by Dana Mentink
“When did you become a truffle expert?”
“While the others were out at dances and parties, I was working. I’ve always been working, since I was a kid. My high school agriculture class gave me the basic tools to learn about inoculation and hybridization. When my blue geranium project went up in smoke, I began working on introducing spores to the root system of host trees. It’s not hard; it just takes patience. You just have to manage the pests, especially the squirrels. And then there are the human pests.” Hugh spat out the words, shifting his weight off of his left leg.
Ruth’s mind flashed to the toe. “That was your toe; you cut off your own toe with the bear trap, didn’t you? Was that part of the plan?” Somehow the antagonistic tone of her voice did not fit with her literary image of the cool detective, but she could not stop the anger that was humming in her veins. A pain began to throb in her temples.
“I was trapping the vermin, and I stepped in my own trap,” he replied, shifting his weight again. “While I was tying up my foot, a Steller’s jay took off with the toe.” A drop of spittle flew from his mouth.
Ruth suppressed a rift of laughter.
“That’s the only thing that went wrong, anyway. My next crop is ready to harvest, and I have buyers all lined up. Then I can pay off the money I owe and it’s all profit.”
“What money?”
“I had to borrow some money for the spores, the Web site, a new truck, that kind of thing. My father certainly wouldn’t cough up a penny to help me.”
“Who loaned you the money?” “Some people.” He looked sullen.
A light flashed in her mind. “Oh, I get it. You borrowed money from a loan shark. Jack mentioned there was one in town.” She thought back to the day Alva found Hugh on the beach. “So that’s who beat you up and left you on the beach—not the bandanna gang.”
“The truffles weren’t ready as soon as I thought they would be. I couldn’t pay off the loan on time.” Hugh shook his head. “I tried to tell them I would have the money soon, but they wouldn’t listen. That’s the problem today.” His voice rose in volume with each word. “No one listens!”
“Gee,” she said, ignoring his raging, “crooks with no patience. Imagine. That’s when you decided to blame your beating on Rocky and his group?”
“I saw them on the beach a couple of times, and they kept poking around my trees up nose. I figured accusing them would explain things. They’re crazy anyway. I set fire to one guy’s trailer to keep him from sniffing around near my truffles.” He ran rigid fingers through his hair. “It’s okay. It’s all okay. My plan is working out in spite of everything.”
Suddenly his face changed. The last trace of youthful enthusiasm melted away, leaving something crazed in its wake.
Ruth should have been terrified, but the fear did not succeed in uprooting the anger that vibrated in her gut. “So you don’t figure murdering Ed was a tiny snafu in your plan? Why did you have to kill him?”
“Ed was suspicious; he knew my truffles weren’t French. He kept pressuring me to see them, sample them. I saw him and the dark-haired girl up looking at my trees. He left a message at Dimple’s asking to see me before he left town. I knew he figured it out, so I had to get rid of him.”
Hugh’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. “I didn’t really think he would die when I shot the balloon down. I thought he would get scared and go home. Then that girl came sniffing around, measuring the trees and examining the ground underneath. She was close to figuring out they were transplanted or seeing evidence of my cultivation. I should have killed her, too, but I’m not a good shot.” The words tumbled out faster and faster, like cockroaches after filth.
She knew she should feel sorry for this young man. His mind had been fractured beyond repair. But her heart could not pity the man who had taken Cootchie away.
“Look on the bright side,” she spat, “at least you didn’t shoot off your other toe. And then the best part of your plan. You decided to kidnap Cootchie. That’s right, isn’t it? You were the man with the glasses who took her, weren’t you?” The words snapped out of her mouth.
“Yeah, no big thing. I wore a wig and a fake mustache. She didn’t even recognize me. I took her to Half Moon Bay and left her at the library. It got you all out of my hair for a while,” he said, rooting around in his pocket. “It got all the festival nuts off my land while everyone looked for Cootchie, especially those tree freaks. They kept trampling my truffles.” He sniffed. “I didn’t think it would be such a big deal anyway. I wouldn’t have done it if I had known Dimple would be so upset.”
Ruth thought about Cootchie’s phone conversation. It wasn’t the muffin man she referred to, but the truffle man. The man she had seen at the park when he spilled the truffles on the ground. “She’s smarter than you think, Hugh. As a matter of fact, I think she’s smarter than you, period.”
