Murder
at the
High School Reunion
Steve Demaree
In the fifth book in this series, Lt. Dekker gets an advance warning that he might be investigating a couple of murders when two people turn up missing after a high school reunion. When those bodies do indeed turn up, the lieutenant and his sergeant sidekick go to work. They start by interviewing everyone who attended that high school reunion. In their favor is the fact that not a lot of people attended the reunion, but it doesn’t help them any when they find out that everyone hated one of the victims, but none of them appear guilty of murder.
Copyright 2011
Steve Demaree
All Rights Reserved
This book is dedicated to the two people I love the most and whose love I deserve the least, my wife Nell and my daughter Kelly. May God continue to bless me with their presence in my life.
This book is also dedicated to all my friends on Facebook. If you are not yet a Facebook friend, send me a request to become friends.
May each of them and each of you enjoy this book.
Other Books by Steve Demaree
Lt. Dekker-Sgt. Murdock
Mystery Series
The Hilltop Murder Mystery
The Precipice Point Murder Mystery
Murder In The Library
The Parkway Arms Murder Mystery
Murder at the High School Reunion
Murder at the Art & Craft Fair
Stand Alone Mysteries
Photo Finish
A Gated Community
Murder in the Dark
Aylesford Place Series
Aylesford Place: The First Year
Aylesford Place: The Second Year
Aylesford Place: The Third Year
Non-Fiction
Lexington & Me
Inspirational
Reflecting Upon God’s Word
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Cast of Characters
Lt. Cy Dekker - The lead detective of the Hilldale Police Department
Sgt. Lou Murdock - Lt. Dekker’s homicide partner
Rose Ellen Calvert – A librarian at the public library and the organizer of the high school reunion
Jimmy Conkwright – The town’s rich kid who got in trouble and was forced to move away
Duck Spencer – A student who did not finish high school and decided not to come to the reunion with his wife
Betty Gail Spencer – Duck Spencer’s wife, who had gotten pretty wild recently
Jim Bob Gibbons – Jimmy Conkwright’s one friend in high school
Billy Korlein – A student who didn’t like Conkwright in high school
April Korlein – Billy’s wife, a cheerleader when she was in high school
George Justice – Billy Korlein’s friend, who also detested Conkwright
Sandy Justice – George’s wife, another former cheerleader
Miriam Van Meter – A girl who appeared out of nowhere during high school, then died in a car wreck near the end of her freshman year
Walter Gillis – The school’s custodian, who is in his third year at the school
Earl Spickard – The former custodian at the high school, who retired two years ago
Mrs. Eversole – One of Sgt. Murdock’s elderly neighbors in his apartment building, a woman well versed in TV and movies
Lt. George Michaelson - A friend of Lt. Dekker and Sgt. Murdock and a fellow member of the Hilldale Police Department
Frank Harris - The medical examiner
Sam Schumann - A policeman who does much of Lt. Dekker’s investigative work
Officer Dan Davis - A young policeman who helps Lt. Dekker and Sgt. Murdock from time to time
Heather Ambrose – A petite female officer of the Hilldale Police Department whom Lt. Dekker is fond of, and who dates Dan Davis
Heloise Humphert - Lt. Dekker’s irritating next-door neighbor
Twinkle Toes - Heloise Humphert’s toy white French poodle
Rosie - The waitress at the Blue Moon Diner
Betty McElroy - A friend of Lt. Dekker’s whom he sometimes takes out to eat
Thelma Lou Spencer - Sgt. Murdock’s girlfriend
Jennifer Sharp – Thelma Lou’s cousin, who came to Hilldale to visit her cousin
Chapter One
Lou and I stepped from the Blue Moon Diner, where I had had a scrumptious breakfast and Lou had picked at something on his plate that didn’t look very appetizing to me. I closed the door and looked up to see our friend and fellow officer with the Hilldale Police Department, Lt. George Michaelson, pull up behind Lightning, my yellow VW bug. George got out of that gun-metal gray tank of his and walked toward us.
“Well, Cy, Lou, did you hear the bad news?”
“Rosie just told us. But how did you know?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? I work for the police department now.”
“Well, I knew they’d been paying you for over thirty years, but I had no idea that you’d starting doing something to earn that money.”
“Well, if anyone should know about drawing money without earning it, it’d be you, Cy. So, what do you think of the news?”
“Well, we probably won’t know anything for sure for a month, and then we’ll just have to deal with it best we can.”
“A month? You think it’ll take us that long to find them?”
“Find who, what? What are you talking about, George?”
