Mastermind for Murder

"There's a sleeper cell in Who's There," Betty announced.

It was weird because she did it with absolute confidence and because we were in a Girl Scout meeting. Other than that, I suppose such a thing is perfectly normal.

"There's no sleeper cell in town," I scoffed. "I'd know."

My name is Merry Wrath Ferguson, and I used to be a spy with the CIA. Actually, I haven't been a spy for years, and I only did seven years with the agency before I was "accidentally" outed by the vice president, who did it to get revenge on my senator father. After white-knuckling my way out of my undercover gig in Chechnya and getting back home, the agency gave me a huge settlement and retired me. I came back home to Who's There, Iowa, where my best friend Kelly convinced me to start a Girl Scout troop. That was when the girls were in kindergarten. Now they were in middle school.

But I'd still know if there was a sleeper cell in my small hometown. I've been around them. I've had training in recognizing them. What did a kid know about that? Wait, did I just think that? This was Betty. She knew things most adult politicians didn't.

Betty thrust her chin out like a petulant child...which she kind of was. "My intel is good! I vetted it through my contact!"

This probably sounds bad, and it is. No middle schooler should have contacts who know if there are sleeper cells in Iowa. But since this conversation was going to go nowhere until I proved otherwise, I decided to let it drop...for now.

"We'll discuss this later." I adopted my most responsible leader look.

Kelly gave me a nod that seemed like she approved, and that made me far happier than it should have.

"Back to the topic at hand," Kelly said. "Ava, you had an idea for a troop project?"

Ava was our mayor. I don't mean of the troop. She was the mayor of the whole town and had been for three years. "I'd like to suggest we do a town beautification project, organizing things like litter pickup."

Betty went from being petulant to downright scowling. The thirteen-year-old recently spent two weekends cleaning up the city park as amends for joyriding around town in her brother's car and crashing it in front of witnesses, which included my husband—the chief of police—and me.

Since her brother didn't want to press charges and Betty paid for the damages, Rex thought it would be fair to make her do community service. And she hadn't liked it one bit. I know because I was required to make sure she showed up, and on top of that, I had to supervise her. I hadn't enjoyed any of it because Betty was like a surly old man, shaking his fist at clouds shaped like kids who are up to no good.

Still, she didn't respond verbally to Ava's directive.

"That's a good idea," Kelly said. "It's good to take pride in your town."

That was a bit of an understatement, considering our troop. They were all on Ava's payroll in her administration and had achieved far more than many adults do. They'd raised enough money to build a whole aviary onto Obladi Zoo and brought the Museum of Murder—along with a number of other businesses—here. In fact, Ava's improvements to Who's There had earned us a trip to Australia to help out the young mayor of our sister city of Doover.

And that wasn't all. Ava mentored adult mayors of regional small towns. If you met her, you'd think she was a very short, thirty-five-year-old CEO of a digital services startup.

"We already have the city cleanup crew," Lauren argued.

"And you don't even have to pay them."

Lauren, our junior zookeeper and resident animal whisperer, had found a way to talk the squirrels and raccoons into collecting garbage and putting it in bins around town. In fact, during Betty's tenure for juvie-qualifying trouble, Lauren got the small beasts to actually add litter to the park at night, so she had something to do.

"Count Peanut re-located here from Mingle," the girl went on to say. "He chairs the cleanup committee. He might take it personally if we say the streets need work."

"How did you get a squirrel who lives forty-five minutes away to come here?" Kelly asked.

Lauren shrugged. "He offered. And he's doing well. He already has a family and wants to spearhead an initiative where squirrels can get their citizenship."

Kelly's jaw fell open a little, even though she was used to the girl's strange claims. "Squirrels are kind of already citizens, right?"

I wasn't sure where she was going with this.

"Technically, yes," Lauren agreed. "But they want to be able to vote as well. Some of them want to drive."

Before I could say anything, two of the four Kaitlyns raised their hands and spoke in unison, "The signage around town is a bit old, and the paint is chipped. We could hire Count Peanut's team to paint."

The other two Kaitlyns nodded their agreement.

I had four Kaitlyn Ms in my troop, and all four of them looked exactly alike to the point where I still couldn't tell them apart. They did everything together, had mothers named Ashley, and operated on a sort of collective hive mind. They were also amazing softball players.

Lauren seemed to disagree with this idea. "Squirrels are terrible painters. They tend to be more artistic and have been known to add scandalous, hidden material into whatever they paint. Raccoons just don't like doing it, and you should never, ever make a raccoon do something it doesn't want to do."

Ava considered this thoughtfully. "Good idea, Kaitlyns. Let's look at the budget."

I held up my hand. "Should we be discussing this during a troop meeting? These girls already help with your administration. Shouldn't you talk about this there?"

"Of course," Inez spoke up as if I hadn't said anything. "We should also look at gardening. There are some nice planters on Main Street, but they aren't always kept up. I think we should

change displays on a seasonal basis and really go big."

Inez was the smartest girl in the troop, which was really saying something. She was also the most organized and could pull off things a government agency could only dream of.

Kelly and I exchanged glances. When they were on a roll, there was nothing we could do to stop them. Our troop was very ambitious and would eventually run the world, but was this the place to do it?

"What about the sleeper cell?" Betty asked them, avoiding eye contact with me. "Having a malicious sleeper cell that could be activated at any minute to do terrible things isn't good for beautifying the town."

Ava appeared to agree with her. "You work on that, Betty. Lauren will talk to the animals to have them step up their game, Inez will form a garden committee, and the Kaitlyns will look into hiring painters."

Actually, this was a far more efficient meeting than what Kelly and I had talked about, which included cleaning up the school grounds at the elementary and middle schools. We were just going to weed and rake and maybe put out a bench or two. In light of their ambitious plans, I was kind of glad we hadn't suggested that. It would've looked lame compared to voting squirrels and driving raccoons.

The meeting ended with cake pops that Roger had made. Roger was a sort of religious figure who was here to train my baby nephews as new prophets. The elderly Holy Mud Man of Chechnya also had an obsession with Better Homes & Gardens magazine, and he'd recently come across cake pops that looked like ears of corn and was trying it out on us.

"These are amazing," I moaned after a bite. "You even used yellow cake!"

Roger beamed as the girls all around him approved. "Thanks! I have plans to make ones that look like little goats with red velvet cake." He glanced nervously out the window, where Warren the goat was chewing on one of my Adirondack chairs.

Both of them lived here, in the house I owned, across the street from the house where I lived, if that makes any sense. "I'm just not sure he'd approve," Roger continued, nodding toward the window. His neck made a popping sound in a way that made me wonder if I should call paramedics.

"Hey," Betty asked as she took another one. "Can you make these look like birds for the grand opening of the aviary?"

Roger smiled, his wrinkles actually creaking as he did. "Of course! Just let me know which birds and when!"

The meeting ended, and as Kelly and I watched the last girl disappear into her parent's car, my bestie turned to me. "Do you think there was anything to what Betty said about the sleeper cell?"

I laughed. "I wouldn't bet on it. Like I said, I'd know."

Twenty minutes later, I got the call from my contact at the CIA.

"I think I should let you know," Abed said. It sounded like he was whispering into his phone. "But there's a rumor going around Langley that there's a sleeper cell in Who's There." He paused. "That won't affect my usual Girl Scout cookie order, will it? I mean, if they kill everyone in town by poisoning the water, who will I order from?"

After assuring him that he would always get his three cases of cookies when the sale occurred, I hung up. And then, what he'd said really hit me.

Holy cow. There was a sleeper cell in Who's There.