Map Skills Murder Read online

  For a moment I toyed with trying to put the flamingo back together. How was I going to do that? Instead, I just apologized to the skull, which lay upside down in the tub.

  And that was when I saw it. A tiny piece of folded paper taped to the skull.

  My cell buzzed with a text from Kelly. She told me to hurry up—she'd run out of neighborhood, and the lions were freaking Finn out.

  I grabbed the flamingo skull and ran for it, scuffing my footprints on the carpet in the living room as I went. I dove out the back of the sliding glass doors, and after making sure the coast was clear, walked casually around to the front sidewalk.

  Kelly was waiting for me. She was staring at my T-shirt. "What's that?" She pointed to the flamingo skull–shaped bump near my belly.

  "Let's go," I said as I lifted Finn out of the stroller to hide the bump.

  Once we were in the car and driving off, I told Kelly everything about the house.

  "Maybe Edna Lou cleaned it out?"

  I shook my head as I pulled the skull from underneath my shirt. "In two days? I don't think it's doable."

  "Maybe he didn't live here?" Kelly asked.

  "That's an interesting theory." Did we get it wrong? Search the wrong house? Did Ike live somewhere else and keep this place to store his girly underthings and bird bones?

  I turned the skull over and examined it. I wanted to avoid anyone seeing it through the car window.

  We arrived at my house in minutes. I turned the dead bolt on the front door, just in case Rex decided to pop over unannounced. The last thing I needed was for him to find me with a flamingo skull. I wasn't sure how I could explain the coincidence of having it on me.

  We gave Finn some Cheerios and more pots and pans to bang on before setting the skull on the breakfast bar. That was when I realized I was still wearing the yellow gloves. I took them off. I'd wipe the skull clean before returning it…if I even did that.

  What was Rex going to think when he found the pile of bones in the tub? Hopefully, he'd notice the unlocked door and think kids had broken in. As long as he didn't know it was me. I wasn't technically authorized to investigate this murder.

  I peeled the tape off the piece of paper and unfolded it.

  "It's the map!" Kelly said.

  It was the map. The same treasure map we had, with one very significant difference. This map had a huge X on it. And that X was in Rex's front yard.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next morning I was deep in thought, studying the map. I sat in my living room, looking across the street to Rex's house, wondering just how I was going to search the yard.

  It wasn't like I could pass it off as anything innocent. What excuse could I have? Although, Rex did want to help me find the treasure. But telling him would require an answer to how did I find this new map?

  There wasn't a single hole in his yard. If that was where Ike got the gold bar, how did he manage it without leaving a hole (or several)? Did the gold bar come from somewhere else? If so, why was there an X marking Rex's yard?

  I held the map up to the light to determine if the X was old or new. An indent on the other side told me it was written in pencil.

  Philby jumped up into the large picture window. Her pupils were the size of dinner plates, and she was fixated on something at Rex's house. This wasn't unusual. Last year my fiancé had a mouse problem. And even after the exterminator came and went, my obese house cat was always trying to escape to get over there.

  One time she slipped into the sleeve of my coat and ran outside. It looked like my coat was trying to run away from home. Another time she got into the garbage bag that had to go out to the dumpster. Fortunately, I bought cheap bags that ripped under her weight, leaving an angry cat sitting in a pile of garbage in my kitchen.

  She never just made a break for it when we opened the front door. I guess that was far too pedestrian for the wily likes of her.

  Yeooooooooow!

  Philby was now throwing herself at the window, which was hard to do with all her bulk. She basically had to lean back and jump toward it. It was like watching a medicine ball hit a window in slow motion.

  And it gave me an idea…

  * * *

  "Merry?" Rex closed the car door from his driveway and walked over to me. "What's going on?"

  "Philby got out and ran over here!" I tried to sound desperate.

  He stared at me. "And why do you have a metal detector?"

  He had me there. It probably wasn't my brightest idea, since it didn't have anything to do with my now missing cat. Well, she wasn't missing. Just circling the house trying to find a way in.

