Mint Cookie Murder (4 page)

Then, dead terrorists started showing up on my doorstep. Three of them, to be exact. I was mobbed by the media, squeezed by the local police—which led me to meeting my boyfriend, Detective Rex Ferguson—and almost, sorta seduced by my former agency handler, Riley Andrews.

The whole mess was wrapped up after an embarrassing shootout that unfortunately involved my second-grade Girl Scout troop, but everything ended okay—I guess. Things have been somewhat quiet since then. Until today.

Now the whole mess was starting to come back. That sucked.

I made sure to kiss Rex good-bye in front of Riley, who looked at me strangely before he went to bed. I didn't see him the next morning, as he left a note on the breakfast counter that said he was off to the police station. Good. Let the agency deal with this. It wasn't my problem. Well, except for the fact the guy died on my stoop. I met Kelly at the school for our Girl Scout meeting.

"
Cookies
!" The girls yelled in unison as we passed out the samples the Council had given us. Kelly handed out juice boxes and cookie forms and started talking about how we would handle the sales.

"Mrs. Wrath?" Kaitlin asked. She was one of the four Kaitlins. I wasn't sure which. All four of them had brown hair and blue eyes, and their last names inexplicably all began with the letter
G.

And all of them called me "Mrs.," no matter how hard I tried to correct them. I was at the point of considering electric shock negative reinforcement, but Kelly sort of frowned on that idea. I'd have to find something that wouldn't get me in trouble.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Do we get to eat all the cookies we sell?" Kaitlin the Second finished the question for Kaitlin. The other girls nodded as if they, too, were thinking the exact same thing.

"Only if you buy them. You can only eat the cookies you buy. You can't eat the cookies other people buy from you."

"Why?" Kaitlin Three asked.

"Because they aren't yours," I answered. The fourth Kaitlin was thankfully silent.

"Do we get to keep the money?" Hannah asked. "I want to buy a puppy."

I could see the logic in that. "No. The money goes to our troop so we can do fun things."

"Like shoot guns in school again?" Emily's eyes sparkled, and the whole group of girls burst into a loud cheer.

"No," I said. "And don't mention that to your parents. Please."

Kelly spoke up. "Now ladies, when you sell, make sure you always have a parent with you. I don't want you going door-to-door alone."

"Right!" Anna shouted. "We need backup. Always bring backup."

"Shouldn't we pack heat?" Ava asked. "Would you recommend a 9 millimeter or a .38?"

Personally, I'd go with a .45 Glock (although I was rather partial to the Colt Gold Cup), but Ava was new to this, so I cut her some slack. Kelly interrupted and told the girls they weren't to bring weapons of any kind. Then she glared at me, which I thought was a little unfair.

"How about a sharpened screwdriver?" Betty asked.

"Or a shiv made out of wood?" Lauren suggested.

Apparently, recess chatter mirrored
Orange Is the New Black
. Kind of different than in my day when the biggest question was whether to play foursquare or jump rope.

"
No weapons of any kind
!" Kelly screamed. This got their attention. The girls stared at us in shock. Now
who was being a dick,
I thought.

Kelly decided this was a good time to hand out the coloring sheets that depicted happy, dancing cookies talking about sales. The girls immediately started adding handguns to the cookies' little stick arms. A couple of them had the cookies shooting each other and bleeding caramel on the floor.

"You suck," Kelly whispered to me under her breath.

"Yeah. I know," I admitted. Still, I was impressed with the level of violence that cookies could get up to. And the good thing about cookies killing each other was that the cleanup would be delicious.

I collected the coloring sheets and crayons. No point in letting the girls take the evidence home. Although, I was pretty sure the girls would color these pictures on their own when they left.

We played a couple of games that did not include weapons until the parents came by to pick up the girls. I handed each parent a permission form and cookie sales info telling them the sale started in two days.

"How do you think they'll do?" I asked as we started straightening up the tables and chairs.

"Sounds like they're going to form a brute squad who will intimidate their neighbors into buying using homemade shivs and zip guns."

I smirked. "Well, they could really only get away with that once. What's the real objective?"

