Whack 'n' Roll Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Teaser chapter

  MOTORCADE MAMA

  I deliberately avoided glancing at the speedometer. It would probably scare me. In this situation, the adage “Ignorance is bliss” suited me just dandy. I only hoped that drivers who pulled to the side of the highway at the sight of flashing lights would assume I was part of the procession and stay clear.

  Brake lights flashed ahead of me. I whipped the wheel and made a hard left. The Buick shuddered. Tires squealed. I burned rubber and was proud of it. Another first.

  The posse had left the highway and headed down a road that led to the state park. Signs flew past. Brown signs with arrows. RANGER’S STATION. PICNIC SITE. BOAT RAMP. CAMPGROUND.

  I rounded a bend in the road, then slammed on the brakes. I narrowly avoided plowing into a sheriff’s vehicle parked half in, half out of the road. I hopped out of my car and looked around to get my bearings.

  A dozen or so RVs and motor homes, some the size of a Greyhound bus, were parked in a section that afforded campers hookups for water and electricity. Where were the tents? I wondered. What happened to sleeping bags on the ground? Did campers still cook on Coleman stoves? Did people still gather around campfires and toast marsh-mallows? These pithy questions would have to wait. Right now I had a mystery to solve.

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, August

  Copyright © Gail Oust, 2009

  eISBN : 978-1-101-10532-0

  All rights reserved

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To my husband, Bob

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks first of all to Jessica Faust of BookEnds, LLC, my wonderful, fantastic, fabulous agent, for her enthusiasm and confidence in me. You helped birth the Bunco Babes, and I’ll be forever grateful.

  Thanks also to my very own bunco babes, Mary Ann, Janet, Chris, Barbara, Sondra, Mickey, Lise, Camille, Jean, Ellen, and Ann, who aspire to inspire, and succeed.

  A special thank-you to the Purple Gang of SLV, true Red Hat sisters of the heart. Maureen, Fran, Carol, Jan, Claudell, Joan, Janet, Ann, and Rosemarie, I love you guys. Who would have guessed where playing golf together would lead?

  Jim Montgomery, lieutenant, Detroit police department, retired, your advice on crime and punishment kept me on the straight and narrow when I tended to wander off into the land of make-believe. I take full responsibility for any errors or misinformation the reader might encounter. And Ben Jackson, you may be a retired policeman, but you still know how to think like an active one.

  Mike McClain, I laughed out loud at seeing the first version of my Web page. I truly appreciate your dogged persistence in dragging technologically challenged me into the twenty-first century.

  Last, but not least, my dear friend Patti Cornelius. You always seem to be there when I need you. A special big fat thanks for coming to my rescue with a title and cleverly naming my baby Whack ’n’ Roll.

  Chapter 1

  “Kate McCall, stop daydreaming. It’s your turn.”

  Monica’s plaintive voice interrupted my mental inventory of things I still needed to do before bunco that evening. I shouldn’t have let Pam talk me into playing golf when I should be home vacuuming. Reality check, reality check: golf versus vacuuming? No contest. Golf won hands down.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

  As usual I was going to be last to tee off. And I liked it that way. When it comes to procrastinating, I rule. I pulled my driver from my bag and dug a ball out of my pocket. Jim would be so proud—not to mention surprised—to know that I’ve taken up the game I used to complain about. I imagine him smiling down on me from the pearly gates. Granted, I’m not a very good golfer, but I do enjoy getting out on the course with some of the ladies from my bunco group. We call ourselves the Bunco Babes. Technically speaking, I’m not sure whether women of a certain age can still be considered “babes.” But I believe with the proper attitude anything is possible. And the Babes have attitude up the wazoo.

  “Connie Sue landed on the green.” Monica pointed to the bright speck of pink 120 yards in the distance. She neglected to mention her shot landed in a sand trap. “Now let’s see you make it across.”

  Monica tends to be competitive
when it comes to golf. But Monica tends to be competitive—period. Even at bunco. And bunco, as aficionados know, is strictly a roll of the dice. No skill, no strategy. Simply a roll of the dice.

  “You can do it, sugar,” Connie Sue crooned. Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader, I suppose.

  Pam smiled encouragingly. “Make it across, and I’ll let you wear the tiara tonight.”

