In Deep Shitake (A Humorous Romantic Suspense)

by Patricia Mason

  The parade continued past them. The bagpipes bleated and the drums beat as the band of some New York borough’s fire department marched by.

  Mo sat on the edge of the float's paper Savannah River next to a sobbing Britney as Ross recounted a summary of the events of the past forty-eight hours.

  Ross became increasingly frustrated with Officer Tim’s struggle to follow the convoluted tale. He just wanted to get to Mo. Where did things stand between them? Did she think that now the Russians had been caught and his film financing in the bag, they were done?

  “And you say that this Russian had two of his henchmen assault and kidnap you?” The officer's tone was doubtful.

  “Yes. And they also kidnapped Mo,” Ross replied to the officer.

  “Who's Mo?” Officer Tim asked.

  “Ms. Tuttle.” Ross tugged a hand through his uncharacteristically messy hair and then pointed at her.

  “You were both held at the strip club?”

  “In the warehouse behind,” Ross said.

  “Who is this Russian again?” Officer Tim asked.

  “Him.” Ross pointed at Kubikov who stood with Officer Dan on the pavement near the trailer hitch.

  Officer Tim snickered. “I see.”

  Ross didn’t find anything particularly funny.

  Apparently neither did Mo.

  “He's probably the one who killed Clarence too. Or had him killed,” she said.

  Ross hoped murder would make the police take this seriously.

  "I bet he sent that Gigantor guy to do it," Mo continued angrily.

  Even with a scowl on her face, Ross wanted to kiss her.

  “Who's Gigantor?" Officer Tim asked.

  “Him,” Mo said, pointing toward the goon in handcuffs.

  Officer Dan dragged Kubikov and Gigantor forward.

  “I kill nobody,” Kubikov growled thickly.

  “Who did? Moose and squirrel?” Officer Dan said, putting on a mock accent.

  “I not know this Clarence,” Kubikov said.

  “Come on, Harold. Knock off the cheesy accent,” Officer Dan said.

  Kubikov looked down and muttered under his breath.

  “What?” Officer Tim demanded.

  “I Russian. I have accent.”

  Officer Dan shook his head. “You’re no more Russian than I am. You’re from Georgia, and I don’t mean the Republic of Georgia.”

  “Nyet.”

  “Yes.” Officer Dan smiled. “Don’t you remember me? We went to high school together.”

  Mo stood and went to Ross’s side. “I don’t understand.”

  “One day he was plain old Harold Moss, son of a farmer from Guyton,” Officer Dan said referencing a nearby rural community. “And the next he called himself Yuri Kubikov, a former KGB agent from St. Petersburg with an accent straight out of a Bullwinkle cartoon. He seemed to think it gave him street cred. And this guy,” he said, pointing to Gigantor. “This guy is his brother, Van.”

  "Let me through,” an abrasive female voice said as a woman pushed past a line of onlookers and stepped up to Kubikov with her hands on hips. “I see you’ve finally done it now. Got yourself arrested.”

  “Betsy,” Kubikov said. “Sorry, honey.”

  “Don’t sorry me. How are the baby and I supposed to live?” Kubikov's wife screeched. "Tell me where it's hidden."

  “My money is in the safe deposit box. The key is taped to the backside of the photo of Mom on the wall in my office at the strip club," Kubikov replied.

  "Thanks," Betsy said.

  You’ll bail me out?” Kubikov asked.

  “Yeah sure,” Betsy said, smiling. “That’ll be my first priority.” Then she turned away from Kubikov to his brother, Ivan, throwing him an air kiss.

  “I'll turn state’s evidence against the boss,” Ivan offered in a voice that had no accent.

  “What are you talking about?” Kubikov asked. “You’re my brother. You’re going to betray me?”

  “Yeah. You’ll go to jail and I’ll be with Betsy…and my son.”

  “What?” the mobster formerly known as Kubikov said. “Your son?”

  “You never appreciated Betsy,” Ivan spat at his brother.

  A commotion broke out at the police tape.

  “Officer.” Mrs. Truesberry, in Kelly green housedress and wide-brimmed straw hat, called from a few yards away. “I’ve got important information.”

