Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I am Mashie Niblick.  I am presently employed as the greenskeeper of the Hoity Toity Golf Club in the big city of Tracy. Pauline was teaching classes, but she had the afternoon off.  The Levys invited us for a round of golf.  Our tee time was late in the afternoon, while people were eating their evening meals.  It gave us time to look for lost golf balls, seemingly a favorite pastime of the Levys.

We had a foursome in front of us, and for most of the front nine, we kept pace with them.  This was amazing since either Jacob or Dinah lost a ball on each whole of the front nine.  On the ninth hole, they both sliced their tee shots into the trees, but Pauline noted that the players in front of us had already disappeared.  It seemed that the back nine would be just us on the course.

Oh, and if you are wondering, Baffy is at the Lilly the Pink nursery.  Knowing her, she has the other kids in line.  Since she is advanced verbally for her age, she has a bad habit of interpreting what the other children are saying, getting it right less than half the time, I suspect.

The Levys each put one in the lake along the right side of the tenth and eleventh holes, but amazingly, they both made it over the creek that guards the twelfth hole.  But on the thirteenth hole, Jacob Levy snapped a slice deep into the woods.  The contact with the trees indicated it had bounced off a few of them.  There was no way that we would find his ball.  It was extremely frustrating, in that the thirteenth hole had one of the widest landing areas on the course.

Jacob said, “it’s a long shot, but I am allowed five minutes to find my ball.  There is no one behind us.  Let’s look.”

Pauline went deepest into the woods.  Just in case we had someone approach from behind, I looked in the fairway.  I cannot count the times that I hooked or sliced a ball into the woods, and after two or three ricochets the ball went back into the fairway.  I will admit since Pauline had fixed my game a few times over, I did not do that much anymore.  And Pauline was definitely taking a lot off her swing.  She stayed in the fairway, but her length suffered.  She finally explained that Baffy is getting a new playmate, a sibling, and we have not checked the gender.  I had accounted for the three balls in the fairway.  How Dinah got her ball in the fairway was a miracle.

I started looking in the rough near the tree line when Pauline yelled.  “Mashie, call your friend, Dev.  We have a situation here.”

I asked, “Dev, as in Deviled Yeggs?  Situation, as in something he does for a living?”

Pauline said, “Yes to both!  Please, Jacob and Dinah, keep your distance.  They’ll want as few footprints as possible.  Four bodies.  Very strange.  They are cold, like they are frozen and just starting to thaw.  Gunshot wounds, but they look off.”

Jacob asked, “In what way do they look off?”

Pauline shrugged. “My gut feeling.  Execution shootings.  One to the head and two to the heart.  But the edges seem different from what I have seen.  Oh, that’s it!  The bodies are dressed in Hoity Toity golfing attire, even golf shoes and hats, but the bodies are clean.  And their arms are not in the shirt sleeves.”

Dinah asked, “Frozen, clean bodies.  A foursome in golf attire.  Execution style shootings.  Could the weird look of the wounds mean that it is postmortem?”

Pauline said, “Stay back, but you might be right.”

I got a call back from Deviled Yeggs.  Since this was on a golf course, he wanted to make sure that there was the least amount of course damage as possible.  I told him that if they drove from the back entrance on the north side, they would be right at the thirteenth tee.  No driving, if possible on the tee boxes or the greens and down the right rough, they’ll spot my cart.

It was hardly any time at all that Polly Pulice drove up.  She parked in the rough near my cart.  She and her female partner got out.  Polly said, “Hi, Mashie, I am here with my partner to secure the scene.  The lieutenant called the M.E. wagon and prepared him for four bodies.  Poached and Jim were just about to leave for the day, so they turned around in the hallway and clocked back in.  Crime scene usually needs to pack their gear before coming out.  Oh, I forgot.  My new partner is Rookie Ruthie Toody.”

Ruthie held out a hand to shake mine, “Oo!  Oo! I’m glad to meet you!”

I asked Polly, “Oo, Oo, and her name is Toody?  You have to be kidding me.”

Polly said, “I wish I were.  At first, it grates at your nerves, but you get used to it.  She is eager to learn, and she does a great job at securing the scene.  So, I don’t mind the nervous verbal tick.”

I wondered if Polly even understood the obvious connection to the old TV show.  If I didn’t love the old sitcoms on the streaming service, I wouldn’t know about it.