“I thought you said you knew. What are you talking about, Cy?”
“The bad news, of course. You yourself asked me if we’d heard it, although I can’t figure out how you’d know. You never eat here. Besides, it won’t matter to you if the place closes.”
“The school isn’t going to close, Cy.”
“School? What school, and what does any school have to do with whether or not the Blue Moon closes.”
“So, that’s your bad news?”
“Yeah. The owner is thinking of closing down for a month, taking a vacation, and trying to decide whether or not to reopen. I don’t think the place has been the same since they lost Lou’s business.”
I was referring to the fact that my feeble friend, who once weighed in at a robust two-hundred-ninety-two pounds, had fallen off to somewhere around two-fifty, while I had maintained a finely sculptured weight of three-hundred-three pounds.
“Evidently your bad news is different. So, let’s hear it.”
“Well, sorry to heap more bad news on you, but you might have to go
back to work.”
“You mean you’re thinking about killing someone?”
Lou and I make up the entire homicide department of the Hilldale Police Department, and since Lou and I have passed fifty years of age and thirty years of service to the police department, and Hilldale doesn’t have to use as much crime scene tape as New York City does, we worked out a deal with the department where we’ll work only when there is a murder to solve. The rest of the time we draw our retirement checks, which are a little less than the paychecks we were receiving when we worked out this deal.
“So, I guess the two of you haven’t heard?”
“Evidently not, but I’ve got a feeling that we’re about to.”
“I can always wait and let you find out when someone leaves the bodies on your doorstep.”
“Just spill it, George.”
“Okay, here’s what we know. A county high school class had their twenty-year reunion the weekend before last. Word is that a couple of those who attended haven’t been accounted for since.”
“Anybody we’d know?”
George, like Lou and I, attended the Hilldale city schools. Hilldale High was and still is larger than the county high school, a school where only those who live out away from town attend. Since that has always been the case, we didn’t know a lot of the county kids growing up. Plus, we are over ten years older than those who attended this reunion.
“One of them was some guy who caused a lot of problems back when he was in high school, but he’s been gone from here a long time. The other one, Betty Gail Spencer, lives here and is married. The funny thing is her husband didn’t report her missing. No one knew she didn’t go home from the reunion until she didn’t show up at the shoe factory on Monday morning. We checked with her husband. He doesn’t seem to know or care where she is.”
“Sounds like if we find the bodies, it won’t take Lou and me long to solve this one.”
“You know better than that, Cy. The simple ones always take longer.”
“You’ve got that right. So, where did they disappear from? And is anyone looking into this?”
“The reunion was at the high school. We sent an officer out to the school. It was locked. No one was there. We checked. Both the principal and the custodian were away on vacation, so we had to get a key from the county to check out the place. The officer walked through the building and checked around the outside of the school, but he didn’t find anything. Then, that officer was sent to check with whoever was in charge of the reunion, but that didn’t lead to anything, either. So far there’s no evidence of foul play. Some people think the two of them ran away together. Anyway, those of us at the department aren’t so sure. We’ve even got a pool going on what day the bodies will be found.”
“And you’re going to keep the bodies hidden until it’s the day you chose?”
“Well, I’ve got to, Cy. After all, I don’t make your kind of money.”
I knew exactly that George makes the same amount I do, or the amount I made when I worked full time, plus he has a wife who works and contributes money to the bank account.
“Well, when we get the call, I’ll hunt you down as soon as I interrogate the husband.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Cy. Listen, I’ve got to go. One of us has to work.”
We bid George goodbye and watched him get back into his tank and drive away. I turned to look at Lou who’d been silent ever since we walked out of the Blue Moon. Poor guy probably didn’t have enough strength to say much, and more than likely he wanted to wait until he had something important to say. As if on cue, Lou opened his mouth.
“You’re thinking about something, Cy.”
“Just wondering who we have to see in order to put my five dollars in the pot. If we’re going to have to solve this thing, I want to get a little something extra out of it.”
Lou laughed as he opened his billfold and took out his five dollars.
All in good time. First, I had an idea.
“Lou, we don’t have anything pressing today. How’d you like to take a drive out to the county high school, see if we can spot anything suspicious?”
“And if we find the bodies, move them until my day or yours, just in case someone else has already found and hidden them?”
“I don’t know about touching them. As long as they’ve been missing, they must smell a bunch.”
“What if the coyotes have already found them?”
“I guess we just hope that we can find a finger, so we can bring it back for prints. Of course, from what I understand, all the coyotes in this county are of the two-legged variety.”
