Excerpt of Mardi Gras Murder by Leslie Langtry

CHAPTER ONE

"You're joking." Kelly's eyebrows went up. "Please tell me you're joking and we aren't seriously considering taking a bunch of little girls to Louisiana for Mardi Gras."

"What's wrong with that idea?" I asked as we lay plastic tarps wall-to-wall on the floor. "They're in fifth grade now. It would be educational for them to see a different part of the country…try some new food and culture…take a swamp tour to see alligators…"

Kelly stopped taping the plastic sheets together. "Alligators? How is it possible that you've made this trip even more dangerous?"

I waved her off. "Thousands of tourists do that every year and almost no one dies."

My best friend and co-leader gave me one of those looks. "Almost? You want those kinds of odds with our troop?"

Hmmm…now that I thought of it, I wondered if there was a hotline phone number I could call to warn Louisiana about Betty? Something like their hurricane warning system perhaps?

"Look," I explained as she went back to sealing the plastic to cover the carpet, "it's not my fault the school has spring break so early that it coincides with Mardi Gras."

"It's the school district's fault?" Kelly shook her head. "And I was just about to nominate you for Responsible Leader of the Year."

I almost dropped my roll of duct tape. "What? That's a thing? I want it!"

Kelly has been on me for years about my alleged lack of responsibility. Stop teaching kindergarteners how to throw knives…no, we can't train second graders in sniper camouflage techniques at day camp…of course we shouldn't teach third grade girls how to make plastique using everyday items…no, there isn't a badge for identifying all terrorist groups listed in the CIA World Factbook. Seriously, Kelly was such a wet blanket sometimes.

I threw my arms in the air. "The girls love stuff like that! What kind of leader would I be if I didn't prepare them for life in the real world?"

"You're preparing them for a life of black ops and wet work," Kelly said evenly.

"What if they ever want to travel to Syria or Chechnya?" I countered. "Knowing how to fend off an attacker with a sparkly princess unicorn barrette is far more responsible in my opinion."

Maybe I could get Betty to hack into the Girl Scout Council's mainframe to make me a shoo-in for this Responsible Leader award.

"This is a terrible idea." Kelly shook her head. "I'm tempted not to go with you."

My stomach dropped. How could I possibly do this without my responsible, grown-up, former ER nurse co-leader? Who's going to be there for alligator bites?

Kelly continued, "Of course, then you'd have to find someone else, which would serve you right."

"There's Rex," I thought out loud. "Or Riley, or Soo Jin, I guess. Maybe Ron and Ivan would go."

Hmmm…my Chechen brothers-in-law might be a good option as far as protecting Louisiana from my troop. And while they could be a pain in the butt, they were fun…

Kelly read my mind. "That would be more fun than you deserve."

"How about Hilly?" I pulled out my cell phone. "You know what? You're right. Hilly would be great on this trip!"

Hilly Vinton was a friend and colleague, who was also a CIA assassin. Of course she's not a CIA assassin—the CIA doesn't have assassins because that would be illegal. Okay, now that I've gotten past the disclaimer…Hilly totally is an assassin. Kelly never really warmed to her because Hilly embraced my ideas and even taught the girls how to kill a man with one finger. Well, we practiced it on dummies, not real people, because that would be wrong. I

 thought for sure I had her with this idea, but Kelly didn't budge. She looked nervous but seemed to be sticking to her refusal. Time to bring out the big guns.

"Maybe Robert, could go with me?" I asked innocently, knowing bringing her husband and daughter into the mix would change her mind. "He'd probably love a break, and you and Finn would be alone together for a week for bonding."

Kelly blanched. Her little girl, my goddaughter, was in her terrible toddler phase with a capital TERRIBLE and was driving Kelly crazy with her Kim Jong-un-sized tantrums. Personally, I was impressed with the decibel range the tiny human could produce. Most people don't know this, but the Soviets experimented with this kind of thing as a torture mechanism. They locked innocent people in a room with a screaming toddler for two hours. Every single one of them confessed to stuff they hadn't done, just to get out. Of course, then the Soviets sent them to gulags for the crimes they didn't really do.

"I'll do it," Kelly said finally. "But not because of my daughter, but because I would be worried sick about the girls."

I did an endzone dance in my head. "Okay, so now we have to put plastic on the walls." I pointed to the beige carpet. "Because if we aren't careful, it'll be impossible to get the red out and I'll have to repaint the walls."

Kelly sighed. "We never should've agreed to paint valentine-themed bird houses."

I was inclined to agree. "But we already told them yes. We even pinky swore."

