Shitake Happens: (A Shitake Mystery Series Prequel) (2 page)

Mo cringed.

That noise had been loud enough to bring Mr. Hawkins to attention. Was he even now at the window about to stare back at her when she peeked in? Worse, she hadn't thought to get her gun from the car trunk.

 
Stupid Mo
.

With most of the population of Georgia armed, she should've thought to get what she needed to defend herself. If Dewly Hawkins shot her where she stood at this moment, he'd probably get off on a claim of self-defense.

With shaking legs, Mo straightened and stood as close to the edge of the AC casing as she dared. She gripped the windowsill for stability and leaned to the left the six inches she needed to see inside.

When Hawkins wasn't, in fact, staring back from the other side, a sigh of relief escaped her. Instead, he was crawling on the floor rolling up an area rug. From the way it bulged, Mo suspected that rug roll contained something. And Reva Hawkins was that something.

Once he'd finished his task, Hawkins wrapped a ring of duct tape about a third of the way from the rug roll's top and a then another ring about a third of the way from the bottom. He sat back on his heels and stared ahead. After a few seconds, he used the coffee table to lever himself to his feet.
 
He stretched and arched to the right and then to the left as if limbering up before bending to reach for the rug bundle. Hawkins then grasped it around the middle and began lifting it into his arms.

Releasing her hold on the sill, Mo raised the camera and clicked off a few frames of Hawkins hoisting the rug up and over his shoulder. Mo teetered at the edge, her balance faltering, before she fell against the window. She had a quick impression of Hawkins' head jerking upward as she tumbled to the ground.

She had just plastered herself as close as possible to the vinyl siding, when she heard a whoosh that signaled the opening of the window above her head. Mo inhaled and didn't breathe as Hawkins stuck his head out, giving her a direct view of the bristly, unshaven underside of his double chin.

His head turned right, left, right.

Please don't let him look down
, Mo silently pleaded with the universe.

Hawkins' head continued to swivel side to side. As the seconds ticked on, she tried to remember how long she'd been able to hold her breath the last time she'd gone swimming. Mo's chest burned. If a balloon could feel, this would be what it was like at the bursting point, just before the latex could no longer contain all the air.

Finally, Hawkins ducked back into the house. The moment she heard the hiss of the window sealing, Mo let the breath rush out and leapt to her feet. She dashed toward the Mini. Glancing over her shoulder as she ran, she half expected Hawkins to emerge with his shotgun.

After long seconds, and with breath chugging in and out, Mo reached the hatchback trunk of her car and tugged on the latch. It didn't budge.

Son of a biscuit.
It shouldn't be locked.

Abandoning the idea of getting her gun, Mo rounded the back bumper and tried the driver's door. Locked too. The car windows had been rolled up and Clarence was inside, but he looked to be snoozing.

Mo knocked at the glass with three quick raps. Clarence jumped as if shot. Goggle-eyed, his head whipped toward the sound. When he saw her, his face relaxed into a smile.

He wouldn't be smiling when she got a hold of him.

"Unlock it," she mouthed.

Drawn by a metallic whir, her eyes darted to Hawkins house. The overhead garage doors began to lift inch-by-inch.

Mo pulled impatiently at the car handle. Finally, Clarence flipped the interior switch and the locks released with a click. She got her door open and slipped inside the Mini just as the garage door cleared the back bumper of the pickup truck.

"What were you thinking?" Mo demanded. "Locking the doors?"

"This neighborhood scares me," Clarence said.

"Do it again and I'll put your sausage in a vice," Mo warned through gritted teeth.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." Clarence shook his head.

Once the garage door stood fully open, the truck peeled backward into the street. Then it squealed forward and Mo saw the taillights racing away as she fired the Mini's engine to accelerate after it.

"Call 911," she ordered Clarence.

"What? Why?" he asked. "It's not a crime to be scamming insurance, is it? And it's definitely not an emergency."

"For gouda's sake, call the police. I think Dewly Hawkins just killed his wife and she's in a rug burrito."

Clarence fumbled around, came up with his phone, and punched in three numbers as Mo struggled to keep the truck in sight. Hawkins seemed to be heading into Savannah's downtown.

"The dispatcher wants to know if you actually saw him kill her." Clarence gripped the dash, as Mo turned left without braking.

"Well...no."

Hawkins' truck turned right onto a street heading for the river.

"Did you see a body?"

"Aghhhhhhhhhhhh," Mo screamed.

"It's not me." Clarence threw his hands into the air. "The dispatcher wants to know."

"No. No. I didn't see a body."

