Maltese Vulture Murder Page 10

  "Oh, sure!" I enthused, wondering how Betty knew about stuff like that. But then again, she did recently walk me through a schematic on how to kidnap the mayor, so…

  The rest of the troop chimed in, each eagerly offering up one theory after another. Two of the Kaitlyns thought the gurney teleported out of the morgue. The other two felt that the footage had been tampered with so we couldn't see what happened next. I silently agreed with them.

  Ava shook her head. "It's so obvious. It's aliens!"

  This got an appreciative hoot from the group as the new leaders looked anxiously at each other. Pam was afraid of animals. I could only assume that included aliens.

  "Aliens?" Sophie asked as she set a rock on fire using only magic.

  Delaney looked at her mother. "Will Daddy have to meet with the aliens? They always kill the representative from Earth!"

  Betty nodded. "They'll probably eat him too. Aliens are carnivals."

  So much for Betty's big vocabulary on ecto…whatever. "Carnivores," I gently corrected.

  "If they're like us"—Lauren brightened—"then they'll be cannabis!"

  "Cannibals." Kelly frowned, most likely wondering what the little girl knew about cannabis.

  Tammi blanched, and I wondered if she was worried that her husband would be eaten by either carnivorous or cannibalistic aliens from outer space.

  "It's not aliens!" Inez stomped her feet. "You guys are weird. There's gotta be a logical explanation."

  I nodded to show support, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kelly watching the video closely.

  Ava narrowed her eyes. "Aliens is a logical explanation!"

  "Cannibal aliens," Lauren politely corrected.

  Inez rolled her eyes. "Yeah, aliens are logical…if you're stupid."

  Maria whispered something to Caterina and Hannah, and they burst out laughing. The other girls waited to see what happened next.

  "Girls!" To my amazement, Pam took the lead and stepped forward. "We don't need to resort to name calling."

  Maybe we'd already been good role models for the tormented leaders! As long as no one knew I was really the cannibal-alien-force-four-ecto-ghost, things might work out!

  "No, we don't." I stared at Kelly, waiting for her to jump in, but she'd spotted something on the video, and her eyes went wide.

  "So, what is it then, Miss Smartypants?" Ava ignored us as she folded her arms over her chest.

  Inez sighed. "Isn't it obvious? It's a remote-controlled thingy. Someone's playing tricks."

  I let a breath out and jumped in. "Obviously. Good point, Inez."

  Kelly stuffed her cell phone into her back pocket and stepped forward to take charge. "Alright, alright. Let's get the stuff unpacked and head to the shelter."

  My troop led the younger girls away to the cars, where we loaded them with food and games. I took the lead, and everyone followed me into the park to a shelter with four picnic tables.

  Tammi and Pam put tablecloths out, and the girls put down their boxes. We divided the group into four. One group would get the food out and ready. Another one would set up drinks. The third group would set up the outdoor games, and the fourth would have cleanup duty when we were done.

  Duty rosters were an important part of camping or, in this case, picnicking. Kelly was an expert at it and had a spreadsheet that kept track of who had done what before. Hell hath no fury than a Scout who'd had cleanup twice in a row.

  Kelly sent Pam and Tammi to work with the girls on the games. We'd brought cornhole—a beanbag toss game—large flour sacks for a sack race, and various things for an obstacle course. The new leaders had no clue what was going on, but our girls helped them through it.

  "This is going pretty well," I admitted.

  Kelly stared at the girls. "It really is, considering."

  I turned to stare at her. "Considering what?"

  What could she be referring to? The other troop and their leaders seemed to be working well with our girls. No one was acting inappropriately, and Betty wasn't making grenades out of pinecones. A win-win.

  "Considering that you were a little busy last night." Kelly looked me right in the eye.

  I was never successful at lying to her. Back in elementary school, I'd tried to lie to her, but she always saw through me. I gave up in the third grade. This time would be no different.

  "What do you mean?" I asked, mustering up as much innocence as I could manage.

