Murder in the French Teacher's Garden

by Andrew Culver

  “Great,” Bill said. “The kids will have a field day with that one. Personally, I don’t think all of those conditions ever apply in any situation. We’ve never had a war like that. Even World War 2 was questionable on some of those issues. Our war in the Pacific definitely didn’t satisfy those – there was no reason we needed to bomb Japan. And with Hitler, we wasted all our time fighting Rommel in North Africa so the Soviets would face the brunt of Hitler’s army. Twenty million of them died while we were playing around. You think that wasn’t on purpose? That was a concerted effort. It was part of the plan all along.”

  “That was kind of what the speaker was saying, yeah,” said Father George, and I was faced with a new way to think about war, thanks to the Catholic tradition. I told them that I had to agree with Bill on this one, though it was undoubtedly important to have the standards of Just War – even if there may never be one, we at least have to know what it would look like.

  “So how’s the garden coming along?” asked George, always making small talk.

  “Pretty good. It’s just a mystery what happened to Jim Screbbles in there. The weirdest thing to me is how he got on campus. The gates were all locked that night, right?”

  “Yes, just like they are every night. I personally went around and checked, like I do every afternoon.” Since George lived next door behind the church in a yard that connected to the school, he was often patrolling the area in the evenings, praying and meditating.

  “So someone let him in,” I said. “But who would do that? Any former employees? But they would all have to turn in their keys when they leave, no matter how disgruntled they are.”

  “Not Howie Schmidt,” Bill said with a laugh. “He took his computer, his keys, and a bunch of classroom supplies.”

  “You know, he was a friend of Jim Screbbles, too,” said Father George.

  “What? Who was he? How were they friends?”

  “Oh, he taught science for years,” Bill said. “Took his students to the science fair every year. Kind of a rowdy, rambunctious old Texan. Maybe he knew Screbbles from Texas – you know them Texans stick together.”

  “They were old family friends,” George said. “Bill told me once, and I saw them together around town sometimes. Howie may have brought Jim out here from Texas. I think that was one of the reasons Jim came to live in this town, actually.”

  “How did this guy Howie get fired?”

  “He hit a kid,” Bill said. “But to be fair, this was one of the most annoying kids you’ve ever met. I almost hit him a couple times.”

  “That was Diego Negrete, wasn’t it?” George asked.

  “Yeah, that son of a…Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t hit him. But you have to remember, Tom: George and I, and Howie Schmidt, we all grew up in Catholic Schools when they were still allowed to hit the kids. It takes some work to unlearn all that.”

  “So, wait…you’re sure that he was friends with Jim Screbbles? And he left in bad terms and probably didn’t turn in his key?”

  “Oh, he definitely still has the key, and all kinds of other things he took with him that day. He knew he was getting fired,” Bill said.

  “Is he still in town?”

  “Yep, he’s kind of retired I guess. He might work for the Forestry Service – he’s mentioned them on Facebook a few times.”

  They started talking about other Catholic ethical stuff, including the countless dilemmas that Bill could have his students debate in future classes. I dimly wondered if I should be doing things like that in my class, and then my mind plunged completely into the idea that Howie Schmidt met his old friend Jim Screbbles here at St. Ignatius that night, so that Jim could do some damage to the garden to get revenge on Madame Gallard. But how in the world did Jim’s garden get burned to the ground? Did Pauline do it? Was she capable? Did Jim do it himself? Was he that crazy? No. He wouldn’t have destroyed his own garden just to frame her. It didn’t add up! It didn’t make sense! And how did someone kill Jim here? Who would even know he was on our campus in the first place? Nothing made any sense!

  6

  The Bad Dog Brewery was in Cold Creek in a shady little canyon where the micro-climate was perfectly warm, breezy and shady in the spring. There was an old barn where they brewed the beer and a big beer garden where you could sit on long tables under the shade of the pine and fir trees. There was a little petting zoo nearby where pigs and goats sat around grunting and asking for food. We went there to meet Katie’s sister and Bruno White’s sister, who would hopefully end this mystery for good, and then I could go to the cops and tell them I had a suspect, since apparently I had to do their job for them, and Pauline could be taken off the “to be fired” list and we could focus on the garden again. As we parked and walked down into the cozy vale where the brewery was located, the sound of a bluegrass band came drifting up through the canyon, echoing off the trees.

  We got there early and I went up to the bar to look at the menu. A sour ale, a wheat beer, a couple of IPAs with specific strains of hops that I wasn’t familiar with, and a stout. Hmmm – I went ahead with the wheat, and Katie ordered the nachos from the kitchen. She was now at the stage in her pregnancy, which I have since learned is normal, where she was craving Super Bowl food. We sat down and pretty soon her sister and husband arrived, thankfully without the kids – they’d dropped them off with Gene and Gretchen. They ordered their beers and we chatted, enjoying the early afternoon warmth and the shade of the canyon, and the gurgling of a stream somewhere beyond the trees. The bluegrass band was on a stage off in the corner, and they consisted of a group of older, bearded gentlemen, and they sang classic Woody Guthrie tunes and old country tunes. When Crystal White showed up with her boyfriend I realized that this girl was a full-blown hippie: braided, long hair, flowing, colorful garments, nose ring, tattoos on her arms. Her boyfriend was strangely normal. He could have taught at my school – just a straitlaced, nice guy with a button-down shirt, untucked, and jeans. He did have a moustache that suggested he was a hipster, but I couldn’t be sure.

