Meerkats and Murder Read online

  "Nye?" Rex asked. "I don't know anyone named Nye. Are you sure you heard it right?"

  I shrugged. "He had a gun at my back. It's possible." But not probable. Espionage was a listening game. If you misheard or missed something completely, it could result in your untimely demise.

  Philby jumped up onto my lap, stared me in the eye, and swatted me in the face. She wanted me to know something. She had a scoffing sort of cattitude about whatever I was missing. Then she jumped down and made eye contact, looking from me to my shoe and back at me.

  "What is that?" I asked as I picked up a piece of dark fabric. It was shaped like a little cat mouth. And there was a dark liquid on it that didn't seem like feline spit.

  "Is that blood?" Rex pulled a baggie from his back pocket and popped the piece into it.

  "Why do you have a baggie?" I asked.

  "There was a robbery this morning at the Quickie Mart outside town." He patted my cat on the head. "Nice job, Philby. You nailed the guy."

  Philby responded by strutting around the yard, chest puffed out, which didn't change her basketball shaped silhouette whatsoever. Still, she'd bitten the gunman, which told me she had my back. I'd have to slip her some tuna later.

  I slumped back into the chair, exhaling sharply. So, it was real. There was someone in my house. That was creepy. Rex didn't take me in his arms to comfort me. He knew I wasn't that kind of girl. And I loved him even more for it.

  He insisted on searching the house to find out how the guy got in. I sat in the yard and watched while my thoughts spun more to why than how. Was it possible this guy had the wrong house? Or did he really think I knew where Nye was? Who was Nye? A man? A dog? A stuffed animal?

  Checking the white pages on my cell showed what I suspected, that there wasn't anyone in town with that name or any kind of homonym of it. If Nye wasn't from Who's There, why was he here, and who was looking for him?

  I needed to ask Riley. My former handler in the CIA and later a Fed, Riley might have some idea who this Nye was. Should I mention that to Rex? No, I'd better not. What if the information was classified? I'd never leaked intel in my life, and even though I was out of the biz, I wasn't going to start that now.

  After ten minutes, Rex returned. "The window in your bedroom has been jimmied. I'll have a forensics crew dust for prints."

  I shook my head. "He was wearing gloves. I doubt you'll find any."

  "I'm going to have it done anyway," Rex insisted. "Then I'll get my tools and fix the window. We can order pizza if you'd like."

  "We can't," I remembered. "Kelly and Robert are meeting us at Oleo's for dinner."

  Rex sighed. "You'll have to call it off. I'm not sure I can get the forensics crew from Des Moines here in time, and I don't want to leave your window open like that."

  I could've argued with him, but I didn't. Instead, I texted Kelly and told her what happened. After she had a brief freak-out over the fact that someone had been in my house, and I didn't respond. she texted back with several sad face emojis and a dagger, which I chose to ignore. As Rex went around to the front yard to wait for the team, I took the opportunity to slip inside and do my own investigation.

  He wasn't wrong. The guy had taken off the whole window frame. I had some serious security. It wasn't any kind of gadget but the oldest trick in the book. I'd nailed the windows shut. He got around it by removing everything in his way. Now, how did he know to do that?

  There weren't any marks that I could see. No stray hairs or other obvious signs of DNA. I removed my right earring and held it in my left hand. Getting down on my hands and knees, I checked the floor all the way to under the bed. And that's when I saw something. My hand closed on a folded up slip of paper just as Rex asked me what I was doing. I smacked my head on the bed frame as I sat up to answer.

  "Nothing." I opened the left hand to reveal the earring. "It fell out. I was just retrieving it."

  * * *

  Men and women in white jumpsuits with rubber gloves began brushing powder on my walls. Things went smoothly until Philby snagged one of the brushes and raced through the house with it in her mouth as two technicians chased her. I went straight to the kitchen and noisily opened a can of tuna. Within seconds, Philby abandoned the now drooly brush and was face first in a can of whitefish.

  I retreated to the backyard and my chair, my mind turning over the afternoon's events. Someone had broken into my home. Did they know who I was? Was my past connected to it somehow? That was always a possibility. Since I'd moved back home, terrorists and spies had left a wake of bodies as wide as the Skunk River.

