Mosquito Bite Murder Page 7

  As far as talking to Maria went, it was tough to consider it a conversation since she threw sticks at me with words on them. Although I have to admit, I've had weirder discussions.

  There was this one time in Antarctica when a Finnish scientist sent me messages via carrier penguins. It went pretty well too, until the day Newt the penguin showed up with twenty of his friends and I couldn't tell them apart. I had to feel up nineteen penguins before I found the note, which Dagmar liked to attach to the underside of Newt's flipper. And after all that penguin molestation, it just turned out to be a goodbye note saying she was heading back to Espoo, Finland.

  "That's what she said," I replied to Riley's question. "What do you think?"

  Riley looked over at Chad, who was scowling at the ground. "Maybe she saw Chad? Maybe he's who she's worried about?"

  I looked at the pudgy kidnappee and potential murder victim. "It's possible, but I really think it's Hilly. I think I need to talk to her."

  Riley ran his hands through his hair. "Normally, I'd advise against it. Quirky friend or no, you can't entirely trust her if she's on a mission."

  I threw my hands in the air. "What else can I do? Maria is avoiding us. Frankly, I'm surprised she didn't just bolt when she saw Hilly for the first time. Why not just cut her losses and go back to wherever?"

  He nodded. "It must be something big that she needs our help for. Or she would've fled."

  My gut twisted a little at the thought of that. "She really must be in trouble to meet us all the way out here. What could be so bad that she'd risk exposure?"

  "I don't know." Riley sighed. "We may have to write her off."

  I stared at him. "We can't write her off! Maria's been my friend longer than Hilly!"

  "Well, I'm not going to attempt to take out Hilly," Riley replied. "She's far too dangerous."

  He had a point. Hilly had an A++ rating from the agency. She was so good, they'd considered loaning her out. When she found out, Hilly threatened them with something so horrible that four senior managers quit on the spot. I never did find out what she'd said. Maybe I'd ask over s'mores later.

  "Why don't we just wait and see if we hear more from Maria? Keep going on like everything's normal?"

  My former handler snorted. "Oh right. It's perfectly normal to find some unconscious stranger in the middle of nowhere, have him tag along with an assassin to an old Scout camp where old Scouts are living."

  "I haven't filled you in on what was discussed in the lodge." I explained the conversation inside.

  "Flying cars?" Riley rubbed his chin. "I'm kind of disappointed too."

  "In the meantime," I said, "I have to rejoin the ladies. Can you keep an eye on Chad a little while longer?"

  "He's not our prisoner," Riley said. "And I told you, I'm not going to babysit him."

  He had a point. "You're right. Walk around the side of the building and meet us. I'll go through."

  And with that, I went into the lodge, where all the cookies were gone and the women were chatting seriously.

  "President?" Ada gasped. "They made Ronald Reagan president?"

  Just in time too.

  "Let's go outside," I suggested. "I told Riley and Chad to join us there."

  Once out in the sun, I realized we were officially in the middle of the camp. There was a large firepit outside the lodge, surrounded by old, worn logs. A path led off to the right, through the trees, which closed in on the area.

  Chad eyed the women nervously. They viewed him with some interest but preened a little when they spotted Riley. Of course they did. Riley was gorgeous, with his gorgeous head of slightly wavy, slightly too long blond hair, his eternal tan, sparkling blue eyes, and flirty demeanor.

  I introduced everyone. Chad seemed on alert now. Something about these little old ladies bothered him. He'd said something was familiar earlier. I needed to forget about that. He was just trying to get me to leave here early.

  "Anyway, that's everyone," I finished.

  "So," Betty Sr. cleared her throat and announced. "You want a tour?"

  "Of course we do. We came here to draw a map of the camp, after all," I said as casually as possible. I had a feeling that I needed to tread carefully with these women. After all, they were strange enough to live in this camp since the 1960s. For all I knew they'd become cannibal Satan worshippers who saw us as potential sacrifices.

  "Alright." She turned to the other five ladies. "Buddy up and bring your water."