Kelly shrugged. "We set a goal of 300 dollars in sales per girl. That should give us enough money to have some fun next year. But you and I should sell too. Just to make up for any slack."

"Oh sure," I said. "You can take the forms to the hospital and sell there. What am I supposed to do?"

"That's your problem," Kelly sniffed. That's when I realized she was pissed off at me.

"Okay, what's
your
problem?" I asked.

My best friend since elementary school looked at me for a moment. "It's nothing. I've just been working too hard."

Liar. I could smell a lie a mile away. And right now, Kelly was lying to me. Something was wrong. And she wasn't going to tell me what it was. How unlike her.

"Come on," I pressed. "I know when something's up with you."

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just tired. That's all." She snapped her troop binder shut, and her body language told me this conversation was over. Great.

I made my way home wondering what could be bothering Kelly. Was she mad about my newest dead body? Was she worried about Rex and me? Was she jealous about Riley shacking up at my house? Wait, that couldn't be it. Could it?

Kelly and Riley were definitely friendly—but I always kind of saw that as a weird united front to annoy me. Riley hadn't contacted me in weeks. But he was in touch with Kelly. Was Kelly interested in Riley?

No. That couldn't be it. Kelly was happily married. Cheating on her husband was one of the unlikeliest things she could do. Right?

I shook my head to clear it. No way I was even thinking of considering such a thing. It had to be something else. But what? There was Philby. Maybe she didn't like how I treated him? Maybe she wanted him but was afraid to ask?

No. If Kelly wanted Philby—she'd just take him, knowing it would be with my blessing. That wasn't it. I thought about her actions during the scout meeting. Was she upset about something with the troop? I re-ran the meeting through my mind. It didn't seem plausible.

Oh my God. Maybe she's sick! Maybe she has cancer or something! Was that possible? I mean, she's a nurse. My heart started pounding. I couldn't imagine life without Kelly. Sure, for several years I hadn't been in touch because I was a spy, but I always knew she was there for me. Kelly was my only link to this town. The troop and Rex, well, they were new. Kelly was it. If something happened to her, I'd…I'd…

I shut my brain down. This kind of thinking was a bad idea. My best friend didn't have cancer. There was something else wrong. And unlikely as it was that she wasn't sharing it with me, I'd just have to wait until she was ready to confide. And if it didn't happen soon, I'd beat it out of her.

Philby greeted me when I walked in the door to the kitchen. He sat right in front of me so I couldn't get past him. His eyes were on mine. I sat down on the floor. It was time he and I had a little chat.

"What's up?" I said. I held out my hand.

Philby sniffed my fingers delicately. Once again, he made eye contact and let out a loud and long
meeoooooooooooow
, and then he farted like a punctured basketball and walked away. On the plus side, it was kind of nice to be welcomed home.

Riley wasn't home.
Aaaarrrrgh!
Now I was thinking of this as Riley's home. I had to get that man out of here. But in the meantime I should probably get some groceries. If I waited for him to go with me, it would be like him bossing me around again. I couldn't have that…my plate was full, what with Kelly probably dying of a rare and bizarre form of cancer and a Hitler cat look-alike plotting against me.

I scooped up my keys and within minutes was at the grocery store. After snagging a cart, I started working through the aisles one by one. This was new. Usually I just made a beeline for the junk food areas. But I had some time, so I might as well go through every part of the store. It's always good to familiarize yourself with any place you frequent—find out where the exits and good places to hide are, figure out the best foods to use as weapons.

That's not as funny as it sounds. I once saw a guy killed with a carrot. It was a very long and pointy carrot, so you can guess the endless applications. I stopped at the produce area first. Miles of green, red, yellow, and orange spread before me like a weirdly shaming, healthy rainbow.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a salad now and then. But how did you make a salad? I'd eaten in five-star restaurants all over the world, and I'd had a salad or two when my cover insisted upon it. But they were already prepared. No one ever handed me a recipe. I never thought I'd need one.

