The Traveling Corpse

by Double Edge Press

  The D’s signaled from their cart. Doc raised his hand and drew a question mark in the air. Annie put a finger to her lips then made fists with her hands and moved them to her eyes, looking through them like they were binoculars. The D’s understood and sat back. They, too, kept their eyes glued on the big man as he began digging in between the wooden forms. The sandy soil moved easily. The ground was much easier to dig in here in Florida than some of the clay soil up North. There you sometimes needed a pick axe to loosen that hard dirt.

  The man dug for ten minutes or more. Then he put the shovel down and pushed his way back through the torn fence. Annie supposed that he was going to take a rest; even digging in sandy soil is tiring work. Perhaps, she thought, he went to sit in his golf cart for a few minutes. But as soon as he was out of sight, he returned and started digging again. After another ten minutes he dropped the shovel and climbed back through the fence only to come right back. This happened several more times. Puzzled, the two senior couples kept watch. After nearly forty-five minutes, the man straightened up and surveyed his work. He seemed satisfied that he had dug deep enough. He pushed the shovel into the pile of dirt he’d dug out; then he put his hands on his hips and rotated his upper body to loosen the kinks. Then he walked back to the fence, crawled back through it, and was out of sight again.

  Shrubbery blocked part of their view, but they could see the long necks and scrawny heads of the ostriches and their smaller cousins from Australia, the emus. The birds were running back and forth, obviously greatly distressed. Agitated wings were beating. Then they heard a long, low intimidating warning sound: wullf, wullf, woohoo.

  Suddenly, the man was scrambling back through the fence, hurrying to get away from the 300 pound male ostrich who was charging with its black and white wings extended. The ostrich kicked at the fence, a powerful kick. The fence collapsed where it had been cut. The bird was free from his pen.

  The man ran for his shovel. Using it as a weapon, it looked like he was trying to chase the bird back into the pen, but the bird was not distracted. The nine foot ostrich charged. The man tried to defend himself with the shovel, and he was yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs. The huge bird, without moving a muscle in his upper body or moving his leg backward for more momentum, whipped his powerful leg forward. Its kick was deadly accurate. With just that one kick, the big man was knocked backward. The shovel flew out of his hand and the man fell into the newly dug grave. They heard a scream and a groan; then all was silent.

  Seemingly satisfied, the giant bird turned away. With his short attention span and tiny brain, the African bird apparently forgot the man and returned to the field with his females.

  Art and Annie winced and shuddered as they watched helplessly. The Davises did too. It was hard to just sit and see a man kicked, possibly to his death, by a bird. They had nothing to use as a weapon, not even a golf club, as they’d taken their bags off the back of their carts so the clubs wouldn’t make any noise.

  Once, Art started to unzip the side curtain to go the man’s aid, but Annie came to her senses and grabbed his jacket sleeve, “Please don’t go out there, Art. Before we left home I promised you that I wouldn’t do anything foolish. Don’t you! You don’t have anything to defend yourself with, not even a golf club. That fellow had a shovel, for heaven’s sake, and it didn’t do him any good!”

  Similarly, DeeDee had to convince Doc that it was a helpless situation.

  Suddenly, a powerful flashlight played on their carts. Annie cowered on her seat, scared, then surprised and greatly relieved to see Deputy Joe Juarez come running up, “Stay put,” he ordered them. “You can’t help him; you’d only be killed yourself.”

  They hadn’t heard Juarez coming. They had no idea that he was there, that he had followed them. How glad they were to see him! How glad they were to let him be in charge, to take over. With admiration, they watched the deputy move forward with confidence. Then the bright lights of an automobile illuminated the area. Sgt. Menendez was behind the wheel of the green and white sheriff department’s car. She pulled up beside the two golf carts.

  The A’s and the D’s threw off their blankets and unzipped the side curtains. Before they could get out of their carts, Sgt. Menendez ordered them, “Stay where you are until my deputy can patch that fence some. We brought baling wire along after you told us it had been cut. Don’t need those birds out here. When it’s safe, I’ll let you know.”

