Meerkats and Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  A quiet argument broke out behind me, and I turned to see that Oleg was here, arguing with his son. The two were standing behind the girls as they examined a toucan bird. Alarm bells went off in my head. Why was he here? Had he brought the boy his lunch? That was plausible. I didn't have a teenage son, but I knew that my troop would die, rather dramatically, if they didn't get their snack. But maybe more importantly, was he here for something else? Something worse?

  "Well, Mr. Fancy Pants…" I turned back to the bird and jumped back in shock.

  The vulture was pressed against the glass, wings spread, tapping his beak hard against the glass. He never blinked, nor did he take his eyes off the group directly across from us. I followed his gaze.

  I'd seen that look before when the bird knew I had Girl Scout cookies. He seemed to be fixated on Oleg. A thought hit me like a lightning bolt. Was he looking at the murderer? What should I do? It felt like I had to do something. The vulture had been a witness and seemed obsessed with Oleg.

  But then again, maybe he visited Robby a lot at work. Maybe he brought stuff for the bird. My gut told me this was important, but I couldn't figure out what to do about it. Would it be better to address this later? I didn't want to confront Oleg, only to have him hold my troop hostage.

  A huge squeal erupted as the girls spotted the raptor displayed in all his glory. They ran over to the glass and started cooing over the beast they thought of as their bird. Fancy Pants jumped onto his branch and waited.

  The last time we were here as a troop, the girls got in line and gave him cookies. Clearly he was no longer interested in Oleg because the possibility of food was on the line. Considering that he usually ate carrion, I couldn't blame him.

  Oleg and Robby walked past us. Sadly, the gawky boy tripped and barreled into Sharon and the Kaitlyns.

  "Are you okay?" asked one of the Kaitlyns. The other three looked concerned.

  "Watch it, freak!" Sharon snapped as she brushed her clothes off.

  Oleg and his son looked startled.

  I ran over and apologized. "There's no reason to be rude, Sharon! That was an accident."

  "Whatever," she growled.

  The Kaitlyns pulled her over to the vulture, eagerly explaining to the new girl about the bird.

  "Sorry about that," I said to Oleg and Robby. "She's…um…new."

  Robby's face turned red in patches—something he did when embarrassed. Oleg stared at me for a moment but said nothing. This didn't seem like the right time to tell him I knew who he was. Then again, maybe he'd figured it out when Rex questioned him. I wished I'd asked my husband about that. It didn't matter because Oleg turned and stormed out of the building.

  Sharon pulled away from the Kaitlyns. "I don't want to see some stupid, ugly bird!" She walked over to the middle of the room and pulled out her phone.

  "What was that about?" Kelly appeared at my side.

  "I'll give you one guess," I hedged. "I guess Robby ran into Sharon, and she was less than gracious. Hey, where's Betty?"

  "You were supposed to watch her." Kelly's eyes roamed the sea of little girls.

  "Maybe she went to the bathroom?"

  Kelly said, "Just go find Betty."

  I grumbled. This was no fun, babysitting Betty. That kid had some mad escape skills. I started with Lauren, the girl's partner in crime. But she just shrugged and went back to adoring Mr. Fancy Pants.

  After circling the room twice, I started to panic. She wasn't in any of the enclosures, which was good because I didn't want to have to fight off a Sumatran binturong today. She wasn't riding a tortoise with the meerkats. And she wasn't in the bathroom.

  Damn it, Betty! Where are you?

  That's when I noticed something that made me break out in a cold sweat.

  Sharon was gone too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "Girls!" I shouted, clapping my hands to get their attention.

  They turned to face me.

  "Has anyone seen Betty or Sharon?" I didn't like asking because that was also an admission of guilt.

  Kelly went green and started counting heads. "They're both gone!" she said.

  "Anyone know where they went?" I asked.

  One of the Kaitlyns raised her hand. "She took Sharon off to see the lions."

  That was all I needed to hear as I raced from the building. The rest of the zoo was quiet. Maybe too quiet. I ran past the zebras, the aviary, and the red wolf. Wolfie spotted me and got excited, whimpering with glee, but I had no time to play.

