Earnest Pace, because murder is bad for business

Chapter 1

He unlocked the padlock that held the chain in place and snaked it thru the brass door handles. Other padlocks dangled from it, unopenable by him. It was a typical construction site arrangement but odd for a place about deconstructing. As he walked down the hall his steps echoed on the worn linoleum floor. Thousands of footsteps had preceded his. Past the showcase long emptied of trophies and around the corner to the lunchroom it crossed his mind that it still smelled like an old school. He recalled how it felt to walk an empty school hallway late after everyone else seemed to have left. That was a lot of decades ago.

It used to be Monroe Jr High School back in the day. Shut down for more than 20 years the school district still made use of it but they took away its name long ago. Now it is just the annex. Some of the rooms in the North wing were molding from roof leaks and no heat. Those were the 1960s additions. The main building built in 1917 was standing strong, heated and lit. It was well used, if not for its original purpose. Skyway was the name given the neighborhood proudly during World War Two when bombers were built as fast as possible at the Boeing plant down in the valley but now being in the flight path for an international airport had been the undoing of the neighborhood when everyone worried about the effects of the noise and jet fuel exhausts on people just a few hundred feet below the engines of a 747.

Earnest Pace remembered attending class not far from here in a building not much different from this one. Here in the Pacific Northwest all of the old schools have the same feel; dimly lit, cool and slightly mildewy. They are creatures of a place just like the students they turn out. The habitat inside and out is much the same. Grade schools all have play courts for rainy day recess. Older kids have big multipurpose rooms that serve the same purpose although the play is all social rather than physical. It's one of these rooms to which Earnest strides.

The rolling, folding lunchroom tables with their attached little mushroom stools are laid out in long rows in the big hall. There was a polished wood stage at one end, incongruous with the rest of the big formica floored bay. Grey vinyl curtains cover the wall of windows for security. Pulling them back reveals the weak light of northern exposure on another dim, damp, dreary day. This room looked like there was no designer. Rather, it was as if someone had a wall of metal framed windows, a wall of stainless steel cafeteria fixtures , a yellowing linoleum floor and a beautiful handcrafted 1930's cherry wood stage so they just threw them all together and said multipurpose your selves.

On top of the tables lay almost every musical instrument ever taught. The district was surplussing its collection after many years of downgrading. The music instruction program was finally repackaged as a magnet program. For many years every student was given exposure to the fundamentals of music by picking an instrument in 4th grade. They would like to explore and poor kids had a start. Now it had devolved to supporting at the high school level only those who were already musical prodigies. Music was just for those whose parents had nurtured them with jazz or classical. Oh well, for the rest there would always be electric guitar later.

The instruments were tagged for auction. Each had a manila shipping tag handwritten with a number in marker pen tied to the place easiest to find, be it the bend of a tube or a wooden neck. If there was a case, that too was tagged with the number to match the instrument to keep folks from upgrading. Like every auctioneer says, they were gonna buy it "as is". If the best set of bells had the worst case, so be it that's how it goes out the door. There was even had a secret way of twisting the tag wire to catch tampering. Tagging was serious business.

Earnest, the auctioneer, carefully reviewed them. Walking down the rows with his list in hand he confirmed every worn woodwind and dented brass instrument. Dozens of horns lay in rows as neatly as such an oddly shaped collection can. He picked up a dull silver coronet and worked the valves. After a little heat got in em they moved freely and he pushed the mouthpiece into place. He blew the first 8 bars of Basin Street Blues to see if he still could. Then he put the horn back into its tatty velvet lined case. How many dozens of students have blown that horn before? God only knows. From the familiar smell of the valve oil and old spit he knew he could have been one of them. Maybe he had grabbed this one from the back room on a day when he had forgotten his trumpet.

Moving back to checking the catalog he worked his way into the stars of the sale, the stringed instruments. Violins, and string basses had never made it into a surplus auction before. When they rarely left the district prior to his winning the surplus contract it was part of a horse trading arrangement between the music department and a local store. He got that stopped as a violation of the state constitution. Not because it wasn't the best thing for the schools, just because he had the district contract and anything that didn't cross the block was commission lost to him.

He had a feel for things. Art, antiques and collectibles were something he knew a little about but more importantly he had a keen internal divining rod for value. Never really researching anything he just had a good gut for what would sell well. A collection of 100 year old stringed instruments was always sure to make money.

There could be no denying the beauty of the strings collection laid out incongruously on the formica. Unlike the would be trumpeters and trombonists who battered and bent the brass horns across the aisle, the kids that played cello or viola held their instruments in reverence. Maybe it's the fussy nature of the strings or maybe it's the fussy nature of a family drawn to putting their kid in touch with a violin. In any case, every hand crafted arc and every perled edge was well rubbed but never smashed or defaced. Dozens of the womanly figures laid out from large to small followed by the bows in military precise rows. Only an auctioneer would separate the feminine figural instrument from its phallic counterpart after so many decades as a couple but that's how the best money was made. With the same kind of brutal capitalism practiced for centuries by the trade, the auctioneer would gladly split up these couples never to hear them make music together again just as his professional forebears had split up slave families with an eye toward nothing but making the highest profit.

Satisfied tomorrow was going to be profitable he headed to the door. He gave hurrumph and a final look around. Then he palmed the big bank of light switches and headed out of the room.