It's absolutely okay. I don't really care what your name is as long as you're mine."
Which was the right thing to say, as my troop broke out in spontaneous applause. The little feminists apparently approved.
He grinned at them before turning back to me. "There's something else I need to say. And it will be the only time you'll ever hear these words from me."
I held my breath, wondering if I was about to get chastised for putting myself in danger to rescue him.
"Yes?" I asked uncertainly.
"Thank you"—he tipped my chin up with his thumb—"for interfering this time."
That earned him another kiss, and as our lips met, I noticed that there was a surprising lack of gagging.
* * *
Ted Weir didn't die from his injuries, and after a short stay at the hospital under armed guard, he was well enough to get a trip to jail. It turned out that Harvey Oak had been working with Ted's father. To avoid that coming out when Oak attacked us at the flower shop, Ted had shot him dead. Combined with the murder of my florist, Lewis Spitz, and CIA agent Bobby Ray Pratt, and two counts of kidnapping, he was going away for a long time.
Prescott Winters III sang like a bird, selling his son out so he could make a deal for one of those posh white-collar crime prisons. He also volunteered additional information implicating Vy Todd in an opioid smuggling scheme. She went back to jail, and the governor refused to pardon her a second time.
Juliette Dowd was admitted to a mental hospital. The stress of being kidnapped didn't diminish her rage, so the authorities had her evaluated, by my counselor, Susan, no less. And she recommended a nice long stay at a lovely place in the country for an undetermined length of time. I should probably visit her. The girls made her a lovely card where she was an angry, sparkly unicorn.
I never did tell Rex about Ronni sending Juliette to his house to spy on me. When it comes to family, you just have to forgive and forget. With Juliette gone, the evil twin was out one conspirator, so I didn't expect any more shenanigans anytime soon.
Someday Ronni would like me. I wasn't quite sure how that would happen, but maybe if I brought her a dead animal as an olive branch, the evil twin might soften. But no matter what, I still wasn't eating the haggis she'd made. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Linda Willard enjoyed the thrill of the hunt so much that she decided to create crosswords and sudoku puzzles on her own. When the story of the retired teacher using her mad skills to help the police catch a murderer (cuz I'm still undercover, sort of) came out, she even got an offer from a major New York publisher, who gave her a nice advance for a book that will come out next summer.
Sheriff Carnack was so impressed that he had a little ceremony where he presented her with a Citizenship Award. I'd suggested a Medal for Murder, but for some reason, Rex nixed it. Linda accepted her award with grace as my troop applauded loudly and whistled from the audience.
In the meantime, my former teacher has offered to help out with my troop now and then. Kelly threw her arms around the woman when she offered. Yes, I know that sometimes I'm irresponsible, like having my girls play outside of a convicted smuggler's house. And Linda will make a wonderful addition to our troop. She's working on a special badge just for the troop, where they will learn how to solve puzzles. The girls are over the moon about it and requested a chapter on booby traps. I hope Linda doesn't come to regret Kelly's offer.
Bart house sat for us during our honeymoon. Turned out he was a real dog and cat whisperer. A very expensive whisperer, but the fact that Philby, Martini, and Leonard behaved so well around him was worth every penny.
As for Riley, he got his first case immediately after the explosion in the old school. A rich, young, gorgeous widow wanted him to find out if her late husband had been cheating on her. There seemed no merit to the case since the husband was dead and had left her a huge inheritance, but Riley accepted it anyway. I'd heard the two of them were on a little trip to Turks and Caicos for "work."
Rex and I managed to fly to our honeymoon island, a little later than we'd originally hoped. The sand and water were so soothing to the many bruises from my car accident. We found a peaceful, secluded beach on a small island in the middle of the ocean with no murders, kidnappings, or trouble of any kind. For a week we lay about in the sand, drinking silly cocktails that seemed to have been named in the 1950s by Rat Packers. And we found ways to distract ourselves from what happened. I'd tell you more, but it's classified. By me.
When we got back from our honeymoon, I decided to reward the girls for their help with a backstage tour of the aviary at the zoo. At first, the zoo refused, thinking that I'd broken in and washed a cat in the restroom for no apparent reason.
I denied it and wrote a large check, which changed their minds, and they agreed to the tour. Dr. Wulf, Obladi Zoo's director, offered to lead it personally. The girls adored Mr. Fancy Pants and missed him during the zoo's closing for the winter. Kelly brought Finn in a stroller, and I pretended I didn't know where anything was.
"This is really nice!" she whispered. "And how great is it that Linda wants to help out with the troop now and then?"
The retired teacher had whipped those girls into shape, to the point where they were politely lined up in an orderly fashion to take their turns giving Mr. Fancy Pants a cookie. The zoo was a little concerned about that at first, but another thousand-dollar check from me changed their minds. The trip was getting expensive…but totally worth it.
