5 Murder at the High School Reunion

by Steve Demaree

  A couple of minutes after I started Lightning and took off, we got a call on the police radio, something that seldom happens. One of the missing cars had been found. When the bodies were found inside the school, the department started looking for the cars again. Finding the first one was easy. It was parked right beside Betty Gail Spencer’s house. It took a little longer to find Jimmy’s car, and the main reason they found it so easily is that they started searching at the scene of the crime. They pulled Jimmy’s car from the river. It went in a few feet from where I initiated my boat ride. The back end was smashed in. It could have happened when the car hit the bank on the way to the river, but my money was on the fact that someone else’s car helped it find its way to the river. Maybe the murderer didn’t want the janitor double-checking the school to see why one of the vehicles was still there. I’m sure that if whoever did it suffered any damage to his or her vehicle, that person had gotten it fixed by now. Still, body shops keep records of the work they do. Maybe this thing would be as simple as finding whose vehicle had been repaired recently and arresting the owner for murder.

  +++

  I fixed a quick lunch and packed a small cooler with afternoon snacks. I almost whistled when I stepped out the door to go pick up Lou and corner a couple more suspects. I sat the cooler down and had my back turned as I was shutting the door, when I felt something tugging on my pant leg. Before I could look down, I heard something that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “Oh, Cyrus, she remembers you.”

  I stumbled when I turned around and faced my next-door neighbor from the dark side, because something was still attached to my pant leg. I stumbled again, backward this time, when I realized my next-door neighbor was mere inches from my face. I thudded against the door that I’d shut too quickly. I regained my footing before I spoke.

  “Miss Humphert, there are laws against vermin invading other people’s property.”

  “Cyrus, you know Twinkle Toes didn’t mean anything. She was just showing her love for you.”

  “I was talking about you, Miss Humphert.”

  “Well, Cyrus, you know I love you, too,” she said as she invaded my space even more.

  It was then that the woman and her rat noticed my cooler. I picked it up before either of them could drool on it.

  “Oh, Cyrus, you packed us a lunch. How wonderful! And it’s such a small lunch. I guess I know what you want to do.”

  “I’ve been giving you hints for years now. It’s about time you caught my drift.”

  “So, where are we going?”

  “I found a nice little place for you. It’s right on the river, and it has the cutest little rowboat. I’ll let you step into the boat first, and then I’ll drill the hole.”

  “Oh, you sly rascal, you. You want to give me CPR.”

  “I can’t think of many things I’d like to give you, Miss Humphert, but CPR isn’t one of them.”

  I could see that she was momentarily distracted, so I swung the cooler around and knocked her off balance enough that I was able to duck under her arm and get around her. My problem was that I failed to notice that when Muffy realized she couldn’t have whatever was in my cooler, she wrapped her teeth around my pant leg again. I thanked my workouts on the Wii for my ability to stay on my feet as I kicked the rat away with my free foot and stumbled down the steps away from the dastardly duo.

  “Oh, Cyrus. I didn’t know you could dance like that. Why don’t you come on over to my house and we can make music together? Maybe we can get on Dancing With The Stars?”

  “I’d love for you to see stars, but I’m afraid if I did anything to make it possible, I might lose my job.”

  “That’d be great! That would give us more time together.”

  “Miss Humphert, the last time I was around you this long I ended up going back to the doctor twice a week for two months to get another shot so I could get over whatever it was you gave me.”

  “Just come over to my place and I’ll make sure it takes even longer for you to get over me.”

  “I’d love to get over you, maybe by about twenty feet, and then we could play drop the anvil. I’d go first. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. Why don’t you and Muffy go practice your dance steps? By the way, I’d love to see you on that show. How many weeks would you be gone?”

  With that I wheeled and turned in my best time ever in the forty yard dash, just under one minute. Before she could move, I was in Lightning and backing out of my driveway. Maybe the Wii could help me in ways I’d never envisioned. But I still wasn’t sure how I could use it to get rid of a neighbor.

  +++

  I allowed Lou his laughs as I asked him if my face was broken out and then told him why I asked.

  “Cy, you should apologize to that woman, maybe give her a gift.”

  “What did you have in mind? A rope and a hood, a bouquet of poison ivy, or an electric fence and a collar?”

  Lou laughed again, but then Lou didn’t have to live next-door to her. He didn’t always have to be on the lookout, in case of an ambush. I did.

  +++

  Although I’d never spent much time out on Thornapple River Road, I knew how to get there. There are two roads leading north out of Hilldale, one northeast, and one northwest. The northeastern road was the one I took that morning. I drove five miles, crossed the bridge over the Thornapple River, and immediately took the road to the right. Unlike the road out of town, Thornapple River Road is narrow, and not a lot of people live out that way. But when the county high school was built many years ago, not a lot of people lived anywhere, but more people lived in that end of the county so that location was chosen for the high school.

