Sugar Lips' Feeling Lucky House of Delights was the best ice cream parlor in the world. Or at least in Iowa (and North Korea). Owned by a woman who retired from writing exotic catalog copy for Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood, Doris Bean found herself unable to stop doing what she'd done so well and gave the cold concoctions names like the Is That a Banana in Your Pants Banana Split, or the Hot Mess Hottie Fudge Sundae.
Kayla unlocked the door and let us in. Ron and Ivan, carrying their sons, Hilly, Rex, Roger, and Warren all followed. The rest of the druids didn't join us because Stewie thought ice cream was beneath a demon of his stature and Mike and Heather had "stuff" to do. I thought of asking if Warren should even be in there, but since Kayla didn't mention it, I kept that to myself.
After locking the door behind us and making sure the blinds were down, Kayla got out of her druid robes and handed everyone menus. Then she took up her usual position behind the counter, staring at her phone.
"This is amazing!" Roger's eyes went wide. "Back home we have vanilla…" His voice dropped off as if he was thinking what the other flavors were.
"And chocolate?" Rex tried to complete the Holy Mud Man's sentence.
"No, just vanilla," the Chechen said. "But some days, it's the good vanilla!"
Kayla came and took our orders. With so many of us, I knew we'd have a bit of a wait to get it all.
"So, Roger," I started to make conversation. "Have you been a Holy Mud Man long?"
"It's my passion," he said without any passion. "My father, grandfather, and every firstborn male in every generation have been Holy Mud Men."
I waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn't, I pressed on. "Is there specific training you need to get for that?"
He shrugged. "Not really, other than having—" he brought up his hands and made finger quote marks "—a gift for it."
The babies were now awake, sitting in their carriers on an adjacent table, and as usual, they were staring at me.
"It's amazing," Roger said as he studied their fixated gazes. "They might be prophets. We've never had twins before. It's always been a boy, but never two of them."
Rex scooped Wally out of his carrier and held him on his lap. The baby acted as if he didn't realize he was being held. He just fixed his gaze on me.
"Is this like the Dalai Lama of Tibet?" my husband asked. "Chosen as a boy, raised by monks, that sort of thing?"
Ron and Ivan exchanged nervous glances.
"Wives would be upset." Ron shook his head. "If babies had to go live in Chechnya."
Roger held up his hands. "No, we don't require that, mostly because the temple burned to the ground fifty years ago and they were too lazy to build a new one. They can stay here. I might have to move here to start their training." He brightened at the idea.
"You're going to train them as infants?" Rex's eyebrows went up, and he looked at me.
"Of course," Roger said. "The earlier the better."
Both babies burped simultaneously.
Kala brought our ice cream and fled to the safety behind the counter.
"What do you train them to do?" Hilly asked. "Babies aren't very good at learning at this age. I always thought a baby would be a good cover on my jobs, but turns out you have to feed them. Apparently, they can't feed themselves. How unprofessional is that?"
"Very unprofessional," Ivan agreed.
"You can live in Merry's old house," Hilly offered. "How long does training last?"
Roger nodded eagerly. "Then I'd be able to study the Great Pook Snork too!"
"Hold on." I stopped everyone. "I don't know about having someone living in my house full time…"
Hilly cocked her head to one side. "Why not? You let those old Girl Scouts live there!"
"Seems unfair to let them stay and not holy man," Ron agreed with the assassin.
"They lived there temporarily." We were referring to a group of elderly scouts we'd rescued from an old scout camp a few years ago. The ladies had been in the woods since the 1960s. Currently they were living Golden Girls–style in Florida. "They were never going to stay permanently."
Roger nodded. "I would only stay through the training, so also temporary."
I leaned in. "How temporary?"
"Not long." Roger thought for a moment. He did this by scrunching up his face to the point he resembled a raisin. "Only five years at most."
Rex handed me the baby, which was a smart ploy that I'd used in the CIA before. If you want to distract someone, avoid being killed or just beat up, hand someone a baby. Of course, you have to eventually get the baby back, but by that point you're operating on a one moment at a time kind of thinking.
"But this," Rex started, "is only if the boys are determined to be the prophets, right?"
"Of course," Roger laughed. "Why would I stay here otherwise? Besides this amazing ice cream, that is. And the central heating and streaming smart TV."
I felt a little relieved. Obviously these babies weren't really prophets. I looked down at Wally, who stared up at me. He started to form his tiny mouth into an O, and suddenly, he started to sort of sing. No wait, there were two voices. I looked over at Azlan, still in his carrier, who was vocalizing the exact same way. Wait, was he doing it in harmony with his cousin?
