Murder at the High School Reunion (2 page)

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 Hilldale, 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.

The look on Lou’s face told me he didn’t know whether
to panic or laugh. I knew which one. It wasn’t his carcass out in that runaway
rowboat. Lou collected himself before I did.

“Start paddling, Cy!”

Remembering that I never learned how to swim and that
I didn’t want to capsize, I turned slowly to look for the oars. Rowboats are
not ocean liners. It didn’t take me long to realize that my rowboat had no
paddles, oars, or twigs to help me change directions. I wondered what I’d do
when my vessel hit the bank on the other side, the side away from Lou and
Lightning.

I didn’t wonder for long, because my slight movements
had changed the boat’s direction and I was slowly being transported downstream.

“Stick your arms in the water, see if you can steer.”

I felt like telling my friend where he could stick his
arms, and then I realized that he was trying to help. I eased my body down into
the boat and managed to do so with the boat still upright. I hadn’t heard
anything about alligators in the Thornapple River, so I leaned over and dipped
my arms into the water until my lips were almost kissing the rotting wood. Not
only couldn’t I touch the bottom of the river, but I couldn’t do anything to
change the direction my flimsy vehicle was headed.

I turned to look at Lou, who was shouting
encouragement. I wasn’t sure if he was concerned about my well being or was
afraid that I’d locked Lightning and had put the keys in my pocket. At that
point, I wasn’t sure if I locked her or not.

I continued to look at Lou, who was running behind the
school, trying his best to keep up with me. I lost sight of him just as he
tripped over a tree root and went splat. By the time he’d gotten up, I’d
traveled a few more nautical miles and trees blocked my view of the school.

With Lou no longer in sight, and no GPS on board, I turned to face my dilemma. I wish I’d paid more attention when our teachers
taught us about local geography. I had no idea if the Thornapple River went over Cumberland Falls or Niagara Falls, or if I’d soon be shooting the rapids. The
best I could remember, it eventually ran into a larger body of water, which
wasn’t the outcome I coveted. Briefly, I envisioned running into Thor Heyerdahl
and the Kon Tiki somewhere in the south Atlantic. Then I vaguely remembered
that Heyerdahl had died, and figured anything I’d run into in the Atlantic would probably be larger than the Kon Tiki. I tried to remain optimistic and
thought of how large the Atlantic is and that there is a lot more water than
sailing vessels. Then, the thought of all that water made me hope that all of
this was a dream and I was merely in my bathtub at home. I pinched myself and
realized that that wasn’t the case, and started to look for a way out of my
predicament before I reached the Atlantic.

I looked left and right, looking for someone to come
to my aid. I saw no houses, no civilization. Where was a Wal-Mart when you
wanted one? There wasn’t even a McDonald’s where I could order something to go.
My only hope was that the area was so remote that I would soon run into strange
people filming an episode of Survivor. I’d never seen Survivor. I had no idea
if they’d filmed in our area already. I had seen
Deliverance,
and
I
wanted no part of deranged-looking men accompanied by a couple of guys on
banjos.

At one point it looked like my schooner had drifted a
couple of inches closer to land. I had no idea what time it was, but figured it
had been at least fifteen minutes since I’d ventured farther than I should
have. The only good things were that I hadn’t spotted any bodies sticking out
of the water and that that so-called boat of mine hadn’t started leaking. I
didn’t see any sharks, either. And there was one other bit of good news. While
I could tell that it was getting hotter, the tree branches that hung out over
the river kept the sun from beating down upon me. It also kept God from sending
me manna to help me keep up my strength, but then I knew if God wanted me to
eat He’d find a way to get food to me. I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to try
squirrel or some of those other things that go scampering out in the
wilderness. I hoped I wasn’t out there long. I didn’t want to start looking
like Lou.

Lou. I hadn’t thought of him in a few minutes. I hoped
the fall hadn’t knocked him unconscious. Even if so, I figured he’d find
someone or someone would find him before I found Friday. More than likely
Friday was still hanging out with Robinson Crusoe, anyway. And there was no
possibility of finding Dr. Livingstone until I crossed the Atlantic, because
best I could remember, Stanley found him in Africa.

I’d become so absorbed in thinking about Lou that I’d
failed to notice that my luck was changing. No, I wasn’t about to encounter
alligators, crocodiles, piranha, the dreaded waterfalls, or Gilligan. The
kindling on which I was ensconced had drawn nearer to the shore. If I dove from
where I was, I would’ve been able to drown myself a mere two feet from land.
Instead, I blew on the outside of the boat and hoped for the best. It worked. A
merely thirty minutes later, castaway time, the bottom of my skiff scraped
against the top of Mt. Ararat. I had no raven or dove to cast out, but it
didn’t matter. I could see that the floodwaters had receded, and since I saw no
cannibals or boiling pots, I took one giant step for mankind. Evidently, it
wasn’t enough of a giant step. My right foot slid back down the muddy slope and
into the water. I lunged for dry land, hit my knee against the boat, and
baptized a second foot. I found something to grab on to and pulled myself up
onto dry land. It was then that I had a small inkling of what Columbus felt
like, those many centuries ago.

