The Hunt Chronicles: Volume 1 (26 page)

Dolores’s body
sprung to life.  “That was little Simon?  He had quite a growth
spurt, didn’t he?  I didn’t recognize him under all that hair and acne.”

“She’s right,”
Dennis chimed in.  “He was half that size the last time we saw him.”

“That’s the hazard
of working with old farts like us,” Carol said.  “If we don’t see you
every day, we’re bound to forget who the hell you are!”

“For all we know,
Simon got his fingerprints all over Arnold’s office helping him move furniture,
or maybe even hanging this picture.”

“Fine,” Ida
said.  “So he worked here, but you just try and pin that rhino to me, you
just try!  You hook me up to a polygraph right now Sheriff.  I’ve
never seen that thing before and I certainly didn’t kill anyone with it.”

“Of course you
didn’t!” I screamed back.  “You never saw this rhino because Tommy had
stolen it before they left that night.”

“So how did she use
it to kill Arnold?” Leon asked.

“She didn’t!” 
I started to laugh out loud.  The whole thing was so obvious now, so
simple.  I was so pleased with myself for figuring it out I practically
slipped into a state of delirium.  “Follow me,” I declared, heading for
Arnold’s office.  The others looked at each other briefly, and then
followed.  Myron waited for Ida to move before he did, staying between her
and the exit.

I opened the door to
Arnold’s office and stepped back.  “Well, take a look!  See anything
wrong with this picture?”  Everyone but Ida stepped forward, cramming themselves
into the doorframe to peek inside.  From behind, I could see their heads
shifting and turning and twisting, looking over the room with those
highly-developed nerd eyes.  I had lost all hope of anyone seeing what I
had seen when Leon finally spoke up.

“Hey, look at the
giraffe,” he said.  All of the other heads shifted to it.  There, on
Arnold’s desk, sat the lonely golden giraffe in its usual place.  The
space to its left was vacant, evacuated by a golden rhino that was now taking
up residence in an evidence locker somewhere deep inside the Pendleton P.D.

“What about
it?”  Emily asked.  “It’s always been there.”

“Yes,” Leon
answered, “but now it’s facing the wrong way.”  More silence, then light
bulbs started turning on.

“Hey, you’re right,”
Dennis said.

“Yeah you are,”
added Carol.  “He used to face the right, not the left.”

“That’s right,” I
said.  “In fact, the night of the party, I picked it up and mistakenly put
it back down on Arnold’s desk facing left, towards that lamp.  He
corrected it immediately.  When I came in with Arnold to get his coat
after the party, the rhino was gone, but the giraffe was still facing to the
right, towards
‘the homeland’
as Arnold put it. 
Facing that picture to the right.
  When I came in with
Myron the next day, the giraffe was as you see it now, facing the left towards
the lamp and the empty space where the rhino used to be.  That only leaves
one possibility…”

“She used the
giraffe,” Myron said.  He turned to me and smiled with wide eyes. 
The real murder weapon was actually the one part of the story I kept to
myself.  I couldn’t risk Ida finding out I knew what the real murder
weapon was until now.  As long as Ida figured the police had the wrong
murder weapon, she thought she’d be safe because she had honestly never laid
her hands on it.  “Amazing,” Myron said.

“Oh please!” Ida
yelled, continuing the charade of innocence.  “You go ahead and dust that
damn thing for my fingerprints.  We’ll see what you find.”

“I’m sure the
Sheriff won’t find any fingerprints on it at all.  Like Dolores said,
someone who runs their own Forensics Department surely knows to wipe off her
murder weapon before putting it away.  You couldn’t take it with you
though, because one of us would have surely noticed it was gone.  By
leaving it here, you hoped to fool the Sheriff into thinking the murderer
brought his or her own weapon, like the butt of a robber’s gun, and took it
with him when he left.

“But that giraffe is
awfully detailed, Ida,” I continued.  “You may have gotten all of the fingerprints
off, but what about Arnold’s hair, or skin, or the tiniest drop of blood? 
And the indents you left on the man’s skull are sure to match the shape of that
statue.  After that, they’ll be able to tell the Sheriff the angle of the
attacker’s blow, and that gives away your height.  It’ll only take a
pinhead’s amount of evidence to tie this all together.  Are you sure you
got it all off, Ida.  Are you sure?”

