The Traveling Corpse

by Double Edge Press

  * * *

  The four couples gathered at the B’s pristine triple-wide. All but Annie were wearing slacks; it was a little cool for shorts on this January evening. Annie had slipped into one of her comfortable Granny dresses and sneakers. The others all had on knit tops except for Brad. He preferred wearing woven sports shirts because they didn’t cling and were less revealing over his barrel chest. Verna was outfitted in her favorite color—red—red pants and a red and white polo shirt, in honor of St. Valentines’s Day which was coming soon. These seniors still took pride in their appearance; age had not dimmed their interest in style. They just didn’t wear ‘teeny-weeny, polka-dot bikinis’ anymore.

  When the eight friends were settled in Bradkowski’s contemporary black and white dining room, Barb said, “I hate to make you think seriously while you eat, but the game starts in a little over an hour, and I’d like to know what do we do now?”

  Barb looked around the table. Silence.

  Finally, Annie answered. She said only one word, “Wait.”

  “But,” Barb sputtered, “Brad and I saw Karl Kreeger leave that field in his golf cart on Thursday night. We followed him home. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Sure, it means a lot to us, but does it prove that he did anything wrong? I know it’s hard, but I don’t think we can do anything but wait. We have to wait until the Sheriff’s office let’s us know about two things.”

  “And these are?” Doc asked.

  “First, a report on Karl’s golf cart. If they don’t find anything linking him to Twila, then he’ll probably never be charged with a crime. He didn’t actually kill Jiggs—just got him in a very bad spot with that very big bird, but that’s not a crime. Jiggs could have said, ‘No’. And the second thing is that we have to wait to see if that big old alligator has anything in its stomach that links it to Twila. We have to wait on the trapper to process ‘Mr. Alligator’ as Pete calls it. So, we wait,” Annie concluded.

  “But, it’s not fair,” Verna insisted. “It’s not fair if Karl doesn’t have to pay for what he did.”

  “It may not seem fair,” Barb agreed, “but Annie’s right, you can’t send a man to prison unless you can prove he did something wrong.”

  Brad commented, “You girls told me that you think both Karl and Jiggs met with Twila on Tuesday afternoon before Bingo. Is that right?”

  “That is tha very best that we can figure out,” DeeDee stated. “We think they were meetin’ in Old Main, most prob’bly, they were on tha stage. That seems ta be tha closest thing Karl had ta bein’ his office. Twila must’ve asked ta see some of tha Bingo records. She prob’bly could not believe that there wasn’t some proper paper work on Bingo, what with all that money involved.”

  Verna picked up, saying, “We think one of those two men may have lost his tempah and threatened her to mind her own business—that Bingo was making lots of money for BradLee; so just leave things alone and then everyone will be happy. But, Twila wasn’t about to let those men bully her! From what we’ve learned about her from the Thompson’s, we think she must have stood up to them. She’d been in lots of big business board rooms during her career; no, she didn’t let men bully her. She was a tough, experienced business woman. We think that one of them, eithah Jiggs or Karl, lost his cool. If one of them pushed her, she may have fallen from the stage and hit her temple, or broke her neck, and she died.”

  Barb took over, “Twila could have started down the stairs from the stage. Maybe one of the men was so mad that he shoved her, and when she lost her balance, she hit her temple on the hand railing. Or, if she were standing on the floor, she could have hit the front edge of the stage. It could have happened either way.”

  “Then they panicked, and they hid her in that drawer under the boxes—the one where I found her the first time,” Annie ended.

  “So,” Brad asked, “which one of them actually shoved her—Karl or Jiggs?”

  “That’s the question that we can’t answer for sure,” Barb concluded, “but we think it must have been Jiggs.” She looked at her women friends.

  Almost in union, they replied, “Yes, it had to be Jiggs.”

  “Why?” Brad persisted.

