CHAPTER SIX

 

"How is this possible?" I asked, almost forgetting that Maria was on the other end of the line.

"I have no idea."

"You'd never seen her before when we were in DC?" It was a stupid question, I'll admit. If Maria knew who Evelyn was, she would've told me.

"Never. Remember, we don't know everyone in the Agency. It's not like we have a yearbook or anything."

I rubbed my tired eyes. "Okay…so who is she really, then?"

"I can't tell you that," Maria answered.

"Seriously? You're going to go all classified on this? With me?"

"No, you misunderstand," Maria said. "I have no idea who she is. That information is above my security clearance."

Maria was pretty high up on the totem pole at Langley. Yes, she jockeyed a desk now, but there wasn't much she didn't know or couldn't find out.

"I'm just calling to give you a heads up," Maria said. "The CIA is going to block the inquiry Rex submitted on her fingerprints."

That meant that Evelyn Trout was a big time Spook. That wasn't good. Not at all.

There were about a thousand more questions I wanted to ask Maria, but I knew she couldn't answer them. Besides, she'd get in trouble just for calling me with the heads up.

"Thanks for letting me know," I said at last.

"Don't pursue this any further, Merry," Maria warned. "You know that if her identity is locked down like this, you'll get attention you neither want or need."

"I understand. Thanks for calling." I ended the call and dropped back onto the couch.

Evelyn was classified. She worked for the CIA. That meant she was either disavowed for some reason, or she was Black Ops, or she was something I had no idea even existed. That would be just like Langley—to come up with something so bizarre no one else would think of it. At any rate, none of these options was good.

And being one of those things didn't explain why she'd been attached to our troop trip to Washington DC. It just made no sense. The woman had come all the way here, impersonated one of the mothers, and tagged along. Why would she do that? Why would anyone do that? Unless you're a deranged former troop leader who desperately missed traveling with kids, and the odds on that probably are nil, there's no reason to go with us.

My mind was spinning. What was I going to tell Rex? I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't be satisfied with this explanation. And I couldn't tell him the intel came from Maria, because that phone call we'd just had never happened. Well, it did happen, but in the espionage ether, it didn't.

I had to shut this case down and do it now. If Rex asked too many questions, he could get into some serious trouble. The CIA would consider a detective from Who's There, Iowa to be nothing more than an irritating fly that needed to be swatted. There was no way I was going to let them do anything to my boyfriend.

Okay genius, how was I going to manage that? Maybe I should do nothing? In these cases, the Agency usually just placed a call or worse, came in person to end all inquiries. I wasn't sure Rex would agree with that. Because of my misadventures, he didn't really care about poking the CIA.

Ugh. This was worse than Evelyn being a stalker or weirdo. Which still begged the question—what was she doing hanging with us? Had the Agency assigned her to watch me? I wasn't a problem. Okay, so maybe I was, but I was trying to change my ways.

That had to be it. They were after me, somehow. It certainly wasn't the girls. Even with my troop, children weren't usually on a watch list. And aside from dying my cat pink, these kids weren't a threat to anyone but me.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the sofa. I definitely had to shut this down.

But then, I wouldn't know who she was and why she'd been on the trip with us. While I consider myself to be pretty good at self-control, my curiosity was screaming at me to find out what was really going on.

What do I tell Rex? Do I even give him a heads up? Maybe I should just let the Agency cut him off. That was probably the most prudent thing to do.

But then I'd be lying to my boyfriend. Okay, maybe not lying exactly, but keeping the truth from him. Rex wouldn't like that if he ever found out. And quite frankly, I didn't want to hide the truth from him. And if I lied to him, he might dump me. And when he dumped me, he'd probably cry on the shoulder of a certain knockout coroner and they'd start dating, get married, have children, and be happy ever after.

I kind of felt like I wanted to punch Riley in the throat right now. If he knew about this and didn't tell me…

Riley was a little higher up in the CIA than Maria was. Not by much, but maybe enough to discreetly inquire about Evelyn. Besides, he owed me one. Big time. Calling in that marker wouldn't be hard to do. And after he filled me in, I'd tell Rex and just have to insist that he didn't pursue it any further. That could work, right?

My cell went off again, and I picked it up.

"Merry," Rex said. It made me sad, because I liked his voice, and if I never heard it again it would be awful.

"What's up?" I tried to sound cheerful.

"Soo Ji…Dr. Body," he corrected. I loved him for that. "She found something. Evelyn had traces of acrylamide in her system. The coroner thinks the poison triggered a heart attack."

"So, she was murdered," I said.

"Looks like it," Rex replied.

"How did she find out so fast? Doesn't an autopsy take a while?"

"There was red, peeling skin on her feet and a little on her hands. It's a dead giveaway. The toxicology report won't be in for a couple of weeks, but she's seen it before."

