5 Murder at the High School Reunion

by Steve Demaree

  When nothing turned up anything and frustration began to set in, Lou and I took a break to Wii. I was amazed at how much better Lou was at everything. I only beat him at Advanced Step. He scored much higher than I did on the Balance Games. He bested me a little on Yoga. We refrained from attempting anything on Strength Training.

  We were having so much fun we didn’t realize how much time we’d spent there. It was 3:47 when I looked at my watch. I remembered that we forgot our midmorning snack and made sure that we ate our daily regimen that afternoon. I gave Lou a spoon and a plastic container of almond butter made at the grocery. We washed that down with water, and then I dashed to the refrigerator and palmed two apples. Well, I grasped one in each hand. I tossed one to Lou. We both still had our cloth napkins from lunch, and they came in handy, since we were eating juicy, red delicious apples.

  We cleaned up from our snack and were trying to think of what to do next when the phone rang. It was Sam.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Cy, it’s Sam. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Very funny, Sam! Lou and I have been working on the case all day. We were wondering when you’d get started so we could have something else to do.”

  “So, not much has changed, Cy. I still have to solve all your cases for you.”

  “I hope that means you’ve solved this one.”

  “Well, let’s just say I’ve come up with some possible motives.”

  “Let’s hear them.”

  “Well, first let’s start with your janitor friend, Walter Gillis, who was the reason it took me so long to get back to you. After I was able to track him back to northeastern Ohio it didn’t take long, but it took me a while to find out where he lived before he came here. Cy, I’m sorry to disappoint you on this one, but he is who he says he is. He doesn’t have any criminal record. As a matter of fact I talked to his former boss and one of his co-workers. He was a janitor at a school up there too, and they said he was a fine worker. I even double-checked with the Board of Education up there, and I talked to the school principal. No one had anything but good things to say about him. His co-worker did give me an inkling as to why he ended up here. Gillis told him that every few years he was going a little farther south until he got to where it’s warm all year long. He said that Gillis said when he left Ohio that he was going to drive until he used up one tank full of gas, and wherever that happened to be was where he planned to put down roots. Well, whatever roots you can put down in a few years. Everyone up there described Gillis as nice, quiet, and a hard worker. I checked other places, both here and there, and I can’t come up with anything that says Gillis knew anyone here before he arrived here four-and-a-half years ago. The principal at the school here is the one who turned me on to checking in Ohio. He couldn’t remember the exact place where Gillis was from, but he said he could find out if I couldn’t. He told me that he called up there and talked to someone at the school where Gillis used to work and they told him that Gillis would be a good hire.”

  “I thought you said you were going to give me some motives.”

  “I am, but I thought I’d start with the guy you know the least about. What if I move on to who inherits?”

  “Only if it’s one of my suspects. I don’t want any more suspects.”

  “How about two of your suspects?”

  “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

  “Do you want me to be kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then the timing is right, because the will was read this morning. Conkwright was well-heeled. Are you ready for this? It might surprise you.”

  “Just get on with it, Sam. We don’t need a drum roll.”

  “First of all, let me ask you a question. Does Jim Bob Gibbons limp?”

  “He sure does. You know something about that?”

  “Nothing concrete, but it’s enough for me. Back when this bunch was in high school, Gibbons went to the hospital drunk one night. He said he had accidentally shot himself in a hunting accident. Now, I can see where someone might believe that, well at least the part where he said he shot himself accidentally, except for a couple of things. One, someone at the hospital spotted Gibbons being dropped off that night by someone in a red Corvette. Of course we all know who that was. Also, the next day Gibbons made a deposit of $2,500 in his bank account. Each month, on the same day each month, there was another $2,500 deposited in the bank. For the first few years, he deposited $2,500 in cash, but just before Big Russ Conkwright died, that money started moving from one account to another, and that first account was a trust fund that Big Russ set aside to take care of Gibbons. I checked, and that money is still coming in today and will continue to come in until Gibbons dies. At that point, the remainder of the money will go to charity.

  “Now, let’s move on to the will, which was made out by Jimmy, not his father. There are two beneficiaries. Jim Bob Gibbons will receive one million dollars. Now, get this next part. The rest of the money, which is over eight million dollars, all goes to Rose Ellen Calvert. Jimmy, being an evil person to the end, stated that he wanted to give her the money, because he had no family to leave it to, and a lot of money was the only way Rose Ellen Calvert could ever lasso a man, and he knew how badly she wanted one.”

  I whistled at that remark.

  “So, it looks like I’ve got a couple of suspects.”

  “I’ve got another one for you if you want.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Again, back to high school. Duck Spencer was expelled from school because of Jimmy Conkwright.”

  “I know that.”

  “But, did you know that he was first suspended because of fighting with Conkwright, and that Conkwright wasn’t suspended. Then, when Spencer came back to school, Conkwright lured him into another fight, and this time Spencer was expelled for good. Even though several students went and told the principal that it was Conkwright’s fault, Big Russ’s money prevailed, and Duck Spencer was barred from ever being a student at County again.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Not too well from what I heard.”

