Chapter One
I should make a list. Keep myself organized.
- Trap them in one place like cockroaches
- Kill them for being the scum they are
- Especially him
Was doing it on the boat a good idea?
Sure, in a perfect world, I’d kill each where he or she lives, but ugh. So much travel. So many variables. I can’t spend months scoping out towns and neighborhoods and account for every possibility. It’s easier to bring them all to one place. That way, I can control the variables and keep the witnesses to a minimum. No one will figure out what these strangers have in common or be able to trace their deaths back to me. Not in a million years. They’ll be dead before they can compare notes.
I’ll whack them like moles.
They deserve it.
Like all pests, they make other people’s lives miserable.
People should be happy.
Why do people make other people’s lives so unhappy? People they love. Or, at least people they claim to love.
Anyway, this is a one-time deal.
Probably.
I can’t solve everyone’s problems, but I can help a few. A few this time, maybe more next time.
We’ll see.
But first, this list needs some work...
Hm.
I’ve got it.
I need a sub-list. Obviously, these people can’t be killed in the same way without raising suspicion. A killer can’t stab five people to death and think people won’t jump to the conclusion there’s someone running around stabbing people. Five people can’t accidentally fall off a cruise ship or choke on their buffet.
So, let me see...
- Trap them in one place like cockroaches
- Kill them for being the scum they are
- Push overboard
- Poison
- TBD x 5
I’ll figure out the rest later.
Maybe I could take out the whole ship. Or part of the ship? Something to make the other deaths less strange...A small explosion, maybe?
Eh, I’ve got a few weeks to figure out the details.
Oh, wait.
Maybe I should add something...
- Trap them in one place like cockroaches
- Kill them for being the scum they are
- Push overboard
- Poison
- TBD x 5
- Be happy.
The last item on the list is for me.
Perfect.
I’ll be able to figure out the rest. Maybe I won’t kill all seven. I’ll play it by ear.
Except for the one, of course.
Well, the two.
Chapter Two
When The Fine Swine Bar & BBQ opened in Charity, Florida, most residents celebrated the slow-cooked pulled-pork sandwiches and mouth-watering baby back ribs.
A select group had other meat on their minds.
Meat Bingo.
The joy of winning uncooked ground beef and pork butts had wormed its way into the hearts of Charity’s retirees like few other activities had. Others had tried. Cornhole paled in comparison. Cosmic bowling inspired naked disdain.
Meat Bingo?
Bingo.
Today’s Meat Bingo caller, the daughter of the restaurant’s owner, held aloft the O-30 ball with all the enthusiasm only a twenty-one-year-old girl, who’d much rather be someplace else, could muster.
“Oh-Thirty...”
She glanced at a piece of paper her parents had printed out for her and snorted a laugh.
“Dirty Gertie? Oh-Thirty.”
Ball still in one hand, she worked her phone with the other, thumb bouncing and stretching like a yoga instructor on fast-forward.
Darla and Mariska watched in awe. They’d left the Pineapple Port retirement community to try for the day’s big prize: a brisket.
“Is she texting with just her thumb?” asked Darla after marking her bingo card.
Mariska looked down at her own card, horrified she’d been distracted by the girl. It could have cost her the brisket.
Delighted to see she had O-30, she marked her card and then stole a moment to slap Darla’s arm. “Shh. Pay attention, or you’ll lose.”
Darla’s attention remained fixed on the girl. “You have to admit, that’s pretty impressive. I tried to text Frank the other day with two hands, glasses on my nose and a cup of coffee in me, and still ended up sending gibberish.”
“Gee-Seventeen, uh...”
The girl checked her sheet of bingo nicknames again and delivered her findings with the same mixture of disbelief and ridicule as she had the others.
“Dancing queen? Gee-seventeen, dancing queen.”
Darla sang the Abba song as she marked her card.
“Long and lean, only seventeeeeeen…”
Mariska grimaced, hovering over her bingo card as if staring at it could make G-17 manifest.
“It’s young and sweet, not long and lean,” she muttered.
Darla shrugged. “Long and lean rhymes better. Why are you so cranky?”
“I’m not cranky. I want the brisket. Those things are fifty dollars at the store.”
“You don’t even have a grill.”
“You don’t need a grill to cook—"
“Eye-Thirty-Two, Buckle my shoe.” The bingo-caller girl rolled her eyes so far back into her head it looked as though she’d lose them somewhere in her sinuses. The whole episode spawned a new flurry of texting.
“BINGO!” Mariska jumped from her chair so fast she had to grab the table to keep from falling over.
Someone in the corner of the bar dropped an F-bomb.
