Mud Run Murder

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  MUD RUN MURDER

  by

  LESLIE LANGTRY

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  Copyright © 2017 by Leslie Langtry

  Cover design by Janet Holmes

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This book is dedicated to the amazing staff and volunteers of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa & Western Illinois who have given me some rich and rewarding (and often hilarious) memories. I feel incredibly lucky to have been a young Girl Scout, Troop Leader and Volunteer with this group over the decades. And a special shout out to Mahlon Sibert—the BEST EVER Ranger at Camp Conestoga/Camp Liberty—who is retiring this year. The place won't be quite the same without him.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  If you ever are given a choice between defending yourself against two hit men in a back alley in Qatar, armed only with a wire coat hanger (don't ask), and giving a pill to a cat, I'd suggest you go with the former. And I'm speaking from experience. In both situations.

  Philby, my Hitler-doppelganger cat, could keep her mouth closed as tightly as two steel rods fused together and doused with water in Antarctica. It turned out that she didn't like pills. Unfortunately for her, the slipped disc in her back wouldn't stop shooting pain up her spine until she took them.

  Maybe I should have tried Kevlar oven mitts? The cat hadn't bitten me yet, but she was struggling like a pissed-off feline on speed.

  "I'm doing this for your own good," I insisted through gritted teeth.

  The vet had suggested (while suppressing hysterical laughter) wrapping her tightly in a towel with only her face exposed. I'd done that, but all I got was an angry cat burrito whose lips refused to budge. I tried to figure out a way to hold the beast and pry her lips open. Once you got past the lips, there was a whole new litany of problems, including having to deal with the tiny, interlocking teeth, inserting the pill, and getting her to swallow the damn thing. This venture made the planning of D-day look like a walk in the park. A literal walk in the park.

  "Philby! You won't get better if you don't take this! The vet said this stuff will relax your muscles, allowing the disc to slip back into place!"

  Have you ever tried reasoning with a cat? In my career in the CIA, I'd had to reason with a Belgian nudist wielding a meat cleaver, a paranoid Mexican drug lord who'd had way too much LSD and believed he was a sloth, and a very hostile nun in Chile brandishing knitting needles. None of them were this stubborn. Well, that's not entirely true. The nun was behaving like a toddler throwing a tantrum. But that wasn't the point.

  I tucked Philby, still wrapped in a towel, under my left arm. Bracing against the counter for the illusion of some semblance of support, I held the upper jaw in my left hand and the lower jaw in my right and squeezed. The lips parted with a juicy smack, but the teeth wouldn't give.

  An idea popped into my head. While still struggling with the cat in the towel, I said the one word that would open her mouth. A name that usually sent her into a vicious hissing spree and, most of the time, ended with her on her side, helpless and spent.

  "Bobb," I said directly to her. I even went the extra mile and pronounced the second b. She didn't like the name because a guy named Bobb once tried to kill her. I couldn't blame the cat.

  Philby hissed, and I wedged my fingers between her teeth. Using my left index finger, I shoved the pill into her mouth and then slammed it shut and held it closed.

  "What are you doing?" Rex appeared behind me. He must've used his key to get in.

  "Great timing," I said as my cat squirmed, hissing in my arms. "A few moments earlier, and you could've helped."

  "Why is Philby foaming at the mouth?" he asked.

  Philby was foaming at the mouth. Really foaming. She looked like a rabid feline dictator who'd just swallowed saliva-activated bubble bath.

  "Oh crap," I said as I leaned forward and blew into her face.

  The cat's eyes grew wide, but she swallowed. I don't know why that worked. The vet had suggested it. I can tell you that if anyone held my face shut and blew on it, swallowing wouldn't be the first thing to pop into my head.

  "It's tramadol," I explained as I unwrapped my furious cat. "If she holds it in her mouth and doesn't swallow it foams up." I ran the towel over her mouth. "Which is kind of a bizarre side effect, if you ask me."

  Philby gave me a death stare that in her mind probably paralyzed me with fear, but in reality made me wonder what Rex was doing over here. The hunky detective (who was also my boyfriend) lived directly across the street from me.

  "Why are you here?" I tossed the towel on the counter and scooped up Martini—Philby's kitten who looked a lot like Elvis. She still loved me. Hmm…I'd have to sleep with one eye open tonight. Philby was probably plotting something.

  "We have a date." Rex kissed me on the forehead.

  "Oh wow! I totally forgot." And I had, but I was going to blame my evil, non-pill-swallowing cat for that.

  "Pizza's on its way," Rex said over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

  "I'll be there in a few!" I shouted, but the door had already closed behind him.

  Why had I forgotten about our date? It was Friday, and on Friday nights we always had pizza and rented a movie. Sometimes I took the cats, and my awesome boyfriend even had a litter box and food for them.

  Martini suddenly decided I was evil. She hissed at me as she jumped down to the floor and, with her head held high, trotted off down the hallway to find her injured mother. So I was guessing the felines wouldn't be joining us tonight.