  What was that girl thinking? I'd specifically told her last night not to feed Sharon to the lions. Why didn't she listen to me?

  I turned right at the mountain goats and from a distance spotted the big cats exhibit. I poured on a little more speed, which caused me to pant a lot. Not much of a runner, I could still make good time when it counted.

  "Betty!" I shouted. "Sharon!"

  Racing into the building, I stopped at the lion enclosure. Two females and one male regarded me curiously, but there was no sign of the girls. My heart was pounding as I raced to the tiger exhibit. No one was there either.

  "Betty! Sharon!" I shouted again.

  The jaguars were on alert, pacing furiously and staring at something near the top of the fence.

  There, slumped over the edge of the twenty-foot-high fence, was Betty.

  Where was Sharon? I studied the area but didn't see an arm or leg or anything. How had Betty gotten up there? Had she lured Sharon to her death?

  "Betty?" I called out.

  The girl didn't so much as twitch. I scaled the fence as quickly as I could. By the time I started to close in, she started to stir. Her eyes were closed, but she began flailing around.

  "Stop! Betty! Stop moving!"

  One more thrash and she'd fall on one side or the other. And since the jaguars were now jumping at the fence, I knew what their preference was. There was no sign of Sharon. I tried to picture her climbing the fence in those ridiculous high heels, but it didn't make sense.

  My cell started buzzing in my back pocket, but I didn't dare answer it. I just focused on getting to Betty before she fell.

  "Hang on!" I shouted.

  The girl was still unconscious, but she was still thrashing around. I was almost there, just a few feet away, when she hurled herself over the side, into the jaguar pen.

  "No!" I shouted as if that would break her fall.

  That's when her body jerked to a stop. Betty's shoe was caught in the fence, and she was hanging upside down, dangling over the jaguars. Reaching through the bars, I grabbed ahold of the girl's ankle and held on tight.

  Now I was trapped on the outside of the fence, reaching through the bars and holding Betty on the other side. There was nowhere else for me to go. Climbing up and over would mean letting go of the girl. Trying to get a better hold on her waist might also lead to me dropping her. Instead, I was pinned to the fence on one side while Betty dangled like fourth-grade meat over two very large cats.

  We needed help. Immediately.

  I wedged my shoes into the fence and very slowly went for my cell. It was not easy, and my arm was beginning to shake from holding Betty. And that's when the cats started flinging themselves against the fence, hoping to jostle their lunch loose.

  My fingers stretched and touched the outside pocket of my jeans. Another inch and I'd have my phone. The only problem was, I was starting to lose my grip on the fence. Betty's eyes flew open, and she regarded me from below. Then she looked down and spotted the cats.

  "What the hell?" she asked in a flat voice.

  "Betty!" I said, the tips of my index fingers starting to pull the phone from my pocket. "I need you to reach out and hold on to the bars. Okay?"

  She nodded, apparently unfazed by her predicament. Her hands took hold of the bars, and she looked at me again.

  "Now what?"

  The cell was almost free from my pocket. One of the jaguars threw himself against the fence, and I lost my grip, watching as my cell plunged to the g
round and split open on a rock.

  There wasn't any time to lose, so I raised that arm up to get a grip on the fence. My other arm was going numb from holding Betty's weight.

  "Give me a second," I said.

  I could have her try to straighten herself, but that was a risk because her feet were over her head. Lowering herself could put her in range of the swiping cats.

  "Bad cats!" I shouted.

  It didn't work. I wasn't too surprised because it didn't work on my cats.

  "I think," Betty said, "I can work my way to right side up."

  I shook my head. "Too risky. Let me think for a moment." I wanted to ask her where Sharon was and how she got up here, but that would distract us from the main task at hand—keeping her from dying.

  "I'm gonna walk my hands up and flip my feet down," Betty said.

  We had to do something, so I agreed. While keeping ahold of her ankle, I reached down with my other arm and grabbed ahold of her wrist. As long as I was holding on to something, we might be okay.