  She pulled out her phone and the video of the ghostly gurney and tapped it. Once again I watched myself glide across the floor underneath the gurney.

  "Are you going to tell me why you broke into the morgue last night?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "You don't know who or what that is."

  "Yes I do. It's you. Why on earth would you do something like that?"

  "You're reaching," I said a little shakily.

  As a spy, I'd lied to everyone from heads of state to other spies. This was different. Kelly'd had my number since we were little. If she'd gone on to be a spy for the Russians, I'd have been captured within a week after training.

  Kelly shook her head and pointed at the screen. "See this part here?"

  I squinted. The footage was grainy. But I could see that a tiny bit of wrist was exposed. It was so hard to see that it could've passed for a shadow.

  "How can you tell what that is?" It could've been anything. I was totally in the clear.

  "It's your wrist," she insisted.

  I made a point of studying the image. "I don't think it's a wrist. And if it was, it could be anyone's wrist. Why do you think it's me?"

  Kelly pointed at a tiny line on the so-called wrist, with a tiny, barely decipherable heart shape. "Because that's the bracelet I gave you for Christmas."

  Oh. She was good.

  I waited for the words I was sure would come next. What were you thinking? Now you have to tell the girls it wasn't a ghost so they won't get nightmares! And what is wrong with you?

  "I have no idea what you're talking about," I said finally.

  She smiled. "You know what? I'm kind of good at this investigating thing!" And she walked away to get the bread out, a little more smug than I thought she needed to be.

  Lunch consisted of sandwiches, lemonade, chips, and cookies. Kelly chatted up Pam and Tammi while the girls talked to their charges.

  My mind was racing. Not because Kelly caught me or the girls thought something supernatural was going on. It was the video itself. Lauren said there wasn't an exit video. I wondered how she knew.

  Let's say for a moment that she was right. That the security cameras didn't capture my vulture-headed exit or the exit of the two men in the morgue. How could that be? If the cameras caught me going in, why not coming out?

  Then I realized that the video of the two men entering the morgue wasn't included. Why was that? Had the men disabled the cameras after all? That would explain why our exits were missing.

  On the other hand, the leaker might've just left all that footage out because it had been turned over to the police. I checked my cell, but there were no messages from Rex chastising me for making half the town think that meat-eating aliens had invaded the morgue.

  As for Nellie Lou, was it really stealing if it was mine in the first place?

  I shook my head to clear it. I needed to focus. There was another pressing concern I had to think about.

  Who'd leaked the video? And why?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "You're not eating," Kelly pressed.

  "What?" I looked down at my sandwich. "Oh. Right. I was lost in thought."

  "About what?" Tammi asked.

  "Is it something we can help with?" Pam wondered before spotting something. "Sophie! Stop showing off! We all know you can set dishwater on fire!"

  I sat up straighter. "She can set water on fire?" That seemed like a useful skill. At the same time I was thinking, Please, please don't let Betty find out about that…

  Kelly shook her head. "Merry's just a li
ttle distracted these days. She just got married this year."

  "Hey! I'm not distracted about that!" I protested.

  "Are you pregnant?" Tammi asked, her eyes unnervingly staring into mine. It seemed like she was trying to warn me against it.

  I shook my head violently. "No! I have no plans to start a family anytime soon."

  Pam's eyes wandered to the girls, who were now playing freeze tag. "You aren't Betty's mother?"

  "Betty's mother?"

  She nodded. "I assumed you were the mother of one of the girls. Why else would you do this?"

  Tammi nodded quickly in agreement.

  "Neither of us has a daughter in this troop." Kelly stepped up. "My daughter is only a few years old."

  Tammi made a face that looked something along the lines of disgust. "Why on earth would you lead a troop if you didn't have to? What's wrong with you?"

  I'll admit, I was starting to get a little defensive. Fortunately, Kelly, sensing that, deflected.

  "Why are you leading a troop? What got you into this?" she asked Pam.

