The Slime Mold Murder

The Slime Mold Murder copyright 2021 by Ellen King Rice

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Characters and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance between characters to persons living or dead is unintended and coincidental.

The biological details, including the description of the slime molds are as accurate as I can make them.

Learn more at www.ellenkingrice.com

Cover by Damonza.com

Art by Duncan Sheffels.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7338276-4-5

ePub ISBN: 978-1-7338276-5-2

Mobi ISBN: 978-1-7338276-6-9

Also by Ellen King Rice

With illustrations by Duncan Sheffels

The EvoAngel (2016)

Undergrowth (2018)

Lichenwald (2019)

By Ellen King Rice

Larry’s Post-Rapture Pet-Sitting Service (2020)

Praise for The EvoAngel

‘Compelling characters and plot with a little fungi thrown in! A FINALIST and highly recommended.’ The Wishing Shelf Book Awards

Melding together of science and a great thriller . . .

This is a great read and with such an unusual plot twist.

A wonderful read!

A delightful page-turning thriller . . .

A totally engrossing read . . .

Praise for Undergrowth

Nothing says Pacific Northwest better than mushrooms, lush forests and gray, rainy days. . . Rice’s multi-generational story combines a murder, mushroom research and disturbing backwoods encounters.

A must-read for Olympia lovers.

As compelling and hard to set aside as a box of chocolates.

Dedicated to those who struggle with focus and task initiation.

Your brilliance remains and your goodness inspires.

Contents

Also by Ellen King Rice

With illustrations by Duncan Sheffels

Praise for The EvoAngel

Praise for Undergrowth

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Want to know more about slime molds?

How to help an author

From The EvoAngel

Chapter One

Wabi-Sabi – an imperfect, rustic beauty

Illustrations by Duncan Sheffels

A story of death and ambition,

set in the woods of the Pacific Northwest

On Slime Molds

I write to inform and empower. If this story provides the reader with one or more insights to our Northwest woods, then I am deeply pleased.

Slime molds are cool. It sounds immensely pleasant to be living a quiet life in the woods with the option to gather in community for banquets, sexual orgies, childcare and moving days.

The morass of slime mold classification schemes becomes vaguely understandable when one considers that the hundreds of species called slime molds have many origins, with all of these beginnings finding a path to a live-alone-except-for-some-activities end point.

One group of slime molds are the Myxogastria. These organisms all begin as a single spore. As a juvenile, an individual is often warty or spikey, and this phase can last for decades, details that I find endearing.

The phases that follow are complex and variable. There can be long dry periods of stasis followed by times of rapid growth and abundant vibrancy.

Why aren’t these bizarre and intriguing life forms better known? Alas, much of their lives are spent as a single cell. It is only when the cells gather to move, eat, and reproduce that they are easily noticed.

I’m all for there being many paths to living a robust life, and for each life stage to be recognized. Here then, is a story of death and ambition to compare the actions of humanity to a few of the other life forms on this amazing earth.

Ellen

Slime molds are a peculiar assortment of species. These species are lumped in the Protista Kingdom, which is a junk drawer for taxonomists. The Protista have a membrane-edge to the cellular nuclei, but are not plants, animals or fungi.

Members of this kingdom look related, but DNA analysis says not so fast. The Protista include all sorts of oddballs that defy classification.

Life is messy.

Chapter One

5:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 8

Olympia, Washington

Pre-foreclosure? Dylan mulled the word. I’m not familiar with the term. He made his voice level and neutral. The unevenness in the gravel beneath his feet did not help his effort to project calm. The ruts in the driveway were only one of many home maintenance issues he easily ignored on a daily basis, but today the uneven ground gave his legs a physical input of data that rudely aligned with the flavor of the new word he was hearing.

He might not be intimate with this terminology of finance, but he was bright enough to know saying anything in the ‘foreclosure’ word universe was worth a moment’s attention. A genius IQ came in handy that way.

Pre-foreclosure means the mortgage payments have not been paid for several months. This came from a man with long, thin strands of hair swept over the high dome of a balding head. The man stood next to a sparkling-clean silver Lexus he’d parked behind Dylan’s vintage and non-sparkling Honda Civic.

Dylan respected field marks. White rectrices on a bird, seed heads on grass stems, gill-stipe attachments under mushroom caps, and bract styles on conifer cones all conveyed information.

The words South Sound Housing Acquisitions embroidered in a cursive arc on a navy blue, premium cotton polo shirt suggested this balding man knew something of real estate. The Lexus signaled he had some competence in money matters. At the very least, Mr. Comb-Over managed a car lease.

