By the time the girls were all picked up, Hilly told me she was calling it a night…something about missing one of her naps. My theory on her hibernating seemed more legit. After saying good-bye, I met Rex back at the house to find him ordering pizza.
I really loved that man.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me close. "I'm not going to lose you to a cult, am I?" His voice rumbled in his chest.
"I doubt it," I said, "especially since they can't really cast a spell to make people fly." If they could achieve that, I might consider it. After all, I was the bird whatever. Maybe I could fly with Mr. Fancy Pants, the king vulture I'd adopted at the local zoo. Wouldn't that be amazing!
He laughed and poured me a glass of wine, which, after almost being sacrificed by druids for the second time, I thought I rightly deserved.
"What did you say to Stewie and the others?" I asked between gulps.
"I told them that as this was their first offense and since my wife can take care of herself, I'd let it slide this time. And as long as they didn't kidnap, perform human sacrifices, or steal furniture, they could continue their…whatever that was…in the woods."
"That was nice of you." I smiled. "Sorry about trampling the crime scene. I'd meant to have the girls play in the front yard, but they were too fast."
Rex smiled. He knew my troop too well. "I'm not worried about that. I do have a question. Who was that pink-haired woman?"
"Medea Jones, intrepid reporter. I told you about her. She's still trying to find a story on me. Seems to think I murdered Anna Beth Trident."
Rex froze. "Who?"
Then I froze. I'd forgotten to tell Rex that Riley ID'd her.
"You know who the deceased is?" His voice was steady. My husband wouldn't judge me. He'd give me a chance to explain myself.
So I did. I told him about the Chinese spy, and even mentioned my trip to The Café and whether or not you should castrate ulcerating pigs, and about the new hybrid corn with special powers. And I apologized. A lot.
The pizza came in the middle of my apologizing. Rex paid and brought it to the dining room table, where Philby, Martini, and Leonard were waiting.
"It's okay," he said with a sigh. "You were going to tell me, right?"
I nodded vigorously. "I was! I just got caught up in all that cult stuff."
We ate in silence for a few moments. Since Kelly had eaten my ice cream, I was hungry. I made a mental note to call her and find out how she was. It wasn't like her to be so grumpy. By now she was used to all the strange baggage that came with me.
"You might have something there about Erskine and the experimental seed," Rex said as he gave a pepperoni each to the cats and the crust to the dog. "Something like that would revolutionize agriculture. I'm sure the Chinese would want that."
"So, who killed Anna Beth, and why did they move her from the murder scene to my backyard?"
"Well," he mused, "you have a strong connection to the CIA. And honestly, I'm not ruling Hilly out."
I sighed heavily.
"I'm not saying I'm going to arrest her. Just hear me out," Rex urged. "A dead foreign agent is found in your backyard right after a CIA assassin—"
"Who's not an assassin," I added quickly.
He continued, "—shows up out of the blue and stays at your house, the very house where the body was found? And the victim is a known, international spy?"
I took another slice. "I know it seems obvious. I'd think so too. But I don't think it's Hilly."
"But Riley does," Rex said. "You just told me that."
"Yes, I did. But not so you could hold it against me. He's never liked her."
"Look." Rex's tone changed to soothe. "I don't have any evidence against Hilly. But sooner or later we will find the original murder site. And then I might have something on her."
"You won't be able to arrest Hilly." I shook my head. "The CIA will come get her and close ranks. You know that."
Rex rubbed his forehead. "I realize that. I don't care about arresting her. I just want to close out my case."
Philby, tired of getting nothing from me (because I have a strict policy on sharing pepperoni, which is that I don't), came over and placed her paw on my pizza before sitting next to my plate with a smug look on her face. This tactic rarely worked on me, but I'd lost my appetite. I tossed her a few pepperonis (Martini had fallen asleep inside the pizza box lid) and gave the rest to Leonard.
"But I do wonder," Rex mused. "why the CIA would act domestically if it is her. I thought they couldn't do that."
I winked. "No, they don't do that."
Rex's right eyebrow went up. "Which means they do, right?"
"Look." I sighed. "It's not that confusing. The CIA doesn't assassinate people, and they don't act on domestic ground, with the exception being that they really do."
He rubbed his eyes. "Merry, how do you manage all that doublespeak?"
"They use a little shock therapy during our training," I admitted. "Enough volts to your brain, and anything makes sense."
His jaw dropped. "They shocked you?"
