The Traveling Corpse (24 page)

Annie picked up the newspaper. There it was!
The story made the front page. She read the article. Then she read
it again. The Sheriff's Department issued a general statement about
the case, but she noted that it skirted the issue and did not fully
answer the question of why
Mr. George Jiggs was working in an
area of the BradLee Blue Golf Course before midnight last Thursday
evening. Cement was to be poured in this spot for a new cart path
as soon as the weather warmed.

She suddenly shivered and thought,
I've
lived my whole life without ever calling the police; now here I am
in my seventies, and I'm getting very chummy with a sergeant from
the Sheriff's Department! Oh, dear, I'm too old for this!
But
she was so involved in ‘Our Mystery' that, no matter what, she
couldn't push it out of her mind.

She re-read the several stories that were
printed in the Tampa Tribune about the accident. Her nosey next
door neighbor brought over the St. Petersburg Times. Annie thanked
her for it, but she did not invite that woman to come inside. Annie
noted that there was only a small article in one of the papers
about Twila Thompson and that was on an inside page. To Annie, the
missing Twila was just as important as Jiggs' death, but then she
was trained as a nurse, not as a reporter. And, she had to admit
that Jiggs' death was more spectacular.

Finally, she put the news section down and
found the Funnies, but nothing seemed funny to her today. She tried
working the Cryptogram puzzle. Even though one of the correct
letters was printed, she could not break the code this morning. She
asked herself,
Do these puzzles get harder as the week goes on?
Seems like they are easy to solve on Mondays and Tuesdays, but
today is Saturday, and this is too difficult for me, or maybe I
just can't concentrate on it today.
Then her mind turned from
the word puzzle to the puzzle of the missing Twila. Uneasy, Annie
decided she needed to get outside and do something. She put the
newspaper down and called Barb, “Want to get some exercise? I've
got to do something besides think about ‘Our Mystery'.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Swimming?”

“Too cold for me.”

“It's in the high 70's today.”

“Yes, but with that cold snap, the water
still won't be warm enough for me.”

“It's heated.”

“I know, but it takes longer than this to get
the water back up in the 80s. I'm no polar bear; I don't swim in
cool water.”

“I've got to do something, Barb. My mind
won't stop re-playing Jiggs' death.”

“Want to go shopping? Play golf?”

Annie paused to think.

“It's so nice out today after that cold snap;
let's play golf. I think Art will go. He should be home pretty
soon. How about Brad? Will he play?”

She waited while Barb spoke to her husband.
“He says fine, but he needs a little more time to finish that
coffee pot he's repairing for the kitchen in Old Main. He wants to
drop it off on the way to the golf course. We'll try to be there in
an hour, okay?”

“Sounds good. I'll put my shorts on.
‘Bye.”

 

* * *

 

The A's were waiting when the B's drove up.
Brad apologized, “Sorry, it took a little longer to finish fixing
that coffee pot than I thought it would. I wanted to get it
repaired and back to the kitchen because the Dance Club is having
their Winter Wonderland Dance tonight, and they might need it for
refreshments.”

“No problem,” Art assured him. “We just came
outside to wait for you because Annie's getting cabin fever. She's
worrying herself sick over what she keeps calling ‘Our Mystery'.”
Annie wrinkled her nose and made a little mew face at her husband,
but her violet eyes were smiling.

“Which course do you want to play?” Barb
asked.

Without hesitating, Annie answered, “The
Blue.”

The others looked at her with surprise. “You
want to go back out there after the other night?” Barb said in
amazement. “I'd have thought you'd have had your fill of that
course for awhile.”

Annie smiled weakly, “Please? I want a fresh
memory of number five that is normal and not what we saw last
night.”

“I'm game if the rest of you are,” Art said.
“Are we walking or riding?”

“Riding, please,” Annie said. “I need to do
something physical, but not too physical. All this mystery is
wearing me out.”

“I know what you mean,” Barb agreed.

