Meerkats and Murder

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  MEERKATS AND MURDER

  a Merry Wrath Mystery

  by

  LESLIE LANGTRY

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  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2019 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.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

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  CHAPTER ONE

  I am dead. Really and truly dead. I'm not kidding. This is totally real. And the weird thing is, I can see and hear. I'm lying in an open coffin, and people are staring down at me. Trouble is, I can't talk back. How did this happen? Sure, I'm like, super old. But still!

  It was murder. I was killed on purpose by…

  Hey! There's Kelly! She's crying. That makes me feel bad, being dead and all. And Rex! He looks so sad. If only I could tell him who did it. Is my troop here? Those girls are so smart, they'd probably figure it out just by looking at me.

  Philby's here? My cat is standing on my chest, smacking me in the face with her paw. She can't believe it either. And even though I don't feel it, it's still annoying. I'd like to tell her to stop. She must know I can't. I'll bet she finds that hilarious.

  And who brings a cat to a visitation? I'm pretty sure that wasn't in my will. Or was it? I forget a lot of things lately, being so old and all.

  Anyway…where was I? Oh right! I was murdered! And you know who did it? It was the Catalans! They broke into my house to steal the plutonium I keep in my fridge. I tried to stop them and managed to kill two of them with one punch, but there were too many. In the end, I was killed by a man with a scimitar. Guess I should've seen that coming.

  "The Catalans?" I frowned after reading the story, written in orange crayon, by Anonymous… I'm not supposed to know who it is, but let's call her "Schmetty."

  "What is it with you and the Catalans?

  Betty squinted. "How do you know I wrote it?"

  I ignored the question. "I'm not old either. I'm thirty."

  "Technically," Lauren, Betty's usual partner in crime, said, "you are old. Like, Mayan Ruins old. Biblical old. Maybe even as old as, like, the first rock ever!"

  "Look," I interrupted. "I appreciate your very loose interpretation of the facts and the creativeness of me being dead and, yet, alert at my own visitation." I took a deep breath. "And I do love the idea of Philby being there." And if I ever get a lawyer, I'm gonna put that in my will. I continued, "But the assignment was social problem-solving."

  "What's more problem-solving than solving your own murder?" Lauren insisted.

  "By the Catalans?" Betty nodded sagely.

  I shook my head. "Because this is about dealing with the problems girls your age are facing today. And I'm pretty sure that fighting off a scimitar-wielding Spaniard of confusing origin who's after the plutonium in my fridge isn't one of them."

  Seriously! Who keeps plutonium in a refrigerator? Everyone knows that if you're going for household appliance-based storage, you'd need a chest freezer (that you should then never, ever open).

  One of the Kaitlyns poked me on the arm. "She should've used Boko Haram. That would make more sense."

  I had four Kaitlyns who all looked alike and shared M as their last initial. You'd think that they'd each have one distinguishing feature, but you'd be wrong. They even had the same straight, brown bob haircut. Sometimes they dressed alike.

  Caterina didn't even look up from the notepad she was writing on. "And they should be after drone technology. Everyone knows plutonium is so 2000s."

  The troop had been divided into five groups of two, working on a project where they would write a story to highlight issues faced by girls their age. The suggestions were cyberbullying, posting the wrong kind of thing on social media, and so on. Leave it to Betty and Lauren to come up with armed terrorists killing me in a plutonium-induced blood rage. Hardly the stuff fourth graders usually faced. Unless you're in Brazil, of course. Then, anything goes.

  Fortunately, the other teams (Caterina and one of the Kaitlyns, Hannah and Ava, Inez and the second Kaitlyn, with the remaining two Kaitlyns together), had done the assignment somewhat correctly.

  And by correctly I mean they nailed it until the solution, which included one girl going to prison in Mexico for some reason, two being executed by a firing squad made up of their peers (which, of course, meant fourth-grade girls), one who had to fight a hungry bear for survival, and one who was banished to Omaha.

  My name is Merry Wrath, and I was a spy for about seven years, until I was "accidentally" outed by the Vice President of the US as vengeance against my father—a prominent senator. After years of dodging bullets (and one angry, knife-wielding chicken) and stealing secrets all over the world, I changed my name from Fionnaghuala Merrygold Czrygy to Merry Wrath (my mother's maiden name) and moved back to my hometown of Who's There, Iowa, where I got talked into co-leading a Girl Scout troop with my best friend, Kelly Albers.

  Oh yeah, and I recently got married. To local police detective, Rex Ferguson. I kept my last name because Wrath sounds more badass than Ferguson. I also kept my little ranch house that was across the street from Rex's…I mean, our house. I use my old house for meetings, to stash my various CIA toys, and for other Girl Scouty projects.