  It was a nice afternoon and we sat there having delicious beer and enjoying the simple pleasure of good weather and a nice patio. I forget what Crystal did for a living because mostly she and Jen talked about old friends they’d had. Both Jen and Crystal had gone to Kennedy, while Katie had chosen to go to St. Ignatius because all her middle school friends were going there. Eventually Jen asked about her siblings, and it turned out there were five kids in the family. They finally go to Bruno, who appeared to be the black sheep, and who was something like twelve years younger than she was.

  “My brother is still a mess. He’s been in San Diego for a couple of years. I hear from him some times and he says he’s working in a car shop doing repairs. I don’t know. Sometimes he just shows up back here.”

  “Do you remember him talking about a teacher named Screbbles?” I butted in. “I know it’s a random question.”

  “Yeah, he hated that guy.”

  “Did you know he was murdered a couple of weeks ago? At St. Ignatius.”

  “Oh my God. My brother will be so happy.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Jen asked.

  “I only see him when he comes back here to crash at my parents’ house, whenever he loses his apartment or has a problem. The last time was like a year ago. Yeah, he’s deep into the San Diego surfing scene now. It’s a pretty bad scene, actually. A lot of drugs. Hold on. I have to text him.”

  She picked up her phone and her fingers flew across the screen. In a couple moments she laughed.

  “My brother says ‘Are you serious? I feel bad now.’ And he says ‘I actually respect that guy now. I was a prick in high school, LOL.’”

  I despaired. My last suspect was a dead end. The guy hadn’t been here in a year, was in San Diego living his own life, and didn’t even seem to hate Screbbles anymore.

  The conversation moved on and soon Katie and I were sleepy. It was the combination of warmth, beer, the whispering breeze, and the
slightly boring conversation.

  As I drove us down the hill to our house Katie leaned her seat back. “I’m so sleepy, Tom. I can’t believe what pregnancy does to you.”

  “I think I need a nap too.”

  “I’m sorry that I haven’t been any fun lately.”

  “Don’t worry. All that matters is that you and the baby are healthy.”

  “Do you think we’ll go back to our normal selves again after this?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we’ve kind of turned into just roommates or something. It’s not like before I got pregnant.”

  “I’m sure we will…”

  “My sister said it took them a year after Jade was born until they felt like they were a normal married couple again.”

  “Yikes.”

  I didn’t want to tell her how sad that made me, but I assured her that it was fine.

  “The baby is the most important thing. We just have to, you know, keep him healthy. We’ll go back to our old selves again. We’ll just a have a little dude with us all the time.”

  “Thanks for being patient with me. I feel so bloated and gross right now. I’m so tired of being sick.”

  “It’s just nine months. You won’t even remember it. Remember how your mom said she doesn’t remember being pregnant with you at all? She doesn’t even remember the first six months of your life either. Remember that?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if I believe her. I think I’m going to remember this.”

  I was silent for awhile.

  “I think I can eliminate Bruno White as a suspect,” I said finally.

  “I’m sorry, honey. Do you ever just think Madame Ga-what’s-her-name did it? I mean, she hated Screbbles the most.”

  “She’s just not a killer.”

  “Okay, babe,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  IT took me a day or two to realize that Pauline would have remembered Howie Schmidt. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that she had been here for over twenty years while he was here. She eventually found me in the garden in between helping the students one afternoon.

  “The Bruno White thing didn’t pan out,” I said. “This kid definitely hated Screbbles, but he lives in San Diego and his sister showed me a text message where he seemed surprised to hear that he was dead, and actually expressed some regret for tormenting him.”

  “There is no way he nursed a grudge for all these years and came back to kill his old nemesis?”

  “His sister said he hasn’t been up here in about a year. He’s just not around. She would’ve heard from other friends who saw him, and he would’ve told her and it just doesn’t seem plausible.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Strange. A man is hit in the head with a spade, by no one, it seems.”

  “Oh…I heard that an old teacher here was friends with Screbbles and could’ve let him in the front gate.”

  “Who?”

  “A guy named Howie Schmidt.”

  “Ah, yes. He was weird. He left in the middle of the year. I suppose he could still have a key. He was not happy, I remember. He wanted the school to defend him, and instead they did what they always do. They abandon you. Ah! I just remember! I see him at the Wilderness Preserve! He work as a park ranger now. How is it possible it slip my mind? It must have been just two or three months ago. I even speak to him. He is stranger than ever, you know. I think the only people who work for the Park Service are strange people. I have never met a normal one.”

  “Can you see him doing something like that?”

  “He mentioned several times how terrible this school is. I did not know what to say. I have my complaints, but I am still here. How you know he is friends with Screbbles?”

