Murder in the French Teacher's Garden by Andrew Culver

Author:Andrew Culver [Culver, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-25T22:00:00+00:00

I smiled again and gave the paper back to her. “Alright, Pauline. I don’t have any more excuses. I’ll tell you what I find out.”

I WALKED into Gonzalez Wood and Lumber that Saturday and sure enough there was a guy sitting at the front desk talking to a customer about an order of lumber to some construction site somewhere in the mountains. This place was pretty serious, and I was a bit intimidated stepping into the manly world of construction. But there was a sign up on the wall that said “Firewood and BBQ Wood available – ask about our selection.” That was all I needed. I was just another customer. Steve Gonzalez finally finished up his business and I went up to make my order. He greeted me pleasantly and I had trouble imagining this guy telling someone he would “bury” Jim Screbbles. I ordered almond wood and apple wood, my two favorites for barbecuing. I had seen on their website that they did delivery, and he said he could actually get the wood out to me later that day, and I couldn’t have been happier with the service. Since no one was behind me, I then pounced.

“By the way, I read about your son in the newspaper,” I said. “Congratulations on that. He goes to Kennedy, right?”

“Thank you, he does.”

“By any chance, did you know Jim Screbbles? I know he taught there.”

A look flashed across his face. “Oh yeah, my son had him. A shame to speak ill of the dead, but…” He didn’t know how to continue.

“Well, he died at my school. I teach at St. Ignatius. I actually found the body.”

“Well, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m just curious who could’ve done something like that to him. Wondering if you have any ideas on that.”

“Look, I’ll be honest. I hated the guy. I don’t lose my temper much, okay? I’m in business here, this is a small community. I can’t go around shooting my mouth off, yelling at my employees and telling customers to go F themselves if they make me mad. But when it comes to my son, and my son’s future – look, he was on track for a free ride to UCLA on a basketball scholarship. He’s a good kid, he’s a good student, and he’s suddenly in this a-hole’s class where the guy doesn’t teach, doesn’t prepare them for the AP exam, and the guy gives him an F for complaining about it. That’s the only time I’ve been that angry. But I’ll tell you, nothing’s worth going to jail for. There’s no reason to kill a guy and then jeopardize my whole family and their livelihood. Whoever killed him not only hated him, but they must’ve been crazy in the first place. And let me tell you, lots of people hated him. The guy who hated him the most, and was crazy, was probably Anthony Scaleri. He taught science over at Kennedy when my oldest son was there. He was a bit of a loose cannon, he’d been in the Marines I think.

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