Mind-Bending Murder Read online

  "Oh sure." I rolled my eyes. "That's what they want me to do!"

  "That's what I want you to do."

  Awww. That was sweet. "Well, I can't right now. I am safe. But you could give me some details. We know he was stabbed with a stiletto. Do they know anything else?"

  There was a long sigh before he spoke again. "Vanderzee has asked if you have a stiletto."

  "Yes, but it's missing," I reasoned. "So you can honestly say no."

  "Vanderzee is convinced you killed Tyson and kidnapped Malone."

  I bit my lip. "I'm sure he does, but you know I had nothing to do with that."

  "Yes, I do. So does Soo Jin and Sheriff Carnack and most of the family, except for Ronni, who's turned those T-shirts into an empire. And Ron and Ivan have threatened anyone who says you did it."

  "Well, that's nice," I said.

  "You should come in and answer some questions. Malone's disappearance and you being at his house looks like you tried to eliminate the only witness who can place you at the scene."

  I felt a stab of fear for the old man. I needed to find him. And not just because he knew I wasn't there that night, but because someone took him—because of me.

  "I wonder what happened to him. Do you think the real killer kidnapped or killed him?"

  Rex grew quiet. "Maybe he went on the run out of fear? Who knows? You need to go in and talk to the sheriff."

  "Okay. I will," I lied.

  "You will?" My husband sounded skeptical.

  "Yes, tomorrow." And then I hung up. I hated lying to my husband, and I really wanted to do the right thing. Saying I was coming in tomorrow was all I could think of. And I didn't have a lot of confidence that I'd be able to solve this by then.

  I was running out of clues. I needed to start from the beginning with waking up in the shed. It was time to find out what the deal was with Boats of the Midwest. I'd avoided it because it sounded dumb and boring. But it was showing up everywhere, including in bulk in the room where Tyson died.

  I made my way back to the Chapel of Despair.

  The waterbed was difficult to sit on without creating mini tsunamis every time I shifted. Pulling out my cell, I ordered a massaging recliner from Amazon. It would arrive the next day, and the kids would have something far more comfortable.

  The author of the book wasn't listed on the cover. I opened it up and found the cover page, which listed the author as Anonymous.

  The copyright indicated that it had come out this year. So it was a new, boring book. I opened up a can of pop and a bag of chips and turned to the first page.

  Three hours later, I was finished and felt like I needed to wash my eyes out with soap. Far from being dull, Boats of the Midwest was either a badly written novel or a complete diary charting all of the scandals in a town called Intestinally, Iowa.

  Was that a very badly disguised Bladdersly? Were these the town secrets? It would explain the pen name. This little, two-hundred-and-fifty page book charted the history of Bladdersly to present day. And the history was very different than the one we'd heard before back in Who's There.

  Apparently, Bladdersly started off originally as Wanderwee. Hmmm…the name of the police chief. Was he a descendant?

  Anyway…Wanderwee was founded by a gold prospector of the same name, who, on his way out West, got tired and decided he didn't want to go any farther. Obadiah tried panning for gold in Idiot Creek, a trickle just west of here, but didn't get more than a few leeches and some typhus from drinking out of it.

  He built a one-room cabin and set up a trading post. And even though it wasn't on any routes for any travellers, he kept things afloat and managed to lure a few others to settle there. Most of these people were down on their luck too and decided a second or third chance in the middle of nowhere couldn't be any worse.

  When Who's There was founded, along with a lumber mill and tavern, Wanderwee had nothing but losers and a mysterious and endless cycle of cholera. Wanderwee attempted a sort of resurrection. His idea, mainly because they couldn't compete with the lumber mill or tavern, was to set up a brothel.

  The idea backfired when they couldn't get any of the town's forty-seven women to even consider the world's oldest profession. In fact, the town drummed Wanderwee out of city limits and decided to rename the town Intestinally after the mayor's wife, Intesta.

  Obadiah lived outside of town in a shack. He married some unfortunate woman who gave him twelve children before dying. And eventually those descendants returned to Bladdersly, or Intestinally, and have lived there ever since.

