Bingo You're Dead

by Lou Fletcher

  “Not Gus. He’s a straight arrow if I ever saw one. Not that you could blame him if he did, considering life with Edna must be hell.”

  “I don’t know, Hank. On Law and Order...”

  “Please don’t,” I groaned.

  “On Law and Order,” Tippi repeated, “it’s the quiet, smart guys who have all that passion buttoned up under their three-piece suits. They’re always the last person the police suspect but I know better.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “I’m just saying.” She looked smug. “Don’t count Gus out.”

  “If your theory were true, and I can’t believe I’m even entertaining the possibility, then why would he kill Alice? Why not Joe?”

  Tippi shrugged off my logic. “Opportunity, obviously. Alice was outside alone. And, of course, there’s the well-known fact that most murders are crimes of passion.”

  We both fell silent. I felt like I was coming down with the flu. I was sick to my stomach and couldn’t shake a pounding headache. I would have welcomed the flu. I’d get over that in a few days. The recurring nightmare of the past weeks was making sleep impossible and told me this was something else—something dark and dreaded and familiar. It scared the shit out of me. I may not be fighting my way through a jungle, but I sure as hell was seeing the same old demons in my head.

  TWELVE

  “This is nice,” Tippi said, running her hand over Gus’s MacBook Pro. “Where’d he get it?”

  “The center bought it for him last month to keep the books,” Applebee said, wheeling back in. “It was the one thing he insisted on so he could work from home if he wanted.”

  “Work from home? I wonder whose home?” Tippi looked from Applebee to me.

  “What’s she talking about?” Applebee asked me.

  I shook my head. “Don’t ask.”

  Violet poked her head around the corner, rescuing me from further explanation. “Lunch is ready. Hope you brought your appetites.”

  “A few good men.” I saluted.

  We went into the multipurpose room where the lunch committee had arranged the tables in a horseshoe. The bright tablecloths and vases of gold and brown leaves prepared earlier for the upcoming Fall Down Harvest Ball added to the party atmosphere. Outside was another story as the sleet and freezing rain continued to pour from the leaden sky with a sound like nails hammering against the roof and windows and covering everything with a thick layer of ice. I kept my worries about the utility lines, sagging under the weight, to myself.

  “Let me add one more touch,” I said to the lunch crew and hurried into the storeroom to get the hurricane lamps and tall white candles. “Voila.” Just as I set them on the tables, the power went out.

  I borrowed a lighter from one of the cigar smokers, lit the candles and sat down with the others. The storm raged outside so we tried to distract ourselves with the meal in front of us. I polished off a plateful then I motioned to Wittekind to come with me. “You find Guenther and have him get the generator out of wherever it is he stores it. I’ll bring around one of the tanks of propane sitting out back at the construction site. Meet me outside by the back door. This storm looks nasty, and who knows how long we’ll be without power. We better prepare to hunker down.”

  Between Wittekind, Guenther and myself, we managed to get the generator working, and soon had a few lights on and the refrigerator running. Gus helped himself to some more food and carried it to the conference room to work on the center’s accounts while he still had some battery power in the Mac.

  “I’m going to call the van company and see if they can pick up here early before conditions get even worse,” I said, leaving Wittekind and Guenther to their lunches. Besides Elrod, Marty, Gert and Ernie also used the van service to transport them back and forth from the center. If they didn’t leave soon, I didn’t know how we’d manage to get them home.

  “Bad news about the van,” I said after I finished my phone conversation with the office. “They say they’re reassigning all the vehicles to the schools. The first priority is to get the kids home. They’ll call us back later with an update.”

  “Nothing else to be done then, Hank. We’ll have to wait.” Tippi set another plateful of food in front of me.

  Since the weather earlier this morning had kept the usual crowd at home, we all had seconds, and some of us, myself included, even thirds. Just as Elrod was about to slip a plateful of fish and stewed tomatoes into his pants, Mary showed up with a plastic baggy. We all breathed a sigh of relief. He bagged the goodies, tucked everything in his crotch, and left to sit in the foyer and take his customary nap while he waited for his ride home. He was fast asleep before his butt hit the chair. Worries about the storm were not about to interfere with his regularly scheduled siesta.