  “Did he try to go to school anywhere else?”

  “Hilldale didn’t want him either. He was going to have to go outside the county, so he decided to get a job instead. He could only find menial jobs, and he detested any job he had until he started working at an auto body shop. Turns out that he liked that so much that later he started his own business.”

  “Anything on anybody else?”

  “Nothing that you don’t have. I assume you know that everybody hated Conkwright. Other than that, I couldn’t find anything specific about anyone else.”

  “Well, thanks for this much. This might be enough. If I need you for anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  I hung up and turned to Lou and filled him in on everything Sam had told me.

  We mulled over what we’d learned. The janitor was who he said he was. So was everyone else. Everyone but the janitor, and the possibility of Jim Bob Gibbons, hated Conkwright, so that must mean the janitor was our killer. I smiled. We’d check out those three who stood out all of a sudden. If we couldn’t pin anything on any of them, we’d consider it a Murder On The Orient Express type of murder.

  +++

  I wasn’t sure if we were going to interrogate everyone again, but I definitely had questions for Rose Ellen Calvert, Jim Bob Gibbons, and Duck Spencer. I looked at my watch. It was almost 5:00. We had enough time to question two of the three before calling it a day. I figured Duck Spencer could be found in his shop during the day. I could find Miss Calvert during the day too, but I preferred to question her at her home, rather than the library. We were off to see the two people mentioned in the will and see what new story they had for us.

  +++

  Lightning was ready for us when we walked out of my house. I looked next door. It was nice to know I could leave my house without being pawed. I wondered when George would release my neighbor. I hoped for some date in the far distant fu
ture, like the turn of the next century.

  After weighing our options, Lou and I decided to begin with Rose Ellen Calvert. I could tell when she came to the door that she was excited to see us.

  “I don’t know anything else about that night, Lieutenant.”

  “But I do. Why don’t we come in and talk about what I know?”

  Rose Ellen Calvert seemed a little shaken.

  “I’m sort of busy right now.”

  “We are too. That’s the reason we’d rather talk here than downtown.”

  “You act as if I’m a suspect, Lieutenant.”

  “Everyone’s a suspect, Miss Calvert. If you’re not guilty, you might want to cooperate, so we can get this wrapped up as quickly as possible.”

  Reluctantly, she opened the door and let us in. My guess was that she wasn’t going to ask us to stay for dinner.

  “So, Miss Calvert, are you sure there’s nothing else about that night that you want to tell us?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How about when you followed the victims?”

  “I only followed them far enough to see that they were leaving the building.”

  “And then you went to the kitchen.”

  “I did not.”

  “We have witnesses.”

  “Oh, all right. I didn’t want to share this, because it has nothing to do with the murders. Jimmy and Betty Gail turned left as they left the school and headed toward the parking lot. I was curious as to whether or not they planned to leave, and I knew that I could look out the kitchen door and see what they were doing. Well, at first he was pawing her something awful, and then he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a bottle of something. I don’t know what, because I don’t drink, but I know enough to know that it was booze of some sort. Jimmy took a big drink and then offered a drink to Betty Gail. She grabbed it with both hands and drank until Jimmy took it away from her and took another drink. Well, I contemplated calling the police, but instead I merely hoped that they wouldn’t come back into the school or take off driving. I could tell that they weren’t going to quit drinking until the bottle was empty. So, I closed the door and returned to the cafeteria.”

  “Did you lock the door when you closed it?”

  “No, I figured the janitor would check the doors before he left, and I left it open in case I wanted to go back and see if they passed out in the parking lot.”

  “Did you mention to anyone else that the two of them were drinking?”

  “No, I was afraid of what some of the men might do.”

  “So, tell me, Miss Calvert, what was your relationship with Jimmy Conkwright?”

  “I had no relationship with Jimmy Conkwright. I despised him when we were in school together, and I still do.”

  “Did he ever hit on you in high school?”

  “A couple of times. I think as a joke. He would come up to me and say something out of the way and then laugh when I said something about his manners.”

  “So, were you surprised that you were the largest beneficiary in his will?”

  “So, you know about that, too.”

  “We know about a lot of things, Miss Calvert. That’s why it would be better for everyone if they told us the truth.”

  “Okay, I was surprised. But then when the lawyer read why he left all that money to me, I thought it sounded just like Jimmy Conkwright.”

  “When did you first find out that you were mentioned in his will?”

  “When the lawyer called me last night and invited me to the reading. I thought it was someone pulling a not-very-funny practical joke. I even called the lawyer’s office back to make sure they were the ones who called.”

  “And you didn’t know anything about it before the reunion? The will was written before then, you know.”

  “Obviously, and no, I didn’t know.”

  “And when did you find out how much you received?”

  “Not until the reading of the will. I knew that Big Russ had a lot of money, but I never suspected he had that much and I figured that Jimmy would have squandered all of it by now. It’s a good thing I was sitting down when the lawyer told me, although at the time it seemed like something out of a nasty dream.”

