Those were fighting words, but since I needed more information on the dead woman on my dining room table, I let it slide.
"Where would you like to meet?"
Basil continued, "Our offices are in Behold, Iowa. How soon can we expect you?"
"I don't know. I've never heard of Behold. It's a weird name," I insulted breezily and consulted my phone.
Iowa has ninety-nine counties, each one filled with small towns. I never understood why they didn't round up to one hundred. I would have. Actually, I think any sane person would have. Who says Alright, we have ninety-nine counties—whattaya say we call it at that? At any rate, I didn't know every town, and I didn't know this one.
"You're three and a half hours away!" I squinted at my phone in hopes I might be wrong.
Basil sighed. "Yes. It would be too inconvenient for me to come there, and you need to decide what to do with the house you've inherited."
I blinked. "I inherited a house?"
That wasn't great. I already had two. One was the house Rex, my husband and the town's police detective, and I lived in together, and the other was my first house across the street. I held my Girl Scout meetings there. I couldn't bear the thought of parting with it. Now I had another one?
"Please meet me tomorrow at 3pm." He read off an address and hung up before I could say no.
I did what any woman did in these kinds of circumstances. I called my mother. Again.
"Merry?" Mom answered on the first ring. "Did you get the urn?"
I told her about the cremains, the ugly urn, Aunt June and her weird name, and the fact that I now had to drive to the northeast corner of the state by tomorrow to meet with some snobby British lawyer.
She laughed and apologized for doing so. "Sorry, kiddo. It's just a lot to take in."
"What do you think?"
"You should go, of course," Mom answered as if I'd just mentioned running to the store.
"Mom." I shook my head, even though she couldn't see it. "She has pet spiders."
"I'm not surprised. Wish I could go with you, but I'm helping with a gala for the Smithsonian." My mother was quite the social butterfly in DC. "Send pictures!" And with that, she hung up.
Oh well. I guess when your mother tells you to drive halfway across the state to accept a houseful of spiders from a quirky sort-of relative who believed she'd been murdered, you really had no choice.
CHAPTER TWO
"Behold, Iowa?" Kelly, my co-leader, asked with rising excitement. "We need to go!"
"We?"
My best friend since we were five had agreed to meet me for ice cream at Sugar Lips' Feeling Lucky House of Delights, a recent addition to our town founded by a woman who'd retired as a catalog copy writer for Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood and named all of her confections after lingerie. She'd caused quite a scandal when she opened, but the ice cream was first-rate. What did I care if I was eating ice cream with names like Nude Pasties 'Nilla?
At present, I was wolfing down today's special, the Triple Nipple chocolate shake, while Kelly noshed on the Is That A Banana In Your Pants banana split. Doris, the owner, was getting a little carried away with names, and if she wasn't careful, she'd bring down the righteous fury of the Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary. Those women had no sense of humor where sex was concerned and once got the "Use Your Potty" potty-training song banned from the Methodist day care center for being too slutty. The issue concerned the word butt.
"Why triple nipple?" I asked as I studied the cup. "Who has three nipples?"
Kelly pointed. "Because nipple rhymes with triple. I do like the three Hershey's Kisses topping off the whipped cream."
"Yeah, me too," I said before popping all three into my mouth. After chewing, I continued. "But why are you excited about Behold, Iowa? I've never even heard of it."
My best friend gave me an odd look. "One of the best Scout camps in the Midwest is there. Camp des Morts is supposed to be amazing! We can take the girls."
"Whoa. I'm only going for one day to find out what I need to do to get rid of the house."
Kelly ignored me as usual. "I'll call the troop and arrange everything. We can stay at the camp. The season should be over, with it being August and all, so it shouldn't be a problem."
No way. "Kelly, I'm not staying there. I'm coming back tomorrow right after the meeting with the attorney."
She paused, fingers hovering over her cell. "You have to stay. You have to solve Aunt June's murder."
"I don't even know if she was murdered. All I've got is an urn. I doubt there was even an autopsy."
"You're being selfish," Kelly said. "Camp des Morts is the best in Iowa. Don't you want the girls to see that?"
Of course I did. But this was the wrong reason to go. "What's so great about it? And that name!"
Kelly wiped her lips on a napkin. "It's French, I think."
"It means"—I pointed my straw at her—"Camp of Death."
She smiled. "That explains it. It's perched on a series of bluffs. There are Indian burial mounds. And some say the surrounding woods are haunted."
I gave her a look. "You want to take our troop to a place where they might literally chase ghosts, accidentally fall off bluffs, and desecrate Indian burial mounds?"
Kelly thought about this. "Yes. I really do." And then she began making phone calls.
There was nothing I could do but finish my shake.
My cell rang. It was my husband, Detective Rex Ferguson.
His first words were, "Did someone die?" He must've seen the urn on the table.
"Yeah, about that. That's Aunt June. I've inherited her remains and have to go to someplace halfway across the state to meet with her attorney tomorrow to discuss what to do with her house and pet