  "Philby!" The girls squealed and dropped what they were doing to surround my fat, wily cat who bore a startling resemblance to Hitler.

  "You brought her with you?" Kelly asked as my feline führer submitted to belly rubs.

  "She likes it here," I replied.

  "I still think it's weird you kept your house." She shook her head—a look I was all too familiar with.

  I sighed. "Rex doesn't mind. And it makes for a good meeting spot."

  "And"—she looked me in the eye—"it's a good hiding place for all those weapons you told Rex you'd had destroyed."

  "Well," I said a bit defensively, "maybe I did destroy them."

  Kelly pointed at the collar around my cat's neck. It was almost too small, and because Philby's body was wider than her head, it didn't stay on very well either.

  "Tell me again why you weaponized your cat?" She folded her arms over her chest.

  I slipped into t
he group and popped the collar off over her head. The girls didn't even notice. I returned to Kelly. "It's not lethal."

  She frowned.

  "Well, mostly nonlethal."

  I pressed one of the rhinestones, and a laser shot out of the collar, putting a hole in the drywall on my right. Damn. I'd have to run out and get some more white toothpaste to fill it in. Again.

  Kelly threw her hands in the air. "What if one of the girls had touched that? Someone could get hurt!"

  She was right. I knew that. It was just so awesome to have a cat with laser capabilities, I guess I hadn't thought it through. I put the collar on top of the curtain rod.

  "See? Hidden from view," I insisted.

  Philby fixed one green eye on me, her tail swishing madly. She liked the collar and resented me taking it. I made a mental note to disable it and give it back to her…after the girls left.

  A horn sounded outside. Peering through the window, I spotted the cars that now lined the street. The parents were here. And, as usual, they weren't too keen to come to the door to collect their daughters. I guess that instead of helicopter parents, I had parents who had no interest in doing parenty things.

  "Time's up, girls!" Kelly clapped her hands.

  We cleaned up quickly and walked the kids outside, making sure they got into the right cars. Oh sure, you think fourth graders should get it right. But that's only if they want to. Which happens a lot with the Kaitlyns.

  Remember how they all have the same name and look alike? Well, their mothers are all improbably named Ashley. And all of the Ashleys own white Dodge SUVs. So sometimes it's an exercise fraught with peril, because to be perfectly honest, sometimes I can't tell the mothers or the cars apart either.

  "So," Kelly asked once the girls were gone, "what are you and Rex doing tonight?"

  "Well, it's Wednesday, which means it's my turn to make dinner, which means we'll be going to Oleo's. You and Robert should join us!"

  Oleo's was the best burger place in the state, with beer-battered french fries, homemade ketchup, and half-pound, greasy hamburgers. And it was the perfect place for the nights when I was supposed to cook.

  I made this offer after every Girl Scout meeting, but Kelly always turned me down.

  "Okay," she said. "I'll drop Finn off at the in-laws', and we can meet you there."

  My jaw dropped. Somehow I picked it up off the sidewalk and asked, "What? You're coming?"

  "Didn't you just invite me?" she asked.

  "Well, yes. It's just that, you always say no."

  Kelly narrowed her eyes. "You asked me, expecting me to say no?"

  "When you say it like that"—I ran my hands through my short, curly, dirty blonde hair—"it kind of sounds stupid."

  She stood there with her hands on her hips and shook her head. "Do you want us to go or not?"

  I had to be careful here. One second's hesitation would incur her fury. "Yes! Please! Join us!"

  "Alright, then. See you at Oleo's at seven." And with that, she turned on her heel, walked to her car, got in, and drove away.

  Shaking my head as I walked back into the house, I was greeted by a collarless cat who was staring meaningfully at the curtain rod.

  "Okay." I turned and reached up to get it. "I'll put it back on, but I'm disabling it."

  Something hard pressed into the middle of my back, and I froze. Unless Philby had been bitten by a radioactive spider in the last few minutes, had grown a few feet, developed an opposable thumb, and found my gun, someone else was in my house.

  The gun was pressed up against my spinal cord—which wasn't my favorite place for a gun to be. Personally, I'd prefer it in a holster with a safety strap.

  "Don't turn around," a voice I didn't recognize growled, "or you're dead."

  Great. Someone was threatening to kill me. And I was pretty sure it wasn't the Catalans.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I've been held at gunpoint before, and yet it always instilled a healthy amount of fear. It doesn't matter if you're in the slums of Tashkent, a dark alley in Bogota, or a public library in Okinawa, having a gun pressed against your vulnerable points is less than ideal.

  "What do you want?" I asked as I slowly raised my arms over my head. "Is it money? My wallet is in that Dora the Explorer backpack on the breakfast bar."

  "No talking!" the voice hissed.