The sound ended seconds later, and both boys fell instantly asleep. I gently placed the baby back into his carrier. When I turned around, everyone was staring at me.
"What? Didn't I do it right?" I'd been practicing.
Roger broke the silence. "I'll send for my things. And you should know that holy men get to stay rent free."
Ron bit his lip. "What will Blasto Blasto do without Holy Mud Man to bless mud?"
Roger waved him off. "No problem. I'll get my brother to do it. He's filled in for me before."
"Your brother has gift too?" Ivan gushed.
The Holy Mud Man shook his head. "Nah. He'll just do it in my place. He likes the perk of all that free mud."
"Are you saying that little singing thing—" I set down my spoon "—is enough to decide that they're the real deal?"
Roger shrugged. "Probably. The guidelines for this sort of thing are pretty loose."
"It doesn't seem like it should be," I argued.
"That's the way it goes!" He held up his empty bowl and waved for Kayla's attention. "Can I get another Triple Nipple D Cup Vanilla?"
Warren looked up from his empty bowl and screamed. Loudly.
"Make that two!" Roger shouted.
Kayla sighed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
"How are you doing?" Rex asked me in the car.
Honestly? I wasn't sure. "I don't know. My nephews are certified prophets, which means I might actually be the Great Pook Snork, and now the Holy Mud Man is going to live in my old house rent free for five years."
"It's a lot to take in." Rex squeezed my hand.
"Did you hear how he tried to negotiate me buying him a freezer and a five-year supply of Ben and Jerry's? I don't even have that!" Hey! Why didn't I have that?
"I don't know if we can get a freezer big enough," Rex said as he started the car. "But seriously, I don't think you have to put him up without some sort of contract."
"That was a contract! In Chechnya, you just have to say it out loud in front of witnesses and have it notarized by a goat! Warren took a bite out of it, which notarized it. The other party doesn't even have to agree!"
Five years! Hilly was taking him home right now. She'd probably make him a set of keys within the hour. Hilly had always treated my home as hers. If I didn't need it for troop meetings, I'd just sell it to her.
There was another problem, since my basement was full of toys from my spy days. Roger could wander down there and accidentally blow the house up if he thought the Altoid tin was just mints. Worse than that, my troop still met there. How was I going to work around a man living in the same place?
We had just pulled into the driveway when my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize.
"Hello?"
"Hi Merry," Roger said. "We need to go shopping to get supplies for my stay. All you have here is cookies and wine." He paused. "A lot of wine."
Now I had to feed him too?
"Hilly said you'd cover all my expenses during my stay, which is nice of you."
Thanks, Hilly.
"Pick me up in five minutes. See you then!" He ended the call.
"You're taking him to the grocery store?" Rex asked as we went into the house.
"Apparently," I sighed, "I have no choice in the matter."
For a moment, it looked like my husband was going to say something that would help me.
"Good luck with that," he said brightly before heading into the kitchen.
My phone rang again. "Are you coming?" Roger asked. "I can see you through the windows here and where you are."
"Be right there," I sighed.
"American grocery stores are so nice!" Roger clapped his hands very slowly because that was high speed for him. "The vegetables look like they do in magazines, and there's no mud anywhere!"
I forced a smile as he added five bunches of carrots and thirty-two individual bananas that he'd pulled apart, one by one.
"Look at these tiny oranges!" He squealed when we got to the Halo tangerines. "Why are they so small?"
"For snacking," I said. "My troop loves them. And they're easy to peel."
Roger put six mesh bags of the fruit into the cart. It took all of his strength to pick up the bag and five minutes to put the bag in the cart. We hadn't even made it out of produce, our first stop, and the cart was getting full.
"Are you really going to eat all of this?" I wondered.
He stopped. "Yes. Why? Is this weird?"
"Well, most people don't pull apart the bananas. They keep them in bunches. And it looks like you're going to feed an army with this much food."
He looked around. "Where's the cereal aisle? I've always wanted to try something called Lucky Charms."
Fifteen boxes of Lucky Charms later, I suggested we get another cart. He also bought five loaves of bread, two huge tubs of peanut butter, forty-one little boxes of Tic Tacs, and a case of SpaghettiOs.
"American food is amazing!" he gushed. "But where is the goat kibble?"
I sighed. "We're not even sure you can have goats in town," I said.
Roger's jaw fell open to the point I was afraid it might literally fall off. "You must be kidding, right? Warren is the most important part of the training!"
"My troop has a farm outside of city limits," I said, not believing that I was offering to help. "You could keep a goat there."
"But I need the goat with me, at all times!" Roger whined, his voice getting louder. "I need to focus, and I need the goat to focus."