A deep flush mottled his cheeks. “That’s where you’re wrong. Where everyone has always been wrong. I’m not just a geek, some loser farm boy. You go ahead and laugh, but I’ll have the last laugh in the end.”
His eyes glittered in the afternoon sun. “Besides, how is this your business anyway? You didn’t even know Ed, and Bobby Walker is fine. So I took Cootchie for a few hours. What’s it to you? I didn’t hurt her. There was no harm done.”
Ruth felt as if his words came from far away. There was a rushing in her ears, and her temples pounded. She felt warm all over, as if her veins flowed with molten lava. “No harm done?”
By the time his hand emerged from his pocket with the switchblade, she had grabbed the log that stood upright near her feet. She did not feel the knife slice into her forearm as she swung the log like a baseball bat, smashing it down onto his injured foot.
He doubled over in pain but quickly straightened again and lunged with the knife. She swung again.
The log whacked into the side of his head with a satisfying thud and sent him crashing to his knees on the gravel path.
Not bad for someone who hasn’t played baseball since the third grade, she thought. She hooked her hands under his armpits and dragged him to the sturdy oak post supporting the sign reading Pistol Bang Mushroom Farm.
As she looked around, she spied the metallic cylinders. Smiling, Ruth Budge set to work.
Nine minutes later the detective was running up Pistol Bang’s gravel walkway, gun drawn, with Nathan and Mary at his heels. Jack stopped short, almost causing his officers to plow into him from behind. Ruth sat on a wooden bench, tying up her bloody arm with the sleeve of her jacket.
Jack had to do a double take to realize that the silver cocoon under the signpost was Hugh Lemmon wrapped from waist to crown of head in multiple rolls of duct tape. The only spots showing on his upper body were two dazed-looking eyes and his prodigious nose. The rest of him was completely mummified in silver tape.
Nate succeeded in freeing Monk from the tunnel.
Monk puffed up, gasping and red faced.
“Ruth, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. He only cut my arm, and I have a tremendous headache, but that’s about all the damage. To me anyway,” she said, continuing to wrap her arm.
“Ambulance is on—” Nate stopped talking as he got a good look at Hugh. “Er, ambulance is on its way. Does he need, uh, medical attention?”
“Oh, he may have a concussion or something. I hit him with a log. Other than that, I think he’s just fine.” She smiled. “Until they have to remove the duct tape, that is.”
All three officers grinned.
Mary listened to a message on the radio. “Dimple is fine. She was off picking lentils or nettles or something.”
With a deep sigh, Ruth stood up and brushed off her hands before she collapsed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ruth was staring at her IV, wondering if she could request a chocolate flavor, when the door opened.
“Hello, Ruth,” Dimple said. Her green eyes were puffy with fatigue. “How are yo
u?”
“I’m okay. I had to have a few stitches, and apparently the doctor decided to have my oil changed and air filter replaced while he was at it.”
“That sounds practical.”
“I’ll probably go home this afternoon when the test results are in.” The silence dragged on. “How is Cootchie?”
“She is having a lovely time with, uh, Meg. She said it’s fun to play in the yard and look for bones. I think she might be disrupting Meg’s landscaping, though.”
The silence stretched into the uncomfortable zone.
“Dimple, I am so sorry. For letting him take Cootchie.” She choked out the words.
Dimple laid her tiny hand on Ruth’s arm. “Ruth, dear, you did not know the evil around you. Neither did I.” She blinked back tears. “He was with me all the time. I trusted him. I trusted him around my daughter.”
“If it means anything, I really don’t think he meant to kill anyone. He just didn’t see the reality of it. It was like something out of a movie.”
Dimple looked away from Ruth. A phone buzzed somewhere in a distant corridor.
“What is it?” Ruth asked. “Tell me.”
She took a steadying breath. “I’m going away for a while. I’ll close the farm for a few months and go to stay with Meg in Arizona.”
“I thought you might.” An iron weight settled over her heart. “I can understand that, after everything that has happened.”
“I won’t stay. Cootchie and I will come back. I just want to know what it’s like. To have a mother.”