  Pulling the slip of paper from my pocket, I opened it to find the initials JH and my address. JH? What did that mean? Was there a JH in my past? I scrolled mentally through my years and contacts with the CIA but came up empty-handed. Besides, I was out of the business. Why would someone come to my house? Most of my former colleagues had no idea where I lived.

  The house! I sat straight up. I'd lived in this house about three or four years. Who had it before me? Did they know Nye? And how could I find out? An idea popped into my head, and I walked through to the living room, grabbed my keys, and told Rex I had an errand.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "I'll pick up pizza." I kissed him on the cheek and ran off before he could ask anything else.

  As I pulled out of the driveway, I spotted Philby in the picture window, wearing her rubber werewolf mask. Now, why didn't she do that when the guy broke in?

  A few minutes later (everything in Who's There is about three to five minutes away from everything else) I pulled up to Bright Realty and dashed inside. Next door was Rex's sisters' business, Ferguson Taxidermy, Where Your Pet Lives on Forever. Bad twin—Ronni Ferguson—hated me with a fiery passion and has often threatened to assault me with dead waterfowl.

  But it wasn't her I was dodging. It was Good Twin—Randi—who loved me. The woman was on a mission to create taxidermic dioramas that she thought would increase my fertility and give her the niece or nephew she's always wanted.

  Just last week, she'd given me a shoebox-sized scene of a Roman orgy, complete with toga-wearing snails. You couldn't do much kinky with them. They just sort of lay alongside each other. She suggested I use my imagination.

  Rex got a little catwalk with cockroach supermodels in sexy lingerie. I actually liked that one, but Philby and Martini—her Elvis lookalike daughter—ate them. Good thing they coughed up the little outfits. Those looked like they took a lot of work.

  "Merry!" Veronica Bright got to her feet the minute I walked in the door. "Now, I know you're not here to buy a house, because I've heard you have two now. Are you thinking of selling your ranch-style home? I've got a couple of people who would be interested!"

  "No." I shook my head. "Sorry. I'm keeping the house."

  She burst out in hysterical laughter. Veronica was under the illusion that I was some sort of brilliant stand-up comedian. She laughed at everything I said. And while that was a bit of an ego booster, it led to confusing conversations.

  The pretty and plump blonde wiped tears of laughter from her eyes and motioned for me to take a seat, and I did.

  "You are so funny!" she squealed. "Are you sure you've never been in comedy?"

  Not unless you think shootouts, black bag drops, or one time patting down a three-hundred-pound pig in Botswana to check it for wires was funny. Actually, now that I think of it, that was a little funny. The pig didn't think so, though. I still have a small scar where he'd bitten me.

  "No. Sorry. I just stopped by because I was wondering who had my house before I did." I gave her a smile I'd used numerous times that implied my question was innocent and trivial and not at all funny.

  "Seriously!" She slapped her thigh and giggled. "How do you do it? It's something in your delivery that makes the most mundane sentences hilarious! You have a real gift!"

  I waited until the giggling died down, like I always did. Someday this woman was going to have a heart attack from m
e just saying hello on the street.

  She paused. "Oh. You're serious?" She chewed on her lip and seemed a smidge disappointed that I didn't say anything more. "Well, I don't have to look that up for you. It was Joe Hanson. He lived there for about five years, I think."

  The name didn't ring a bell, even though I recognized the initials from the piece of paper.

  "Do you know anything about him?" I pressed. "It's just that I found some old tools hidden in a cabinet in the basement. I can't believe I never opened it before. Anyway, they look like they might be heirlooms, so I thought I'd track him down and give them back."

  It should go without saying that I'm very good at lying.

  "That's so nice of you! Funny and thoughtful!" Veronica squealed an alarming string of giggles as she pulled up something on her computer and tapped at the keys.

  Veronica and I were in middle school and high school together. I can't say we were friends, but Kelly had heard she was good at her job, so I'd hired her when I was looking to buy here. Veronica mistakenly remembered me as a hilarious girl who always made her laugh. I never corrected her with the truth, that I usually kept to myself and liked blending in. I had no idea who she really thought I was, but she'd gotten me one hell of a deal on the house.

