Murder at the High School Reunion (23 page)

Lightning received a good scrubbing, inside and out,
including washing behind her ears, and the car wash sprayed something inside to
take the smell out of the air. I wasn’t too crazy about the smell, but it was
better than what was there before.

+++

Anyone else I needed to talk to that day wouldn’t be
home until after 5:00. It was time to head home, take a nap, and maybe read for
a few minutes.

+++

As I drove to pick Lou up so that we could question
people who were at the reunion about the retired janitor’s nocturnal wanderings
or lack thereof, I hoped that we could soon file this case in the finished
drawer.

It was almost 5:30 when I pulled up in front of Lou’s
apartment building. He was watching for me, and bounced down the walkway toward
Lightning. I noticed that he patted Lightning as he rounded her front on his
way to get in.

“So, Lou, are you ready to wrap this up?”

“A lot more eager than I am to wrap your Christmas
presents. Of course, then, as you know, most of the time I use bags.”

“And maybe we are well on our way to bagging someone
in this case.”

“Who do you want to bag, Cy?”

“At this point, I’ll take almost anybody.”

It didn’t take us long to get to Rose Ellen Calvert’s
house, and as we pulled up we saw her outside watering her flowers. She turned
as we shut Lightning’s doors, and the look she gave me made me think I had an
overdue book.

“Hello, Miss Calvert. Good to see you again.”

“I wish I could say the same, Lieutenant. What do you
want this time? You have a witness who saw me standing over the deceased?”

“I was hoping you could be my witness.”

“Oh? In what way?”

“I want to know what you saw Earl Spickard doing on
the night of the reunion.”

“That’s the old janitor? Right?”

I nodded that it was.

“I saw him standing, but he wasn’t standing over any
bodies.”

“Did you at any time see him by himself, in the hall,
or any of the rooms of the school?”

“I saw him only once, and that time he was with the
current janitor. There were other people around, too.”

“Did you see anyone heading toward the stairs leading
to the second floor?”

“Only when we were up there before dinner.”

“What about the kitchen?”

“Only what I’ve already told you. I think Jim Bob
Gibbons headed in there just after I headed out. At least, he looked in the
kitchen. Whether or not he spent any time in there I couldn’t tell you. I have
no idea if he used the kitchen door to leave the school. He’s the only one I
can remember seeing in the kitchen, but the whole thing is starting to get a
little fuzzy.”

I thanked her for her time. I think she was relieved
to get off so easily, and she never mentioned anything about Lou.

+++

Trips to the Korleins, Justices, and Jim Bob Gibbons
didn’t give me any incriminating evidence against Earl Spickard. Those who saw
him at all that night, and most people saw him at least once, never saw him by
himself.

+++

“You know, Lou, it would really help if we knew when
those two were locked inside the freezer.”

“Especially if they were locked in there before Duck
Spencer and Earl Spickard got there.”

“Right! The best we have to go on is what Rose Ellen
Calvert said. She saw them heading toward the kitchen door a few minutes before
Spencer got there. What if they stumbled around outside long enough that
Spencer saw them heading to the kitchen?”

“But if he saw them, wouldn’t old man Spickard have
seen them, too?”

“You would think. Unless he was too busy tying up his
rowboat.”

“But even if he was, George Justice said he saw
Spencer come in through the front door. That means Spencer would have had to
have gone back out the kitchen door, and I would think that by that time
Spickard would have seen him.”

“I wonder if someone, Spickard or otherwise, saw
someone go in the kitchen and isn’t telling us. Everyone hated Conkwright.
Could it be that someone saw the whole thing or suspected what happened and is
keeping quiet? Or did someone do it, and then confess what he or she did to
someone else?”

“I don’t know. I think at least two of our suspects
are lying about something or other, but I’m not sure they are lying about that.
Someone would have to be awfully good not to have been the murderer, but still
be able to lie in order to protect someone else.”

+++

It was late when we finished questioning all those
involved. I didn’t want to go home and fix something to eat. Lou didn’t either.
So, we opted to cheat, sort of. We stopped off at a new pizza joint that opened
recently, A Slice of the Pie, in order to find out if they were any good. Lou
and I split a thin, medium pizza, with sausage, pepperoni, green peppers, black
olives, and onions, and between the two of us, we ate only half. We had them
box up the rest of it, so that we could have it the next day for either lunch
or supper. Surely, two pieces of thin crust pizza each wouldn’t cause us to go
off the wagon.

+++

It felt good to be able to drop Lou off at his place
again. I was sure that Lightning had some after effects of what had happened,
but she was a trooper and was handling it as well as could be expected.

I returned to my place, grateful that my next-door
neighbor had not invaded my space since she was arrested. I liked being able to
enter my house by whichever door suited me, and to do it at whatever pace I
wanted.

