Maltese Vulture Murder Read online

  Although, for all I knew, it was my troop. They'd proved this summer that they could drive, when they made off with my van to rescue me in a different situation. And if it was my troop, Sun and Moon were in big trouble. These girls could make flamethrowers and didn't fully understand how the law worked. I should probably do something about that at a future meeting.

  I guess Rex was right about me. I did get into trouble a lot. I'd better turn that into training for my troop too—something like how to get out of a kidnapping situation. Maybe there was a merit badge for that. If not, I'd make one.

  Mumbling came from the seat in front of me, but I couldn't really hear it due to the hood's muffling effect. That was a good sign. It meant they were nervous. I leaned back in my seat and tried not to panic, because in thinking of a kidnapping merit badge, I'd lost track of where we were.

  The truck finally turned right again, and I heard the crunch of gravel as the truck slowed to a stop. A pair of hands pulled me from my seat, setting me upright on the ground. One hand grabbed my arm and pulled me along.

  "Hey!" I called out. "You'd better not be touching me with your poison ivy hands!"

  The request was ignored.

  Gravel gave way to grass. Which gave way to cement before I went up three wooden steps into a building. I was shoved down onto a chair. One of the men tied each ankle to the chair's legs using what felt like rope, before my hood was removed. The two men stepped outside and began whispering. Shaking the hair from my eyes, I studied my surroundings.

  We were in a nicely appointed cabin with expensive furniture, a door to somewhere, and a bathroom I could see directly into. Outside the windows I could see trees, expensive landscaping, and very short grass.

  We were at the country club cabins! Was this the mayor's cabin? That seemed kind of cruel, to kidnap the Jones's daughter and stash her in the cabin they'd rented. There wasn't much to indicate it was. Straining in my chair, I attempted to look behind me but only caught a sideways glimpse of a wall of photos. I didn't get a chance to see who was in them.

  Then, my eyes caught sight of something on the far wall. It was a frame, painted as the Texas flag, with a photo of Mayor Bill Jones handing a plaque to some guy. I stared at the frame. It definitely was the flag of Texas. Squinting, I tried to make out who the man was. I felt like I'd seen him before. Then it hit me. The other man was Norbert Bingley. Bill Jones had given Bingley that mysterious commendation! They knew each other back in Texas!

  My spy-dy senses exploded. Had the mayor been the brains behind this all along? Was he Mr. Big?

  The story pieced itself together. The mayor had lived in Texas before moving here. Mayor Jones knew Norbert Bingley and gave him that commendation Randi had told me about! Perhaps the commendation was given to silence the cop, which was why it was never mentioned what the award was for.

  Maybe Norbert had dirt on the mayor—something that would silence his political ambitions forever. Bingley could've stumbled onto this blackmail when investigating something.

  Rex had said Bingley had been a cop in Houston. It didn't seem possible that Jones had been the mayor of Houston. If he'd come from a big city, I'd assume he wouldn't go for a tiny town like this. His ego was too big. Jones was probably the mayor of a smaller town in the Houston area.

  If my theory was right, then Bingley had promised to keep silent in exchange for a random commendation. But maybe that wasn't enough for him and he stashed the blackmail material inside of Nellie Lou.

  Why had he faked his death? Because that was when his family sent the bird back to Ferguson Taxidermy. Did he fake his death to follow the mayor here, or was it for some other reason?

  This was all pure speculation on my part, but it seemed sound. It would certainly explain why Bingley was in my garage, where this time, he didn't fake his death. Had the mayor killed him? It seemed likely. Or maybe his henchmen, Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon, had killed him.

  But Poopsie was taken, and my first encounter with Sun and Moon at the twins' shop all happened before Norbert died in my garage. Somehow, the mayor must've found out that Norbert had stashed something in a dead bird and sent these goons to look for it. Until Bingley died in my garage, they had no idea what dead bird they were looking for, so they took Poopsie, checked out the penguins and ostriches in the shop, and took the dodo from the museum.