  "I saw this thing on PBS about how people find all kinds of things in their front yards and thought I'd start with yours." I switched off the device and pasted on my most innocent smile.

  It was a terrible story. And one I didn't think I'd even need. Rex usually worked until five or six, and it was only noon. I'd hoped I'd be able to scan the front yard quickly and put the equipment away before Rex ever got home. I was going to mark any spot I found with a dandelion.

  Philby trotted around the side of the house for the eleventh time since we'd gotten there, yowling all the way. Rex retrieved her and scratched under her chin, making her eyes go wide like a mental wildebeest.

  "Oh." I took my cat from him. "There she is. Bad kitty."

  Philby narrowed her eyes at me. She didn't like being a pawn in my intrigues unless they included tuna.

  Rex sighed. "You think the treasure is in my yard. Why?"

  "Because the map was in mine." That was true. "It's common knowledge that often, the treasure isn't far from the map." That part I made up.

  A grin tugged at the corner of his lips. "And did you find any treasure?"

  I shook my head. "No. Not so much as a nail. Your yard is clean. You're welcome."

  He nodded as if he knew this all along. "Why don't I run and get some takeout and bring it over?"

  I jumped at the idea. "Yes! I'll get everything ready." I hightailed it out of there before he'd come up with another question.

  Philby did not like being dumped, unceremoniously, in the kitchen. But since she'd been a good little henchman, I opened up a can of tuna for her. Martini came running, so I split it between two dishes.

  By the time Rex showed up, I'd set a table in the backyard with plates, napkins, and two glasses of iced tea. The heat wasn't too bad for July. It felt like a picnic. I liked summer in Iowa. To be honest, I liked all the seasons in my home state. And while we could get super-humid summers and bitterly cold, snowy winters, it was still my favorite place to be. And I'd been to both the French and Italian Rivieras. Twice.

  "How was work?" I mumbled through a mouthful of chicken.

  Ever the gentleman, Rex swallowed before answering. "We had a break-in at a property by the zoo."

  "Oh?" I asked as I poured honey onto a biscuit.

  Rex nodded, studying me. "Yes. It's one of Ike Murphy's places."

  One of?

  "He had more than one place?"

  "He did. The man had a house about a block from here. And a tiny house by Obladi Zoo that he owned. We think he lived in the first place and used the second for who knows what."

  "Why do you think that?"

  "Because the house near here was lived in, and the other seemed to be staged."

  I suggested,. "Could it have been the killer, searching for something?"

  My fiancé considered this for a moment, and I took the opportunity to fill my mouth with mashed potatoes and gravy.

  "The staged house was broken into," he said at last.

  "Was it trashed?" I tried to throw him off.

  "No, it wasn't trashed. In fact, the only reason we think it was hit was the unlocked back door and the pile of flamingo bones in the tub."

  There were several ways I could react. But a normal person would only react one way.

  "Flamingo bones? Did you say flamingo bones?" My mind went to the flamingo skull I'd hidden under
my bed.

  If Rex thought I was the guilty party, he didn't say it. "That's right. No one is sure how they got there. The zoo isn't missing a flamingo."

  I shrugged. "Maybe he collects them? You could probably order it online. You can get anything online."

  This was true. A Chechen strongman I'd been surveilling once ordered the car from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. On eBay.

  Rex gave up. "It's technically not illegal to own flamingo bones. But they were all attached to each other in the form of a proper skeleton when I first went by there."

  "Do you have any leads?"

  "Merry, I…"

  I held my hands up. "I'm not interfering, but I do think this murder and Mad Mimi's murder are related. And you and I were going to investigate that, remember?"

  "I remember." He pulled out his cell and looked at it.

  "You said the two of us would work together on this. And we haven't had one moment to do so."

  "Well, our luck just changed." He put his phone back into his pocket. "Let's put the food away. Sheriff Carnack has some news for us."

