Transmission or not?

This entry on my blog sort of ties into the theme of October....Some years ago, back in the 80's, my mother had a 1979 cutlass supreme. She was quite fond of those cars. They seemed reliable and she thought it was a good looking car. She held onto them for as long as she could before she would get rid of it, only to buy another. As I recall, her '79 supreme had a bad transmission. She checked around town and found the cost for a new transmission was more than she wanted to pay for her somewhat older car. She quickly found she would need to have the transmission rebuilt or to buy one at a junk yard. My mother is also fond of her horse and mule. One hot day in August she set off on a tail ride with a friend of hers. They rode for hours, eventually wandering into the tiny city of Lipscomb, Alabama. They rode down the street of one neighborhood, getting some stares before getting back into some tree lined power lines where they continued onward.
One would have to know my mother, but this lady leaves nothing behind (yes, that is where I get it...). If she passes a hammer in the middle of the road she stops and gets it and delights at her newly found treasure. As they rode this trail, in the August heat, my mother noticed a abandoned transmission off to the side of the trail in the brush. Certain, she assumed, from a car that had been stripped. She began to get a little excited. As she came in closer she was calculating the money she would save by finding this transmission she could use for her car. As she approached, her heart sank a little, realizing what she thought was a transmission was only a roll of carpet disposed. Then she came right up to the carpet. It was about that time the smell hit.
"That's a body!" she yelled to her friend (who became sick at the stomach at the site). It was indeed a body. She had found herself on a murder scene-in the middle of nowhere. This was long before cell phones, or at the very least she had a bag phone which was not on her person or on a horse. They were dumbfounded as to what to do. My mother feared they were being watched. They got back on their horses and rode until they found a service station, where they used a pay phone to call police. The police met them at the station and had my mom and her friend lead them to the scene. My mother realized that the deceased persons hands were missing, as was one foot. She wondered why. An investigation ensued and arrest were made. It turned out that the deceased was a young man, a drug informant. Apparently the informant was discovered and his life taken. After the man had been shot his limbs were removed-as pointed out by police, for harder identification of the individual. His killer was brought to trail and is serving life for his murder.
My mother came home that day with quite a tale. It was one that I will never forget. Moral of the story-transmissions are not always as they appear. You are better off to pay a little more $$ than to become part of a murder investigation.