May Might Mean Murder: A Xara Smith Mystery

May Might Mean Murder

A Xara Smith Mystery By Bill McGrath

Copyright 2007 Bill McGrath

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Xara Smith Mysteries By Bill McGrath

Available on Smashwords.com:

January Juggling The Jentons

February At Feldman’s On Fifth

March Of The Mustangs

April At The Antique Alley

May Might Mean Murder

June Jumping the Jaguar

July Jill's Justice

August Avenging Arlene

September Surgeon Shamed

October Octagon Occult

November Naughty Nurse

December Deadly Dolls

May 12, 1990 – GRADUATION DAY.

Officers Lewis and Asbury parked the squad at the office of the Kodiak Hotel. They did not wonder about the name of the hotel because it was on Kodiak street. Certainly no Kodiak bear had ever strolled through the foothills of the Ozarks but here in Beebe, Arkansas the streets had such strange names.

Neither Lewis nor Asbury minded getting the call. They worked the graveyard shift and had spent most of the dark hours running radar out on 67 without catching a single speeder all night. Now with the sun just coming up they would at least have something to write in their report in an hour when their shift ended.

The hotel clerk showed the officers the registration book and found that good old Mr. Jones was staying in yet another fine hotel room in their tiny town. According to the clerk’s story a young man perhaps high school age and what was obviously a prostitute had checked into the room two full days ago and paid cash for one night. Now the maids had found the room sealed with the chain from the inside and nobody responded when they tried to wake up the lodgers.

The two officers and the clerk walked down the row of rooms until they came to room 26 which was second from the end. Second farthest from the office.

The cops tried the door and found it just as locked as the clerk had reported. Officer Lewis asked the clerk which was cheaper to repair, a window or a door. The clerk said it was the door, and Officer Asbury threw his massive shoulder into the cheap wood of the door smashing the chain off and allowing them access to the room. It would all be in their report.

Neither officer had ever seen such a gruesome mess. The young boy was naked lying on his back on the bed and there was blood everywhere. It would not be hard to find the murder weapon because a hunting knife was still sticking upright from the boys heart, but that had been the last of perhaps a hundred wounds inflicted by the strong blade.

Because of so much blood it took them a few minutes to even notice that the boy’s hands were tied to the headboard. Their brief preliminary investigation recovered a small mirror with several smears plus two lines of what appeared to be cocaine. In addition they found a small baggie with what appeared to be marijuana, and they found an empty wine bottle. There was no sign of the prostitute but the bathroom window was unlocked and appeared to be large enough to allow someone to crawl through it out to the alley behind the row of hotel rooms.

They tossed a coin to see who would have to call the sheriff because neither officer wanted that duty. Officer Asbury lost the toss and dialed the phone waking Sheriff Tom Watkins.

Sheriff Watkins, this is Officer Jim Asbury. I have some bad news, Sir. We found your son, and you are going to want to get here quick.

MAY 01, 1990 – Eleven Days Earlier.

Mitty Stevens carried her tray once again to the loser’s table. Of course it was the girl’s loser table but it was right next to the boy’s version of outcasts. It was her senior year of high-school and thankfully it was almost over. What had started out so good and filled with promise had turned sour quickly and slid down-hill all year long since then. She had spent her freshman, sophomore, and junior years eating lunch with some of the most popular girls at the school. She had even been able to count herself amongst the in crowd. Now, as graduation approached she found herself once again laying her tray between that of fat Brenda who carried her cello everywhere she went, and tall Xara who never seemed to want to talk.

Mitty was a girl of many secrets. Some secrets were good, most though were bad. That is why she had to keep them secret. Today though she had a good secret and she was dying to share it with someone, anyone, everyone. Today, this morning, when she woke up, the pad she had placed carefully in blissful hope the night before, had a small smear of blood on it. Her period had arrived. It was a full three weeks late and she was quite afraid that she had become pregnant. That, of course, was one of the bad secrets. Nobody but Mitty and Kevin knew that she might be in trouble. Nobody but Mitty and Kevin knew that she had lost her virginity. Nobody but Mitty and Kevin even knew they were dating. They were all secrets which must be kept, so she could not share this joyous secret with any but Kevin, and she wouldn’t see him for another two hours. So she would sit here at the loser’s table eating the swill that the school-district insisted was food, listening to tall Xara’s silence and fat Brenda’s constant dribble about nothing.

There were just eleven days until the graduation ceremony and then Kevin and Mitty would rush off to a college in the big city of Little Rock where they could more easily blend in and share their love in a more public manner. They had both been accepted and had each done an early enrollment so that they could take a summer class together. That would give them a reason to leave town right after graduation rather than spending one more summer in the dreadful little town of Beebe. Mitty knew she could weather the last eleven days, and now that her biggest secret had resolved itself she might even enjoy her last few days here at Beebe High.

After lunch Mitty Stevens dutifully attended her American History class. She took her seat in the back and spread her study materials across her desk. They hadn’t learned anything new in days. The final for this class was in exactly one week and the teacher would today start a review that would consume every class until the final exam. She knew all the material and would not need the review to pass the test. Even if she completely tanked the final she would still pass the class, and even if her final grade for the class pulled her average down a point or two she still would graduate either fourth or fifth in her class of one hundred and thirty seniors. Therefore, Mitty was bored.