“This is…” She
began.  “This is…I didn’t…” Then she stopped talking altogether.  She
looked around at all of us,
then
started walking
towards the wall adjacent to Arnold’s door.  She leaned against it, then
slid down into a fetal position on the floor and began to cry.  “I
didn’t…I didn’t plan it.  It just happened…”

Arnold Medley
said goodbye to his last guest of the evening, who had just pointed out that
his office
door
was still ajar.  He shut the
large museum entrance door, turned on his heels and headed back to his office.

As usual, some
piece of unprocessed paperwork still lay on Arnold’s desk, diverting his
attention from his goal of going home and going to bed.  About twenty
minutes later, Dolores
Tilson
arrived to find him
still sitting at his desk, still in his black overcoat, deep in thought over
some unpaid invoice or piece of citizen correspondence.  The two talked
briefly about the party that had just ended and their most interesting new
friend, Reevan Hunt.  Dolores mentioned taking the dessert cart home with
her to return the following Monday.  Indifferent to the subject, Arnold obliged
the request and arose, once again planning to head for home, but something
stopped him; a ringing phone.

Arnold spoke
softly and calmly to Emily
Sellars
, making it a point
not to mention her name aloud as Dolores
Tilson
would
undoubtedly reappear to say goodnight.  When she did, he smiled and
wiggled his fingers in her direction.  Then she was gone.

Emily was upset
about the events of the evening, about the way Arnold had confronted her in
front of Reevan in the Animal Science Department.  Too tired to be
sympathetic, Arnold appeased Dr.
Sellars
with various
forms of the same apology, hung up the phone and headed for the door,
attempting to leave his office for the third time that hour.

Ida
Scribbs
appeared in the doorway, having sneaked back into
the museum through the now unlocked entrance.  Arnold was surprised by her
entry, but not by her confrontational attitude.  While the first half of
this scenario was unfolding, Ida
Scribbs
was parked
in her car not two blocks from the museum.  Her car was running, and the
radio was on, but she found it very difficult to call it a night. 
Apparently, Ida
Scribbs
had been paying for a certain
indiscretion for the last decade of her life, and tonight she got to see where
all her money was going first hand.  A beautiful chandelier, a grand
fountain and marble tile was only the beginning.  There was the new
security system as well, not to mention the fact that the man had used her
money to fund his own retirement party.  No, Ida
Scribbs
was not a happy camper.  She could not turn a blind eye.  She could
not call it a night.  She had some things to get off her chest.  She
eventually turned off her radio, put her car in drive and returned to the
Pendleton Museum of Science to have a chat with her professional rival.  So
at 11:43 pm precisely, Ida
Scribbs
stood in the
doorway to Arnold Medley’s office and tried to put the past behind her once and
for all.

Sensing a long
and awkward discussion on the horizon, Arnold sighed and walked behind the door
to his coat rack.  He removed his overcoat and put on his sweater. 
He thought his office was as cold as an icebox.

Ida
Scribbs
proceeded to quash all arrangements made between
the two.  She said she refused to fund the man’s exorbitant lifestyle a
moment longer while she lived in the red.  She said her money wouldn’t
help him look like a saint when he was no better than the thief he was
blackmailing.  She said the whole arrangement was over, and there wasn’t anything
he could do about it because if he told anyone, he would be implicated as well.

Arnold said
nothing at first, but he stared straight at Ida and smiled.  He started to
laugh, and when he finally did speak, he was outrageously condescending. 
Arnold said that he couldn’t believe it had taken Ida this long to get up the
nerve to have this conversation.  He said he knew her attendance at the
museum that night would stir something up inside of her, but he didn’t think
she would ever get going like this.