It was at least a couple of minutes until I realized
that the dry land on which I stood was on the other side of the river, which
incidentally was in the next county, for whatever that was worth. I cupped my
hand to my ear. I heard no chants or dueling banjos. I heard no “We’re over
here, Cy,” either. My journey was not yet over.

There was no way I wanted to walk barefoot, so I sat
down, poured the water out of my shoes, took off my socks and wrung them out
the best I could, then put everything back on. Thirty minutes later, I’d
managed to lift myself to my feet and scanned the wilderness. Wherever I had
landed, it was an uninhabited planet. If I wanted to find some strange little
green or red men who could take me to their leader, I’d need to go looking for
them. Evidently no one had seen my landing and had come to investigate.

I sloshed on, hoping to soon find civilization. The
next county over was almost as remote as the waterway I’d recently navigated.
That meant my chances of finding someone with a still and a gun were good,
provided I wondered deep into the trees, which I didn’t plan to do. I took
stock of my provisions. I found a large rock and emptied the contents from my
pockets onto that rock. I had my keys, enough money to buy food if I found some
place that sold it, and eleven Hershey kisses. I had no idea how many months it
would be until I was found, so I had no choice but to ration my kisses. I
started by eating only two of them. I only had to open the first one to see
that I wasn’t the only thing that had melted in the heat. Not wanting to miss a
morsel, I scraped my teeth across the foil, and then used my tongue to rescue
anything I’d missed.

The hot sun caused my mind to wander. I wondered about
those two missing people. If I ran into them, I wanted them to still be alive,
and if they were, I wanted them to have rations. If I had to share my Hershey
kisses with them, it meant that I’d already eaten at least half of my ration.
My stomach wouldn’t understand if I starved it. I needed to find my way back to
civilization.

I figured my best chance of finding civilization was
to find a road. My best chance of finding a road would be to walk in the
opposite direction from the river. I’d gone only a short distance when I
realized that the trees that hovered over me while I was on the water hadn’t continued
to keep the sun off me. It was much hotter than the air conditioned confines
I’m used to. In a short time I’d managed to sweat off a couple of ounces.

It took me only a couple of days to find a road. It
wasn’t yellow or brick, but I hoped it would lead me back to my recliner. I
stood by the road and took stock of my situation. Not wanting to waste a lot of
time, I took off in the direction that was closer to Hilldale. At least it was
somewhat the same direction from which my water craft had floated me. I hoped
it was only a matter of minutes until a vehicle passed by.

It didn’t take me long to realize that someone must
have posted detour signs on each end of whatever road it was on which I found
myself. I continued walking, walking farther than I wanted to walk in my
lifetime. It was beginning to look like my socks would dry out before I encountered
another human being.

After somewhere around a mile or so, or two or three
days’ travels, I spotted a driveway that led a house, well back off the road. Judging
from the sun that beat down upon me, I gathered that it was close to noon, and
anyone knows that all country people come in out of the fields at noon to eat
lunch, to gain enough sustenance to go back out and work in the fields some
more. That wasn’t the life I wanted for myself, but if I found myself staring
at someone who lived this type of life, there was no way I was going to quibble
with how he or she chose to live. I would simply stand there, look pitiful, and
hope that this person would invite me to dinner.

I arrived at the farmhouse and listened. I heard no
one starting up a chainsaw, nor did I spot anyone wearing a hockey mask, so I
stepped up onto the porch and walked over to the door. I knocked gently, not
wanting to alienate anyone. When my first knock aroused no one, I knocked more
loudly, and gathered the same result. It was then I remembered how a lot of
country people enter and exit using their back door. I walked around back and
knocked on the door. A few seconds later, I looked around for the bell, the one
the wife rings to let her husband know that it’s time to come in from the
fields and chow down. I found the bell and rang it as if Quasimodo were deaf.
This brought some dog that must have been sleeping and caused him to start nipping
at my soggy socks. I think only the smell shunned him away.

I waited a reasonable amount of time for someone to
arrive from the hinter fields, and when no one did and I realized that it
wasn’t a Saturday, I figured the poor people had to give up farming and get a
job in town. I only wished they could have held out for a couple more weeks. I
plucked a Hershey kiss into my mouth, a kiss that held up better than the
others, and gained enough strength to make it back out to the road.

On what seemed like the morning and the evening of the
second day, I found myself within one hundred yards or so of the road. I looked
up and saw a car motoring down the country road. I hollered, waved my hands
back and forth, jumped up and down, and as a last resort, ran toward the
vehicle. On my way, I huffed and puffed, but I didn’t blow any houses down.

I arrived at the road about the same time as said
vehicle reached the next time zone. The sun must have been really beating down
by this time, and it had affected me so much that the car actually looked like
a police car, one of ours, even though this wasn’t our county. Even more than
that, the passenger looked a lot like my friend Lou, the one who suffered a
concussion at the school, mere days before I arrived at my present location.