Mr. Comb-Over said, When payments aren’t being made, the lender files a default note. This will show up on the county property records website, and my company takes notice. Sometimes the property owner is taking steps to catch up on the mortgage, and all is well. Other times the property is going to be put up for sale, and that’s where I come in.

You’re a home buyer? Dylan had a great poker face. He deployed it now, acting as if his face was a completely separate ecosystem from his skittering stomach.

Yes, we are, the visitor said. We buy distressed properties, then come in with a design team and construction crew. We invest money and manpower into a property so that it can go on the market successfully.

Mr. Comb-Over looked past the dented Civic to Dylan’s family home. He said, Wow. Some deferred maintenance here, for sure.

Dylan looked at the house, suddenly seeing it with a stranger’s eyes. The faded red roof tiles showed intermittently through long spans of furry green moss. Small branches poked up from the loaded gutters like toothpicks popping up from a party tray. The bright blue paint on the front door had bubbled up during the summer to reveal dark wood underneath. Stripes of gray-green lichens inhabited the stair risers. The lawn needed mowing.

Hell, he had just mowed the lawn. Wait. That had been in June. Fair enough. Grass did grow given it was the Northwest’s sunny season. He’d been busy.

You a tenant? Mr. Comb-Over asked.

Ah. Yeah. Technically the answer was ‘No.’ Dylan didn’t pay a dime of rent to his decamped parents. It was how he was able to scramble through another summer’s worth of tuition payments while working part-time as a lab assistant.

Can you put me in touch with the homeowner?

Ah. Dylan paused. His parents were in Mexico. More correctly, his parents were in Mexico and as high as turkey vultures coasting on rising spring thermals. His parents called it pain-remediation, but sky-high was his Face Time experiences with them.

He doubted they’d do well on an unexpected call from a house-flipper. Better to stall and engineer that conversation.

Want to leave a number? he said.

Sure. Any chance of me taking a look inside? Mr. Comb-Over radiated pleasantness. I’ve got a pizza discount coupon I can leave with you.

Dylan’s stomach rumbled, but he shook his head. Nah. I’ve been kinda casual. Let me see if the owner wants you in, and I’ll make sure I pick up things before you come through. He grinned. And the pizza places don’t deliver this far out. Believe me, I would know.

Mr. Comb-Over smiled, handed over a business card and left with an easy wave.

Dylan exhaled. He stood in the driveway, taking in the slanting light of the approaching autumn evening, recalling his father talking about getting away for a bit. That was two years ago.

His father had said there was some life insurance, when Jaylene died, but his father’s eyes had skittered up and to the right, a poker-tell of a bluffer. Who would insure a chronically-ill, dying girl? His sister had died as she had lived, in pain, surrounded by her parents’ love and without meaningful support from the medical community for her rare and hugely unlucrative illness.

And now it was becoming clear his parents hadn’t been paying the mortgage. Dylan turned and savagely kicked a tire on the Civic. Then he hopped back and swore. There was a good chance the car insurance hadn’t been paid either. He’d have to check. He was nineteen. Insuring a car by himself wouldn’t be cheap. It might not even be possible.

Think positive. Gather resources. He mouthed the words of Yousef Berbera, the college professor who was more his father than the Mexico-living source of his Y chromosome.

He had the car. He had a roof over his head until . . . well, he could figure that out. He had one more semester of classes before finishing his undergraduate degree.

Dylan smiled. A college graduate at age nineteen. He should send his grade-school principal an invite to the graduation ceremony. It’d be worth sitting through a morning of speeches just to hear her private words of approval. She’d wrangled a commitment from him to finish high school and apply to college at a time when incarceration or the French Foreign Legion looked more likely.

Dylan blew out a second large breath. Step One, survive until December. Step Two? Yousef wanted him to apply to graduate school. He’d be a super-broke student, even by grad school standards.

Or he could try and get a job with a biology degree. He had a focus in bryology and mycology. That had not been a brilliant choice for a broke kid.

He was too young to farm marijuana, and he lacked the steady discipline required to grow gourmet mushrooms in sterile medium. Cleaning was not his thing. Neither was having resources. The Civic leaked when it rained. It also smelled of mold and unwashed sweat socks. It was no car for an Uber gig.

He could wait tables. Yousef said he had the lean, James Dean look going. According to Yousef, it meant handsome enough to earn good tip money from the ladies who lunched at the waterfront cafes in downtown Olympia.