She nodded. “I will miss you so much.”
“I will miss you, too.” Dimple’s long hair tickled Ruth’s cheek as she leaned over to hug her. “The heart will always find the path towards home.”
Ruth wondered despairingly if the path would end in Arizona with Meg.
Dr. Ing strode quietly into Ruth’s hospital room a few hours later. As she listened to his words, she recalled his quiet, soothing tones years earlier when he explained how her husband of twenty-five years had suddenly stopped living. He was just as quiet and soothing now.
“Ruth, I have some news for you. We’ve run tests, as you know. I always like to do that as a precaution in cases like this.”
Tests? Her heart beat faster.
“As much as we know about the human body, it’s still a mysterious, enigmatic thing. People who should be dead live on for years. Perfect babies die without explanation.”
She stared at him with wild fear that filled every pore.
He returned her gaze with eyes full of compassion. “I am afraid this is going to be a shock to you, Ruth, but I have no doubt that you will be able to handle it.”
Monk rushed into the shop. Ruth was seated at a scarred wooden table an hour before her morning coffee shift would start. She stared out the window at the hydrangeas wearing their cotton-candy colors. She didn’t meet Monk’s gaze. He sat down next to her, removing the ever-present ladle from his pocket and squeezing the smooth metal handle.
“Honey, I’ve been so worried,” he began. “I tried to find you, but you’d already gone.” He paused, tapping his ladle on the table. “I wanted to take you home. They said you insisted on being discharged. Are you sure that was a good idea?”
“It was what the doctor told me,” she mumbled as she continued to stare out the window. “They did tests, you know.”
His breath hissed through his lips. “So the doctor did. . .tests?” He inhaled again. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.” He chewed his lower lip. “Maybe it’s better to wrangle with it for a while, until you figure out how to deal with it, or treat it, or whatever.” He paused again.
She turned to him. “I’ll be forty-eight soon. That’s a long time to live, don’t you think?”
Monk’s eyes widened. “Yes, I guess so.”
“I’ve lost a husband and become Nana to a stranger’s child. I’ve even learned how to raise worms for a living and found another good man to love. Don’t you think that’s a full life?” She looked intensely at him now.
“Yes.” He swallowed. “But whatever it is, it doesn’t mean the end. We can fight it, or figure out how to live with it. People survive things all the time.” His words tumbled out like tiny fish darting from a predator.
“That’s what Dr. Ing said,” Ruth said, her voice flat.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “We’ll do it together. I will be here for you.” His eyes were warm and filled with tears, radiating a tenderness that was at odds with his hulking stature and quick temper.
“I don’t want to be a medical curiosity,” she said, “some freak of nature.”
He stood and put a huge hand on her shoulder. “Just tell me what to do, Ruth, how to help you. I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I know—” She suddenly realized that Monk thought she was dying of some disease.
What a precious man she’d married. She looked into his weathered face, reading the emotion flashing in his eyes. He had been there through it all. Steady and quiet. Ready to be asked about whatever she needed. She remembered his earlier words. God gave her strength because He wanted her to use it. She sat up straighter in the chair.
“Monk, it’s not what you think. The doctor said I’m pregnant.”
He jerked upward; the ladle flew out of his hand and shattered the window into millions of sparkling droplets.
The crash reverberated all the way to the top of Finny’s Nose.
About the Author
Dana Mentink lives in California with her husband and two children. Her first love is the classroom; she has taught children from preschool through fifth grade for over a decade.
Dana is perpetually in search of a great story, either through painfully expensive trips to the bookstore or via her own labors in front of the computer. She enjoys writing cozies for Heartsong Presents—MYSTERIES! as well as suspense stories.
In addition to her novels, Dana writes short articles, both fiction and nonfiction, for a wide variety of magazines. Dana enjoys mentoring other writers and finding new vehicles to provide her readers with a hefty dose of mystery, merriment, and make-believe.
About Spyglass Lane
Spyglass Lane Mysteries is a collection of Christian cozy mysteries—modern-day whodunnits with colorful characters and plenty of wholesome romance.
Check out book one in The Finny Series: Trouble Up Finny’s Nose
Discover other Spyglass Lane titles at Smashwords.com.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
About the Author
About Spyglass Lane