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  “I think “Bingo-You’re Dead’ will be an entertaining tale of murder and mayhem in of all places, a senior community in the town of Goose Down (A great place to settle Down!)…you have blue hair, walkers, bingo and murder…a delightful combination.”

  Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

  “Hank Klaber and Tippi Mulgrew are septuagenarians to be reckoned with when murder disrupts the tranquility of Goose Down, Ohio. Lou Fletcher balances humor and suspense in this fast paced mystery—I laughed while I sat on the edge of my chair.”

  Joe D’Amato, Author, Seeds of the Lemon Grove

  and Flash Drive

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Copyright © 2013 by Lou Fletcher

  ISBN: 9780991007318

  Cover Design: Brooke Skyllingstad

  [email protected]

  BINGO—YOU’RE DEAD

  Book One

  Murder Is My Game

  Lou Fletcher

  Witt’s End Press

  wittsendpress.com

  For Noah

  ONE

  The emergency vehicles racing up Route 27 looked a heck of a lot more ominous than those storm clouds I’d noticed on my way to the diner.

  Regina must have agreed. She was standing outside when I parked the car.

  “Must be big,” she said as I walked up. Her fingers kneaded the ruffled edges of her apron.

  She jumped when another Sheriff’s vehicle screamed past.

  “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on my way here from the Y. I sure hope it’s not as bad as it looks.” The words were no sooner out of my mouth when an ambulance sped by. It trumpeted a warning blast as the driver swerved through the intersection, just missing a pickup truck hauling a trailer laden with bales of hay. The truck and its load shivered to a halt.

  My morning had started out like every other day, with a swim at the Y followed by a short drive to the diner for breakfast. I could taste Regina’s goetta and biscuits, all slathered in sausage gravy, as I slid into “my” booth by the front window.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of drill?” I offered lamely. I felt the stirring of the demons that still haunt me from my stint as a Marine in Vietnam. I looked to Regina for reassurance.

  She shrugged, looking me square in the eye. “I doubt it.”

  As the Goose Down Diner’s sole proprietor, cook, and bottle washer, Regina Gottfried reigns supreme over her little kingdom. She mediates arguments, matches up unsuspecting couples, and is the town’s undisputed arm wrestling champ. Her coffee will grow hair on a dead man’s chest, just reading her menu makes arteries scream for mercy, and her display of plastic objets d’art is enough to make your eyes water.

  She nudged my foot. “What’s with the footwear, Hank?” she asked, attempting to lighten the mood.

  “Oh, hell.” I looked down. I’d forgotten to change out of my flip-flops after my swim.

  “A senior moment, Hank?”

  “Just another reason to love me.” I forced a grin.

  “You old guys think you can get away with anything,” she answered.

  “Haven’t you heard? Seventy is the new forty.”

  “If you’re right, then that would make me jailbait,” she shot back before disappearing into the kitchen.

  Regina and I share a camaraderie and solid friendship that works for us. We tried the dating routine soon after I’d moved to town, but the spark just never developed into a flame.

  I scanned the front page of The Goose Down Daily News before I turned to the local news section. If anything could cheer me up, I’d find it here: reports of local happenings, wedding and birth announcements, and colorful commentary from readers in “Letters to the Editor.” Today’s “What Do You Think?” column posed the thought-provoking question: ‘What’s your response to the big New York City newspaper that referred to us as ‘hicks in the sticks’ in yesterday’s front page story?’ (We wanted to print the name of the paper but our lawyer, Franklin D. Rusefelt, wouldn’t let us, so take it up with him.)

  I found myself smiling already.

  “The usual, I presume?” Regina set a steaming mug of coffee down in front of me.

  My stomach was doing somersaults. “Thanks, but I think today I’ll just have toast.”

  She glanced outside. “Okey dokey. Back in a flash.”

  Goose Down, located twenty-five miles north of Cincinnati is a rural town with a population of thirty thousand. Many local families are descendants of the community’s founders while others, like myself, came seeking refuge in the country setting and a slower, gentler way of life than that found in the city.

  Regina brought my order and refilled my coffee. “Anything interesting in the paper?” She peered over my shoulder.

  I reached for the jar of homemade strawberry preserves and smeared a heaping spoonful onto my bread. “Corn prices are up, there’s a haunted hayride at the old amusement park on Route 128, and Mrs. Ellis’s dog was found outside the IGA. Just another exciting day.”

  “Don’t make fun, Hank.”

  “Believe me, I’m not. This is all the excitement I need.”

  “Looks like bad weather moving in,” Regina observed, pulling back the lacy curtain. She slid into the seat across from me and together we watched the leaves spiral off the trees and skid across Route 27. The wind had picked up and was starting to carry in slivers of sleet from the north. Indian summer was over here in the Ohio River Valley, but mid-October was still too early for this kind of wintery mix.

  I was wishing I’d brought a jacket—and socks.

  “How ’bout giving me a hand with the decorations?” Regina said when she returned to refill my coffee. She pointed her chin at a bin marked ‘Fall Down Decorating.’