  "Hmmm…" She scowled at the screen. "For some reason, I don't have a forwarding address. That's odd." She typed furiously.

  I leaned forward. "He didn't leave a number when we closed?"

  Veronica laughed loudly, waving me off, "Please! You're killing me!" When the laughter died down, she adopted a more serious tone. "No, because you paid in cash. In full. There wasn't any need to stay in touch. It's strange because in most cases the seller usually does leave info for us."

  "Can you give me whatever you have on him? These tools look like antiques. I'd hate to think he's out there wondering whatever happened to them."

  She stared at me. There was no laughter or even the crease of a smile. For a second I thought she was having a stroke, and I took out my cell to dial 9-1-1.

  "I suppose I could." Veronica hit Print, and a sheet of paper came out of the printer.

  "Are you okay?" I asked. This was the first time I'd seen her in anything other than hysterics.

  She broke into howls of laughter as fat tears rolled down her cheeks and she slapped her thighs aggressively. "Oh my! It's a good thing you don't come by very often! I'd never survive it!"

  The woman handed me the printout, and I got out of there. She was hiccupping as I closed the door.

  "Merry!" Randi was on the sidewalk running toward me.

  Oh no.

  "Randi!" I let her hug me. The short, dark haired woman was round like a blueberry. "I'm in a rush. I have to pick up dinner for Rex…"

  "Oh," My sister-in-law's face fell, and my heart cringed.

  "But I can spare a minute or two," I mumbled. "Rex can wait."

  She brightened, grabbed me by the hand, and led me to the store. The business was in the old Peterson Victorian. It was the first real house built in town, and when the last Peterson heir dropped dead in the 70s, it went through a number of revivals, including a brief stint as a brothel. There'd also been a famous axe murder there more than a century ago. I loved the house.

  Once inside, it was a wonderland of magical creatures posed in human endeavors. Oh sure, they did the usual stuff—deer heads, stuffed bass, and so on. But their main activity was more like two moose playing poker on a table made of snakes. Or a cow dressed as Mamie Eisenhower at a Tupperware party. Stuff like that.

  "Wait right here! I have the perfect thing!" She ran off.

  I didn't like it when she did that, because it left me vulnerable to attacks from her twin, Ronni.

  "What are you doing here? Don't you have a life?" Ronni snarled as she walked out of what used to be a dining room, holding a picture frame made from dead flamingos.

  "Randi invited me." I smiled sweetly. I couldn't take it personally. Ronni hated absolutely everyone, except for my arch nemesis, Juliette Dowd—an old girlfriend of Rex's.

  Her frown could've made unicorns explode. "You waste her time! We have an order for the Battle of the Bulge made from two hundred hermit crabs! It's due in a week, and I can't get all the little helmets to stay on! And Randi is no help because she's always making stuff for you!"

  I was just about to ask if I could see that, when Randi returned. Her twin grumbled, shot me a glare that would've turned a normal person into stone, and left the room.

  "Here!" She handed me a diorama that looked just like the classroom where my troop met. Kelly and I were depicted by two rats (I liked how she got my hair just right), and the girls were portrayed as ten little mice, hanging on my every word. I liked it!

  "This is great!" I enthused. And it wasn't a fertility thingy!

  My sister-in-law clapped her hands together. "You love it! I'm so happy! You must take it to your next meeting." She paused with a concerned look on her face. "You don't have any squeamish girls, do you?"

  "Are you kidding?" I blurted out. "They'll love it!"

  And they would too. My troop tended to be more ghoulish than most. While they were intense animal lovers, something like this would probably rank right up there as the greatest thing ever, next to starting fires and eating five packages of jumbo marshmallows in ten minutes without throwing up.

  "I'm so happy to hear that!" Randi smiled. "An artist loves to be appreciated!"

  She shoved me toward the door, insisting that I get home and serve Rexley his supper since he was a growing boy.

  The door slammed behind me, and I found myself standing on the sidewalk with the diorama in one hand and Hanson's information in the other.

  It was getting late. Rex would wonder where I was. I shoved the piece of paper into the bottom of my purse, put the diorama in the back of the van, ordered pizza, and picked it up on the way home.

