Death in the Park

by London Lovett

  "Yes, when food gets closer to the expiration date, we bring it here so it can be handed out to those in need."

  "That sounds like a good plan."

  "The school board president, Mr. Greer, set it up for us. He's a distributor for Bounty Foods."

  "I see. His son Carter, he's the student body president, right?"

  "Yes."

  "All done, Candace," the man said as he shut the back door to her car. He tapped the top of the sedan. "Until next time."

  "Yes, I have some canned corn that I won't be needing." Ms. Mills turned back to me. "I just hope your story helps flush out Alder's killer. He shouldn't have been forced out like he that. I think he knew something that someone wanted to keep secret." The way she said it seemed as if she was well aware of the secret too.

  My journalist’s intuition told me that Ms. Mills was willing to talk, but I knew she was in a hurry and I didn't want to waste time. I had to get straight to the point. "Forgive me for being forward, but I've heard that you and Alder had a fight shortly before he was forced to retire."

  Her expression turned to a glower, and I was sure I'd just blown my chance. But it turned out the glower was for someone else. "That was that nosy Victor Hanson, wasn't it? Ugh, that kid is not only clumsy, he's a snoop. Yes, Alder and I had an argument." She moved closer, even though I was sure the food bank volunteers weren't interested in our conversation, especially since they'd gone back into the warehouse. "Alder walked in on Principal Morely and one of the teachers . . . well . . . they were being affectionate. Alder was very distraught about it. He came to me for advice on what to do. When I told him he needed to let the superintendant know, he told me he couldn't. He thought it was none of his business. We argued about it. In the end, he decided to keep it to himself. Since he told me it in confidence, I didn't feel I had any choice except to keep his secret."

  "Until you told a journalist for a local paper."

  She nodded and looked straight at me. "Like I said, I hope your story helps uncover the killer." The ominous tone she used, assured me that she considered the principal a suspect. Then her expression changed again to one of fear. "But please don't use my name in your story. I can't afford to lose my job."

  "I understand. No problem. Thank you, Ms. Mills, you've been very helpful."

  Chapter 32

  I was starved after my adventurous morning. Lana had told me about a great diner in Smithville that served a delicious cobb salad, layered high with garden fresh tomatoes, chopped hard boiled eggs and curls of bacon. According to my phone, it was just a block east of the high school. I decided to head back toward Smithville for some lunch and cobb salad.

  As I headed down the street past the high school and on my way to the diner, I drove past a park. It was one of those shady little corner parks that offered picnic tables and a swing set and slide. The picnic benches were half hidden by a row of white rose bushes planted along the sidewalk. As I glanced past the big, snow white blooms, I glimpsed a flash of red. It was red hair and more specifically the red haired boy I saw sneaking out from behind the girls' locker room.

  I pulled over and decided it was time to take pictures of the beautiful white roses. The boy had been warning his friend not to tell Greer that he knew about the peep hole. It seemed there was a lot of secret, suspicious stuff going on at Smithville High, and it all seemed to point back to one key figure, Carter Greer, the student body president.

  I climbed out of the jeep and walked around the roses bushes looking for just the right angle, or at least the one that would let me see what the kids were up to. The boy with red hair was sitting on the picnic bench talking to a girl, while another couple were sitting on the swings, dangling their feet and looking at books. Yearbooks to be exact.

  None of them paid attention to the lady taking pictures of the roses. I waited for my moment to move in on my target, and it happened when the girl on the picnic bench got up to join her friends on the swings. The boy was looking at his phone when I walked up.

  "If the yearbooks are delayed, then how come so many students have them?" My question nearly made him drop his phone.

  He nervously brushed aside his long bangs. "What? Who are you?"

  I decided to try a little power of the press intimidation. I pulled out my press pass. "I'm Miss Taylor with the Junction Times. I've been at your high school interviewing people about the summer work program."

  A laugh shot from his mouth. "Hey, guys, she's interviewing people about the summer work program."

  "Boo," the other's shouted back. "We hate that program."

  I waved back to them. "Thanks, I'll add that to the story." I turned back to the boy. "So while I was at the school, I saw many flyers that said the yearbooks had been delayed, some sort of problem with the printer shorting the order. And yet, everywhere I look, kids are reading their yearbooks."

  He pushed his phone into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. "Not sure what you mean, but we've got to get back to campus."

  "Of course, I don't want you to be tardy. Although I don't know if that tardy will be a problem once I let Principal Morely know about the peep hole you've been using to spy on the girls' locker room."

  His mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

  "I saw you coming out of that maintenance room today."

  He peeked over at his friends, it seemed not for moral support but to make sure they were out of earshot.

  "Why don't you tell me about the yearbooks." I felt guilty as heck about my game of blackmail, but I had nothing else in my arsenal. It had been quite a few years since I was a teen, but if there was one golden rule in the teenage world—it was never rat out a friend. Unless, of course, it meant saving your own hide in the process. And from the look on his face, he was definitely worried about his own hide.

  "I didn't drill the hole, and I'm not the one selling the yearbooks." He looked close to throwing up, but it seemed now that he'd started, he was ready to talk.

