5 Murder at the High School Reunion

by Steve Demaree

  “Lou, paddle, paddle, paddle.”

  “Sorry, Cy. A mosquito landed on my nose.”

  “Well, the next time it lands let it feast for a while.”

  “I’ll send it your way next time.”

  “Listen, Lou, since you’re in such a mood to talk, why don’t we discuss the case?”

  “What case?”

  “You’re testing my patience.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Okay, shoot.”

  “I’ve been thinking about doing just that.”

  “I meant with your mouth.”

  “Enough already. What do you think of what the old man had to say? Obviously, he’s strong enough to shut that door, but he said he was with someone all the time he was at the school.”

  “So, you think they did it together?”

  “Sort of a bizarre type of male bonding. I never thought of that. So, what do you think?”

  “Unlike most of these people, he looked like he was telling the truth.”

  “That does it! I’ll snap the cuffs on him when we return his boat.”

  “What if we don’t make it back, Cy? Can you write out a note while you paddle this boat?”

  “That reminds me, Lou. Did you ever get a paddling in school?”

  “No.”

  “That’s why you’re so obstinate.”

  “Oh, Cy, you’re just upset because neither of the two who mean the most to you are here with you.”

  “You think Jennifer has been kidnapped too?”

  “It depends on how smart the guys are wherever she is. No other guy can have all of her, though. She’s already given her heart to you. Say, Cy, where do you plan to put ashore?”

  “I hear Tahiti is nice this time of year.”

  “A lot of places are nice this time of year, but where do you plan to take one giant step for mankind?”

  “Depends on whether or not we see any cars in the school parking lot. If so, we’ll stop there. If not, I guess we have no options except to go on and land just outside of town. I just know that I’m anxious to get there, find Lightning, and check old man Spickard’s alibi.”

  My stomach growled. I kicked myself for forgetting to bring my morning snack again, but then realized that even if we had, we wouldn’t have taken it in Spickard’s cabin with us. At any rate, hunger had set in. Surely, it was getting close to noon. But were we close to any place I might call civilization?

  +++

  I bit my tongue when Lou started singing Paddlin’ Madeleine Home. Several more minutes passed, and then things started looking familiar. If I remembered correctly, the school was just around the next bend. If Walter Gillis was there, I’d ask him if Spickard left him at any time that night. Spickard didn’t have a phone, and only a boat for transportation, so there wouldn’t be any way he would’ve been able to let Gillis know he needed him to substantiate his story.

  We rounded the bend and neared the school. My consternation dropped when I saw there were no cars in the parking lot.

  “Well, Lou, it looks like we’re in this thing for the long haul.”

  “At least we’re not being charged by the mile. By the way, do you have any idea how many miles we’ve come?”

  “I’d say over a hundred, give or take a few.”

  +++

  We continued to paddle, sometimes in silence, sometimes in conversation. Once, when we both admitted to having aching arms and backs, we stopped paddling for a couple of minutes. I wanted to get out and stretch my legs, but doing so meant a whole afternoon of wet socks, and possibly wet everything.

  Even though there were two of us, I noticed how much harder it was to row upstream than downstream. Of course I never rowed downstream. I just went with the flow.

  It must have been 2:00 or later when I heard the first noise of civilization. When we rounded the last bend, almost to town, and saw where some of those noises were coming from, I wanted to hide under the boat. There, waiting at the landing, were my friends and colleagues Lt. George Michaelson, medical examiner Frank Harris, and officers Heather Ambrose and Dan Davis. When they saw us, they broke into thunderous applause and high-pitched whistles.

  +++

  I looked up at the coagulated mass cheering us on. Well, cheering until we got close enough to hear what they had to say.

  “From the looks of them, I’d say this must be steerage class.”

  “Which one’s the coxswain anyway?”

  “Isn’t that the guy who doesn’t row and runs his mouth telling everyone else to row?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then it’s the one in the back.”