I looked up and down the road. There were no trains,
planes, or automobiles, so it was time to make a decision. I could sit down
beside the road and hope that humans found me before buzzards did, and that
those humans were law-abiding citizens. Or I could ease on down the road. In a
weak moment, much against my better judgment, I eased.

A hundred or so miles down the road, or a few
centuries later according to the Mayan calendar, I took stock of my situation
and realized I was down to one Hershey kiss. If I were to survive, it was up to
God to turn it into a loaf of bread and a fish. It was then that my
hallucinations increased, because I heard a sound that strangely resembled a
motorized vehicle. Just in case it was real, I turned, not wanting to be run
over merely because I didn’t get out of the way in time. Again the vehicle
looked like a police car, and again the smiling face in the passenger seat
looked like my trusted friend Lou. He and the driver seemed to be singing. The
car pulled up and stopped beside me.

“Row, row, row, your boat, gently down the stream;
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”

I looked around for a second vehicle, one whose
occupants were not having fun at my expense. When I saw none, I made do with
what I had.

Weary from my forty years in the wilderness and not
thinking clearly, my not-so-pleasant voice shouted, “Where have you been?” It
was then I looked at the driver, who strangely resembled Heather Ambrose, the
woman of my dreams, the prettiest young thing the police department has to
offer.

“Cy, are you okay?”

Since the question appeared to emanate from the woman
of my dreams, I refrained from the gruff answer I would have given anyone else
at that moment.

“Well, it hasn’t exactly been my best day.”

“So, Lou was telling me. You poor thing.”

With that she sprang from the car and hurried around
to where I was barely standing. She threw her arms around me and gave me a hug
and a kiss on the cheek. It was enough to make me want to locate the owner of
the rowboat to find out when it would be available for rent again.

In a matter of seconds, my thoughts changed to how I
could arrange for Lou to get back to town and Heather and I to be stranded
together. It was then that her words brought me back to reality.

“You two have really had it rough today.”

“I was being banged against the rocks by the rapids,
but I don’t remember Lou being in the boat.”

“Yeah, but Lou got shot at, and almost run over.”

I looked at my partner in crime, who nodded. Surely
Lou wouldn’t have made up some story just to get Heather’s sympathy. Only I
would have done that.

“It’s true, Cy. When I got up off the ground I saw
that you’d disappeared around the bend, so I tried to figure out what to do. I
ran to Tweetie,” (Lou sometimes calls Lightning Tweetie), “saw that it was
locked, and the keys were nowhere to be found. Since neither of us have a cell
phone, I figured the only thing to do was head out to the road and flag down
the next motorist. It was almost fifteen minutes before someone came along. I
saw this old lady driving a truck, and I started waving my hands frantically,
trying to flag her down. When I saw her speed up, instead of slow down, I
reached for my badge to let her know that I’m a cop. Evidently she thought I
was going for a gun; because she almost clipped me as she sped by, hit the
brakes hard and spun the truck around to where it was facing me, then reached
for the shotgun mounted behind her. I’d barely dived behind the edge of the
building when the first blast of that shotgun came uncomfortably close to the
only body I’ll have for the rest of my life.

“About this time, another car came along, saw the
gunfire, almost clipped me trying to turn around as quickly as possible, and
headed off in the direction from which he’d come. Luckily, this person called
headquarters, and they sent Heather. When she got there, after we’d enjoyed a
leisurely lunch, just kidding, Cy, she called in and reported what had gone on.
Someone downtown decided to postpone dragging the river for your body and sent
out an officer with a small boat and a trolling motor. A few minutes later, he
reported that your rowboat had run aground a mile or so down the river, on the
opposite bank. Do you realize how far we had to go before we could find a place
to cross over to this side? We’ve been driving back and forth looking for you.”

Lou’s words weren’t as comforting as Heather’s arms
and lips, but I appreciated his concern. When he finished sharing his dilemma
with me, Heather suggested that I get in so she could drive us back to
Lightning. Momentarily, I pictured Heather and I alone there, with Lou still
knocked out from his concussion, but then I remembered that I was old enough to
be Heather’s father, and that I was the one who encouraged her to take up with
Officer Davis.

When I realized that Lou wasn’t going to get out and
give me his portion of the front seat, I hopped in the back, where the
prisoners are transported to jail. We’d gone only a quarter of a mile when
dispatch called Heather. A teenage boy had called in to report that someone had
stolen his rowboat. He added that while that had happened before, it had never
happened since he’d started hiding the oars. Since the boat was stolen from
near the county high school, they wanted to know if there was any connection
between the theft and her present assignment. Heather confirmed that there was,
and I got on the radio to tell them where the boy could find his rowboat.

Lightning seemed excited to see me when we returned to
the school, where Heather dropped us off. As it turned out, Lou hadn’t eaten
either, so we dashed off to the Blue Moon for a very late lunch. The ordeal had
lasted so long that my socks were dry by the time we arrived.