Love Can Be Murder

spreading them on the table.
    Penny nodded. "I'll take them. Anything else?"
    He scratched his temple. "Got any interest in truffles?"
    Penny's eyes went wide. "Truffles? You mean the underground kind?"
    He nodded.
    "But truffles grow only in the Pacific Northwest and in France."
    "And here " Jimmy said with a mischievous smile.
    Penny gave a little laugh. "How is that possible?"
    Jimmy leaned in closer and lowered his chin. "My granddaddy was a Frenchie and knew something about truffles. He started messing around with growing them when I was just a boy—even if they catch in the ground, it takes ten years or so before they're ready to harvest." He made a rueful noise. "Granddaddy died a few years back, but I've kept watch over the area. Trained my dog Henry to sniff 'em out."
    He opened his hand to reveal two dark lumps of what looked like large animal droppings, but their fishy pungency wafted through the air. She had never seen a whole black truffle before—just precious shavings over pasta or baked in puff pastry. She carefully picked up one of the spongy lumps and knew instantly that she was holding gold. "H-how many do you have, Jimmy?"
    "Probably a pound or so. And there's more where they came from."
    She felt giddy. "Let me make a phone call." As she made her way back to the office, she glanced over to see Marie and Guy both tending to the first customers of the morning. She closed the door to her office, checked her Rolodex, and dialed the number for Ziggy's in New Orleans, her pulse clicking higher. When a woman answered on the second ring, Penny identified herself and asked for Ziggy.
    "Chere, Penny! How are you?"
    "I'm fine, Ziggy. I called to see if you would be interested in homegrown truffles."
    "Grown where?" he asked, sounding dubious.
    "According to my woodsman, right here in Mojo."
    He made a dismissive noise. "That's impossible."
    "That's what I thought...until he showed them to me. It's possible to grow them commercially, right?"
    "Yes, but the conditions have to be perfect, and even then it's iffy. Are you sure they aren't morels?"
    She held up the truffle between forefinger and thumb. "I've only seen pictures, but they look like the real thing to me, Ziggy."
    "What color?"
    "Black."
    He was silent for several seconds, but Penny could hear the wheels turning in his head...or maybe it was his saliva glands pumping. "How much of these homegrown truffles does your man have to sell?"
    "A pound."
    "Bon Dieu. Is he trustworthy? People have been known to dye cheap Chinese truffles and try to pass them off as authentic black ones."
    "That's not how this guy works," Penny said. "But if you're not interested, I'll call someone else—"
    "Okay, okay." He sighed dramatically. "I'll come up and take a look at these so-called truffles. What time do you close?"
    "Six p.m."
    "I'll be there just before six."
    She frowned. "Won't that cut it close for you getting back for the dinner hour?"
    "There's a water line break on our street—it's chaos here and we can't open tonight. The city is trying to put me out of business!" Ziggy cleared his throat delicately. "And Penny...just in case there is some truth to these homegrown truffles, let's keep this between you and me and your woodsman, shall we?"
    She smirked. "For now, Ziggy. But I can't make any long-term promises."
    He grunted and hung up.
    Penny laughed, then hurried back to Jimmy, who stared warily at the activity around him. The man was antisocial and a bit of a conspiracy theorist. She leaned in and whispered, "Jimmy, I have someone coming from the city to look at the truffles. Do you trust me enough to leave them with me?"
    He withdrew a bulging cheesecloth sack and handed it to her. "I trust you."
    She smiled. "I'll check the Internet for market prices and get you the best deal I can."
    He nodded. "Thank you kindly."
    "Meanwhile, I'll pay you for the other items." She weighed the ginseng and oyster mushrooms and jotted figures in a notebook.
    Two more customers had arrived, including Steve Chasen, a clean-cut guy in his twenties who worked as a paralegal in Deke's office and who dropped in occasionally to get a fruit smoothie. Penny didn't completely trust the man, and from the probing nature of his questions, she'd sometimes wondered if Deke had sent him to spy on her...although admittedly, that could have been a manifestation of her fantasy that Deke cared what she did.
    She also suspected that Steve had a crush on Marie, although the young woman