  “Okay, okay, enough already. How did you guys know we were lost at sea?”

  “A call came in that some guy who looked very much like a dumb cop had traded his toy car for a rowboat. Hmm! Looks like you traded up, Cy.”

  “I’ll trade up you, George. Say, Frank, what are you doing here?”

  “I got a call, too. Two behemoths on the brink of death were seen traveling upstream in a runaway canoe.”

  “Heather, Officer Davis, what are you two doing hanging out with all this riffraff?”

  The two merely laughed.

  “They weren’t hanging out with riffraff until you two showed up. Show me that old rowing stroke again, Cy.”

  “So, the ticker tape parade starts here. Any word on Lightning?”

  “No storms expected before sometime next week.”

  “You guys had better hope that you never lose your job, because you’ll never make it at a comedy club. Now, how about my car?”

  “Only that an insect resembling yours was seen heading toward Key West.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, no one’s spotted it that I know of. Why? Did someone steal it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I thought we got a call that said someone had seen it and it now has purple spots.”

  “I heard orange spots.”

  “Sounds bad. Looks like we’ll have to put it in quarantine.”

  “You mean driving through a car wash won’t do the trick.”

  “Okay, guys. I mean it. Lightning means a lot to me.”

  “More than I do?”

  “Heather, dear, you’re the only one here who might mean as much to me as my car. How about the three of us going off somewhere together?”

  “You mean you, me, and Dan?”

  “I mean you, me, and Lightning.”

  “How about him?” she asked, pointing at Lou.

  “Lou. He’s already got a car.”

  “And Dan? Weren’t you mainly responsible for getting the two of us together?”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry that didn’t work out.”

  “Oh, it’s working out great.”

  I turned and looked up at Officer Dan Davis just as his face turned to crimson.

  “Go easy on him, Heather. He’s not ready to see you in that cute little number I saw you in. Now, is anyone willing to help us out of the floating bathtub?”

  George and Frank reached down and each took one of Lou’s arms and hoisted him up onto the dock, then looked at me.

  “What about him?” Frank asked George, as he pointed in my direction.

  “Might as well. I’m all for ridding the river of as much pollution as possible.”

  As two arms reached down to pull me up I briefly thought of yanking them off the dock and into the river, but then I figured it would be hard for me to do that and not fall in with them, so I let them pull me up to the hard ground.

  “I’m serious now, guys, have you heard anything about Lightning?”

  “Sorry, Cy.”

  “Then how did you know that we were in a canoe?”

  “Some kid called in, said that someone had stolen old man Spickard’s boat. When he described the two criminals as too big to be in that canoe, we knew it had to be the two of you. Actually, the kid said that he thought he’d seen those same two guys driving a little, yellow car down Thornapple River Road. We kn
ew that the two of you were out that way working on those murders that took place at the high school, but we couldn’t figure out why in the world you’d be in a rowboat. We thought maybe old Tweetie Pie had broken down. We knew that neither of you carries a phone, and we know that parts of that road are very remote. While none of us could see you in a rowboat, all of us could see you in a rowboat if hoofing it was your only other option. So, what happened to Tweetie Pie?”

  “Her name is Lightning, and we left her at the dead end of Flat Rock Road when we went to interrogate a suspect. When we went back, Lightning was gone. The suspect owned a boat, but, as you can see, it’s not big enough for three. He agreed to loan it to us. By the way, we would’ve called, but the suspect doesn’t have a phone.”

  “You say this guy is one of your suspects?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t give you a boat that would sink as soon as you got to water that was over your head.”

  “Let’s stop wasting time. We need to report Lightning being stolen before whoever took her gets out of the state. Whoever it is has already had enough time to get out of the county.”

  “Are you sure it was stolen, Cy?”

  “You think Lightning wandered off on her own?”

  “No, but I can’t picture anyone other than the two of you who’d want to be caught dead in that thing, other than some college girl.”