Which could work if he could keep his mouth shut. Telling a plump matron the calorie count in the bread basket and salad dressing would be so like him.

Crappy choices.

Back to Step One. Focus. Yousef’s lab assistant gig was done. No more money. He needed a different path for the fall.

Focus.

His ADHD mind giggled as he inhaled for another vagus-nerve-calming exhalation.

Tuition was due when classes began at the end of the month.

He looked over to the front of the house. A yard sale would be stupid. Nobody paid top dollar at a yard sale, particularly when the yard looked like this one.

A different species of moss was infiltrating the lawn on the north side of the yard. Interesting. He had three field guides to mosses in the back seat of the Civic. He could key out this emerging species and add a record to his iNaturalist page.

Dylan groaned. Not the time right now. Hell, it probably means the septic tank is full or leaking. Focus.

Collectibles. People paid money for collectibles. Was there anything in the house that could be sold as a collectible? Antique furniture was out of fashion. Fine. He didn’t have any.

Indigenous art was in. People paid for indigenous art. What if he painted some rocks with a Northwest design and called the results something tribal?

His friend, Grace, a Squaxin tribe member might laugh, especially if he made money. Her extended family would not laugh at all.

What could he take to a pawn shop? His family didn’t own any firearms, the lawn equipment was old, and there was no jewelry. The family camping equipment wasn’t fancy.

He had his mushrooming knife. It was a nice one.

But it was a gift from Yousef. Dylan knew he’d never part with it.

His stomach rumbled again. He recalled his mother packing some freeze-dried backpacking dinners in a plastic bin labeled earthquake supplies. He’d helped her heave the bin onto a high shelf in the garage. He’d been, what, twelve? Would it still be any good?

He was about to find out. And after he ate, he’d get an idea of what to do next.

Dylan smirked. Ideas he had. Always. They came in waves. Not serene, beach-going waves. His ideas came in floods of clarity, led by foamy bits of details and followed by a growing tonnage of connections. Other people surfed the ocean. He surfed his brain.

He just needed to make sure his fast mind didn’t wipeout on the flat waters of reality.

He closed his eyes. He was broke. A lot of people were these days.

Dylan exhaled, and opened his eyes. Make like a mushroom and thrive in the shit.

He shouldered his day pack and trudged up the driveway to the house.

Chapter Two

There was a call today asking for someone to do biological survey work. Did I know of a qualified candidate? Professor Yousef Berbera helped himself to a wide wedge of mushroom and sausage pizza. It was the first slice from a steaming pie.

He quickly transferred the hot piece to his plate, then nudged the sizzling pizza pan toward Dylan. Go ahead. You get the rest. Finish it.

Finish it? A young woman with a head of short dark curls leaned forward in the pizza parlor booth after accepting a Caesar salad. Dylan’s going to eat all that?

One of my joys in life, Dr. Berbera said, is watching Dylan eat. His metabolism is a remarkable illustration of the diversity that can exist in a species. I limit myself to one piece and remain portly. Dylan, however, can consume all this and retain his inherent wiriness. I theorize his cells have extra mitochondria.

I’m living a beer-free existence, Dylan spoke around a mouthful of pizza.

There is that. Yousef refilled his glass from a pitcher of beer. I still prefer to think you are special. You have the physique of a slime mold’s sporangia.

The young woman tilted her head, listening, then she broke out in a wide smile. Are you saying Dylan is a beanpole with a big head?

Yousef sipped his beer. There’s also the possibility of some sort of voracious tapeworm.

That would be interesting! The young woman smirked. Could we examine his stool for egg cases?

And determine which species it might be? Yousef took a moment, as if he were seriously considering the project. "I believe there are six that are known to infect Homo sapiens."

Yousef, don’t encourage her, Dylan protested. Mari’s a pain in the butt already. I don’t need her anywhere near my shit.

Mari made a face and returned to her salad.

Dylan swallowed a bite of pizza, his system rejoicing as the cheese and sausage passed by taste buds and descended. This was definitely better than rummaging through the garage for the freeze-dried food in the emergency kit.

Yousef Berbera had rescued him many times in the past eight years, and tonight was no different than most. He’d been thinking he was fine, but when Yousef texted, offering a dinner, he’d instantly responded with a sunshine emoji and an inner rejoicing and relief that would be unspoken but understood.

Pizza beat the hell out of decades-old backpacking kibble.

Dylan and Yousef were on a first name basis except in times of university administrative events, which were hallmarked by a return to formality for as long as deans or donors were present.

