Shitake Happens: (A Shitake Mystery Series Prequel) (3 page)

"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!"

# # #

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 squirrely
Mo 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: big blue eyes and size D breasts. Tracy, clutching a magazine to her chest, glanced in either direction as if expecting to be hit by a sudden approaching bus. Then her furtive glance flittered between Mo and Harry.

"Don't be nervous, honey," Harry said as she moved to take Tracy by the arm. The boss led Tracy into her office and helped her to a seat as if she were an invalid.

Mo and Clarence followed them. After they'd all been introduced to one another, Mo took the second chair opposite Harry's desk. Clarence lurked in the corner of the office, chewing his fingernails.

"What can we do for you?" Mo asked.

Tracy glanced over her shoulder at the receptionist. "Clarence and I are in the same filmmaking class at the college. He said you might be able to ease my mind. I'm worried about my fiancé. We're supposed to get married next month and I..."

"She's worried he might cheat on her," Clarence inserted.

Tracy nodded and held out the magazine she'd been clutching. "My fiancé is very handsome. Before we got engaged he was even featured in Southern Today magazine."

Mo paged through until she came upon the article entitled "The South's most eligible bachelors" and scanned until she found Savannah's entry: Meteorologist Wallace Williams who had just moved to Savannah from California to work for a local station. A handsome man in his thirties with tanned skin, white teeth and sun bleached hair, smiled up at Mo from the photograph. Even though attractive, he seemed a bit too plastic for Mo's personal taste—almost like a Malibu Ken doll.

Tracy stared at her expectantly as if waiting for Mo to compliment her fiancé.

"Wallace Williams." Mo nodded. "Cool name. Sort of inverse of Braveheart."

Tracy's brows converged into a confused vee as she cocked her head.

"You know?" Mo continued. "William Wallace?
 
Mel Gibson played...Never mind."

"I don't have to worry about you going after my fiancé, do I?" Tracy asked, shooting Mo a narrow-eyed gaze.

"Just because I said he has a cool name?" Mo resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "No. This assignment will be strictly business."

After a few seconds of considering Mo in silence, Tracy turned back to Harry. "The way Wallace and I met was so wonderfully romantic. He saved my life."

"Really?" Harry asked. "That's amazing."

"A sudden storm whipped up while I was driving. The flooding was worse than I thought. And when I got to a section of road that dipped under an overpass, my car stalled. The water started rising and rising until it was halfway up the car window. And...I started to panic. I knew I was about to die. But Wallace saw my car. He waded through the murky water, broke the window out and pulled me to safety."

"I see that here in the magazine," Mo said, glancing at the article and then read aloud. "'Wallace is a real life hero, having saved a woman from drowning in a flash flood.'"

"It's like we were destined to be together." Tracy's head bobbed vigorously. "And Wallace tells me every day that he loves me but...I want to be sure before the wedding."

"Do you think he's having an affair?" Harry asked.

"No. I'm just afraid he
might
in the future," Tracy replied. "And since Wallace thinks I'll be out of town for the weekend, this is the perfect time to test him."

"You want someone to try to bait him into cheating on you...A honey trap?" Mo asked.

"Yes," Clarence said. "That's it exactly. See, I told you Mo would know what to do."

Tracy examined Mo up and down. "Miss Tuttle isn't really his type. Wallace likes girls that look like me."

Clarence made a pffft sound and brushed aside the comment with a wave of his hand. "We can take care of that."

"I'm not dying my hair." Mo crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips.

Clarence pulled her out of the chair and into the corner. "Ixnay on the airhay."

"What?" Mo asked.

Harry sprang up and joined them in the corner and whispered, "Clarence means that you're the only female operative we have right now. Don't scare the client away by telling her you aren't right for the part."

"Yes. That's what I meant." Clarence nodded.

"I don't like this one bit," Mo grumbled.

"So?" Harry pinned Mo with a glare. "I love you like a sister, honey. But when has something minor, like your feelings, ever mattered to my business?"

You need this job
, Mo thought.
What will you and Leo do for money if you're fired?
Mo's brother had broken his leg and was out of work on an unpaid disability leave. Two people with no income just wouldn't cut it.

"Oh. All right. I'll do it." Mo knew, somehow, she'd regret those words as soon as they left her mouth.

"Good," Harry said and then returned to her desk chair.

"I can wear a wig," Mo said turning back to the client.

"He also likes bigger...um...cleavage," Tracy said, staring at Mo's B-cup breasts.

"We can take care of that too," Clarence said. "Leave it to me. I've taken a make-up and costuming class."

* * * * *

“This isn’t going to work. I feel like Dolly Parton.” Mo inspected her transformed self in the floor-length mirror of her bedroom as Clarence stood behind her.

The long, blonde hair she wore was courtesy of a wig that made Mo's scalp feel like a racetrack for fire ants. The acrylic French manicure on her nails created talons so long she hadn’t yet figured out how she was going to do anything. A slinky, black mini-dress hugged her curves so tightly she could hardly breathe and she didn’t even want to think about bending over. The pores of her face cried for mercy under more make-up than she’d worn in her entire thirty years combined. All this stuff was intended to make her look more like the type of woman Wallace Williams apparently preferred.

Clarence appraised her. "What if you get rid of the boobs?"

Mo took the fleshy-toned falsies out of her bra and tossed them onto the floor. "That only helps get rid of Dolly. I was hoping for something like Grace Kelly. I look more like Emmett Kelly."

"Is that a client?"

“No. You know...Emmett Kelly, the clown?”

“What are you sixty?" Clarence asked. "Where do you get these antiquated references?”

“Jeeze. The point is I feel like I'm dressed to be in a circus.” Mo flopped down onto the bed. She pressed her index fingers to throbbing temples. “How am I supposed to pretend to be a tall, blonde to seduce Wallace Williams when I’m a five-five brunette?”

Clarence snapped his fingers. “I knew I forgot something.”

“What?”

Without answering, Clarence ran out of the bedroom. Within moments, he rushed back carrying a shoebox in front of him as if he were carrying an award on an imaginary platter. “These will do the trick.”

Opening the lid, he revealed strappy black sandals with a stiletto heel of at least six inches. The shoes bore a ridiculously expensive designer name. To Mo they looked like a high altitude death trap.

“Thanks, but three inches is my limit. I don’t think I can walk in these.”

“You can learn,” Clarence said, his blue eyes glowing with pride.

“Yes, but we don’t have a year.”

“Shush it,” Clarence drew a quelling finger across his lips. “Just put them on.”

“Okay, okay. Just a minute. I can’t take this anymore.” Mo stood, reaching for her head and tried to scratch. Between the nails and the wig, she got no relief. Snatching the wig off her head, she threw it down. “I can't wear that hideous thing.”