  “Very funny! And I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in Lightning, either. I wouldn’t want to be caught dead anywhere, at least not for a while. Now, can we get this reported, and can someone give Lou and me a ride to his place?”

  +++

  We called in and reported Lightning missing. It was the first anyone downtown had heard of it. We were assured that Lightning would be easy to spot, since there were few yellow VWs in Hilldale. George offered to drive us to Lou’s place, but I asked Heather to take us instead. She informed me that she and Dan had come together, and that Lou and I would have to ride in the back. I suggested that Lou could drive and she and I could ride in the back. About that time, Lou leaned over and whispered the name “Jennifer” in my ear.

  +++

  While I was worried about Lightning, I was also starved, since it was after 2:30 and we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I informed Heather of this, and asked her if she could stop somewhere quick, so we could grab something.

  She pulled in at the first place we came to, which wasn’t any place I was familiar with, but I wasn’t picky at that point. She and Dan got out the front and opened the back doors of the cruiser to let Lou and me out. The people inside the restaurant noticed this and seemed to fidget. Heather took all this in, too. I could tell that by what she said as soon as we entered the restaurant.

  “Don’t be alarmed, folks! They’re merely escaped prisoners we caught trying to get away up river. They promised they wouldn’t try anything if we let them come inside to eat.”

  “See,” I said, “they even gave us our guns back.”

  At that point a couple of parties got up to beat a hasty retreat. Even when Heather told them we were kidding and all of us were cops, many of the restaurant’s patrons remained on edge.

  +++

  All the way to Lou’s place my thoughts were about Lightning. Who could have stolen her? After all, like George said, out where we were is a very remote region. It couldn’t have been Earl Spickard. There was no way he could’ve outrun us, driven Lightning off, and got back to his place before we did. And he didn’t have time to do it before we talked to him. It had to be someone else, but who? The only other person who lived close to where we were was Duck Spencer. Why would he have stolen Lightning?

  +++

  Lou could tell that I was despondent over Lightning’s disappearance, so, when Heather and Dan dropped us off, he invited me inside so he could cheer me up. He tried to get me on the Wii, but I wasn’t in the mood. He offered to take me out looking for Lightning, but I figured that it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, I had no idea where to look, and all officers had been alerted as to Lightning’s disappearance, and her license plate number. I told him that if we didn’t hear anything by the next morning, we’d drive out to where we left her and see if anyone out that way saw someone in a yellow VW. We would kill two birds with one stone. While we were out that way, we planned to check with Duck Spencer and Walter Gillis to see if either of them saw Lightning. Then I remembered that no one was at the school when we floated by, so, more than likely, Walter Gillis wasn’t a witness to anything.

  +++

  I went home and tried to read, but I couldn’t concentrate, so I did what I did best. I lay down and took a nap. I was fine until I woke up again and remembered the circumstances.

  I was a basket case the rest of the day and night. I tried to focus on the case, but my mind kept wandering back to Lightning. Finally, it came time to go to bed. Before I retired for the night I called downtown to see if they’d heard anything about my car. Nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I woke up the next morning and a few seconds later I remembered my dilemma. I sprang from the bed and hurried to the phone. Still no word on Lightning. Dejectedly, I went about my routine, but my heart wasn’t in it. After I’d checked everything off my list and figured we’d arrived at a decent hour, I called Lou and told him the bad news.

  “Maybe something will turn up today, Cy. You still want to drive out in the country and talk to Spencer?”

  “Life goes on, my friend. Maybe if I’m busy, things will get better.”

  “Well, let me give you a chance to be busy while I’m on my way to pick you up. I have today’s message. It’s ‘Verbal Kint’.”

  “Verbal Kent. Who or what’s verbal kent?”

  “Do I look like Google to you?”

  “No, Google is smarter.”

  “If you weren’t under duress, Cy, I might have a comeback to that.”

