Maltese Vulture Murder Page 6

  "Oh yes, there it is. A sorority at Iowa State. A penguin. I think they named it Poopsie."

  "That's it. It was stolen too. They hired Riley to find it. Was there anything unusual about that piece?" I stared at the ledger.

  There had to be fifty pages, and if they were like this page, each held about fifty projects. How did the twins get so much work, and how did they do it so quickly?

  Randi frowned. "I don't think so, and there's nothing here that says it was unusual."

  Except for the fact that it was a dead penguin for a sorority house.

  "Did it have an outfit? Was it wearing jewelry?" This was a robbery after all.

  "It's funny you say that, because the penguins taken today each wore a ten-thousand-dollar diamond necklace."

  My eyes went wide. "What? You put twenty thousand dollars' worth of jewels on the Vegas showgirls?"

  She nodded. "Of course we did. Now that I think of it, the penguin we sold to the girls had a large sorority pin encrusted with emeralds and diamonds on it. I think they had that custom made."

  "Hold on… Did the Bermuda guy send you the necklaces for the dancing penguins?"

  Randi patted my hand as she shut the book. "No, silly! We bought those ourselves and added that to the cost."

  I blinked at her, my mouth opening and closing a few times before I asked, "Why?"

  She shrugged. "It's what he wanted."

  I kind of wanted to meet this guy. A thought occurred to me.

  "Was the ostrich wearing expensive jewelry too?"

  She laughed. "Oh no. Nothing like that. Their necks are too slim, and their small heads can't support earrings."

  My mind was racing. I needed to get to Riley's to shove this new information in his absurdly good-looking face.

  "Is there anything I can do?" I asked before turning to go. It seemed heartless to leave her to deal with the mess that remained.

  Randi brightened. "Yes! As a matter of fact there is!" She dashed back into the showroom and emerged with a long bakery box. "These are for your next meeting. It's a little gift for those adorable girls of yours!"

  I opened the box to find ten little cups. Only they weren't cups, they were chinchillas molded into cups, each with a grin, as if they were happy to have died in order to hold…um…

  "What are they, exactly?"

  "CUPCAKE CUPS, YOU IDIOT!" Ronni stormed past without so much as making eye contact.

  "Ronni!" Randi chastised as her sister walked out, slamming the door. "I'm so sorry, Merry. This whole thing has her very upset."

  No more than usual, I thought to myself. "Hey, thanks for the cupcake cups! We have a meeting tomorrow. I'm sure they'll love them."

  Back in my car, I set the box on the seat next to me. Weirdly enough, I'd told the truth. My odd little troop would probably love putting little cakes inside dead animals. But first, I needed to see if my husband found anything at my house. I was fairly certain no jewelry had been stolen there. All I ever really wore, besides some tiny hoop earrings, was my wedding ring. And even that was just a simple platinum band with no embellishment.

  As I drove the five minutes back home, I wondered if this wasn't all about jewelry robbery? Maybe the dead guy was a cat burglar who was killed somewhere else and put in our garage to throw us off?

  I liked that idea. Especially since it would exonerate me.

  But back to this jewelry thing. Who the hell put tens of thousands of dollars' worth of gemstone jewelry on dead animals? How did the burglars know about that?

  That was starting to look more like a bunch of kids breaking in. Nellie Lou wasn't wearing any jewelry that I could remember. This meant that we had three crimes in town: the dead guy in the garage, the jewelry/bird theft at Ferguson's, and the break-in at my house. It was possible they weren't related at all.

  If that was the case, this wasn't good. And Mayor Jones would be on the warpath. And with Rex losing staff, I decided it was up to me to save the day by helping! I'd just have to make sure my husband didn't find out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "Merry!" Kelly shouted as I walked in the door of Riley's office.

  "Claire." I nodded to the receptionist, and without looking at me, she returned it and pointed to a package of Mega Stuf Oreos sitting on a table.

  "I picked them up on my way into work," the redhead said.

