The Traveling Corpse

by Double Edge Press

  She couldn’t blame that death on Mother Nature.

  * * *

  Wednesday, Late Afternoon, Early Evening

  Art was resting in his recliner in the Florida room and listening to the radio when Annie and Barb turned into the Andersen’s driveway. He got up to greet them and said with surprise. “I certainly didn’t expect you two to be home this early. You couldn’t have played all nine holes so soon. What happened?”

  “Oh, Honey, we found the body—again!” Before Art could ask about it, Annie hurried on, “Well, actually, I didn’t see it; Barb did. But, I smelled it! That’s what made us look for her in the other stall.”

  When Art finally got the whole story from his excited wife and her equally excited friend, he picked up the phone and held it out. “Which one of you wants to call the sergeant?”

  Annie tried to get Barb to make the call, saying. “You saw the body this time; I didn’t. You should be the one to talk to her. You were with me last night; so she’ll know you, too.”

  Barb refused, saying, “Your name is on the case. I think it best if you do all the communicating.”

  Annie pulled a face, then took the phone, dialed the sheriff’s office, and asked for Sgt. Menendez. She was told that the sergeant was out. When she asked to speak to Deputy Joe Juarez, she got the same terse reply. She left a message, hung up, and then slumped down into her favorite recliner.

  “What are we going to do now?” Barb asked. “Do you think we should wait for them to call back, or should we report finding that body to just anybody on the force?”

  Annie rubbed her left temple, “I’d rather work with the sergeant, but yet, we need to report this. I wonder how long before she calls us back?”

  Art suggested, “Why don’t you give her 30 minutes? If she hasn’t called back by then, we’ll have to do something.” They sat uneasily for several minutes, then Art jumped up, “I’ll bet I know why she’s busy. I heard on the radio that there’s been a bad accident—a tractor-trailer and several automobiles are involved. It’s just south of town on Rt. 39. It’s blocking the whole road. Maybe, if you call the Dispatcher back and say that it’s really important, they’ll radio a message to her. Don’t they have walkie-talkies?”

  In a pleading voice, Annie asked, “Art, will you make the call? It’s not fair, but they often take a man more seriously than they do a woman.”

  He picked up the cordless phone from its cradle and punched in the numbers. When he finished, Art told the women, “The Dispatcher I talked to said she’d try to reach Menendez—to radio her to get word to her about finding the body. You heard me tell her that we’d either be in Old Main or on the 5th hole of the Blue golf course. Now, I think some of us should get over there and watch that restroom, and I’d like to get there while it’s still light.. If he, whoever ‘he’ is, plans to move the body, he’ll probably do it after dark.”

  “Good point,” Barb said. “Why don’t I go home and get Brad? I’m sure he’ll want to go with you. Dress warm,” Barb cautioned. “When the sun sets, the temperature will drop again.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Annie said. “Come back here with Brad. Then the fellows can go to the golf course, and you and I can go to Old Main and get our dinners as take-out. We’ll have a picnic and a stake-out!”

  As Barb was leaving, she had a thought, “Bring some blankets and a flashlight. Also, you might want to call the D and V’s to keep them in the loop.”

  “Will do,” Annie replied.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Brad and Barb were back at Andersen’s home. Brad voiced his concern about having a picnic. “It’s nice that you women want to bring us supper, but this is no time for a picnic.”

  “Exactly,” Art agreed. “Once we know that the body is still in the restroom, we’ll hide and watch the building. Maybe we’ll catch a bad guy tonight.”

  “We women might as well go ahead and eat in Old Main. Then we’ll pick up take-out for you men,” Barb said. “You can eat whenever you want.”

  Annie said, “I called the V’s. They’ll meet us at Old Main. Von wants to go with you fellows. Verna can stay with Barb and me.”

  “What about the Davises?”

  “DeeDee’s still hurting. Doc plans to carry her dinner home to her when he finishes in the kitchen,” Annie said.

  * * *

  The men parked their golf carts behind some shrubbery on the fourth hole and walked silently toward the restroom. It was dusk, but before they got to the new building they were alarmed. The door to the stall on the right was wide open. Art played his flashlight all around inside; the little room was empty. All he said was, “Move Number Six.”

  Von closed the door. “This is to keep out any night creatures,” he said as he shoved a cement block in front of the door.

  Brad motioned them to follow him, saying, “Guess we may as well go eat our dinner. The women are going to be very disappointed.”

  Annie knew something was wrong as soon as she saw the three men enter Old Main. From the look on Art’s face she guessed what he was going to tell her. “It’s gone, isn’t it?” she whispered in desperation. He nodded. She put his dinner in front of him and just sat there while he opened the styrofoam lid of the container, then tore open the packaging to get the plastic knife and fork that came with a take-out dinner.

  That’s where Sgt. Menendez found the three couples, sitting silently and despondently at a table in Old Main. She looked at them and suspected trouble. She asked, “Gone? Again?”

  The six seniors slowly nodded, “Yes.”