  My head started to spin. There were too many variables at play here, and I wasn't sure if I was even right. The good news was that I had a pretty good idea what these two were looking for—Bingley's blackmail material. Now I knew what it was I was supposed to know, even if I didn't really know it! Yay!

  Should I let them know I knew where we were? It seemed like a nice, snarky way to begin the conversation. Maybe I should wait until I saw Delaney. And where was she, anyway? The bathroom and this room were empty. But I didn't know what the other door went to.

  And then it hit me. The mayor was probably behind this.

  "You don't have Delaney, do you?" I said the moment the two men came back inside the cabin. How did I miss that when putting two and two together?

  Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon looked at each other. It was hard to decipher the looks on their faces. Were they confused or upset that I'd called it?

  I had to stall since I knew we'd been followed part of the way. It was important to give Rex, Riley or, for that matter, Betty, the opportunity to find me.

  "Tell us what you know." Mr. Sun's voice became very menacing, but the mullet and Daisy Duke shorts counteracted that.

  Bluff with what you don't have, my mentor in the CIA, Frank, had told me. Since they hadn't answered my question on Delaney, I'd have to backtrack to when I'd thought they didn't have her.

  "Show me Delaney," I insisted.

  The men turned and walked through that mysterious door, barely closing it behind them. Once again, I heard mumbling. Did they bring me here without a plan? Had they really thought I'd give something up without seeing the girl they may or may not have kidnapped?

  Looking around, I made a note of possible escape routes besides the front door, mostly because it was right next to where they were. There were two windows in this room that I could reasonably fit through. And while I could see the open bathroom from where I sat, the window above the toilet didn't look large enough. That was it. Those two windows were the easiest way out if I couldn't get out the front door. The next task, figure out what was outside.

  I tried to recall what I knew about the country club. I'd only been here once since moving back to town. It was out in the country, had a nine hole golf course and a smallish clubhouse with a restaurant. There was a pool—or at least there had been when I was in high school. Trees surrounded the grounds to give it that secluded feeling you didn't find very often in Iowa, a state where you could see for ten miles or more, but other than that, it was cornfields for miles.

  My thoughts turned to Delaney. If her dad was the brains behind this, he surely wouldn't have really kidnapped his only child. Would he? Tammi had seemed distraught by the girl's disappearance. Which made me wonder if she was even in on it.

  The woman was a nervous wreck. Or was she? Tammi could have been playing me all along. It was tough to gauge because her act seemed genuine.

  However, if Tammi wasn't in on her husband's plot, that might be a clue as to what the blackmail material was. Some sort of affair…or sex scandal would be my vote, which gave me food for thought for the big bluff.

  Or, it could be some sort of illegal activity, which might explain a sudden move from Texas to Iowa. It had to be more than just cheating or sex, because it was enough for him to hire these goons and kill or order the murder of Norbert Bingley.

  That's when I realized that Sun and Moon had been gone for a long time. Too long. I strained to listen, but the voices in the other room had fallen silent. What was happening? Had I called their bluff and they were waiting me out in an attempt to get me to panic?

  I'd been trained by the CIA in enough scenarios to be able to handle any
thing. The big trick was to keep your wits about you. My psychology was being played upon. And the only way they could win was if I fell for it.

  And where was the cavalry to rescue me? These guys had made four left turns, an impressive feat in the rabbit's warren of country roads in rural Iowa. Were they waiting outside? I doubted that Rex would do that. He'd barge in to get me.

  Carnack and Riley might be more cautious—Carnack for backup and Riley because he knew I could handle myself, or because he was a jerk. Or was it Betty and the girls? Now, those kids could plan a proper coup.

  No, they'd have burst in by now, homemade flamethrower a'blazing.

  What was happening in the next room? And what was happening outside? My stomach rumbled. I was hungry. I could handle just about any kind of torture, except for hunger. My patience was running thin.

  "Hey!" I shouted at the door. "Guys! Either come back in here with the kid or I'm leaving!"

  The door opened, and a surprised Mr. Moon walked over and examined my bonds. Still connected. He sighed with relief and stared at me. I looked around the room again, and my eyes landed on a package of Oreos. My stomach complained loudly.

