The Slime Mold Murder

by Ellen King Rice

  “Now be quiet,” Alyson whispered.

  Her voice wasn’t low enough. The dog whipped around, planted its feet into the sand and began barking with a machine gun-like intensity.

  Two middle-aged men stood up from behind the hill, naked and covered with sand.

  “Oh, my God,” Mari sputtered. “They were, ah, I mean, like, right there?”

  “Yeah,” Alyson said. “Mitchell and Mark.” She waved a hand. The nudists waved back, then the men turned away, one tugging the other down to the ground, behind the sand dune.

  Killer continued to bark, even as a “Shush, Killer,” came floating up from one of the men.

  Mari went pelting up the deer trail, face flaming. Dylan jogged after her, laughing.

  Alyson came along behind. “What’s the rush?” she called.

  Mari stopped thirty yards down the trail and waited for Dylan and Alyson. She chose a spot next to an enormous root ball at the end of a fallen log. The root ball and the surrounding huckleberry bushes screened her from a view of the beach.

  Mari turned her back to the root ball and crossed her arms as she struggled for composure.

  Finally, she said, “That eyeful really could be a problem for families coming out for a Halloween adventure.”

  “Passions,” said a voice coming from the woods, “Should be celebrated.”

  Each slime mold species has the ability to secrete a signaling chemical that triggers individual cells to aggregate to form a plasmodium. These chemicals are called “Acrasins.”

  Chapter Eight

  A man stood up from behind the huge root-ball. He was tall and lean, dressed in jeans and a cream chambray shirt under a canvas vest covered with mesh pockets. He wore a flat tweed cap. He looked to be about seventy years old with a ruffle of gray hair showing from underneath the cap.

  “Hi, Einar!” Alyson said.

  “Will you introduce me?” The man held himself erect and still, making Dylan think of a stag at a meadow’s edge.

  “This is Mari and Dylan,” Alyson looked up at the students. “I don’t know your last names.”

  “Mariposa Vega,” Mari said. “Please call me Mari.”

  “Dylan Kushner.” Dylan paused.

  “We’re all suffering from the PTSD of the pandemic,” the tall man spoke calmly. “I’m Einar Frosaker, and, as a senior, I am happy not to shake hands.”

  “We’re checking out the cemetery,” Alyson said. “And conducting a biological survey. So far we’ve found a honeycomb slime mold and a raven.”

  “An excellent start.” Einar smiled. “While I believe love is beautiful and fierce in all its manifestations, I can see where you might wish to leave the copulating Homo sapiens off the roster.”

  Alyson smiled back. “They’re not on our property.”

  Dylan looked over at Mari, amused to see her face blushing to a deep crimson. He winked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

  “May I join you on your jaunt to the cemetery?” Einar asked.

  “Sure!” Alyson skipped a few steps. “We’re also getting ideas on how to make it more creepy for our Halloween events.”

  “I see.” Einar paused. “The location could work. I’m hoping to find a few early mushrooms to photograph, but it’s too dry. If there were mushrooms, they could add to your creepy atmosphere.”

  “It’s early in the season,” Dylan said. “Is there a species list you’re working up?”

  “No. I record people’s names, because I have to, but I have thousands of nature photos. I have them sorted by date, location, and animal types.” Einar’s teeth flashed white as he smiled. “The capturing of the image is far more exhilarating than list making. To list fungal names is beyond me.”

  With a shrug, Einar added, “Nature photos are hard to sell these days. You can make your own with a cell phone. Once in a while I capture something nice, but not enough to do a species list.”

  He stepped out on the trail and made a motion towards Mari. “Alas, I suspect you will see there are some challenges with making this cemetery into a Halloween exhibit.”

  “Are these indigenous graves?” Mari’s voice was an indignant squeak.

  “No. Not at all,” Einar said. “Best if you see for yourself.”

  The group followed Alyson as she skipped ahead down the trail. An ‘S’ curve later, Alyson stopped. “Here we are.”

  Waist-high ironwork fencing surrounded a clearing in the woods. A wide double gate stood open, each gate panel decorated with an intricate pattern of leaves and cats.