  * * *

  "Where have you been?" Rex stopped short when he saw the shoebox filled with Girl Scout mice. "You saw Randi?"

  I handed him the pizza and walked into my newer house. Leonard, the giant Scottish deerhound, bounded over to me, and I ruffled his already scruffy fur. Martini, Philby's daughter and our resident narcoleptic, was passed out on her back, arms over her head, in the middle of the dining room table.

  Philby was sitting in the corner like a victim in The Blair Witch Project, staring sullenly at the point where the walls met, as if the paint was made of mouse meat.

  "Why's she doing that?" I tossed my bag onto a side table and set the mouse diorama on top of the china hutch, where I hoped the cats couldn't get at it.

  Rex pulled me into his arms and kissed me. "She didn't say, but I think she's protesting something."

  "Seems legit," I said before kissing him back.

  Rex was an excellent kisser. His lips brushed my earlobe, and I started to feel tingly all over. That was, until I spotted Leonard sniffing the pizza box. Pushing away from my husband, I shooed the dog away and pushed the pizza out of reach. Leonard should know better since Rex never ate his crusts and often shared them with the big, scruffy dog.

  Rex left and returned from the kitchen with plates and forks. Sure, it was my night to cook. But that didn't mean setting the table. As we ate, Rex asked about the diorama.

  "Is there a fertility function to this one too?"

  I shook my head. "She said it's me and Kelly and the troop."

  Pulling the diorama off the hutch, I set the box of dead animals on the table. Philby jumped up and stared at the critters. Philby even started to drool a little. She looked at the Merry rat then at me. Was she making the connection? I got my answer seconds later when she swatted my rat with her paw. When it didn't fall over, the cat lost interest and walked away, revealing Martini's unconscious body, splayed on her back, like a taxidermic cat table runner.

  Rex poked my rat in the tummy. "Why are you and Kelly rats?"

  "Maybe she couldn't find tall mice?" I shrugged.

  Rex started, "You
know how cicadas molt, leaving their shell on the undersides of branches?"

  I nodded as I bit into my third slice of pizza. Or was it my fourth? I lost track sometimes.

  "When we were kids," he continued, "Randi and Ronni made a mockup of our house and filled it with those things. Mom thought it was fine until one showed up wearing a wig, dressed as her. Then those things were banished to the garage."

  "At least you had sisters," I pointed out. "I wish I'd had siblings. Maybe not sisters who did stuff with animal carcasses, but you know what I mean."

  Rex reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "Your parents had their hands full with a daughter who weaponized cat collars."

  "I didn't do that back then. But I did once trade secrets for a kitten."

  Rex insisted on knowing the whole story. I explained that in second grade, Kelly and I were in the office because Kelly punched a boy in the nose for picking on me.

  "Kelly?" Rex's jaw dropped. "Kelly hit someone?"

  He had a point. The Kelly I knew now would never haul off and hit someone. She was a grown-up who behaved maturely.

  I nodded. "She never started a fight, but she finished a couple. Kelly didn't like bullies."

  Rex shook his head. "Okay, continue with the story."

  I explained that we'd overheard that the principal decided to have a snow day the next day but hadn't announced it. We capitalized on that intel to score a kitten off Margie Parks—a very worldly third-grade girl who lived three doors down.

  "Define," Rex mused, "what you mean by 'a very worldly third grader.'"

  "She watched Dynasty. A lot. I didn't know anyone our age who was allowed to watch that show. As a result, she thought she had, as they say in England, ideas above her station. She dressed like a soap opera star and bossed everyone around. Except for Kelly and me, because she didn't want a broken nose."

  "You had a lot of drama in the second grade," Rex said.

  I continued the story. Margie's cat, Alexis Carrington, had gotten into a bit of trouble prowling the streets at night, and a few months later ended up with five kittens. Margie didn't believe us at first, but the next morning when she heard on the news that school had been closed, and possibly because she feared Kelly would drop by to deliver a knuckle sandwich, she dropped a gray and white kitten off at my house. And that was how my fascination with trading secrets was born. Sadly, never again in my career did I end up with a kitten for my trouble.