  What could Clarence’s landlady want now? Just when everything seemed to be wrapping up smoothly and he would get a chance to talk to Mo alone.

  Officer Tim waved her through the police barricade and the old lady wobbled over.

  “That’s him,” Mrs. Truesberry said. “That’s the man who killed my dear Clarence.”

  Had the senile old bat implicated Ross?

  “Ross wouldn’t kill anyone," Mo said, stepping in front of him as if she could physically shield him from the accusation.

  Ross’s heart melted. He'd never had anyone defend him so sweetly.

  “Not him,” the landlady said. “Him.” She pointed a bony finger at Kubikov.

  * * * * *

  Mo blew out the breath she'd been holding. The landlady hadn't implicated Ross after all. They just might get out of this with their lives and Ross’s film career.

  “How do you know?” Officer Tim pinned Ross with a stare as he asked the question.

  Uh oh. Ross might not be in the clear after all.

  “My lovely boy, Clarence, said he was about to make a lot of money blackmailing someone and he showed me that man’s picture," the landlady answered.

  “Blackmail?” Officer Tim shook his head. “With what?”

  “Clarence had a thumb drive with photos of some papers... I didn’t understand all of it.”

  “Where did Clarence get this thumb drive?” Mo asked.

  “I gave it to Betsy,” Ivan piped in.

  “Where is this thumb drive now?” Officer Dan asked.

  “It’s in Ms. Tuttle’s purse,” Mrs. Truesberry said with a confident smile.

  Suddenly, the memory of Clarence at her house, just after the fight with Ross, came to her. "That’s right. Yesterday, just before his murder, Clarence was hovering around my bag."

  “But how did you know the thumb drive was in Mo's purse?” Ross asked Mrs. Truesberry.

  "He...um...he told me," the old lady sputtered.

  "I see," Officer Tim said.

  Mrs. Truesberry returned to her Cheshire cat grin, seemingly happy she'd come up with a satisfactory explanation.

  But there was something wrong with this.

  “Then you did see him yesterday before he was killed,” Mo pointed out. “You said yesterday that you hadn’t seen him.”

  “That’s right. You did say that.” Officer Tim eyed the old lady with suspicion.

  The smile so confidently plastered on Mrs. Truesberry’s face slipped into a frown. “Oh no, I remember now. I was gardening all morning. I didn’t see him.”

  Mo moved closer to the woman. “You weren’t outside gardening all morning. I distinctly remember you were coming out of your house when I drove up yesterday.”

  “Oh no, that’s not right," Mrs. Truesberry defended, her eyes widening as she took a step back.

  “Oh yes," Mo insisted. "Besides, you had to have seen Clarence yesterday if you know about the thumb drive, because he put that item in my purse about an hour before he was killed.”

  “How do you explain that, Mrs. Truesberry?” Officer Tim asked.

  The landlady stood silently for a few moments before answering. “Then I guess I did see him.”

  “But why did you say you hadn’t?” Officer Tim took a step toward her as if ready to restrain her if necessary.

  “Because you’d think I’d killed him. And I didn’t want you to think that," she replied.

  “But you did kill him, didn’t you?” Mo asked.

  “Yes,” the old lady confessed, her face crumpling. She sobbed for a few moments but she produced
no tears.

  “But why?” Mo cried. Clarence might have been a screw up and a nuisance, but he didn't deserve to be killed.

  “It was a terrible accident,” the landlady insisted with an emphasis on the word terrible. “I saw Clarence come home yesterday. He was in such a rush to get inside, he didn’t stop to talk to me.”

  “But when did you find out about the thumb drive?" Officer Tim asked.

  “That woman,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Betsy Kubikov. “She came to Clarence’s apartment. I followed her upstairs and listened at the door. I heard him saying how he had put the thumb drive with the blackmail documents in Ms. Tuttle’s purse to hide it.”

  Officer Tim turned to Betsy Kubikov. “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” Betsy admitted. “I was there. Clarence and I were having an affair.”

  “Him too?” Kubikov shook his head sadly.

  “Just so Ivan and I could use him to blackmail you for the money,” she said with a frown. “But my husband wouldn’t pay.” She turned to Kubikov. “Why didn’t you just pay? This could all have been avoided.”

