Smoky Mountain Mystery 01 - Out on a Limb

by Carolyn Jourdan

  “The good people.”

  “Just the good people?”

  Nerve laughed. “The devil don’t need to waste no time foolin with the ones who’s already workin for him.”

  Phoebe thought about that. It made perfect sense and explained a lot of life’s injustices. “What kinda evil is it?” she asked.

  “There’s not but one kind,” said Nerve.

  Phoebe waited for her to explain. After a long silence, she continued.

  “No matter what ye wanna call it, it all comes down to the same thing … because there’s only once place it can come from.”

  “Where’s that?” said Phoebe.

  “Selfishness. Self-centeredness.”

  That wasn’t what Phoebe’d expected to hear. She’d thought the older woman would say that evil came from the devil. “What about the devil?” she asked.

  “There iddn’t no devil,” Nerve said. “Not really. At least not on the outside of us. He’s in us. Just like the Lord Himself can’t work ‘cept through our hands, neither can the devil.”

  Nerve closed her eyes and seemed to drop off to sleep after making this last pronouncement so Phoebe had plenty of time to spend in contemplation of the insight. Gradually, she came to realize that this was probably the most profound truth she’d ever heard uttered by anyone on any topic.

  It was possibly a Comprehensive Theory of Everything, the Holy Grail the physics people were always running around looking for. She wondered if she ought to put Nerve up for a Nobel Prize. But then she had to admit to herself that Nerve would be a long shot to win. Nobody ever won for an idea this important, this cosmically significant.

  They gave Nobel Prizes for technical or political things. Things that made money for some corporation somewhere. Stuff the man on the street wasn’t likely to be able to apply in his own daily life, as if that was a good thing, way better than something practical that everybody could use.

  It was also problematic that the person who’d uttered this primal wisdom was certifiable, and in fact had been comprehensively certified and documented to be in the late stages of senile dementia, incapable of managing her own affairs. Nerve was a danger to herself and possibly even the surrounding woodlands should she attempt something as simple as boiling water or heating up a can of soup.

  This did nothing whatsoever to diminish Nerve’s achievement in Phoebe’s eyes. What difference did it make if the wisest person in the world was confused about today’s date by fifty years or so? The fact that Nerve didn’t sweat the small stuff was probably what freed up her heart and mind for the really heavy lifting.

  Phoebe remembered a movie where Russell Crowe won a Nobel Prize even though he had a bunch of imaginary friends. So maybe Nerve wouldn’t get automatically disqualified purely on account of being insane. Maybe there was some fairness in this Nobel Prize after all.

  A tolerance for oddballs and always looking for the best in people was what made Phoebe so good at her job. Of course it was a lot easier to take care of annoying people when they weren’t part of your own family. That was another of life’s great truths. Families were world experts at pushing each other’s buttons. An outsider could handle cantankerous people without taking any of it personally or getting all wound up over it.

  Phoebe was grateful to be in the presence of a soul as wise as Nerve and she didn’t want to waste the opportunity. She decided to work on a song right then, hoping to draft on Nerve’s genius. Maybe if she thought up some good lyrics she could convince Leon to set them to music. And maybe Leon could get Tim McGraw to sing her song.

  Phoebe smiled to herself. Life could be such an adventure if you could just manage to stay optimistic.

  Chapter 30

  Phoebe left Nerve sleeping peacefully in her chair, waved goodbye to Teresa, and went back to in her Jeep to look over her schedule and see what was next. There wasn’t a single thing that she really needed to attend to. That was a peculiar sensation. That’s when she realized her cell phone was dead. She plugged it into a charger.

  Her curiosity about the backpack mystery was strong, so she decided to call Henry for an update.

  “Hey Henry, it’s Phoebe.”

  “Hey girl,” he said sounding pleased to hear from her despite fierce growling noises in the background. Phoebe wondered if he was wrestling a wild animal while taking her call. She decided to talk fast and keep it simple. “Any news about the girl?”