I shook my head. "Of course not. That would be illegal."
"Right." He sighed and took another piece of pizza. "I wonder if some aspects of your training might affect your ability to have children."
This time, my jaw dropped. "You want to have kids? I thought we'd discussed it!"
My chest filled with panic, and I started to hyperventilate. Don't get me wrong. I love kids—like Finn and my troop. I just wasn't ready to have any myself.
"No, I don't want to have children right now." He ran his hands through his hair. "I guess my sisters' creations are finally getting to me."
I took a deep breath. "Okay. Good. By the way"—I looked around—"where is the dead-mouse-angel mobile?"
Rex looked sheepish. "I caught Philby eating it. I swear, I just set it down on the table for one minute to answer my phone, and when I looked, three of the mice were missing."
As we turned to look at Philby, she coughed up a pair of wings and a halo. How did she do that? Obviously they had some sort of prehensile larynx that could set aside stuff to be coughed up later.
"I put it in the attic," Rex said, "with the other stuff."
"If Philby doesn't stop this," I murmured, "Ronni is going to kill her and turn her into a baby rattle."
"Or a lamp," Rex mused. "She's too fat to be a rattle."
Philby must've known what we were saying because she stuck her nose in the air and trotted across the pizza, farting as she went. She returned to her post in the living room, almost too fat to fit on the ledge, and continued her surveillance of my house.
Dinner was over.
* * *
Several hours later, once Rex was sound asleep, I got out of bed, retrieved a box of Girl Scout shortbread cookies from their hiding space beneath a floorboard in the guest room, grabbed a handful of dog treats, and headed out to the Obladi Zoo.
Yes, I'd promised Rex and the zoo director, Dr. Wulf, that I would stop breaking into the zoo at night to visit the king vulture. But it was more like a don't ask, don't tell policy really.
Mr. Fancy Pants, the vulture, was a troop mascot of sorts. He'd helped me nab a Yakuza boss back in DC and had been here on loan from the National Zoo for a year or so now. When I had something on my mind, he was my first stop. For a bird who ate rotting flesh, he was a very good listener.
I jumped the fence and made my way to his enclosure. I had a key I'd secretly made, and I let myself in.
"Kissing a real girl doesn't count if she's your cousin!" Dickie, the scarlet macaw, shrieked.
Robby, the kid who took care of these animals, was an awkward teenager and friend of Stewie the Demigod. Apparently he liked to complain about all the things messed up in his adolescent life while on the job, and Dickie repeated most of them.
"That crazy lady is here again!" Dickie shrieked.
I handed him a dog treat, and that shut him up. I'd tried fruit and veggies with this bird but discovered he liked these best. I had to hold some back though. I'd be paying a visit to my new friend, Wolfie, in the red wolf enclosure later.
Mr. Fancy Pants had his googly eyes fixed on me the moment I appeared. If you've never seen a king vulture, you've been missing out. They looked like something a deranged toddler would color, with a bald purple head, bright-orange wattle that hung over his beak, and two eyes that looked like they'd been glued on from a craft store.
"Hey, big fella," I said softly as I used my second illegal key to gain entry into his glassed enclosure.
The large vulture sat on his log expectantly and waited for me to open the box and crush the cookies before dumping them between us. He guzzled them down, looking a bit like Cookie Monster as he did so.
"So, I have a problem," I started. "Yet another dead body has turned up in my presence. It's a spy from China."
The bird fixed one eye on me as he continued to gobble up the crumbs.
"And I have a friend visiting from out of town who everyone thinks might be responsible. But I don't. Weird, right?"
"Stop touching that!" Dickie shrieked. "You'll get worms!"
I paused, wondering what Robby was touching that would give him worms and who had told him this.
Turning back to Mr. Fancy Pants, I opened my mouth to speak, but someone else's voice came out.
"What are we doing?" a voice whispered behind me.
I jumped into the air, spinning and landing in a defensive position.
Hilly laughed out loud.
Oh sure, scare and make fun of the spy. The assassins with the Agency were a weird sort with an unusual sense of humor. They've been known to photocopy body parts (that usually aren't their own and are, in fact, usually detached), replace all the toilet paper with sandpaper, and once this guy managed to flood the breakroom with marshmallow fluff. It took weeks to get the sticky stuff off my shoes.
"What are you doing here?" I hissed. How long had she been here? Did she hear me say she's considered a suspect?