  Officer Tim swiveled back to the landlady. “So what did any of this have to do with you killing Clarence?”

  “He had told me he wasn’t involved in a relationship.” Mrs. Truesberry placed a hand on the officer’s arm. “I was upset when I heard Clarence saying how much he loved that Betsy woman and I just lost control of myself.”

  Officer Tim nodded and patted her hand consolingly.

  “Can you believe it? Clarence told that Betsy girl that he loved her after all that free rent I gave him.” The landlady turned to Mo. “You can see why I did what I did then, can’t you?”

  “What did you do?” Mo asked.

  “That Betsy woman left and he called you," Mrs. Truesberry answered Mo. "After he hung up, I pushed the door open. I said to Clarence, ‘what do you mean you love Betsy? You said you loved me.’ And then Clarence said he didn’t have time to talk to me. He said he didn’t love me. He said he’d never loved me. He said he was moving out anyway so he didn’t have to pretend that he loved me for the free rent anymore. Free rent! That was all I had meant to him.”

  Finally, real tears leaked from the old lady’s eyes. “I said something like that can’t be true because it was so special when we kissed. I tried to touch Clarence, but he pulled away. He said it disgusted him to kiss me.”

  Mrs. Truesberry swiped at her cheeks. “So anyway that was when the accident happened.”

  “The accident?” Ross asked.

  Mrs. Truesberry faced Ross. “Clarence turned away from me and took his suitcase out from under the bed. Then he started pulling clothes out of his closet and throwing them in the suitcase. And I asked him where he was going."

  The old lady turned back to Mo. “Clarence said that as soon as he talked to you and told you about the thing he put in your purse that he was going to leave town. And then I said he wasn’t going anywhere and I hit him with the big gun. It was an accident. I don’t even know when I picked up the big gun. It happened so fast.”

  She turned back to Officer Tim. “It wasn’t my fault. It was really my husband.”

  “Huh?” Officer Tim's brows converged in confusion.

  “Yes, my husband," Mrs. Truesberry said, nodding. "He stopped having sex with me. A woman gets crazy without sex.”

  “That’s true,” Officer Dan commented with an arched brow and wry smile.

  “In fact, I’m certain that’s the defense my lawyer will use. Temporary insanity as a result of orgasm deprivation.”

  When Mo’s purse was searched, Mrs. Truesberry cheerfully pointed out the lipstick tube, saying she recognized it from Clarence’s apartment. Sure enough, in the top was a gloss lipstick and in the base was a thumb drive.

  “But the bad guys searched for it there and didn’t find it," Mo observed.

  “I guess they didn’t think to look closely at a lipstick,” Officer Tim said, placing the tube in an evidence bag.

  * * * * *

  Mo and Ross rode, hand-in-hand, to the offices of Incredible Love in the back of a police cruiser. Following Mrs. Truesberry’s confession, Ross latched onto Mo and wouldn’t let go, which was just fine with her. In fact, it was more than fine. Though getting in the vehicle through the same car door proved to be awkward.

  Ross’s thumb traced a caressing pattern on the back of her hand as they passed the distance of a few blocks. But his inscrutable face told her little about his thoughts. Then he smiled and dropped a brief kiss on her lips. Their eyes locked. Mo was certain he was about to say something, but the arrival at their destination interrupted him.

  Leo waited on the sidewalk outside the agency building. When he spotted Mo, he spanned the distance between them in two long strides before wrapping her in a crushing hug. Even then Ross didn’t let go of her hand.

  “I had to see for myself that you were all right,” Leo said. He released Mo and looked from her to Ross. “That you’re both all right.”

  Mo chuckled a bit. “I’m tired, hungry and grimy, but otherwise okay.”

  The edge of Leo’s lips quirked into a smile. “You’re always hungry.”

  “Looks like you both can go home,” Officer Tim said.

  “Cheers,” Ross said with a grin.

  “Just don’t leave town,” the officer warned with a scowl.

  Omigod, Mo thought. Were they still suspects?

  “You can’t leave town until...” Officer Tim smirked. “I get another autograph from Mr. Grant.”

  Relief. Thank gouda it was over.

  “I’ll be glad to oblige any time,” Ross said with a smile.

