Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) by Gretchen Archer

they wailed, which was happening non-stop. The bonus round was called Caterwaul. And it meant it.
    “Granny, let’s play something else,” I said. “It doesn’t look like you’re winning on Kitty Litter.”
    “Are you kidding me, Davie? I have twenty-seven dollars in this thing.” She gave the screen a whack. “I’m not leaving until I get my money out of it.” The game began meowing from inattention. “What is wrong with your eyes, honey? They’re the color of snap peas.”
    I dug in my bag for sunglasses. I wasn’t feeling very eye-contacty anyway.
    “I thought you were working all day.”
    “I took a little break.” I got fired. “And thought I’d come visit with you for a minute.”
    She grabbed me by the chin. “Spill the beans.”
    “Walk with me, Granny.”
    She gathered her things: a player card in the Kitty Litter machine attached to a plastic coil rope that was clipped to the collar of one of her sweaters, her pocketbook, which was more luggage than handbag, two extra sweaters, and an array of good luck charms she had scattered around the flat surfaces of the machine: a rabbit’s foot on a keychain, a naked purple-haired troll doll, and a 1964 Kennedy silver half-dollar coin. It took her ten minutes to pack. “Where to?”
    “Let’s go see the new casino in the back.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Granny said. “The Strike thing.” She shuffled. “I tried to qualify for that, you know. Didn’t even get this close.” She spread her arms wide, hit three people, and dropped everything she was holding. “Can you get me in?” Ten minutes later we got going again.
    “Tell me why you’re getting a divorce, Granny.”
    We’d covered two feet of casino floor. “Same reason everyone else gets one,” she said. “Unreasonable differences.” She stopped. “Is this what you want to talk to me about? Divorce?” (Yes.) “Honey, you’re not even married.” (Debatable.)
    Granny used the slot-machine seats along the aisle instead of a cane or walker, and she didn’t care if anyone was sitting in them or not. A woman yelled, “Hey!” when Granny got a handful of her long hair. “I’m Price is Right, he’s Let’s Make a Deal. I’m Polident, he’s Fixadent. He’s taken up with a mangy dog, and you know I won’t live under the same roof with a dog. He lost my good gravy spoon, and he farts.” She knocked a guy playing Billionaire Sevens in the back of the head with the corner of her suitcase pocketbook and kept on going. “The worst?” She stopped in front of a bank of very busy Monopoly slot machines and raised her voice to be heard over a Go to Jail bonus round. “HIS GET UP AND GO HAS GOT UP AND WENT.” Granny twerked. “IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” The Monopoly players knew exactly what she meant. The cocktail waitress going the other way who stopped cold with a tray full of drinks knew what she meant. The four people who ran into the cocktail waitress who stopped cold holding a tray full of drinks knew what Granny meant. Every player in a five-foot radius showered with glass, ice, and alcohol from the cocktail waitress’s tray knew what she meant.
    Granny shuffled a few feet, then turned. “But mostly,” she said, “it’s that dog. Are you coming?” Leaving destruction and ruin in our wake, we rounded a corner to torture a whole new set of Bellissimo patrons as we made our way to Strike.
    “Have you said anything to Cyril about the dog, Granny?”
    “Three hundred times.”
    As a young girl growing up in Pine Apple, Granny had walked a dusty Alabama path to school, as did the other four or five students, and her fear of dogs was rooted on the two-lane to the schoolhouse. She tells the story about once a week. “I was in primary school. I had my book satchel and my lunch tin. The big dog came out of nowhere.” Granny’s left arm still bore the scars, and to this day she remained terrified of dogs—all shapes, all sizes, she should meet Bianca’s little rats—and everyone in