  The badly edited book then jumped forward two hundred years to the year 2000. And that's when things got interesting. Whoever wrote this had insight into the secret lives of most of the town.

  I knew it!

  There were tales of inbreeding (which made a lot of sense to me), bizarre fetishes (did you know some men are actually turned on at the sight of a pretzel?), countless love affairs, and murder. It read like those tabloid rags in Howard's office.

  None of this information was backed up with hard evidence. It all seemed to be hearsay. And yet, it was pretty damning. I could see someone killing to keep this book quiet. Which made me think of the books in the shed. Was that the entire print run?

  Had someone killed to silence the author? And was that author Tyson Pancratz?

  I jumped to my feet to do a little victory dance at the idea of having solved this, but the waterbed had other ideas and launched a wave worthy of a professional surfer that sent me tumbling to the floor.

  I got to my feet and continued the dance because this was big. This was huge. This could break everything wide open!

  Unfortunately, I spilled my pop and crushed my chips. So I headed to the church kitchen to get the bottle of wine I'd brought in. Fortunately, none of the kids had tapped into it yet, so I broke the seal, unscrewed the cap, and poured it into a glass.

  Where were those kids anyway? School must've been out by now. And I was pretty sure these guys didn't have anywhere to go. I needed to talk to them about the break-in earlier and see if they knew what it was about.

  I'd probably ban them from the building until I could guarantee their safety. A little pang hit my stomach. Sure, they could be annoying, but I had a soft spot for this little troop of druid wannabees. In fact, I should put in place some security measures that would keep it safe…at least while I was here.

  I could run to my ranch house and get the various tools of my trade, which I'd stolen from my former employer and hidden in the basement. But if the police were surveilling the house, that was a no-go. I'd just have to use what I had here.

  The kitchen cupboards didn't have much, but there were a couple of things I could work with. The tin of popcorn kernels would be especially useful. Although I had to wonder, who made popcorn the old-fashioned way anymore? Was that a thing? Or was I lazy in using those microwaveable bags that only popped half of the corn?

  I found twine, scissors, thumbtacks, a staple gun, and plastic bags. This was going to be fun! Just like the time Riley and I holed up in an old office supply store in Budapest!

  "What are you doing?" Heather startled me from the doorway. Her face was scrunched up as if something smelled bad. Mike walked in behind her and stared at the bottle of wine on the counter.

  "You can't have any." I snatched it away and put it back in the fridge. Great. Now I was going to have to open the fridge to get it back out.

  "I don't want to drink alcohol." Mike waved his hands in front of him. "My dad said it leads straight to juvie and, before you know it, adult diapers."

  Maybe the kids weren't the weird ones. To be honest, I'd only ever met Stewie's dad, who labored under the delusion that Stewie was super smart and popular.

  Heather shook her head. "My mom said that wine is medicinal, especially if you drink it out of a box."

  "That's right," I said as I took a swig. "I'm taking my medicine."

  Mike looked confused, so I added, "Of course, Mike's dad is right too."
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  "He is?" Mike's eyes grew wide. "I'll have to tell him Bird Goddess says so. He'll love that."

  "You guys can call me Merry," I said. "Seriously. You call each other by your real names. I've even heard you call Stewie Stewbutt. Merry is fine."

  "It's one less syllable." Heather seemed to agree.

  "See? I'm making things easier on you already. Oh, and by the way, I ordered a massaging recliner for the relaxation room. You're welcome."

  Mike and Heather high-fived each other. Kayla and Stewie pushed past them into the kitchen. I hadn't even known they were there.

  "I need to talk to you guys." I clapped my hands to get their attention, something that sometimes worked with my troop. "Something strange happened today."

  "Did you commune with demons?" Stewie burst into the center of the room eagerly. "Raise the dead? Contact aliens?"

  Kayla put her hands on her hips. "That's our problem right there. We have no consistent message!"

  "Kayla's right," Heather said. "I mean, are we into demons or zombies or aliens? You change it all the time, Stewie."