"I followed you." Hilly sat down next to Mr. Fancy Pants, who rose up, spreading his wings in an attempt to look intimidating.
"You have a pet vulture?" she asked as she reached out and stroked one of his wings.
The bird settled down and let her. Wow. I'd never really tried to touch him before. Not like that. It wasn't out of fear. More like respect.
"I adopted him," I said a little defensively.
"Hey!" Hilly's eyes grew wide. "Is this the same bird who saved your life in DC? He's a legend!"
"Mr. Fancy Pants is a legend?" I hadn't heard that. Why hadn't I heard that?
She cocked her head to one side. "You were rescued by a bird, and everyone thinks I'm strange!"
What was Hilly doing here? Why was she following me? It was a bit annoying that she'd breached a sacred place. This was somewhere I went to decompress. It was like being followed into a gynecologist exam.
"Why did you follow me?" I asked.
She shrugged.
"Crazy lady has a friend!" Dickie shrieked, capturing the assassin's attention.
"Did he just…?" she started.
I let out a breath. She must've just joined me if she hadn't heard him speak earlier. Which meant she probably didn't know what I'd admitted to Mr. Fancy Pants.
"That's Dickie. He repeats everything that the teenager who cleans up in here says."
She cocked her head to one side. "Did he call you 'crazy lady'?"
I nodded. "Yup."
"So," she said, looking around, "you literally do talk to birds."
"That's right." I introduced her to Mr. Fancy Pants and Dickie. "The vulture has saved my life twice. The scarlet macaw once."
"They're just like me!" the assassin cried out. "You have a lot of people saving your life."
"Well…" I said. "It's not like it happens all the time…"
"It must if you've needed help four times!"
Okay, maybe there was a point to that.
"Maybe I should get a bird, to help with work?" Hilly got up and walked over to Dickie. The macaw stared right back at her.
I reached out tentatively and stroked the vulture's wing. He reacted the same way he had with Hilly. I think he liked it. Huh. I'd learned something new.
"Heather's super dope!" Dickie shrieked.
Hilly looked at me. "Does this kid like that weird druid girl?"
"I guess so. Budding romance in the Cult of NicoDerm."
"Which guy was he?"
I thought about that. "He wasn't there." In fact, Robby Doyle hadn't been in the woods or at my house. "Maybe he's not in the cult. Maybe he just knows her from school."
Hilly walked through the exhibit hall, pausing back in front of me and the meerkats and tortoise exhibit.
"Are those meerkats racing tortoises?" she asked.
Sure enough two meerkats were riding two turtles. The pace was slow, but they seemed ambitious. One of the meerkats appeared to be waving at us.
"They do that." I left the vulture's enclosure and locked the door. "You know what? I'm going to be really sad if they have to give this guy back to the Smithsonian someday."
"Do you do this often?" Hilly asked.
"Do what?"
"Break in here late at night to talk to birds."
"Not all the time," I said quickly. "Just when I need advice."
She walked over and stared at Mr. Fancy Pants. "He gives great advice? I could use some."
"Really?" I asked. "For what?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. Stuff like whether to stab or strangle a target…do I have to wear pants to make a kill…is too much hummus bad for me… That kind of thing."
I shook my head. "I can answer one of those now. You should always wear pants for a kill." I pictured a half-nude assassin running around. "It's more professional that way."
"And the hummus?"
I shrugged. "Works for half the world. Why not?"
She nodded in agreement. "Okay. Thanks. That really helps. He really does give good advice."
I wanted to point out that I had, in fact, been the one to give her advice. "Hey, don't mention to Rex or Kelly that I brought you here. They think I've quit my king vulture habit."
"My lips are sealed. About your best friend…"
"Kelly," I said.
She nodded. "Kelly. I don't think she likes me all that much. She didn't seem to want me at the meeting."
"It's just because you taught the girls how to kill people in interesting ways. Don't worry. She's used to it with me."
Hilly sat down on the floor, which was unusual because there were empty benches everywhere. I sat down beside her.
"It's really nice that you have a best friend. I don't have one."
I patted her arm. "Sure you do. Everyone has a best friend."
Hilly shook her head. She wasn't sad, just matter of fact about it. "I've never really encouraged that kind of thing. And on the job I work alone, so there's no real buddying up."
"What about when you were a kid?" I asked. That's how Kelly and I met.
