After the Petals Go
by
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As I stepped outside the barn, I was greeted by a high-pitched hum that welled up from the small marsh to the west, rose to a fever pitch, and stayed there. Curious as to what all the noise was about, I made my way down the hill behind the barn and entered a thick stand of willows surrounding the marsh. A pair of mallards swam side by side a few yards in front of me. They seemed unconcerned by all the hubbub, until they saw me and took off.
At the instant of their flight, the marsh fell silent. I could hear the flap of mallard wings upon the water, and a dead twig scratch the leaves of a willow as it fell from its perch above me, but nothing else. Then a doe approached from the south, caught my scent, stopped and stood a moment to make sure of the danger, wheeled, put her white flag up, and bounded into a thicket of horseweeds. But a moment later, here she came again on the run, only to veer away from me at the last instant and soon put a hill and a hollow between us.
I thought about walking down to the horseweeds to see what had spooked her, but then thought better of it. The sun was down, and darkness was fast approaching. Already I had enough to think about for one day. I didn’t need to completely ruin what was left of it.
It seemed funny that I hadn’t seen them sooner. Maybe it was because they were in shadow, and I was looking into the last rays of the sun. Or maybe I was so preoccupied by the din coming from the marsh that I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.
Even when they are sitting stock still, as they were then, turkey vultures are hard to miss. Neither did they offer to fly as I approached them. Rather, they turned their heads as one in my direction, honing in on me, as if measuring me for a coffin. I threw a large stick up into the cottonwood tree where they sat. I counted ten in all take flight.
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About the Book
After the Petals Go is the 15th book in the Garth Ryland mystery series and perhaps Riggs’ most ambitious book to date. Called “an exemplary series hero” by Publishers Weekly, Ryland lives and works in the small town of Oakalla, Wisconsin (“Lake Woebegone made sinister”) where passions run high, secrets go deep, and nothing is ever quite what it seems.
Ryland never should have been in his office that beautiful Saturday morning in May when Will Jennings approached him with “something black and shriveled clutched in his right hand, and the weight of the world on his shoulders.” The “something” that Will carries is Mike Manning’s wallet that Will found in the Forty Acre Woods earlier that morning. Mike Manning has been missing from Oakalla for seven and a half years and is presumed dead by all who knew him best, including Will Jennings, his hired hand; Darrell Williamson, his best friend and drinking buddy, and Samantha Manning, his wife and Ryland’s would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been lover.
As Ryland’s search takes him from the Forty Acre Woods to the old Manning place, where Mike Manning was last seen, he discovers what appears to be Mike’s Silverado pickup hidden in the barn along with an ammonia wagon, missing from Central Co-op. There Ryland also discovers a barn cat with an attitude, a milk house with its windows blacked out, and just as night starts to fall, a body upside down in a water tank. But before Ryland can begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together, he is attacked and nearly killed by an antagonist who is as ruthless and relentless as he is cunning.
Neither does his tormentor stop there, but pursues Ryland and his household even as Ryland slowly but surely closes in on him. Or her. Samantha Manning has a past, as Ruth Krammes, Ryland’s housekeeper and trusted confidant, says to him, although she is reluctant to reveal just what that past is. So does Mike Manning have a past, one littered with bad debts, broken promises, deceit, and innuendo. As Ryland sorts through it on his way to the truth, he finds himself at odds with Ruth, his friends and fellow citizens, and worst of all, himself. Shaken by the events swirling around him, his near death, and the death of his hero, he steps outside of himself into an unfamiliar world of loose talk and hasty actions that are as dangerous in their own way as the killer who stalks him.
About the Author
John R. Riggs is the son of Samuel H. Riggs (1913-2002) and Lucille Ruff Riggs (1918-2000) and the brother of C. A. Riggs, Prescott, Arizona. John was born February 27, 1945 in Beech Grove, Indiana, and in 1949 he and his family moved to Mulberry, Indiana, where they owned and operated Riggs Dairy Bar for a number of years.
John attended Mulberry Schools (1951-1961) and graduated from Clinton Prairie High School in 1963. He credits his teachers at Mulberry and Clinton Prairie for their direction and inspiration and for grounding him in the fundamentals of thought and action so necessary for meeting the challenges of life.
John then entered Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and rode in the Little 500. While there he earned a BS in social studies and an MA in creative writing. He later attended the University of Michigan, studying conservation and environmental communications.
On September 2, 1967, John married Cynthia Perkins (1945-2002), and their children are Heidi Zimmerman, Mansfield, Ohio and Shawn Riggs, Hastings, Nebraska. On July 1, 1988, he married Carole Gossett Anderson and their children are Flint Anderson, Coatesville and Susan Shorter, Spencer.
Since 1971, John has lived in Putnam County, Indiana, currently on a small farm southeast of Greencastle. While there, he has worked as an English teacher, football coach, quality control foreman, carpenter, and wood-splitter. From 1979-1997 he assisted James R. Gammon of DePauw University with Gammon’s landmark research on the Wabash River. Presently, he works as a researcher for DePauw University Archives and mixes chemicals for Co-Alliance, Bainbridge.
John is the author of 14 published books in the Garth Ryland mystery series, and the Bicentennial History bulletins for the Indiana United Methodist Church. He has also written River Rat, a coming of age novel, Me, Garth, and Alley Oop, a travel odyssey, numerous essays, and two more books in the Garth Ryland series, one of which, After the Petals Go, will be published by AuthorHouse in 2012.