  Mike shook his head. "I think we should keep all options open. I mean, what if we're having a meeting with demons and an alien walks in? Do we just kick him out?"

  Stewie nodded his head and pointed at Mike. "He's right! We have to be open to all things strange and unusual."

  "What if the demons are jerks?" Kayla folded her arms over her chest. "What if they're sexist?"

  "Like you!" Heather pointed at Stewie.

  "What are you talking about?" The diminutive redhead seemed genuinely confused.

  The girls brought up the language about manhoods and indoctrinating females. Stewie's face grew redder, and for a moment, I was worried he'd explode.

  "Manhood means I'm a man," Stewie insisted. "And indoctrinating means giving a person a place to take a nap. Women need naps. My mom told me that."

  I needed to meet Stewie's mom. "Besides the fact that I'll be buying you a dictionary soon, why do you think women need naps?"

  "To rest their cosmic auras," Stewie said. "Duh!" He made a circular motion on the side of his head as if to imply that I was crazy.

  I was starting to wonder if I was.

  After I explained to the kids what those things actually meant, Stewie began to sputter.

  "I didn't know that!" His face was flushed and his eyes wide. "How would I know that?"

  "You should read more romance novels." Heather nodded. "Then you'd know what a manhood was."

  "Okay." I held up my hands. "We need to talk about something else."

  In truth, I was greatly relieved that Stewie was only inadvertently sexually harassing girls. I herded the kids to a table in the hall, and we all sat down. Then I told them about the men invading the Chapel of Despair.

  "Recruits?" Stewie leaned forward eagerly.

  "I don't think so. They seemed to be older guys."

  The kids looked at me questioningly.

  I sighed. "Like me."

  "Ahhhhhh…" the girls said in unison.

  I toyed with accusing them of ageism, but decided we didn't have time for that. "If I had to guess, I'd say they were professionals."

  "Men in Black!" Mike slammed his hand on the table. "We've attracted the attention of the dudes from, like, Area 51!"

  Stewie drooled a little. "We've done it! We've hit the big-time! Now a secret government organization is after us!"

  "Cool!" Kayla said.

  Should I ruin their excitement and tell them these were not Feds?

  "These guys said they were looking for something they called 'it.' Any ideas what they want?"

  "Do you think we have the Holy Grail or an alien egg here?" Stewie asked hopefully.

  It was so tempting to say yes, but that would only encourage them. "No. I don't."

  Kayla looked at Stewie. "Why would aliens have eggs?"

  Mike nodded. "I think they have babies, like people."

  "They could have eggs!" Stewie stormed. "They could be marsupials! Who knows?"

  I raised my arms. "Guys. We are getting off track. Let's say for the sake of argument that you're all right…"

  "We can't all be right." Kayla frowned.

  "Yeah!" Mike added. "Which is it? Babies, eggs, or marsupials?"

  "I don't care." My voice had an edge. "The real question is where could whatever 'it' is be?"

  Heather spoke up. "I don't know. There was a lot of junk when we moved in. We tossed a lot of it. But I think we stashed some stuff in the old nursery."

  Huh. So we were getting to babies. Albeit not alien babies. "Let's go," I said. "First, we need to lock the doors. And we need to keep locking the doors every time we leave here. I'm going to need a key."

  The kids looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  "What's so funny?"

  "You! You actually think we have keys! That's so 2010!" Mike wiped away some tears.

  I closed my eyes and pictured myself removing his diaphragm. It helped.

  "What do you use instead?"

  Stewie pulled out the latest version of the iPhone and tapped until an app came up. He showed it to me. The logo had a goat's skull on it with the words Security for Your Peace of Mind written in red, dripping letters.

  "This guy at MIT invented it," Stewie explained. "We use the app to lock and unlock the doors."

  "And you didn't understand what manhood meant?" I asked.

  "Give me your phone." Heather held her hand out.

  I handed it over.

  "Uh, what is this?"

  "It's my phone." I paused.