  “Well, by deductive reasoning,” Barb answered. “We think it was Karl who was skimming the money from Bingo, not Jiggs. Oh, Jiggs could have taken a little if he wanted to, but he wasn’t in a position to take more than, say, ten or twenty dollars a night. No, Karl was the one who could easily pocket as much as a hundred dollars each Tuesday, and no one would ever know because nothing was double-checked. He just paid any expenses out of the Bingo money without recording it. I doubt that Jiggs even knew about it, even though they were best of friends. Jiggs was basically a good man; he probably had no idea that Karl was stealing money. If he did, I think he would have quit working Bingo long ago. No, Karl kept it a secret; he didn’t even tell Kitty. She has no idea how he paid for their new things; he doesn’t let her handle any of their finances. Anyway, the Bingo figures could have been recorded, and always should have been—should have been done years ago. It’s easy to criticize after the fact; don’t you know? Each person who comes to play buys a certain number of cards. So, they know how much money comes in. Then, they know how much they pay out to winners. Subtract one figure from the other and you have the gross amount, minus the expenses gives you the net. The wiggle room is the expenses—no records were kept at all!”

  “Makes sense to me,” Brad agreed.

  His wife continued, “If Karl pushed Twila, do you think Jiggs would get so deeply involved in covering it up? We don’t think so. He might want to help his good friend, but not to the point of perjuring himself and being an accessory to manslaughter at the least, and tampering with a corpse and evidence … . But, if Jiggs lost his temper because he is so disgusted with Twila for upsetting his friend that he shoves her—remember that both of these men dominated their own wives—and as a result of the shove, she dies; then Karl has good reason to help Jiggs cover it up. If he doesn’t, then the law is called in and there will be an investigation, and Karl’s milk cow dries up. And, if it comes out that he’s been skimming, then he’d be indicted. Karl doesn’t want to go to prison; so he wants to keep everything quiet. And he keeps it quiet by showing Jiggs how and where to hide Twila’s body.”

  Annie finished, “So, Karl gets involved big time and encourages Jiggs to hide the body in that drawer. Then that evening, they see me pull out that decoration drawer and my rummaging around in it; so they have to move the body to keep me from finding it again, even though they can’t be certain that I found anything to begin with. Jiggs was a nice man, but he didn’t have the smarts that Karl has. We think Karl was the brains behind all the moves.”

  “He would have been smarter ta have jest fed poor ole Twila ta tha alligator in tha first place. Then Jiggs would still be alive,” DeeDee declared.

  “No, that wouldn’t have worked,” Doc explained. “It was too cold on Tuesday and Wednesday. Alligators don’t feed when it’s cold.”

  “That’s right. I remember now, ya told us that before,” DeeDee said, “but would Karl know that?

  Barb shrugged, “I don’t know; there’s lots of information on the television, especially on the nature shows. All I know is that he didn’t leave her body for the alligator until Thursday night. He’d been moving it around since Tuesday afternoon and Jiggs helped him. He had to have been helping because Jiggs was the one that the ostrich kicked to death, and both Brad and I and Von and Verna saw Karl leave that field.”

  Annie finished the summation. “We think they planned to bury the body under the golf cart path. Once the cement was poured and the body was permanently hidden, they would have committed the perfect crime. They might have gotten away with it if I hadn’t opened that storage drawer during Bingo.”

  Doc reminded them, “As of right now, Karl, at least, has gotten away with it. Have you female detectives figured out why Jiggs and Karl used Gilly’s field? Why didn’t the
y just drive the cart straight out to Number Five?

  “We talked about that,” Verna answered. “We aren’t quite sure, but Barb has a theory.”

  “I saw Karl’s cart kinda tucked behind an old shed in Gilly’s field when we played golf on Thursday. It was near the new restroom but over in Gilly’s field. They may have been there waiting to cut the fence. Whenever there were no golfers around, they’d work on the fence. Also, they knew that there would be half an hour after the end of the Women’s Scramble that no men would be around; so they could finish the job then ready for that night.”

  “Also,” Annie added, “they may have thought it safer to be coming from the field because of the space lift-off. They would know that Number Five is a good place to view the lift-offs; so they wouldn’t want to be out there with a body and a shovel on the golf cart.”

  They discussed ‘Our Mystery’ further, the husbands questioning places that could use more clarification. Finally, they lapsed into silence until Art said, “I guess you’re right, Annie. There’s nothing for us to do but wait.”

  Annie took no pleasure in being right. But what else can be done? she wondered. What have I missed?

  “And, I’d like to wait in front of the TV for the University of Tennessee basketball game,” Doc was saying. “DeeDee’s converted me into being a fan. When it’s football, I root for Auburn U. When it’s basketball, it’s Tennessee.”