The foursome always enjoyed playing together
and being out in the fresh air was refreshing. The 77 degree
temperature was a welcome change from the recent cold spell they
had endured. The first hole was a short one, and the two men, using
irons, easily drove to the green. Barb selected a five wood and her
ball reached the green too, but Annie sliced to the right and her
ball plopped in the water. “Oh, oh, I'm having DeeDee's bad luck on
this hole. Hope I'm not jinxed for the rest of the round.”

The two 18-hole courses were full of golfers.
They were out in force enjoying the welcome warm weather. The
yellow sheriff's tape had been removed at the Blue Number Five, and
the tee-off markers for men and women were pushed down into the
sandy soil in their normal places. As usual, there was a tie-up at
the fifth hole. There were two foursomes ahead of them waiting to
tee-off; so after pulling up in the queue to wait their turn, Annie
got out. Art asked, “Where are you going?”

“Just over there to see the big birds.”

Barb joined her at the fence. The two women
saw the alligator's back and the top of its head as it swam
silently and effortlessly under the wire fence that divided the
crescent-shaped pond. The 'gator surfaced, lumbered up the bank,
and settled down in the field, warming himself in the sun. “He
certainly is getting to be one big alligator,” Annie said.

“Usually an alligator trapper is called to
catch them and take them away when they get to be six feet,” Barb
commented. “I don't think city folks like us feel very comfortable
having one of these pre-historic creatures around when they get so
big. He is one scary animal. I'll have to ask Brad to check with
the Board on what to do about it.” She looked back over her
shoulder to check the queue; the men were still sitting in their
golf carts waiting their turn. When she turned back towards the
field again, something caught her eye. “Annie, look!” Barb pointed
at what she guessed was an emu because it was smaller than some of
the other big birds.

“Where?”

“Over there, more to your right.”

“What?”

“Look. That smaller bird has something in its
beak.”

Just then the sun glinted off a piece of
metal that was dangling from the emu's mouth. Then Annie saw it.
“Oh, for heaven's sake!” was all she could manage to say. She
wanted Art to come to the fence to see it too, but she didn't dare
shout to him because a man was teeing off just then. Annie knew she
couldn't run anymore; sometime during these last years she realized
that she couldn't run, jump, hop, or skip; her old body wouldn't do
these things anymore. So, as best as she could, she hurried over to
Art and Brad and said, “Wave the others to play through. You've got
to come see what Barb showed me.”

The men gave each other one of those ‘What
have our wives gotten us into now?' looks, then followed her to the
fence. Barb whispered so the other golfers couldn't hear her, “See!
Can you see it? Over there.” She kept her hand close to her body
and pointed with one finger. “That emu has something in its beak. I
think it's a piece of gold jewelry. What are we going to do? No,
Brad, I'm not going in there, but I'd really like to see what she
has in her mouth.”

Immediately, Brad offered to drive back to
the Pro Shop to call the Sergeant. He warned before he left them,
“Don't you dare go in there; you guys stay here and watch that emu
from this side of the fence. I'll go call, what's-her-name?”

“Menendez, Sgt. Menendez, and the deputy is
Joe Juarez.” Annie supplied Brad with the phone number; she'd
called it enough times by now to remember it. “See if you can get
them to get the farmer to come out here too.”

Barb suggested he also call the Davises and
Vigeauxs. “They'll want to know too. They'll want to be in the
loop.”

“Will do,” Brad promised as he headed back to
his golf cart and on to the Pro Shop. Art moved his cart out of the
queue and away from the tee. He suspected that they wouldn't be
playing any more golf today.

 

* * *

 

Brad returned shortly and told the others
that dispatch had contacted the Sergeant and she was on her way. As
they waited, two other golfers came over to the fence to view the
birds until it was their turn to tee off the fifth hole. Anxiously,
Annie kept her eyes glued to the bird with the object in its beak.
It was only a short time, but it seemed like hours to Annie before
Sgt. Menendez arrived, driven out by a Ranger in a course cart
after evidently leaving her car in the parking lot.