  Pam had the good sense to look a little guilty. "I didn't want to. But Sophie lives on a farm, and it's pretty isolated. Not a lot of girls come all the way out to us to spend the night or just play. I thought this would be good for her."

  "Well…" I stared at the girl who'd somehow managed to start the wet green grass on fire. Betty stomped it out. "She sure has some advanced fire craft skills."

  "That was the other thing," Pam continued. "She burned down a stone building on our property. Her father said it was this or reform school."

  Betty and Lauren walked over with little Sophie on their way to grab a few cookies.

  "And then," Betty was saying, "after we adopt you, we'll take you to join the Catalans."

  Pam shot me a look.

  "Betty's a little obsessed with the Catalan Independence Movement." I waved her off. "She'll grow out of it."

  Sophie's mom looked confused. "Are you sure she's not yours?"

  "No way. I'd have taught her not to talk that way when adults could hear."

  Kelly cleared her throat in my direction before turning to ask Tammi, "What about Delaney? Does she like Scouts? Why did you sign up?"

  The nervous, birdlike woman shrugged. She was wearing a white dress and shoes, of all things, and was fussing over a grass stain.

  "My husband is the mayor," she said needlessly. "He thought it would look good for his political career to have me and Delaney active in the community."

  "That sounds like a good reason," I said. I didn't like her husband, but at least she was trying.

  "Neither Delaney or I wanted to do it. At all. But Bill was convinced it filled a need in town. So…" She let the words wither away.

  "It is a good idea." Kelly patted the woman on the back. "Merry and I love working with the girls." She turned to me. "Don't we?"

  She was right. When I came back to Who's There, tail between my legs, depressed that I was never going to do what I was passionate about again, these girls changed my outlook. Gave me a sense of purpose. Taught me how to have fun. I knew I'd make an impact on them. All of my girls were strong, confident kids, and at least five of them knew how to use nunchakus to stop a fleeing assailant.

  "Absolutely." I nodded. "I can't imagine doing anything else."

  The four of us sat there for a few minutes, watching the girls chase each other around. The little girls seemed to like the older kids. No one was bickering. Everyone was getting along. I chalked part of that up to the fact that this gave my troop a little purpose, but our girls were amazing, even when they were plotting something insidious.

  "You said they all hate each other?" I asked.

  The two women nodded in sync.

  "We can't go a whole meeting without a fight breaking out," Pam said. "I can't for the life of me figure out how it's going so well now."

  Tammi agreed. "They're getting along so well. It's like a whole different troop."

  I wanted to say that maybe the problem wasn't the girls, maybe it was the leaders, but I figured Kelly wouldn't like that.

  "What can we do to help?" Kelly asked.

  At that very moment, there were screams and shouting, and we took off running to where the girls were in a tight circle, looking down at an actual fist fight between Delaney and Sophie.

  "Nothing to see here." Betty held everyone back. "Let them fight it out."

  I waded in and pulled the two kids apart. Kelly took Delaney from me, and we walked both girls back to the shelter as Pam and Tammi questioned the others. I was surprised the leaders were letting Kelly and me drag their own daughters away.

  "What's going on?" I sat Sophie down at one table while Kelly plunked Delaney on the bench opposite.

  "She"—Delaney puffed up—"burned my dress!"

  That's when I noticed that the girl was wearing a smaller replica of her mother's white dress. The hem on the right side was singed, but there appeared to be no other damage.

  I held out my hand to Sophie. "Cough it up."

  She attempted a wide-eyed innocent face. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "The matches, or lighter, or gasoline, flint, or flamethrower—whatever you have on you."

  The girl grinned as she emptied the pockets of her shorts. "See? Nothing?"

  I looked over at Betty. She was studying something in her hands, but the moment she spotted me, she ran over to Lauren on the other side of the park.

  "Why did you burn her dress?" Kelly was a bit ruffled. And that was weird, with her being a former ER nurse.

  "Because she's a total brat," the girl said cooly.

  "I am NOT!" Delaney shrieked. "My daddy is…"

  Sophie finished her sentence for her. "The mayor. Right. We know. You tell us a million times a day."