Polly then asked, “Where is the scene?  You would think we could smell our way to them.”

I pointed in the direction where Pauline was.

Pauline yelled, “Is that Polly?  Great!  I’m down here in the little valley that drains into the lake behind the fourteenth tee.  And the bodies don’t stink, but they will very soon.  They are just thawing out!”

Polly asked, “They’re frozen?!”

Sometime later, as the shadows began to lengthen, Jim Wednesday had Jacob and me next to the golf cart.  He was asking the standard questions.  Jacob and I were answering them to the best of our knowledge.  Jacob saw the bodies from some distance, and I had not even gone down there.

While we made great progress with Jim Wednesday, Poached Yeggs had the two ladies.  Both of them had a much better view of the bodies, Pauline from very close up, but Dinah stayed far enough back to see the bodies, but not disturb the scene.

They had mixed results in getting footprint impressions, and it looked like the people who dropped the bodies there used gloves.

Poached was getting nowhere with the ladies.  All I can think of is that Dinah had too defense mechanisms during stressful situations, neither helpful.  She joked, and she became sexually aroused, at least romantically.  The following is in Dialogue form:

Poached:  For the record, please state your name.
Dinah: You know me, Poached.  We are Rogues together.  Pauline, in this late afternoon light, Poached looks good enough to just gobble up, right here in front of everybody.
Pauline:  Dinah!  Behave!  Jacob can probably hear you!
Dinah: Oh, Poached is such a hunk!
Poached:  Please, ladies, we all attend the same meetings at Lily the Pink, but I have protocol to follow.  You know, rules?  Please, state your name for the record.
Pauline: Pauline Niblick.
Dinah: (singing) Oh, Dinah, Should you wander to China, I would hop an ocean liner Just to be with Dinah Lee, umm, Vee … Dinah Is there anyone finer In the state of Carolina?
Poached: Stop!  Stop!  You both got a good look at the four bodies.  Did you recognize any of them?
Pauline:  (Shook her head but said nothing which did not help the audio recording)
Dinah:  Nope.  One looked like an old flame, but he should have aged over the past twenty years.  Oops, I have been married longer than that.  Can you make it more like forty years?  No, change that to thirty, forty makes me sound old.  Oh, and Pauline.  Did you see that young one next to the little spring.  He was cute!  I know I said that I would be faithful to Jacob, but if the right part of him was as stiff as the rest of him, I would jump on and ride like a cowgirl.
Pauline: DINAH!  You should not even think that, much less say it out loud!  Besides!  He’s dead!  You think a dead man is cute?!
Dinah: Come on, Pauline.  Play along!  I thought he was really cute.  You know, maybe when he was alive.
Poached: Jim!  Help!  Can we swap?  Dinah is playing comedian, and Pauline is delivering the straight lines.
Jim:  Okay!  …  (An appropriate pause)  Ladies, did anything stand out to you about the crime scene.
Dinah: Not really, but you are standing out, taking charge.  I like a man who takes charge.  You could escort me to your squad car and take charge of me right now.
Jim: Dinah, I am married to Tuesday, happily married.
Dinah: So, it’s Tuesday.  In a few short hours, it will be Wednesday.  We could start a little early.  And don’t tell me your kids are Wednesday through Saturday.
Jim:  No Wednesday yet, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and Holiday.
Dinah:  Oh, please, Jim.  Let’s throw away the calendar and say its Monday.  I have to have you!
Pauline:  Dinah!  Stop it!
Dinah: Oh, please, Pauline, I am being faithful to Jacob, but I still have to know that I have it.
Pauline: It what?
Dinah:  You know?  IT!  Capital “I” Capital “T” Hee Hee Hee!
Pauline: Whatever IT is, I hope it is not contagious!
Jim: Praise the Lord.  The Lieutenant just arrived.
Dinah: Okay, I can do you both, but not at the same time.  That gets messy!
Pauline: Dinah!  Your husband can hear you!
Dinah: Okay, all three of them, but one at a time.  I have my standards.
Pauline: Jim, when Dev comes over to fuss at us, can I leave with you?

Deviled Yeggs asked, “What is the problem here?  We have the statements for the guys, and Poached says you have hardly started over here.  For the past five minutes, they have been up there laughing at your comedy routine.”

