Murder at the High School Reunion by Steve Demaree Read Free Book Online Page B

with the dust. That day, I got here a little afore 4:00. Got inside just afore the storm hit. It was pretty bad out this way. Like I said,
Miss Calvert was the first one of them to git here. She showed up somewheres
around 5:00, not long after the storm passed outa here.”
    “Tell me about that night. Did the group stay in one
place?”
    “Well, it depends on what ya call stay in one place. I
was told they’d be touring the school at first. They came and asked me if I
would unlock some of the classroom doors so they could go in and sit in the
same seats they sit in when they went here. The school told me they might want
to do that, that it was okay, but I had to stay with ’em, make sure they don’t
cart nothing off. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of them to watch. I told ’em
‘fine’ but I had to lock all the doors agin afore they et dinner. So, at 6:45 I started relockin’ all the doors. I had to look in each room, make sure everythang
was all right and nobody was in there, then lock the door. After that, their
to-do was in the cafeteria, but after a while I could hear some of ’em comin’
out to wander the halls, use the facilities, or go outside and smoke. Ain’t
nobody allowed to smoke in the school. They’s real strict about that. They’s
also real strict about drinkin’. I told the lady there was to be no drinkin’,
but I could tell some of them sneaked some stuff in. It led to a few arguments
among some of the party goers, but as long as nobody done no damage to the
school I wasn’t steppin’ in. They don’t pay me enough to break up arguments.
Anyways, it wasn’t none of my business.”
    “Anything else happen that might stand out?”
    “Well, after a while, probably around 10:00 or 11:00, this here guy shows up, wantin’ to know where his wife is. I was in the
restroom at the time, but when I came out and seen a crowd just outside the
cafeteria, I walked up to see what was goin’ on. That Calvert woman came up
just afore I did, and she said she could handle it. I told her if’n it got out
of hand I was callin’ the police. That seemed to calm everybody down somewhat,
so I took my friend Earl to my office so we could visit. I hadn’t seen him in a
while.”
    “Wait, wait a minute. Who’s Earl, and where did he
come in?”
    “He came in with the guy who was lookin’ for his wife.
Turns out that the storm we had that day knocked over a tree and blocked the
road out where this here guy lives. Well, somebody called this guy from here,
told him his wife was runnin’ around with some drunk and he’d better come and
git her, take her away. This here guy knew that Earl had a boat, and they could
get to the school by way of the river, so that’s what he did, called Earl.
Earl’s a really good guy, always willin’ to hep out somebody.”
    The thought of the school and the river made my mind
wander. I envisioned the two people floating down the river, without a paddle,
hollering for help. Lou nudged me to bring me back to the moment at hand.
    “Did that guy find his wife?”
    “Not here he didn’t. At least not as far as I can
tell. A while later, he come in here, knocked on the door, and thanked Earl for
bringin’ him. He told Earl that he had another way to get home. That was the
last I saw of him.”
    “So, you had your office door shut?”
    “Not all the way. It was open a crack. That way people
knowed I was in here, and I could hear if somethin’ really got out of hand.”
    “So, what happened after that?”
    “Earl and me sat here a few minutes, talkin’. I could
tell he missed the place, so I give him a chance to revisit the old days. See,
Earl was the janitor here afore I was. I worked with him the last year he was
here. We got to be good friends, and he showed me the ropes. Anyway, we walked
over to the cafeteria, made sure there wasn’t anythang going on that shouldn’t
be, then Earl and me walked the halls and he looked over the place he used to
clean. Nobody could make