  It took me about fifteen minutes to take a quick shower and get dressed. I slipped out the door and crossed the street. The pizza guy must've arrived because a run-down pickup truck sat in Rex's driveway. Just as I passed the car, I saw it.

  The pizza delivery dude was slumped over the steering wheel, and it looked like there was a small-caliber gunshot wound to the temple. Glassy eyes stared at his lap. He couldn't have survived a gunshot at that close a range, but I reached in to take his pulse to be sure. Yup. Dead. I dropped to a crouch behind the truck, in case whoever had murdered this kid was still around.

  I hadn't heard a gunshot. But then, I had been in the shower. Did Rex know?

  And that's when it hit me.

  The dead guy wasn't in my driveway. For the first time in a while, I had nothing to do with a murder! Woo-hoo!

  It was wrong of me to do the end zone dance and even worse of me to high-five myself (which, if you haven't tried, isn't easy to do). But I couldn't help it. This was just too good to be true. Well, maybe not for the pizza guy, but definitely for me.

  For the first time, Rex woul
d be the one scrutinized. Not me! Yay!

  Not that I was really worried about that. Rex was a detective with the Who's There, Iowa police department. Suspicion wouldn't really fall on me like it would if the pizza guy had just parked about fifty feet in the opposite direction.

  I stopped dancing (mainly because it made me look like an idiot) and headed for Rex's front door. Yes, I was evil. I could not wait to tell him what had just happened. Rub it in his face a little.

  I stepped onto his stoop and reached for the doorknob. But it wasn't there.

  I mean, of course it was there. It was just forward a little farther because the door was open. That seemed bad because maybe whoever shot the delivery kid was in Rex's house, getting ready to shoot him.

  I slipped inside the doorway and pressed myself up against the wall. It was very quiet. That, in my experience as a spy, wasn't good. At all. Rex was in trouble, and if I hadn't been grandstanding over the dead guy in the driveway, I could've saved him.

  Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and I dropped into a crouch, placing my hands on either side of my feet. As the footsteps grew close enough, my left leg shot out and tripped the intruder.

  His body went down with a thud, but not before he pulled a gun and pointed it at me.

  "Hold on." Rex looked up at me from the flat of his back as he hit the mute button on his phone and lowered the gun. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Sorry! Are you okay?"

  "I think I would've been safer if you had been the intruder."

  I took that as a compliment. I helped him to his feet with some vaguely muttered apologies, and he went back to his call.

  "Young man in his late teens," he said. "Send a forensic squad and call Dr. Body."

  He ended the call and looked at me with an arched eyebrow.

  "I thought the killer was coming for you," I mumbled.

  "I can see that." He brushed off his shorts and T-shirt. "Thank God I have you to protect me."

  "I see that you have a dead body in your driveway," I said. "Did you notice that it's not in my driveway for once?"

  Rex nodded. "How could I miss it?"

  "I know it's wrong…" I said. "But yay, me, right?" I held my hand up for a high five.

  I didn't get one.

  "Merry." My boyfriend sighed. "I'm sure you're excited that for once dead bodies aren't popping up all around you…"

  I frowned. "Well, I'd hardly say all around me. It's not my fault that—"

  Rex interrupted. "But now I have a crime scene, an investigation to begin, and family members to notify."

  He looked at me for a moment before I agreed. I knew he was right. Damn.

  Two squad cars and a small Prius pulled up. Dr. Soo Jin Body, the drop-dead gorgeous lady coroner, got out and, upon seeing me, smiled. If I had hackles…whatever those were…they'd be up. Which was probably unfair since Soo Jin was always so nice to me. To everybody. But that was the problem, because she was also too nice to two men in particular—Rex and my CIA handler, Riley. Make that my former CIA handler.

  "Bond and Moneypenny are doing great, Merry!"

  Considering that her two kittens were once my two kittens, and furthermore, prodigy of the aforementioned evil Hitler cat, I tried to be nice. But I hadn't given them away to the striking woman. Riley had. I'd like to think she'd hypnotized him.

  "I'm glad." I faked a smile.

  Two officers I didn't know got out of one of the squad cars. Kevin Dooley exited the other one. Kevin had been in my grade in high school. He was an idiot then and…well…was still an idiot now. He tossed a bag of chips into the squad car and wiped his hands on his uniform before joining Dr. Soo Jin and the rest of us. As usual, he breathed through his mouth. A caveman had more personality.

  "Any idea when this happened?" Soo Jin asked as she reached in and touched the dead man's throat.

  "I already did that," I offered, but everyone ignored me.

  "I left Merry's house twenty minutes ago. The truck wasn't here then," Rex explained. "I saw him pull in and went into the kitchen to grab my wallet. When I came out here, he was dead."

  "It looks like a very small caliber," she said. "I'd guess a .22. The bullet entered here." The coroner pointed at the temple. "But I don't see an exit wound."

