The
Traveling Corpse
Betsy Jones Hayba
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Double Edge Press, Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania
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Double Edge Press
Ebook ISBN 9781938002113
The Traveling Corpse
Copyright © 2012 Betsy Hayba
Cover Artwork: Original cover design by Rebecca Melvin/Double Edge Press includes use of the following images in its composition:
© Dmitriy Cherevko | Dreamstime.com – Dead woman lying on the sofa – Royalty paid for use in this work
© Newlight | Dreamstime.com – Stack of Gift Boxes – Royalty paid for use in this work
© Baloncici | Dreamstime.com – Boxes – Royalty paid for use in this work
© Lotophagi | Dreamstime.com – Red satin background – Royalty paid for use in this work
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Double Edge Press, 72 Ellview Road, Scenery Hill, PA 15360
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Dedication
I dedicate my novel to my family:
To my parents, Walter O. & Anna D. Jones, who taught me to believe the song Jesus Loves Me.
To my loving, devoted, half-Hungarian husband, ‘Frank’ Franklin Paul Hayba, a talented, honorable Christian gentleman who has lost his memory but has kept his hair and his delightful sense of humor.
To our three adult children and their spouses—Susan & Tony, Dan & Pam, and Margaret & Milt—who continually give us their love and support. And to our rainbow of grandchildren who are grand.
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The
Traveling Corpse
Betsy Jones Hayba
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Thanks
To: Betmar Acres, Zephyrhills, Florida, for forgiving me my flights of fancy in writing my purely fictional story set in a manufactured home park in central Florida.
To: The Creative Writers Club of Betmar for providing a sounding board for my writing, and to Barb Keenan for her helpful advice in editing the first 30 pages of my novel.
To: The Betmar Little Theatre for putting my original one-act plays on the boards each year.
To: The Florida Writers Association—your Orlando conference of 2011 opened doors for me in the publishing world.
To: Neal & Rebecca Melvin, Double Edge Press, for ‘discovering me’ and publishing my first novel; therefore allowing me to cross off another wish on my Bucket List.
To: Michelle & Charlie Acra and their Christmas letter with the Bible verse: James 1:2-3 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance - the theme of my novel.
To: Those who shared their knowledge of Alligators, Ostriches, Emus, and Sheriff Departments:
Owners of Little Wheels, who raised Ostriches & Emus.
Alligator Trapper Ricky Lightsey and wife, Bunny.
Everglades Alligator Farm, Bob Freer, Owner.
John Brueggen, General Curator, St. Augustine Alligator Farm. Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Mickie Ramos, Sec.
Lindsey Hord, Lab.
Deputy Frank Pizzuto, Pasco County Sheriff’s office OSTRICH RANCHING IN AMERICA. By Dub Oliver, 1993.OSTRICH. By Michael A. Thomas. 2000.
The Beauty of Love
The question is asked, “Is there anything more beautiful in life than a boy and a girl clasping clean hands and pure hearts in the path of marriage? Can there be anything more beautiful than young love?
And the answer is given. Yes, there is a more beautiful thing. It is the spectacle of an old man and an old woman finishing their journey together on that path. Their hands are gnarled, but still clasped, their faces are seamed, but still radiant, their hearts are physically bowed and tired, but still strong with love and devotion for one another.
Yes, there is a more beautiful thing than young love. Old love.
—from an anonymous email
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Chapter 1
Late January
Tuesday Evening, 6 P.M.
Annie and her best friend, Barb, finished wrapping the last of the tuna fish and the egg salad sandwiches. They’d been making them to sell to the over fifty-five crowd that played Bingo on Tuesday evenings at BradLee Retirement Park in central Florida. From the stage nearby, they heard Karl, the head Bingo caller, boom out, “B-3!” Annie glanced at the clock. In a few minutes there would be a rest break in the games and then the snack window would be swamped with customers. She and Barb and the rest of the kitchen volunteers would be busy selling refreshments—sandwiches, soft drinks, candy bars, potato chips, popcorn, and pieces of cake.
If she hurried, she could slip out from the kitchen and into the rec room and check out the drawer with the seasonal decorations and see what Valentine stuff could be re-used from last year. In a weak moment, Annie had promised to decorate the inside of the clubhouse for February. She knew she needed to stop volunteering so much. Barb, her very practical and dear friend, reminded her often that they had worked long and hard all their lives. Now that they were retired senior citizens, they needed to take time to play and relax.
Annie took off her apron and told Barb she’d be back in a few minutes. Hurrying into the big hall, she stepped on some spilled popcorn, lost her balance, and started slipping. To keep from falling, she frantically reached out for support and caught hold of the short canvas money apron tied around George Jolley’s extra large waist. The three pockets were all stuffed full of five, ten and twenty dollar bills.