  “If you wanna play a detective,” he said, “meet me at Twin Creeks in an hour.” Then he shouted, “Quit that!” and hung up, or was disconnected. Phoebe wondered if maybe the critter had eaten his phone.

  Now that the phone was charging, she saw she had several messages, but decided she’d rather meet Henry than listen to them. If she didn’t hear them, she’d have what Waneeta called plausible deniability.

  ***

  Many of the foray volunteers hung out at the Twin Creeks Science Center between events, because it was one of the few places in the park with couches, heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing. Phoebe arrived before Henry and decided to wait for him in the lounge area. From where she was sitting, she could hear a guy entertaining a group of forayers with an impromptu lecture on frogs and toads interspersed with bursts of mimicking the different species he was talking about.

  He did a Copes Gray Tree Frog by trilling with his tongue, a Green Frog by making loud gonk swallowing noises like the ones you imagined everyone could hear when you were nervous and tried to swallow. The Upland Chorus Frog sounded to Phoebe like he was raking his thumb along the teeth of a plastic comb. Seconds after she had the thought, he pulled a comb out of his pocket to demonstrate an easy way for his listeners to produce the sound.

  “Who is that guy?” she asked a man sitting nearby.

  “Dr. Walter Van Landingham, he’s a biology professor at Appalachian State.”

  “He’s amazing,” said Phoebe.

  The man nodded and smiled his agreement.

  When Henry showed up, Phoebe tore herself away from the frog man and whispered, “This place is cool.”

  Henry agreed.

  “Why are we here?” she asked.

  “I’m hopin some of these people will know about slime molds.”

  He walked toward the center of the room and asked in a voice loud enough to be heard by the group, “Is there anybody here who can tell me about Myxomycetes?”

  “Oh sure,” said a fellow standing nearby. “Fred, over there,” he said pointing at red-haired man across the room. “Technically, he’s just an amateur, but he’s extremely knowledgeable about mycology.”

  Henry and Phoebe made their way over to Fred and introduced themselves. “We’re trying to learn a little bit about slime molds,” Henry said.

  “So nice to meet another fan of Myxomycetes. It’s a very exclusive club,” he said, smiling. “Let’s see, what can I tell you? How much do you know about them?”

  “Nothing,” said Henry.

  Fred smiled. “You and everyone else. Okay, so here’s the Cliff Notes version. Myxos love the Smokies. They grow best in temperate forests in the tree canopies of Abies fraseri, common name Fraser fir, and Juniperus virginiana, cedar trees. There are lots and lots of both of those kinds of trees here in this park.

  “We’re tryin to understand why a person might be especially interested in em,” said Henry.

  “Oh, slime molds can be extraordinarily beautiful!” Fred said. “Some of them are fantastically colorful. Others gleam like precious metals. You may or may not be able to appreciate them with the naked eye, but under magnification they’re stunning. They’re called ‘the biological jewels of nature.’”

  Ugh, Phoebe thought, jewels made of slime.

  “Myxos are extremely mysterious organisms. They have characteristics of both fungi and animals.”

  Phoebe and Henry exchanged bemused looks.

  “And they can be used to remediate ground pollution from metals like zinc, barium, cadmium, iron, manganese, and strontium
.

  “In addition to their anti-microbial properties, they’re used in a non-toxic, non-immunogenic, biodegradable nanoconjugate drug delivery system. Polycefin is a cancer drug delivery system for directed delivery of morpholina antisense oligonucleotides.”

  Henry burst out laughing. “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “They’re used for gene silencing therapy, for the transportation of antibodies and anti-tumor drugs to specific tumor cells, and they’re being looked at as a medicine to slow Parkinson’s disease.”

  Henry nodded as if he understood the explanation, but he was faking. Even Phoebe couldn’t follow what Fred was saying.

  “Oh and you can eat some of them. In places in Mexico there’s a myxo they call caca de luna, that means excrement of the moon. They eat it scrambled like eggs with onions and peppers. I’ve read that it has a pleasant nutty taste.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Phoebe said, lying.