  The exhausted sergeant dropped down in an empty chair beside them. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. That was a messy scene at the accident; I had to stay until all the victims were taken away by ambulances. When Joe Juarez got some relief help, I came here as fast as I could.”

  The seniors looked at each other, feeling like second-class citizens yet understanding the sergeant’s dilemma. It was Verna who adjusted her glasses on her nose and asked the officer, “Have you had anything to eat?”

  “I’ll be all right. But thanks, anyway.”

  “Look, the body’s gone. A few more minutes won’t mattah. You’ll think bettah if you eat and rest a little. I’ll be right back. Sit tight.” She disappeared into the kitchen, found Doc and asked him to fix a plate of food for the officer.

  Sgt. Menendez was questioning the seniors, asking them to tell her all the details, when Doc came in carrying an appetizing plate of food. He apologized, “The scalloped potatoes are almost all gone. I scraped out the pan and got a little for you, but there’s plenty of meat, vegetable and salad. Verna’s coming with your pie and coffee.”

  She reached for her wallet, “What do I owe you?”

  “Not a thing. It’s on the house.” Doc said. “I’m almost finished in the kitchen. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Thanks, I really am hungry, and this all looks wonderful. I’ll eat while you all keeping talking—bring me up to date on the chain of events.”

  Barb warned, “Everyone keep you voices low, and when a server brings more coffee, just change the subject.” Pointing ahead to the left, she added, “Don’t all look now, but Karl and Kitty just sat down at Table Two.”

  Art took a quick look then told the sergeant, “We’re worried for Annie’s safety. We haven’t told anybody but our four couples about her finding the body.”

  “Yes, I was quite amazed when I heard that this morning, that you were all keeping this mystery under your hats,” Menendez complimented them.

  Carrying a cup of coffee for himself, Doc returned and said, “I slipped home an hour ago to check on DeeDee. She’s sound asleep, thankfully. I’m finished in the kitchen; I don’t have to do any of the cleaning up so, I can join you guys.” His friends pushed their chairs over to make room for him.

  Brad asked the sergeant, “Before we get into today’s details, I’d like to know if a missing person alert has been filed?”

  “It s
ure would be nice,” Von said, “to know the name of the body that keeps disappearing on us.”

  “Can’t help you,” the officer shook her head. “No one reported anyone missing before I left this afternoon to cover that accident. It certainly does seem strange that you keep seeing a body, but no one seems to be missing.” She shifted her weight on her chair and turned to Annie. “Now, you were telling me that you smelled something in the new restroom.”

  The two women related their experience, and the three men told what little they knew, that the door to the restroom was open and empty.

  Menendez finished her dinner and said to Doc. “My compliments to the chef.”

  He protested, “I didn’t cook it all; I had lots of helpers. Thanks, I’ll pass along your praise.”

  She added, “Now I’d like you to show me that restroom after I use your restroom here.”

  The three other women rose from the table. Barb said, “We’ll join you. Never let a woman go alone to the restroom!”

  When the women returned to the table, Doc invited the officer to ride with him in his golf cart. “It’ll be easier than walking or trying to drive a car out there in the dark.” The four golf carts formed a procession, their headlights playing on the golf cart path.

  When Doc started to open the doors to the restroom, Barb stopped him and spoke to the sergeant, “While it’s still closed, look at the nail holes in that right door. That’s why Annie couldn’t get it open; it was nailed shut—two nails. We thought that was strange.”

  Menendez examined the outside of the doors. Then she looked in each of the restrooms, moving her flashlight slowly around each stall, looking carefully at floors, walls, ceilings, and fixtures. Barb said, “I’d rather not demonstrate how I stood on that cement block so I could peer into the other stall, but I will if you want me to.”

  The officer assured her, “I don’t think that’s necessary, but I would like you to tell me again what you saw.”

  “There was a woman’s body on the floor. She looked dead. She never moved. The top of her head was against the back wall, behind the toilet, and her feet were under the sink.”

  “Was she on her stomach, side, or back?”

  “On her stomach, but her face was turned away. I couldn’t see her face. She had auburn-colored hair, long enough to touch her collar, I think.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She was bare-foot. Her denim jeans were light-blue, and there was a tear in the seat of her pants. I saw a gold bracelet on her right arm, but I couldn’t see her hand because her hair was covering it.”

  “Very observant,” Menendez praised her as she started to leave.

  Verna stopped her, “Please, ma’am, will you turn the flashlight back there?” She pointed where the victim’s head had been. The officer complied, and with effort, Verna got down on all fours. Reaching up, she asked, “May I have the flashlight?” She spent time carefully examining the floor around the base of the toilet, then she exclaimed, “Look, look right here! Do you see them? Right where the light is shining. Do you see the red hairs? Look where that thing-a-ma-bob covahs the screws that fasten the toilet to the floor.”

  She worked her chubby body back out of the narrow space and pulled herself to her feet by supporting herself on the toilet. Then the sergeant squatted down in the same spot. Sure enough there were three strands of reddish hair, each about eight inches long. “This is proof that there was a person in here!” Verna said.