  The men set their dirty dishes on the counter and then settled themselves in front of Brad’s big screen television to watch the pre-show hype. The women helped Barb load the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen before joining their husbands for the game.

  Chapter 7

  Monday Afternoon

  Monday rolled around, the last day of January, 1994, and the seventh day of ‘Our Mystery.’ Before one o’clock that afternoon, Annie and DeeDee gathered at Barb’s. Everything was picture-perfect, as usual. Her décor was comfortable modern done in black and white with accents of red and turquoise. The Bridge Buddies were waiting for Verna to arrive to begin their weekly bridge game. It wasn’t like her to be late.

  When Verna burst through the door, she was talking as she speed-walked, “They are gone! Can you believe it? They loaded their van yestahday. I nevah knew anyone could pack up so quickly. I certainly couldn’t, and my place is lots smallah than theirs!”

  “Who is gone?” Barb demanded.

  “The Kreegahs! Kitty and Karl! They pulled out early this morning.”

  “You mean ‘gone’ as ‘gone for good’ from BradLee?” asked Annie.

  “That is exactly what I mean. They have moved out of BradLee lock, stock, and barrel. Well, they took everything they could fit in their van—left the rest. That’s why I’m late getting here. I wanted to find out all I could.”

  “Poor Kitty,” DeeDee sighed. “I’m sure this can’t be her idea.

  “Did they sell their house yet?” Barb inquired of Verna.

  “The BradLee Realty sign is still in their front yard. So I guess not.”

  “That is one lovely house,” DeeDee commented. It’ll be snapped up soon; houses don’t stay on tha market very long in our park. In fact, I wouldn’t mind lookin’ at it, but it would prob’bly jest be a waste of time ta drag Doc through it ‘cause it’s not in a pet section. He keeps hintin’ ‘bout getting’ another dog. Doc’s never quite gotten over tha death of our beloved Tupper, that was one extra special Golden Retriever. I miss ole Tup too, but we travel so much in tha summer that I don’t like leavin’ a dog in a kennel fer three or four weeks at a time.”

  Her friends agreed with her that traveling and pets are not an easy combination. DeeDee continued, “No, Doc’s happy where we are. I doubt that I could get him ta move. He doesn’t much like change. Now me, I’d move in a minute for a newer, larger house.

  The telephone rang. Barb answered it, and then with a surprised look, handed it to Annie, saying with a questioning look on her face, “It’s for you.”

  As Annie reached for the cordless phone, she whispered, “I left a message with Sgt. Menendez that I’d be here this afternoon. I gave her your phone number. Hope you don’t mind.” Annie was quiet for a long time listening to the sergeant while her Bridge Buddies waited patiently. When she hung up, Annie said, “I guess this is good news.”

  “What?” Barb asked impatiently. “What did Sgt. Maria have to say?”

  “I’m not too sure I want ta know from tha look on yer face,” DeeDee said.

  Annie slumped down at the bridge table and summed up the information the sergeant had just told her. She put her fingers to her temple and said quietly, “It’s over. ‘Our Mystery’ is officially solved.”

  Her friends sat in silence, waiting for her to explain more fully. “Maria Menendez told me she was there when Pete cut the alligator open. Twila’s gold link bracelet, the one with the heart charm on it was in the beast’s stomach. They also found her wedding ring and the ruby ring I saw on her index finger. Doesn’t that just set your teeth on edge? Also, the forensics people found hair in the alligator poop you spotted, Verna. They tested it for DNA, and it was Twila’s. Definitely, Twila’s. They compared it with the hair you found in that new toilet room on the golf course and also with some they took from a hairbrush in her own bathroom. Maria says that is plenty of proof.”

  The women shuddered involuntarily. Annie continued, “Menendez has asked to have a diver go in the pond to see if there are any body parts remaining under the water, but whether or not they find anything more, she claims this solves our case of ‘The Traveling Corpse.’

  “Oh, dear me!” exclaimed DeeDee, half closing her eyes in imagined pain.

  “It’s nice to know we were right all along,” Annie said, “but, as I’ve said before, I’d rather we were wrong and still have Twila and Jiggs alive.”