  Mari and Dylan walked into the clearing, nearing a row of bright white gravestones. Mari read names off the stones. “Mr. Mittens? Bear? Shadow?” She laughed. “It’s a pet cemetery. Okay. I can see this as a Halloween attraction.”

  “Nope,” Dylan said. “Look at those gravestones.”

  Einar gave a nod of approval. “I’m glad you understand.”

  A shaft of sunlight came through the trees, lighting the arched tops of the white marble. The gravestones gleamed in the dappled sunshine.

  “They are replicas of the gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery,” Dylan said. “Where servicemen are buried.”

  Recognition dawned on Mari’s face. “Oh, bad idea. Oh, my God. Not good at all.”

  Mari exhaled. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Shirley Friedens,” Einar answered. “Alyson’s great-aunt. A lovely woman. I knew her well.” His face lit up with a warm smile. “She liked champagne at midnight. And at breakfast.”

  He looked up at the dome of green over the cemetery. “In Shirley’s mind, her animals were brave creatures who served loyally. She grieved, deeply, at the loss of each one. To her this was a gesture to honor their lives.”

  Einar sighed. “I don’t think she had visitors in mind when she designed this space.”

  Mari stepped back to the gate and surveyed the space. “The trail is cool. The fencing is atmospheric. The lighting is great. It’s just the style of gravestones that are a problem.”

  “I don’t think we can get moss to grow on them,” Dylan said. “That looks like real marble. It’s too smooth. It’ll be hundreds of years before it’s pitted enough for plants to get a foothold. Even lichens need something to grab onto.”

  “Right.” Mari crossed her arms and looked at the gravestones. “What about a sleeve? A bigger gravestone replica that slid over these, maybe with a different arc to the top. They could be painted creepy, then taken off and stored until the next season.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” Einar said.

  “Too bad we can’t keep the dog vomit slime mold.” Dylan pointed to a woodpile just outside of the fence. “Look at the end of that log.”

  “Oh! Cool!” Alyson ran to the outside of the fence and scrambled over a smaller log pile, adding more mossy smears to her T-shirt and pink leggings. She lifted a covering branch, revealing the rest of the blob on the log. It looked like a chrome-yellow omelet.

  Dylan joined her and took some pictures with his smart phone, but Einar was clearly a professional photographer. He brought out a camera body from one mesh pocket and fished in another for a specific lens before coming closer.

  Navigating carefully, Einar knelt in front of the log, gently moving blades of grass and leaf litter out of the way and changing his position to maximize the light.

  “Is it going to melt away like the honeycomb slime mold?” Alyson asked.

  “Eventually,” Dylan said. “The acellular slime mold class is called Myxogastria. If we wait here, we would see this move, in a special way.”

  Dylan said. “Think of it as the Myxogastria Motion, a special dance, in which one side of the dance floor surges forward while the other side pulls inward to the middle. The slime mold will spread out as it moves, but it also doesn’t leave any member nuclei behind.”

  He explained, “A few days ago, there were many cells of this slime mold species living their own little lives, some single cells, others clusters of daughters from the same
parent. Then there was a chemical message to unite. The chemical is called ‘acrasin’ after a witch in a poem. The cells can’t resist. They come together and form a community. There is movement, feeding, reproduction and death.”

  “Who’s the witch?” Einar asked. “And the poem?”

  “The witch is named Acrasia, from a Greek word that means ‘lacking self-control.’ The poem was The Fairie Queene written about 1590.”

  Einar sat down in the needle duff and crossed his long legs. “Sounds like you’re a history buff.”

  “Among other things,” Dylan admitted. “The poem was a vanity piece to puff up the first Queen Elizabeth. It’s all about knights and honor.”

  Dylan smiled. “It earned the author fifty pounds a year, which was a lot in those days. Acrasia had a ‘bower of bliss’ where she seduced men and changed them into monsters.”

  Einar adjusted his long legs and said, “And you’re saying these cells have been chemically drafted, and now they are going to die?”

  “After days of orgy,” Dylan pointed out. “There’s lots of eating going on there.”