The pinky swear was an absolutely unbreakable bond. It ranked right up there with CIA nondisclosure agreements and absolutely any promise made in Turkmenistan on Lifetime Promise with No Backsies Under Pain of Death Day. Yeah, it's as scary as it sounds, but they do have a nice festival with deep fried Ding Dongs, so it's worth going at least once.

My name is Merry Wrath, and I used to be a field agent for the CIA, until the Vice President "accidentally" outed me on CNN when I was embedded with the Chechens. After surviving a mad dash across several unfriendly countries and narrowly avoiding an armed chicken, I moved back to my small, Iowa hometown of Who's There, where my best friend decided we should start a Girl Scout troop. In fact, we were getting ready for a troop meeting at my old house, which was across the street from the house I now shared with my husband, Rex.

Currently, six elderly hermits we'd found at an old scout camp were staying here. But even if no one was in residence, I'd still keep the house because it was where I hid all of my CIA toys, like exploding tampon boxes and packs of gum where the sticks of gum were actually heat-seeking missiles.

"Why aren't we setting this up tomorrow?" Kelly wondered.

"Because we can since the ladies are out of town, visiting Disney World," I explained. "And tomorrow morning I have to take Philby to the vet." I pointed to the wall. "You missed a spot."

"I don't get it." Rex shook his head when I informed him of our plans. "Why do you think it's a good idea to go to Mardi Gras with your troop?"

"You don't have to worry about them," I insisted, hoping it would be true.

"I'm worried about New Orleans after Hurricane Betty," Rex said. "

She's not that bad," I lied. Of course she was. The kid was terrifying.

Rex scratched behind Philby's ears. My obese cat who resembled Hitler was demanding attention, like she always did by smacking his arm whenever he stopped.

"What's the purpose of this trip? Mardi Gras is hardly appropriate for little girls."

After almost messing up with Kelly, I'd come up with a better argument. "Ava wants to visit our sister city—Who Dat. It's in Louisiana, so I thought we'd hit Baton Rouge and NOLA. Have them experience Cajun and creole culture. We don't have anything like that here in Iowa."

It was true. Louisiana was an eclectic and diverse state with French, German, Spanish, Italian, Cajun, and Creole heritage, culture, celebrations, and food. In Iowa, mayo was our most exotic condiment. Instead of alligators and swamps, we had pigs and cornfields. The closest thing we had to voodoo was when the Methodist Altar Committee once tried to bring Mavis Winter's kitten back from the dead. They were actually doing chest compressions on the altar, and it turned out the cat was just sleeping. But the Lutheran Ladies for the Wholesome have referred to them as Those Methodist Voodoo Satanists ever since.

"And," I continued, "it's educational since Betty is obsessed with Huey Long— that extremely crooked Louisiana governor from almost one hundred years ago. We can visit the capitol building where he was assassinated."

Rex stifled a smile. "Okay, okay. Just don't let her bring that kind of thinking back here. The last thing I need is to investigate the mayor's right-hand kid on corruption charges for taking bribes from the Pork Producers."

Yay! Now I just had to brief Ava on the plan she knew nothing about. Ava was our town's eleven-year old mayor. My troop's go-getter who dreamed of running a major international insurance company someday, she was beyond ambitious and as tough as they came. The girl had been mayor for a few months now and was doing a pretty good job. She'd doubled Rex's budget and made three of the five councilpersons cry. Her rival, town councilman Jeff Dodd, threw everything he could at the girl in hopes of intimidating her, but nothing worked.

That was mostly due to her unflappable nature, but also due to her chief of security and unofficial black ops leader, Betty. Betty was the troop's troublemaker, and she was awesome. This kid was going to make one kickass CIA Director someday, probably before she was thirty. The problem was, you couldn't be that badass and just coast on it. Her parents had been thinking of sending her to boarding school in Texas, but Ava had granted a charter to Carol Anne's pet project – Helpful Hands & Tentacles—a sort of Welcome Wagon for aliens.

For years Carol Anne had insisted she'd been kidnapped by sentient beings from outer space, who, foregoing the usual probing, taught her instead to play the bassoon. She wasn't half bad and could pull off a mean Pink Panther Theme at parties.

Ava secured Betty's stay by hiring Betty's dad, Roderick, as the town's Director of Garbage Collection at twice what he was making as an appliance salesman. Some town council members questioned the move, considering that Roderick had no experience whatsoever. But Ava announced that anyone against the idea obviously hated puppies, and she won. Huey Long, the most corrupt and popular Louisiana governor of all time, would be proud.

And so was I. I just didn't tell Kelly that, because as far as I was concerned, I was up for the possibly not real Responsible Leader of the Year now, and I wasn't taking any chances.