George, affectionately known as Jiggs, was one of several volunteers who were Call-Back Workers. When a player won a board and shouted out “Bingo!” Jiggs would hurry over to that person and call out their numbers to have them checked with the master board mounted on the stage. If they matched, he’d pay the winner the prize money on the spot.
Jiggs, a big, bald man well over six foot tall, caught Annie easily and gave her one of his warm, friendly smiles. He had one arm wrapped around her back to steady her and his other hand gripped Annie’s. To her chagrin, she realized that she was clutching a fist full of twenty dollar bills. Embarrassed, she dropped the money back into his apron pocket and apologized for grabbing the Bingo money as she was falling. Jiggs teased, “I never mind having a pretty woman fall for me!”
At seventy-two, Annie was still a pretty woman with a crown of thick wavy hair that was now pure white. She was blessed with a creamy complexion and few wrinkles; most of those laugh lines. People immediately noticed her violet eyes. The first compliment that Art, now her husband of forty-nine years, had given her long ago was about her eyes. He’d told her that they were as amazing as Elizabeth Taylor’s. She’d never forgotten his flattering words. She couldn’t forget them because Art was still in love with her and her violet eyes, and he frequently told her so. She was of medium height and not quite as slender as she was as a young woman taking nurse’s training, but she still stood straight and carried herself with ease. Smiling at Jiggs, Annie thanked him again for catching her, straightened her long, light blue denim jumper, and moved toward the stage.
Some ingenuous BradLee resident made good use of the space under the stage ten years earlier when Old Main Club House was built. Ten deep drawers fitted with casters were built in. Nine of the ten drawers were simple
trolleys designed to hold long, narrow, folding tables. The wheeled drawers could be pulled out from under the stage and rolled around the hall as park volunteers worked setting up the tables or taking them down. The tenth drawer was similar, but it had sides added so it could be used for storage. Seasonal decorations for the big hall as well as other supplies were kept in there. Because of its size, Annie expected to have to tug hard on its handle, but with just a little pull, it rolled out easily. What made her glance up at the stage she didn’t know; she found herself looking right into the dark eyes of Karl Kreeger.
Like his friend Jiggs, Karl was also a big, tall man. But while Jiggs was completely bald, Karl’s head was covered with a shock of gray hair of which he was very proud. He always carried a small blue comb in his back pocket, reaching for it frequently and running it through his thick locks. Karl took pleasure in showing off in front of his fellow seniors with their receding hairlines.
He chaired the BradLee Bingo Committee. It was a big commitment, for the weekly funds were an important source of revenue for the park’s treasury. With his rich, full baritone voice, he enjoyed taking a turn at calling out the numbers.
Never losing the rhythm of his Bingo calls: “B – 1… . O – 68,” Annie realized that Karl was now watching her intently.
He’s always kinda nosy, she thought. Everybody thinks he’s so wonderful since he brings in so much Bingo money for the park, but I don’t like the way he treats his own wife. Then, forgetting about Karl, Annie busied herself. She lifted out the first cardboard box and set it on the edge of the stage. Opening it, she found it full of bunches of red and orange plastic leaves: fall decorations. The next box held Easter things. Strange! Annie thought. Who jumbled all the boxes up like this? She had helped put away the Christmas decorations, and they had taken care to have them all in an orderly fashion, with Valentine’s Day stuff in front as it was the next holiday coming up. She sighed, thinking that with her luck the Valentine cut-outs had some how been moved all the way to the bottom, or maybe even to the back, of the big drawer.
Annie set aside the two wrong boxes and reached inside the drawer again. This time she tried rummaging, looking by feel for the box that held the Valentine’s Day decorations beneath the clutter of stuff on top that obviously was not Valentine’s Day stuff. Her hand brushed against something that she instinctively knew should not be there. Her heart beat funny in her chest and the floor below her and the stage above her seemed to tip in opposite directions. Her first instinct was to jerk her hand out and away from the object that repelled it. Instead, she gripped the object tighter.
It was soft and definitely not box-shaped. It felt … fleshy … but not warm like flesh. She steeled herself and explored further, all the time thinking it had to be a mannequin, a joke, a prank, a—something besides what her nurse’s training was telling her that it was. It was an arm, a woman’s arm. How can this be? She slid her fingers down the limb and closed them around a delicate and deathly cold hand. Annie had spent years as a hospital nurse, so it was natural for her to try to find a pulse. There was none.
“Bingo!” Just then three players yelled out.
Bingo! Annie thought. Bingo! I think I’ve hit the jackpot of … of—trouble!
She felt faint, but she also knew she needed to keep her self-control, the only thing keeping her from yelling out, Murder! Instead, she forced herself to remain quiet, thinking, Screaming will surely cause a commotion and upset all these old Bingo players. You’ll have fifteen heart-attacks on your hands before you can say… well … Bingo! Glancing up at the stage, she was glad to see that Karl was watching Jiggs and two other Call-Back Workers counting out twenty dollar bills to a trio of simultaneous winners.