  How did she know I was coming in? Kelly was right. She was spooky. I snatched up the Oreos and began snacking. Oh, sure, that was spooky of Claire to know I needed them. But it was useful spooky. Not creepy spooky.

  Kelly waved me over to her, and I sat down in the chair opposite her desk. I was still getting used to the fact that she wasn't wearing scrubs and in the ER anymore, but she seemed happier.

  "I'm so glad you stopped by. I was just about to call you!" My best friend smiled. "I've got something."

  She handed me a printout of a news article about a burglary at the Iowa Natural History Museum just two days ago.

  "Someone broke in and stole a stuffed dodo." She pointed at the bottom of the sheet where in her perfect handwriting was. Dodo created by Ferguson Taxidermy, ten years ago.

  "Are you kidding?" I read the article twice to make sure I understood what was happening.

  Riley strode through the door at just that moment, and after being handed a cup of coffee from his receptionist, he strode toward us. "Kidding about what?"

  Kelly filled him in as I just stared at the article, hoping there was something I'd missed, like the name of the burglar.

  "I heard about that," Riley said. "What else did they take?"

  "Any jewelry?" I blurted out.

  If that seemed like a strange thing to say, the others didn't indicate it. Kelly began typing furiously as Riley rolled his chair over and waited.

  "There's a police report." Kelly squinted at the screen.

  "How did you find that?" I asked before shoving two more cookies into my mouth.

  "Riley found a program that can bypass their system. Apparently they all use the same passwords. Want to know what it is?" My best friend beamed. She'd definitely found her bliss working here.

  Yes! "No," I said upon realizing we didn't have time for that. "Did they take anything else?"

  Kelly read silently before shaking her head. "No. Just the dodo."

  "How did the twins stuff a dodo?" Riley asked. "They've been extinct for what, three hundred years?"

  "Hold on." Kelly typed some more before printing something out.

  It was an interview with Randi, from ten years ago, in the Des Moines Register. I guess someone else wanted to know the answer as well.

  "She said"—Kelly read aloud—"they received a plastic skeleton, modelled on a real one and, after much research, created the dodo."

  "Kind of like those forensic anthropologists," I muttered.

  "What?" Riley asked.

  I shook my head. "Nothing. I watch a lot of Forensic Files." I turned to Kelly. "Is there any information on how they got in? Any security camera footage?"

  "The police report says whoever it was smashed in the back door. They don't mention security footage."

  "All museums these days have pretty high speed security cameras," I insisted. "Any way to hack into that?"

  Kelly shrugged, and we both looked at Riley.

  He sighed. "I'm sure I can think of something."

  "Riley," I pressed, "this is serious. It's connected to your case, and someone stole showgirl penguins and a couple of ostriches from Ferguson's this morning!"

  Kelly and Riley stared at me.

  "And the penguins were wearing $10,000 necklaces," I added.

  "You're joking," Kelly said.

  I shook my head. "Nope. Randi told me herself."

  "What did the necklaces look like?" Riley asked.

  "I don't know," I admitted. "I probably should've asked that. But still, three thefts of stuffed birds that came from Ferguson Taxidermy ten years ago means these crimes are connected!"

  Kelly looked
at her boss. "She has a point."

  "Dammit," Riley grumped. "I finally get a real case, and now I'll have to turn it over to the Who's There and Des Moines police."

  I thought about that. "Not necessarily. The sorority hired you, so you have every right to investigate."

  My former handler brightened. "That's true. No one else has connected the dots yet, right?"

  "Well, unless Kevin Dooley becomes a genius overnight for no apparent reason, and if Rex hasn't seen the story about the dodo, you certainly have the upper hand."

  Riley seemed to like this idea, and he ran to get a dry erase board, an easel, and a bunch of colored markers. He drew three penguins, a dodo, and an ostrich. They were astonishingly good. Maybe he'd missed his calling as an artist. He even drew them to scale, with a little man standing next to them (that looked remarkably like him) for size.

