Double Deck the Halls
Praise for the Davis Way Crime Caper Series
“Seriously funny, wickedly entertaining. Davis gets me every time.”
– Janet Evanovich
“As impressive as the amount of sheer fun and humor involved are the details concerning casino security, counterfeiting, and cons. The author never fails to entertain with the amount of laughs, action, and intrigue she loads into this immensely fun series.”
– Kings River Life Magazine
“Fasten your seat belts: Davis Way, the superspy of Southern casino gambling, is back (after Double Dip) for her third wild caper.”
– Publishers Weekly
“It reads fast, gives you lots of sunny moments and if you are a part of the current social media movement, this will appeal to you even more. I know #ItDoesForMe.”
– Mystery Sequels
“Fast-paced, snarky action set in a compelling, southern glitz-and-glamour locale...Utterly un-put-down-able.”
– Molly Harper,
Author of the Award-Winning Nice Girls Series
“A smart, snappy writer who hits your funny bone!”
– Janet Evanovich
“Archer’s bright and silly humor makes this a pleasure to read. Fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum will absolutely adore Davis Way and her many mishaps.”
– RT Book Reviews
“Snappy, wise-cracking, and fast-paced.”
– New York Journal of Books
“Hilarious, action-packed, with a touch of home-sweet-home and a ton of glitz and glam. I’m booking my next vacation at the Bellissimo!”
– Susan M. Boyer,
USA Today Bestselling Author of Lowcountry Book Club
“Funny & wonderful & human. It gets the Stephanie Plum seal of approval.”
– Janet Evanovich
“Filled with humor and fresh, endearing characters. It’s that rarest of books: a beautifully written page-turner. It’s a winner!”
– Michael Lee West,
Author of Gone With a Handsomer Man
“Davis’s smarts, her mad computer skills, and a plucky crew of fellow hostages drive a story full of humor and action, interspersed with moments of surprising emotional depth.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Archer navigates a satisfyingly complex plot and injects plenty of humor as she goes….a winning hand for fans of Janet Evanovich.”
– Library Journal
“Archer’s writing had me laughing out loud…Not sure if Gretchen Archer researched this by hanging out in a casino or she did a lot of research online. No matter which way, she hit the nail on the head.”
– Fresh Fiction
“In the quirky and eccentric world of Davis Way, I found laughter throughout this delightfully humorous tale. The exploits, the antics, the trial and tribulation of doing the right thing keeps this story fresh as scene after scene we are guaranteed a fun time with Davis and her friends. #LoveIt #BestOneYet.”
– Dru’s Book Musings
The Davis Way Crime Caper Series
by Gretchen Archer
Novels
DOUBLE WHAMMY (#1)
DOUBLE DIP (#2)
DOUBLE STRIKE (#3)
DOUBLE MINT (#4)
DOUBLE KNOT (#5)
DOUBLE UP (#6)
Bellissimo Casino Crime Caper Short Stories
DOUBLE JINX
DOUBLE DECK THE HALLS
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Copyright
DOUBLE DECK THE HALLS
A Bellissimo Casino Crime Caper Short
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | November 2017
Henery Press
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2017 by Gretchen Archer
Author photograph by Garrett Nudd
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-312-9
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-313-6
Printed in the United States of America
DOUBLE DECK THE HALLS
“Granny—” That was all I heard.
I turned off the Bewitched, because I couldn’t hear two things at once. I could barely hear one thing at once. “What, honey?”
“Granny, I need a little help.”
It was my granddaughter Davis, rounding the corner, then filling the door holding her twin girls, one on each hip. They were dressed up like Christmas cherubs in white taffeta dresses, little white slippers, and halos on their heads. The cutest things I’d ever seen in my life. They were good babies too—good sleepers. A year and a half old, fat and happy, and they could run like the dickens. They looked just like their daddy, golden hair and eyes as blue as robin eggs. Davis was going to have to keep going if she wanted one that looked like her, petite and redheaded. She said they were done because she was afraid she’d have triplets and they’d be boys.
I just had the one, my son, Samuel. He was Davis’s daddy.
I figured I couldn’t do any better than him so I stopped.
And if he’d been the handfuls my great-granddaughters were, I wouldn’t have been there. I’d have lived my life out in the looney bin. While Davis didn’t think a thing of it. She took to twins as well as I’d seen anyone take to two at once in my seventy-seven years. I remember Gladys Miller, long gone now, had twin boys when we were young, and the only words out of her mouth until those boys got drafted were, “Take one.”
One of my great-granddaughters—I couldn’t tell them apart for love nor money; I called them both Sugar—pulled her halo off her head and was trying to put it on Davis’s. Davis peeked around it. “Granny, Bianca’s not here yet.”