  I took a chance. I had sort of pieced together the yearbook story but just needed my witness to confirm it. "I know Carter Greer hid boxes of the yearbooks in the maintenance room to sell on his own."

  He relaxed some, deciding that since I already knew that took him off the hook. He was no longer the snitch. "The school was charging a hundred bucks for those books. Carter sold them for fifty, but you had to pay cash. And he only let certain people know about it. Some of the kids are narks."

  I held back a smile, thinking how quickly he'd blabbed out the whole scheme. "I guess Carter drilled that hole too?"

  The boy laughed nervously. "He heard the girls laughing and talking through the walls. It was just for fun."

  "Uh huh, well just so you know, Coach Irwin already knows about the hole."

  Some of the freckles on his nose lightened in color as his face turned pale. "Did you tell her it was me?"

  I shook my head. "No but that doesn't mean she won't investigate the matter. I'm not sure you're off the hook yet. And it's not fun. It's wrong. Do you have a sister?"

  He seemed confused by my question. "Yeah but she goes to the junior high."

  "In a few years she'll be at the high school. Tell me, what would you do if you found out some boys in her class were spying on her in the locker room?"

  The color loss spread farther, and his mouth drew tight as my point came across. "I'd clobber them."

  "Right."

  His friends had left the swings and were heading back toward him.

  "You'd better go. You don't want to be tardy." I walked back to the jeep and climbed inside.

  A black market for the school yearbook. Run by the class president, no less. And that class president was the son of the school board president, a prestigious and important position in any town. One thing was certain, that full football scholarship would be quickly withdrawn if the university found out just what their newest football star was up to. And losing the scholarship would be the least of his problems. I would think if the yearbook scheme
was discovered, it would mean possible expulsion, and just weeks from graduation. I wasn't a parent, at least not to humans, but I wondered just how desperate a parent might get to stop someone from ruining their child's future.

  Chapter 33

  I was starved and the cobb salad lived up to its reputation, but I mostly picked at it. I had been far too busy drawing a graphic on my napkin that connected everything I'd learned so far. Carter Greer was clearly doing something that would get him expelled or arrested or, at the very least, suspended. No college would accept him after that no matter how stellar he was on the football field. From that startling revelation, I had to connect dots to the Alder Stevens murder. It turned out that was easier than expected, but to do that I had to think back to my visit to the pawn shop, the Larson Pawn Shop. The unusual murder weapon had been removed from a locking cabinet and the even more rare bullets had been taken from a storage cabinet in the back of the store. The only people with keys to the cabinet, and, I assumed, the back of the store were Dick Larson and his daughter, Belinda. And Belinda just happened to be Carter Greer's girlfriend.

  Back to Alder Stevens. As head custodian, Alder was one of the few people on campus who had access to the hidden maintenance room or, even more likely, knew it existed. Carter might have decided it was a safe place to hide the yearbooks because it was a storage room that was rarely used. But what if Alder had discovered Carter's secret stash of yearbooks and threatened to tell the principal? Carter needed a way to get rid of Alder Stevens. I would bet any amount of money that the student who called his office to let him know that a pipe had burst in the girls' locker room was Belinda. It was a fairly elaborate plan but then a seventeen-year-old who organized and ran a black market yearbook sale right under the principal's nose was nothing, if not clever. But was it under Principal Morely's nose or right in front of it? After all, any principal might look the other way on matters that involved the school board president's son. Either way, a burst pipe would mean Alder had rushed over, believing he was answering an emergency call. But instead of walking into an evacuated locker room, he walked straight into a room full of girls changing. In addition, Principal Morely might have been happy to force him out if he had his own secrets to hide. I had no doubt that the school board president had his hand in the retirement too. And very possibly his death.

  I paid my check and hurried out to the jeep. I pulled out onto the road and headed back toward Firefly Junction. I was sure I'd get a lecture from Detective Jackson about meddling but I was bursting with information that he needed to hear. Whether he listened or not was his problem.

  Chapter 34

  The police station was at the intersection where Edgewood Drive turned into Butternut Crest. An unmarked police car was just leaving the parking lot in front of the station as I reached the intersection. It was easy to recognize the all-too-recognizable Detective Jackson with his thick head of hair and shoulders that seemed to span half the front seat of the car. He was heading toward Butternut Crest. It dawned on me he might have been going to the pawn shop. It seemed once again I was following someone. Only this time, it was a person who was professionally trained to tail people. I decided to stay back as far as possible. Which was easy because the man drove like he was in a formula one race car.

  I was a good few miles back and several cars had gotten between us, slowing my pursuit even more, but my earlier guess had been right. His taillights disappeared off the road as he headed toward the pawn shop.

  I took a deep breath and pulled the jeep in behind him. He was just finishing a phone call as he got out of his car. He was certainly on the phone a lot. I wondered if it was police duty or personal calls. It seemed he had a fairly well know reputation for being very social. I brushed off my silly mind tangent into his personal life. I couldn't have cared less what he did in his free time. I was only interested in the murder case, a case that I might just have solved. And from the looks of it, long before Detective Jackson had solved it.

