Free How Not To Commit Murder - comedy crime - humorous mystery by Robin Storey Page A

those, honey.’ She whipped the plate from him, crying ‘God bless!’ as she disappeared through the crowd.
    A succession of women emerged from the crowd to greet them. Reuben, defenceless without his pikelet-protection, succumbed to the lavish hugs and ‘God Blesses’. A plump young woman with a freshly scrubbed complexion introduced herself as Ruth, clasped him to her pillowy breasts, then held up a sheet of tickets.
    ‘Would you like to buy some?’
    ‘They’re all the same number,’ Reuben said.
    Carlene giggled. Ruth smiled. ‘They’re meant to be. You buy a sheet of tickets, decide which prizes you want to bid for, and put as many tickets as you want in the corresponding boxes. Then the auctioneer draws out the winning ticket.’
    ‘Sounds fun,’ Reuben said heartily. ‘Give us ten sheets.’
    He gave her a twenty-dollar note and she handed him ten sheets of tickets, from the numbers fifty-five to sixty-four.
    ‘Good luck,’ she said, simpering, and scuttled off.
    ‘That’s very generous of you, honey,’ Carlene said.
    ‘May as well make it worth our while,’ Reuben said. ‘I don’t want to walk out of here without at least one prize. Are there any worth winning?’
    Carlene pointed to a stand near the rear wall. On it perched a hot pink motor scooter, shone to brilliance under the lights, draped with pink ribbon and adorned with a large bow on the handlebars. A gaggle of admiring women and girls stood around it.
    ‘That’s the main prize – you’d look adorable on that, Rubie.’ She squeezed his arm.
    ‘I think I’d look even more adorable,’ a voice said behind them. Jolene appeared with Brayden wedged on her hip and Indya beside her clutching a sheet of tickets. With her hair in a bun and wearing a pinafore, tights and boots, Indya looked like a celebrity child from the pages of WHO magazine.
    ‘Don’t you think Mummy would look better than Uncle Reuben on that motor scooter?’ Jolene appealed to her daughter.
    Indya gave Reuben a scornful look. ‘Uncle Reuben would look silly, pink’s a girl’s colour.’
    ‘Not necessarily,’ said Reuben. ‘I happen to like pink.’
    ‘Only homosexuals like pink,’ Indya pronounced.
    ‘Indya, that’s not very nice!’ Jolene gave an embarrassed giggle and rolled her eyes. ‘The things they learn in kindy! Say sorry to Uncle Reuben.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What’s my angel done this time?’
    Wayne ambled into view and patted Indya’s head.
    ‘Uncle Reuben’s a homosexual,’ Indya said, ‘because he likes pink and he wants to win that scooter.’
    ‘Is that so?’ Wayne raised his eyebrows and grinned at Reuben. He’d held no grudges against Reuben for his roof escapade and waved away his offer to pay for the broken tiles. Reuben suspected that the amusement factor of the incident, undoubtedly recounted numerous times at the pub after work, far outweighed an angry Mrs Landers and the loss of two tiles; and a worker who’d proved to be not much of a loss at all.
    ‘He’s not going to win it, sweetheart, because we are.’ Wayne held up two ticket sheets with just the stubs left. ‘I put all those tickets in the box.’
    ‘Come on honey, we’ll go and put ours in,’ Reuben said. ‘That scooter would look great with my pink shirt and pink sneakers.’
    He took Carlene’s hand and led her through the crowd to the large box decorated in floral pink paper, in front of the scooter.
    ‘If that kid makes it to adulthood without someone throttling her, it’ll be a miracle,’ he said through gritted teeth.
    ‘She can’t help it,’ Carlene said. ‘She’s precocious because she’s so intelligent.’
    ‘If that’s intelligence, give me a dumb blonde any day.’ He tore off a sheet of tickets and posted them through the slit of the box. ‘Let’s see what else we can win.’
    The prizes were set up on trestle tables along the rear wall. Each was numbered with a box in which contenders placed their tickets. Reuben put in tickets for