  Menendez pulled a small plastic bag from her pocket and dropped the strands of hair into it. “I hate to puncture your balloon, but this evidence only proves that somebody with red hair was in here. That’s all it proves. It could be from your dead person, or it could be from a workman.”

  “But it’s long!” Barb jumped to Verna’s defense. “It’s a woman’s hair, isn’t it?”

  “As I said,” Menendez repeated patiently, “It could be from a workman. Lots of young carpenters wear their hair long in a pony tail.”

  Von pointed out, “But the work on this building was done by volunteers from here in BradLee. Old men wear short hair—that is if they are lucky enough to have any hair at all.”

  Barb added, “And I haven’t seen any men in our park with long and beautiful deep red auburn hair!”

  “Good points,” the officer conceded. “You can be sure that I will keep these strands of hair. I’ll put them with the other evidence you gave me. And, if it makes you feel any better, I want you to know that I do believe you—that you are not making this up. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first. I don’t have much to go on, but I will tell you that I do believe your story. Unless you all are the best actors in the world, I think you are sincere in what you tell me. But my superior is still giving me a hard time. He questions the wisdom of letting me pursue this case without a body or a missing person report.”

  As Doc closed the doors and replaced the cement blocks, the officer asked Annie, “How many times has the body been moved now?”

  “We think it’s six.”

  “And they are?”

  Annie listed them quickly: “One, killed and put into the drawer. Two, moved to second drawer and pushed out under the stage. Three, moved to behind the A/C unit. Four, moved to a car or golf cart. Five, moved to restroom on golf course. Six, moved to, we’re assuming, a golf cart.”

  “That’s quite a scenario,” the officer said, surprised at the depth of study these seniors had thought through. “Do you have any idea where or why the body keeps on traveling?”

  As they huddled there in the cool night air, Annie said, “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I think whoever killed her is trying to bury her body. I’ve been wondering if he wants to get her down under where the golf paths are being dug. Once they pour cement on top of her, she’d never be found—at least not in our lifetimes!”

  Her husband and friends looked at her in amazement. “How did you ever come up with such a theory?” Art asked.

  “I don’t know; I just tried to figure it out. But it does make sense, doesn’t it?

  “Makes perfectly good sense to me,” Art agreed, and his friends showed that they thought Annie was on to something.

  Even the officer agreed. “You could be right. It’s all very frustrating—not being able to make a cold corpse stay still.” As she walked to Doc’s golf cart, she said, “Be sure and let me know if or when anything else happens. And play it safe, ladies, be sure you stay together in pairs. Barb, you could be in danger, too, if the murderer saw you and Annie here at the restroom this afternoon. That could very well be why he moved the body—didn’t even wait for it to get dark.”

  They all climbed into their golf carts. As Von pulled the knob to turn on his headlights, a fox crossed in front of them. Without hurrying, the small animal trotted calmly on into the safety of the night. Von started to have some fun saying that maybe Verna had only found a fox’s hair. She glared at him; she wasn’t in any humor for teasing after a stressful evening. “And just how do you suppose a fox got into a toilet room with the doo-wah nailed shut!” she said through clenched teeth.

  Von didn’t bother to point out that the ‘bad guy’ left the door open. His wife was in no mood for a joke. They drove home in silence.

  Chapter 3

  Thursday Morning, 7 A.M.

  Seven o’clock was early for the phone to ring, but Annie was already up and dressed and listening to the TODAY SHOW, her favorite morning TV program. She was wearing corduroy slacks and a warm woolen sweater, ready to head to the golf course for the Thursday Scramble. The temperature was only in the high forties, and Annie hoped the phone call was from someone on the Women’s Golf League saying the tee-off times would be delayed an hour because of the cold. It was. She turned to Art; “I don’t have to leave for over an hour. Do you want me to make waffles for breakfast?” She knew the answer would be ‘Yes;’ he loved waffles. Art could eat and eat, and he never put on weight, while Annie could gain a pound by just pouring maple syrup on her plate
.

  The phone rang again. This time it was Barb.

  “Can you help me?”

  “Of course, what do you need?” Annie never hesitated. Friends helped each other and hadn’t Barb helped her with the decorations yesterday, plus all that with finding and losing ‘their’ body?

  “Will you help me in the Pro Shop this morning? It’s the first week of the new four week tournament so there’s extra to do. Got to keep everyone happy and see that all goes smoothly. Marcia’s in charge, but she broke her hip. Her husband just called me.”

  Annie interrupted, “How’d she do that? Is it bad?”

  “Just one of those old age things, I guess,” Barb told her. “She fell and broke her hip.”

  “Or, it’s the other way around; her hip broke so she fell,” Annie countered. Then she asked, “What are you needing me to do?”

  “Since Marcia can’t be there to run things, I’ll have to be in charge in her place. Will you do my job? It involves checking in the team captains. This morning they’ll have to pay the entry fee for prize money. I’ll move you from whatever team you’re assigned to now and have you play in Marcia’s place in the foursome with me. We have to be the last team to tee off. Is that a problem?” Barb asked.