  In the distance I heard Kelly calling my name, but she was still too far away to be of immediate help. And calling out would distract me from keeping Betty from getting eaten. With a nod, I let Betty know to start. I let go of her ankle and grabbed her other arm.

  She slid her feet down sideways until they were level with her arms. The jaguars took turns flinging themselves against the fence. Betty worked slowly, her feet finally below her. One of the cats jumped and just missed her shoe.

  We were now holding each other's hands through the fence.

  "I can climb up and over," the girl insisted.

  I shook my head. "I'm going to climb with you and keep hold of your wrists."

  She shrugged, and we began the tandem climb. It took a while. Or at least it felt like that. Kelly's voice seemed to be coming closer, and I heard the shouts of the girls. We had just gotten Betty up and over onto my side when they appeared below us.

  "Oh my God!" Dr. Wulf screamed.

  "Merry?" Kelly asked. "Is this your idea of keeping an eye on Betty?"

  Very slowly we worked our way down until the fence split into two, one on the side where the jaguars were and one a foot away on the outside. When our feet touched the ground, a huge cheer went up.

  Sharon stood in the front, scowling.

  "What happened?" Kelly asked. "How…or better yet, why were you up there?"

  "Sharon," I panted. "Where was Sharon?"

  "In the bathroom the next building over," Kelly explained as she checked out Betty and me. "She appeared the moment you went outside. I tried calling you."

  "On that?" I pointed at the shattered phone a few feet away.

  "Ah," my best friend mused.

  I had to admit, Kelly was good under pressure. She didn't freak out or overreact. Probably years of ER nursing made her that good.

  I turned to Betty. "What were you doing up there?"

  She shrugged. "I don't remember."

  "You don't remember climbing to the top of the jaguar enclosure?"

  "Nope." She shook her head.

  The girl seemed completely unfazed. Why was she lying to me? It didn't make sense.

  "Why did you leave the group?" I pressed.

  Betty seemed to think about this. "I went to the bathroom…I think."

  "Betty…" I started.

  "When is snack time?" she asked before diving into the crowd of admiring girls.

  "I'm so sorry," I said to Dr. Wulf. "I'm not sure what happened."

  "You both could've been killed!" the zoo director squeaked.

  "Maybe we should call it a day," Kelly offered.

  "Nooooooo!" Lauren shouted.

  "We didn't get to see the elephants!" Inez insisted.

  "Or the octopus!" Caterina added.

  I held up the quiet sign, and they stopped talking. "Mrs. Albers is right. Who wants ice cream at my house?"

  A semi-enthusiastic cheer went up, but the girls followed us to the parking lot without a fight, while Kelly tried to placate the zoo director. When we got to our vans, I took six girls and she took five. We arrived at my house in minutes with me wondering if I even had ice cream.

  As Kelly called the parents with the alternate pickup location, I found that I did, in fact, have two gallons of chocolate and vanilla ice cream in the basement freezer. I started scooping and handing out bowls until I got to Sharon.

  "I don't eat carbs," she said without looking up from her phone.

  Of course she didn't.

  Once everyone was happily eating, I dragged Betty into my bedroom and began the interrogation.

  "What happened out there?" I asked.

  Betty shrugged and kept eating.

  "You know we'll probably never be allowed in there again," I tried.

  "I'd tell you if I could," the girl said. "But I don't remember. I didn't die, so it's okay."

  I released her into the wild and sat at the breakfast bar. If I had to guess, I'd say Betty tried to convince Sharon to climb the fence, saying it was a cool view. But did the little girl really want to kill Sharon? My gut told me she probably just wanted to scare the girl. Sharon thought it was a stupid idea and went back, leaving Betty alone. Of course, Betty would never admit any of this. We really needed a solution to this problem. Tonight I was going to call Juliette and insist that she find her niece another troop.