  To my surprise the ladies paired up with their diminutive doppelgangers: tall redhead Laura with tall redhead Lauren, intense Ada with Ava the mayoral candidate, pretty Hispanic Esme with friendly Latina Inez, the two brown-haired lookalike Kaitlyns with the two they-could-be-twins Sharons, and Betty Jr. walked up front to join Betty Sr. Hilly stood beside me. Riley and Chad, however, opted to stay behind.

  "Let's go," Betty Sr. said, and we followed her to a large, open area with a campfire pit surrounded by logs.

  "This is our Indian Council Fire," the older woman explained.

  "Native American Council Fire," Betty the Younger corrected.

  "I don't understand," Ada spoke for the group. I got the impression that Betty Sr. was more the face of the group but Ada really ran things.

  Ava spoke up. "You can't say Indian anymore unless you're talking about someone from India."

  "It's racist." Lauren nodded.

  The women looked stunned.

  The first Sharon asked, "What do you mean?"

  The second Sharon added, "What's wrong with Indian?"

  I stepped forward to try to simplify this. "An authorization from the Council. To be more sensitive."

  "Oh. Well, if it's from the Council…" Betty Sr. said a bit unwillingly. She motioned to the firepit again. "This is our Native American Council Fire. This is where we have our traditional rituals."

  Betty Jr. thought for a moment. "So this is where you sacrifice bad guys and Boy Scouts?"

  "Yes." The older woman nodded but said nothing more.

  "We don't sacrifice anyone or anything," I corrected.

  "Really?" Hilly cocked her head to one side. "I always thought of Girl Scouts as a sort of paramilitary organization, righting the wrongs and that kind of thing."

  "I like how she thinks," Betty Jr. said.

  "We don't kill anyone," I insisted. Kelly would be proud of the way I handled that, I thought.

  "We will make a note of that, Leader Wrath." One of the Sharons smiled sweetly. "For next time."

  "Next time?" I wondered aloud, but we'd already moved on.

  The women began to chat with their younger counterparts, and I was a bit alarmed to see how similar they all were. Laura told Lauren about her love of animals. The Sharons lamented that no one could tell them apart. Ada told Ava how she managed her troop. And Inez and Esme spoke quietly in Spanish. Huh. I didn't even realize Inez spoke Spanish.

  We walked on a well-maintained trail just a short while before coming upon a set of five platform tents with wood frames, floors, slate roofs, and canvas sides. The canvas looked like it had been mended many times and was in really good shape. There was a firepit in the center, surrounded by wooden benches.

  "This is Badger's End," Laura introduced us to the place.

  My girls began to giggle.

  "What's so funny?" Betty Sr. demanded.

  Lauren shouted, "Badger Butt! You named a campsite Badger Butt!"

  This was followed by an explosion of giggles that included Hilly.

  "No dear, it's Badger's End," Esme explained.

  "Yes," Inez snickered. "But a Badger's end is their butt."

  Betty Sr. did not look amused, but after a moment the Sharons, Esme, Laura, and Ada all burst into laughter.

  "I never thought about that before!" Esme wiped tears away.

  "Who named these campsites?" I looked around.

  "The India…" Betty Sr. paused and corrected herself. "I mean, Native Americans of course!"

  "Anyway, this is where we camp
," Laura managed as her fit subsided.

  "You really do live here?" Lauren asked. "I thought you were kidding!"

  "No, we really live here. But you can't go in. Those are our personal spaces. You can have one of the other campsites."

  I raised my hand. "What do you do in the winter? These tents can't be that warm."

  "We've just gotten used to it," Esme said. "Although there have been some particularly frigid winters recently, in which case we sleep in the lodge and use the fireplace for warmth."

  "Makes sense." Betty Jr. nodded. "It's more defensible in there too."

  Betty Sr. agreed. "We have weapons hidden throughout the building, just in case of an invasion."

  The little girl looked at the woman, sizing her up. "Can we talk shop?" She waited for Betty Sr. to nod before continuing. "Are you guys packing heat?"

  "We don't have any guns," the older woman said. "But we have some makeshift spears and lots of rocks. I've been working on a boomerang, but I can't seem to get the hang of it."