At the moment, all that was going on was Dylan’s usual state of intense student poverty.

There’s a job for us? Dylan spoke again around a mouthful of pizza. Something stinky or something sweaty?

Yousef smiled. How much do you two know about growing mosses? That’s part of the gig.

Dylan and Mari exchanged a surprised look. "Someone wants to pay money to grow moss? Dylan asked. Seriously? In the Pacific Northwest?"

Yousef’s smile broadened. Indeed.

Usually, people are looking to kill moss, Mari said. My dad uses iron sulfate.

Dylan nodded. My neighbors paid me to spread some of that on their lawn. A complete waste of time. It just made brown spots in the lawn, and then the moss grew back.

He added, If the location is better for growing moss than growing grass, then you’re gonna get moss until you poison it so much you get nothin’ but dirt.

He thought of the roof of his home. What kills moss on roofs?

Zinc, Yousef said. At least that’s what I used last time I did some roof work.

Growing moss. Mari started typing on her smart phone. Looks like you can whir some moss with buttermilk and spread it on a brick wall. Then you keep it moist.

Why would anyone pay for what can be found in a ten-second internet search? Dylan pulled a second slice of pizza onto his plate.

It’s for gravestones. Yousef smiled as he leaned back in the booth, knowing he had their attention. The call was from Mr. Wade Witecki. He’s opening a Halloween maze and haunted house at the end of the month, and he thinks his gravestones aren’t creepy enough.

Mari’s eyes lit with interest. I heard about this. It’s the big house next to my Tia Bea’s place. It’s perfect for Halloween stuff.

Yousef nodded. The location is one of the reasons I thought of you. I thought you might enjoy working near your aunt’s place.

He paused for a sip of beer before adding, There’s also a nudist beach nearby. So much to explore in this world, isn’t there?

Dylan snorted. No payday in that sort of naked. He took another bite of pizza and spoke at the same time. This guy is using real gravestones?

I have no idea, Yousef admitted. I certainly hope he didn’t import used ones.

And if they’re fake, why not hire a theater arts kid who knows flocked paints and glue guns? Dylan asked. I’m not sure you can even get much moss to grow in a few weeks.

You’re such a downer, Dylan. Mari frowned. You’d see only turds in a pony parade.

Dylan grunted. Just keepin’ it real. Details matter.

Yousef set down his beer glass. Indeed, they do. And there is more to the mission. Wade wants a botanical survey. I asked if he’d like a list of fungi, and I had to explain what fungi are, but then he was all for a mycological survey as well. He also wanted a list of birds and insects sighted.

He inherited the property earlier this year, and he’s keen to manage it properly. There’s eight acres, most of it second-growth Douglas fir and big-leaf maple with a few large cedars and hemlocks at the back of the property.

Why doesn’t he just walk around the property with a smart phone and an iNaturalist app? Dylan shot a look at Mari. I’m not trying to be a downer. I’m just trying to understand.

Witecki doesn’t have time, Yousef replied. Think about it. This is the first Halloween since the pandemic ended. Halloween is the biggest holiday besides Christmas. People will be keen to party and to bring their kiddies for an adventure. I think the place will be packed from the day it opens, which is scheduled for Friday, October first.

Mari blinked. Which gives us three weeks to do a comprehensive survey and grow moss.

How much does it pay? Dylan asked.

I didn’t get into that, Yousef said. I told Mr. Witecki that I had two sharp students I could recommend.

He paused, then said, "I told him you two would work well as a team."

Dylan looked at Mari, raising his eyebrows.

She stuck her tongue out.

Hey, the salamander in your shirt collar was weeks ago!

You are a colossal jerk, Dylan.

I’m not romance material, he retorted.

No kidding. Mari frowned and stabbed a crouton on her salad plate.

Now, children, Yousef said, Are you interested in this project?

Dylan eyed Mari, then put up his hands, fingers curled down like puppy dog paws. He panted, then whined, I need the money. Like seriously.

Mari sighed. Got it. It’s okay, Dylan. I’m in. ‘Go Team,’ and all that. Even if it’s just gas money, it all helps.

Yousef smiled. I think Wade Witecki will treat you right. I’ll suggest you tell him a professional salary is twenty dollars an hour.

Dylan whistled. "If it rains, we could have some fungal species that come up and dissipate in a day. To catch those species and to do as much surveying as we can? It could add up to a lot of hours. Twenty dollars an hour for each of us?"

Yousef