  I groaned, “Already?”

  “Free dessert if you help.”

  “You think you can get me to do anything for free pie, don’t you?”

  “You haven’t said ‘no’ yet, big guy.”

  She opened the bin to a tangle of orange-and-black crepe paper streamers, wicker baskets spilling over with plastic fruit, and grocery sacks bulging with cardboard cutouts of pilgrims, jack-o-lanterns, turkeys, and black cats. At least I’d be off the hook until December when she really pulls out all the stops. There won’t be a single surface—horizontal or vertical—left unadorned.

  I offered mental thanks that today I was getting off easy and taped a cardboard pumpkin to the window. “How’s it look—good?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t.”

  I followed Regina’s gaze. The sheriff’s car was pulling into the parking lot.

  TWO

  We watched Sheriff Grange put on his hat and speak into his radio. When he finished, he waited a moment before slowly opening the door and climbing out. His face was grim.

  Regina rushed forward to meet him. “Pete, has something happened to Ann? To Susan?” Her voice shook.

  Like Regina, my mind had gone right to fears about her twin daughters.

  “No, no. It’s nothing to do with your girls.” He put a fatherly arm around her shoulders.

  I followed behind as he walked her over to a booth at the back of the diner and slid onto the bench on the other side.

  “Hank, would you flip the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ and bring us a couple of glasses of water?”

  “Sure.” My stomach was in knots. I filled three glas
ses with ice and water and hurried back to where the two sat in silence. I squeezed in beside Regina. We waited as Grange played with his glass.

  “What is it, Sheriff? Tell us because you’re scaring me.” Regina was gripping my hand.

  “It’s Alice. I don’t know how else to say this, Regina. Alice is dead. Her body was discovered this morning at Joe Thom’s place.” He waited for the impact of his words to strike home.

  She looked to me for help. “Alice? Oh, my God! I don’t believe you. It can’t be true! Hank?” She stared at me in disbelief.

  “I’m so sorry,” Grange said. His shoulders sagged. He took a long swallow of water.

  Regina covered her ears. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s not true,” she cried.

  Alice Duns was Regina’s sister-in-law and her only other relative. The women had become inseparable after Tom, Alice’s husband and Regina’s brother, was killed when his tractor overturned on a wet hillside and slid into a creek on their farm two years ago. Now, another loss was rocking my friend’s world.

  I put my arms around her. “Sheriff?”

  “I can’t tell you much yet, and I’m awful sorry.” He rubbed his forehead. “It happened between eight last night and this morning. That’s all I know right now.”

  “How? Was it a heart attack?” I guessed. I knew Alice from the Goose Down Senior Citizens Center; she was only a couple of years younger than me.

  Grange’s face turned scarlet. “It’s too early to tell.” He made circles on the tabletop with his glass, watching the ice bob before he looked back up. “Did she say anything to you about her plans for last night?” he asked Regina.

  She lifted her tear-streaked face from my shoulder. “Only that she was going to have dinner with Joe at his place.” She looked at Grange, confused.

  “I see,” he said. “How close were he and Alice? Was it serious?”

  Regina straightened up and thought. “Alice has been dating him since the Fourth of July picnic at the senior center. She worried the relationship was moving too quickly. She intended to talk to him about it last night when she went over there. He told her he’d grill some steaks, and they’d spend a quiet evening at home. She was nervous because he said he’d just had a new hot tub installed and he wanted her to help him try it out.” She choked through another round of weeping.

  “Did something go wrong with the hot tub? A short? She overdid it? What?” I needed an answer I could wrap my head around.

  Grange shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”

  “Sheriff, you’re not telling us everything.” I felt the muscles in my neck tighten. It took all of my effort to be civil.

  “All I can tell you now is that the Fed Ex guy was making a delivery to Joe’s this morning. When no one answered the door, he went around to the back of the house to leave the package. That’s when he spotted her—in the hot tub.”

  “She wasn’t discovered until now?” I asked. “My God, Pete. What about Joe? What does he say?”

  “Good question, Hank. I’d like to know, too.”

  “But what?”

  “But—Joe’s disappeared.”

  THREE

  I phoned the high school where Susan and Ann had started their senior year. I told the assistant principal what had happened, and she promised to drive the girls to the diner herself.

  I passed the news to Regina. “I’ll put a notice up on the door to let people know you’re closed due to a death in the family.” I reached behind the counter for paper to make a sign.

  “No, Hank, we’re staying open.”

  I guided her to a rear booth to wait for the girls. There was nothing I could think of to say so we sat quietly, waiting.

  The door burst open bringing in Susan followed by Ann. The girls rushed to their mother. The women hugged and cried before Ann shook herself lose. “I better get cooking, mom. The lunch crowd will be arriving soon.”

  Regina started to get up but Ann laid a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “No, I need to keep busy or...” she broke down, then quickly pulled herself together.

  Grange offered to take Regina home. “Better put this on.” He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Gettin’ cold out there.”

  Susan helped her mother off with her apron and kissed her cheek.