  "The penguins and dodo are the same height," Kelly noticed. "That could be something."

  "Yeah," I pointed out, "but the ostriches are taller, so it probably doesn't mean anything."

  "They could've been after the jewels all along," Riley mused. "And the other thefts were to throw authorities off the track."

  I nodded. "That makes sense. We've seen that before."

  I'd seen that before, where several murders are committed in order to confuse you about the one important murder. Well, I'd seen it on Forensic Files, that is. Was that what was happening here?

  "So"—Kelly nodded—"the thefts were really about $20,000 in jewelry. Poopsie and the dodo would make a good cover for that."

  I remembered what Randi had said. "Poopsie was wearing a jewel-encrusted membership crest. Did the girls mention that?"

  Riley shook his head. His scowl told me that the girls hadn't mentioned that when they gave him the information on the penguin. Was it possible that the crest had been lost over the past ten years?

  "This whole plot seems like a lot of work," I added. "The thefts take place in three cities in Iowa: Ames, Des Moines, and Who's There. Someone did their homework. And my money is on Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon."

  Riley shook his head. "I've been looking everywhere to find those two men you've described. Nothing turns up on any of the security cameras around town. Not even the one in the city park opposite Ferguson Taxidermy."

  "That can't be right," I said.

  "Are you sure you didn't hallucinate them too?" Riley smothered a grin.

  "How did you know about that? I didn't tell you about that!" Did I? I'd seen Riley the day after my "trip" but couldn't remember telling him about it.

  "Rex told me," Riley said. "He asked if you'd been dosed with LSD when you were working for the CIA."

  My jaw dropped. "You didn't tell him about the…"

  He finished my sentence for me. "…llama that turned into a dragon in Belize? The albatross who spoke to you in Yiddish in Paraguay? The marmot in Siberia who burst into ten thousand marmots that started tap dancing to 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'?"

  I swallowed hard. "Yeah, those." At least he'd forgotten about the worst one…

  "Oh, right!" Riley snapped his fingers. "There was that time you thought you were swallowed by a whale."

  "Only for a few hours," I insisted. "I don't want to talk about it." In my dreams sometimes, I could still see the whale's giant tongue…

  To her credit, my best friend didn't laugh. She was too stunned to do that.

  "How did I not know about those? How many times were you dosed? Sometimes people can get brain damage from just two bad trips!"

  My jaw dropped open. "They can?"

  She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You know, that might explain a lot, actually."

  "Hey! I'm fine!" I protested, but inside, I was starting to worry. I had been dosed a lot, starting with that chicken episode during training.

  "But then," my friend mused, "you're not much weirder than you were as a kid. So you're probably okay."

  "I'm definitely okay!" I insisted.

  "And they think you got it from Nellie Lou?" Riley added. "How could that have happened?"

  I opened my mouth and then closed it. Maybe my senses were a bit dulled, because it never occurred to me to wonder why Nellie Lou would be coated with LSD in the first place.

  "Do you think Ronni did it to get back at you?" Kelly asked.

  "That's a solid point," I agreed. "The woman does hate me for no apparent reason."

  Riley spoke up. "It does seem a little extreme to drug you."

  "She really, really, really doesn't like me," I insisted.

  "Did you ever ask her why?" Kelly folded her arms over her chest.

  "This is not my fault. I've never been anything other than awesome around her."

  Riley threw me a bone. "That's probably true. She's just a grumpy woman."

  "Exactly." I nodded.

  "So why drug you? Did she know Randi was going to give you the bird?" Kelly asked.

  "She must have," I said slowly. "Because they brought it over to my house the day of the picnic."

  Was Ronni behind my little "trip?" While it made sense, it also didn't. In dosing me with hallucinogens, she was stepping up her verbal abuse into full-on assault. She'd know Rex wouldn't let her get away with it. Well, he probably wouldn't throw the book at her either. After all, she was his sister.