Well, how hard could it be? I knew what a salad looked like. First, I'd need something sort of leafy. No problem. There was a huge display of such stuff—featuring every shade of green imaginable. I read the labels: iceberg, spinach, baby butter, romaine, kale…the list went on and on. I grabbed the first one in front of me. It said
romaine
. That sounded like Romania, where I once had an assignment where I'd been undercover as a nun. I had to strangle a rival spy with my rosary beads. It's not as difficult as it sounds—the beads were strung with piano wire and the bad guy had a weak neck. I think I still have those beads somewhere.

Okay, so now I had the leafy part of the salad. I'd probably need something else. You can't just have lettuce and dressing—even I knew that. Some reds and purples caught my eye. Maybe it's a color thing, and I should get what will look nice on all that green. Let's see: turnips, eggplant, rutabagas…

Eggplant sounded horrible but was pretty, but I couldn't remember ever eating one in a salad. Instead I went with rutabagas because it had nice alliteration with the word
romaine
.

Excellent. I had the leaves and a vegetable. I started pacing up and down the aisle. I picked up a clump of carrots because they were extra pointy and who knows—I might need to defend myself in the kitchen without ready access to knives someday. I wondered how long these veggies were good for. Riley would probably know that. Hey! Riley eats romaine and rutabagas! Clearly, alliteration
was
the key to making a salad.

I got a little carried away, tossing rhubarb, raspberries, red peppers, and radishes in my cart. But I figured I now had the clue—you make a salad based on the first letter of the kind of leaf. Feeling triumphant, I made my way to the salad dressings.

This part was easy! Ranch! I already had that! But just in case plain ranch wasn't foodie enough for Riley, I took one of every flavor, three cheese, bleu cheese, zesty…every kind they had.

This was going better than I'd hoped. But just to be safe, I thought I'd better hit the health section. Then Riley would see what a great host I was—even if I was a host who didn't really want to be one.

I knew granola was healthy, so I threw that in the cart. There was something strange called "soymilk" so I picked that up too. Somewhere I'd seen something about flaxseed being good for you, so I grabbed a big bag. I had no idea what you did with this stuff, but Riley probably would pour it directly in his mouth. It didn't look like you could do much else. I also tossed in some tofu, greek yogurt, and quinoa.

Then I headed for my area and loaded up on Pizza Rolls, Bagel Bites, frozen pizza, ravioli that came in a can, and mac and cheese that came in a blue box. I added a case of pop and a small box of ginger tea and checked out.

I arrived home triumphantly, greeted by Philby as a conquering hero. Or at least, that's what I thought he was thinking. It was hard to tell what an obese cat who looked like an evil dictator was thinking. In all honesty, he just sat and watched me unload groceries. But I decided that he adored my food gathering abilities and left it at that.

I was putting the food away when I noticed a strange man standing in my backyard. He seemed to be looking on the ground for something. My yard was not easily accessible. It had a private alley just for me and was surrounded by high bushes.

I stuck a carrot in my back pocket, just in case, and very quietly made my way to the garage and out into the yard. I stood there, not 150 feet away, and watched as he continued to look around. Eventually, he saw me.

"Oh!" he cried out. "Sorry to trespass." He smiled and walked over to me, his hand held out. I shook it carefully. He was middle-aged and thin as a rail. Pewter gray hair stuck out all over his head as if it was trying to escape. He wore wrinkled khaki pants, dirty work boots, and a worn hoodie. And I'd never seen him before.

"I'm your neighbor." He threw a thumb over his left shoulder. "Thataway, a few blocks. Name's Bob."

"Hello, Bob," I said warily. "Looking for something?"

"Oh, that's Bob with three
B
s," he added, smiling again.

Right. Bob with three
B
s. Who did that? And was it Bbob or Bobb? It couldn't be Bbob. That looked too much like boob. I decided it must be Bobb.

"I don't think I've ever seen you around here before," I said.

"I work third shift over at the factory," he said, still smiling. Well, that would account for his clothes.

"Which one?" I asked. This town had five major factories. Not that it mattered. I didn't know anyone who worked there. But I just felt he was too vague.

"Greenplow," he said, as he started to walk away. "Well, nice meeting you, Ms. Wrath. See you around." Bobb disappeared before I could ask him how he knew my name. I'd never introduced myself.