Whack 'n' Roll (3 page)

“All right, folks, listen up.” His deep voice, rich as molasses, bespoke a lifetime spent in the South. “I’m Sumter Wiggins, sheriff of this here county. Would the ladies who found the . . .” He paused. Clearing his throat, he started over. “Would the ladies who found . . .
it
. . . kindly step forward.”

I guess “it” was the euphemism of choice. Monica gulped down her bourbon. Connie Sue and Pam did likewise with their wine. Was I the only one worried about a Breathalyzer? Heads turned our way, and everyone watched as we slowly rose to our feet.

Sheriff Sumter Wiggins herded us down a short hallway and into the manager’s cramped office. After ordering one of the staff to bring in a couple more chairs, he closed the door on the gawkers lining the hall. No one wanted to be last to know what was going on. Can’t say I blame them. I’m the curious sort myself.

A couple men brought in folding chairs along with a lot of clanging and scraping. Once they left, closing the door behind them, we, the four amigos, sat perched on the edge of our seats like sparrows on a clothesline.

Sheriff Wiggins lowered himself onto the edge of the desk, arms folded across an impressive chest. “From what I’ve heard, ladies, y’all have had yourselves an interestin’—lackin’ a better word—round of golf.”

None of us said a word. Not a single word. What was this world coming to?

The sheriff scowled down at us. “Ladies, no one is ac cusin’ you of anythin’. I just need to ask y’all if anyone noticed anythin’ out of the ordinary while you were on the course this afternoon?”

“You mean in addition to finding . . .” I caught myself just in time. If everyone was using euphemisms, I certainly wasn’t going to swim against the tide. I rephrased my question. “You mean in addition to finding
it
?”

The sheriff’s scowl deepened. In a good-cop, bad-cop scenario, my money would ride on him as bad cop. Sumter Wiggins didn’t look the sort to tolerate fools or put up with nonsense. And he didn’t seem the sort to call a dismembered arm by anything other than what it was—a dismembered arm.

“Let’s try this again,” he said. “One by one just tell me in your own words what happened this afternoon.”

Our stories were all pretty much the same except for Monica’s—she left out the part about my ruining her chances to par the eighth hole. Shows the state of shock she was in. In her usual frame of mind, she would have put that tidbit in the
Serenity Sentinel
, our weekly newsletter.

The sheriff listened, occasionally pausing to scribble something in his little black book. I was pleased to note that this was just how it was done on
Law & Order
. When we finished, he snapped the notebook shut and shoved it into his shirt pocket. “Don’t suppose y’all might have a clue who . . .
it
. . . might belong to?”

Again, silence as thick as Jell-O.

“Anythin’ else y’all want to tell me before I let you go?” Wiggins drawled, giving us a cold-eyed once-over.

Suddenly I was back in the second-grade classroom of Sister “Hail Mary.” My hand shot up of its own volition. “Sheriff . . . ?”

“Ma’am?”

Curiosity overcame temerity. “Can you really get fingerprints off a corpse?” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Monica’s face turning that odd shade of green.

“Kate,” Pam protested feebly, but I knew she’d like to hear the answer, too. Both of us watched
CSI
, as well as the spin-offs, religiously every week.

“Really, Kate . . .” It was Connie Sue’s turn to register an objection.

To his credit, Sheriff Wiggins didn’t bat an eye. “Yes, ma’am, it’s true that you can get fingerprints off a corpse,” he said in that smooth-as-molasses voice of his, “but only when there are fingers attached to the limb. Seems like wild animals made the discovery before you ladies did.”

Before I could shove her head down a second time, Monica passed out cold.

Chapter 3

In all the excitement, I had almost forgotten tonight was my turn to hostess our bimonthly bunco get-together. Adrenaline gushed through me like a burst from a fire hose. I raced around the house like a lunatic. I should never have let Pam talk me into a round of golf. In an hour, eleven ladies would descend, filling my house with chatter, laughter, and . . . questions. Lordy, they were sure to have questions galore about what the four of us had found on the golf course.

I stopped running around long enough to answer the phone. It was Monica.

“I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should find a sub for me. My stomach’s still a little queasy.”