  “Father George has seen them together all around town. He said they’re old family friends from Texas.”

  “Oh yes, he was from Texas…I remember now.”

  “So do you think he could’ve let him in the front gate?”

  “It may be a long shot. But I am sure he still has his key, if I recall correctly. That day he was fired he was telling everyone that he was taking everything – his computer, his textbooks, even the markers for the white board. I tell you, he is crazy, even by American standards.”

  “Can we find him at the Wilderness Preserve? Does he still work there?”

  “I am sure of it. No one is ever fired from the Park Service.”

  “Do you think we can find him there?”

  “There is one way to find out,” she said with the slightest hint of a smile.

  PAULINE and I arrived at the Cold Creek Wilderness Preserve in the middle of a warm spring day, and the parking lot was crowded. That day Katie wasn’t with us because she was down the hill shopping with her mom and grandmother and sisters in some kind of yearly spring ritual that involved lunch at a fancy tea room in Newport Beach; the whole thing was still very mysterious to me after all these years of knowing the family.

  “He was working in the visitor’s center last time,” Pauline said. “It was on a Saturday, so I hope he will be there. If not, maybe the others will tell me when I can find him.”

  We walked through the parking lot to the visitor’s center and walked in to find a bustling room full of exhibits on the local flora and fauna that existed on the trails in the preserve. Up at the front there was a paunchy, middle-aged man with a comb-over behind a counter, talking to some guests about the various hikes in the area.

  “This is him,” Pauline whispered to me. “He is even more fat than he was before.”

  He noticed us and said “Pauline!” in a Texas drawl.

  “Howie, how are you doing? This is my co-worker Thomas. We are out for a hike. Just wanted to stop in and say hello.”

  “How are things at St. Ignatius?” he asked with a knowing look.

  “Oh, as you can expect. My garden is making progress. He is helping me.”

  “I’m so glad you finally got that garden up and running. I know you’ve been talking about converting that old yard into a garden for years.”

  “I finally find the energy to do it. You heard about the murder in my garden though?”

  “I did.”

  “I hear you knew the man, Screbbles? I didn’t know this. I’m sorry for you that your friend has passed.”

  “Thank you, Pauline. I knew him well…there’s a lot to the story.”

  “I would very much like to know. If you don’t mind, we can meet some time?”

  “I’d like that. Maybe we can go out for drinks. There’s a new place, kind of a tiki bar that opened up in town. The Coconut Room, I think. Maybe we could go check it out.”

  She hesitated. She said nothing. He waited for an answer. The silence grew.

  I looked at her. What was she doing? This guy could be the key to the whole murder! One moment could ruin the whole thing!

  “I’ve wanted to try that place too!” I nearly shouted. “Maybe my wife and I could meet you two there.”

  “That’s great,” he exclaimed. “A double date! How ‘bout it, Pauline?”

  She forced a grin. “Okay, that will be fine.”

  “How is tonight?” he said. “Does that work for you guys?”

  “We’re free!” I told him.

  It was set: We were all meeting at the new Coconut Room at 7:00 that night. As we left and started the hike, Pauline seethed.

  “I wanted to meet for coffee. But now he thinks that I am going on a date with him? This is ridiculous! I am too old to play this game! He is a pudgy little naird. I cannot let him think I am interested in him.”

  “Pauline, just come out and have a few drinks, remember that this is all about the investigation. In these kinds of mysteries, the detective sometimes has to do crazy things, go undercover, or even wear disguises to solve the crime. Just try to have fun. And anyways, if something happens, go with it.”

  “Go with it? What does this mean? Thomas, nothing will happen.”

  “Well, just treat yourself to a night o
ut. You’ve been working hard on this garden, so just come out for a few cocktails. You probably missed out on the tiki craze of the fifties and sixties, so it’ll be a cultural education for you.”

  She was mad until we got to the peak, where we looked out on Big Bear and the whole mountain range, and she began showing the different types of trees to me. And then we hiked down to the falls, where families were picnicking and splashing in the swimming hole, and laughter was echoing off the rocks. By then it seemed like she had accepted the plan, and I was secretly looking forward to the sight of this woman sitting in a cheesy tiki bar trying to make conversation with Howie Schmidt.

  THE Coconut Room was probably just what this town needed – a little kitsch. It was a small but rollicking little bar that served Polynesian pupus – fresh California rolls, wontons, crab cakes, edamame, fried Brussels sprouts in a soy glaze, things like that. The drinks were huge and colorful and each one had little umbrellas, orange slices, even flowers garnishing them. The owner, some guy named Aristotle, was walking around in a Hawaiian shirt, introducing himself and asking everyone if they were having a good time. Over the stereo there was old Hawaiian music playing – ukuleles, peddle steel guitars, and the sounds of waves crashing and birds squawking. Katie got a virgin coconut chi-chi, a blended drink that had coconut milk, macadamia nut syrup, and pineapple.

  “After we have the baby,” she told me, “We are coming back here and I am getting the version that has booze in it.”