Death On Bingo Night

by Nancy McGovern

  Contents

  Death On Bingo Night

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  One More Thing

  A Recipe For You!

  Contact Nancy McG

  Disclaimer

  A MURDER IN MILBURN

  BOOK 12:

  Death On Bingo Night

  By

  Nancy McGovern

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  Now, let’s get started…

  Chapter 1

  Bingo Night

  A hundred years ago, Covington Hall, built by one of Milburn’s founding fathers, had been a gorgeous building that even outshone Milburn’s beloved town hall. Made with yellow granite, the distinctive clock-tower would chime out a complex series of bells every hour, reminding town folks of the money that had gone into building it. Now, the building generally stood empty, shades drawn down on it’s windows, so that it looked as though it were in a deep slumber. The wide marble steps leading up to the main door were cracked in places, and the paint on the inside was chipped. There was only one night a year, when the building lit up, and once again wrapped an aura of grandeur around itself. This night was the night the Milburn Ladies’ Club hosted their Annual Bingo Night.

  Today, Nora noticed a bright red Chevy parked in the square in front of the hall, with a thick, red rope cordoning it off from the general public. A few kids were leaning on the rope, their nose almost touching the shiny waxed exterior of the car.

  “It’s a beauty!” One of them exclaimed.

  “Vintage cars are the best,” the other agreed. “Dad said this one’s a ’71 Corvette. One of the good ones.”

  “Heard it’s up for raffle tonight?”

  “Naa. Whoever wins at Bingo gets it.”

  Smiling, Nora headed up to the hall. When she entered the hall, her eyes were immediately drawn to the corner, where Mrs. Hanes was scolding a nervous young girl who looked ready to cry. Mrs. Hanes, a bony woman with over-large spectacles and an extremely short bob, was waving her hands about expressively, brandishing a sandwich with a tiny bite taken out of it.

  “You ought to be ashamed! Theft, I’d call it! The nerve of you lot, trying to cheat us!”

  Nora gulped. Tina had warned her even before she’d taken on the order, that catering bingo night for the local ladies’ club would be tough. Nora, with her usual confidence, had assumed she could handle it. Mrs. Hanes, however, had so far been a constantly meddling pest- she’d demanded three different taste tests before she placed the final order, and she’d written Nora five emails changing her mind about the food she wanted.

  Nora pasted a smile on her face, and walked up to her sous chef Angela, who had tears swimming in her eyes as Mrs. Hanes fiercely proceeded to point out her incompetence.

  “Thank you, Angela. Why don’t I take care of the situation now?” Nora asked.

  Angela gave her a grateful smile and skittered away quickly, careful not to meet Mrs. Hanes’ eyes. Mrs. Hanes took a deep breath, puffing out her chest as she turned to Nora.

  “Problems, Mrs. Hanes?” Nora asked.

  “Problems? Yes, indeed, Nora! These are anchovies, not salmon- we paid for salmon! The décor is absolutely terrible too, the paper napkins are pink and we’d ordered red! Nothing matches! We’ll be the laughing stock of the town at this rate!” Her every sentence seemed to end on an exclamation, and her glasses drooped lower and lower down her nose as she spoke, dangling precariously on the very edge, until, with a brisk movement, she swept them back up.

  “Well I’m very sorry to hear you aren’t satisfied,” Nora said. She whipped out her phone and scrolled through her email, pointing out, “Our final agreement, the fifth email you sent me- specified that you wanted the anchovy and lemon butter sandwich instead of the salmon and cream cheese.”

  Confronted with proof in the form of her own terse emails, Mrs. Hanes grew petulant. “Well, how about these paper napkins! Pink! I’m sure you promised us red!”

  “The napkins are branded in our signature magenta-mint combination, Mrs. Hanes,” Nora sighed. She wished Tina were here- her partner had a knack of turning sour old ladies into smiling champions that Nora didn’t possess. Outside, the church bells began to ring. Mrs. Hanes’ eyes grew wide. “Not seven o’clock already! Out of my way! We’ll discuss this later.”