"So it's not an official cause of death," I said.

"No. You can't tell anyone else about this until we know for sure," Rex insisted. I imagined him running his fingers through his short dark hair. He looked adorable when he did that.

"I just thought you'd want to know," he said finally.

Awww! He was thinking of me.

"Thanks," I said. "Any word back on those fingerprints?"

"Nothing yet, but it's the weekend. I figure it will be a while before we know on that account too."

Oh good. He was stonewalled. I wouldn't have to tell him anything right now.

"I'm going to be here late tonight, but how about ordering a pizza tomorrow?" Rex sounded hopeful, which was all kinds of awesome. I'm still amazed that a man like him wants a weirdo like me.

"Sounds great," I responded. We said our goodbyes and hung up.

That at least bought me a little time. Rex wouldn't get the cease and desist from the Agency for a few days. Maybe I could do a little digging before then.

My cell rang again. I was certainly popular today. The number was unfamiliar to me.

"Hello?" I asked. I never gave my name when I answered. Once a spy, always a spy.

"Mrs. Wrath. It's Lauren's mom."

"Oh, hello Bo…" I froze and looked at Philby, who'd just come into the room and was staring at me, waiting for me to say it.

Philby didn't like the name Bob. Every time she heard it, she hissed violently. Somehow, I thought she knew what I was about to say. She was preparing her spit for a massive blowout. We sized each other up, trying to decide who would give. It was the weirdest game of chicken I've ever played.

"Is everything alright?" I changed tactics, congratulating myself for outsmarting a cat.

"Everything is fine," the woman answered. "I just found something in Lauren's backpack that probably belongs to one of the other mothers. The girls were just stuffing whatever they found into their bags. She obviously picked it up by mistake."

This happened all the time. All. The. Time. Nobody ever took home only their own stuff. Usually it was an episode of Sherlock Holmes just to figure out who belonged to what. The worst was dirty underwear. No one ever claimed the underwear. At first, Kelly would wash the panties, but that changed nothing, and we just threw them away. We averaged about six pair of panties each overnight trip. Seventeen after we came back from DC.

"Okay," I said. "She can bring it to the meeting on Wednesday."

"Oh," Bobbi replied. "I think you should probably get it now."

Okay, why not? Running by and picking whatever it was up would be a welcome distraction. I wrote down the address and hung up. My keys were on the counter, and I snagged them. In seconds, I was in my car heading toward Lauren's house. I blasted the radio to scramble my thoughts so I wouldn't obsess about Evelyn Trout, and ten minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of a nice, middle-class split-level house. 

People outside stopped working in their yards and stared at me. Way to make an entrance, Wrath. It must be the neon pink bangs. It didn't look like this neighborhood saw that very often. They probably had their pitchforks ready in case I turned out to be a witch.

"Hello!" I shouted brightly, adding a wave that made me look ridiculous. I made my way up the steps to the front door and rang the bell.

Lauren answered, along with the biggest dog I've ever seen.

"Hi, Mrs. Wrath! This is Clancy!" The girl opened the door, and I stepped inside.

Clancy looked at me before sniffing my legs. I haven't had much experience with dogs. Not much with cats either, but I was starting to consider myself an expert. After Clancy decided I was not a threat, he wagged his tail and climbed me like Mount Everest. The dog stood on his hind legs, his front paws on my shoulders, his face looking down into mine.

I froze. Was this dangerous, or was I supposed to dance with him? Was that even a thing? And if so, did the dog prefer the tango or rumba? How was I supposed to know this stuff? Clancy responded by licking my face. It was like being mopped by a large, wet bath towel.

"Clancy!" Bobbi appeared and admonished the dog. "Down!"

The beast let himself down and looked dejected as he took the stairs to the basement.

"Sorry about that," Bobbie apologized. "He's rather friendly…"

"No problem," I said as I wiped drool from my shoulders.

The house was a typical split-level foyer. Just steps inside the house, you were confronted with the decision to go upstairs or down, as if the entryway was schizophrenic and couldn't make up its mind what level it wanted to be part of. Lauren and her mother opted for up, so I followed them.

 We walked into the living room, and I stopped in my tracks. Bobbi apparently had an obsession with snails. The walls were covered with shelves and cases, each displaying snail sculptures. There had to be hundreds…maybe thousands of slugs in every shape, size, and color.

"You noticed my collection!" Bobbi clapped her hands together gleefully.

How could I not notice thousands (I'd decided that was the number) of slugs on the walls in every form imaginable? I kind of wondered if she kept the live version in her basement.

"I did." I nodded. "This is quite a collection."

The woman smiled so widely I could see all of the teeth in her head—which was totally disturbing.

"I have the largest snail collection in North America—the second largest in the world!"

"That's impressive." That's a thing? "How did you find out yours was the second largest in the world?"