I grasped the receiver tighter. “Monica, you can’t do this to me. How am I supposed to find a sub at the last minute? We—I—need you.”

“Well, I don’t know. . . .”

“C’mon, Monica,” I cajoled. “Just put on your big-girl panties and deal with it.” I confess I’m not exactly sure what this means. I saw the slogan on a T-shirt once and for some reason it stuck in my head. All this time, I’ve been waiting for just the right moment to use it.

“OK,” Monica agreed, albeit reluctantly. “See you in a bit.”

“Great.”

After hanging up the phone, I dragged the card table and folding chairs from the hall closet and set them up in the great room. The card table along with two other tables, one in the kitchen, one in the dining room, usually worked well for bunco. Twelve players, three tables of four. Next I placed three dice on each table along with score sheets and pencils. Since the kitchen table would be the designated head table, I put the bell Pam had once found at a garage sale in the center.

I stood back to take inventory. Something was missing. Something . . . From out of nowhere, panic attacked me. Snacks! I had completely forgotten about snacks. Bunco Babes can’t survive without their munchies. I’d be kicked out of the group if I let that happen. I wondered whether I should hyperventilate, but decided there wasn’t time.

Early on, the Babes and I—except for a couple who fancy themselves Martha Stewart—voted to keep it simple and just do snacks. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was too late for the crab spread that, before the hullabaloo, I had planned to whip up after golf. What to do? What to do?

Praying for inspiration, hoping for a miracle, I began rummaging through the kitchen cupboards. I found a can of chili sans beans nearly hidden on a shelf behind the soup. A survey of the refrigerator yielded a block of cream cheese perfectly intact without a hint of mold. An unopened bag of tortilla chips completed the bonanza. Voilà! Add a dash of hot sauce, and chili dip, my old standby, would be ready in a jiff.

Next I poured my stash of peanut M&M’s and Her shey’s Kisses into dice-shaped candy dishes and placed them on the individual tables. Now came the hard part. Usually I offer wine—both red and white, since I don’t discriminate—as well as soft drinks to my guests. But tonight called for something special. Something a tad stronger. It had been a day to end all days. This in mind, I hauled out the blender and the margarita mix.

And not a minute too soon. The ladies arrived right on time. From the way they carried on, you’d think no one had seen one another in years. Let me tell you a little about ourselves. The Bunco Babes are a diverse group, ranging from blond and bubbly Megan, Pam’s youngest, who at twenty is living with her parents while taking online college courses and figuring out what to do with the rest of her life, to Polly, our septuagenarian. Polly lives with her daughter, Gloria, whom I’ve already mentioned, in her own specially designed mother-in-law suite. Tara is our other “youngster.” Tara is staying with her in-laws, Rita and Dave Larsen, until her husband, Mark, returns from Iraq. Rita suggested Tara as a replacement for one of our original members who decided to abandon Serenity Cove for a yacht in the Bahamas. Imagine! Like I said, we’re a diverse bunch.

A frosty pitcher of margaritas and plenty of chocolate. Can’t ask for a better combination, to my way of thinking. Judging by their response, the rest of the Bunco Babes seemed to think so, too. My spicy chili dip seemed to be a hit with the Martha Stewart crowd. After everyone had munched their fill and had drinks in hand, we took our seats around the tables.

Pam, tiara perched proudly atop her short reddish blond hair, rang the bell at the head table, signaling the game was about to begin.

Mind you, rules of bunco vary from group to group. Some rules might date back to your grandmother’s time, others from the days you were changing diapers back in Toledo. One thing never changes, and that’s no previous experience required. Just shake, rattle, and toss those dice.

For the uninitiated, there are six rounds in each set of bunco. The Babes and I play six complete sets before calling it a night. In each round, players try to roll the same number as the round. For instance, in round one, players attempt to roll ones; in round two, players attempt to roll twos, and so on and so forth, if you get my drift. One point is awarded for each “target” number rolled successfully. A player continues to roll as long as she scores one or more points. The round ends when someone at the head table, which controls play, reaches a total of twenty-one points and calls out, “Bunco!”

At first, all of us, by some unspoken agreement, tried to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired that day. We were, after all, adults. Mature, sensible adults who strove to maintain a certain sense of decorum. We rolled a round of ones, then a round of twos, but by the time we started rolling threes, the margaritas kicked in.