  Nora stepped aside and gave a silent shake of the head to Angela, who was standing behind a long rectangular table, arranging platters of sandwiches on it.

  “She’s so mean,” Angela said. “I felt like a little kid who hasn’t turned in their homework!”

  “That’s because she was a teacher once,” Nora said. “Never very popular with us students, in case you were wondering.”

  “It’s easy to see why!” Angela said. “She told me you’d need to refund her the money-”

  “Ignore her,” Nora said. “Mrs. Hanes has a habit of using people as punching bags when she’s bored. There’s no basis to her claims. Did you try out any of the sandwiches?”

  “I snuck a couple,” Angela admitted shyly. “I love the ham, fig and brie cheese combo.”

  The sandwiches were cut into tiny triangular bites, each topped with a toothpick and a tiny cherry tomato, jalapeno or olive. There were five different styles of sandwiches, although Nora’s personal favorite was the triple-decker cornbread sandwich with roasted eggplant, zucchini and red peppers- a bit hard to swallow in one bite, but delicious nevertheless. Next to the sandwiches sat a large pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust, and little tubs of vanilla ice-cream to serve with it. Nora looked at her creations with some satisfaction, wondering if the diners would enjoy it as much as Harvey had enjoyed her sample last night.

  “They’re pouring in now,” Angela commented. “Yeesh. One snob after the other.”

  The doors to the hall had opened, and Mrs Hanes was now greeting people as they entered, occasionally asking to see a ticket.

  The particular lady Angela was talking about had her hair cut in a short, snow white boy cut, and wore a thick fur coat that seemed overkill in the mild September weather. Mrs. Strathclyde had only recently moved back into town after forty years of being away, and Nora knew her return had caused some excitement. When she’d left Milburn at thirty, Jane Seymour had been little more than a miserable young girl with two babies and a cheating husband. Now, long-ago divorced from the cheating husband, “Seymour” had become “Strathclyde” and the misery of all those years ago had become a cloud of well-being. The first thing she’d done on returning had been to buy back her old family house on Willow street, and start constructing a new wing. As soon as she’d settled in, Mrs. Strathclyde had joined half a dozen clubs, and there were already rumors that she might sit on the town council soon. There had been some jealousy from her old friends. Some people had even said she was trying to buy her way into people’s good graces.

  Nora wasn’t one to listen to gossip, but she’d been startled too, when Mrs. Strathclyde had announced that the first prize for Bingo Night this year would be her vintage 1971 Chevrolet Corvette instead of the normal trinkets that were usually given away. As a result, interest in bingo night had tripled, and instead of the normal trickle of gossipy ladies that attended
Bingo night, almost all of Milburn had gathered in the hall, eager for the game to begin.

  “Good luck,” Nora called to May Almand, the mayor’s wife, as she walked past her.

  “Thank you, dear,” May smiled. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a brilliant birthday present for Brett by the end of the night!”

  “I hope you do!” Nora grinned. “I never have any luck in games like this. I’m always one number away from winning when someone else swoops in.”

  “Oh, I know. Me, too,” May agreed. “You know who does have all the luck? My friend here.” She nudged forward a woman in a purple suit, who blushed deeply on being noticed.

  “Oh, me? No, no.” The woman shook her head.

  “Mrs. Dobbs, right?” Nora asked. “You came in to my diner last week, and asked for a, let’s see, cappuccino with a croissant.”

  “Why, that’s exactly right!” Mrs. Dobbs marvelled. “What a memory you have.”

  “Oh, Nora’s the champion,” May said. “Sharpest brain in town, if you ask me. Do you know that Nora found a missing girl all by herself last year? It was in the national papers. Sean and his deputies didn’t even believe she was missing until Nora pointed it out!”

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Dobbs nodded, looking up admiringly at Nora. “I read about it in the papers. They said you’re some kind of ace detective.”

  “Not a chance.” It was Nora’s turn to blush. “Would either of you like some peach lemonade?”

  “Maybe later, Nora. The game is about to begin!” May and Mrs. Dobbs hurried away to their seats, as the announcer took to the stage.