  I really wanted to open a bottle of wine but felt that might not be a great idea with the girls here. Cars started showing up outside, and Kelly took the initiative of sending the girls out. The four Kaitlyns took Sharon with them, which I didn't think was a great idea.

  Once they were all gone, Kelly poured us each a glass of wine. We downed them like shots, and she poured two more.

  "What happened?" was all she asked.

  I told her what I knew, which wasn't much, and what Betty had said, which was even less. Then I told her what I suspected.

  "I'd like to know what that kid was thinking," she said at last.

  It didn't make a lot of sense, but over the past four years I'd learned that things rarely did with these kids. Still, I never thought one of them would try to climb over a fence of man-eating jaguars. That was new.

  "I guess she'll tell us when she's ready." I sighed. "We are probably banned from Obladi Zoo for a while."

  Kelly nodded. "Just Betty. Dr. Wulf was pretty nice, considering."

  That's when I remembered Mr. Fancy Pants' reaction to Oleg. I told Kelly about it.

  She shook her head.

  "I really, really wish you'd stop leaving a trail of bodies in your wake." She set the empty wine bottle down. "I've got to go. I need a nap."

  I couldn't argue with that.

  After cleaning up my house and going across the street to my other house, I helped Rex in the garage, and by helping I mean I sat in a lawn chair while he dusted the floor. He asked how the trip went, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell him.

  The one thing I could control about this whole mess with the girls was getting Sharon out of my troop. Would it be possible to get her to move back to Bladdersly too? The kid was toxic, just like Susan said.

  With a heavy sigh, I excused myself and went inside to call Juliette Dowd. This was, at least, one murder I could prevent. After ten minutes of the extremely painful phone call, I hung up and found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror in the living room. My hair was a mess, as usual. I reached up to rake my fingers through it and stopped.

  It all came rushing at me. Sometimes the solution hits you when you least expect it. And then you can't believe you missed all the clues.

  Every puzzle piece fell into place, and I realized that I knew exactly what happened. I knew who'd killed Janson and why. Now, I just needed to nab the killer. And I knew exactly what to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was very nice of Dr. Wulf to let us meet in front of the zoo. I don't know why she did it. I'd been a pain in the butt for this woman for days now, and here I was asking for one
more favor.

  My troop was there. Sharon was texting at the edge of the crowd of girls, while my troop got into classic fighting poses that I didn't remember teaching them—yet was extremely proud of. Kelly did not seem amused but didn't ask them to stop.

  Oleg—or rather, Joe—stood behind his son, Robby, hands on the kid's shoulders as the boy's Adam's apple bobbed violently up and down. Stewie stood there, eyes closed, hands raised, dressed as a wizard. Or demigod. I wasn't sure which. He appeared to be casting spells.

  Riley brought Claire and Veronica, who still seemed worried that I was angry about my house. Rex brought Kevin Dooley, and they stood off to the side. I was surprised my husband let me set this up. He'd thrown around the terms Poirot and Agatha Christie, but he wanted this solved too.

  I raised my hands into the air, and everyone fell silent.

  "Thanks for coming," I said. "I just figured you all wanted to know who killed Joel Janson and why. This seemed to be the easiest way to tell the story."

  "This all started before I moved here." I pointed at Joe/Oleg. "This man, like me, had worked for the government." I didn't want to out the whole CIA-espionage thing, so I'd decided to keep things vague for those who didn't know. "Joe, or Oleg, as was his original name, had lived in my house before me. And he had some sensitive documents hidden there."

  Robby gulped loudly and turned to stare at his dad, who nodded.

  "When I moved into the house, I had no idea that Joe had lived there or had hidden these important documents inside. He ended up skipping town when trouble came looking for him. So he moved away, and I moved in."

  I paused for dramatic effect.

  "Joel Janson was looking for those plans. And he was murdered for it."

  "Dad?" Robby asked, his Adam's apple bobbing furiously as his face turned red.

  "It's okay." His father patted him on the shoulder.

  Robby looked like he was going to pass out.

  Stewie turned to him. "I'm casting a calming spell to drive the Illuminati away!"