Merry christmas murder, p.1
Merry Christmas Murder, page 1
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MERRY CHRISTMAS MURDER
a Merry Wrath Mysteries novella
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
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Copyright © 2023 by Leslie Langtry
Gemma Halliday Publishing
http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
CHAPTER ONE
"Die Infidel Scum! And Happy Holidays!" I laughed out loud as I read.
Rex's eyebrows went up. "A friend of yours?"
I turned the Christmas card in my hands. A pair of blood-soaked swords graced the cover. "It's from The Hyena of Death. Kind of sweet. This year she added the Happy Holidays."
"Sweet?" He rescued a glass ornament that Philby the cat was about to knock to the floor. "She wants you dead and is the Hyena of Death?"
I rolled my eyes. "You have to capitalize the. She gets mad if you don't. And she's not that bad. Well, as long as she stays in Turkmenistan, that is. If she ever comes to the US, I'm probably screwed. Still…it's nice to be remembered this time of the year."
"It wouldn't be the first time someone came here to kill you." My husband winked.
He wasn't wrong. These things can happen when you used to work for the CIA. My name is Merry Wrath Ferguson, and for seven years I was a CIA field operative. I was embedded with a drug lord in Colombia, a Yakuza boss in Okinawa, a Chechen strongman, chased Russian spies through Moldova, and got chased by Russian spies through a Bangkok alley…or two.
And I loved my job. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down when the former vice president "accidentally" outed me to get back at my senator dad. Also unfortunately, I was in a dive bar in Chechnya when the news broke on CNN (Chechens are kind of obsessed with Wolf Blitzer—I think it's the beard) and barely escaped with my life.
Retired early with a healthy settlement, I did what every spy does—moved back to my hometown in Iowa and became a Girl Scout leader. Well, not every spy. Some lose their minds and end up running a flea circus in Alaska, set up an Elvis-themed wedding chapel for yaks in Afghanistan, or marry a hamster named Joyce and teach break dancing to octogenarians in Sweden. I never hear from most of them, but Joyce always sends a holiday newsletter.
"And these ornaments?" Rex held up a piece of piano wire with a pom pom rendition of Philby, who bore an unfortunate resemblance to Hitler.
The fat feline führer perked up and dove for the ornament and, after three tries to get off the floor, succeeded in snatching it before racing off down the hall.
"That's a garrote. The girls found a bunch of my old CIA toys and made them into ornaments for me as a gift." I held up an Altoids tin the girls had turned into a nativity. "Cute, right?" I frowned. "I wonder what they did with the C-4 I kept in here?"
The doorbell rang before I had to explain to Rex that the tiny spy camera ornament was really a chloroform deployer. Hopefully he wouldn't hit the red button.
I answered the door to find Betty and Ava, two of my sixth-grade Scouts, standing on my doorstep with a couple of boxes. The girls pushed past me, and I caught up with them in the living room. Rex opened one of the boxes and pulled out a string of Christmas lights.
"What's this? We have lights." I pointed to the skull bubble lights I'd found on Etsy.
"For you to put up on your house," Betty explained.
I shook my head. "We don't do outdoor lights. Ever." It wasn't anything against celebrating the holidays. I was just too lazy.
"You do now." The girl gave me a proclamation that was printed on the mayor's personal stationary.
Ava was the youngest mayor in Who's There, Iowa history and dreamed of becoming the CEO of a major insurance company. "The city has ruled that Who's There will have a Festival of Lights during the month of December every year. Each house has to have lights on it. Neither of your houses do, and they're the only ones in town."
Betty went over to open the curtains to show us that they were right. Every house in the neighborhood was ablaze but ours and mine across the street.
"You're an embarrassment," Ava continued.
"You made a law saying everyone in town has to have lights on their house?" I turned to Rex, who just shrugged. As the town's detective, I felt he should've warned me about this.
"The troop will decorate your old house." Betty was referring to the small ranch across the street, which was the first house I'd bought when I moved back home. When I married Rex, I moved across the street to his house, but for sentimental reasons, I'd kept my old house and used it for Scout meetings.
"You have two days to put up lights on this house, or else you face jail time," Ava said.
I burst out laughing. "This is extortion!"
Betty nodded. "It's what Huey Long would do."
And with a final, tandem nod, the girls left.
"They're pretty good, aren't they?" I marveled with a bit of pride that I might've taught them that.
Rex started going through the box. "You have no idea. The city council is terrified of those two. Ava made the other councilmen cry because she said if they didn't pass an ordinance to protect unicorns, she'd tell their kids at school that they voted to euthanize puppies." He held up his hand. "And before you ask, no, there's never been a vote to do that."
"Unicorns?" I guess that made sense. The girls loved the mythical beasts. "I guess they deserve protection too."
Rex chuckled as he hung an ornament that used to be a lipstick with a flamethrower that I was pretty sure I hadn't deactivated yet.