  Beauty under magnification, edible excrement, and slime powered robots seemed a rather poor motive for crime, so Henry asked. “Do any of these things have substantial commercial value right now?”

  “Oh my, yes. Are you aware of the relationship between slime molds and antibiotics?” Fred asked.

  Both Phoebe and Henry shook their heads. “Antibiotics are used to treat diseases caused by slime?” Henry guessed.

  “It’s the other way around. Slime molds are the source of certain antibiotics.”

  Henry and Phoebe were both surprised and exchanged a look.

  “Because they grow in damp places, slime molds are prone to getting fungus and bacteria growing near them. And bacteria can be harmful to them, just as it is to us. Certain slime molds have developed the ability to manufacture antibiotics that will kill fungi and bacteria and humans have learned to make use of the antibiotics manufactured by slime molds to get rid of bacteria that causes problems in people. “

  “So, it’s possible that a slime mold could be valuable for a medicine?” Henry asked.

  “Yes, the discovery of a new naturally-occurring antibiotic produced by a myxomycete could be immensely important to medicine and extraordinarily lucrative.”

  Henry and Phoebe exchanged another look.

  “How lucrative?” asked Henry.

  “Well, the entire DNA testing industry, billions of dollars a year, is built on the discovery of a bacteria that thrives at 158 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s a hopelessly hostile environment for most life forms on earth. The bacteria was discovered in a hot spring in Yellowstone Park.

  The DNA industry didn’t exist until scientists who were attracted by the colorful stains you see around the edges of the hot springs found this bacteria. It takes a very special life form to thrive in that kind of heat.”

  “Holy moly,” Henry said. “I had no idea.”

  “Since you’re a ranger you might want to know that even though the unique bacteria used to develop DNA testing was found inside a national park, Yellowstone got no share of the multi-billion dollar windfall. The NPS got seriously angry about being cut out of the money, of course. As you’re well aware, the parks are always cash-strapped. So the Park Service had the law changed. Now, whenever there’s a discovery of a commercially valuable life form inside a park, the park where it’s found gets half of the proceeds.”

  A man sitting nearby who’d been overhearing their conversation called out, “It’s one of the marvels of nature how diverse the plant life becomes just a couple of inches outside the park boundaries!” The crowd of volunteers guffawed.

  Henry thanked Fred and he and Phoebe headed for the door. They passed the frog guy again on their way out and Phoebe stopped, transfixed.

  He was saying, “The Marine toads of Texas, Florida, and Costa Rica have a love affair with certain sounds. They’re huge creatures and they have a low pitched mating call that is uncannily similar to the sound of truck engines gearing down. This means they have a fatal attraction to any road where there’s a steep hill and truck traffic. They hop into the road looking for love and die by the thousands.”

  “Ouch,” someone said, and Phoebe winced.

  “We think of frogs as being noisy creatures. But the frogs themselves live in a quiet world,” Van Landingham said. “They can’t hear each other.

  “Humans are unusual in that they have wide spectrum hearing, from 40 cycles per second to maybe 22,000 cycles per second. I’m older, so I can only hear up to about 16,000 cycles per second. But frogs’ hearing is tuned to a narrow spectrum of sounds made only by their own species. They are totally deaf to the calls of frogs of another species.

  “We hear a symphony of sounds coming from a pond at night, but each species of frog is sitting there in a silent world, thinking they’re alone, waiting for something in their own pitch range that they’re able to hear.”

  How sad, Phoebe thought. Frogs were just like people. It was so touching, and tragic. All of us were here on earth together, side-by-side and yet isolated by the limits of our perception. Lonely even in a crowd.

  She would’ve stood there forever listening to the man, utterly enchanted, so Henry took hold of her arm and led her out of the building like a wayward child. Before she was pulled away, she turned to see if Van Landingham was wearing a wedding ring. He wasn’t.

  “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard,” she said as Henry propelled her toward the front door. “Can you believe that guy?”