I was tired when I got home, but I wasn’t ready to
fall into bed. It had been a few weeks since I had gotten together with my
friends from
Hogan’s Heroes.
I felt that a few weeks were long enough. I
put the DVD in, sat back in my recliner, and watched three episodes of Hogan
getting the best of Sgt. Schultz and Col. Klink. When I ejected the DVD and turned off my TV, I had the feeling I always have after watching some classic comedy TV
shows. They don’t make them like they used to. At least modern technology
allows me to go back in time anytime I want.

+++

I was trying to decide whether or not to go to bed
when the phone rang.

“I didn’t wake you, did I, Cy?”

“If you had, it would have been more than all right.
So, how’s my Jennifer?”

“Missing her Cy.”

“That’s good to know. I guess you know the feeling is
mutual.”

“So what were you doing, if I may ask?”

“Would you believe sitting in front of the computer
looking at your picture?”

“No.”

“Okay, I was unwinding.”

“And how were you doing that?”

“
Hogan’s Heroes.
”

I heard a chuckle on the other end of the phone.

“I went back further than that yesterday, Cy. I found
an old episode of
The Danny Thomas Show.
True, it was on long before I
was born, but I saw a few episodes years ago and liked them, particularly the
ones where someone is getting the best of Danny. So, are you still working on
the same case?”

“That’s why I needed to unwind. I had another busy day
today. I’m hoping we can put an end to this soon.”

“Well, I’ll let you go get ready for tomorrow. I just
wanted to hear the sound of your voice.”

“That’s not good enough for me. I’d rather see your
smile.”

“Well you can always go to Facebook. Since the charade
is over, I changed the picture back to my real one. As a matter of fact, I have
several pictures of me on there.”

“Any bikini shots?”

“One. I was two at the time.”

This time it was my turn to laugh. We said goodbye,
and I went to bed with a smile on my face.

Like the week before, that week seemed to be speeding
by, speeding by with no conclusion. I didn’t want to have to go through another
weekend on the same case. After breakfast, I took my frustrations out on the
Wii Fit board without breaking it. Even inside an air-conditioned house, the
July morning heat is enough to make me sweat when I exercise. Actually, July
had gone and August had replaced it, without my realizing it.

I don’t like for my body to smell, so after sitting
for five minutes, relaxing, I hurried to the shower, just in case Jennifer paid
me a surprise visit. My workout and shower hadn’t eliminated all my
frustrations, so I dressed and sat down to spend time alone with God. I read my
devotionals and I prayed. Once again I prayed for the wisdom, strength,
courage, and desire of God’s will. When I’d finished, I still had no idea what
course of action we were to take that day, but I felt calmer about the whole
ordeal. I called Lou and told him that I was on my way to pick him up. He
answered by telling me that if that was the case he was glad he’d lost a lot of
weight. At least he still had his sense of humor.

+++

Lou opened the car door, smiled, and sat down.

“Cy, a friend is closer than a brother.”

“Why thank you, Lou. I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“I don’t. Well, maybe I do. But I was letting you know
what God thinks.”

“So, you think God thinks of me as His brother?”

“Somehow, I don’t think so, Cy. More like a son. An
imperfect son.”

“Lou, let’s refrain from throwing in all the
adjectives.”

“I was just giving you our message of the day.”

“So this friend-brother thing doesn’t have to do with
me or you. It’s one of our suspects.”

“From the way the thing is worded, I’d say two of our
suspects, Cy.”

“Any idea which two, Lou?”

He gave me the look he always gives me when I asked
him to interpret the clue of the day.

“Well, let’s see who we can eliminate. Well, I think
Rose Ellen Calvert is out. I don’t see her having any friends. At least not any
friends that we’ve met, and I think we should limit this to the people we’ve
met. I tell you what, Lou. Let’s mull.”

He nodded, and we began our period of silence. I
didn’t care how many people strolled by walking their dogs, and how stupid we
looked sitting there in front of God and everybody with pensive looks on our
faces. Actually, it didn’t take long. A couple of minutes later, a light bulb
went off in my head. Yes, it was possible. It wasn’t anyone I’d considered
before, but it was possible. I hoped I was wrong, but I did want to solve the
case, and solve it as soon as I could.

“Lou, I’ve got an idea. I think it’s time to bluff.
I’m going to see someone who definitely doesn’t fit the role of a murderer, but
is still someone who might allow us to put an end to the festivities.”

“I’m all for that, Cy.”

+++

I smiled at the little old lady who had stopped to
look at us, and then started the car, and took off. We were on our way back to
the country.

A few minutes later, I pulled into the school parking
lot. Walter Gillis’ truck was there, as were a few cars.