  She handed it back to me. "Well, I can't put an app on that. You have an old phone. Last year's model can't handle this app."

  "That's really primitive," Kayla said.

  "My grandma has that phone," Stewie added. "And she's got dementia."

  "Well." I took it back. "This is what I have to work with. I guess you'll have to give me a key."

  "Don't worry," Mike said. "We have a failsafe. There's a keypad under the skull to the right of the door. Just enter the secret code."

  "Which is?"

  "666."

  I blinked at them for a moment. "Guys, don't you think that's a little obvious?"

  "Oh" was all Stewie could say. "I hadn't thought of that."

  "How about 999?" Kayla offered.

  "Yeah!" Mike said. "Good idea!"

  Heather hesitated. "Maybe that's too obvious too. I mean, it's just 666 upside-down, right?"

  I smiled at her to reward her for saying something intelligent.

  "Well, I don't know if I can remember something harder than that," Stewie whined.

  "How about…" I held up my arms. "Something like 1212?"

  The kids started laughing again. I was really regretting staying here.

  "Too obvious!"

  "I know!" Stewie held up a finger. "0804!" He turned to me and explained, very slowly, "That means August fourth. That's the date the Beetle Dork comic came out!"

  This was greeted by a roar of agreement and my sigh of let's-never-do-this-again. Mike changed it with his phone, which apparently sent the message to the keypad. These guys were smart enough to have an app that locked and unlocked doors but not smart enough to not use 666 for a demonic church.

  I decided not to say anything about Stewie's tone, implying that I was too ignorant to know how a date was written. We didn't have any time to waste. If these guys were coming back, I wanted to find whatever "it" was before they could. So instead, I led the way to the nursery.

  "Well, this shouldn't take too long," I said as I walked in. There was a pile of junk along the back wall.

  "What are we looking for?" Mike asked as he picked up a doll with two fingers as if it were on fire.

  "Should we wear our robes?" Stewie asked hopefully.

  "I don't know." I shrugged. "Anything that strikes you as very strange or very valuable. And no to the robes. They'll just get in the way."

  Stewie removed his robe to
reveal he was still in the gladiator costume.

  The kids laughed for ten minutes while I started digging through the wreckage.

  Searching any place can be tedious. You don't just open drawers and look through them. You pull them open and search for hidden panels and see if there's something taped to the bottom.

  The life of a spy seems exciting, but a lot of time is spent looking for things. I've had to search everything from a very messy and cluttered office to an igloo. And the amazing thing was, I found more in the igloo than anywhere else. The Finnish general who'd hid out there had secret plans, two sticks of dynamite, and a disturbing stash of reindeer porn (images of mating reindeer—what did you think I meant?) stashed inside blocks of snow.

  What he hadn't anticipated was an unseasonably warm front that came through and melted everything. Mother Nature had been my wingman.

  After an hour, we had nothing. We'd waded through old toys, newsletters, hymnals, and boxes of golf pencils. There was nothing there that seemed valuable or even interesting.

  "Is there another stash somewhere?" I set down the last case of golf pencils.

  "We know what's in all the other places." Kayla scratched her chin.

  "Just our stuff." Mike shrugged. "Nothing else."

  Had I gotten this wrong? Maybe the men had. Maybe they were looking for something in the wrong place. If this was about the murder in Bladdersly, why would anyone look for something in an old church owned by four teen druids in Who's There? The only connection to them was Kurt. And that was only because he liked Kayla. But as far as I knew, they'd never really had any kind of relationship, and he'd never been here.

  On the other hand, this could mean that Kurt was involved. I needed to give this some thought. My stomach rumbled.

  "Oh well," Stewie said. "We need to clear out the altar. I have big plans for this place. Are you in, Bird Goddess?"

  I fled to Bladdersly. I wanted some time to sit and think, and I was hungry, and I still hadn't been to the diners there. Three birds with one stone! Which was one better than the old saying.

  Ella's Diner was half full in spite of the hour. Peering out the window at Ela's Diner across the street, I could see that place was half full too.