  We all leaned in to see. Kevin put his hands on the car door, and I drove an elbow into his side. Mostly because he shouldn't touch the car without gloves, and also because he had once been my lab partner in biology and he'd eaten part of the starfish we were dissecting—resulting in a D grade. For both of us.

  "Fingerprints," I hissed.

  He frowned in confusion. "You want me to dust for fingerprints?" His voice was flat like his brain.

  "Officer Dooley," Rex chastised. "Your fingerprints are contaminating the crime scene. Please don't touch anything."

  Kevin slowly removed his hands. I was pretty sure that was the processing speed for him. One of the other officers began to dust the vehicle around the driver's side of the car.

  It was great to watch Rex work, considering every time I'd witnessed it in the past, it was because the corpse was attached to me. Well, not attached, but on my doorstep, in my driveway, flung across the hood of my car while I was driving…that sort of thing.

  He was a very thorough detective and missed nothing—and was super hot in his black, slightly fitted T-shirt, and his dark hair and blue eyes. He walked around the truck, pointing out stuff to the three policemen.

  Automatically the wheels in my head started to turn. Who'd want to kill this pizza delivery guy? This was a small town in the middle of Iowa. We didn't have drive-by shootings here. In fact we had very little crime here at all until I showed up.

  But this time, this guy wasn't killed because of me. I turned to look lovingly at my dead body–less driveway. Yup. I could even go home if I wanted to. There was nothing that tied me to this murder.

  Yeah, right. Like I'd go. This whole thing was just too intriguing to pass up.

  Unfortunately, half the neighborhood also thought the same as they started stepping out into their yards and walking toward us.

  "What's going on?" the little old lady next door asked. Actually, she shouted it. She's deaf but still insisted on talking to everyone. I'd always thought she was faking it, but Rex wouldn't let me use my polygraph equipment on her. That had been followed by a discussion on why I had polygraph equipment.

  I shook my head, figuring I'd give her a visual aid to go with what I was going to say, just in case Rex was right. "Murder! Someone killed the pizza guy!"

  My shouting drew the attention of the rest of the neighbors, who all started crowding around me, asking more questions.

  "Who's the victim?"

  "Did you see it happen?"

  "Hey! I know that car! Why would anyone kill that nitwit?"

  "My pants are too tight!" That one came from the elderly man who lived with the deaf old lady. I was pretty sure it was the only thing he could say because I'd never heard him say anything else in the two years that I'd lived here.

  "What's that, Elmer?" his wife shouted.

  Elmer responded by unbuttoning his pants and dropping them to the ground. Rex saw it all and sent Kevin over to escort the man back into his house. This caused the crowd to disperse, probably because they couldn't unsee a pantsless Elmer.

  "You should go home too," Rex said.

  I stared at him. "I wouldn't miss this for the world!"

  He shook his head. "For once this investigation isn't tied to you. You're a civilian. You should go home."

  "Technically…" I held up a finger. "It does involve me because I was going to eat the pizza this guy delivered."

  "Technically," Rex countered, "I can arrest you for interfering if you don't go home."

  We stared at each other for a moment before I gave in. I never was any good at stare-offs.

  "What about date night?"

  The detective looked back at his driveway, which was now crawling with people in white cove
ralls. He turned back to me with a frown.

  "I think date night is off for tonight. Sorry. I'll call you later when everyone's gone."

  With an attitude that would rival an angry toddler on a Pixy Stix high, I spun on my heel and went home. At least this time there was no blood to wash off my steps.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Philby and Martini refused to have anything to do with me, and I felt the best thing to do would be to get out of the house for a bit. It was early still, about 6:00 p.m. If Rex was depriving me of a rented movie, I'd just go out and see a real one.

  To be honest, in the two years I'd lived here since I'd moved back, I'd never once been to the movie theatre. Rex and I tended to stay in on date night, usually because making out at a public movie might be frowned upon, and he had a reputation to protect. Actually, that was my excuse. I just liked snuggling during a movie with the cats melted all over us.

  I stood numbly before ten movie posters plastered to the outside of a faux-art-deco theatre. There were a lot of choices. Too many choices. In fact I had no idea what any of these movies were about. One had two people kissing—so that must be a romance. Since I wasn't getting any romance tonight, I'd skip that one.

  There were a couple of films that looked like romantic comedies and a few horror movies, but I didn't find any of these interesting either. Kelly was always trying to get me to go see what she called chick flicks, but I always turned her down. If I went to one without her, I'd be in serious trouble. And I'd take the CIA being pissed at me over my best friend's wrath any day of the week.

  I finally settled on one that looked like a spy thriller. The guy on the poster was sneaking around a dark alley, and the name of the film was Spy Diary. It reminded me of the aforementioned night in Qatar, so I picked that one.

  After spending what seemed like a week's salary on a ticket, popcorn, pop, and candy, I found a seat in the very back of the auditorium. The lights were already out, and the previews had started.