“I won, I won!” Mariska held up the card as the girl schlepped over to check her numbers.
“Yep. You got it,” said the young woman. She turned her head and bellowed to the bar. “Mom!”
A woman behind the bar pouring a draft beer turned at the sound of her daughter’s call. She delivered the ale, wiped her hands on her apron, and disappeared into the back.
Mariska rushed to the bar and waited, staring at the row of stringed beads separating the front from the storeroom as if The Beatles were about to poke their heads through them.
Bartender Mom reappeared with a large beef brisket in her arms. With some effort, she hefted it on top of the bar. Mariska snatched it, offered a quick thank you, and then scurried back to her spot beside Darla before anyone could try and wrestle her prize from her.
“I can’t believe I won. This will last Bob and me a week.” She rocked the meat in her arms as if it were a precious newborn.
“You saved fifty dollars, but now you need to buy a three-hundred-dollar smoker to cook it right,” said Darla.
“Don’t be bitter.”
“You’re the one who gets mean during bingo. Anyhoo, I have a right to be bitter. You’re going to want to leave now, and I still have half a beer.”
Mariska huffed. “You can’t expect me to sit here with a beautiful brisket rotting on my lap—”
“Excuse me?”
Darla and Mariska turned to find a fortyish, cherub-faced woman staring at them. She seemed to be addressing Mariska, though her gaze remained locked on the brisket.
“Yes?” asked Mariska, clutching her prize a little tighter. One word lit in her head.
Wolves.
The woman pulled a piece of printer paper from her purse. “I was wondering if I could trade you something for that,” she said.
Mariska blinked at her. “For my brisket?”
“You can trade her a hundred bucks,” suggested Darla.
“No, she can’t,” snapped Mariska. Her head tilted as she did the math. “Um...”
“I don’t have a hundred dollars,” said the woman. “But I do have these.” She held up three sheets of paper, and Darla plucked one from her hand for closer inspection.
“Is this a cruise ship ticket?” she asked.
Mariska leaned down to squint at the printout.
“The Gulf Voyager?”
The woman nodded. “I won them somehow, but I don’t like boats.” She cringed. “This isn’t one of those giant cruise ships either. It’s small. Brand new from what I gather.”
Darla elbowed Mariska and leaned in to whisper. “The small ones are the fancy ones.”
“Where does it go?” asked Mariska, straining to read more from the ticket in Darla’s hand.
“The Keys.”
“Oh, I love the Keys,” said Mariska.
“You’ve been?” asked the woman.
Mariska shook her head. “No, but they have wonderful commercials.”
“How do we know these are legit?” asked Darla.
The woman motioned to the paper in Darla’s hand. “You can look it up online. You can call them to confirm the ticket numbers. I think there’s a phone number on there.”
“These have to be worth more than fifty dollars,” said Mariska.
The woman shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to go.”
“Couldn’t you sell them online?” asked Darla. She grunted as Mariska poked her in the liver.
The woman frowned. “I don’t trust the Internet. Anyway, I’m having family over this weekend, and my husband bought a smoker, and this meat seems like the perfect thing. I mean, if you want the tickets.”
Darla twisted to look at Mariska. “Think you can release the death-grip you have on those ribs?”
“It’s not ribs, it’s a brisket.” Mariska considered her options. “Three tickets? You, me, and…Charlotte?”
Darla’s eyes widened. “A girls’ cruise! That could be fun. No Frank. No Bob...” Her head cocked. “Actually, it sounds like heaven.”
“There’s probably an unlimited buffet,” said the woman.
Mariska felt her mouth water at the idea of pastries stacked high into the air. “Maybe a chocolate fountain?”
“Give us a second.” Darla pulled Mariska away from the woman. When they’d reached the opposite side of the bar, she dug her phone out of her purse. “I’ll look it up.”
Mariska pet her brisket as she waited.
“Gulf Voyager is a real boat,” said Darla after a minute. “New. Only holds a hundred people. Hold on, I’ll call.”
Darla dialed and chatted with someone.
“Ask them if there’re unlimited pastries,” prodded Mariska.
Darla waved her off, chatted a moment longer, and then hung up.
“They’re legit,” she said, holding up the one ticket still in her hand.
Mariska looked down at her prize and sighed. “I don’t know. I really wanted this brisket.”
“This is the maiden voyage. They’re running with half the passengers. It will be like having the whole boat to ourselves.”
Mariska grimaced. “Really?”
Darla nodded. “And hey, if we change our minds, we can sell the tickets and buy a whole cow.”
Mariska gave her meat one last squeeze.
“Sorry, baby,” she whispered to the meat as they headed back to the waiting woman. “Looks like we weren’t meant to be.”
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