  I decided to call Rachel to see what conditions were like in Cincinnati. No telling—now the phone was dead.

  I had to swallow my pride when I asked Tippi to borrow her cell phone. “I know, you told me so, ass, bite, pride, yada, yada, yada.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” she said smugly.

  I tried to dial Rachel’s cell. No service.

  …

  Goose Down, tucked away in the Ohio Valley, is for the most part protected from the most severe winter weather. Ice is usually our biggest problem; when it hits, the only thing you can do is wait until the storm blows through, and the excellent city crews do their job of salting down all the roads. Wittekind brought up the blizzard of 1978, and we took turns reminiscing. On that occasion, ice and snow, paralyzed the city for three days. It took months to dig out.

  After a leisurely lunch, Violet and the others cleared away the remains and Guenther located some flashlights. Marcy looked exhausted from her morning of telling tall tales and the sugar high from the cookies and treats she’d been snagging from doting members had worn off. Applebee tucked her and Frenchie into a love seat in the lounge for a nap, and then turned on the handheld ham radio he always carried, searching for news of the storm.

  “Whiskey, Alpha, 8…” he spoke his call sign into the microphone, “Alpha, Delta, Hotel, anyone copy?” I heard a voice answer through heavy static and decided to leave Applebee to the diminishing circle of men and women who connect people from around the world across the radio waves. Applebee often complained that people liked to ridicule ham radio as obsolete ever since the Internet caught on.

  “Wait until a real emergency,” he’d say. “People won’t be laughing at us then. Pretty hard to tweet or text without electricity or phone service.”

  I wandered away, knowing he’d give us a weather update. I could hear voices in the local “net” chiming in to describe conditions around Goose Down.

  “Wanna find a dark corner and fool around?” I came up behind Tippi and whispered in her ear.

  “Maybe later. First, take a look at something.” She took my hand and walked to the conference room. Gus’s laptop sat in the darkness. Financial reports lay in a neat stack beside a small printer, where another job, obviously interrupted when the power went out, waited.

  “This must be what Gus was surfing before he lost power.” Tippi pulled the paper from the printer.

  “What is it?”

  “Specs on RVs,” Tippi said. “Check out the price tags on these babies.” She put a square nail beneath one of the columns.

  “Jeez, Louise, a hundred grand? Ole Gus must have sailed away from Down to Sleep with not just a golden parachute but a platinum one. That’s a lot a mullah for a bus with a toilet. Why, in the Marines…”

  Tippi gave me one of her famous “shut it now” stares. I immediately obeyed.

  “Anyway,” she said with emphasis, “who in the world would want to be confined to a thirty-foot space with Edna Uhl for weeks or months on end?”

  “Maybe he plans to drive it off a mountain,” I suggested.

  “Maybe he planned to run away with Alice, but Joe was a wrench in his plans so…”

  Tippi was cut short when Applebee wheeled into the
room, announcing, “Get out your jammies and toothbrushes, kids—we’re havin’ a slumber party.”

  THIRTEEN

  Once I spread the news that we were stuck at the center, our resilient little group sprang into action. Gert and Ernie, giggling like teenagers, volunteered to hunt up anything we could use as blankets. They assigned Marty the task of collecting our coats, hats, and gloves to use as cushions and pillows.

  “Neato.” He grinned. “We can pretend we’re havin’ a campout.” He adjusted the neck brace he wore ever since he totaled his car. His kids held an intervention to persuade him to give up driving, so he agreed to limit his outings to trips to Kroger’s. He bought an old yellow VW bus with peace signs and the words ‘Flower Power’ across the hood and everybody was happy.

  “What can I do?” I asked Mary.

  “You can get a fire started in the lounge. There’s plenty of wood out back and a stack of newspapers in the utility room. Check the generator while you’re outside too.”

  The lounge is one of my favorite rooms in the center. It’s paneled in white pine, with dark beams stretching across the ceiling and an enormous limestone fireplace at the far end. There’s a baby grand piano we use for Friday sing-a-longs and a humongous bookcase where members share their used books. Brown leather sofas and chairs provide a masculine feel softened by the afghans, crocheted by the center’s “Crafty Ladies.”

