In Deep Shitake (A Humorous Romantic Suspense)

by Patricia Mason

  “No thanks,” Mo called as she threw open the door and ran up the stairs of the entryway to second floor apartment. The soles of her feet sounded like horse hooves on the heartpine wood treads.

  The bulb in the sconce on the wall at the top of the stairs flickered as she knocked firmly on the door. No sound came from inside.

  “Clarence? It’s me, Mo.”

  When no response came, the eerie silence produced shivery goose bumps on her arm.

  With trembling fingers, Mo worked her cell phone to call his. The theme from the SpyMatrix ring tone played faintly in the apartment.

  Mo saw her hand as if from a distance as it twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. The heaviness of her breathing hurt her chest. Sprawled, face down on the floor by the bed, was a body. Clarence lay there with his legs bent at odd angles as if he had dropped to the floor like an accordion collapsing in on itself.

  Holding her breath, Mo crept closer searching the body for the movement of breathing.

  Nothing.

  She bent at the waist and saw that a dark substance she suspected was blood coated the back of the head, matting the wavy brown hair. The wavy hair Clarence was always so proud of. Mo blinked back tears.

  Next to his body, near his right foot, a replica of the SpyMatrix big gun lay with its stock covered in the same sticky substance—blood. Clarence’s blood.

  The room felt like it revolved around her. The pounding of her heart was so furious she heard it in her ears. Mo straightened before she toppled over. A scream that sounded as if it came from under water hummed through the room. Mo swallowed and her ears popped allowing sound to flood in.

  Mrs. Truesberry had entered the room behind Mo and was making a high-pitched wail. “He’s dead,” she moaned and then the landlady screamed again.

  The room stopped turning like a carnival ride and Mo felt like she could bend forward again without fainting. With a ginger carefulness, she checked Clarence's neck for a pulse and could feel nothing.

  The screaming continued and Mo turned to grip the landlady by the arms. “Mrs. Truesberry,” she said with a little shake of the old lady. “Get a hold of yourself. You have to call the police.”

  Mrs. Truesberry stopped keening and blinked. “The police? Oh no, dearie. I can’t do that. I have some pot growing in the backyard.”

  “Then call 911 for an ambulance.”

  “But he’s dead. He doesn’t need an ambulance.” The landlady’s voice was monotone.

  Thank gouda the woman was no longer hysterical.

  “Call them anyway. We don’t really know for sure he’s dead.”

  But Mo did know. Clarence had that same look of a deflated balloon she’d noticed when, as a child, she’d discovered her grandfather’s body. But Grandpa had died of old age. Clarence was murdered. But who had done it? Maybe the question was not who had done it but who wouldn’t.

  * * * * *

  “I could’ve killed you,” Ross yelled. His car had come perilously close to clipping an old man walking on the shoulder of the road, before Ross’s rage filled eyes finally cleared enough to slam on the brakes and wrench the wheel, taking his car into the lane of oncoming traffic. The red Toyota coming towards him veered off the pavement and onto the gravel with its horn blaring as a musical accompaniment.

  “Dammit,” Ross yelled, twisting the steering wheel to swerve back into his lane again. By the sight of the codger’s upraised fist in his rearview mirror—with clearly visible single vertical digit at its middle—there was no permanent damage done.

  No permanent damage done …to the old man anyway. Ross felt as if he was permanently damaged. He couldn’t even begin to process all that had happened to him today.

  What should he do about Mo?

  His introspection was cut off by a blaring horn behind his car. Glancing up, Ross saw a black SUV looming in his rearview mirror, perilously close at mere inches from his bumper. Dammit, sixty mph in a thirty-five mph zone wasn’t fast enough for this guy? The SUV fell back a bit.

  “Go around me,” Ross shouted and motioned at the other driver to pass. The monster SUV revved forward again and this time nudged at his bumper before falling back. The slight touch was enough to send the steering wheel jerking to the right under his hands and the car lunged toward the shoulder in response. Ross wrenched the wheel to the left and the car leapt back—on its two left wheels—onto asphalt, with gravel spurting behind it.