  Ada interrupted, "We have hatchets, but we have to save that for the firewood."

  Betty Jr. considered this. "That's pretty old-school." She pulled out Riley's can of hairspray, which she must've swiped, and lit a match. "We have a flamethrower."

  Betty Sr. looked at the younger Betty with respect. "We haven't had hairspray or anything like that here since the beginning." She looked behind her. "Ada was kind of a girly girl."

  "I have a booby-trapped closet," Betty Jr. said. "One time I accidentally napalmed my neighbor's garage."

  "Betty!" I shouted.

  The girl looked at me. "It's his fault, really. He shouldn't have left out that gasoline…or had a wooden garage."

  Betty Sr. nodded. "Makes perfect sense."

  "No it doesn't," I interjected, but Hilly cut me off.

  "I find napalm to be unpredictable in my line of work."

  Just then a deer ran past us with a falcon flying a few feet overhead. It was almost like they were a team. The girls went silent immediately and watched in awe. They knew from experience that you had to stand still or you'd frighten them away. The minute the deer and hawk disappeared, two rabbits hopped over, stood on their hind feet, and sniffed the air before lazily loping away. All the while, a multitude of birds flitted about, singing and ignoring us.

  "You have lots of animals here," Lauren gushed. "And I've never seen so many kinds of birds!"

  "Oh yes," Laura replied. "We've got everything from goldfinches to red-headed woodpeckers. I've seen skunks, and weasels, and because no one is around, we've spotted a cougar once or twice!"

  "Really?" That caught my interest. "That's pretty rare."

  "I want to see a cougar!" Lauren's eyes grew as round as saucers.

  "The animals are used to seeing us. They aren't afraid," Betty Sr. said. "And we respect them all…with the exception of squirrels."

  "Why squirrels?" Betty Jr. asked.

  The older woman made a face. "Boy Scout spies."

  The younger Betty wrote that down. "That makes sense. They're always signaling with their tails."

  I waited for our junior zookeeper to correct this strange idea, but she didn't. I had to remember that in the end, these girls were still in elementary school. Then again, maybe they knew something I didn't. I decided to play things close to the vest where squirrels were concerned from now on…just in case.

  "Come on." Betty Sr. started to move. "There's more."

  Younger Betty walked next to her, asking what deterrents they'd deployed against spy squirrels.

  "I give them false intel," Betty Sr. said. "I caught one once and was going to interrogate it, but Laura got mad and let it go."

  "That's too bad." Betty Jr. shook her head.

  Hilly, next to me, tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Spying squirrels. It's ingenious, really."

  "I don't think that's a thing," I muttered before recalling a spy pigeon once who followed me everywhere I went in Tashkent. I was so frustrated, because everywhere I went there was this pigeon walking behind me, his head jerking back and forth. Finally I solved this problem by throwing birdseed at him. The bird went crazy gobbling it up, and I was able to slip away to meet my contact. To this day I have no idea who sent him. So maybe there was something to the squirrels being spies.

  We continued on the trail to the right and soon came across another site that looked just like the last one. Once again, there were five platform tents, meticulously mended, and a fire pit in the middle, this time with benches. And there was something else.

  "Latrines!" I shouted.

  I hadn't seen anything like it. An old, four-sided wooden structure with a roof. Kind of like four outhouses strung together back-to-back. There was a large open area at the bottom of the door and near the roof, most likely for air circulation.

  "Why don't you have one of these at Badger's Butt?" Ava asked.

  "I don't know." Ada shrugged. "We just come here and use these."

  "Who cleans them out?" Hilly wanted to know.

  "Nature does," Ada answered.

  Betty Sr. added, "And we shovel dirt into them every now and then."

  "Fifty years' worth of dirt?" My eyebrows went up. "Wouldn't that fill them to the roof?"

  Esme shook her head. "No. We only use a little dirt. Just enough."

  "Can we check them out?" Betty turned to older Betty.

  "Sure," Betty Sr. said.

  Betty Jr. gave her elder a smart salute before the girls tore off for the latrines. Hilly was right behind them and seemed to be just as fascinated. I wondered why. We'd worked in some serious third world countries that had less than this.