  I shook my head to clear it. "We're getting off track. How are we going to solve this before the police catch up to our theory?"

  "We"—Riley held up his index finger—"are not going to solve this. I am going to solve this. This is my case. Well…it started with my case, anyway."

  "I'm going to help," I said.

  "You don't work for me," he replied.

  "Sure, not officially, but I can always run to Rex's office right now and fill him in, if you don't need me."

  Riley caved. "Fine. You can help. But I'm the lead on this, and we do things my way."

  "Are you saying I have to take orders from you?" I narrowed my eyes.

  "Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."

  I looked at Kelly, who shrugged. Claire didn't look up from what she was reading. I took that as a sign.

  "Whatever." I leaned in. "Where do we start?"

  Kelly looked at her watch and jumped to her feet. "After our troop meeting with the Daisies. I'll be at your house in one hour. I have to run home first and get some things."

  "That's today?" How did I not know that?

  "You were a little stoned at the last meeting," Kelly said with a quick smile before running out the door.

  "Daisies?" Riley asked.

  "We've adopted a troop of six-year-olds who are having trouble." I groaned. "I'd better head out."

  It wasn't until I was in the car that I remembered the meeting was at my old house. And that I'd better get over there and get rid of the trashed furniture before it started.

  CHAPTER NINE

  By some small miracle, I was able to drag the damaged furniture into the garage and tidy up a little before the first girls arrived. As they trickled in, I remembered the taxidermied cupcake holders in my car, but decided that would be more appropriate at another time. This new troop didn't know us well enough yet to eat out of the bodies of dead rodents.

  It was kind of strange that the troop didn't even notice my completely empty living room. The kitchen looked pretty much the same once I closed all the cupboard doors. How did they miss that? My girls were super sharp. They never missed anything out of sorts. Maybe today they were too distracted by the task at hand.

  Kelly held up the Scout quiet sign. The first three fingers together, the thumb touching the pinkie, it was a technique that never failed to astound me. All you had to do was hold up the sign without saying anything, and an entire auditorium full of girls would immediately go silent. Too bad it didn't work on Al-Qaeda. Or maybe it would. I'd never had the chance to try it out.

  My co-leader smiled as the girls sat on the floor, waiting patiently. "Today, we're going to work on our service project."

  Betty raise
d her hand. "I've got the plan for kidnapping the mayor, just in case."

  In spite of the temptation to get Mayor Jones off Rex's back, I shook my head. "No, that's our civics project."

  The girl narrowed her eyes. "Which is the exact same thing."

  Lauren nodded. "Just with a completely different word."

  "And that different word has a different meaning," I added.

  Kelly spoke up. "No, ladies, remember that in the spring, you said you wanted to help others."

  Ava folded her arms over her chest. "And that's what we'll be doing by getting Mr. Fancy Pants a girlfriend."

  Inez added, "Since you think Nellie Lou is too good for him."

  "Wait, what?" I asked. "I never said that. I said they wouldn't make a good couple because, you know…she's dead and all that."

  "She's such a snob," one of the Kaitlyns whispered loudly to the other three.

  "I am not a snob!"

  Betty shook her head sadly. "First, she's no fun anymore, and now she's a snob. Marriage sure has changed Mrs. Wrath. Maybe she should go work with the Basque Separatists." The child sniffed. "Which is the project I'd originally suggested."

  There was so much wrong with her statement, I decided to ignore that part. However, picturing my troop of ten-year-olds leading a horde of Basque Separatists through the streets of Paris was a satisfying image.

  Kelly cleared her throat. "For our service project, we're going to mentor a group of Daisy Scouts."

  "What does mentor mean?" Caterina asked.

  Kelly smiled patiently. "It means we teach them to be good Scouts and serve as role models for them."

  "Role models? We're going to be models??" Hannah began to hop from one foot to the other.

  A loud cheer went up as the girls began posing spontaneously as they pouted dramatically.

  "No," Kelly said. "A role model is someone you look up to. Someone you want to be like."