  There was a very uncomfortable pause.

  "What is it you want?" I pressed, mostly because I was out of shape and my arms hurt.

  "Nye!" the voice shrieked.

  "Nye? What does that mean?" My mind raced to see if Nye meant something in another language, but all I could come up with was nigh and Bill Nye the Science Guy. And I was pretty sure he wasn't looking for him in a small ranch house in Who's There, Iowa.

  "Nye! Where's Nye?" He jammed the gun harder into my back.

  I shook my head slowly so as not to trigger him into action. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  Through the open curtains, I watched as Rex drove his car into our driveway. Would he look over here and see me with my arms over my head? It was hard to tell. The sun was still high in the sky, which darkened the windows. Wouldn't that suck, to get jacked sort of in front of my cop husband?

  "Look," I stalled. "I'm happy to help out. I just need more information. I mean, is it a man? A woman? Or something else?"

  The reply was a strangled sort of, "Ooooof!"

  And that's when I noticed that the gun wasn't poking me in the back anymore. I spun around with a roundhouse kick, but my foot met empty air, and my cat gave me a strange look.

  Grabbing the collar from the curtain rod, I raced through the kitchen and into the garage. The door to the yard slammed shut, and as I opened it, I spotted a tall, thin man in a ski mask and wearing gloves racing toward the back of my yard.

  Damn. He was out of laser range. I took off after him, but by the time I cleared the bushes that blocked the alley, he was gone.

  "What's going on?" Rex's voice called from the back door. "Merry?"

  He was holding Philby in his arms. She didn't look happy.

  "Some guy broke in and held me at gunpoint," I said. Since we've been married, I've been a little more open with my husband about the dangerous situations I get myself into. I closed the gap between us and took my cat from him.

  "What?" Rex's eyes were alert as he pulled his cell from his pocket.

  I shook my head. "He's long gone, or I'd be bringing him back to you."

  My husband was undeterred and called the station, asking for a patrol car to search the area. I described him as best as I could, but since the officer happened to be village idiot, Kevin Dooley, I had less than high hopes that he'd find anything other than a bag of chips.

  "Why"—Rex cocked his head to one side—"are you holding a cat collar?"

  Out of reflex, I shoved it behind my back. Rex didn't know I still had all my old "souvenirs" (and by souvenirs, I mean CIA weapons of miniscule destruction).

  "What collar?" I asked without thinking.

  My fingers fumbled for a better grip and accidentally brushed the laser button. A thin beam of pink light shot out behind me and put a hole through a small elm tree.

  Rex stared at me for a moment that seemed like a century. Why did I do that? We'd been working (okay, I'd been working) on keeping no secrets from each other. And I'd failed miserably. As usual.

  "Was that a laser beam?" He walked to the tree and looked through it.

  I didn't have to see it to know the hole went all the way through. That was a minor adjustment problem I could probably fix, and I had the right tools. It took precision to do it—one false move, and once again the PVC pipes in my basement would turn into musical instruments that leaked water.

  I toyed with telling some whopper about not knowing the collar would do that…or that I had laser flatulence. In the end I decided to go with the truth. That in and of itself can be enough of a distraction sometimes. That and Philby running around in a rubber werewolf
mask, something she's been doing since October.

  "It's a laser-emitting cat collar." I sighed as I handed it over. "Don't touch the second rhinestone from the left without aiming first."

  He stared at it in wonder. "So that's why I had to fix your pipes last week."

  "I meant to tell you about it," I said. That was sort of true, because I meant to tell him about it maybe fifty years from now.

  "Merry…" Rex handed the collar back to me. "I know that with your background, it isn't easy divulging spy craft secrets. But let's go for safety first."

  His cell rang before I could answer.

  "Ferguson," he said as he walked a few steps away. "Okay. Thanks." He hung up. "Officer Dooley hasn't found anyone matching that description."

  "Of course he hasn't," I mumbled. "He'd have to take his eyes off the bag of cookies he's probably eating."

  Rex's eyebrows went up. He looked like he was about to chastise me, again, for criticizing his officers. Actually, I only ever criticized Kevin because I went to school with him back in the day, and even then he was a paste-eating mouth breather.

  "The guy is here somewhere," I insisted. "I'm sure he took the ski mask off when he got into his car. Kevin wouldn't think about that. He's probably been looking for a guy in a ski mask this whole time."

  "Tell me the whole story," he said as he led me to a pair of chairs. "And don't leave anything out."

  Once again, I repeated the story. It had all happened so fast, there really wasn't much to tell.

  Rex nodded and listened carefully. Philby trotted over and put something on my shoe. Probably a leaf. When Rex's house was depleted of its mice population, she turned to leaves. The vicious beast has killed several dozen leaves this week alone.