  If that wasn’t incentive, I didn’t know what was. Pam was referring to the fact she was the reigning queen of the Bunco Babes. The tiara had been Connie Sue’s idea. Figures, coming from a former Miss Peach Princess. At the end of each evening, a sparkly rhinestone tiara is awarded to the highest roller. This is the winner’s to keep until next time we play. Then, after scores are tallied, the reigning queen relinquishes the crown to the new winner. Silly? Of course it is. Though some might loathe admitting it, I’d be willing to wager that everyone gets a kick out of wearing that tiara. It makes us feel special and appeals to our sense of fun. In other words, it makes us girls again.

  “You’ve won it two times in a row,” Monica reminded Pam. “Fair warning, pal. You’re about to be dethroned tonight. I’m feeling lucky.”

  “Girls, girls, girls,” Connie Sue drawled in her best Scarlett O’Hara imitation. “Don’t make me have to give you a time-out.” Connie Sue is the grandmother of twin toddlers. She likes to keep the rest of us up-to-date on parenting, lest we forget most of us once raised children of our own. Miracle that any of them survived, given today’s theories.

  I squinted across the narrow gully separating the elevated tee from the green, and sighed. I’ve always disliked the eighth hole. Nearly as much as I dislike the second, third, and fifth. There is no margin for error. Getting my ball on the green is a skill I have yet to acquire. If I’m lucky, it will land nearby. And let me tell you, that’s a very big if. More often than not, my ball lands in the thick vegetation below.

  I strode up to the tee box with more bravado than I felt, pushed my hot pink tee into the hard-packed ground, and prepared to say farewell to my pretty lavender ball, which in all likelihood I would never see again.

  “Remember, sugar, left arm straight, knees flexed, feet shoulder-width apart.” Connie Sue Cheerleader was at it again.

  “Just keep your eye on the ball,” Pam reminded, perhaps just a tad guilty for taking me away from my housework.

  “What the heck?” I muttered. If Monica made it across that darn gully, maybe there was hope for a hacker like me. I took a deliberate backstroke just as Brad Murphy, the club’s pro, had instructed. Then—for a split second—my attention strayed. Did I have enough crabmeat for the spread I planned to make for bunco? Or should I run by the Piggly Wiggly on my way home? Trust me, it’s not a good thing when your attention strays in the middle of your golf stroke.

  My driver kachunked as it connected with the ball. With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I watched it arc against the blue Carolina sky. Monica, Connie Sue, and Pam groaned when my ball hit the fringe of the fairway, struck a rock, then bounced backward—straight into the . . . crap. No other word for it.

  “The sun was in my eyes,” I said. A lie, a blatant lie.

  None of us said a word as we climbed into our golf carts and navigated the steep, winding cart path to the bottom of the hill.

  “Good luck finding your ball,” Monica said as she dropped me off. I could tell from her smug expression that she was happy she wasn’t the one who had to search through weeds, brambles, and whatever else.

  I took an assortment of clubs out of my bag and headed for the spot where my ball had disappeared into the underbrush.

  “I’ll help you look,” Pam offered. Her fluorescent yellow ball had managed to make it across the chasm, but just barely.

  Ever leery of snakes, I used my eight iron to gingerly poke around. A warm breeze sent the reeds swaying and stirred up a sickeningly sweet odor. “Ee-yew!” I wrinkled my nose at the smell. “Something stinks in here.”

  Pam joined in the search. “Ee-yew,” she echoed with a grimace when she, too, caught a whiff. “Maybe it’s a dead body.”

  “Now who’s been watching too much CSI?”

  Pam and I are both crime and consequence junkies. Criminal Minds, all versions of Law & Order, CSI in Las Vegas, Miami, or New York—it didn’t matter. Bring them on, the more the merrier.

  “While we’re on the subject, whose bright idea was it to play bunco the same night as CSI?”

  “That’s why we both bought TiVo,” I said, poking at what looked like a plastic Wal-Mart bag.

  Pam glanced my way and shook her head. “Look at the trash. Disgusting! Next thing you know the Road Warriors will have to patrol the golf course.”

  “Thank goodness for Road Warriors,” I said. Pam was referring to the intrepid band of volunteers who, armed with grabbers and orange vests, ruthlessly defend the highways and byways against discarded soda cans and Burger King wrappers.

  “I can’t believe people throw stuff like this on the course.” I took a final jab at the bag and let out a squeal as an arm—or what might once have been an arm—tumbled free.

