A Pickleball Death in the Time of COVID

By Saundra McKee

When a group of lady pickleball players try to work off the stress of a pandemic by playing a few matches, they discover the body of a dear friend in a pool of blood near the courts. With law enforcement overwhelmed by the pandemic, the senior women take on the role of amateur sleuths to discover the truth behind their friend's death. The work of fiction includes plenty of twists and turns, insights into the fast growing sport of pickleball and consideration of how the Coronavirus has impacted the world we live in. A portion of the proceeds with benefit the Orphans of the Storm animal shelter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saundra McKee
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463450178

Saundra McKee

I am a retired educator. I taught in the public schools for 15 years and at the university level for 22 years. I love to travel the world. I enjoy politics, dogs, mysteries and water sports. I am a lay speaker in the United Methodist Church.

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Death in the Time of Pickleball and COVID

Sandy McKee

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental. Any errors or misrepresentations are solely the fault of the author.

A portion of the proceeds from this book will go to Orphans of the Storm, a no-kill animal shelter in western Pennsylvania. They have a facility in an area that is prone to flooding. Hopefully one day, they will be able to build a new shelter. Anyone wishing to contribute can send checks or food or treats to:

Orphans of the Storm

11878 PA-85

Kittanning, PA 16201

Dedicated to all the brave and compassionate workers who risked so much to fight the war on the Coronavirus. You are heroes.

INTRODUCTION

Pickoholics

As Charles Dickens said, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But wait. This time it was just the worst of times. March 2020. Housebound. Corona had gone from being my favorite beer to my most dreaded disease. We were living in a science fiction movie. I never enjoyed science fiction…too far out...too unbelievable…but here we were. Our reality was fear and we were becoming more rigorous at hand washing and social distancing.

I decided to make the best of it. I’d catch up on reading, movies, try some new recipes, play with the dogs. Maybe do some fishing in the beautiful river that flowed snakelike by my doorstep. But, like someone once said, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

As a retired teacher, I was in the most vulnerable age group. Not because of my thirty plus years as a history teacher, but because I am old. So were most of my friends. Having been teachers, nurses, secretaries and such, we were obedient. I stayed home, went out for necessities and stayed out of groups of ten or more. My favorite pastime was pickleball. Ahhhh Pickleball! I loved the game more than ice cream, and like three other close friends, couldn’t fathom giving it up. It was a great source of exercise, socializing and just plain fun. Before COVID-19, several of us would play three days a week at the YMCA. But the lone court there was as crowded as the toilet paper aisle at Walmart had become. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we’d meet at an old gym once attached to a local high school that had been abandoned for a bigger more consolidated secondary building. It was centrally located a few miles from our homes. I’d coached volleyball and basketball while in my twenties and thirties in the same gym, but not because I had any real talent. In those early days of women’s sports in our area, no one wanted to coach it. I was interested in reaching out to youth and excited for the opportunity, even though it only paid $125 a season (before taxes). Now the old gym had two courts for pickleball and only women played here. Most of us were adequate players and none of us were rated at the top of the sport as 4s or 5s. We were all more interested in exercise and socializing than we were in winning. Many of the players at the Y were highly competitive, played in tournaments and didn’t appreciate being paired with some of us duffers. People who were lovely and kind off the court could be very different in the heat of a match. We even had a couple guys who would use the Nasty Nelson, which is when you serve, you intentionally hit the ball at the body or paddle of the opposing player who isn’t the receiver. Believe it or not, hitting the player gives the serving team the point! I think it’s named for a man who would do this on a regular basis to players standing too close to the middle of the court. That kind of nonsense hurt both physically and emotionally. Most of us just rolled our eyes at the mention of those players who did that kind of stuff—and we tried to avoid playing across from them!

At my age, I was just glad to still be running around and hitting a ball. I’d never been a poster child for healthy living and figured grace had gotten me this far. I’d loved and played tennis in my twenties and thirties but got sidelined by back and foot problems, so pickleball was a new opportunity for a healthy exercise outlet at a late age. Exercise classes were just too boring. Competition made you forget you were getting exercise. And a bonus was that my bone density had actually increased in the few years I’d been playing!

But at this time of Coronavirus, the Y was closed and most fellow pickleball players agreed it was best to take a break for a few weeks, since meeting in groups of more than ten was discouraged. However, I and three other players texted each other furiously, trying to convince ourselves that it couldn’t hurt for the four of us hit a plastic ball across a net in a large drafty gym. We’d be able to stay well over six feet apart, we’d wash our hands a lot, sanitize the ball, not touch our faces or each other and sneeze or cough into our elbows. What could possibly go wrong?

Unlike