  Jackson hung up his phone and pushed it into his pocket. He looked up as I pulled my jeep up to the store. My mind was racing with all the things I needed to tell him. I worried I wouldn't be able to get it all out in a comprehensible order before he waved me off again. I glanced down at the napkin with my murder chart but decided he wouldn't take me too seriously if I walked up to him with a pen scribbled diner napkin.

  To my surprise, he walked toward me as I stepped out of the jeep.

  "If it isn't the little bluebird sitting on my shoulder again," he quipped as his long legs strode toward me. The long hem of his black t-shirt was jammed behind his badge and the sunlight filtering through the tall trees glinted off the shiny metal and off the black lenses of his sunglasses. He stopped at the jeep and patted the top of it. "Nice wheels by the way."

  "Thanks. And I wasn't on your shoulder. I was following you."

  "Bluebird on my tail then. I stand corrected." He pushed his sunglasses up on his head, exposing his unusual amber eyes. In the semi-shade of the trees, they looked more like topaz than amber. "Since I'm a detective, I suppose my next logical question should be—why were you following me?"

  He leaned against the side of the jeep and crossed his arms to wait for my explanation. It would be easy enough to let his cocky grin, muscular physique and uber-confidence intimidate me into holding back my information but I was a pro. Or at least that was the chant going through my head.

  "While you've been romping around town trying to find Alder's killer, I've been busy with my own investigation. And I've solved the mystery. Or at least I think I have. I've got some pretty solid evidence. Well, not direct evidence." I pointed into my jeep. "But I've got a napk—a chart with a lot of evidence that points to one person."

  "Is that right? And who do you think killed the custodian?"

  I shook my head. "Oh no, I'm not going to just hand you over the name. It took a lot of investigation and interviews to get to the suspect, I'm not just going blurt out the name."

  "I see. So you've discovered the perpetrator through guesswork and circumstantial evidence?"

  "Isn't that the case in a lot of crimes? I thought that half your day was guesswork."

  "I prefer direct evidence to guessing. Makes for a more solid case."

  "I agree but since I don't have the privilege of forensic reports and questioning people of interest, I have to draw a conclusion my own way. Frankly, I think it's much harder to do it my way. And yet, I've succeeded in doing just that. Now if you'd like to hear what I have rather than debate about investigative techniques . . ."

  He waved his hand with a flourish. "Please tell me. I'd love to hear what you've found on your little reporter excursions."

  I stopped to huff out a breath and let him know he was irritating. "Yes, well my little excursions led me to find out that the student body president of Smithville High, Carter Greer, is selling high school yearbooks at a discounted price in a black market scheme."

  My mention of Greer erased some of the condescension from his posture and expression. It seemed I had his attention. "Go on," he said.

  "Well, Carter Greer also happens to be the football quarterback who earned a nice full scholarship, so he has a lot to lose if his scheme is discovered."

  Jackson rubbed his jaw and nodded. "Makes sense."

  I couldn't decide if he was taking in what I said or just humoring me. It took all my will to keep up my confidence as I told him my information, which started to feel less conclusive as I told it. Maybe my threads were too frail for any strong connection. I forged ahead. I'd started, I decided I might as well just go for it while I had his ear.

  "A few other interesting details about Carter Greer—and this is where the dots start to form a picture. Carter Greer's dad is Martin Greer, school board president. He is also a distributor for a local canned food company, Bounty Foods. Like the flattened box we—I spotted in the park trash can on the day of the murder."

  He was about to interrupt, so I piped up quickly to stop him.
"And, and this is a big and, Carter Greer is the boyfriend of Belinda Larson, one of the two people who had access to the locking cabinet where the murder weapon was stored."

  I was having a hard time reading his reaction in his face, but his lone dimple made its appearance. "Well done, Miss Taylor." He pulled a set of keys out from his pocket, only the keys were inside a baggie and marked with an evidence label. "After Belinda told us that she had lost her keys to the cabinet, she also confessed to letting her boyfriend, Carter, hang out in the back of the pawn shop while her father was out of the store. We found the keys in Carter's locker. Principal Morely knew something was going on with the yearbooks. A few students were caught with yearbooks. They wouldn't name names. You know the social hierarchy in high school. If you get caught being a snitch, your social life is as good as over."

  "And yet I found a kid who sang like a bird and told me everything."

  "Really? Good work, Taylor. Maybe we'll get you a shiny badge that says investigative reporter."

  I pulled out my press pass. "I have a badge, I just don't display it on my belt like you." I winked at him. "And if I'm being honest, I had to use a touch of blackmail to get him to spill. I worried he might throw up on my shoes in the process, but a good reporter always gets her story, even if she puts her sneakers at risk. So the keys are your direct evidence?"

  "Actually, we had something pretty solid even before the keys. Something a little bluebird alerted me to. That folded box at the park had been used to smooth out the footprints in the soil around the body. Not only did the soil samples match up, but the victim's blood was found in the same sample. The box in the trash can had no lot number or date on it which meant it was brand new. It had never been used. The box was never out in distribution, which meant it came directly from the Bounty Foods plant."