"The other kids were boring," she said as she fiddled with the laces on her tennis shoes. "They weren't interested in the stuff I was interested in."
I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know what she'd been interested in as a child, but curiosity got the best of me. "What were you interested in?"
"Toothpicks." She scratched her ear. "I really liked toothpicks."
"That's not so…"—yes it was—"…odd. But I have to ask. Why toothpicks?"
She shrugged. "I liked making stuff with them, like bridges, little houses, a bouncy ball."
"You made a bouncy ball out of toothpicks?" I tried to imagine how you made something round out of something straight. And how would it bounce?
"It's all in the wrist," Hilly said. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to do. I was never interested in sports, or music, or anything like that."
I eyed her athletic physique. "But you're always exercising."
She rolled her eyes. "Well, duh! I have to stay in shape. Whoever heard of a fat, lazy assassin?"
She had a point. The Japanese once had a former sumo wrestler named Ole. He could crush a man to death, but how often is that handy? And he had trouble getting through doors and running away. Not terribly efficient.
"I know!" She slapped me hard on the back. "You can be my best friend!" Hilly brightened.
Why not? I didn't think there were any rules that said I only had to have one. "Okay."
"So, what do best friends do?" The woman managed to jump to her feet without using her hands.
I had to use both hands and the wall for balance as I got up. "I guess, stuff like this. Without the breaking and entering, though."
"Right!" She smiled. "Stuff like this it is! What do we do now?"
I looked at her. "I have someone else you need to meet."
* * *
A few minutes later, I was in the fenced-in red wolf enclosure, giving Wolfie a vigorous belly rub.
Hilly refused to come in but watched from the fence.
"Come on in!" I whispered. "He's just like a dog."
"I'd rather not." Hilly shook her head. "I can't believe you have a red wolf here."
"You really are afraid of them?" I asked as I pulled a rubber ball from my pocket and threw it. The wolf raced off after it with glee.
"Maybe?" She cocked her head to one side. "Yeah, probably. I'm probably afraid of them."
"Why? Is there another reason other than what you said, that red wolves are scary?"
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"Hilly, if we're going to be best friends, you have to tell me. That's what best friends do. No secrets." If she bought this argument, then maybe she'd fess up as to why she was here.
Hilly looked both ways, squinting into the darkness. Wow. There must be a crazy reason for this. Now I had to know.
"How about this." Wolfie returned the now drooly rubber ball, and I threw it again. The wolf happily ran after it. "I'll tell you something I was afraid of once. Okay?"
"Great idea!" Hilly grinned. "Go ahead. Shoot."
Now I'd stepped in it. It shouldn't be hard since everyone's afraid of something. But this was tricky because I'd done plenty to humiliate myself over the years. Picking just the right story was key.
"Well?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest and tapping her foot.
"There are so many…" I mused, flicking through the memories I'd hidden away. "Okay. I've got one."
"Once upon a time," she said eagerly.
I shook my head. "No, this is a true story."
"I know. It's just more dramatic if it starts with 'once upon a time,'" Hilly said.
Okay. "Once upon a time, I was working in Tokyo." I didn't have to say it was classified because this was a colleague, after all. "And I had a terrifying experience with sushi."
"Sushi? You mean raw fish?" Hilly smothered a laugh.
"That's right," I said a little defensively. But in the spirit of best friends, I soldiered on. "I was eating at a dive bar, and the chef offered me up these tiny octopi. I picked one up with my chopsticks, and it began wiggling furiously. I dropped it and looked down and saw the whole bowl of tiny octopi was alive. I took the bowl and ran outside to the bay and dumped them all in the water. The chef was kind of mad about it, but I gave him a big tip. I won't eat sushi again."
Hilly nodded vigorously. "I feel the same way about dead bodies."
My eyes went wide as Wolfie dumped a very drooly ball into my hand. I tossed it again, and he ran off. "You're afraid of dead bodies? Isn't that a bit of a contradiction, considering your line of work?"
"One of my first assignments was a Mexican drug cartel leader. I had to shoot this guy, used a silencer, up close. Right through the forehead. He went down, and his eyes were open. Typical brain shot, right?"
"Right," I agreed. Head shots were always encouraged. Too many chances for your target to soldier on and come after you if you hit him anywhere else.
She nodded. "I went to grab him to dispose of him. This was before I used dumpsters. And the minute I touched him, he screamed."
"He was alive?" I gasped.