“So?” That Bianca, don’t get me started. I never could decide if Davis worked for Bianca, or they were girlfriends, or if Bianca was just Davis’s cross to bear. I knew this: Bianca was the most spoiled rotten lazy excuse for a woman I’d ever seen in my life. Hoity-toity. And you want to talk about a whiner? From the minute her feet hit the floor until she laid her head down at night. “Honey,” I said. “Leave well enough alone.”
“I can’t, Granny. Santa’s waiting.”
Those babies heard “Santa” and dropped their baby chins, saying, “Ho ho ho.”
I said, “I thought you sent the elf upstairs to get her.”
“I did,” Davis said. “An hour ago. He’s not back, she’s not here, and Santa needs to—” she winked at me “—get back to his workshop.”
Sugar and Sugar said, “Ho ho ho.”
It was picture day. The babies were having their picture made with Santa, and that Bianca, who had a little boy, refused to go get in line at the mall like everyone else, so she made Santa come to her. Except she didn’t want the North Pole mess at her house, so here comes Santa Claus to Davi
s’s house.
Neither one of them lived in a house, not Davis or that Bianca. They lived in mansions above a hotel above a casino. The Bellissimo Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Bianca’s husband owned the casino, that’s why they lived there. Davis’s husband was the boss of the casino, and that’s why they lived there. I was visiting, and I just wished I lived there. I was there for a holiday vacation with my Davis, her husband Bradley—what a looker—and my great-granddaughters, Sugar and Sugar. At my age, every Christmas was a gift. There was no better way to open it than with family. And I felt like the luckiest woman alive to have family who lived at a casino.
The decorations were out of this world.
There was enough garland to stretch to the moon and back, wreaths as big as Dallas, carolers in Victorian costumes, sleighs spilling over with wrapped gifts, and more Christmas trees than slot machines. Beautiful music sang out from every corner and even in the elevators: new upbeat Christmas songs, classics and hymns, and beautiful instrumentals. The whole place smelled like pine trees and spiced eggnog.
The day before, Davis and I took Sugar and Sugar downstairs to see the life-sized snowman village around an indoor ice-skating rink, then we went to the life-sized gingerbread house you could walk through. It had a little gingerbread parlor, little gingerbread kitchen, and little gingerbread bunk beds with little gingerbread children sleeping under little gingerbread blankets. Davis and I had front-row tickets for the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular show in the casino theater that night, which would be right after I played in the first round of the Winter Wonderland Senior Slot Tournament. I won four hundred dollars in the Santa’s Helper Senior Tournament the year before. Saved half of it for this year. And here I was. With my two hundred dollars. Itching to get to the tournament and see who all made it back. The theme was The Nice List.
I was hoping my name would be on it.
And that would be Dorothy May Randal Way Johnson Morton Bunker.
Born, raised, and plan to be laid to rest in Pine Apple, Alabama, I’ve never been divorced in my life. All those names were from the husbands who’d died on me. Not my last one, Cyril, who was too ornery to die, which was one of the reasons I left him home when I came to see Davis. The other reason was Cyril moved like cold molasses. I told him all the time, “Cyril, come on already, you’re cramping my style.” He’d say, “Dee, you and style parted ways half a century ago.”
You see what I mean about ornery?
And I had style coming out of my ears. I found a line of jogging suits at the Macy’s that ran the gamut from wash-and-wear leisurely, like for going to the market or resting at home, to no-iron designer knit, like for church, going out on the town, or visiting my granddaughter in Biloxi. My suits had plenty of pockets, and I kept them full, because when I started wearing the jogging suits, I gave up pocketbooks. I thought, why do I need a pocketbook when I have all these pockets in my jogging suits? I was tired of keeping up with my pocketbook. Where’d I put my pocketbook? Has anyone seen my pocketbook? I can’t find my pocketbook.
Life was too short.
That day I was wearing my red knit jogging suit with a handstitched Rudolph across the back. Brand new from the January before when it was on clearance. Did Cyril compliment me on my new suit? No. He said, “Dee, you’re going to blind someone. Turn that reindeer’s nose off.”
My jogging suit had a battery in one of the front pockets no bigger than a minute that operated Rudolph’s nose, and Cyril was a stick in the mud. I wound up married to his stick-in-the-mud butt because the rest of my husbands, like I said, were dead and gone. The only one I missed was my first husband, Quinton, the father of my Samuel. I loved that man with all my heart. He was my only husband, out of all of them, who danced with me. Sometimes Quinton and I would dance to no music for no reason. One time we danced in the rain. Raining cats and dogs. We danced and danced.
Quinton had a heart attack at the kitchen table.