I jumped out of the car, and headed for the school. I
looked inside Gillis’s office, but he wasn’t there. I needed to use the
facilities, so I opted to do so before I hunted for Gillis. No woman hurried
around the corner to see if she could help us, and I encountered no one on the
way to the men’s restroom.

As I came out, I glanced across the hall to the right.
It was the first time I noticed that if you moved a couple of steps to the
right, you could see into the kitchen from the restroom. I made a note of that.
I was sure that Gillis had heard and seen someone in that kitchen, on his way
to the restroom that night.

We walked down the hall until the same woman we’d seen
the other day stuck her head out of a doorway.

“Here to see Walter again?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s on break. I think he stepped out back.”

Lou and I retraced our footsteps, walked out the front
door and around the school until we arrived at the back, not far from the
riverbank, and the tree root Lou fell over on the day I was kidnapped by that
rowboat. There, several feet away, seated on the grass in the shade, we found
Walter Gillis.

“Back agin so soon, Lieutenant. I can’t thinka any way
I can hep you.”

“Oh, I think you’re being modest, Mr. Gillis. I think
you could have helped us from the beginning. Tell us about the night of the
reunion. I believe you said you went to the restroom that night and that was
where you first saw your good friend Earl Spickard.”

“That’s right. Earl come in while I was in there. We
left at the same time.”

“And you were seen together by several members of the
search party. That’s not the part I want to cover. I want to know about before
you went to the restroom.”

“I was in my office afore I went to the restroom. I was
there pretty much the whole time.”

“I don’t dispute that either, Mr. Gillis. But I want
to know about just before you went into the restroom. You heard a noise, didn’t
you? Tell me, who did you see in the kitchen?”

For the first time, the man seemed unnerved.

“Why, uh, no one.”

“Let’s digress for a moment, Mr. Gillis. Tell me about
what you know about Sarah Jane Spickard.”

“Sarah Jane Spickard. Was that Earl’s mother?”

“Come on, Mr. Gillis. You can do better than that.
I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell the story. You can just tell me if I get anything
wrong. You and Earl Spickard got to be good friends the year you worked
together. How good? Good enough that you were one of the few people, and maybe
the only person, that Earl Spickard told about having a daughter. Not only did
he tell you he had a daughter, but he told you all the gory details about how
he came to lose that daughter. He talked about her from time to time, and
evidently he talked enough about her that not only did you remember her name,
but you remembered the name of the man who took her life. It must have been
hard on you that night when you were sitting in your office and you overheard
someone mention the name Jimmy Conkwright, and that Conkwright, the man who
took your friend’s daughter’s life, was there that night, in the school.

“Later, you realized that everyone there hated
Conkwright almost as much as your friend Earl hated him. And by listening, you
realized that the drunk who took one young woman’s life was drunk again and
running around with another man’s wife. Maybe you’d decided to stay out of it,
but when you headed to the restroom and heard a noise coming from the kitchen,
the kitchen where no one was supposed to be, you were curious as to who was in
there. I’m sure you only planned to run that someone off, but then either you
saw Conkwright go into the freezer, or you saw the freezer door open and was
curious as to who was inside. When you saw Conkwright, you shut and locked the
door. Maybe you saw the woman with him. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe at first you
planned to let them out after a while. Why don’t you take up from here? Tell me
if I missed anything.”

“That’s quite a story you got there, Lieutenant. How
long’d it take you to make it up?”

“Actually it took up until now to realize how two
people came to be locked in the freezer.”

“Lieutenant, I didn’t even know them people.”

“Oh, from all the conversations you and Earl Spickard
had, it must have seemed like you knew one of them. And knew him well enough to
hate him for what he did to Earl’s daughter, and to Earl. Maybe I should talk
to Earl, see what he can tell me about it?”

“He don’t know nothin’ ’bout this. I mean, if it
happened like you say.”

“So, you didn’t tell him the favor you did for him?”

“Lieutenant, you go tellin’ this tale and I’ll deny
it.”

“Mr. Gillis, Walter, I understand how you felt. Who
knows? I might have done the same thing myself, if I were in your shoes. You
like Earl Spickard a lot, don’t you?”

“Best friend I ever had.”

“I’m sorry, Walter, but I have to let my superiors
know about this.”

“Like I said, accuse me of it and I’ll deny it ever
happened.”

“Walter, I don’t know what’s going to come of this.
Under the circumstances, you might get off with a lesser sentence, but I have
to report it. What you did was wrong.”

He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

“I’m not sayin’ who did it or didn’t do it, but I’m
not so shore that it was wrong. That varmint deserved what he got, and from
what I heered, that woman with him wuddent no saint, neither.”

“That doesn’t matter. There are laws against taking
someone’s life.”

“I’d say that whoever done it jist saw a door open and
shut and locked it. I don’t think nobody tried to murder nobody.”