  “I’ll run over to the center and give them the news,” I told them. I shook off a chill just thinking about what lie ahead.

  …

  I scraped a thin coating of ice off my windshield. The sirens continued sounding in the distance. The wind blew harder and a gray gloom fell around me.

  I backed my Chevy Suburban out of the parking lot and onto U.S. 27. I don’t usually speed, but today I decided to throw caution to the wind. What the hell. I inched the odometer up to fifty, a full five miles over the speed limit, then turned toward the senior citizens center. It’s where I go to lose at poker, flirt with the women, and eat lunch. We have weekly bingos, monthly dances, and occasional trips like the one to Euro Disney. That’s where I first met Tippi Mulgrew, retired social worker, widow, and world champion smartass. Ours became a match made not in heaven, but on the RC Racer rollercoaster in Paris, France.

  Tippi is the only woman I look up to. Literally. I’m six feet tall and she tops me by a good two inches in her bare feet. When asked, she says she’s five foot fourteen. She’d acquired the nickname Tippi in junior high by boys who had to stand on tiptoe to dance with her at the ballroom dance lessons held at the school every Saturday afternoon. Her real name, Tabitha Marie, is known only to a privileged few. I’m one.

  I checked the clock on the dashboard. I was supposed to meet her half an hour ago. Some big problem about the upcoming Midwest Kazoo Competition the center was hosting next month. Tippi was right in the thick of organizing the event. It was a big deal for our small town with kazoo bands from senior centers in at least five states already signed up. Our own band, the Goose Down Honkers, has been practicing hard. It’s not every day you can win a trip to Cherokee, North Carolina—with twenty-four hours of complimentary bingo included. Personally, I wouldn’t think of that as a prize unless the word ‘booby’ preceded it, but then again, bingo’s not my game.

  By the time I turned onto the steep hill leading to the center, a full-blown ice storm had reduced my visibility to the outer beam of my headlights. I inched along on the slick pavement for the last half-mile stretch leading to the complex. On any other day, I’d sit back to enjoy the scenery; mature poplars flank the driveway that winds past untamed thickets of wild honeysuckle, cedars, and shagbark hickory trees struggling to hang on to a share of the clay that passes for soil in this part of the state. Today, the scene was curtained out of sight by the unseasonable storm.

  I braked to a skid just missing a squirrel that shot out of the brush. Squinting through the windshield that iced up after each swipe of the wipers, I could make out the dark silhouettes of a pair of wild turkeys as they hustled into the safety of a clump of bushes next to the fishing pond. When I finally pulled up in front of the center, I took a deep breath and relaxed my grip on the steering wheel.

  Thursday is bingo day so the parking lot was jammed when I arrived. I drove around to the temporary lot used for overflow parking at the rear of the building and squeezed into the last spot near the site of the new media room currently under construction. My feet were frozen by the time I gingerly made my way around to the front entrance.

  Inside, a knot of elderly men, egged on by our bandleader, Bob Applebee, shouted instructions to a man on a ladder as he attempted to hang a banner announcing the Kazoo Competition. Between the shouts of advice and the unwieldy canvas sign, it was clearly a losing battle.

  “Hey, here comes Hank,” Applebee yelled. “Come over here. We need another opinion.”

  “Later, Bob. I’m not in the mood.”

  I was distracted with questions about Alice’s death as I pushed my way through the guys into the reception area, so by the time I spotted Reba Chilton rounding
the corner with her walker, it was too late. I slammed smack dab into the portly widow, knocking us both off our feet and scattering Reba’s plastic bag of good-luck bingo paraphernalia around us like chum. When my head cleared, I found myself pinned down like Jack Sprat under his wide-bodied wife. A nasty little plastic troll wedged in my ear and the metal leg of Reba’s walker stabbed me in the side. I sensed the sharks circling and when the blood seeped back into my brain, I was able to make out a bunch of gray heads staring down at me through their trifocals.

  “Way to go, Hank.” Mr. Wittekind leaned over us, grinning. “Better than the Internet,” he snorted, getting a huge laugh from the assembly.

  “Get a room,” someone added to another wave of hoots and jeers.

  “Real original,” I shot back, humiliated.

  “Check out his feet,” one of the other comedians shouted.

  “Hold him down and let’s paint his toenails,” a female voice rang out, the hilarity escalating.

  The laughter ground to a halt when Tippi Mulgrew, like Moses parting the Red Sea, pushed through the revelers. Her stern face, framed by salt and pepper curls, loomed above me.

  “This is no time for jokes, people. And you,” she shook her finger in my face, “get up and quit fooling around—tout suite. You’re already late.”

  “Okey dokey, toots sweets.” I grinned up at her. Tippi loved to sprinkle her conversation with French phrases she picked up in Paris. I don’t think she knew what she was saying most of the time and I know she butchered the pronunciation but I was certainly not risking my life and limb by correcting her. Besides, the other members said they thought it added a cosmopolitan touch to the place so who was I to argue?

  Wittekind and the others hoisted Reba to her feet, leaving me to fend for myself.