  * * *

  "Here you go." Carnack shoved a file folder toward us, and I opened it.

  I shoved the brittle newspaper clipping aside. We'd already read it at the library. The yellowed pages of what was the equivalent of a police report, back in the day, was written in perfect penmanship.

  "The man who wrote this report claimed it was murder." I looked up at Carnack. "But I thought it was deemed an accident?"

  The sheriff pointed at the file. "That's because that report wasn't written by the marshal. It was written by a Pinkerton detective."

  I looked questioningly at Rex.

  "At that time," he said, "the only law was a town marshal. There might have been a watchman too, but neither of them would be trained in murder investigations."

  Carnack agreed. "In most cases, the governor would offer a reward, which brought every detective from the Midwest in to investigate in hopes of making money. Pinkertons were private detectives with the Pinkerton agency, and one of them came here."

  "So"—I frowned at the report—"there were several people investigating one murder?"

  Rex spoke up. "Yes. Kind of like when you investigate something I'm investigating. It muddies the waters. Makes it tough to find answers."

  He had me there.

  "The town marshal thought it was an accident, but the Pinkertons thought it was murder? Didn't they talk to each other?"

  The sheriff sighed. "In most cases, since he wasn't trained to deal with murder, justice was meted out as quickly as possible to put the mess behind them. In some cases, when they had a suspect, a group of vigilantes would grab the suspect and hang him before a trial could take place. The marshal probably didn't want to deal with that, so he declared it an accident."

  "That doesn't make any sense," I grumbled.

  "Did the detective have any theories?" Rex pulled the folder over to him.

  Sheriff Carnack nodded. "Billy the Axeman."

  "Billy the Axeman?" I had to ask.

  Rex leaned back in his chair. "There were a number of axe murders in the Midwest during this time. People didn't really know about serial killers. But a few tied the Villisca Axe Murders, along with some others in Colorado Springs, Blue Island, Illinois, to name a few, to Billy the Axeman. The theory is that he was a transient who traveled by train and found his victims in the night."

  I stared at both of them. Everyone in Iowa knew about the Villisca Axe Murders. It had been a crime in the early 1900s, and the killer was never caught.

  "Billy the Axeman? That's a terrible name for a serial killer! It isn't scary! It sounds like a cartoon character who helps people when they get stuck inside wooden boxes!" I shook my head.

  Rex rolled his eyes. "That's what you got out of this?"

  "If it's Billy the Axeman, and no one has ever found out who he was, how can we solve it? At least we can make fun of his name." The girls would probably agree with me. I wasn't sure I should tell them. After all, who needed Betty the Axeman?

  Carnack leaned forward. "I don't think it was Billy the Axeman. I think it was someone local. The modus operandi is different. Billy did certain things like cover mirrors and windows, cover the victims' faces, killed them in their sleep. This was, in my opinion, meant to look like it was part of those crimes."

  Rex and I looked at the file again. The Pinkerton agent, a man named Smith, filled in the details. Mehitable was found in the dining room. She was dressed in day clothes and had shoes on. She even had a purse in her right hand. The woman had been getting ready to go out.

  "Some detective," I scoffed. "If he thought it really was Billy, he sure didn't pay attention to the state of the victim."

  Rex shrugged. "He was just here to earn the reward."

  "Did he get it?" I asked.

  "There's no evidence that he did," Carnack said. "I wonder why he pinned it on Billy?"

  "So, who did it?" I threw up my hands.

  Rex studied the file. "Smith interviewed her brother, Eustace, and a cousin, Peggy McMurtry. Both were in town during the murders but had no alibi."

  "Eustace," the sheriff said, "was a pillar of the community. He was a successful farmer and deacon in the church, and he helped the town with incorporation. His wife was the church organist, and she raised five children. I doubt that the marshal looked any further."

  I frowned at the file in Rex's hands. "Peggy? There was no mention of a Peggy in the diary."

  Rex shook his head. "Doesn't say much other than they decided she wasn't a suspect."

