Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #1) by Karen Cantwell Page A

answer.
    “Monkeys.”
    “Live monkeys or dead monkeys?” I cringed when I asked the question.
    “Three of them. Dead, dead, and dead.”
     

Chapter Six
     

     
    DEAD PEOPLE. DEAD MONKEYS. IT was all just too far out of my league as a suburban soccer mom. On the other hand, it certainly did have a very exciting, CSI-ish sort of appeal. Evidently, Rustic Woods wasn’t as sleepy as it appeared on the surface.
    Roz was forced to get off the phone and handle her kids who were bouncing off the walls like monkeys themselves after Peter’s dinner of SpaghettiO’s, Fruit Loops, and Coca Cola. I proceeded upstairs, showered until the steam was so thick I couldn’t see my toes, and pulled myself into my softest, warmest periwinkle fleece jammies. I was set for the night. All I needed now was a mammoth mug of hot chocolate. With marshmallows. Lots of them. I padded my comfy self back downstairs, cooked up a delectable pot, poured it into a mug, padded back into the living room, flicked on the TV, then settled back into the overstuffed chair all warm and ready to do nothing but relax into a complete vegetative state.
    Steam curled up from the Mickey Mouse mug that filled both of my hands, warming them gently. My lips were perched over the brim, ready for a tentative taste test, when a light knock sounded on the front door. My heart went into overdrive. After the day I’d had, an unexpected nighttime knock at the door didn’t exactly give me the warm and fuzzies. It certainly wasn’t Howard and the girls. They would have just let themselves in—loudly. I put my mug down on the side table, tiptoed quietly to the front door and put my ear against it for a listen, while contemplating whether I should answer. Maybe it was the maniac mutilator of bodies, coming to chop me up next.
    There was no security chain on the door to protect me if I cracked it open for a peek. If my uninvited guest was, say, The Merchant of Death, he’d slam that door off its hinges the minute he had a chance, making me funeral-home-ready in about two seconds flat. With my ear still at the door, I noticed that the unidentified someone on the other side was trying the doorknob. My heart kicked out of overdrive and stalled. Luckily, the door was locked. I pulled my ear away and moved back. The doorknob stopped jiggling. I tried to breathe. That wasn’t going so well. I heard scuffling, a bang and a clank, then a key going into the lock. Holy crap. I pictured Howard and the girls coming home, only to find my head lying on the foyer floor, my body stolen by some sicko headless body stealer.
    Frantically, I began scanning the room for a blunt object. Realizing that running was probably a smarter option, since the only two things in my house at the moment worth protecting were Indiana Jones the cat and my own body, I scooped up Indy and turned on my heels to make the mad dash. Too late. The doorknob turned and my door swung open hard and fast.
    I screamed so loud that Indiana Jones howled and jumped out of my arms, scratching me on his way down. My scream and Indy’s howl were immediately followed by a louder scream and a crash. The louder scream came from the massive intruder standing in my doorway—my mother—and the crash came from the cooking pot previously filled with what appeared to be vegetable soup that now covered my foyer floor and half the walls. My heart started pumping again. I was breathing like a horse on the last lap of the Kentucky Derby and I was seething mad.
    “Mother!” I screamed. “What are you doing? Don’t you ever knock?”
    “I did knock!” she screamed back.
    Oh yeah. She had.
    “Barbara Nancy Pettingford Marr, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Even at forty-five, my mother knew how to scold me using all of my names. “And look what you made me do,” she added, pointing at the soup-stained floor. Indiana Jones, evidently assessing that the situation at hand was safe, returned to begin lapping up the warm liquid. My