The Traveling Corpse (13 page)

“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.

 

 

 

 

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.

Annie assured her friend that she could count
on her. Then she called to Art, “I won't have time to make those
waffles for you after all. Barb needs me to help her run the league
this month, so I'll have to leave soon for the Pro Shop. Shall we
just have a bowl of cereal? I promise I'll make you waffles
tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

After the women got everything organized for
the team Scramble, they fell to talking. Barb pointed to a sheet of
paper thumb tacked on the bulletin board, “Did you see this,
Annie?” The poster told how golf got its name when it was invented
in Scotland:

Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden = GOLF

“Do you think that's how it really got it's
name, or just a joke?” She added, “I'm sure glad we women get to
play now. I'm not very good, but I really like being outside
whacking that little ball around.”

“You may not drive very far, but you're
deadly with a putter in your hand,” Barb declared. Annie smiled.
Then they overheard someone mention the name “Twila,” and they
stopped talking and listened intently.

Dolly, their friend from the kitchen, was
telling her twin sister, “They haven't heard from Twila; they don't
know where she is.” Molly asked what Twila's last name was. Dolly
told her it was Thompson. Dolly went on, “Her car's gone. They
thought she was coming home on Tuesday, that she'd be back here for
Bingo to help Karl. She's his new assistant, you know.”

Molly asked who ‘They' were. “Oh,” Dolly
explained. “Twila moved to BradLee because she has family here.
Tony Tuckman's her brother.” There was some discussion among the
twin sisters; Molly seemed to be surprised by this relationship.
Annie wondered why anyone would find that unusual. So many people
moved to BradLee because they had relations living here. She
chuckled, thinking it wasn't safe to make a disparaging remark
about anyone to anyone as they might very well be related! She'd
heard there were at least twenty-one sets of sisters in the park,
and that didn't include sisters-in-law.

Barb looked at Annie and nodded towards the
twins. They wanted to learn all they could, so the two friends
moved over next to Dolly.

It was easy to get Dolly talking. She told
them that she'd heard that Twila drove to Sanibel Island to visit
friends over the weekend. She planned to leave early Tuesday to get
back in time for Bingo. Annie and Barb already knew that from Brad,
but they kept still. Dolly then told them something they hadn't
heard—that a neighbor thought she'd seen Twila's car on Tuesday. It
was in her carport; then it was gone. Her brother didn't know whom
she visited in Sanibel; she hadn't said and hadn't left a phone
number. They, the brother and his wife, were beginning to get
worried. Annie rubbed her left temple.

There wasn't time to question Dolly any
longer. The golfers began coming into the Pro Shop to sign in and
to buy 50-50-raffle tickets, and the team captains came to pay the
entry fee—money they had collected from each member of her
team.

Verna, dressed in warm woolen slacks and
sweater topped with a windbreaker jacket hurried inside the Pro
Shop and told them, “DeeDee had to cancel this morning. Her sciatic
pain just won't go away. She's going to have to have a doctor for
it.”

“That's too bad,” Barb said. “Is she going to
an M.D. or Chiropractor?”

“An Osteopath, I think,” Verna answered,
“that way she'll get the best of both!”

Annie leaned across the counter and whispered
to Verna, “We've got some news for you. Can you wait here after
your round? Wait until we finish? We just heard something more
about Twila Thompson.”

“And maybe I'll have some news for you,”
Verna countered. “Guess who is subbing on my team? Kitty Kreegah!
I'll see you later; I'll wait for you here.”

 

* * *

 

It was nearly 10:00 a.m. when Barb and Annie
teed off on the Blue course. Because of sickness and the cold
weather, Barb and Annie's foursome ended up being a twosome. Barb
said, “Hopefully, we'll have a full team next week. Since there are
only two of us, we'll each have to hit two balls every time—to make
up for the two missing players.”

It was a Best Ball event. They could choose
the best ball driven from the tee. Then they would both hit twice
from that spot, and so on. “This is going to be like playing 18
holes instead of 9!” complained Annie. “We'll be exhausted when
this round is over.”

“Well, at least we won't be over-heated on
this brisk morning,” joked Barb. “C'mon, drive. Let's get started
so we can get finished.”