I decided not to tell him that.
"What's all this?" I asked the next morning as I joined him at breakfast.
Rex had a large sheet of paper, on which he'd drawn a picture of the front of the house. "I'm sketching in ideas for lights. The notice said there was a competition. You don't think that I'd be out of the running as a city employee, do you?"
"Nah. It just so happens we know the mayor." I winked and started buttering a muffin. "Whatever you want to do is fine by me. I'll help you put them up but not plan them."
"I wouldn't expect anything less," he said before turning back to his project.
It was Sunday morning in Who's There, Iowa. Outside it was snowing and thirty degrees. Leo, our Scottish deerhound, was curled up on the floor, with Martini, our narcoleptic cat, lying on her back, legs akimbo, on top of him as if someone had shot her and she'd fallen that way.
Philby was sitting, staring at the tree. She was plotting something. But what?
"What should we do today?" I asked my husband. "Nothing?" I might've sounded a bit hopeful.
"We are going to get this done today," Rex decided.
I looked out the window. "But it's snowing!"
Rex followed my gaze. "It's not bad. I'll have Ron and Ivan help us."
I thought about my Chechen brothers-in-law. Their wives, Rex's twin sisters, were very pregnant and due soon. If they got hurt falling off a slippery roof, Christmas or any other holiday would suck from here on out. Of course, they'd blame me. Maybe I could take a proof of life photo of them holding a placard that absolved me of any possible damage. I'd never taken one before without the subject crying while wearing a blindfold, but I could figure it out.
Still, the guys had some experience with a snowy roof. Azlan, the strongman we worked for, could get very snippy if he couldn't get his favorite show on the satellite dish. We often worried that if he ever missed an episode of Chechen Bachelorette, he'd probably start a turf war with one of the other strongmen and we'd all be screwed. Because Ron and Ivan barely shared one brain cell between them, they always volunteered to straighten out the satellite dish—which was almost always bumped by some random goat on the roof.
"Right," I agreed. "But I'm staying on the ground. Okay?"
Philby made her move. She leaped up into the tree, teeth clamping on the small camera ornament, which sprayed a small amount of chloroform in her face. The chunky cat dropped like a frozen turkey, out cold. Martini jumped up, ran over, and lay down on her mother's bulk and passed out.
"Is she going to be okay?" Rex ran over to the cat and looked her over.
"Oh sure." I waved him off. "That chloroform was ancient. I'm certain it wasn't even operating at full strength."
My husband called the emergency animal clinic, just to make sure.
A few hours later, Philby was inside, glaring out the window at me, while Ron and Ivan stomped across the roof, stringing lights according to Rex's master plan. After complaining that we nee
"You are doing this wrong," I heard Ivan say above.
Of course they were bickering. The two men were like brothers, and they weren't averse to throwing punches at the slightest provocation. Last week they'd gotten in a fight at the grocery store over who got to buy an avocado that looked like an egg (which is weird because they all do). Two days after that, they argued about whether or not snow comes from a magical yeti or Santa. And just yesterday they got into an altercation over which one Santa would consider naughty and which one he'd consider nice. Apparently, they couldn't both be nice or naughty at the same time.
"I am not doing this wrong!" Ron shouted. "Little brother Rex has told me plans!"
Ivan turned red. "Why has he not told me plans? I am smart one!"
"Because he found out you are on Santa's naughty list!" Ron retorted.
"Guys!" I shouted before this came to fisticuffs. "I told you this the other day! You can both be on the nice list!"
They both looked down at me, and for a moment I believed I'd stopped the fighting. Then Ron cuffed Ivan's ear. Ivan slapped Ron.
"Stop!" I yelled. "You'll fall off the roof and die! Then your soon-to-be-born sons will grow up without fathers!"
Rex looked over at me then squinted at the roof. "Ron, move that strand a few feet to the left. Ivan, take the red strand, walk it over to the chimney, and hold it up so I can see it."
Without doing much, Rex had diffused the entire situation. The guys did what they were asked, and the fight was forgotten. I looked in the window to see Philby messing with the tree again. Suddenly, she pulled her head back, fixed me with a guilty look, and then tore off into the dining room.
That seemed bad.
I walked in to find one of the tree branches on fire. Fortunately I was able to put it out, but now that Philby had found the ornament with the flamethrower, I decided it would be best for me to stay inside and de-weaponize the Christmas tree.
"What happened to this branch?' Rex asked after dinner.
My attempts at camouflaging the burned branch had failed. I'd tried stuffing it back into the tree, painting it green with poster paints, and even wrapping green pipe cleaners around it. In the end, I cut it off and threw it out, along with four ornaments. I had hoped he wouldn't notice, but that might have been optimistic, considering he was a detective.
"It broke," I lied. "I couldn't save it, so I threw it out."