  “An eight million dollar nasty dream?”

  “Well, considering where the money came from.”

  “So, you turned down the money?”

  “No, I’ve decided to accept it to teach Jimmy a lesson. Besides, Big Earl made that money, and he made it honestly.”

  The days of Jimmy learning a lesson were over, so I figured that Rose Ellen Calvert accepted his money because the idea of having money sounded good to her.

  “Back to the night of the reunion. How many times did you return to the kitchen that night?”

  “Maybe once.”

  “And was anyone in the kitchen at the time?”

  “No.”

  “Was the door still unlocked?”

  “I can’t remember if I checked.”

  I didn’t want to make the kitchen so obvious, so I asked another question, so she wouldn’t think too much about the kitchen.

  “What about the second floor of the school? Did you go back up there after dinner?”

  “No, there was no need to.”

  “Isn’t there a window up there that overlooks the parking lot?”

  “Come to think of it, there is, but it takes longer to get to it.”

  “Did you go outside anytime after dinner?”

  “Not until I left.”

  “And when was the last time you saw Jimmy Conkwright and Betty Gail Spencer?”

  “When the guys threw them out for coming back in the school drunk.”

  I’d learned what I wanted to know from Rose Ellen Calvert, so I thanked her, and Lou and I turned to leave, but before I’d taken a step, she interrupted our departure.

  “Lieutenant, can I ask you a question?”

  “Go ahead, Miss Calvert. I’ll answer it if I can.”

  “Well, this is the second time you’ve been here, and he hasn’t opened his mouth yet. Can he talk?”

  I turned to Lou and used hand signals. When I quit, he signaled me back.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he can talk, but he’s not to open his mouth until I mess up. So far, I’ve done everything right.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Anything else, Miss Calvert?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  +++

  Lou and I managed to keep a straight face until we’d pulled away from Miss Calvert’s house. Then, we both burst into laughter.

  “Cy, in case you want to know, the reason I talk more when we’re not interrogating our suspects is that you mess up a lot when you’re not working so hard.”

  “Watch it, Lou, or I’ll mess up your face.”

  “I’m sorry, oh Exalted One.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I left Rose Ellen Calvert knowing that if I ever have an overdue library book, I’m in big trouble. I wasn’t her warm fuzzy of the day, but then I hope no one ever refers to me as a warm fuzzy. Since Jim Bob Gibbons’ house in the country was a few miles from Calvert’s, I turned to Lou to see what he had to say.

  “Well, Lou, how does she grab you?”

  “Well, so far she hasn’t, Cy. I’ve just been sitting here wondering if it would be worth $8,000,000 to let her.”

  “Money talks, huh, Lou?”

  “Well, I could buy a lot of books with $8,000,000.”

  “But then you’d be stuck with her.”

  “Who said anything about being stuck with her? If she grabbed me, I could sue her for the $8,000,000.”

  I laughed.

  “Okay, Tonto, what do you think about what she had to say? Do you believe her?”

  “I’m not sure I believe any of them.”

  “I’m not sure I do, either. It’s just a matter of weeding through all this information and figuring out which one did it.”

  “Or which two or thr
ee.”

  I was beginning to think we could solve the case more quickly if we stayed home and rotated between Googling and Wiiing. Maybe that’s what we’ll do on our next case. Sort of a modern day Nero Wolfe with Sam as our Archie Goodwin.

  +++

  We arrived at Gibbons’ place and saw his truck in the driveway. I contemplated whether to knock at the front door or try the back “patio” first. Gibbons decided that for me when we slammed Lightning’s doors and he hollered, “I’m ’round back.” We rounded the corner of the house and spotted Gibbons sprawled out, holding a bottle of water. While the patio was in the shade and it was late in the day, it was still late July, so Lou and I didn’t turn Gibbons down when he asked us if we wanted a bottle of water. We nodded and he reached into the cooler beside him and tossed us a couple.

  “Let me guess, Lieutenant. You ’eard ’bout the will and thought it might make a good motive. Well, let me tell you right off. I didn’t know nothin’ about that will ’til the lawyer called me last night. I still didn’t know ’ow much ’e’d left me until we got there this mornin’ and the lawyer read the will.”

  “What about Miss Calvert? Do you think she was surprised?”

  “I don’t know, but I sure was. I never ’spected Jimmy to leave that broad anythang, but then when the lawyer read the reason, it was ’ard to keep from laughin’ out loud. That was just like Jimmy.”

  “I was planning on asking you about that, but I want to know something else, too. I can’t help but notice that you limp when you walk. How did that happen?”

  “’untin’ accident, when I was in school.”

  “What kind of hunting accident?”

  “The usual kind, with a gun.”

  “Do you usually go hunting at night, Mr. Gibbons?”

  “It took a while to get to the ’ospital.”

  “According to the hospital records, it happened not long before you got to the hospital, which would make it at night.”

  “Well, I meant ’untin’ in the sense it ’appened with a rifle.”

  “And did you do it yourself?”

  “More or less.”