Pauline said, “Dinah, hush!  I was looking for Jacob’s lost golf ball.  Oops, I found it near the bodies, and I put it in my pocket.  I apologize for disturbing the scene.  It obviously did not kill anybody.  The bodies were frozen, but they were starting to thaw.  So, no smell yet.  Gunshot wounds for each, one to the head, two to the heart.  All gunshots looked postmortem, maybe even post freezing.  They were not killed here.  No means to freeze here in the woods in the summer and they probably were not out here all day.  They would be thawed by now.  And two were definitely repositioned since lividity for those two bodies does not match their present position.  They are all wearing golf clothing, but their arms are not in the sleeves.  Someone dressed them while frozen or at least after death.  Is that enough?  I have to go to the bathroom really bad.  I am pregnant, you know!”

Deviled let her speed away on a golf cart, while he did his best to keep Dinah’s hands off him.  He finally got a similar report from Dinah, with a lot of hand fighting, but she only gave about half the same details.

Two days later, Dev had the golfing foursome in his office.  Poached, Jim, Captain Hart, and Gisele were also present.  I was thinking that Captain Hart and Gisele were there in case Dinah got goofy again, just for the entertainment.  But Dev had Georges Evident there since this might have been done by organized crime.  There were too many skills being used, and it looked well practiced.

Dev said, “Thank you for coming.  You did not stumble onto a four-person mass shooting.  As Pauline surmised, they were dumped.  By whom?  We are working on it.  We have video of them taking the bodies by boats with trawling motors, bodies wrapped in canvas, from the clubhouse out onto the lake that is bordered by the tenth and eleventh holes going out, and the fourteenth coming back toward the clubhouse.  Everyone was thinking they were guests taking pork out to the gazebo near the twelfth hole for a slow-cooking pit barbecue.  They have the pits out there.  No one checked credentials.  They had the bodies, disguised in shape and wrapped in the restaurant kitchen freezer.  Amy G. Dala is having fits trying to figure out if they can use any of the meat in there.  The meat in the freezer is worth a fortune.  And Amy also confirmed that golfing attire had been stolen from the pro shop.  Somehow the thief got into the storage room, probably picking a lock.  And before anyone has a comedic remark to say, GrandPa, Thou, Scrambled and I all have an account for our whereabouts.”

Pauline raised her hand, “And I can provide documentation for my whereabouts, mostly teaching class, but Baffy can tell you I was with her the rest of the time.”  Everyone smiled.  They knew that Baffy had a good vocabulary, but could you count on the testimony of a little eighteen month old girl?  But in Pauline saying that, she was reminding everyone that GrandPa (Millie to her) had taught her all his tricks when she was a rebellious teen, PK, preacher’s kid, although Oswald Tozer was her grandfather.

Dev continued, “You solved a three-state theft, not a murder at all.  But again, we have caught no one and no idea where the freezer truck might be that was bringing the four cadavers to T.R.U.S.T. Medical Center.  The truck was truck-jacked, for the need of a better phrase, at the state line.  They had originally left Denver a few days ago.  The cause of death for the four cadavers corresponded to research being done at the Medical Center.  Now that the bodies have been frozen, they may have no useful data.  The bodies were being monitored near, but not below, freezing to preserve the tissue, especially the proteins.  We have video from the welcome center where the heist was made, but everyone used a mask and gloves.  And the descriptions do not match the people transporting the bodies by boat.  Does anyone have anything to add?”

Dinah said, “I apologize for propositioning each of the detectives, and the M.E., and his helpers.”

Then Jacob added, “And a couple of squirrels in the trees.”

Dinah stuck her tongue out at her husband, “I get goofy when I am stressed out.  I promise that I will not make a pass at any of you today, except Poached.  He still looks yummy.”

I said, “Dinah, Poached is married to Callie.  They have a daughter, Scarlett Ibis.”

Dinah groaned, “Oh, please, Poached!  I know these people back in DC.  Their daughter refused to have children, and the daughter and her husband got a parrot.  At least it can talk, but her parents, that is, my friends, moaned the lack of grandchildren.  They had to settle for a grandbird.  It’s not the same, Poached.  Besides, Ibises can’t talk.”

Pauline shook her head, “No, Dinah, that is their daughter’s name.  She and Baffy play together when they are both at the Lily the Pink nursery.  Scarlet Ibis Yeggs, nicknamed Ibie, is human, not bird.  Callie is an Ornithologist.”