  I checked the adjacent utility room for newspapers to restart the fire.

  “Hallo,” Tippi said, coming up behind me.

  “Hi, yourself. Mary said there were stacks of old newspapers in here.”

  “This place is a mess. What’s in there?” She pointed to a closet.

  “I think it’s tools and stuff. I remember Guenther saying he has to keep ’em locked up or they tend to walk away.”

  Tippi yanked on the knob and the door opened. “Omygod.” She jumped backwards, falling into me.

  The “missing” Joe Thom was attempting to hide behind the business end of a shovel.

  “What the hell?” I said. “Everybody’s been looking for you. What the devil are you doing in here?”

  “Just come in and close the door,” Joe said.

  Tippi and I glanced at each other, then at Joe, who already took up most of the limited space.

  “Come out here, Joe.” Tippi reached in to take his arm.

  He slapped her hand away. “Nuh-unh. You gotta come in here or,” he hesitated, “or I’ll whack you with this shovel.” He tightened his grip on the handle.

  “After you, Ms. Mulgrew.” I stepped back.

  Tippi squeezed in beside Joe, her face reddening with embarrassment, effort—or both.

  “Your butt is hanging out,” I said. “Do you want a push?”

  “Touch my butt and you’re a dead man, Hank Klaber.” She squeezed harder toward the rear of the closet until she was standing nose to nose with Joe.

  “Now you,” Joe commanded.

  “I don’t see how...”

  “Just do it or your girlfriend gets it.” He bounced the shovel up and down to show he meant business.

  I didn’t really think Tippi was in any danger, given that there wasn’t enough room for either one of them to take a deep breath let alone swing a shovel. “Okay, hold on, I’m coming in.” I plunged forward and somehow managed to wedge myself inside. Joe reached around me and pulled the door shut. Now I knew how circus clowns felt stuffed into one of those miniature cars.

  “Ugh, what is that smell?” Tippi said, gagging.

  “Oops, sorry,” Joe apologized. “Marty’s been smuggling me cans of baked beans out of the pantry. Guess I’m a little gassy.”

  “Marty? He knows? Why didn’t he say something?” Tippi asked.

  “I promised to give him the hot tub if he kept his mouth shut. I want that damn thing out of my sight.” Joe shivered.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “A couple of days—since the wake. Before that I was camping out at the Metro Park. It doesn’t get much traffic anyway and with the weather being so weird, I had the place to myself. Marty helped me get set up and brought me food and stuff.”

  “That’s incredible,” I said.

  “I knew I couldn’t be at the funeral but I wanted to say my own goodbye to Alice so Marty arranged to get me in here the morning of the wake. I knew everybody would be at the funeral so I could come here without being seen. The cops always check out the crowd at the funeral for the unsub anyway so that was out of the question.”

  “Unsub? What’s an unsub?”

  “Unknown suspect,” Tippi and Joe said in unison.

  “You need to watch more TV, Hank. Stuff like Criminal Minds. You’d know this stuff,” Tippi said.

  “Yeah, Hank. Whadda you watch—PBS?” Joe chimed in.

  “I think I’m watching criminal minds right now,” I said. “Besides, Joe, you’re not an ‘unknown’ suspect. You’re a ‘known’ one.”

  “Pshaw, Hank. Potato, po-tah-to,” Tippi scoffed.

  “Joe, you were saying?” I stopped Tippi in midstream. I felt like Sir Topenhat on the island of Sodor trying to keep Thomas and the rest of those silly engines on the right track.

  “Right. I stayed out of the way and watched until you all left. Then I made myself a cozy little hideout in this closet and I’ve been here ever since. Marty stopped by my house one night to pick up some clean clothes for me, but when he got there, there was a deputy sitting in a patrol car out front so he came right back.”

  “This is unbelievable,” I said.

  Joe nodded in agreement. “I know. Say, Hank, do you have any deodorant? I’m feeling kinda gross.”

  “This just gets better and better,” I said. “Joe, just tell us your freakin’ story.”