A suspicious thought popped into her mind. Only yesterday, Barb had told her a rumor that her husband, Brad, had told her. He was on the Board of Directors for the park. He told his wife that the Board was quietly investigating a problem with the Bingo leadership. Hushed questions were being asked about whether or not Karl might be skimming money from the games each week. Armed with that bit of knowledge and a dead body, Annie quickly decided, Tonight is not the best time to go hunting for Valentines.
As calmly as possible, Annie picked up one of the boxes she had pulled out previously and bent down to put it away. She took a quick peek. Part of the torso and the right arm and hand of a petite woman was all that was visible. A box covered the face and shoulders and a large plastic bag over her legs and feet trailed off beneath other supplies. Expensive jewelry caught Annie’s eye. On the index finger, there was a large ruby ring surrounded by tiny diamonds. Around the delicate wrist there was a heavy gold chain bracelet. She also noted that the fingernails on the right hand were polished bright red, and they were not chipped, indicating a recent manicure. And those certainly looked like designer jeans to Annie.
She had never been so scared in all her life. Putting a hand to her left temple, a gesture she did habitually when she was troubled, she said a quick sentence prayer, Lord, it’s Annie down here. I’m scared. Guide me, please. In Jesus’ name, Amen. A sense of peace and reassurance began to flow through her. Thinking quickly, she concluded, Whoever is in that drawer is dead, and if she is dead, she can wait in there a little longer, maybe until Bingo is over. After all, it’s not like she’s going anywhere!
Her nimble mind was flying, and a chill ran through her bringing goose bumps as she realized she had serious cause to be alarmed. If there is a dead body in there, then that means there is probably a live murderer around here, probably right here in this room. Possibly he’s watching my every move right this minute! As fast as she could, Annie piled the remaining boxes back on top of the dead woman, shoved the drawer in under the stage and somehow managed to walk to the kitchen without stumbling.
Tall, elegant Barb was shocked when she saw her friend. “Annie, what’s wrong? You’re as white as your hair! Are you feeling okay? Do I need to call an ambulance?” Annie put a finger to her lips and collapsed onto a metal folding chair in a corner of the kitchen. Barb was puzzled but moved to shield her friend from the stares of the other kitchen volunteers. Herb Harris was more interested in Annie than watching the brats and hot-dogs he was grilling. Mac stopped washing a pan, straightened up from the sink and stared. The twins, Dolly and Molly, let the trays full of wrapped pieces of cake they carried tilt at precarious angles.
Barb demanded in her hushed but authoritative school teacher voice, “What happened out there? You look like you saw a ghost!” She grabbed a pack of paper napkins and used them to fan her friend. “You were only gone a few minutes! What did you do in that short amount of time that upset you so?”
Purposely speaking loud enough for others to hear, Annie summoned up the strength to ask, “Barb will you get me a damp towel? I don’t know what came over me. I could use some fresh air.” Barb hurried to wet a tea towel and then helped Annie out the back door of the kitchen and on to the screened patio. A gust of wind caught the door and blew it wide open. Garlands of Spanish moss hanging from the nearby live Oak trees danced wildly. A storm was brewing, and Barb was brewing with curiosity.
“Annie Andersen,” Barb warned as soon as they were outside, “tell me what happened to you or I’ll … I’ll—”
Annie cut in, “Barb, you said I looked like a ghost. Well, I didn’t see a ghost, but, believe me, and I certainly hope you will believe me, I did see a dead body! Or at least I saw part of a dead body!”
Barb’s attitude quickly changed to amazement as Annie told her about feeling the arm of a dead woman in the storage drawer. She trembled, “I’d have screamed if I’d touched a dead person!”
“No, you wouldn’t have, Barb. That would have been the last thing to do. Not with all those old people sitting in there!” Annie warned.
Barb pointed out, regaining her humor, “They’re not any older than we are.”
“Oh, well, I guess you’re right. But I just didn’t want to scare them. Look at how upset I am, and I was a nurse for
over forty years!”
“Well, you certainly scared me. You’ve got to call the police.”
“I will, of course,” Annie assured her, “But I didn’t want to use the kitchen phone. I didn’t want anyone to overhear me calling a law officer.”
Surprised, Barb asked, “Why didn’t you want anyone to know you were calling the police? That seems like the first thing you should do.”
“Think about it, Barb. The murderer could have been there watching me.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that. That’s downright scary, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Annie admitted. “And I am scared. If he were watching me, and I’m not sure whether it’s a he or a she, he doesn’t know if I saw the body or not. I tried to be careful not to show any emotion. I thought I’d be safer that way.”
“That was using your head,” Barb praised her friend. “What do you want to do now?”
“Please, take me home. I’ll call the police from there.”
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