Shitake Happens: (A Shitake Mystery Series Prequel) Read Free Page A

helping her husband to rise. "We were just role playing. Trying to spice things up sexually speaking."
    "It's harmless fun," Hawkins said with an embarrassed smile. "I just like to pretend—you know—to be a serial killer."
    "And I like to be the corpse," Reva added.
    "You have a necrophilia fetish?" Mo's lip curled in disgust.   She'd seen worse in the course of her job but still...Yuck. Picturing these two in anything involving sex produced a gag reflex.
    "It's just make believe," Hawkins insisted.
    "At least you won't be collecting insurance to subsidize your little sexual hobby. I've got photos of you lifting your wife's body."
    "How dare you follow us around," Reva said. "And how dare you take photos of us without permission."
    "How dare you two try to scam the insurance company," Mo replied.
    "Ummm, Mo." Clarence tapped her on the shoulder.
    She'd almost forgotten the receptionist.
    "What is it?" she asked.
    "I think something happened to the camera's digital memory card," Clarence replied. "When I was using the camera I might have...ummm."
    No. He couldn't be saying what she thought he was saying. She wheeled around and faced him.
    "Give me that." Mo grabbed the camera from Clarence and clicked through the history. "What happened to the photos I took?"
    Clarence stared at the ground and mumbled, "I think I erased them by mistake."
    Reva laughed. "Now it's just your word against ours."
    "Shitake!"
    # # #

 

When the Shitake Hits the Fan

 
    Pen strokes on the legal pad in front of Imogene "Mo" Tuttle took on a resemblance to a bunch of bananas. With a few more squiggles and a couple of vertical lines, they morphed into trees. Soon she had a forest of banana trees.
    "What's going on in Savannah?" Harriet Hudson shouted as she entered Mo's office and collapsed into the chair opposite her desk. "Did some root doctor cast a spell and suddenly give everybody a happy marriage?"
    "It's a theory." Mo stopped doodling and glanced up at her boss.
    Harry didn't crack a smile, which was unusual for the fifty-something southern belle. "The Incredible Love agency needs some clients soon or we're gonna be outa business."
    "We still get calls mistaking us for an escort service at least five times a day. You could always pimp me out," Mo joked.
    "This is no laughing matter, honey," Harry said, shaking her head. "This here engine is running on the fumes of the fumes."
    Just then the landline phone rang...and rang again...and again.
    "Focaccia!" Mo swore in the only way she allowed herself to swear anymore—with food words. "Where is Clarence?" The agency's receptionist never seemed to be on time and it irritated the jalapeno pepper out of her.
    Mo grabbed the receiver but before she could get out a greeting, Clarence spoke from the other end. "It's me."
    "Nice hearing from you. It'd be even nicer if you were actually here. Why are you calling?"
    "I'm bringing in a new client, Mo. I just wanted to make sure you were in the office this morning."
    "I'm not the one who's perennially late," she grumbled. "When will you be here?"
    "We're just parking now." With that he hung up.
    Mo relayed the information to Harry.
    The boss jumped out of the chair and did a little hip wiggle. "I knew it! I knew that Clarence wasn't just a pretty face. He's also a real go-getter."
    "Yeah. He's even dragging the clients in off the street now," Mo said.
    Harry must have arranged some sort of finder's fee percentage with Clarence for the receptionist to be so hot on rainmaking.   And trust him to go to any lengths to get the money. The guy was so squirrelyMo suspected he had a desk drawer full of acorns.
    At that moment, Clarence scrambled in and then held open the door. "Here we are." He stepped aside, still holding the door and gave a flourishing wave. "This is Tracy Houston."
    A young woman inched forward and took a tentative step over the threshold. The tall blonde—who couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old—had two prominent features: