The Traveling Corpse (6 page)

Doc pulled out a key from his jean's pocket
and turned to unlock the walk-in freezer. Art, laughing, said, “Be
careful going in there, Doc! That's where they
always
hide
the bodies!”

Doc stiffened.

“Oh, dear, it would be jest tha perfect
place,” DeeDee worried.

“Whoa!” said Doc. “You'll have me afraid to
go in there. As a matter of fact, just in case, why don't you all
stay here with me ‘til I get these pork tenderloins out of the
freezer? Please, don't leave until I'm
out
of that freezer
and have it locked up good and tight!” One by one, Doc handed the
frozen packages of meat out to his friends. They stacked them in a
refrigerator to defrost slowly. When he was finished, he carefully
re-locked the freezer, “You're right about the freezer being a good
place to hide a body, but it was such a cold night last night that
a body wouldn't have to be stored in any freezer. It's cold enough
outside to preserve it, almost the temperature of a morgue.”

“Stop it right now!” said DeeDee. “Y'all are
talkin' jest too scary fer anythin'! An' Doc's right about it's
being cold out. Everybody's covered their tender plants in their
yards ta protect them from tha frost; it'll kill ‘em, ya know.
Those lovely little triple palms gotta be tented too; they jest
can't take this cold weather.”

“Talk about killing reminds me that we have a
murder mystery on our hands,” Annie said. “If you're done here in
the kitchen, Doc, will you help us look in those drawers? That's
why we came over here this early in the morning. I want to make a
thorough search of them all, each and every one of them, before the
Coffee Hour Committee gets here to start making coffee.”

“I thought you said tha deputies searched
those drawers last night,” DeeDee said with surprise.

Annie replied, “They didn't really search
them that thoroughly, except for the tenth drawer. The others, they
just pulled them out a little way, and that was that. I wanted to
look myself, but I didn't want to do it while everyone at Bingo was
watching. Also, I kept wondering if maybe the murderer just might
be watching me. It felt a little too creepy.”

 

* * *

 

As they searched the big deep drawers, Annie
told them her theory, “I've thought a lot about this. Last night, I
couldn't sleep, and I just kept thinking and thinking about what
happened. We know that someone hid that woman's body in this tenth
drawer. And, it must have been done just yesterday afternoon. You
can't keep a dead body long before it'll start to smell. I've got a
pretty good nose, and I didn't notice any odor coming from her. So,
he, or maybe it was a she, must have seen me open the drawer. I
can't prove it, but I don't think any of the Bingo players did it.
It makes a lot more sense to believe that the woman was murdered by
one of the Bingo volunteers.”

“Ya think a BradLee person killed her!”
DeeDee shook her pretty head in disbelief. “It's hard ta believe
anyone livin' in our park would do sech a thing!”

“It's hard for me to imagine, too. Maybe it
was an accident; maybe it wasn't,” Annie answered her, “but someone
killed her. She certainly wasn't taking a nap in that drawer!” She
continued, “Let's see, Karl was calling off the Bingo numbers when
I first opened the drawer. Jiggs was nearby, and I don't remember
how many other Bingo workers could have seen me. There were three
or four sitting at card tables on the stage doing their thing.
Nobody could be sure whether or not I'd seen the body because I
didn't scream or panic. However, he or she or whoever couldn't take
a chance; so when the electricity went out, he or she, pulled the
body out of that end drawer and re-hid it.”

“That's possible,” Art said. “But where'd he
put it?”

“He didn't know how long the lights would be
out, and the room was full of people,” Doc added. “Where could you
stash a body in the dark?”

“That's the Sixty-four Thousand Dollar
Question! I don't know,” she sighed. “If I did, I'd tell you; I'd
be happy to tell you!”

DeeDee asked a perplexing question, “What
about that tissue Art found? Tha one with tha lipstick blotted on
it? Maybe it dropped outta her pocket when she was bein' carried
outta this buildin'!”

“That's a good possibility,” Doc agreed
quickly.

“Well, someone moved that body, that's for
sure, and it had to be done during the blackout,” Annie said
decisively.

“The lights weren't out for very long,” Art
reasoned, “So, they couldn't have moved the body very far. I don't
think he'd want to try moving the body out the front doors—not with
all those people around. Besides, if he tried, he'd probably bump
into somebody in the dark,” Art concluded.

“Remember, tha tissue was over there near
those two doors,” DeeDee pointed toward the west side of the room.
.

“He, and I'm assuming it was a man since he
had to carry a body around,” Doc analyzed. “Let's say he carried
the body outside. Because Art found that tissue, we're pretty sure
he went either through the kitchen or out the next door to the
little hallway that leads to the toilets and on to the door that
opens out to the courtyard. I think we can eliminate all the other
doors in Old Main. And, since DeeDee saw a big man lift something
heavy up from behind one of the air-conditioner funnels, I don't
think the body was brought into the kitchen. It would make more
sense if they used the next door, went past the bathrooms and out
into the courtyard.”

“DeeDee chimed in, “An' that's when he hid it
behind tha A/C funnel.”

“That's a good point,” Art said. “You'd have
thought that they would have gone out the east door since it's
closest to the drawer, but that tissue was on the other side of the
room. You've got a good theory there, DeeDee. Maybe the A/C funnel
was the hiding place of choice.”

“Oh, you do believe me now, don't you?” Annie
pleaded with her husband. She desperately needed to know that he
believed her, and if he did, then she knew he'd support her to his
last breath.

“I guess so,” Art nodded his head, and he put
his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him. “Sorry I didn't
at first, but you've got to admit, it was a little far-fetched!”
Annie felt his strength flow through her.

DeeDee was still thinking about the tissue,
“I'd like ta think we're on tha right track, but there's a problem
we haven't dealt with yet.”

“What's that?” her husband asked.

“Well, we've been talkin' about carryin' tha
body out durin' the blackout, but I don't think that's tha way it
happened.”

“Why not?”

“I don't think that tha tissue was dropped
until
after
all tha people were outta tha hall, includin'
the clean-up bunch. Otherwise it would've been swept up.”

“You're right, DeeDee!” Annie exclaimed,
“You're a real-life Miss Marple.”

Doc, proud of his wife, said, “She sure is
right about that! But, if the body wasn't taken outside until
later, then where was it during the second half of Bingo?”

“Do you suppose the body was moved twice?”
Art asked,

Now it was Annie's turn to look at her
husband with pride, “Art, I think you're right. That must be what
happened. That murderer sure was busy! That's what makes it all so
very confusing. It's a hard trail, trying to follow a moving
corpse. And without a body, we can't get any help from the law.
They're the ones who should be solving this mystery, not us senior
citizens.” She rubbed her temple, “Can you imagine! He moved the
body twice!

While she was talking, Doc pulled out an
empty drawer/trolley and examined it. “Look at this, will you?” he
said with excitement in his voice. “See how it's made? The bottom
and ends aren't solid—just rails three or four inches in from the
sides and ends to hold the folded tables. When it's empty like
this—no tables in it, you could easily stuff a body through the end
rails, there's plenty of room, and when you put the drawer back,
the body would be pushed further under the stage. That'd make a
good hiding place.”

Art bent down to study it. “I wonder why the
killer didn't do that in the first place. It's a better hiding
place than in the drawer with the decorations.”

DeeDee asked him to pull the next drawer all
the way out too. Then she bent down to peer under the stage. “Well,
look at you!” Doc said, surprised. “You're squatting down like a
young thing. Guess your sciatica isn't bothering you now!”

“Oh, ya know how it jest comes an' goes. I'm
doin' okay right now,” DeeDee said. “Please pull out some more
drawers so I can see better.” She tugged at her slacks to loosen
them around the knee; then she duck-walked under the stage. In
another minute she spotted something and yelled out to the others,
“Bingo! There's a shoe under here, an' it's a woman's shoe, fer
sure! It's jest back here behind Drawer #9. I'd say this is a very
strange place ta find a woman's shoe!” The space under the stage
wasn't high enough for her to stand up; so she waddled over to pick
it up, then wiggled back out and thankfully stood up straight and
stretched. DeeDee held up a woman's blue denim sneaker.

Annie shouted, “Bingo, yourself, DeeDee.
You've hit the jackpot! I'd swear that that sneaker matches the
denim jeans that body was wearing when I saw it. I remember
thinking that it was the same shade of light blue as the denim
jumper I was wearing last night.”

The four friends agreed that under the stage
was a very unusual place to find a shoe. And the fact that it
matched the body's jeans made it even more interesting.

“Where do ya suppose is the matching shoe?”
DeeDee asked.

Annie had a pretty good idea where its mate
was, she said, “I'll bet that when we find the body that there will
be a light blue denim shoe on its left foot.”

DeeDee said, “That sounds right ta me.” Then
she hurried to the kitchen for more aluminum foil to wrap it up.
“Got to protect any fingerprints.”

“I think we're done here. Come on to the
kitchen,” said Doc. “I'll make us some coffee.”

“That's a wonderful idea,” they all
agreed.

 

* * *

 

 

As he filled the coffee pot, Doc mused, “Who
do you suppose it belongs to?”

“Are ya talkin' about tha shoe?” DeeDee asked
him. When he nodded his head in agreement, she laughed. “I think
it's a pretty easy thing ta assume that tha shoe belongs ta tha
dead body.”

Doc realized that his question didn't sound
too bright. “I guess what I really meant,” he covered, “is who was
the woman who lost her shoe under the stage?”

“Now that is a very good question,” DeeDee
said.

“I haven't heard or read about anyone or
anybody that's missing, have you?” asked Art.

“If there was anyone missin', we'd have
heard. News like that'd fly ‘round BradLee faster than a kite!”
DeeDee exclaimed. “'Course it jest happened yesterday, an' it's
only six a.m. now. Maybe we'll find out more at Coffee.”

Annie wondered aloud, “If the deputies didn't
find the body when they were here, why didn't the murderer just
leave her where she was when he moved it the first time? It was in
a good hiding place, good enough that those deputies didn't find
it!”

“Well, probably because inside this warm
buildin' a dead body would start ta smell ‘fore long,” offered
DeeDee.

“Oh, that's right. We talked about that all
ready,” Annie conceded.

“And I think he didn't want anyone to find
the body,” said Art. “You know, if there's no body, it's hard to
prove there's a crime.”

“That's been my problem from the beginning of
‘Our Mystery,” Annie moaned.

Doc continued Art's reasoning, “You're
probably right! And if the murderer didn't want anyone to find the
body, he had to get it out of the building before it started to
smell.”

“What a horrible thought,” DeeDee said,
shaking her head. Her shoulder-length hair swung from side to side.
There was not a strand of gray in it. Her shiny black hair was the
envy of all the gray and white–haired senior women. DeeDee swore
that she never colored it—that she inherited her good hair genes
from a Cherokee grandmother.

Doc hitched up his denim jeans. DeeDee's
right; this is all pretty horrible.” Then he said, “Here's a
thought: Who closes up after Bingo?”

“We all know that Karl Kreeger's head of
Bingo,” stated Art, “but Jiggs helps him a lot and so does
Oliver.”

“Herb is in charge of tha kitchen,”
volunteered DeeDee, “an' tha Ellsburgh brothers are Call Back
Runners like Jiggs. They're awful good ta help.”

Art acknowledged that there were so many
Bingo volunteers that it would be very difficult to sort things
out. They needed to narrow it down. “Let's try to figure out who
might have been the last ones out; who closed up?”

Doc offered, “Security locks up the clubhouse
around 11 p.m. I have a key because I sometimes need to get into
the kitchen early, but I don't know who else has keys.”

DeeDee asked, “Who takes care of all that
money at tha end of tha evenin'? I'd have ta suppose it's Karl,
wouldn't ya? That's an awful lot a money fer jest one person ta
have ta carry home alone! Maybe they lock it up an' leave it in
that Bingo supply closet over night.” She walked toward the door
set in the wall near the east corner of the hall and jiggled the
handle. “It's locked,” she called back. “Karl always keeps it
locked. I've never even seen inside of that little room. Have
you?”