"I've been meaning to ask you," Kelly said, "how you got that wrong, thinking the woman in the video at the gas station was Lana?"
I hadn't gotten that wrong, but she didn't need to know that. "Near mental breakdown, I suppose."
Lana was out there, somewhere. I was sure of it. And even if she wasn't behind this, she was up to something. Riley still insisted I was mistaken, but I was going to keep my eyes open from here on out.
"And what about that mysterious phone call from Rex's cell?" she asked.
"Oh, right!" I'd forgotten to tell her. "Turns out Ted butt-dialed me on his way to the old school."
Kelly's jaw dropped. "He butt-dialed you? By accident?"
I rolled my eyes. "That's what it means. He had no idea it had happened. He only left the phone for me at the school so I'd know for sure he had Rex. He didn't mean to ever use the number."
It was just one of the many disclosures Sheriff Carnack got out of him before sending him to the slammer. I did ask if I could have ten minutes alone with the killer/kidnapper, but the sheriff wisely said no. Sadly, I had to put my pliers and car battery away.
"I love you, Mr. Fancy Pants!" Ava gasped as she handed him a Peanut Butter Patty.
The bird seemed to nod before gently taking the cookie from the little girl and crushing it in his beak.
"I love you too, Mr. Fancy Pants," Lauren gushed as she followed suit with another cookie.
The raptor repeated his gallant behavior. Funny…he'd never been that way with me. But it was good that he was acting so restrained around the kids.
"I'm so gl
ad you stopped breaking in to see him," Kelly whispered, reminding me of a promise I'd made months ago and failed to keep (something else she didn't need to know). "I know you've missed him all of this time, but it was very adult of you."
"Oh yeah," I lied. "Like you said, it was a bad example to set for the girls, even if they never knew about it."
Kelly ignored the dig.
That was when the last girl, Betty, walked up and instead of one cookie, pulled a whole box from her bag and shook it in front of the bird. His eyes grew wide, and for a moment I thought he might attack. After all, Betty did violate our one-cookie policy with the zoo.
The zoo director deftly took the box from the girl and opened it. She then dumped it at the vulture's feet. Fancy Pants appeared to do a little bow before devouring the entire pile.
Dickie, the scarlet macaw, squawked loudly.
"Whoa." Kelly let out the breath she'd been holding. "I can't believe he was so calm! And since he hasn't had a visit from you since summer, you'd think he'd go crazy and tear the box to pieces!"
"Oh, absolutely," I said as I popped a pilfered cookie into my mouth.
She turned to look at me. "I'm really proud of you."
"For what?" I asked.
"Rescuing Rex, solving the case, your new friendship with Linda, and especially giving up your breaking and entering days."
I was about to thank her, but I didn't get the chance.
Dickie had had quite enough. He bobbed up and down on his perch before posing dramatically and shouting, "Philby!"
Kelly didn't talk to me for the rest of the day.
I guess I deserved that.
* * * * *
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* * * * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leslie Langtry is the USA Today bestselling author of the Greatest Hits Mysteries series, Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations, The Hanging Tree Tales as Max Deimos, the Merry Wrath Mysteries, the Aloha Lagoon Mysteries and several books she hasn't finished yet, because she's very lazy.
Leslie loves puppies and cake (but she will not share her cake with puppies) and thinks praying mantids make everything better. She lives with her family and assorted animals in the Midwest, where she is currently working on her next book and trying to learn to play the ukulele.
To learn more about Leslie, visit her online at: http://www.leslielangtry.com
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BOOKS BY LESLIE LANGTRY
Merry Wrath Mysteries
Merit Badge Murder
Mint Cookie Murder
Scout Camp Murder (short story in the Killer Beach Reads collection)
Marshmallow S'More Murder
Movie Night Murder
Mud Run Murder
Fishing Badge Murder (short story in the Pushing Up Daisies collection)
Motto for Murder
Map Skills Murder
Mean Girl Murder
Marriage Vow Murder
Mystery Night Murder
Aloha Lagoon Mysteries:
Ukulele Murder
Ukulele Deadly
Greatest Hits Mysteries:
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy
Guns Will Keep Us Together
Stand By Your Hitman
I Shot You Babe
Paradise By The Rifle Sights
Snuff the Magic Dragon
My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen
Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas (a holiday short story)
Other Works:
Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations
* * * * *
SNEAK PEEK
of the next Merry Wrath Mystery
MYSTERY NIGHT MURDER
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
CHAPTER ONE
"Murder me!" the girl cried out with large, pleading eyes. "Please?"
"No!" begged another. "I want to be murdered!"
I was holding a large carving knife in my hands as I looked these two over. "I'm not going to kill either one of you."
Betty pouted, folding her arms over her chest. "But Mrs. Wrath! You need victims!"