She looked up. Two rows ahead and one row to the left was Brian Vaughn. Oh the dreamy Brian Vaughn. For all practical purposes he was the root cause of many of Mitty’s secrets. He would never know that, of course. Mitty found herself day dreaming about how things had gotten so messed up.

It had all started at the end of her Junior year with a plan she had made for herself. During her junior year Mitty had blossomed into a very attractive young lady but was too shy for the boys to take her seriously. She dreamed often of the hunky Brian Vaughn. He was the most popular boy in the Junior class and it was sure he would win the next year’s early election for president of the student council. He was tall, good looking, rich, a good athlete, one of the captains of the football team, and he drove a new Mustang convertible. Who else could they possibly elect?

Mitty had decided that Brian was going to take her to prom at the end of her senior year, and it was really quite simple. She got a job that summer working as a lifeguard at one of the city parks. She had spent every day watching snotty little eleven and twelve year old's run around the public pool. She had only one close call that entire summer where she had to use all her training to pull a kid out of the deep water. The pay was not substantial and the hours were long. Mitty put up with this all for one reason and that was so that she could spend the entire summer working on her tan. She would return to the first day of her senior year a bronze goddess.

The second part of her plan had to do with student council. Brian had already told everyone he was going to run for class president, so she figured that if she got on the student council she would have a good excuse to be with Brian a lot during the year. Her good brain and bronze body would simply lure him away from the other girls who would be constantly throwing themselves at him. She knew that she could never hope to compete unless she was willing to give it up, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

Mitty looked over the different offices the council had and decided to run for class secretary. The choice seemed obvious to her. Brian would be president, he would hand pick one of his buddies to run as vice-president, Mitty did not want the responsibilities of being the class treasurer, so the only thing left was secretary of the council. She knew that meant she would have to take a lot of notes at the meetings but she felt it a small price to pay.

As she looked back on it though it had been the time and place that had spoiled her plan. Back in the late sixties and early seventies schools all followed federal mandates to integrate and some states went a little quicker than others. Arkansas lagged as long as they could just like Alabama and Mississippi. Even into the early eighties when all schools were officially integrated there were many small towns in Arkansas where the black children had the right to go to any school they wanted but few wanted to integrate into all white schools that had stood against them for so long. Of the entire hundred and thirty seniors at Beebe High there were only twenty-four African Americans who enrolled for the 1989-1990 school year.

There was an assembly on the Friday of the first week of school and part of that assembly was that each candidate for student council would get to make a little campaign speech. Mitty was first and her speech was short because she delightfully found herself the only candidate for secretary.

There were two candidates for Treasurer and they each spent four or five minutes telling the crowd what a good treasurer they would be. One was a cheerleader named Libby Corcoran, and the other was Amber Griggs, one of the popular girls who at the time was dating one of Brian’s best friends.

As Mitty knew there would be, there was only a single candidate for Vice President and that was Brian Vaughn’s best friend Jeff Lepley. Jeff was the starting quarterback, quite a good basketball player, and one of the best baseball players in the district. He was a shoe-in for athlete of the year and probably could have had any girl he wanted but the one he was dating was the popular girl that was one of the contestants for Treasurer. Just like Mitty, Jeff gave a very brief speech simply because he had no opponent in this contest.

Finally it was time for the presidential candidates to introduce themselves and the entire assembly was stunned when Kevin Osgood Davis, a black boy, stood up and walked to the microphone. Being black he had never been exactly popular but he was one of the second string basketball players so most of the students and all of the athletes knew him. He was also quite studious keeping his grades amongst the highest in the class.

Kevin gave a wonderful speech about what they could all expect to accomplish in their senior year especially with his leadership. He never seemed nervous and did not even once mention that he was not Caucasian or draw any attention at all to his minority status. For instance he never even suggested that the other African-American students might want him representing their interests. His speech lasted nine minutes and was, without question the best speech the assembly heard that day, but it was not to be the one they would all remember, and it was not the speech that would determine the winner or loser of the office of President.

When Kevin sat down to a smattering of applause from the stunned crowd the principal asked if there were any other candidates for the office of President of Student Council.

Brian Vaughn strutted to the stage. He did not introduce himself. He didn’t need to. Every single student in the room knew exactly who he was. There was a round of applause when he got to the center of the stage. He wrapped his right hand around the microphone pole and patiently waited until the applause died down. He looked at the crowd. When the crowd quieted he pulled the microphone slightly closer to his lips and then he said I am running for President because I’m not ready to turn the school over to a nigger.

With that he walked off stage and sat back in his seat. There was not a sound for about a full minute.

Brian had picked the wrong words at the wrong time. Had he made the speech in 1959 it wouldn’t have even made news. Had he made the speech in the early seventies there would still have been enough good old boys’ children in the audience that he would have received thunderous applause. Had he made the comment even into the early eighties he might have gotten away with it. But now in 1989 it was just too rude. There was too much pain associated with that one word. Brian Vaughn had, for once in his life, miscalculated.