Arnold started
laughing again and leaned back in his chair.  He nodded his head towards
the wall behind Ida.  She turned and, with a sudden blast of shock, came
to realize why Arnold was laughing.  For the past decade this man had held
her at bay with the help of Susan
O’Donahue
and her
hideous piece of artistic expression.  She hadn’t seen it in years, yet
apparently it was something Arnold looked at, and laughed at, every single
day.  He laughed at it, laughed at her and her money making him look like
a saint.  He laughed at it every goddamn day.

Arnold got up and
rounded his desk, sitting on it in front of Ida who had plopped herself down in
a guest chair twenty minutes earlier.  He looked down at her, smiled, and
said that it would be over when he said it was over.  He said she still
had some repenting to do for her past transgressions.  He said her
stealing that painting was the best thing that ever happened to him and only an
idiot would let go of so great an opportunity.  No, this arrangement would
keep him in the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed well into the next
decade.

With another
chuckle and a yawn, Arnold Medley stood up and leaned on the empty guest chair
to his right, staring at the source of his inspiration for the past several years. 
As he stared at
The End of Eden
,
he smiled.  He said it grows on you.  He said it gets easier on the
eyes with time, and you can see the artist’s true intentions behind the
repugnant façade.  Then he said he guessed Ida would never get the chance
to see it the way he does.

In a flash, Ida
was out of her chair.  He had yawned, and chuckled, like this was all some
funny inconvenience for him; like what she said just came out of her mouth and
flopped to floor.  As Arnold neared the picture with his hands on his
hips, admiring his trophy, Ida turned to his desk and saw her golden
savior.  She grabbed the giraffe and hoisted it up off the desk by neck by
its neck.  She was shocked at how heavy the small statue actually
was.  It was awkward and cumbersome in her small hands, but when she
turned the giraffe upside-down and held it by its neck, it felt better. 
It felt…right.

In one swift
motion, Ida raised the statue over her head and brought it down on the back of
Arnold’s head.  She could hear a muffled crunch and crack as it found
home, sending the old man to the floor.  She stood over him as his hands
clawed at the carpet.  His leg twitched and toed at the floor, but
eventually fell still.

Without letting
go of the giraffe, Ida rummaged through her purse with her free hand and pulled
out a handkerchief. As she wiped the statue she looked around the room, mainly
in the high corners, for any signs of surveillance.  Finding none, she
placed the giraffe down, not sure where it was before and not really caring. 
After all, who would notice?  She grabbed her purse, stepped over the dead
man and came face to face with her demon. 
The End of Eden
stared back at her, its dead birds
and trees and dried stream seeming eerily appropriate.  Her stomach sank
and she felt dizzy, but she forced herself to dash for the door.  She
slammed it shut and ran for her car.  As she ran, she could still hear the
echo of the slamming door in her head, and she wondered how many times that
echo would bounce around the great room before it fell silent forever.

By the time she was
done, Dolores and Emily were crying in each other’s arms.  “You sick
witch,” Carol mumbled, and walked back towards the fountain.  She sat down
there,
and there her tough exterior shattered and
tears began to flow.

“But how did you
know the cameras would be out of commission,” Leon asked.

“I didn’t,” Ida
said, standing up.  “I had no idea.”

“Temporary
insanity,” Myron mumbled.

“At the perfect
moment,” I added.  “No cameras, no witnesses.”

As if the whole conversation
didn’t just happen, Ida wiped a finger underneath both eyes and walked towards
me.  Myron’s eyes followed her.  Her mascara was running, creating
two scary rivers from her eyes to her chin.  She came towards me slowly
and calmly, and she spoke the way she spoke to Myron and
I
that day in her office.  She spoke as though she couldn’t be
touched.  “Well, Mr. Hunt, I suppose you’re more than just a One-Hit
Wonder after all.  What are you going to do when these fifteen minutes of
fame are over?”  I stared back at her, heart pounding but holding my
ground.  I suddenly flashed back to McCune Hall, when the murderous
psychopath Cheryl McCune lunged towards me, but Ida didn’t lunge.  She
didn’t pounce on me and claw at me like a hungry tiger.  She just stood
there in the great room, a room she probably financed single handedly, and
waited for my answer, but I never gave her one.