  Today, the majority of the people live on the end of the road nearer the main road. The right side of the road, the side the river is on, is relatively flat. There’s a steep incline on the left side, but there are a few houses on the left side of the road. Those are harder to see driving by, because all of those homes are well above the road. Still, in winter, everyone who lives up there can look through the barren trees and see the river. The rest of the year, the trees give them privacy. Because the right side of the road is flat, our drive became a scenic one, consisting of seeing an occasional home, then a view of the river, which at times was only twenty feet or so from the road we traveled. The road, like the river, was serpentine at times, which prevented me from checking out the scenery too closely, but it straightened out shortly before we arrived at the high school.

  We passed the high school without checking to see if there were any more bodies on the premises. I noticed a truck and two cars there. When we met Frank at the school, there was only one vehicle there other than mine and Frank’s, so I knew that the truck belonged to the janitor. I assumed the cars belonged to the principal and his secretary, who were back at work with the beginning of school a mere two weeks away. Of course, they could have merely been there for the day, to see what repercussions there were from the bodies being found. Since the janitor wasn’t there everyday yet, and the principal was still in the middle of his vacation, maybe the school would be vacant again the next day.

  Flat Rock Road veered off to the left a couple of miles past the school, and because both Duck Spencer and Earl Spickard, the retired custodian, lived on Flat Rock Road, Lightning, Lou, and I veered, too. The rock might have been flat, but the road wasn’t. At least not in the beginning. Lightning sped upward, propelling Lou and me against the back of our seats, much like the first climb of a rollercoaster. After a steep, thirty-foot incline, the road leveled out and crossed over top of Thornapple River Road, and went back and forth across the river, until someone had decided to keep it on the Thornapple River Road side of the river.

  There weren’t a lot of houses on the road, so I didn’t have to slow down often to see if the house we were nearing was Duck Spencer’s place. We passed a place where a tree had fallen and someone had used a chainsaw to cut it into smaller chunks. I assumed this was the tree that fell the n
ight of the reunion, the one that prevented Duck Spencer from driving to the school.

  About a half of a mile later we neared a mailbox whose number matched the address I had down for Duck Spencer. The land was flat, and from the looks of the place and my limited knowledge of measurements, I guessed his property to be about an acre. There was a barn-like structure out back to the right of the vinyl-siding covered house, and that was where I found Duck Spencer, tall, slender, but muscular, with long, straight, medium brown hair, and little grease on his clothes and in his hair. He walked up as we propelled ourselves from Lightning’s clutches.

  “Can I hep you?”

  “You can if you’re Duck Spencer.”

  “Then I guess I can hep. What can I do for you gentlemen? Got a car needin’ fixin’?”

  “No, my car’s fine. I’m Lt. Dekker. This is Sgt. Murdock. We’re here about your wife’s death.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear. I already went and identified her. It was her all right. She didn’t look none too good.”

  “Not too many people do when they’re dead. I’m not sure if they look better or worse if they’ve been frozen.”

  “Is that what happened to her?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Come to think of it, the guy might ’ave said somethin’. So how’d she get in that mess?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “Then I’d say your best bet would be to talk to soma them people who was with her that night.”

  “I understand you were there that night.”

  “Jist a few minutes, but I never seen her.”

  “How many minutes?”

  “Oh, I dunno, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Me and some of the other guys looked for her, but when we didn’t find her after a while I left.”

  “How’d you get to the school that night?”

  “I’d say you probably already know that. A guy up the road used to be the janitor there. This here road was blocked from the storm, so I checked with ’im and he took me in ’is boat.”

  “I assume you’re talking about Earl Spickard.”

  “I figured you already knowed who it was.”

  “Did Mr. Spickard go with you when you looked for your wife?”

  “Naw, it was some of ’em who went to school with her. It was one of ’em that called me and told me she was actin’ up with some guy.”

  “Was it George Justice who called you?”

  “Yeah, my man George.”

  “And did he tell you which guy she was acting up with?”

  “Yeah, but then I figured she would hook up with that slime ball when she was so hot to trot to get out of here that night. He was no ’count in school.”

  “So, did you go to school with them?”

  “Yeah, but I quit afore twelfth grade, got me a job.”

  “So, you knew that Jimmy Conkwright was going to be there?”

  “Naw, but it didn’t s’prise me none, him bein’ someone who was always causin’ trouble, ever chance he got. With that there Internet, he probably heard about the reunion, either that or Jim Bob Gibbons told him ’bout it.”

  “Who else went with you when you went looking for your wife?”

  “It was jist the four of us, me, George, Jim Bob, and Billy Korlein.”

  “And did you stay together, or split up and look for her in different places?”

  “Together, mostly.”

  “What kind of work do you do now, Mr. Spencer?”

  “I got my own bisness. I’m in the auto body bisness.”

  “That means you fix wrecked vehicles. You wouldn’t happen to have fixed one recently with a dented front end, would you?”

  Duck Spencer grinned.

  “Well, as a mattera fact I did have one jist a week or two ago that was dinged a little in the front.”

  “Whose car was it?”

  “Well, can’t say as I ’member right now.”

  “Mr. Spencer, I can requisition your books.”

  “Does that mean look at ’em? If so, won’t do you no good. I didn’t charge for this one. Favor for a friend, you might say.”

  “Could it be that this friend is the one who locked your wife and Jimmy Conkwright in the freezer?”

  “Is that what happened? Naw, it wudden nothin’ like that.”