  "Well!" Delaney rose up, adopting an overtly dignified tone. "At least I'm not a stupid farmer redneck!"

  Sophie got to her feet, climbed over the table and, in a very impressive leap, jumped up and landed on Delaney. The two girls wrestled on the ground for a split second before Kelly and I, again, pulled them apart.

  I glanced at Pam and Tammi, who were standing off to the sides, staring at us nervously. They didn't want to discipline their own kids. They wanted us to do it!

  "That's it!" I announced loudly so the others would hear. "We're going to do a trust circle!"

  Kelly smiled, and our troop immediately formed a circle, including the younger girls, as they held hands. I marched the two over and put Sophie in the middle after forcibly placing Delaney between two of the Kaitlyns.

  "A trust circle," Kelly announced, "is where those in the circle say what they like about the person in the middle."

  She left out the fact that we usually did it with candles during a bridging ceremony. But considering Sophie's pyromania, she'd left that out. It was okay. We didn't have candles anyway.

  I'd invented the trust circle a few years ago, during a slumber party at the camp lodge. We didn't really need it. I just thought it would be a morale booster. It was. It's hard to be mad at people who like something about you. Ever since, we've used it at bridging ceremonies.

  Being the first one in the middle of the circle took some of the wind out of Sophie's sails. For the first time since I'd met her, this seemingly confident kid appeared to be a little nervous.

  "Ava"—I pointed—"you start."

  I'd chosen Ava because she was a leader, and next to her were Caterina and Hannah, arguably our sweetest Scouts. These three would get the ball rolling, and the new girls would get the gist. And it meant that Delaney would be one of the last girls to go.

  "I like that you're smart," Ava said. "You can start a fire with anything."

  My girls were total firebugs, and all of them would say that if they could. It was time for me to lay down the rules.

  "That's how we do it," I explained. "Everyone says something they genuinely like about the girl in the middle. And everyone's comment has to be unique, so n
othing is repeated."

  Repeating stuff was a total cop-out. The first time we'd done this, absolutely every girl said they liked Betty's "killer instinct." Which led to the rules. It was Betty's favorite event ever.

  "I think you're cool," Caterina said next. "Because you live on a farm. I wish I did."

  Hannah nodded. "I think you are an amazing runner. I'll bet you were the fastest one at tag and you never got caught."

  Sophie's grin could be seen from space. Pam's and Tammi's jaws hung open. I guess they'd never thought of doing anything like this. Hopefully, this would give them ideas.

  Around the circle, each and every girl praised Sophie to the high heavens. I was getting a little anxious as we got to Lauren.

  "You are very confident," the little girl said. "I wish I was as confident as you."

  Betty stepped forward. "You are the best fire-starter I've ever met," she gushed. "You have a brilliant future as an arsonist!"

  Sophie put her hand over her heart and blushed. She looked fit to burst with pride.

  "Right," Kelly interrupted. "An arsonist is a criminal. I think you might be a great fire investigator."

  The girls acted as if my co-leader hadn't spoken at all.

  The Kaitlyn between Betty and Delaney spoke up. "And you have an amazing right hook. I'd give anything to land a punch like that."

  Okay, so it was going south quickly. I was just about to speak when Delaney shouted, "I think you're mean! My daddy will put you in jail!"

  Kelly and I broke through the circle, prepared to stop Sophie from rushing Delaney, but Sophie didn't. She just sighed.

  "Your turn next, brat." Sophie went and joined hands between Betty and Lauren. I thought I saw Betty palm something to the little firebug, but I couldn't tell.

  Delaney stepped into the middle of the ring and took a haughty posture. That was bad. It worked so much better if you were humble.

  Ava considered her comment, and it worried me that it was slow in coming.

  "I think you'll make a great CEO of a major company. You're very ruthless. I like that."

  Um, okay. Not too terrible.

  Caterina took a different approach. "I think you have lovely fashion sense. That's a pretty dress, even if it is scorched and covered in grass stains."