  “Bloody hell! Are you crazy or just an idiot?”

  Ross slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor and the Mercedes shot forward, but the SUV matched it and hovered behind him like a giant spider eyeing its prey. A slow moving compact car that had been a mile ahead a moment ago loomed only a few yards away and Ross slammed at the brake pedal to avoid running the Mercedes up its tailpipe. Ross tweaked his horn and he saw the driver, with a head of gray mop-like hair, lift a hand and wave.

  “Son-of-a—”

  A glance in the rear view mirror revealed that the SUV smoothly slowed so that its bumper stayed at a controlled distance from the Mercedes. Damn, he was sandwiched between the two vehicles now.

  Ahead of the Granny car, the two-lane highway continued into the distance as far as he could see with no way of exit. The solid yellow markings on the pavement and the curves in the road made it dangerous to veer into the oncoming traffic lane to pass the Granny.

  The SUV continued to loom large in his review. Then Ross saw the black monster start to close the small distance before he felt the bumper begin to nudge and then push at the Mercedes. Ross slammed on the brake to keep from being thrown forward into the Granny. The brakes stuck but only slowed the Mercedes’ relentless forward momentum. The tires squealed against the asphalt and he smelled the distinct odor of burning rubber.

  Fearing that if he didn’t do something his car would hit the Granny’s and start a dangerous chain reaction, Ross acted on instinct and jerked the wheel, while simultaneously taking his foot off the brake. The Mercedes slid to the right and spun one hundred eighty degrees, digging a rut into the gravel shoulder. Rocks went flying in a shower into the adjacent bog before the car came to a stop.

  Ross saw the Granny car continue blithely down the road. The SUV had come to a stop crossways of the road in front of the Mercedes. The door of the monster SUV opened and, as if in slow motion, a hulking figure unfolded itself from inside and stepped out. A smaller man emerged from the passenger side of the SUV. He looked like a shrimp beside Gigantor.

  It was then that Ross realized that the Mercedes had stalled and he wrenched the key in the ignition to restart the car. Before it could fire, the driver’s side door of the Mercedes was thrown open and he was hauled out.

  Ross swung at Gigantor and his fist connected with the bigger man’s gut. He was rewarded with a grunt. Before he could follow up, Gigantor pulled a hand from behind him and brought the muzzle of the gun he held to Ross’s forehead.

  The shrimp produced a plastic zip line and cuffed Ross’s hands behind him.

  “Take car,” Gigantor shouted at his smaller colleague as he nodded his head toward the Mercedes and tugged Ross toward the SUV.

  “What are you doing? What do you want?” Ross asked.

  His questions went unanswered.

  The big man marched him forward and Ross soon found himself tossed into, and lying across, the SUV’s back seat.

  “Why don’t you say something,” Ross demanded. “Do you understand me?”

  “I have the understand,” Gigantor said in his halting English.

  The engine of the SUV roared to life. And Gigantor glanced over the back of his seat at Ross.

  “Then why don’t you tell me the answer?”

  “That all I say.” He reached down to the seat and came up with a gun.

  Ross thought of Mo. He’d never get a chance to apologize to her. “Shitake,” Ross murmured as the gun came closer.

  When he thought the git would pull the trigger, the side of the barrel accelerated forw
ard and slammed into his temple. Sparks ignited in his head and then there was darkness.

  * * * * *

  Officers Tim and Dan were the first to arrive at the scene of Clarence's death. Mo wondered if they were the only officers who were ever on duty in Savannah. Officer Dan went upstairs with the crime scene investigators and Officer Tim stayed downstairs with Mo and Mrs. Truesberry.

  “And you say you spoke to the victim on the phone about ten minutes before you arrived here and found him dead?” Officer Tim had his notebook open and jotted something on it with a stubby pencil.

  “Yes,” Mo said. “He told me to hurry over. That someone was at his door. As I said before, he seemed to be afraid but he wouldn’t tell me any details until I got here.”

  The officer scribbled frantically on his pad.

  “When you got here he was dead?” Officer Tim asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t argue with him when you got here? Things may have got out of hand and there was an accident?”