We were having stuffed bell peppers with boiled cabbage for supper. He fell over dead in his plate one bite in. My second husband choked to death on a catfish bone at the same table. Caught it that morning, died on it that evening. My third husband electrocuted himself working on the toaster because it wouldn’t leggo his Eggo. He had that thing in a million pieces. I said, “Morty, I hear something sizzling.” The last words that man ever spoke were, “Are you making bacon?” Guess where he was? The kitchen table. After I buried him, I chopped up the table that took three husbands from me and used it for firewood. Me and Cyril eat on TV trays. They say most home accidents happen in the bathtub and I’m here to tell, they happen at the kitchen table.
Some women don’t have good husband luck and that’s all there was to it. I was one of them. I was beginning to think my Davis was following in my footsteps until she married her Bradley. I know it’s hard to image a big strong man being pretty, but that Bradley Cole, with his broad shoulders and square jaw, was pretty man. He reminded me of Robert Redford. Pretty. And that Bradley made pretty babies. Who were singing “Jingle Bells” in Davis’s ears. One sang “jingle” while the other sang “bells.” This was at the same time. Davis just talked right over it.
“Granny, would you mind going upstairs to see what’s keeping Bianca?”
She went on to tell me Sugar and Sugar were done. They’d already gone three rounds with Santa: one in their smocked Christmas dresses, another in their candy-cane costumes, and they’d just finished their angel pictures. Davis said the only way they’d sit on Santa’s lap again would be if she filled it with P-U-P-P-I-E-S first. It was Bianca’s little boy’s turn. Davis didn’t have time to go upstairs and light a fire under Bianca, because she’d promised Sugar and Sugar I-C-E C-R-E-A-M in their daddy’s office downstairs.
Sugar and Sugar said, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
Davis was about to say something else when one of the Sugars broke free, slid down her leg, and took off hollering for her daddy. Davis and Sugar Two went flying after her. From the hall I heard, “Please—” something something something “—snow is melting—” something something something “—Granny!”
I got the gist of it. Scare up Her Highness.
I checked to make sure my walking shoes were on good and snug, patted my face to make sure my trifocals were on it, then checked my pockets for my pills, my telephone, and my Juicy Fruit chewing gum. I had all that and more. I was set. I’d go get Mrs. High Horse for Davis. I had two hours before the Winter Wonderland tournament, and I’d been ready for three.
I’d only been to Bianca’s house a few times and didn’t stay long any of them, so I don’t remember much about it except where it was. Davis had an elevator in her front room that only went upstairs to Bianca’s. It would hold about five people, so I had plenty of room. It took one ding to get there.
Right off, I ran into a man in a tuxedo with the reddest lips I’d ever seen in my life. Looked like he was wearing lipstick. He should probably dab some witch hazel on those lips. It’d sting for a minute, but it’d take that red out too. He stood between me and the rest of Bianca’s house and said, “May I help you?”
I said, “I’m Dorothy, but you can call me Granny Dee because everyone else does.”
Red Lips said, “Are you a guest of Mrs. Cole’s?”
“You mean Davis? She’s my granddaughter,” I said. “She sent me up here to get Bianca. It’s time for her baby to have his picture made with Santa Claus.”
Red Lips said, “Madame Sanders isn’t awake.”
“It’s almost noon,” I told him. “There’s snow melting all over Davis’s dining room. Wake Madame up.”
Red Lips shook his head back and forth. “No ma’am. I will not.”
“Well, I will.” I pushed up the sleeves on my jogging suit jacket. “Which way?”
He blocked me, explaining what he called House Rules. When Madame was ready, she called for her coffee service. Some days it w
as eight o’clock in the morning, other days it wasn’t ’til four in the afternoon. Until she called, regardless of what might be on her schedule, she was not to be disturbed. According to him, Madame hadn’t called.
Ten minutes gone, Red Lips explaining all this to me.
When he finished, I said, “Which way, Mister?”
That’s one thing about getting old. You find your nerve.
“Ma’am—”
Me and my nerve marched right past him.
“—at your own risk.” That was all I heard.
About a mile later, asking everyone I passed where the queen of the castle was, them pointing me here and there, I found Bianca’s door. I gave it a few pounds with the side of my fist. “Bianca? You in there?”
She didn’t answer.
“Bianca?”
I tried to count to ten, but I only made it to four.
“Bianca! Santa Claus is coming to town!”
By then I had an audience. Red Lips, a young dark-skinned girl in a business suit, a woman in a starched white maid’s dress holding a serving tray full of silver and a long-stemmed white rose, and a tall young man wearing exercising clothes were all huddled at the end of the hall watching me.
The girl in the business suit said, “Ma’am, seriously, you shouldn’t bother Mrs. Sanders.”
“Oh, poo,” I said. “Do you young people realize she puts her pants on just like you do?”
They blinked at each other.
The maid with the coffee tray spoke up. “Mrs. Sanders has a wardrobe assistant.”
“Who puts her pants on her?” I gave the door another whack. “Bianca! I’m coming in!” I marched right through that door and left those fraidy cats in the hall.