  “In Mexico,” Mari said, “this species is called ‘caca de luna’, or ‘moon shit.’ She winked at Alyson. “It’s cooked and eaten with tortillas.”

  Alyson looked at the blob and shook her head. “Nope. Not for me.”

  “Where’re the little columns?” Einar pulled a tiny, folded tripod out of his front vest pocket and set it on the log. “You know, slime molds have the balls on stalks that stick up like town water towers.”

  “Sporangia,” Dylan said. “This species doesn’t have them. This blob will go from yellow to a peanut butter color, then to a cement color and will form some aethalia, which are just domes of fiber covering the spore-producing regions.”

  Einar stopped and sighed. “Damn. I finally see a slime mold, and it’s the boring sort.”

  “You’re wanting to photograph some sporangia?” Mari asked.

  “Definitely. You ever see any of Alison Pollack’s photos?” Einar asked.

  “No.” Mari looked at Dylan who nodded a ‘yes.’ Dylan said, “They’re amazing.”

  “She does focus stacking.” To Alyson, Einar said, “When I take a close-up photo, I get a narrow depth-of-field. Only a little bit will be in focus, and everything in front or back of that little bit will be fuzzy.”

  Einar mounted his camera on the tiny tripod. “These days a photographer can take a series of photos with different parts in focus. Then we can use a computer to stitch the photos together.”

  “Like an Arby’s sandwich?” Alyson asked. “Lots of thin slices of roast beef to make a big sandwich?”

  Einar smiled. “Not a simile that I would come up with, but that works.” He peered through the camera at the slime mold and made adjustments as he said, “Pollack’s stuff is magical. She takes pictures of mushrooms and slime molds. They are tiny jeweled beauties. Lots of iridescence. The water tower bits, the ah . . .”

  “Sporangia,” Dylan supplied.

  “Them,” Einar said. “In Pollack’s photos, they look like gleaming goblets for fairy kings.”

  He pulled out a small clicker and held it next to the tripod, clicking it to activate the camera. “Her stuff does not look like dog vomit or peanut butter.”

  “We’ll see if we can find some other species for you,” Dylan offered.

  “I’d appreciate it.” Einar spoke as he continued to click.

  Mari looked around the clearing. “We could suggest Wade put in a bench. People like a place to sit down.”

  She walked back to the trail and looked at the cemetery from near the gate entrance. “Covering the gravestones with creepy sleeves and adding plastic skeletons in the trees, that’s the ticket.”

  Einar said, “I like the ‘Bower of Bliss’ thing. You could have an actress being a siren who turns into a witch.”

  “It’s supposed to be family entertainment.” Mari kept her tone light. “Perhaps just a witch, and not a very scary one.”

  A loud voice came through the trees. “You are disgusting! You should be in a creep show! Or in jail!”

  The shouting was followed by a rat-tat-tat of high-pitched barking.

  “I believe that’s our County Commissioner,” Einar said. He stood up and rapidly stowed his gear into his vest pockets. “I’m not a fan of his, so I shall bid you adieu.” With a nod to Alyson, Einar moved off through a swath of sword ferns and disappeared.

  “Should we go see what’s going on?” Alyson rocked onto her toes, ready to run.

  The high-pitched barking continued.

  “Oh, Killer.” Alyson’s face looked worried. “He’s a nice dog, normally.”

  “We can go back,” Dylan said, but he stopped at the end of the log with the dog vomit slime mold. “Guys, look at this.”

  Mari peered at the spot where Dylan pointed. “The tan line?”

  He nodded. “I think it’s a pretzel slime mold!”

  A slime mold spends much of its life as one large cell. The bag of cytoplasm and its thousands of nuclei creeping along together is called a syncytium.

  Chapter Nine

  “Come on!” Alyson urged. “We may need to get my Dad!” She rose on her toes in agitation as the angry voices continued to carry through the woods.

  “One second.” Dylan snapped a quick photo of the interesting caramel-colored tube before returning to the trail. He followed Alyson and Mari as they ran down the trail to a break in the foliage. Pushing through the gap, they had a clear look at the community parking area and of the sand dunes of the beach.