  The two couples sat in their carts stunned by the horror that had played out in front of them. Annie bowed her head and kept saying her sentence prayers, talking to her Lord. When the sergeant waved them over, the seniors hurried to the fallen man.

  “Sure you want to see this?” Juarez asked. “It’s bad.”

  Art looked at Annie; she nodded ‘Yes’. The young deputy shone his flashlight down into the hole. Although Annie had seen many dead persons and many accident victims during her years as a nurse, she was not prepared for the sight of the results of the bird’s vicious attack. The deeply torn flesh was slashed down the length of the man’s trunk, exposing his chest cavity. His heart was ripped in two. His jacket had not begun to protect him from the ostrich’s one long razor-sharp toenail. Stiff with a little arthritis, Annie slowly got down on one knee and reached down into the hole to find the man’s wrist. It was still warm. She looked up at Doc and said, “I can’t find a pulse. You try.”

  Art helped her up. Then Doc took her place on the ground. After a moment, he looked up to the others and mouthed, “Dead.”

  DeeDee cried. The other seniors’ eyes were moist.

  Sgt. Menendez asked quietly, “Can you identify this man? Is this Karl Kreeger? Is this the man you’ve been telling me about?”

  Dumbfounded, the four friends shook their heads. The man who lay crumpled on the ground near the Fifth tee was not Karl Kreeger. His stocking cap had been knocked off; there was no bushy hair. The big, bald and now dead man was Jolly Jiggs Jolley. He wasn’t Jolly anymore!

  Almost as one, Art, Annie, Doc, and DeeDee exclaimed, “Jiggs!” They never suspected that Jiggs was the big man they’d been watching, for they assumed he was Karl. Annie rubbed her left temple. Something wasn’t right.

  Menendez said, “I need to radio for an ambulance, but it certainly doesn’t look like there’s any rush. That poor man is already dead. Before I make the call, can any of you tell me the name of the person who owns that farm field?”

  Art said, “Brad told us it is a Gerald Gilbert.”

  The seniors heard the sergeant on the radio in her car telling the dispatcher, “No need for sirens. This is not an emergency. I have a nurse here and a veterinarian; they both say the victim is dead.” Next, the officer asked the dispatcher to call Gerald Gilbert and request him to come immediately to meet with them, that they needed to inspect his field with the big birds. She also asked for back-up personnel. After she finished the radio call, she turned to the seniors and ordered, “Now tell me who this Jiggs is; tell me all you know about him.”

  Doc began, “We know, of course, that Jiggs lived in BradLee. After his wife died a few years ago, he became very depressed. The story I heard was that one day he forced himself to get out of his house and go play golf which he used to do every day. As luck would have it, he teamed up with another single man who turned out to be Karl Kreeger. Karl liked Jiggs and invited him to come to Bingo on Tuesday nights to work as a volunteer. Jiggs agreed to try it, and it appears that he enjoyed himself. After that he seemed to have begun to shake the blues; life started to have more color. He began joking and smiling again and was one of the most loyal Bingo volunteers Karl had. He was indebted to Karl, and they became fast friends. If he had bouts of the blues after that, none of us knew about it. Everyone started calling him ‘Jolly Jiggs Jolley.’”

  DeeDee added. “Also, because Karl and Jiggs were about tha same size, all of us here in tha park used ta call them tha ‘Bingo Twins.’”

  Annie stressed, “This is a complete surprise to all
of us. None of us ever suspected that Jiggs was involved in ‘Our Mystery’.”

  The officers were anxious to search the field to see what was there besides big birds, but neither of them wanted to tangle with that fierce ostrich. They thought it wise to wait until someone who knew about ostriches was there to help them. They desperately wanted to get into that field, and they also wanted an answer to the question: Why was Jiggs cutting the fence from the farm side? How did he get there?

  The medics arrived. They said what Annie and Doc already knew—Jiggs was dead. They loaded Jigg’s sorry body into the ambulance and drove off. The friends felt terrible; they were upset and saddened, for they all liked Jiggs—at least the Jiggs they thought they knew. He had always been so happy and made others feel happy when they were around him. He was like sunshine.