  It was a fun evening. The announcer, a chubby woman in her late fifties named Claudia James, had the crowd roaring with laughter more than once with her comments. She encouraged a lot of heckling too, and gave back as good as she got. She took her own sweet time calling out the numbers, and since half the crowd was busy gossiping among themselves, nobody seemed to mind. There was a nervous excitement in the air each time a number was called out, and in about half an hour, a woman in the back row jumped up, waving her card.

  “I’ve got all corners! I’ve got all corners!” she shouted.

  She was welcomed up on the stage with a lot of cheers, and Claudia James handed her the prize.

  “This is much more humble than our grand prize for tonight,” Claudia declared. “I hope you find use for it anyway! Let’s have a big hand for our friend here as we present her with the “corners” prize, sponsored by our dear local bookshop, Ink and Quill. Mrs. B will have a free year’s subscription to the Ink and Quill’s Book Box, a monthly box full of book-related goodies and a new book, at your door on the first day of the month. At a 75 dollar value, I’m sure somebody you know would love this gift! A big hand, everybody!”

  There were more cheers from the crowd and the winner accepted the prize, although she seemed less than thrilled by it.

  Angela whispered to Nora, “Mrs. B isn’t one to read. She’s more of a reality-TV fan. I suppose her husband will love it, though.”

  With one prize already given away, the audience’s excitement grew. The cherry red Chevy had been parked right outside the hall, with a rope cordoning it off, and everybody had seen it on their way in. By the end of the night, one of them would be driving off in it, a prize far more exciting than the vacuum cleaner that had been last year’s giveaway. Nora smiled as she looked around the crowd. In one corner, she could see Tina whispering to her husband Sam. In another, Simone was helping her son Will scratch off numbers from the bingo card. Outside, a fine rain had begun to fall, but inside the hall, it was warm and comfortable.

  “Two fat ladies! Eight and eight, eighty eight!” Claudia cried as she held aloft a chit of paper she’d just taken from the giant glass bowl beside her. Right then, Mrs. Dobbs leapt up and waved her card, beaming with joy.

  “It’s me! I’m the winner! Oh, this is amazing!”

  “Good for her,” Nora said, smiling at Angela, “Let’s get ready for the crowd now. They’re always extra hungry once the games are done.”

  By the stage, however, Nora saw Mrs. Strathclyde whispering something into Mrs. Hanes’ ears. Immediately afterwards, Mrs. Hanes and Claudia James led Mrs. Dobbs aside to a corner and began whispering with her. Lucy Dobbs looked shocked at first, but then became increasingly angry. The others in the hall pretended not to watch, even while their ears were perked. Suddenly, there was a little cry from the corner and, to Nora’s shock, Mrs. Dobbs was attacking Mrs Hanes. Nora saw May Almand run forward to intervene as Mrs. Dobbs raised her fist and let out a little cry of anger, while Mrs. Hanes stood unmoving with a smug smile. There was a bit of chaos as the entire crowd ran towards them to find out what was happening.

  “I won’t stand for this!” Mrs. Dobbs stated angrily.

  “You should leave, before we call the police,” Mrs. Hanes retorted. “Or would you rather spend the night in jail for assaulting me?”

  “I-” Mrs. Dobbs looked down at her feet, her chin trembling. Then, with an effort, she looked back up at Mrs. Hanes. “I won fair and square! You know it! You can’t do this.”

  “The fine print clearly says you aren’t eligible to play if you’re on the club’s organizing committee.” Mrs. Hanes said. “We can’t have people thinking the prize was rigged, after all.”

  “I was on the committee, before you threw me off!” Mrs. Dobbs exclaimed again. “I’m not part of it now. So I can play.”

  “I agree with Lucy. Anna Hanes, you’re being far too harsh.” May Almand stepped in. “She’s clearly won the Chevy.”

  Mrs. Strathclyde forced her way through the crowd, and threw a cautioning hand on Mrs. Hanes’ shoulder. “Anna, we should just let her have the prize. I don’t think-”

  “Never.” Mrs. Hanes had turned red now, and stamped her foot. “I am the president of the ladies’ club and my word on it is final! We continue the bingo till the real winner comes out. Lucy Dobbs is ineligible.”