  They could see Garrett, standing with a computer tablet in one hand, next to the party supplies truck as he watched the commotion. A blonde woman in a sports bra and yoga pants came sprinting across the parking area from the left.

  “We’re on private property!” This outraged shout was accompanied by more barking.

  Alyson led the way to the turbulence, just as a beefy man in khaki slacks and a plaid button-down shirt screamed, “You are filthy trash who should be hanged!”

  The high-breasted blonde ran to the beefy man, her arms outstretched as strands of long hair escaped from a hairclip.

  Before the blonde reached the man, the larger of the naked men lunged in as the other put out a hand to stop his lover. The small white dog surged forward, its rapid barking reaching a new, frantic pitch.

  Dylan could see clearly over Alyson’s head as the beefy man-in-khakis landed a vicious uppercut to the nudist. The barrel-bellied naked man collapsed on to the ground while the khaki-clad attacker turned to kick the wildly barking dog.

  They all heard a high yelp as the beefy man’s boot connected.

  Alyson screamed, “Stop that! Stop that!”

  The second naked man, smaller in size, darted in, leaping over his lover, to throw a punch. It landed poorly.

  The beefy man-in-khakis swept the blow aside, stepped back, and brought his hands up, ready for a boxing match.

  The blonde woman inserted herself between the combatants.

  “Cayden! This is assault!” she yelled.

  “I was defending myself,” the beefy man shouted back.

  “Stop this, now!” she shouted. “Or I’ll call the police. I will!”

  To Dylan’s relief, he saw the man take a step back and lower his clenched hands, just as Alyson yelled, “You should go home!”

  The man in khakis halted, suddenly aware that his audience included a child. Alyson, in her grimy T-shirt and green-smeared leggings changed the dynamic. Even as the felled naked man was rolling to his feet, and the second puncher was jonesing on the balls of his feet with his fists up, there was a clear deflation in the raging.

  The beefy man-in-khaki-slacks started to speak, but the blonde woman held up a hand, looking daggers at him. He stood, breathing heavily for a moment before turning and stomping away, up the road toward the high, long houses.

  Garrett walked over, silent but alert. He looked at Dylan and made a hands-up
shrug with his free hand.

  Dylan tossed a short hand wave in Garrett’s direction, glad for the additional neutral witness to the melee.

  The blonde woman turned to the naked men and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Okay?” The portly man, straightened up and said, “I was just belted in the face.” He gently moved touched his jaw. “At the very least there will be bruising.” His large stomach protruded out like a cliff over narrow hips and now withered genitalia.

  His partner, slimmer, with sagging skin at the base of his pectorals, dropped to one knee and cuddled the little terrier, who, blessedly, had fallen silent. “We should take Killer in for an exam. He could have a broken rib.”

  The woman looked down at the dog, and then over to Garrett, and further to Alyson and her ecological buddies, clearly trying to find a place to focus that wasn’t a naked crotch. She made eye contact with Dylan.

  Dylan spoke. “I’ll make a witness statement. We saw the attack.”

  “I can make a statement too,” Garrett said as he moved closer.

  Mari swallowed before piping up. “So can I.”

  The tall blonde inhaled and put her hands out, palms down, in a calming motion. “Please. Cayden has strong beliefs.”

  The man cuddling the terrier said, “Plus he’s a County Commissioner, and you want this to stay out of the news.”

  “Give me a chance to talk to him,” the woman said, her voice confident and strong.

  The man holding the dog shook his head. “I am going to write this up. It’ll make a great story for The Stranger. I’ll send it to the Seattle Times too.” He looked over to the young people. “I’d like to get my clothes on, but if you’ll wait just a minute, I’d really appreciate getting your names and contact information.”

  He held the dog to his chest as he turned back to the blonde. “Your neighbor is a thug. He may be an elected thug, but he’s still a thug.”

  Dylan had to give the woman credit. She kept her eyes focused on the speaker’s face even as the two naked men presented themselves, shoulder-to-shoulder with full frontal nudity.