  DeeDee voiced the question they were all asking themselves, “How could this possibly have happened? How could Jiggs have gotten himself involved in such a horrible tragedy? Was he tha one who was skimmin’ tha bingo money? Do ya suppose it was Jiggs an’ not Karl who was stealin’?”

  The seniors shook their old heads in disbelief.

  Annie rubbed her left temple and bowed her head. “Lord, it’s Annie down here. Jiggs is on his way up to you. Forgive his sins, and help us to forgive him too. That’s all for now. ‘Bye and Amen.”

  Doc said, “Thanks, Annie, we needed that.” Then he added, “I’m not surprised that Jigg’s died after being kicked by an ostrich. Those ostriches have a karate-like kick; I’ve heard that they have the force of two hundred fifty pounds; that’s a lot of kicking power!”

  Officer Menendez walked over to Annie, “Your hunch was right. It paid off.”

  “But it’s not over yet,” Annie responded.

  “We got the killer,” Art said. “Aren’t you pleased with yourself?”

  “We may have a body, but we still don’t have the body! It isn’t over until we find the body,” Annie declared.

  “Who do you think it is? Twila?”

  “Probably. It’s probably Twila,” Annie agreed.

  Joe Juarez asked, “Where did those two other couples go? We saw them leave you in the golf parking lot.”

  “Ya saw us in tha parkin’ lot?” DeeDee exclaimed. “We never saw y’all!”

  Juarez answered, “We didn’t want you to see us.”

  “I would have felt safer if I’d have known you were here,” Doc said and added, “Thanks for coming.”

  “We all thank you,” Art added.

  Menendez repeated the question, “The other two couples?”

  “Oh,” Annie answered, “We asked them to go around to the street entrance to this field. They went to see if there was a car or golf cart in there. I asked them to go check it out because we figured that the man digging the grave would have to drive off that way when he got through burying the body.”

  Juarez cut in, “I hope they’re safe. For old people, excuse me, but you can sure get into the darnedest situations!”

  “I thought they’d come back here by now,” Annie said. “I hope they’re all right. I don’t want anything to happen to them. We’re too old for this kind of thing.”

  Art and her friends agreed wholeheartedly.

  “But it’s not over yet,” Annie continued. “We’re in this thing, whole hog, whether we like it or not.”

  Art groaned, then said, “The killer is dead. Aren’t you pleased with yourself?”

  “No, oh, no! I didn’t want Jiggs dead; I didn’t want him kicked by an ostrich.”

  “But you found that he was the killer. You are the one who said we needed to come on this stake-out. Aren’t you happy about that?”

  “Yes, and no. Of course I’m glad about finding the killer, but something doesn’t seem right to me.” She rubbed her left temple.

  “Listen!” DeeDee said. “I hear something.”

  “It’s a motor,” Juarez said. “I sure hope it’s that farmer.” He waved his flashlight to direct the driver.

  The farmer pulled up beside them on the golf course in a battered blue pick-up truck. When he eased out of the cab, they saw a middle-aged man with tight abs and muscles that rippled under his denim jacket. He wore a red baseball cap with ‘Buccaneers’ stitched in pewter on the front. Art and Doc unconsciously responded to his trim physique by pulling in their stomachs.

  The two officers approached him, introduced themselves, and shook hands. He told them his name was Gerald Gilbert and added, “But everybody jest calls me ‘Gilly’—been known as Gilly since I played high school football right here in this same town.”

  “Okay, It’s Gilly.” With a sweep of her hand, Menendez pointed to the seniors. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Andersen and Mr. and Mrs. Davis.”

  Gilly said, “Glad ta meet ya. Kindda late for you all to be out on the golf course, isn’t it? Kindda late.”

  The sergeant explained, “They’re helping us with a case. Juarez and I wouldn’t be here ourselves if it wasn’t for them.”

  The seniors were pleased to hear her praise.

  Menendez asked, “Gilly, we need to check out that field. Do you think it’s safe for us to go in there?” She looked back at the seniors and said, “Not you guys!” She turned back to the farmer, “Is it safe for Joe and me to go into your field now? Do you think those birds will allow us in there? Seems like they’ve settled down.”