His eyebrows went up. "And the ornaments?"
"Yup. Broken. I think Philby did it."
Philby hissed at me from across the room. I guess she didn't like me almost killing her with chloroform and then blaming her for torching the tree. As I still considered both things to be more her fault than mine, I ignored her.
"How did it go with the lights?" I tried to deflect.
"Good. And I think the boys will recover from falling off the ladder. It's a good thing they were only halfway up. The emergency room doctor said they were lucky they have abnormally thick skulls." Rex smiled. "You know what? I think our lights will be the best one on the block!" He looked out into the darkness. "Let's see!"
We grabbed our coats and boots, and I silently congratulated myself for distracting my spouse. I may have been out of the spy business for a number of years, but I've still got it!
Rex walked over to the middle of the sidewalk and pulled out his phone. "I've got it all controlled by an app. Are you ready?"
I congratulated him as I walked over. Oh sure, I hadn't wanted to do this in the first place. But now that it was done and I hadn't had to do anything with it, I was kind of excited. I hadn't told him this, but I did help with Christmas lights one time, in Colombia, when embedded with Carlos the Armadillo.
Carlos wanted the whole compound lit up, and it took the whole gang to do it. In the end, it was impressive. It was the nicest holiday lights display featuring six hundred gigantic Christmas armadillos that I'd ever seen. He even won the Medellin Columbian Drug Lords Xmas Holiday Spirit Cup that year. It was pretty nice—a silver urn filled with eleven pounds of cocaine. Carlos displayed it with his ukulele collection in his bathroom.
"Ready?" Rex asked.
I nodded, and he touched his cell screen. Nothing happened. Rex frowned at the app and hit it again. Still nothing.
"Is your Bluetooth connected?" I leaned forward to look at the screen.
"It is," Rex said, a little perplexed.
"Maybe one of the bulbs is out?" I tried to be helpful. "Dad told me that used to happen a lot in the 80s. And these lights look pretty old."
He shook his head. "They're not that old." He squinted at the house. "All the lights are on inside, so it isn't a fuse. Maybe something came unplugged. I'll check the left side of the house. You check the right."
"On it!" I took off for the corner, using my phone as a flashlight.
I'd made it halfway when I noticed a tangle of lights sticking out from a bush. Ah, that's what happened. The guys probably didn't put up all the lights they were supposed to after falling off the ladder.
"Rex!" I called out. "I think I've found…" My words trailed off as I closed in. It wasn't just a tangle of lights.
"You found it?" Rex came around from the backyard. "I didn't think I'd left anything behind."
I shone my light on the body wrapped up in Christmas lights. "I don't think you'd overlook something like this."
Rex sighed and called 9-1-1.
I patted him on the shoulder for moral support. "Cheer up. At least you know that we have the best lights in the neighborhood!"
There was a wumpf that sounded like a massive surge of electricity across the street, and the black night seemed to turn into the brightest day. A cheer went up that I recognized because I'd heard it for several years now. Once our eyes adjusted to the blinding lights at my old house, we were able to see a display that would've put Carlos's to shame.
Every square inch of my house seemed to be on fire. Well, it would seem like that if the fire came in red, green, blue, and yellow. Thousands of lights framed my house, and across the roof was a moving image of an excellent likeness of me, running away, arms flailing as I was chased by a Christmassy pterodactyl.
Rex sighed with what sounded like defeat.
CHAPTER TWO
The second the ambulance and squad car pulled up, the girls forgot their display and raced over to see what was going on. I tried to keep them back, but they spotted the two legs sticking out of the bushes.
"Who did you kill now?" Ava sighed. "This is going to cost you points in the display contest."
"I think the pterodactyl got him," Lauren, our junior zookeeper said. "Most people think they're extinct, but a colony still lives in Patagonia. Don't worry. They don't eat penguins."
Betty was licking a candy cane into a shiv. "I won't hold it against you, but Ava's right. There are strict rules about the contest." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a list that she handed to me.
Rule number one, No dead bodies. Huh. How had I missed that? Especially since rule number two was Don't blow out the electrical grid.
Soo Jin was kneeling beside the body as Officer Troy Wallace aimed a powerful flashlight on the area. Officer Kevin Dooley was standing nearby in a white parka, next to four hamsters, all improbably named Hamlet, who were also standing in the snow, wearing tiny, matching white parkas. The four rodents looked at me then back at the body.
"Good job, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, and Hamlet!" Kevin congratulated his tiny beasts.
Officer Kevin Dooley was Who's There, Iowa's one and only village idiot. I'd first met the paste eater in kindergarten. He still eats paste…and anything he can find. Kevin had moments of lucidity where he'd managed to map the hamster genome, but for the most part, his existence consisted of an endless cycle of eating food and foraging for food and he engaged in endless, epic battles with the police station vending machine.