People started staring at us. They were probably wondering what the woman who assassinated that Myanmar guy was doing with an elderly dude in a burlap cassock with a rope belt. I was wondering myself.
"Sorry," I lied. "But there might be a law against it." I didn't know if it really was.
"I will take this up with the authorities," Roger decided. "I have diplomatic immunity."
"No, you don't have diplomatic immunity," I said. "Only diplomats have that."
"How am I not a diplomat? I'm a cherished religious icon! I have twenty-two followers on my Facebook page! That's more than any other Holy Mud Man has!"
"I'm not sure it works like that…" I started.
He cut me off. "It works exactly like that!"
We didn't talk for the rest of the shopping spree. I paid for the very expensive groceries and helped him unload them. Five minutes later, I was back home, staring at the receipt, when I got a call.
"Hey Dad!" This was a treat! My father was a high-ranking US senator and was so busy I usually heard from my mom more than my dad.
"Hey kiddo!" Senator Mike Czrygy's voice made me smile. My dad was the best. "I hear you might be starting an international incident."
Crap. He'd heard about that. "Oh. Right. The Myanmar thing. It was faked."
"No…" he said slowly. "Myanmar? I hadn't heard about that."
"Forget it, then. I didn't really assassinate the Deputy Auditor General."
There was a pause. "Should I be concerned?"
"No. It's all taken care of. Just a hoax." Was that all he'd called for? I felt a little disappointed.
"No, it's about this Chechen thing," my dad said. "I got a call from the second cousin of the deputy prime minister of Belarus. He told me that his half-sister's uncle's friend is the Holy Mud Man of Blasto Blasto and wanted diplomatic immunity for the right to have goats in city limits in Who's There. I usually just ignore this sort of thing, but when they said you were involved, I thought I'd better double check. Is that true?"
How did Roger pull that off so quickly?
I explained the whole thing to my father. And once he stopped laughing, he said, "I can't do any of those things for him. Your best bet would be to talk to your mayor. Tell the girls I said hi!" And with that, he ended the call.
I had no choice but to call Ava.
"Mayor Ava's office," Betty answered.
"You're answering Ava's phone?" Had I called the wrong number?
"No, I just have the unimportant calls routed to mine. What's up, Mrs. Wrath?"
A blood-curdling scream in the background gave me pause.
"Oh that," Betty said. "Someone let a howler monkey loose in city hall. It wasn't Lauren."
I wasn't sure I believed that. "It wasn't?"
"It was," Betty replied. "But the official word is that it was someone else who is not Lauren. I'm thinking of blaming the new guy in sanitation."
"How did she get a howler monkey?" I was curious.
"She signed her out of the zoo. Like books from the library."
"I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way," I started to say. Then I realized that it might come in handy. I could have Mr. Fancy Pants over for a sleepover. As a vulture, he wouldn't bother the animals, since he only eats carrion. Then again, Martini always seemed dead with her narcolepsy issues, so maybe that wouldn't be a great idea.
"You're right, it doesn't. Which is another reason we don't want Lauren to get in trouble. Hold on a second." Her voice got farther away. "Francesca just ran past here!" I heard her yell. "She went into the bathroom!"
"Sorry about that," she said as she came back on. "Francesca is the monkey. Anyway, what's up?"
I'd almost forgotten. "Oh, I wanted to know if we can have goats in town."
There was a moment of silence before she responded, "Well, we have a howler monkey in city hall, so I don't see why not."
"No, what I'm asking, is there an ordinance against it?"
"Kaitlyns!" Betty shouted. "There she is! Get her in a pincer movement!"
A monkey began howling.
"I'll look into it, but not right now," Betty said. "I've got to go." She ended the call.
"Merry?" Rex appeared in his work clothes. "Dr. Wulf from the zoo just called. She said someone has stolen a howler monkey."
"Oh?" I feigned innocence. "I'm sure she'll be back in her enclosure soon."
"How did you know it was female?" Rex folded his arms over his chest.
I thought quickly. "It's just a thing. People call howler monkeys female, like ships and…" I couldn't think of any other example.
His eyebrows went up. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"
"Nope," I lied. "I just have a feeling."
My phone buzzed, and I saw a text from Betty. Goats are okay. Tell Holy Mud Man he can have up to two in your backyard. And tell Detective Ferguson that Francesca never left the zoo. And they'll find her in ten minutes, in the primate house.
"I'm sure they just misplaced her," I said to Rex. "Give it ten minutes or so."
Francesca was, in fact, located in the primate house ten minutes later. Rex didn't even ask me how I knew.