  I knew it wouldn’t do me any good to ask Lou how to spell Verbal Kint, because God never writes down his messages for Lou. And that’s a good thing, because the one guy God did write a message down for died that same day. I prefer my messages verbally. I had to laugh. Verbal Kint. Verbal messages. Was there a connection?

  I hurried to the computer, typed in Verbal Kent. I soon found out that there was a Verbal Kent, but there was also a Verbal Kint. I read about both. I was still studying them when Lou pulled up. I went to the door and motioned for Lou to come in and help me decide which one of these guys was our guy.

  “What’s wrong, Cy?”

  “Nothing, Lou. It’s just that there are two Verbal Kents, of some spelling or another. I wanted you to look them over and see which one you think is our clue.”

  “So, you think that a whole brain is better than a half?”

  “Something like that.”

  Lou looked over the first guy, the one spelled with an “e”. Chicago, music, and emcee. We didn’t see what any of those had to do with our case. So, I clicked on the second guy.

  “I knew I’d heard that name somewhere, Cy. One night Thelma Lou and I were alone and she wanted to rent a movie. My being a cop and all, we were fascinated by the title The Usual Suspects. This guy Verbal Kint is one of the characters in that movie.”

  “You remember a character from a movie?”

  “Well, he was kind of the Scarlett O’Hara of the movie.”

  “Since you said ‘he’, I can’t see the connection to Scarlett O’Hara. Do you mean he made his own clothes out of drapes?”

  “No, I mean his character is the one who sticks with you. The best I can remember, he was a witness to something. At least, I remember the cops were interrogating him. Supposedly, he had some disease and walked with a limp. Actually, that wasn’t true, and he was really the bad guy.”

  My eyes lit up.

  “So, are you telling me that the guy who walks with the limp is the bad guy?”

  “He is in the movie. I don’t know who the bad guy is in our case.”

>   “I think this is the Verbal Kint we want, and I know which one of our suspects walks with a limp, Jim Bob Gibbons.”

  Lou and I wondered if Jim Bob Gibbons was our murderer, or if there was something to the clue we were missing.

  We realized that we were getting nowhere fast, or was it slowly. At any rate, we left my place and headed toward Flat Rock Road, both to look for tire tracks and to check on Earl Spickard’s alibi.

  +++

  Since Lou was driving for a change, I got to look at the scenery. I have always enjoyed a drive in the country, although I preferred different circumstances than the ones that surrounded me that day. Lou turned off the main road out of town onto Thornapple River Road. He drove a while until I spotted the school up ahead on the right.

  “Pull in here, Lou.”

  While there were no vehicles in the parking lot when we passed the school the day before, there were three vehicles in the parking lot that day. I recognized one of those as Walter Gillis’s truck.

  Lou pulled in and parked away from the other vehicles. I hoped that whoever had stolen Lightning didn’t swoop down and take our last mode of transportation. We decided to chance it. Well, I decided to chance it. I was hoping Lou never gave it a thought. I knew what he thought of his red, classic, 1957 Chevy. He loved that thing as much as I loved Lightning, always kept it polished.

  I didn’t expect to be in the school long. We jogged up the steps and into the school. Walter Gillis’ door was closed. I knocked, but no one answered. As we turned away, a woman popped around the corner, curious as to who was knocking at the janitor’s door.

  “Hi, I’m Lt. Dekker. This is Sgt. Murdock. We’re the ones investigating the bodies found here at the school. Walter Gillis found those bodies, and we have another question for him.”

  “Oh, sure, Lieutenant. Walter is upstairs cleaning classrooms. I’m not sure which room he’s in, but you shouldn’t have any trouble finding him.”

  I thanked her and Lou and I took off for the steps. We climbed them in better time than I’d remembered climbing steps in a while, and looked down the hall. I heard a faint noise, but couldn’t tell which room it was coming from. We walked past all the closed doors until we found an open one. We walked in and spotted the janitor moving desks. He looked up and saw us.