Home Grown
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But of more immediate concern were the goose bumps on my arms and the night chill setting in on me. I couldn't sit still any longer. I had to get up and move around. It seemed silly to stand there in the shelter house doing jumping jacks, so I took a walk through the park. This very same park had been woods when I was a kid, and Dick Davis and I had hunted squirrels and morels here. Dick Davis was from Oakalla, but had left to join the Navy and never came back. I was from Indiana, but went to college in Wisconsin, decided to stay, and ended up in Oakalla. Now, Dick was dead, and I was walking in the dark around the woods of our childhood, trying to stay warm. One might think I should have been able to plan my life a little better. I soon gave up walking and sought the only warm spot I could find, which was Chuck Holden's pickup. I supposed I could have gone into the men's restroom, but the view wasn't very good from there, and the smell would knock your socks off. The cab of the pickup was locked, but not the camper, so I went inside where I used the cushions off the seats to make a nest on the floor. All I needed was a blanket, which I found on Chuck's bed. I'd worry later how to get its military tuck back in place again. The trouble with getting warm after being cold after staying up most of the previous night was that I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I'd nod, jerk, awaken, close my eyes, and then repeat the whole cycle over again. Somewhere along the line, sleep won out, and the next thing I knew the pickup was in motion. From then on I had no trouble staying awake.
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About the Book
home grown is the 16th book in the Garth Ryland mystery series that has taken him from the graves of Navoe Cemetery to the wilds of Mitchell’s Woods to the cave of Matotamah to the edge of Wampler’s Pit, and in and out of the arms of some of Oakalla’s most beautiful, intriguing, and dangerous women. 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 and secrets go deep, and nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems—where every thread runs at seemingly loose ends to a knot of deception and death. John Borden, an amiable misfit known to most of the locals as “Chilly Willy,” is missing. He left on foot for his night job at the hospital, but never arrived. Town marshal, Cecil Hardwick, is on his way out of town to a convention at the very moment former FBI agent, Chuck Holden, arrives unannounced in Ryland’s newspaper office with the information that an assassin, code name “Punisher,” is likely living there in Oakalla. Holden has been after him for years, and now in retirement has made it his mission to bring him to justice. Ryland’s search for John Borden first takes him to Robert Pickering’s house, where Borden has been living in the basement for the past few years and where Pickering is in the last stages of emphysema. Ryland next visits Jake McKennis, a bear of a man with a short fuse and a dislike of Borden, and whose son, Ronny, is Borden’s best friend. From there Ryland goes to Adams County Hospital and has an altercation with Lynn Saylor, a journeyman nurse with a hulking presence and a suspect past. Then the crank calls start at work and at home. Then Ronny McKennis runs away from home to a place that only Ryland, at his peril, knows. Then Lynn Saylor and Chuck Holden hurriedly leave town, but not before Ryland learns something about each that will put him in harm’s way, and not before he takes what might be the last ride of his life. In Home Grown, Ryland’s search for truth again leads him and his housekeeper, Ruth, down converging paths that each would rather not travel, but are helpless to alter, until they intersect at a place perilously close to the heart.
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 16 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, Of Boys and Butterflies, his ongoing memoirs, and numerous essays.