“So, who do you think . . .
it
. . . belongs to?” It shouldn’t have surprised me that Polly was the first to broach the heretofore unmentioned subject. Polly likes to remind anyone who will listen that at her age she has earned the right to say and do as she pleases. And she does.

“Mother, really,” Gloria protested.

Polly proceeded to roll a series of threes. “Well . . . ?”

I had to hand it to her. Polly was persistent.

Next to me, Megan rolled three fives. “Baby bunco,” she called out, and kept tossing the dice. Megan has an uncanny knack for winning the prize for the most baby buncos. Unfortunately she never seems to roll them when I’m her partner. “Baby buncos,” by the way, occur whenever a player rolls three of a kind of any number except the target number, and count for five points. A bunco, on the other hand, occurs when someone rolls the three target numbers, and scores a whopping twenty-one points.

“Bunco!” Rita, a tall, full-figured brunette, called from the head table. We switched tables and changed partners.

Polly helped herself to a Hershey’s Kiss. “I forget. What are we rolling?”

“Fours,” Gloria said on a sigh. “Pay attention, Mother.”

“Always do,” Polly replied with customary cheerful-ness.

“Regardless of who . . .
it
. . . belongs to, I’m sure it’s no one we know.” Rita, a commanding presence at nearly six feet tall with a matronly figure, picked up the subject along with the dice.

“Serenity Cove is far too civilized for something like that to happen here,” Connie Sue volunteered from an adjacent table.

Janine clucked her tongue. “Poor soul. Probably a transient or hitchhiker.” When she failed to roll a four, she slid the dice to Diane on her left.

Diane, an attractive woman with short chestnut brown hair and hazel eyes, is somewhat younger than most of us at forty-something. Diane works as the librarian in Brookdale, the small town down the road. She likes to brag about how she can multitask. She proved it now by talking and throwing dice at the same time. “Transient or hitchhiker, the ‘poor soul,’ as you just said, didn’t cut off his, or her, own extremity.”

A temporary lull settled over us. The only sound was the click and tumble of dice.

“Maybe it wasn’t cut off,” Polly ventured at last. “I saw this show on TV once where—”

“Mother!” This time Gloria didn’t try to hide her exasperation.

“Bunco!” Tara sang out as she rolled three fours, ending the round. I like Tara. Pretty and levelheaded, she’s the sort of girl I’d pick for my son, Steven. For a moment, I let myself drift. How I wish Steven would settle down. I worry and wonder about him. Oh, he has friends, lots of them, but from what I can tell his friends are mostly male.

Again everyone rearranged themselves. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Polly refill her margarita glass. Rita helped herself to more of the chili dip and tortilla chips. Connie Sue, who’s perpetually on a diet, sneaked a handful of M&M’s.

The discussion continued the minute the dice started to roll. “George and I wondered about the same thing, Polly.” Nancy, the redhead from down the block who was subbing for our friend Claudia, jumped into the fray.

I craned my neck for a better look at Monica, seated at the head table alongside Pam. In my opinion, she looked a little pale, but maybe it was the overhead lighting. I hoped she was done vomiting and fainting. I just had the carpets cleaned last week. Carpet cleaning costs a small fortune these days. One has to watch pennies when one’s on a fixed income.

“George,” Nancy continued, giving a little flip of the wrist to add more pizzazz to her toss, “said
it
could have been chewed off by a wild animal. He said he saw a coyote the other day.”

Suddenly my ears were filled with a loud clanging. At the head table, I saw Pam, her tiara now askew, ringing the bell with all the gusto of a town crier in days of old.

“Bunco!” she hollered.

Saved by the bell. Or was I? Rita and I won that run. I jotted down my score and started toward the head table. Uh-oh, I thought, glancing at Monica. I had seen that moldy-olive color on her face before. I raced for the ginger ale and soda crackers I had set aside for just such an emergency.

Alas, I was too late.

For the first time in the history of the Bunco Babes, the game ended after the first set. As my guests departed, we promised one another we’d meet again next week for a makeup game. Same time, same place. Different conversation.