Our back and forth repartee was starting to get a little gross. It was time to change the subject.
“So, Lou, what do you think?”
“You that anxious to go back to work, Cy?”
“Well, I did finish reading that Carolyn Hart book last night, and I figured out who did it, which means my perceptive powers are at work. And I haven’t started another book yet. Any reason you don’t want to take a look?”
Lou gave me a look that told me he was game if I was. It was going to be another hot July day, but it was still early, and we could drive out to the school, look around, and get back in plenty of time to eat lunch and then take a nap during the hottest part of the day.
As I mulled this over in my head, it sounded like a reasonable plan, but then things don’t always work out the way we plan them. Maybe we should have waited until someone found the bodies.
Chapter Two
George had already told us that the principal, teachers, cafeteria workers, and the custodian were enjoying their summer vacations, so I knew whatever we learned, we would learn on our own. Lou and I arrived at the county high school and parked in the lot, which was to the right of the school. I looked around, spotted no bodies, or signs, or flashing lights leading me to where the bodies were. I wasn’t quite sure what to look for, but I carefully hoisted myself from the confines of Lightning, and walked slowly to the road to get a good look at the front of the school. I’d only been in the building a couple of times, and that was many years ago, so it wasn’t like doing this would allow me to relive memories. Even this part of the county was unfamiliar to me. Up to this point, it had been off limits to murderers, and I had no other reason to venture out that way.
What immediately came to mind is how much smaller the school was than Hilldale High. This two-story red brick school didn’t seem to spread out much farther than I do when I sit down. Looking from the road, it seemed to be in reasonable repair, at least on the outside. While the school was still being used each day, fifty or more years after its inaugural year, I doubted if more than two hundred students invaded the building each year, which meant that each grade consisted of fifty or fewer students.
Another look around the exterior of the school produced no more bodies than my first glimpse, so I motioned to Lou and the two of us headed to the most likely place to dispose of bodies, the Thornapple River, which flowed behind the school. Even though it was early in the day, the short jaunt to the river brought beads of sweat out onto my forehead. I cleaned them off with the back of my hand the best I could. I’m not a handkerchief kind of guy, and I didn’t have anything else available to wipe them away. If it were winter, I could’ve used my coat sleeve, but then if it were winter, I doubt if I’d be sweating.
Lou and I looked out upon the river, small as far as rivers go, but not some place where you could walk across if you knew where the rocks were. I had no idea how deep it was, and I had no inclination to find out. I did, however, want to see if I could find any evidence of two bodies being dragged to the river. Of course if that had been the case, more than likely all evidence would have been erased in those two weeks since it happened.
I was vaguely familiar with the school. Over the years I had had a couple of friends who attended County back in the day, so I knew about the river landing of sorts. While County has few students, unlike the number of students that attend Hill
dale, some of those students live in remote regions of the county, and a few of them can get to school easier using the river, rather than the road. At least that was the way it was back when I was in school, when the river was much wider and deeper, and it flowed uphill, both ways, and you had to navigate the rapids in order to get anywhere. At least, that’s what I was told by my friends who used the river for transportation. They told me that sometimes there were as many as six rowboats tied to a tree branch all day, while those who navigated the river each day were inside trying hard to learn or keep from it.
I looked. Things must have changed over the years. I didn’t see any nearby tree branches, at least not near the landing, but there were a couple of small bushes. I wanted to see how much things had changed since the last time I was there, back when I was a mere shell of my current self. I walked over to the bank. I wasn’t surprised that the area two feet below where students moored their boats was still there, but was surprised to see a rowboat down below, tied up to one of those bushes. The fact that I saw no bloodstains in or on the rowboat should have been enough to tell me to mind my own business and turn around, that there was no reason to investigate further, but I wondered how much more I could learn from that small, flat space of ground between where I stood and where the rowboat was bobbing up and down on the water. Actually, it wasn’t doing a lot of bobbing. Maybe it was tired.
Momentarily, I forgot about how hard it is to stop three-hundred-three pounds in motion, and I looked for a place to step down onto the dirt below. I have no idea what kept my feet from ripping through the bottom of the rowboat, or what kept me in a fairly upright position. Obviously, the boat was sturdier than I expected it to be, but my luck was short lived. At about the same time Lou hollered, I realized that the shore on the opposite side was looking closer than it did before. Slowly, I turned around and realized why. While Lou wasn’t waving goodbye, the distance between us had widened.
5 Murder at the High School Reunion Page 1