  No ladylike squeal from Pam. She let loose a shriek that could be heard clear to the clubhouse. A gray squirrel scurried for cover. My numb brain registered birds, too large to be crows, circling overhead. They looked more like turkey buzzards, true scavengers here in the South. They can pick a carcass clean in no time flat. The veggie burger I had for lunch threatened to return as my gaze returned to the . . . whatever.

  Denial is a wonderful thing. One of the best defense mechanisms God ever invented. I stared and stared at the sickly gray pulp with a kind of morbid fascination. This couldn’t be real, I tried to convince myself. Appendages just don’t fall out of Wal-Mart bags. Or any other kinds of bags, for that matter. Serenity Cove has very strict policies against littering.

  Could be an arm off a mannequin, I told myself. A fake arm. Could be someone’s idea of a practical joke. A very twisted practical joke.

  Pam clutched my sleeve. “Please, don’t tell me—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Connie Sue and Monica hurried over to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Dammit, Pam,” Monica complained. “If you hadn’t let out that scream, I could have parred that hole.”

  Connie Sue was the first of the pair to spot the grisly find lying amid the weeds. She clamped a hand over her mouth, all traces of color leaching from her face.

  About that time, Monica, too, spotted the object of interest. She pointed a shaky finger. “Is that . . . ?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “An arm.” I nodded, no longer able to pretend the object was anything but an arm.

  At my pronouncement, Monica promptly lost her tuna melt all over her brand-new FootJoys.

  “Hey, ladies,” a voice shouted from the tee box above us. “You’re holding up play.”

  I recognized the man; I’d seen him at the fitness center during one of my sporadic workout sessions. After watching him hog the treadmill while others waited, I’d instantly cataloged him a first-class jerk. I wondered how he’d have reacted if he had been the one to find a dismembered body part in a Wal-Mart bag. Probably kept right on playing. It would, after all, be a shame to slow down play.

  Ignoring him, I rummaged in my pocket for my cell phone. Tees and ball markers fell to the ground. Then I remembered I had left my cell in my bag on the cart. “Darn,” I mumbled. My mind scrambled to come up with a plan, a protocol of sorts, but came up blank. Nothing so far in my life had prepared me for this kind of emergency.

  “If you can’t find your ball, lady, take a penalty and get on with it,” the jerk’s partner hollered.

  “We found an arm,” Pam hollered back.

  The man took off his cap and scratched his head. “You found some yarn?”

  “An arm!” My control snapped. Why did men refuse to wear hearing aids? “We found an arm!”

  “Lady, I don’t give a rat’s ass w
hat you found. Just move aside and let us play through.”

  Fortunately, just then, the ranger pulled up alongside our golf cart at the bottom of the hill. “Trouble, ladies?”

  Before I could get two words out, the jerk yelled, “Bill, tell these women they need to brush up on golf etiquette.”

  “What’s the problem, ladies?” Bill asked.

  As one, all four of us pointed to the grisly discovery.

  Bill climbed out of the golf cart and ambled over for a better look. After one quick glance, he became the second person that afternoon to baptize a pair of FootJoys.

  Chapter 2

  Management sure picked a fine time to install automatic hand dryers in the women’s locker room, I thought as I helped Monica clean off her shoes. Toilet tissue just wasn’t the same as paper towels. The crumpled Kleenex I found in the pocket of my shorts didn’t work much better.

  “This will have to do,” I told her. What I didn’t add was that her brand-new FootJoys would never again be the same. They were designed for mud and moisture, not regurgitated tuna melts.

  “You’re right.”

  I glanced up in surprise. Monica seldom agreed with anything I said. Not even when I was right. Beneath her tan, Monica’s complexion was the shade of moldy olives. I made a mental note for any future decorating I might decide to do: Those shades of tan and green just didn’t mix.

  While I looked on, Monica toed off her specially ordered AA narrows and pitched them in the wastebasket. “Think I’ll go barefoot.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I replied. Barefoot definitely seemed the way to go. These were extenuating circumstances. Just this once, the No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service rule would have to be ignored. No one wanted to smell barfed-on leather.

  Monica bent over the sink and splashed cold water on her face. “I don’t know how you can be so calm, Kate.”

  “I might look calm,” I said, giving my hands a good wash with plenty of soap and water, “but I bet my blood pressure hit a record high.”

  Our eyes met in the mirror. “Who do you think it belongs to?” Monica voiced the question foremost in both our minds.