 

* * *

 

Since the golf course was open only to the
women on Thursday mornings, the men who volunteered on the work
crew often worked on improvements to the course that day. Their
present project was making cement golf cart paths. The women were
self-conscious having to hit with an audience, and the men
good-naturally kidded them. While they were waiting to tee-off on
Number 3, Annie said to Barb, “I thought Art said they were going
to pour cement today around the fifth hole. I wonder what happened;
why are they digging on Number 3 instead?”

One of the men overheard her and explained,
“It probably wasn't too cold to pour cement, but it was too cold
for us old men; we didn't get enough helpers to come out on a cold
morning. There wasn't any cloud cover last night, and that clear
sky let the cold air pour in.”

Where's Art?” Annie asked; she had expected
to see him with the work crew. They told her that he drove the
tractor back to the shop to have the blade sharpened. After he dug
out the next section for the cart path, he was going to have to go
back to Number Five to re-do part of that. One man said he thought
those Sand Hill Cranes had torn it up, but another man wondered if
it wasn't the work of a fox because a crane just digs straight down
with its long bill while this looked more like someone or something
had dug into the soft ground. Annie unconsciously rubbed her left
temple.

As they walked to the next tee, Barb said,
“We're getting a lot of wildlife around here besides all the birds.
There's a den of foxes on the Gold and that alligator living in
Crescent Pond.”

Annie mentioned, “Von and Verna got to see
that American Crocodile in Memorial Pond. That's a rare sight in
central Florida.”

Barb answered, “When Verna said crocodile, I
thought she mis-spoke and meant to say alligator.”

“The two animals are similar. I was talking
to Doc about them. He gave me a bit of trivia: In case you are ever
on a quiz show, you should know that a crocodile cannot stick its
tongue out.”

Barb asked, “What about the ‘gator's
tongue?”

“He didn't say. You'll have to ask Doc. He
did tell me that the croc has a big tooth showing on each side of
its head even when its mouth is closed. You don't see any of an
alligator's teeth when its mouth is shut. Another difference is the
shape of its face. The crocs have a longer, slimmer face, and
there's a snout on the end just like a pig's. They move down
through the little streams and waterways; so the croc probably
won't be here long.”

“You learn something new every day!” Barb
shook her head. “Look, there's a pair of Sand Hill Cranes. Those
big birds are so majestic.”

Annie commented, “They've multiplied in the
last few years. I remember when it was a treat to see just one pair
of them. They are almost always together in pairs or families. I
feel sorry for that one-legged one; he must have lost his mate, and
none of the others seem to accept him.”

“Talk about animals in the park—there goes a
squirrel.”

“There's almost as many rabbits as squirrels
around. When I ride my bicycle after supper, I see a pair of them
in every other yard, it seems. We had to put screening in to keep
them from nesting under our air-conditioner,” said Barb.

Annie shivered and said, “One good thing
about winter, there aren't any love bugs flying around. Two months
out of the year is bad enough—spring and fall! You have to brush
them away when you open the door, or they'll fly inside the house,
and they sure do mess up the front of the car!”

“I could do without those little pale green
tree frogs pooping all around my front door,” Barb complained.
“Some women like to collect frog paraphernalia, but after putting
up with them leaving their ‘calling cards' all around my front
door, I don't think they're cute at all.”

“My favorites are the emus and ostriches. We
talked about them yesterday,” Annie said. “Interesting as they are,
I sure don't want to get too close. I hope that fence is good and
stout. Those big birds can be nasty. Did you hear DeeDee say that
Doc says they can kill you with just one kick? Their legs are
really powerful.”

“The emus are quite sociable. Sometimes they
hang around the fence watching the golfers, but the ostriches
mostly ignore us, never seem to pay any attention to the golfers as
far as I can see,” stated Barb. She had a poor second shot, and it
rolled near the new bathroom. Barb got a mischievous twinkle in her
eye, pointed toward the new building and asked Annie, “Are you
going to use it this morning?”

“I am not,” Annie declared. “I'll suffer
before I go back in there today after what happened yesterday.”

Barb laughed and walked over to pick up the
ball. Then, for no reason that Annie could figure out, Barb jerked
her head. Annie moved closer to her. In almost a whisper, Barb
said, “Look straight ahead. Then casually look over in the field
where the emus and ostriches are. There's a little shed over there.
I think there's a golf cart almost hidden behind it.”