  “Mr. Spencer, I can’t say that you look all broken up over your wife’s death.”

  “I can’t say that I’m happy she’s gone. I loved her at one time, still do, but she jist got too high falutin’, started goin’ out at night, never tellin’ me where she went.”

  “Was that when you starting hitting her?”

  “If that woman had any bruises on her, it was that good for nuthin’. I didn’t do it. I never laid a hand on that woman, even though there were times I wanted to.”

  “So, tell me, Mr. Spencer. How did you get home that night?”

  He grinned again.

  “When we walked up from the river bank, I seen her truck over in the parking lot. I had keys to it too, and I already ’cided that if she didn’t come home with me, I was takin’ her wheels and hightailin’ it out o’ there.”

  “But wasn’t the tree still blocking the road when you got home?”

  “Yep, but I’d already figured I’d park the truck there and walk the rest of the way. It was worth it, jist to take away her wheels.”

  “Tell me why you didn’t go with your wife that night.”

  “I was goin’ to, at first. Then, the more I thought ’bout those high and mighty people bein’ there, holdin’ it over me because they gradiated, an’ I didn’t. That afternoon, I jist told her that I weren’t goin’. She threw a hissy fit, and stormed outa here. Got outa here jist afore the storm hit, a long time afore the reunion. I don’t know where she went. Like I said, I didn’t know that rich boy was goin’ to be there. Only rich boy in our school, and he used all his money to make all the girls chase after him. I figured he was long gone from here. Nobody seen him in years.”

  “Mr. Spencer, why didn’t you report your wife missing when she didn’t show up that night?”

  “I figured she was still with him.”

  “But you never reported her at all. It was some of her co-workers that reported it when she didn’t show up for work on Monday.”

  “I was wonderin’ who it was. I shoulda knowed it was them people. They liked her, but I think she behaved better at work. She even started drinkin’. I don’t hold for no drinkin’.”

  “When did you first suspect that maybe your wife was dead?”

  “Not until they called me. I jist figured she’d run off with that no-good rich guy, and if she wanted him instead of me, that was all right with me.”

  “Did you know a girl named Miriam Van Meter?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Think close now. She was the girl who died one night when she was out with Jimmy Conkwright and he ran into a tree.”

  “Oh, was that her name? Naw, I didn’t know her. See, she came the year after I quit.”

  “So, tell me, not a lot of guys are nicknamed Duck. How’d you get your nickname?”

  “Got it in school. I was quite a fighter back in the day. I’d make somebody mad and he’d take a swing at me, and I’d duck afore he could hit me. Then, I’d pop him one under the chin. If I caught him low enough, some of those guys couldn’t talk for a few minutes. I popped that rich boy one time. He turned me in and got me ’spelled, and he’s the one who started it. His money got him whatever he wanted, but no more. But I guess it did get him a good burial.”

  “So, you know that he died, too?”

  “I didn’t until I went to ’dentify my wife. After that, I heered people talkin’.”

  One more thing, Mr. Spencer. Does the name Jennifer Garner mean anything to you?”

  “Nope. Does she have somethin’ to do with this?”

  “She might. I just wanted to know if you know her.”

  “Sorry, name dudden ring a
bell. I know I never done no work for her, though. If you run into her, and she happens to need some body work sometime, tell her to give me a call. I work cheap. I’m here mosta the time. You’d be surprised how many people drive all the way out here to have their body work done. I do a good job, see.”

  Especially if someone needs to keep the body work quiet, someone who might get that work done for free.

  I’d probably have more questions for Spencer, but I couldn’t think of any more at that time. So, I left my thoughts about Spencer’s body work, thanked him for his time, and Lou and I walked away.

  Chapter Eleven

  From the house numbers, and the fact that Duck Spencer had sought out Earl Spickard the night of the reunion, I figured that Spickard didn’t live too far from Spencer, and I was right. But right after we left Spencer’s place, in a wooded area that bordered his property, I spotted a roadside park with a picnic table. I pulled over, reached over the seat and grabbed the cooler as I got out. I’d brought enough food for Lou, too, and since Lou and I were suddenly eating the same food again, we could snack together.

  “So, what do you think, Lou?” I asked as I opened the cooler.

  “I think I’m proud of you, Cy. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “I don’t mean that. What do you think about our grieving widower?”

  Lou reached into the cooler, selected a hard boiled egg, and plucked it from its confines. He must have grabbed it by one end, and too hard, because the egg sprang from his hand and spurted into the air. Lou circled under it and managed to cradle it in his hands when gravity took over.

  “Good catch, Lou!”

  He smiled, took a bite out of the egg, as if to teach it a lesson.

  I learned from Lou’s mistake and carefully removed the other egg from the cooler.

  After Lou had downed his egg, he looked up, and answered my question.

  “Cy, I have no idea if this guy’s our murderer or not. I don’t want to put all my eggs in Col. Mustard’s basket before I’ve met Professor Plum. Let’s just say that he’s not exactly heartbroken that his wife’s no longer with us. Still, he seems more the type to pummel the two of them to death than to sneak up and lock them in the freezer. That seems more like something a woman would do.”