Dinah sighed, “Well, at least the baby will get braces for free when she gets older.”

Pauline groaned, “Ornithologist, not Orthodontist!”

Dev interrupted and turned to Pauline, “Pauline, you later talked about your round of golf prior to seeing the bodies.  You had a foursome in front of you.  You said these guys were slow as Christmas.  With both Levys losing golf balls, the foursome in front should have disappeared quickly, but they were still in front of you until you reached the ninth tee box and you never saw them again.  Mashie said that he recognized only one of them, the owner of a furniture store chain.  We contacted him, and he had gotten a call from a supplier to play golf with three of his top employees.  Turned out the supplier was told to say that, or his family would be roughed up.  Everything is leading to loose ends and no evidence, but we are still digging.  The furniture guy in Tracy said they had a thousand and one excuses for delaying.  They were indecisive on which club to use.  They wanted the others to come over and decide whether the ball was in ‘ground under repair,’ anything to make the round of golf a pain and slow.  He knew you were behind him, and his guests refused to let you play through.  Pauline, why would they do that?  You are an analyst.  How do you analyze that type of behavior?”

Pauline closed her eyes for a minute.  She gasped as she opened her eyes.  “They were delaying us until the bodies were in place, but there was no reason to think we would hit a ball into that clump of trees.”

I suggested, “Unless they had watched Jacob swing a driver?  That is a long par 4.  Using a 3-Wood would add an extra stroke.  Jacob tends to make boomerang slices with a driver, especially when he is tired.  That one on the thirteenth tee was a classic one.”

Poached asked, “A boomerang slice?”

I sighed, “Yeah, it starts going right, for a righthander, and keeps curving.  When you lose sight of it, you turn around, afraid it’s coming back at you from behind, but it usually hits a tree before then.  You know, like a boomerang.”

Jacob cleared his throat.  “It usually hits the ground and stops long before that, unless it’s in the middle of the lake, like on both ten and eleven.  Mashie is exaggerating like he is prone to do.  I was running low on golf balls, and we had two tough water holes yet to play, water on the right.  That’s why I asked to look for the ball.  And I am getting better, but I get tired by the back nine.  That’s when the slice gets worse.”

Pauline nodded, “That has to be it.  They got a text or something as they walked off the eighth green, and we never saw them again because the bodies were in place.  What did the furniture guy say?”

Dev shrugged, “He said that they got a text, and they had to go to the hotel and have a face-to-face phone call with their boss over the computer.  Is this suggestive of any other mystery in the recent past?”

Jacob said, “Are you suggesting it is like the gas cylinders that they tried to deliver to our house during the housewarming?  You caught the guys, but you said that you thought they were getting paid to do it.”

Dev nodded, “Yeah, they were hired guns from out of state, each with a long rap sheet.  Except the driver.  They just hired a guy wanting to make a few bucks.”

Dinah was suddenly serious, “Does that narrow the suspected victims to us four?”

Pauline said, “As the only analyst here…”

Jacob said, “Hey!  Hey!  I was an analyst once.  I will admit that Mashie was always an agent in the field.”

Poached asked, “And what was Dinah?”

Dinah frowned, “I pretended to be Jacob’s wife, until we really did get married, and I got information out of people, umm, when they were indisposed.”  Mashie and I laughed.

Jacob said, “While they were next to you in bed, but don’t forget that you were the master at teaching people how to tell falsehoods and make it sound believable, no tells at all.”

Dinah groaned, “And teaching people how to lie is supposed to make me sound more virtuous?!”

Pauline then groaned, “I was about to make my analysis.  No victim can be removed from the list of housewarming party goers.  They did not have a guarantee that we would find the bodies, but by morning, when the business leaders have their tee times, they were also at the party.  By then, the bodies would be thawed and making an awful smell.  You might think that our lovely mayor would be out of consideration.  He is not a club member, and he does not play golf.  But ever since the housewarming party, he has beefed up security.  The bad guys may want his security to lax by pulling another prank where he was not involved.”