Yes, I really wanted to know. What?

"Well, according to Collectibles Weekly," Bobbi was super excited now and started rocking back and forth. "They did a study and found out that a collector in Japan has more than me. But I definitely came in second."

Japan. That made sense. When I'd been stationed there, I'd seen some pretty weird stuff in people's homes. There's a magazine called Collectibles Weekly? And it's something that needs to come out every week?

"Wow. Maybe we could have one of our meetings here sometime, and you can talk to the girls about it." I was pretty sure there was a badge on collecting stuff. Plus—it would get me out of planning a meeting, so yay!

"I'd love to!" Bobbi squealed. She actually squealed. I made a mental note to wear ear plugs during the snail meeting.

"So…" It was time to get back to the reason I was here. "You have something that isn't Lauren's?"

"Oh yes! I almost forgot! Seriously—I could talk about snails all day long."

Yet one more reason to get out of here.

Bobbi pointed to the dining room table. Sitting in the middle of a field of snail printed placemats was a box the size of a deck of cards. I picked it up. It was made of dark wood, and there were some strange carvings on it—kind of a cross between hieroglyphs and runes.

"Have you ever seen that before?" I asked Lauren. Maybe she knew who it belonged to.

The little girl shook her head. "No. I'd remember something like this."

"Okay," I said. "I'll bring it to our next meeting. Someone must've left it behind."

I saw myself out in order to avoid seeing whatever was in the basement. I pictured a kind of snail hell—a slug version of purgatory—with Clancy as its Cerberus. And I didn't need to see that.

I was home in minutes. Philby was not in the living room, but three kittens were about three quarters of the way up my curtains. They cried, seemingly stuck there. I guessed that Philby got tired of their whining and fled.

"That's the eight millionth time this week!" I scolded as one by one, I detached the kittens from the drapes and plunked them on the couch.

The three kittens responded by piling on top of each other and immediately falling asleep. They were kind of narcoleptic that way. One glance at the drapes told me I had to do something about it. My curtains were starting to look like Swiss cheese. Maybe I should consider having the kittens declawed. Philby was fine—she never so much as scratched me. But her children…

I sat down beside the beasties and turned my attention to the box. It was missing a seam and hinge—in fact it was missing a way to open it all together. Shaking the box produced a rattling noise. Something was in there. Which meant a person (or after seeing Lauren's house—a snail) had put something inside. I wondered what it was.

It seemed like a weird thing for one of the girls to take to the retreat, and I hoped it didn't belong to the church. Maybe it was like that old Rubik's Cube—or whatever puzzle the kids play with these days. That seemed like a good answer. Well, if they can do it, I can do it, right?

For the better part of an hour, I worked on the box. After a few minutes I'd come to the conclusion that this was a puzzle box. Which sucked because I wasn't any good at puzzles. That didn't stop me, however, from wasting part of a day trying to figure it out.

Finally, I pulled out my cell and took a picture of the carvings. Maybe there was something about them online. That would be nice. Since I've had a smart phone, I've been able to answer the great philosophical questions. Such as, who sings that song from that movie we saw? Or why do Mexican jumping beans jump? By the way, I know the answer. The beans have little larvae inside who are trying to get out. The song thing I never did figure out.

I was just about to toss my phone on the coffee table when it buzzed.

"Riley," I answered. "Did you make it back to DC okay?"

"No," was my former handler's answer. "Because something came up."

"So where are you?" I asked as I stood and went to peek through a kitten-induced hole in my curtains. I should be on my guard in case other women showed up dead.

He didn't need to answer. Riley was on my front stoop.

I let him in because what else was I going to do? Riley had spent a lot of time here lately. Too much time.

"What came up?" I asked.

Riley ignored me, walking into the kitchen. He opened up the fridge door and grimaced.

"Why is it that every time I come over, you have the worst food ever in here?" He plucked a bottle of wine from the inside door and closed the fridge.

I put down the puzzle box and handed him two wine glasses. "You haven't answered my question."

Riley took a swig, emptying the wine glass in one swallow. Uh-oh. This was serious.

"The Agency wants me to check on the murder you stumbled upon last night."

"Does that mean you know who she is?" Maybe it wasn't so bad for him to be here.

He nodded. "It's the woman from the DC trip. Right?"

"That's right. Evelyn Trout."

For a second there, I was going to blurt out what Maria had told me about her really being a CIA agent. But I didn't want to get her in trouble. I'd wait and see what Riley had. I didn't have any qualms about getting him into trouble.

"Where's the body?" he asked.

"Is that why you're here? To identify the body?" I asked. "You met the woman in DC. It's the same one who died yesterday."

Riley shook his head. "No. I'm not here to identify the body."

"Then why did you ask?"

"Because I'm here to steal it."