"Yes and no," Hilly answered. "He didn't move anything else. His eyes were still fixed on the sky. It was some kind of reflex action. At least, that's what my dentist said."
"I've heard of twitching but not screaming. That would've scared me stupid," I admitted.
"I thought I'd had a heart attack. Anyway, I couldn't get him to stop. It was like an air raid siren. So I punched him in the throat, and that was the end of it."
"So why the red wolf?" I felt it was time to ask.
Hilly looked at me. "I don't like the color red."
I decided not to point out that not only was she wearing red shorts, but the color red was pretty much part of her job.
"Wait." I recalled her earlier statement. "Did you say your dentist told you it was a reflex action?"
Hilly nodded, never taking her eyes off the wolf, who was now rolling around on his back as I gave him a belly rub.
"You"—I pointed at her—"told your dentist about one of your hits?" That was a huge no-no.
"Yeah. I was getting a root canal, and something he was using muddled my brain. The story just sort of came out."
People like Hilly were supposed to visit an approved dentist or doctor if they'd been put under.
"You used an Agency-approved dentist?" I asked hopefully.
She shook her head. "No. It was my cousin. He already thought I was an idiot, so he didn't believe a word of it."
Huh. I guess that would work. "What did your cousin think you did for a living?"
"Beetle dealer. He and the rest of my family believe I'm some sort of exotic insect importer."
"Really? Sounds like a sweet gig."
Hilly agreed. "I have several terrariums full of them back home. Helps with the cover."
"Who feeds them while you're away?" I wondered, worrying that my new best friend was going to go home to hundreds of dead bugs.
"Ahmed takes care of them for me. Do you know Ahmed?"
My stomach dropped. This could only be the Ahmed I had looking up her file. He'd better not talk, or he'd never eat another Girl Scout cookie.
"Yeah." I threw the ball, and Wolfie went after it. "He's my biggest cookie client."
Hilly didn't speak. She just watched as I threw the ball about a hundred times more. It was getting early. We needed to head back. With one last drooly hug, I locked up Wolfie's enclosure, and Hilly followed me out of the zoo to our cars.
"You still didn't tell me why you followed me here," I said as I unlocked my van.
She shrugged. "I was bored. I saw you leaving and decided you were up to something fun." She got into her car, gave me a little wave, and drove off.
Hilly seemed to know the layout of the town. I guessed I shouldn't have been so surprised. Spies learned very quickly how to get around, where the best avenues of escape were. It's just that she was keeping some very odd hours—sleeping most of the day, up at night.
Now that I was alone, I decided to check in on Ahmed. I took out my cell and dialed.
"Wrath?" a sleepy voice answered on the first ring. "It's five in the morning."
"You were supposed to call me back. You were going to find out if Hilly Vinton was on some sort of assignment or on vacation. Something you should know if you take care of her beetles for her."
There was a cartoon-sized gulp on the other end.
"She's out of town," he said after a moment. "She didn't say what she was doing, and I didn't ask. She's crazy. I don't want to get nosy with a crazy person."
"You should've told me you beetle-sit for Hilly."
Ahmed whined, "I just like bugs! She's got some huge rhinoceros beetles. I'm training them to carry pencils around."
In spite of the fact that I wanted to know why he would try to train a bug to deliver pencils, I decided to keep to the question at hand.
"Okay, fine. When will you know?"
The sullen voice responded, "I should know today. Delores in accounting likes mint cookies. And Andrew in communications wants those caramel thingies."
"The season is over. I'm not taking orders again until next January."
"No, these are bribes," he said. "And I'm going to need two full cases for this."
"Two cases? Are you kidding?" I exploded. How was I going to locate two cases of one of the rarest cookies in the off-season?
"Two or no deal. One of the HR administrators has been watching me. I think she knows."
"Why don't you just find out what kind of cookie she likes?" I snapped.
"I don't think you can bribe those people with anything other than the blood of virgins."
"If you don't find out what I need to know, I'll be giving them one," I warned.
"Geez. Hold your cookies. I said I'd deliver, and I will." And with that he hung up.
Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on him. HR was the most terrifying department at the CIA, second only to the sadists/dominatrices in the travel department. And he was risking a lot for the worst cookie we sold. First thing after a quick nap, I'd have to do some searching to find those cookies. If he did deliver any intel, it would be worth it.
Five minutes later, as I slid into bed next to Rex, I couldn't shake the feeling that Hilly was up to something. I just had to find out what.