Early Retirement (An Arturo Nash Novel)

Ch. 5

Edna Monroe walked slowly down the hall, a tray full of dishes in her hands. She had just finished bringing her boss, Harold Reever his lunch. In exactly twenty minutes Mr. Reever would head out for his afternoon walk. Though she wanted to sit down and watch her General Hospital, she knew she'd have to use that opportunity to vacuum the house because she could only run the vacuum while he was gone.

Monroe sat the tray down on the counter, placed the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and made her way down the hall toward the closet where the vacuum was kept. As she approached the door, a knock came from the front of the house. Then, moments later, the doorbell chimed to life.

"Coming." Monroe yelled making her way to the door.

A few moments later, on the heels of a third doorbell ring, Monroe turned the knob and opened the big wooden door to see a man holding a briefcase in one hand and nothing in the other.

"May I help you?" Monroe asked

"My name is Dr. Ellery McRoy. I'd like to speak to Mr. Harold Reever, please." The man said.

"Mr. Reever is preparing for his afternoon walk and can't talk right now. I suggest you return around four." Monroe said placing her hand on the door.

"Edna, who's at the door?" Reever yelled from the back of the house.

"Somebody who wishes to talk to you. I told him to come back later." Monroe said

"If I may sir," the man said yelling back to Reever, "Could we talk while you walk?"

"Who the hell are you anyway?" Reever said making his way to the front.

"As I told your lovely employee here sir, my name is Dr. Ellery McRoy." McRoy said

"Right. Whatever. Come along but keep up with me. You get behind I'm not waiting for you." Reever said grabbing his jacket and heading out the door.

"So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?" Reever asked

"Actually your tenure as head of the school board sir," McRoy said

"Wait a minute. If you're some kind of reporter then you can just stop right now and turn around." Reever said halting his movement

"No sir. I just got a job a Preston University and one of the requirements is that I learn something about local history and write a paper over it." McRoy explained

"Fine. So what do you want to know?" Reever asked resuming his walk.

"Well for starters I'd like to know about the controversy surrounding Carlyle Elementary school." McRoy said.

Reever stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the man standing next to him.

"I'll start at the beginning. I was a dang fool to take the job in the first place. Way too much trouble came with it. My first day there these two guys drop this envelope on my desk and ask me what I want to do. I ask them what about. They tell me to open the envelope so I do. Long story short I find out that there's $7 million worth of money hidden inside a wall of Carlyle Elementary." Reever said.

"That's amazing." McRoy said

"If you say so," Reever said

"Come on that's a lot of money," McRoy said.

"More like a lot of trouble," Reever said.

"So I was doing some reading and saw where you stopped an attempt to remodel the school. Yet you seem to me as if you didn't care. So what's the deal?" McRoy asked

"You're right. I didn't particularly care. The thing is I really didn't have much control over that situation, but at the same time I was expected to keep the whole thing a secret and that building from anything past routine maintenance. It was a pain in the rear." Reever said turning a corner.

"So what happened to the money?" McRoy asked

"As far as I know it's still there. Personally I think that that money will find its way into the hands of some lucky construction workers when the city forces the district to close that school."

"So do you know where in the school this money might be?" McRoy asked

"Never did and probably never will. They never told me more than they thought I needed to know." Reever said

"Do you have any papers left from that time?" McRoy asked

"You know, I think you should talk to Billy Cadswells. He was and in fact still is in charge of archiving important documents just in case the district was to get into any legal entanglements." Reever said yawning.

"Well thank you sir for the helpful information. This will make my research a lot easier." McRoy said.

McRoy waited until Reever turned his attention back to the road to begin opening his briefcase. He pulled his out his revolver and turned it toward his unwitting victim.

"Into the bushes old man," McRoy said driving the barrel of the gun into the back of Reever's head. "Keep moving"

Suddenly and without warning Reever slammed his elbow into McRoy's stomach, ripped the revolver out his hands and threw it to the ground, and shoved McRoy off to the side.

"Nice try you old buzzard," McRoy said extracting a shiny silver pocket knife from his suit, a rasp becoming clear in his voice.

McRoy rushed Reever, knife pointed directly for the old man's chest. Reever reacted quickly grabbing both the McRoy's free hand as well as the one holding the knife. The two men struggled, neither allowing the other to get the upper hand. McRoy swished his knife-wielding hand about trying to free it from Reever's hand. He drove his knee into the old man's gut causing Reever to double over. McRoy inched closer. He had changed his grip to an underhanded one and prepared to strike his victim. With viper like movement McRoy lashed toward Reever who with equally quick reflexes caught his assailant with a punch to the face. McRoy toppled to the ground. Reever straightened himself up. He felt a warm, fluid movement and looked down to blood staining his jacket from an apparent cut on his arm. Reever stumbled out of the bushes, back to the sidewalk and down the street.