  Barb asked, “What about Karl? Actually, I have two questions. First: Did they find any fingerprints on that blue comb the sergeant found?”

  “No luck there. Maria said the rain and dew destroyed any prints it might have had. It’s probably Karl’s, but they can’t prove it.”

  “Too bad,” Barb sighed. “Here’s my next question: Did they find anything on his golf cart to tie him to Twila’s disappearance?”

  “Yes, the lab put a priority on the cart and finished their examination of it this morning. Are you ready for this?” Annie asked her friends. Without waiting for them to answer, she continued, “They found one auburn hair. Only one, but that’s enough. The DNA matches the hair from her hair brush and those in the restroom. That one hair was caught up underneath his golf cart. Karl had vacuumed and cleaned the seat cushions, but he didn’t check underneath thoroughly. He must have driven over the body—maybe when it fell out that night in the farmer’s field. This doesn’t prove that he killed her, but it certainly makes him an accessory to the murder. His cart is definitely linked to the corpse.”

  “But he’s gone!” Verna wailed.

  “Menendez knows,” Annie calmed her. “Evidently, the Sheriff’s Department has been keeping closer tabs on Karl than we realized. They’ll find him.”

  “Poor Kitty!” DeeDee lamented. “She’s innocent, but she’ll be dragged through all of this. An’ he’s makin’ her move away from her home. I don’t feel a bit sorry fer him, but I do pity, Kitty. Poor thing.”

  “I just hope he doesn’t start drinking again,” Annie added. “Kitty told me he’s been sober since they moved to Florida.”

  Barb added, “I know he goes to AA meetings faithfully. Brad has a friend who sees him there.”

  “But, if all this pressure on him gets to be too much, he could cave in and reach for a bottle,” Annie said wearily. “If that happens, that’s when I start to pity Kitty. I’ve heard that he was a mean drunk, and I didn’t like the way he treated his wife when he was sober.”

  “It’s enough to make your heart break for her, “Verna sighed.

  “It makes me sad too,” Annie agreed, “but I do have some good news t
o cheer you up. Sgt. Maria says she’s giving out all of our names to the press. She’s so proud of us, and she thinks we should all get credit for solving ‘Our Mystery’.”

  “Do I really want to become a celebrity this way?” questioned Barb.

  “I believe we are in for it whethah we want to be or not,” Verna stated. “Our telephones will be ringing constantly once this makes the headlines!”

  “Anyone fer bridge?” DeeDee asked, picking up a deck of cards.

  “If you don’t mind,” Annie said, “I don’t feel up to playing cards now. I couldn’t possibly concentrate on Bridge. I’d like to go home and tell Art before he hears it from somebody else.” Before she got up, she bowed her head in prayer. “Lord, it’s Annie and her friends down here. We praise You for helping us through this week, and for letting us solve ‘Our Mystery’. We give You the glory. Amen for now.”

  As she started to rise from her chair, Barb stopped her, saying, “Annie, Art’s not home. He and Brad left this morning for Sarasota. Remember? They’re at a Shuffleboard tournament. Won’t be home until after dark.”

  Annie crumpled back into her chair. There were tears in her eyes. As she wiped them away with the back of her hand, she apologized to her friends. “I’m sorry. I guess I lost it. I really could use his support right now.”

  DeeDee moved behind Annie’s chair and wrapped her arms around her friend, reassuring her, “Honey, we’re all here fer ya. Ya jest lean on us. What can I do ta hep?”

  Annie squeezed DeeDee’s hand and said, “Thanks. Thanks to all of you. You’ve been wonderful. Solving this mystery was a real team effort. I could never have done it by myself. Sorry about the tears; guess I’m more stressed than I realized.”

  “I have just the remedy to cheer you up,” Barb said. “Here’s the latest joke from Mr. B.”

  Annie managed a smile in anticipation as Barb continued, “Two ladies were hanging out together, and one was depressed. Her friend asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ The depressed one replied, ‘I’ve been married four times, and every one of my husbands has passed away.’ The other lady asked, ‘What did they used to do?’ The depressed lady replied, ‘Well, my first husband was a millionaire, the second was a magician, the third was an evangelist, and the fourth was a mortician.’ And the other said, ‘Oh, I see, one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go.’”