  “He’s amazing,” Henry agreed.

  “The Frog Whisperer,” Phoebe said, with awe in her voice. “Waneeta would love that guy!”

  Chapter 31

  Jill was cooking lunch. She boiled potatoes for potato salad and eggs for egg salad. She shredded cabbage and carrots for cole slaw. She replenished the urns of sweet and unsweetened tea and started the coffee.

  The mystery woman was still resting peacefully in the back of the store with Doc watching over her. She’d not regained consciousness.

  After a couple of hours, Doc came out for a break and sat on a stool at the counter drinking iced tea, waiting for Leon to arrive and spell him.

  “I was wonderin if there’s a special place where unconscious people can go visit each other that the rest of us are shut out of,” Jill said. “A sort of spiritual chat room.”

  Doc nodded thoughtfully.

  She stirred mustard into to the potato salad, and said, “Whadda ye reckon is goin on in that other place?”

  “I’ve often wondered about that,” Doc said. “There are lots of people who live with one foot in this world and one in another. They’re partially present in this material world and yet, at the same time, they experience a reality in another place, like Phoebe’s dreams.

  “I like to think they all keep each other company in that threshold place,” he said. “The autistic, schizophrenic, and senile people. And the dead who watch over us, and maybe even the angels. I believe there’s a community of souls who hover at the door between worlds.”

  Jill smiled at his description.

  “I suspect they have the liveliest sorts of conversations with each other,” Doc said. “We just can’t hear it.”

  ***

  Finally, in the afternoon, during Leon’s shift, Ivy woke up.

  She was disoriented at first, and thrashed about in confusion, so Leon caught both her hands and held them gently in his.

  “Hey there, girl,” he said softly, “Don’t be scared. Everythang’s alright. You’re safe now.”

  His voice calmed her. She stopped flailing and lay with her eyes open, trying to focus on him and then the room.

  “Can’t see,” she mumbled hoarsely, “… all blurry.”

  “You got a hard lick on yer noggin. We found you sittin way up in a big old tree. We fetched ye down here to White Oak, but we didn’t tell nobody what we done, so whoever did this to ye, they got no idea whur you’re at. You’re hid real good. Nobody can find ye here,” Leon said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Shot,” she croaked in a rag
ged, weak voice. “Somebody … got my crossbow.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No.”

  “Can you think of anybody who might wanna hurt you?”

  She shook her head slightly. He could tell the movement made her dizzy because she closed her eyes.

  “Is there anybody you’d like me to call for you?” Leon asked.

  She clutched his hand, and said in a husky whisper, “Jameson Knob … black light the cabinet … wait … glow after five seconds … get those. Please … don’t tell any … .”

  He felt her grip loosen. She’d lost consciousness again.

  Chapter 32

  Henry and Phoebe had parted ways so each of them could continue their work day. After Phoebe drove off, Henry decided to take another trip to Knoxville, this time to the Biology Department at the University of Tennessee, making sure to time his visit during a Myxo Madness event that Professor Whittington was leading so he wouldn’t be around. Henry would normally have removed his flat hat as he entered a building, but with it on, he knew he represented a trusted and beloved American icon. He needed all the help he could get with his investigation, even if it was from a costume, so he left it on.

  He perused the building directory, then followed arrows on the wall, reading the label on every door as he walked down a long hallway. Near the far end he found the Dean’s office. A pretty young girl with bright blue hair was manning the reception desk. Henry smiled at her and tried to look lost.

  “Whatcha lookin for?” she said with an answering smile.

  “I’m not sure,” Henry replied.

  “Well, then you’ve come to the right place,” she said. “Take a fella like you outta the woods and set em down in a place like this and they git all discombobulated, don’t they? A compass won’t do you a bit of good in here.”

  “True,” said Henry.

  “How can I help?”

  Henry looked at her and decided a friendly blue-haired girl would appreciate the direct approach, so he said softly, “I’m tryin to get the dirt on Conrad Whittington, if there is any.”