The truck made another turn and Mo realized they were heading over the bridge from Georgia into South Carolina.

"Tell them he's fleeing the state."

Clarence repeated the information into the phone before hitting his touch screen. "She said that's out of their jurisdiction and hung up."

"Bacon Bits!"

"I don't think we should follow," Clarence said. "You've got photos of him lifting something. That's all we were hired to do. Let's go back to the agency."

"What if he really did kill her?" Mo replied. "He could get rid of the body in the marsh. Nothing would ever be found once the alligators got a hold of her."

But Hawkins didn't go for the marsh. He turned onto a dirt path and drove into the woods.

Shutting off her car lights, Mo followed. When she saw the truck pull to a stop, she stopped too, parking to the side and a good thirty yards away.

Hawkins left his headlights blazing as he got out of the truck, shotgun in hand. He came around to the back, unlatched the gate and pulled it down. The rug roll and a shovel lay in the truck bed.

"We should just wait until he buries it," Clarence urged tapping the dash nervously. "After he leaves, we can get the police and bring them out here."

That suggestion kind of made sense until the bump in the rug moved.

"Did you see that?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"She might be alive in there."

Clarence gaped at her.

"That means we can't let him bury her. I'm getting my gun out of the trunk," Mo said, easing her door open. "Don't lock the car. I might have to get back in. Fast."

Clarence's eyes were wide with panic, but he nodded. His hands shook as he picked up her camera. "I'll take photos."

"I'm sure that'll help," Mo grumbled. "If he kills me too, you'll have the proof."

"Right," he said, perking up as if she'd been serious and not sarcastic.

Mo exited the car and pushed the door closed with just the slightest of clicks. Hawkins didn't seem to take notice of the tiny sound. He was too busy lifting the rug off the truck and placing it on the dirt. He'd set the shotgun in the truck bed and out of his reach. As she was removing her gun from the trunk, he cut open the duct tape wrapping the rug and began unrolling it.

At the end of the roll, Reva Hawkins lay still with baggies of ice packed around her. Her hands were bound and a strip of the same gray tape covered her mouth.

What were those baggies about? Trying to lower the body's temperature so the police wouldn't know when Mrs. Hawkins had died? But that didn't really make sense since he'd brought her out here to bury her.

Hawkins picked up the shovel as Mo crept closer. Was he going to dig a hole or bash his wife's skull in?

"Stop," she yelled, leveling the gun sight of her pistol as she held it in a two-handed grip. "Move away from her."

Hawkins reeled around to face her. "What? Who the hell are you?"

"Never mind that." Mo continued closer. "Just move away from her."

Hawkins' gaze darted to the shotgun in the truck bed and then back to Mo as if he were gauging whether he could reach his weapon before she fired.

"Clarence," Mo called. "Get over here and see about Mrs. Hawkins."

Genuine fear contorted Hawkins' face and he raised his hands in surrender. "Please. You can have my money. My wallet is in the truck. Just don't hurt us."

Us?

Clarence scurried forward to kneel beside Mrs. Hawkins. Out of the corner of her eye, Mo saw Reva move. Her eyes were open and blazing with rage. Clarence peeled the duct tape away from her mouth.

"Aghhhhhhhh," Reva shouted. "Get out of here. Don't you hurt my husband."

What the fajita?

Mo was so surprised, she forgot to keep focus on Hawkins. The next thing she knew, he hit her in a body slam. She went down. As Mo's back hit the dirt, the breath left her body in a rush and the gun flew from her hands. Hawkins landed on top of her.

With no way to get out from beneath the Sumo wrestler-type, Mo grabbed his meatballs and squeezed. Hawkins screamed and rolled to the side.

 
Releasing her hold on him, Mo scrambled to her feet. She spotted the gun a few feet away and ran to pick it up. Her breath came in pants. She hoped Hawkins hadn't broken one of her ribs.

 
Clarence hadn't moved during the action. He still stood stupidly gawping. But Mrs. Hawkins had managed to get herself free of the duct tape, and she rushed to her husband's side, kneeling next to him in the dirt. Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins stared up at Mo with frightened expressions. Hawkins' fright was tinged with pain as he still clutched his nether regions.

"I'm a private investigator," Mo explained, lowering the gun. "I was watching your house for the insurance company and saw you kill your wife. Or I thought I did."

At the word insurance, husband and wife frowned, and then pleading fright turned to anger.

"You bitch," Reva screeched.

"He wasn't trying to kill you?" Mo asked.

"Of course not," Reva huffed, getting to her feet and 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."