  After giving them a wave that resembled a salute, Officer Tim hopped in the cruiser and pulled out of the parking place at the curb. But before Mo could relax, a rust bucket pulled into the space and Stewart Milton jumped out.

  “What the jalapeño,” Mo exclaimed. “Did you install some kind of GPS device on me? How do you know where I am at all times?”

  “I’m a reporter. It’s my job to know,” he said with a smirk.

  “What do you want?” Ross demanded, gripping Mo’s hand more tightly.

  “I thought Mo might like to see a draft of my new article.”

  “Do I have to?”

  Ross’s eyes met hers and dropped a brief kiss on her lips. “It’ll be all right.”

  Milton held out a sheaf of pages. To Mo they looked like a scorpion ready to sting. She tentatively took them in hand and felt Ross’s breath on her neck as he peered over her shoulder.

  The headline on the first page proclaimed ‘Superspy stud Ross Grant’s gay affair’ and featured a large photo of Ross dressed in a Phantom of the Opera cape and kissing an androgynous looking ninja Mo.

  “Son of a peach.”

  “I have you to thank, Ms. Tuttle, for the story suggestion,” Milton crowed.

  “I didn’t give you this story,” Mo insisted. She was afraid to look at Ross. He must be furious.

  Milton took a notebook from the breast pocket of his polyester suit and opened it. “You did say, and I quote, ‘good suggestion’.”

  Did she? She couldn’t remember. “If I did it was a sarcastic comment.”

  Scanning the article quickly, Mo saw that it only got worse: "The celeb is not satisfied to keep his gay attentions to just one paramour. The star of SpyMatrix also attempted to force a married father of two into an illicit relationship. DeWayne Stubbs of Massacopa North Carolina found himself the victim of Grant’s sexual harassment at a local motel. ‘He thought I was gay too. The super spy said he wanted to bang me. He called me a cutie but didn’t want me to tell my wife,’ said Mr. Stubbs. Stubbs’ wife, Marvelene, said that after Mr. Stubbs refused Grant’s attentions, the celeb repeatedly refused to give the couple an autographed poster. He seemed to want something in exchange. Mrs. Stubbs now realizes this was an attempt to extort sexual favors from Mr. Stubbs.

  “He came on to me too,” said twenty-eight year ol
d Calvin Hobin. “I was minding my own business in the men’s room at the Magnificent Movies convention when this perv in a scary cape started eyeing me. I’m not sure what he was doing under that cape. Anyway, he made me very uncomfortable with his attentions.” Hobin is consulting his attorney about filing a lawsuit to compensate him for his damages from the incident. “I didn’t realize at the time that it was Stephen Dagger (Grant). Now I think I’ve been traumatized for life.”

  Ross’s hand fell away from Mo’s. She gulped but forced herself to read on.

  “And the star’s romp did not stop in the men’s room. Grant was later ejected from the convention center by security after an episode of necking with an unidentified young man in a stall of the women’s restroom. “I was shocked and appalled,” said Mildred Evans, age fifty-seven, who witnessed some of the illicit groping. “I never would have expected Stephen Dagger (Grant) to act that way. I mean would you believe it? The young man that he was kissing wasn’t even good looking.” Mrs. Evans reports that the young man was dressed like a mime. “Who could find a mime attractive, except a real pervert?”

  “You gotta be kidding me with this,” Mo said, throwing the papers to the ground. “Nobody would print this pack of lies.”

  Milton gathered the scattered pages and picked them up. He nudged at the heavy glasses on his nose. “Sure they would. I’m selling this story for big bucks to the National Star.”

  Shitake. Having seen the National Star a few times, Mo was pretty sure that they would print the article, true or not. Even if Ross sued the paper for libel, it would be too late. His film deal would likely be ruined before he could win the case.

  Mo's hand fisted and Leo stepped between her and the rat-like reporter. Apparently, he thought she might strike the guy. She probably would have.

  “There are some photos in Mo’s office you might be interested in before you finalize your story,” Leo said to the reporter.

  “Leo, what the flaxseed oil are you doing?” Had her brother gone crazy?

  “I’m going to leave you two to sort out this bloke,” Ross said. “I need to call my agent and get a change of clothes.”