“Thanks for coming,” Barb said in greeting
when the law officer exited the cart and came toward them. “We
thought you ought to see this.”

“Thank you for alerting me,” Menendez
replied.

Annie swallowed the temptation to say
something about how the deputies certainly didn't thank her for the
first phone call she'd made to them just last Tuesday night. No,
she decided, it was far better to have the Sergeant's trust now; no
need to remind her of their first pitiful encounter. Anyway, the
other night Maria almost apologized. Annie figured that Menendez
would never actually voice the words, ‘I'm sorry', but her friendly
words and smiles spoke volumes.

None of them knew the two other people
standing by the fence; they were golfers just passing the time
while waiting to tee off. As Annie listened to Barb talking to
Menendez and pointing out the emu with the jewelry, she looked at
the golfers and groaned; there were two more standing at the fence
now. She nudged Art, “Do you see who's here?”

Art looked at her. She tilted her head to the
left. He looked along the fence, and recognized one of those men as
their neighbor's husband, the one who had asked them over to eat.
Art whispered with a little laugh, “Looks like we'll be getting
another dinner invitation!”

The emu holding a bright shiny object in its
beak was the star attraction. Golfers came, watched awhile, then
left to tee-off; others took their place at the fence. But the
Andersens and Bradkowskis as well as Menendez stayed. There was no
way they would let that emu out of their sight if they could help
it.

When they were alone for a few minutes with
no other golfers around, Barb whispered, “I just know that's
Twila's. I'm sure it's a piece of her jewelry.”

Annie wanted to believe her. She knew,
however, that it could very well be just a shiny bit of garbage the
bird had picked up, perhaps something a golfer had thrown over the
fence or a gum wrapper that the wind had blown in, although it
didn't flutter like a wrapper. But, if it were Twila's, then they
would have a valuable piece of evidence, another piece to fit in
their puzzle.

Art lamented, “I wish we could get in there.
We've got to see what that bird's got in its mouth. We've got
to.”

Annie laughed to herself, realizing how
caught up in ‘Our Mystery' he now was. Such a change from last
Tuesday evening when she tried hard to convince him and the others
that she'd touched a dead woman's arm in a drawer.

Sgt. Menendez moved with them along the
length of the fence, following the movements of the emu. They
didn't know if the bird was a he or a she, but because it was small
and carrying a piece of jewelry, they collectively decided it must
be a ‘she'.

Barb announced, “She needs a name, and I
think we should call her ‘Carol'.”

Her husband asked. “Why did you pick that
name?”

“I thought Carol fit her because she likes
jewelry, and because Carol Channing likes to sing ‘Diamonds Are A
Girl's Best Friend'.”

Menendez joined in the fun and said, “Why not
Marilyn then?”

“She doesn't look like a Marilyn. She looks
like a Carol,” Barb said.

Menendez shrugged, “Sounds like a perfect fit
to me.”

“Carol, it is,” Barb said decisively.

When Carol turned away from them and they
couldn't see her bill, they were beside themselves. They wanted to
keep close track of Carol and her piece of jewelry.

“It's got to be Twila's bracelet!” Barb
blurted out. Then realizing what she had said out loud, she quickly
looked around to see if there were any golfers to overhear her.
Relieved to find that they were alone just then, she added softly,
“I'm just sure it is. Isn't there something dangling from it? It
could be the heart charm. Oh, maybe I'm just imaging it.”

Annie couldn't see a charm, but she was
surprised at Barb's intensity. Barb was the organized, efficient
one of her friends, but now she was the one projecting her hopes
into supposed reality.

They waited. Annie felt her stomach rumble.
She and Maria Menendez were standing together at the fence when
Annie quietly asked her, “Have you heard anything about Karl
Kreeger's golf cart? Have they found anything?” Since the Sergeant
had been closed-mouthed before, she didn't really expect an
answer.

However, this time the officer confided, “Not
yet. But it can take a week or more before the lab gets back to us,
unless they put a rush on it.”