  FOURTEEN

  Joe sighed. “All right, guys, but you have to promise to keep this between us.”

  I stifled a chuckle at the thought of anything, even a conversation, coming between us in that closet. “Okay with you, Tippi?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, for how long?”

  I nudged Tippi’s rear end with my knee.

  “I need to know how long he wants us to keep it a secret, Hank.”

  “Does it really matter right this minute? Let’s hear his story and get the hell out of this closet. I can hardly breathe, it’s so rank in here. Damn, Joe, I’m ready to pass out if...”

  Tippi twisted her head as far as she could, which wasn’t far, so she stomped on my foot. “Shut up, Hank.”

  “Ow! And what did you say to me?”

  “You heard me. If we keep his secret, we could be in a world of trouble. I have a right to know if I’m going to go to prison as an accessory to murder. I wouldn’t do well in prison. An orange jumpsuit? I mean really, have you ever seen me wear orange, Hank? It washes me out and...”

  “Tippi, do I need to slap you? Are you becoming hysterical? Because if you are...”

  “Both of you just shut up,” Joe growled. “Jeez, I’m sorry I didn’t whack you when I had the chance.”

  “Like you did Alice, you mean? So you could keep tom-catting’ around with all your women?” Tippi was on a roll.

  “Tom-catting’? Women? What women?”

  “The entire center, except for Hank here, who’s in the dark most of the time, all know your secret, Joe.”

  “Hold on.” I realized I’d been insulted.

  “Yeah, hold on,” Joe added.

  “It’s public knowledge you’re a player, Joe,” Tippi declared.

  “What?” He seemed genuinely stunned. “Me? A player? Wow.”

  I could tell he took it as a compliment.

  Tippi urged him on. “Was Alice getting jealous? Did she want you all to herself? You murdered her so you could keep playing the field? If it was a crime of passion, Joe, you might be able to catch a break. People would understand.”

  “Are you off your rocker, lady?” Joe’s voice rose. “Sorry, that’s a rhetorical question.”<
br />
  “Let’s take it down a notch, shall we?” I interrupted. “Tippi, let’s hear Joe’s side of the story, okay?”

  “Okay, but don’t lie to me, Joe Thom, because I’ll know. Considering my knee is pointed at a very delicate part of your anatomy, think real hard before you say anything.”

  Joe must have taken her threat seriously because he started with the part we already knew. He’d invited Alice—whom he’d been dating exclusively for the past two months, he added with emphasis—to his house for a cookout and to try out his new hot tub.

  “Naked?” Tippi said.

  Even in the semi-darkness I could see the color rise on Joe’s cheeks.

  “We had our skivvies on at first,” he conceded.

  “Don’t really need the intimate details, Joe,” I interrupted.

  “Speak for yourself, Hank,” Tippi said.

  “If I could get on with this?” Joe asked. “I grilled some steaks, made a salad, we had some wine...”

  “Two empties were found next to the hot tub,” Tippi said.

  “Let Joe talk.”

  “Oh, so now you want him to talk, Hank?”

  “Mon Dieu, Tabitha! Let the man tell his story.”

  “Oh my God,” Joe said. “You two are a trip. Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “We’re sorry, Joe. Right Tippi?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Joe.”

  Joe let out a loud sigh. “Okay. Well, as I was saying, or trying to say...”

  “Just spill it, Thom,” Tippi interrupted him again.

  “AS I WAS SAYING,” he said again, only louder, “we sat and talked for a bit, drank some more wine, then…” He paused. “ Then, like I said, we decided to try out the hot tub.”

  It must have been a full minute before Joe spoke again. “We, um, tubbed for a while, I don’t know how long. We’d had a lot of wine and with the heat...”

  “I’ll bet,” Tippi scoffed.

  “Anyway, after awhile, I said I’d put on some coffee to go with our dessert—apple strudels and ice cream.” My stomach growled at the thought. “So I handed Alice a towel and told her she could come inside and take a warm shower if she wanted while I got the coffee ready—the air was cold and we were wet. I told her I had a robe she could use that belonged to Rose.”