  "I like them better than those stinky porta potties," Inez said as the older women and I joined them.

  "I still don't get how this is sustainable," I asked.

  "We have them at the Lodge and all the other places," one of the Sharons said. "That's enough for us."

  I took the opportunity to ask something that'd been bothering me. "How do you entertain yourselves?"

  The six women looked at me curiously.

  I looked at their questioning faces. "You know, pass the time? You don't have TV. You've been here half a century."

  "Oh." Esme smiled. "We have some books, puzzles, and such. And some of us have taken up hobbies."

  "It does get boring here sometimes," one of the Sharons admitted. "We can only garden about five months a year."

  "We're always maintaining the place's upkeep," the other Sharon offered.

  "And then there's the lake," Ada said.

  "The lake?" This was interesting. The Council didn't have a lake listed in the old records on the place. "You have a lake?"

  "You're getting ahead," Betty the Elder said. "Wait for when we get to that part of the trip."

  The girls emerged from the latrine.

  "They use leaves for toilet paper!" Ava shouted, waving a bunch of oak leaves.

  "What else are we going to use? Pages from books?" Laura asked.

  "We considered it," Ada nodded. "We'd used all the other paper up decades ago. But we didn't think it was right. So we went with leaves."

  "And they're biodegradable," Lauren said.

  "Bio what?" Laura asked.

  Lauren explained. "It means they decay and don't fill up landfills."

  "Oh. That's nice. I didn't know we were even doing that." Her counterpart beamed at the others. "How about that, ladies? We're doing future stuff and didn't even know it!"

  "Biodegradable things and recycling is important. It's all about saving the planet now," Betty Jr. said.

  Ada looked shocked. "From what?"

  "Ourselves," Lauren responded. "We're hurting the Earth."

  "We are?" the Sharons asked in unison.

  I looked around at the trees that surrounded us, hoping to get a glimpse of Maria. "Well, not you guys. You probably have like a zero carbon footprint."

  "We don't have zero footprints." Ada looked at her feet. "Mine are size eight."
>
  There was so much to explain. I turned to the girls. "Are you taking notes for the map?"

  The Kaitlyns stepped forward. Each had a little notepad and pencil. "We're writing it down for later."

  "What are you going to do with this map?" Betty Sr. asked suspiciously.

  "Turn it in to the Council with a report," I said without thinking.

  Six little old ladies stepped closer to me. In spite of their advanced years, they came across a bit menacingly.

  Ada glared. "You can't do that! They'll know we're here!"

  "Technically, they can't do anything with it," I explained. "Since this is part of a private nature preserve. I doubt that anyone will ever come here."

  "You aren't going to tell them about us?" Ada asked.

  "No," I said, unsure if I was actually telling the truth.

  "Why not?" Esme asked.

  That confused me a bit. "Wait, you want people to know you're here?"

  "Well, if they can't come here, then sure," Betty Sr. said. "They'll think we're like Tarzan!"

  I pictured her swinging from the tree. "We can figure that out before we go. I still think you ladies should return with us. You are getting, um, older. You'll need help with things soon."

  "Help with what?" Laura wondered.

  "Your back, for one," Ada said to Laura. "We're not getting any younger."

  "What if you lose your teeth?" Ava asked. "How will you chew?"

  "My grandma lost her teeth," Lauren said. "But later she found them in the freezer."

  Betty the Elder said, "I'll make wooden ones like George Washington. Still, it would be helpful to have a dentist. Do you think you could kidnap one and bring him out here?"

  For a moment I thought about Chad. There was no way these ladies took him. What would they need an IT guy for if they didn't know what IT was?

  Betty Jr. considered this. "I can bring you the mayor."

  "That's nice." Esme appeared to approve.

  Ada looked like she had an idea. "Is that Chad a dentist?"

  "Chad is too useless for words," Inez said. "He doesn't know about camping. Just computers."

  "Computers? Like those big room-sized things at NASA?" Ada frowned.

  "No," Inez responded. "They make them smaller now. Our phones are computers, and we have laptops."