  Meatballs. Now she was a suspect. “No, of course not,” Mo said with more than a touch of irritation in her voice.

  “Oh no, this dear girl had nothing to do with poor Clarence being dead,” Mrs. Truesberry interjected. “I was working away in my garden. You see I always garden for at least two hours everyday. When it’s not raining of course. The flowers are always so open and fragrant at this time of day.”

  Mo gritted her teeth to keep from interrupting the prattle to suggest that Mrs. Truesberry get on with proving to the officer that Mo hadn’t murdered Clarence. However, snapping at her only defender might not be such a good strategy.

  “Anyway, as I said," the landlady continued. "I’d been working away in my garden for some time when I saw Ms. Tuttle arrive. We talked and then I followed her upstairs. When we went into the apartment there was Clarence. Dead as a doorpost.”

  “Doornail,” Officer Tim corrected, as he made more jottings in his notebook.

  “I’m sure it’s doorpost,” Mrs. Truesberry said quizzically.

  “The saying is doornail,” Officer Tim insisted.

  “Doorpost makes more sense,” the landlady said.

  “Why does doorpost make more sense?” Officer Tim asked with a huff. “They’re both dead.”

  “Is this important?” Mo asked with impatience.

  “No, ma'am. You’re right.” Officer Tim glanced back and forth between Mo and the landlady. “I guess you’re in the clear. It seems that Mrs. Truesberry here is your alibi...Unless you two are related to one another.”

  “Oh no, officer. I’ve only met Ms. Tuttle for the first time yesterday when she came by looking for Clarence with that handsome young man.”

  The officer smiled as he tapped his chin with the pencil. “That’s right. You hang out with Stephen Dagger, don’t you?”

  “You mean Clarence?” Mrs. Truesberry asked.

  “No, that SpyMatrix guy,” the officer replied.

  “You do mean Clarence,” the landlady said.

  “He means Ross Grant,” Mo said and then bit her lip. She might be angry with Ross, but she didn’t want to bring him into a murder investigation.”

  “Yeah, the actor that’s known for the saying ‘that’s virtuoso’. The one with the big gun.”

  “Clarence had a big gun,” Mrs. Truesberry said with a sniffle bordering on snivel. “He had a big gun and it killed him.” Full-blown sobbing erupted from the old lady, including shaking shoulders, runny nose, watering eyes. “He loved being Stephen Dagger. But somebody didn’t think it was so virtuoso.” More sobbing continued.

  “Oh lard,” Mo groaned.

  “Am I understanding right that you know this victim, Clarence, also went by the name Stephen Dagger?” The officer asked Mo.

  “It depends on how you define the word know,” Mo said following in the strict hairsplitting construction of words that had been made famous by a certain President. Mo had more sympathy for the man.

  “Well, if he did, perhaps that actor-friend of yours didn’t appreciate being impersonated.” The officer tapped the pad with his pencil. “Maybe that actor came over here to confront this Clarence and they had a fight. Do you know where that actor was at the time of the victim’s death?”

  "Know where..." Mo hesitated then hedged again. “Know is such a hard word to define. Do I know? If a tree falls in the forest and I didn’t see it fall, do I really know that it made a sound?”

  Officer Tim placed a hand to his hip, near the nightstick, which fit into a loop hanging from his belt. He gave Mo a glare that said he could beat the truth out of her with it at any second. Or maybe she was imagining things.

  “Look, officer, I don’t really know where Ross Grant was in the last few hours, but I do know that he did not kill Clarence.”

  Why was she defending Ross after all he’d done? She couldn’t help herself.

  “I think that foreign Gigantor guy that was looking for Clarence is the killer. I think that’s who Clarence was afraid of when he called me. That’s probably who was at his door when he told me to hurry over. And Gigantor works for that Kubikov guy who owns Hoochie Mama’s House.”

  Mrs. Truesberry abruptly stopped sobbing. “Yes. Clarence said he was afraid of a Russian and for me to watch out for some wrestler-type coming to the house. Ms. Tuttle is right. It was that illegal immigrant Russian who killed Clarence. Everybody knows the illegal immigrants are the ones doing all the crimes in Savannah just like Ms. Tuttle said.”