  "You know," I said calmly, "you guys don't seem to have a clue what you're doing. Call in the big guns, and I'll spill the beans."

  Yeesh. What was it with me and metaphors? Well, to be fair, I was hungry.

  "We are the big guns." Mr. Sun walked into the room and pulled a chair up opposite me.

  I shook my head, "Look, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you are the lowly henchmen. You're indecisive, can't answer even the most basic questions, and I'm guessing you don't even know what was in the bird."

  I sat back, letting that sink in.

  "We do too!" Mr. Moon shrieked like a toddler. "We're in charge here. Mr. Big said so!"

  Sun shot him a look, and I smiled.

  "Ah. There's a Mr. Big. Thanks for the tip-off. And I'm gathering that it's a man since you said Mr."

  And that's when the diminutive Mr. Moon walked over and slapped me across the face. I barely felt it, mostly because he had the weakest slap I'd ever encountered. Kelly's toddler had hit me harder than that by accident.

  Part of me wanted to make fun of him for that, but then again, that might draw the much larger Mr. Sun into hitting me. I could handle getting hit, but I didn't like it. I once had a ten-year-old girl, who was also a Colombian drug lord, slap me so hard I saw stars. No, it was better not to aggravate these two any further.

  "Look," I said. "I'm not planning to humiliate you in front of Mr. Big. I just want to know what's going on. I'll tell you what I know if you produce the girl and let her go."

  That was reasonable, right?

  "We can't show you the girl right now," Mr. Sun said, coloring a little pink in the face. "She's not here."

  My stomach took the next moment of silence as an opportunity to rumble very loudly. I pretended not to notice, but Sun and Moon did.

  "Then get her, or you'll never know what I know," I grumped. This was getting old, and my empty stomach was ratting me out.

  "I just told you." Mr. Sun was blushing furiously now. "I can't do that. You tell us what you know, and we'll let her go."

  These guys sucked. And we were going to be at this all day.

  "You think you know everything!" Mr. Moon snapped, giving his partner a glance. Had I struck a nerve in embarrassing Mr. Sun?

  "But you don't!" Moon continued.

  "Moon…" Sun warned.

  He waved the big man off. "She thinks she's so damn smart! Well, guess what, Ms. Smarty! You're wrong about Mr. Big!"

  He shouldn't have put the emphasis on Mr. like that. Because now I knew for a fact that Mr. Big was Mrs. Big.

  "Well, that explains a lot," I said. "Especially since we are in the mayor's cabin."

  This had a startling effect on the men.

  "What are you doing?" Sun shrieked as he lumbered to his feet and stormed over to his partner.

  "She's making us look bad!" Moon hollered at him.

  "She didn't know anything until you opened your big mouth!" Mr. Sun pointed at me. "Now we have to kill her or something!"

  Mr. Moon blanched. And that's when I realized that offing me was never in the plans. In fact, these two had never killed and possibly never kidnapped anyone before. It kind of made sense, now that I thought of how they'd been screwing up since the beginning, from the terrible disguises to the yellow truck.

  My instincts weren't often wrong. But if I was right, then they didn't kill Norbert Bingley in my garage. Did that mean the mayor or Tammi did?

  "Now she knows we weren't going to kill her or the girl!" Mr. Sun whined. "Which gives us no leverage at all!"

  He had a point. I sure as hell wasn't going to tell them what I (didn't) know now.

  Mr. Moon snapped back, "She didn't know that until you told her just now! Who's the idiot? Not me!"

  "And another thing." Mr. Sun was just getting warmed up. "You slap like a baby! There isn't even a handprint on her cheek! She didn't even reel back from the blow!"

  Moon took this as a challenge, and he stormed over, reached up, and slapped his partner. The blow had the same effect as it had on me. Sun reared back and slapped Moon, whose head snapped back as a red mark appeared on his face.

  From his expression, I could see that Moon was furious. He lunged at Sun, and the two began hitting and kicking each other. They resembled five-year-old boys on the playground.