  “You’re going to regret this,” Mrs. Dobbs said quietly, her voice full of venom.

  “Is that a threat?” To Nora’s surprise, Mrs. Hanes seemed genuinely amused. “You go ahead, Lucy Dobbs. Go ahead and try to make me regret it. I promise you, I’m well within my rights. Now you can either sit quietly and enjoy the evening or I’ll have you thrown out for causing a ruckus.”

  “You’ve always had it out for me, and I have never understood why,” Mrs. Dobbs said bitterly. “What is your problem, Anna? Just let me have this! I bought this ticket, I played the game, I won. I deserve that car!”

  “You’ve worked for the club, and that disqualifies you,” Mrs. Hanes said.

  For a long moment, Mrs. Dobbs stared at Mrs. Hanes, her teeth grinding. Then, as if she’d made a sudden decision, she turned around and swept past the others, slamming the door on her way out.

  *****

  Chapter 2

  A Murder

  “...And then, they just continued the games like nothing had happened,” Nora said. “Can you believe it? Some guy named Norman Carter won the Chevy.”

  “Oh, I know Norm. Nice guy. Works down at the garage. He’s not as good a mechanic as his dad used to be… nearly ruined my engine the last time I went to get it serviced.” Harvey stretched his neck, massaging it slightly. The two of them were resting on the sofa after dinner, and as was their habit, all their limbs were tangled around each other. Nora’s legs were thrown on his stomach, while her head was somehow down nearly touching the floor. Harvey, meanwhile, had thrown his legs over the sofa’s back, and had his hands cradling the back of his neck. To complicate things even further, their cat Tuxedo had decided to use them both as a pillow, and was walking over their bodies, trying to pick a spot to settle in.

  “It wasn’t very fair, anyway,” Nora said. “People were still talking about it afterwards. Some are saying Mrs. Dobbs might even get a lawyer and try to sue Mrs. Hanes!”

  Harvey snorted. “Not Mrs. Dobbs. I know her well.”

  “You do?”


  “She used to be my secretary once upon a time,” Harvey said. “Then she retired. I think she got a little depressed when her husband passed away, poor thing. She was always a very good worker. She wouldn’t say boo to a goose, though. She was a very shy sort of woman.”

  “Mrs. Dobbs?” Nora raised an eyebrow. “She said ‘boo’ to Mrs. Hanes and a lot more. If May Almand hadn’t intervened, I think Mrs. Dobbs would have hit her!”

  “Really? Are you sure this is Lucy Dobbs you’re talking about?” Harvey looked confused. “Why, when she worked for me, I had to speak to her once or twice about being more assertive. She’d let anyone walk over her, and end up doing a bunch of work she wasn’t responsible for, or letting salesmen into the office because they badgered her into it. She was so shy.” Harvey shook his head, marvelling at the change in her nature.

  “You know, it’s funny, because when I met her earlier that evening, I felt the same way- she looked like a shy lady who kept to herself.”

  “Not May Almand’s usual circle, either,” Harvey said. “The two of them were together, you say?”

  Nora frowned. Harvey had a point- May Almand, as the mayor’s wife, was one of the richest and well-known women in town and used to socializing with the cream of Milburn’s society. It wasn’t impossible that she was friends with a shy retiree like Mrs. Dobbs. But it was unlikely.

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll work out somehow,” Harvey said. “Ouch! Tuxedo! Bad Cat! That’s my stomach you’re using as a stress ball.”

  Tuxedo ignored this comment, and kneaded Harvey’s stomach some more. Harvey scooped up the cat with one hand, and laid him on a side-table. The cat insisted on jumping back onto Harvey’s stomach. Harvey repeated his motions, and the cat meowed in protest.

  “Leave poor Tuxedo alone,” Nora said.

  “Oh, sure, and he’ll carve up my stomach like a thanksgiving turkey,” Harvey joked. “We should take him to Dr. Kent soon, Nora. He needs to get declawed.”