Dev said, “Great analysis.  If I was the only one thinking that, my two associates would claim I was getting paranoid.  Both of these incidents look like grown-up pranks, but the first is being charged as domestic terrorism, 40-50 business leaders and city leaders all getting sick at the same time, and a couple of people, with preexisting heart conditions, could have died.  Then this latest incident seems like a prank, but it starts with grand theft – refrigeration truck, and weapons were seen in the video.  Mishandling and improper care of corpses is a minor offense.  Illegal transportation over state lines is out by only a mile.  Since they had to have followed the truck, we might squeeze that in.  That could bring in a behavioral expert from the Feds.  They broke several laws, felonies.  And so far, no one has gotten hurt, thanks to Pauline and her death grip.”

Pauline moaned, “It is not a grip, and no one has died.”  Everyone else added, “Yet!”

We four golfers, that is two golfers and two hackers, went through several books of mug shots that Georges Evident put together.  Dinah moaned about how none of them smiled, but I picked four possibles for the golfers in front of us.  Pauline found five possibles, but the Levys found no one.  They had to admit that they were not looking closely.  Luckily, three of mine matched three of Pauline’s.  Dev said they were all from Denver, really bad characters.  From our descriptions of their body types, two matched the video of the truck jacking.

Jacob called his old workplace, and since no new Hugh McAdoo has been announced, they said they could claim him as Hugh McAdoo and send a security team.  They would stay in the guest rooms and then provide a loose tail when the Levys drove around, hoping to see if they were being followed.  As for Pauline and I, it was business as usual, but we had a crew ensure the security cameras that Hugh McAdoo had installed around the golf course were being monitored and properly maintained.

And the last I heard, Amy G. Dala was throwing out the food in the freezer.  She could not guarantee cross contamination had not occurred, and the Medical Center could not say one way or the other regarding the disease they were researching.  With the public health nightmare looming, Ms. Dala decided to dump the entire thing and use this as an excuse to thoroughly clean the freezer.  The restaurant was shut down for a few days, and the 19^th hole dining area served simpler sandwich fare with daily resupply until the freezer was inspected after cleaning.  And Amy talked to me about putting another freezer in the Hobbit Hole, where Pauline and I had lived for a while.  At least that could be used to store a set amount of food if the main freezer ever was compromised again.  The lower entrance that is connected to a tunnel, leading to the mower shed was the only feasible access.  I couldn’t see a cook walking up a spiral staircase with a couple hundred pounds of brisket.

But I wonder.  Is Deviled Yeggs seeing a connection that might not be there? There have been two weird things happen so far this year.  Both times, hired guns were used from out of state.  There was no idea who was behind either events or if they were related.  We had no idea who the target was, but until now, what had been done was mostly just a nuisance.  Sure, there were laws broken, but who was the target and what was the end game?

Credits

The Perils of Pauline was a movie serial started in 1914. It defined many serials that followed, including the Perils of Pauline “moment,” the cliffhanger that caused you to return to the theater for the next installment.

The Fearsome Foursome, not the Fearless Foursome, was the defensive linemen for the Los Angeles Rams (NFL) in American Football from the 1960s to the 1970s.  They were Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Rosey Greer, and Lamar Lundy.  The name had been used before, but the Rams front line was said to be the most dominant in NFL history (Dick Butkus).  Olsen and Jones were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  As players retired or changed teams, the foursome changed over the years.

The reference to “Oo, Oo” and Officer Toody is in memory of one of my favorite television shows at the time, Car 54 where are you?  Officer Gunther Toody always said “Oo, Oo!”  His side kick was played by Fred Gwynne, the usually even-keeled Francis Muldoon.  Gwynne next played Herman Munster in The Munsters.  I may keep Rookie Ruthie Toody around just for the name.  Besides, just try to say Rookie Ruthie Toody three times really fast.

Corpses are not usually frozen, but their storage temperature is kept rather low to preserve the corpse.  But cadavers are often frozen to preserve the body for future study.  But based on what the Medical Center was studying, freezing may have damaged the proteins in particular associated with the disease that they were studying.

And Dinah Levy was singing, Dinah, written by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young.  Here is Bing Crosby singing Dinah, and I think he is accompanied by the Mills Brothers.  In the story, Dinah picks lines from the middle of the song so that it will end with Dinah Lee, and then she added the “Vee” to make it Dinah Levy.

And if Dinah was not a fictional character, I would ask for prayers.  She is sincere.  She is trying really hard, and sometimes one sin or another becomes hard to get rid of.  Once we learn to trust God even more, He has the strength to conquer anything.