  At least they weren't pounding on me. The two men didn't notice that I'd brought my arms up and down, breaking the zip tie. They didn't seem to realize I was untying my ankles from the chair legs.

  As I made my way out the front door, I snagged the Oreos. At least something would come out of this idiocy. No one was outside. Huh. Whoever was following us had missed this location. A sign pointed the way to the dining room, and I followed it, snacking on cookies.

  It was cool and welcoming in the clubhouse, and I was seated pretty quickly. The place was almost full up, so I got a small table for two to myself in the corner by the kitchen. I sat facing the entrance and ordered a bacon cheeseburger.

  Regardless of whether Sun and Moon even knew I was gone, they weren't going to get me here. Why didn't I call Rex or anyone else? I was a little stung that they weren't here. By now I was pretty sure that we weren't followed and the two men were probably just deploying evasive measures that they read about in some Espionage 101 handbook.

  Besides, it was lunchtime, and I was starving. I ate quickly and, when I was done, charged the whole meal to the mayor's account.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "You what?" Rex asked when I got into his car ten minutes later.

  "Thanks for picking me up," I said as I put on the seat belt. "I said, I found Sun and Moon. They kidnapped me and held me at the mayor's cabin."

  My husband looked me up and down. He knew better than to accuse me of making things up. Weird stuff happened around me all the time. Weirder stuff than this. He knew I was telling the truth.

  "Then why am I picking you up at the clubhouse?"

  "I was hungry." I shrugged.

  Rex's right eyebrow went up.

  "You know how I get if I don't eat," I explained. "This was really the best thing for everyone."

  "When they noticed you missing, I'm sure they ran off. For all we know they could be in the next county by now."

  "Not necessarily," I mused. "They aren't very smart. Anyhow, it doesn't matter because I know who's behind it all."

  "Are you going to tell me?" Rex asked.

  "Not yet. Soon."

  I directed him along the route to the cabin, and we pulled up outside. The yellow truck was gone. The door was wide open. It seemed rude not to enter with an invitation like that, so we went in.

  The chair I'd been in was still there, next to the remnants of the zip tie and rope. I walked my husband through the whole scene, and we got to peek into the other room. Turned out, it was a large closet. That expla
ined the muffled speech, as it was packed with clothes.

  "I'll call Carnack." Rex sighed as he took his phone from the holder on his belt. "We're outside of town, so once again, this is his jurisdiction."

  I left him to it as I inspected the cabin, taking care not to touch anything I hadn't touched before. It was fairly typical. Just a place to cool off and lounge after a game of golf or a day at the pool. Or a place to change for dinner. I smiled, thinking about the look on the mayor's face when he gets my bill for lunch.

  As Rex explained things to the sheriff, I took the time to examine the wall of framed photos that I hadn't been able to see clearly before, each depicting the mayor doing something. From the ribbon cutting ceremony at the Famously Fun Texas Rodeo and the news article that said Mayor declares run for the Senate, my thoughts were confirmed that he had, in fact, been in politics in Texas.

  "He's on his way," Rex said as he wrapped me in a huge bear hug. "Even though I know you handled things"—his voice rumbled in his chest—"I wish you wouldn't take chances like this."

  I pulled away. "It was for Delaney. Even though she wasn't here."

  "Tell me everything you think you know"—Rex folded his arms over his chest—"before the sheriff gets here. And don't leave out anything."

  * * *

  The sheriff showed up with a couple of deputies. They took some fingerprints, the zip tie, and rope for evidence. I filled him in on my theory, including the men trying to ditch a tail on the way here.

  Carnack looked at his men, who shook their heads. "It wasn't us." He pointed at my husband. "And I'm guessing it wasn't any of yours."

  Rex shook his head. "What do you think about the mayor being involved?"

  The big man shrugged. "I'll bring him in for questioning. I'd like to have you there. You have more of a relationship with him. I barely know the man."

  "Good idea," I answered for Rex. "And I'll observe through the two-way glass."