  It always came down to family, didn't it? They were usually the first investigated. I wondered if Edna Lou knew anything about Peggy. The story we learned in school never mentioned anyone else in the Peters family.

  "Mehitable was killed in the Peters' house. That's where your sisters live and work now," I said to Rex. "Maybe we should pay them a visit. I'd like to see the dining room."

  We thanked Sheriff Carnack and headed for the parking lot. Rex seemed tense. But then, he always acted like that when we were going to see his family. That seemed unfair. Randi and Ronni were his sisters. And they were going to be my sisters.

  "Maybe I should drop you off at home and you can go see the twins," Rex said. "I should check in at the office…"

  "Oh no you're not," I insisted. "Besides, I need you if we are going to reenact the murder scene.

  Five minutes later we were walking through the door. You might think that I always say it took five minutes to get somewhere in Who's There. But it literally takes only five minutes. Unless there's gridlock because a farmer drives a combine into town. And that really only happens once or twice a year.

  "Rexley!" Randi came out of the back room and hurled herself into her brother's arms.

  It was hard to get used to the fact that his real name was Rexley. I'd tried to use it myself once or twice, but he made it clear that it was Rex, and only Rex. I smiled as I saw his petite and plump sister hug him. Then she came at me.

  "And Merry! I'm so happy to see you both!" She crushed me in an embrace.

  "For crying out loud!" Ronni joined us. "You're interrupting our work!"

  This twin made no effort to hug her brother or me. Instead she folded her arms over her chest, kind of like an inverted un-hug. The only way I could tell these two apart was that one was happy and smiled and the other was surly and scowling.

  Randi ignored her sister. "This is the perfect time for you to stop by! I had another thought for the wedding!"

  Ronni rolled her eyes but made no move to leave. Randi motioned for us to follow her into the next room. I was taking note. The entryway was a room, and I wondered if it was original to the place.

  "Was this the dining room?" I asked as we made our way into a room that, for some reason, was filled with warthogs in various states of dress.

  Randi turned to a wardrobe and pulled something out. She spun on her heel and with eyes shining, presented it to us.
/>   "Ferrets?" I asked.

  Two of the weasels were dressed as the bride and groom, standing back to back as if they were about to pace off for a duel.

  "Is that supposed to be me?" Rex pointed at the groom.

  "I was thinking we could put this on the altar." Randi added. "It's the unity candle!"

  "What's a unity candle?" I asked.

  "It's a candle you both light together," Randi explained.

  "What are you"—Ronni snorted—"an idiot?"

  Rex glared at his sister, who threw her hands up in the air and stalked out of the room, shouting, "It's a fair question!"

  Randi patted my arm apologetically as she pointed to the animals' heads. "They're each one candle." She pulled them apart then pushed them back together. "You light one each, individually, and then push them together! Voilà!"

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Randi's face fell. She'd tried several times to contribute to the ceremony, but everything she'd made had been dismissed. I couldn't do it to her again.

  "You nailed it! Great idea! We'll do that!" I said.

  If Rex was surprised, he didn't show it.

  "You like it?" Randi's eyes shone with joy.

  I nodded. "I love it! We love it, right?" I nudged Rex with my foot.

  "It's perfect," he agreed.

  Which was good because otherwise I'd have to overrule him.

  Personally, I wasn't fond of the ferret candle. But I was fond of Randi. And that had to count for something.

  "I'm so glad you love it!" Randi jumped up and down gleefully before crushing both of us together in one huge hug.

  "It's about time you liked something!" Ronni shouted from another room.

  "I have a great idea about the pew bows!" Randi said quickly. "Since your colors are green and white, I was thinking of those green tree snakes! We could tie them into bows! And albino snakes for the color white!"

  I stared at her. "You're on a roll!"

  You might be thinking I was crazy, but I was fairly certain she wouldn't be able to find these snakes. Although I did wonder what the Methodists would think of snake pew bows. I'd figure out how to deal with that later.