  “I didn’t say that.” There was a note of more than a little hysteria in her voice. “Illegal immigrants do not do all the crimes in Savannah. I don’t even know Gigantor guy’s immigration status. He may be in this country legally for all I know.”

  Officer Tim stared. There was silence for a few beats before he spoke. “Okay then. I’ve got your contact information and I’m sure the homicide detective will be in touch.”

  Apparently she was no longer a suspect.

  The officer pointed his stubby pencil at her. “Don’t leave town.”

  Apparently she was still a suspect.

  “You know, I think those Russians might also be after me and Mr. Grant.”

  He turned away. “Yeah sure. Come by the precinct and give a report.”

  A call on her cell phone was just what Mo didn’t need at that point, but it was just what Mo got. A call from her boss.

  “I wanted to remind you that you have a meeting scheduled with Jessica Nelson," Harry said. "She wants to finish the briefing on her case that was interrupted the other day.”

  “What more does she need to know?" Mo asked. "Her husband is a cross dresser. Does she want me to give her his dress size?”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that she wants to meet.” Harry replied

  “Does it have to be now?”

  “I know, I know. But she is the client. And she has a check to give you. Payment in full on her bill.” Harry’s voice had the gleeful tone she always got when discussing money, especially money she was going to receive.

  “Really Harry? I’ve just found Clarence’s body. Remember?” Mo walked away from Mrs. Truesberry with a little wave and made her way toward her car.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, honey," Harry said. "I know you must be upset. But what good will not getting paid by Mrs. Nelson do for Clarence at this point? He’ll still be dead if you don’t meet with the client. And we don’t get paid.”

  The great sorrow her boss felt over Clarence’s demise wasn’t enough to diminish Harry’s love of the buck.

  Mo counted to ten in her head. Did she really need this job? Yes, and she still had to have that bonus Harry had been promising.

  “Just go meet with her and then take the rest of the day off,” Harry said.

  “All right," Mo conceded.

  “I really am sorry, Mo. I don’t want to hurt you with this, but I need to get paid.”

  “That’s okay, I understand. You’re only a cog in the wheel of the dump truck that r
an over me and then backed up again. You're not the actual truck.” Mo tried to laugh and couldn’t. She hung up with a weary, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Now off to meet with another cog.

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Nelson answered Mo’s knock to her front door wearing an outfit a hooker would love. She had on a halter top, black mini skirt worn over fishnet stockings, and thigh high black boots laced up the back with pink neon laces. Mrs. Nelson had even donned a matching pink pageboy-style wig to cover her dishwater-blonde hair.

  Mrs. Nelson’s minivan was metaphorically operating on three wheels. Her china place setting lacked a dinner plate. Her bridge game was playing without a full deck. The woman had clearly gone insane.

  “If my husband wants to hang out with strippers then I might as well give him what he wants,” Mrs. Nelson said as she led Mo into her living room.

  “Ummm. Right.” Mo sat down onto the beige loveseat in the beigest of beige rooms she’d ever seen. “What can I do for you today?”

  “Would you like some coffee?” Mrs. Nelson asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “How about tea?”

  “No. Nothing, thanks.” Please let’s get this business done so that I can go home, crawl under the covers and forget this day ever happened. But Mo knew she would never be able to forget the sight of Clarence’s crumpled, spiritless body. “I don’t think there’s anything we didn’t cover the other day in my report on your husband. Do you have questions?”

  “Oh no. I understand everything.” Mrs. Nelson perched on the edge of the beige sofa opposite Mo with her knees pressed tightly together. The prim pose was almost laughable given the outfit. But Mo didn’t feel like a laugh.

  Taking an envelope with the agency’s invoice inside from her bag, Mo handed it to Mrs. Nelson. “Our final invoice,” she said then cleared her throat. Mo always found it hard to ask for money. “My boss said you wanted to pay the agency today.”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.” Mrs. Nelson sat impassively staring at Mo. She made no move to get her checkbook, merely placing the envelope on the coffee table. For a few awkward seconds Mrs. Nelson made no move at all.