  Gilly shook his head, “Wouldn’t do it tonight. Too dangerous even fer me to go in there now. Them birds can be mighty mean. Mighty mean. Guess you noticed I didn’t come through that field. Don’t know what upset the birds. Could be that fellow made some motion toward one of the females—got too near to one of ‘em is all it would take durin’ matin’ season. That male is awful jealous. Males are ‘specially mean durin’ breedin’ time. They know me, but even I wouldn’t take a chance of goin’ in there with them jest yet. We’ll have ta wait until they’re all calmed down. When they sleep they jest sit down on the ground—usually hold their head up straight. They don’t remember much, ner fer long neither—their brain’s smaller than their eyeball. Yep, smaller than their eyeball.” Gilly shook his head. “You’d be takin’ your life in your hands if you try to go in there now. You saw the power of jest one kick from that big ole male. That center toe of his is six or seven inches long an’ then he’s got that razor-sharp toenail on it that’s prob’ly two an’ a half inches long. Quite a weapon. No, you’ll have ta wait fer daylight. I’ll move the birds to another pen; then you can go in there. It’ll be safer for you to go in that field when it’s empty.”

  “Before you leave,” Maria Menendez asked, “Would you mind pulling your truck over here beside my squad car? If we put our headlights on, maybe we can see something that could be helpful.”

  “Be glad too.”

  Standing near the fence, the seniors could see patches of sandy soil where the birds had worn the grass away. There were some weeds that grew taller than the pasture grass, a scrubby bush, and a plant growing up on the fence. The crescent pond was on their left; its water still and dark, but in front of the pond two eyes glinted from the headlights. “Whoa!” exclaimed Doc. “There’s more than big birds in that field; the alligator’s back, and he’s a big fellow, too.”

  They stared at this prehistoric-looking creature. Then DeeDee, whose vision was better than the others, pointed toward a scrubby bush, “Look over there; I wonder if maybe a vehicle of some kind hasn’t turned ‘round there. Tha grass looks like it’s matted down.” The officers looked, too, but from a distance and with only dim light, they could prove nothing.

  Gilly drove off after promising to move the birds first thing in the morning.

  Disappointed not to be able to search the field, Menendez and Juarez flashed their lights all around, but they could see little from the fence line.

  Joe radioed again for more backup personnel to stand guard the rest of the night. He looked at his watch. “I wish we’d get some back-up out here soon. I’d like to tape off this scene b
efore it starts to rain.”

  Menendez agreed. “I’ve had a long day. I hope I don’t have to stand guard all night. But we can’t leave here until we get some relief.” She spoke to the seniors, “Looks like all that’s happened is all that is going to happen tonight. Thanks for warning us about this situation. Why don’t you all head for home before the rain starts? We can’t look for that other dead body tonight.”

  Juarez said, “If it’s dead, it’s dead. It’s not going anyplace.”

  “That’s what we thought before,” Annie reminded him. “Remember how many times that body has moved? We know of at least six times,”

  Menendez nodded in agreement.

  Juarez said, “Yes, ma’m. I’m ashamed to admit we didn’t quite know what to think when you first contacted us. By now, me and my sergeant are well aware how much you four smart and very alert senior couples have helped the Department. You kept plugging away at the mystery—in spite of us. You showed real tenacity as well as reasoning powers.”

  Menendez added, “Again, I want to tell you how glad I am that you phoned the department and didn’t come out here by yourselves unprotected. You used good judgment in that. Now, go home and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll watch this field. Somebody will be here on duty until we can get in there to search that field.”

  “I hope it doesn’t rain on you,” Doc said.

  “I do, too. I don’t mind getting wet so much as I don’t want it to rain because it might wash away some evidence,” the deputy said.

  “You know this isn’t the end of the mystery,” Annie said. “You will still keep working on it, won’t you? It certainly isn’t solved yet.”

  “It’s in good hands now, Honey,” Art tried to convince her.

  “But we still haven’t found the body,” she insisted. “It’s still missing, for heaven’s sake!”