Mrs. Wrath. Sigh. For the past few years, I'd been begging my girls to call me Ms., since I wasn't married. But technically speaking, they were right this time. Sort of. Newly married, my name was actually Mrs. Ferguson. Or at least, it would be if I'd taken Rex's last name.
Lauren objected. "I'm the tallest. I should be the one killed. It only makes sense."
Mrs. Linda Willard, my fourth-grade teacher who had started helping out with my troop here and there, arched an eyebrow in my direction but said nothing. She was learning that my Girl Scouts were, well, a bit quirky.
The girls, who were fourth graders themselves, saw my fourth-grade teacher as a sort of mythical creature from the olden days, and they viewed her with an awe they'd have for the arrival of Abraham Lincoln dressed in full samurai armor astride a pterodactyl.
Kelly, my best friend and co-leader, gently took the knife from my hands and set it up on a high shelf so the girls couldn't reach it. She should know better. I'd seen these kids form a human pyramid just to get the cookies off the top of my fridge.
"We talked about this," she said sternly (she always said things sternly). "This is a fundraiser for the Girl Scout Council, and we are here to help run it. The adults who paid for tickets get to be the characters and they get to be the victims."
Betty and Lauren simultaneously threw their arms up in the air and stomped away in disgust. I wondered if they'd been practicing that move and finally found a reason to deploy it. Kind of like an angsty, synchronized fury swim.
"We could kill one of them," I mused. "No point in having the whole troop against us."
Kelly rolled her eyes.
Linda Willard stepped in. "I came up with the mystery for an adult victim. I don't think it's a good idea to kill off one of the girls."
Kelly pointed to her and nodded. Mrs. Willard had been her teacher too.
Our former educator was a puzzle master who actually had a New York publishing contract to create crossword books. And when the Council asked me to come up with a murder mystery–night fundraiser, I'd turned to her. She'd helped me solve a mystery recently and was rewarded by the local police with a Medal for Murder. Okay, they didn't call it that. They called it a Citizen's Award for Service. But Medal for Murder would've been way better.
My name is Merry Wrath, and I used to be a spy with the CIA, until I was "accidentally" outed by the vice president of the United States. As Fionnaghuala Merrygold Wrath Czrygy, I had to flee my field assignment to get home in one piece when the news came out. That wasn't easy since I was in a dive bar in Chechnya with a group of paramilitary terrorists who had a thing for CNN (which didn't mean much since that was the only channel they could get besides the current strongman's cable access show on house cats). I barely made it out intact.
Because I was forced into early retirement, the government awarded me a huge settlement before sending me packing. I changed my name to Merry Wrath and came back to my hometown of Who's There, Iowa, to figure out what to do next. Kelly talked me into helping her with a troop, and that was how I ended up in this particular predicament.
Due to a number of unusual events, word leaked out about who I really was, and the Girl Scout Council asked me to create a fun mystery fundraiser for their biggest donors. Linda came up with the mystery, clues, and whodunnit stuff. Kelly and I filled in the blanks.
We were going for a sort of twist on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. One of the board members owned a private island in the middle of a huge lake with a mansion there that we could use. There was no Wi-Fi—ergo, no cheating by looking stuff up on the internet. The players would arrive by boat, and we'd be stranded for forty-eight hours. It was the perfect setup.
The party would
start soon. We'd arrived early this morning to help with setting things up. Only eight of my girls were able to come, due to a Monster Golf Cart Rally being held in Bladdersly.
So it was the four Kaitlyns (I have four Kaitlyn M.'s who all look alike for no apparent reason), Betty, Lauren, Inez, and Ava. Dr. Soo Jin Body—the county medical examiner—and I were providing adult supervision because Kelly had to work at the hospital this weekend and Mrs. Willard was going out of town to visit her daughter in Texas. At least they came to help us set up.
And I'd just found out that the four Kaitlyns couldn't stay because they were going to a Weimaraner dog show in Ames. Their mothers, all improbably named Ashley, had started an Etsy shop, making harnesses strictly for that one dog breed. The girls were going along to help and, I assumed, to roll around in puppies.
"Are you sure you can handle it with just four girls?" Kelly bit her lip.
"This is the third time you've asked," I reminded her. "Yes. I've got this. And four girls will be much easier to wrangle."
"I still don't know why they won't tell us who the victim or murderer is," Betty grumped loudly, from across the room.
I ignored it. Kelly and I'd decided that the girls would experience this firsthand. They could try to solve it on their own but had to keep that to themselves. The guests were the stars of this show. Six mega donors who'd paid $10,000 each to be here, these folks were smart and wealthy. They were about to have their socks blown off. Almost literally in fact, since I confiscated Betty's homemade shape charges an hour ago. She'd insisted they were for special effects, but I threw them into the lake anyway.
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